Older by a few years, this mast
and compass marked by my past nightmares
and odysseys. Lost and faded into the deep folds
of seafoam, my bitter and sweet
reminder of how to take care
of steering wheels, and sailing cloths flapping
in the wind. Ropes tightened in the high noon
sun, a Sailor's eyes and ears
on a far horizon.

Swirling
like flurries, my
thoughts.
I wanted to know,
who were you?

One by one perumbulating,
the scarlet, the yellow subtractive
packs, of perusals, fall like martyrs,
with burst of crackers.

Snow carpets with
streaks of crimson.
Do you know the script
of unknown?

The shrouds!
Who was dispensing them?

Walk like me
on burning coals.
You will taste a moon.

A misty link
of inner planet, flaunts
the projectile, going straight
for the sun.

So you believe in
incredible rebirth of darkness
after full moon?

No standoff of this kind
will continue, if the
nightingale returns unveiled.

Infantile ache
spurs again the honeysuckle.
It was red sky after
the sunset.

Pray not crunch
with muffled scream.
There was a rose without thorns.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.

Your magnificence,
luminous heart and hands, magnified
without a doubt from me.
Only a strange familiar song,
stars like yours meant to burn through
darkness like mine,
until I may return to quiet unknown.
I catch your stardust and hear you
turn, sleep and uncover yourselves.
Admiring you from a distant exile,
after you are always finished first, and I am
finally burnt, consumed by your presence
ever hungry for itself. Echoing across
a knowing black sky, consequences
and second chances.

Metal bones dropped over another
clashing sounds across the night of smoky denials
in a city of thieves, paupers and scholars.

Worn down and without memory, someone's father
brushes off the dust of a young person's tombstone.
The oblivious student bends over information
into another alarm bell of insatiable chases.

Huddled in a street corner
like sprites of another dark jungle,
workers in uniform and hard hats share
stories and spare time as if nothing else matters
but this fading incomplete point in time.

Overhead looms the impending bright dangers
and dim warnings being built
From metals and soil into another giant promise
trying to excuse itself as it rips through
the city lungs, calmly abiding
and seeming always ready to die or live through.

After years of aimless wanderings
Leaving behind the cities of midnight revels
And the fevered journey in metro rails,
I am back at the land of my people.

Wherever I went,
Under which ever roof I slept,
I had carried my land,
As a jewel in a casket
And ensured it rested safe
Ever under my pillow

As I moved with aliens
Unable to merge with their cultural mores,
I saw my land glimmer in darkness
Like a dew drop on a moon blanched leaf

When I sweated in the blistering sands
A patch of green landscape, like an oasis
Wafted me in a cool embrace
Then dreams poured in like star light
And I wandered in the meadows of my youthful love
My heart struggling to forget old longings
And memories lashing upon me like tidal waves

Pursued by that inalienable shadow
Suddenly being born in flesh and blood
I hastened to the streets of my youth
With hopes galore and plans vivid

But alas! There is none to recognize me
Oh! I am a stranger here
An unwelcome stranger among total strangers
Now I wonder which is truly my land?
The one left behind or the one just landed in?

Oscillating between these two worlds,
My fractured identity looms large
With worms of memories wriggling in my flesh
And a myth suddenly dying in my brain