there are times
when all i need is a certain
trigger
that will send me away
in a flash
so i do not have to look back
so i do not have to worry
of what might follow

it is
one thirty-seven in a monday afternoon
and i am just waiting
for that trigger
to click

that day, the world was beautiful because of you,
but i, long before the dawn, knew there would be no hope
in staying, and yes, i think you are my world
when i am with you. but that is not the point,
that is not the point at all. the origin of our feelings
had nothing to do with where we were going,
nothing to do with the saddest of days and nights,
and the tears that we shed at the wrong times,
and the loving words we spoke at the few times
when we thought we were in love. there were moments
and there were others. i could not carry you at all times
in my conscience. do you understand? i do not hate you, no,
it is quite the contrary. much so quite the contrary.
i do not need anybody else in the name of fairness
and common sense. but i do want you. times when i
thought everything was coming to an end i
thought of you, wanting to rush to you and say
"i love you" exactly how i used to wish someone,
just one, only one, would say it to me.
but the current of life and this shameful desire to live
always dragged me back, not letting me leave.

i do not mean to make you wait until the lights go off
to bare my soul to you,
to overwhelm you with undivided attention
(not the kind i have always given you in our presence,
but one that gives you the strongest sense of eternity,
the only time when death loses its charm and power.)
i do not mean to bring those tears upon your eyes.
but grief makes a person whom he is
while happiness makes him whom he thinks he wants to be.
are you whom you want to be? are you when i am holding you tight
in my arms, hearing my breath pacing against your heartbeats?

when i am with you
i am not whom i am or whom i want to be
but exactly what i must be if life is real, and death is also real,
and nothing else matters but the truth of you.

you asked me with tears down at your throat how i felt about you
how i truly felt about you, not how i thought you would want to be perceived. so here it is.
i am sorry that there are and always will be
disappointments. but disappointments, more often than not,
are so much needed for us not to lose touch with our truest feelings,
don't you think?

mother.-
"why can you spend so much time
writing all this sappy bullcrap
but cannot study hard
to get good
grades?"

math teacher, senior high school.-
"why do you write such good poetry
but **** so bad
at math?"

acquantainces/maybe friends, anygradeinanyschool.-
"hey
your poetry sounds pretty good
i just
don't understand
what you are trying
to say."

writing instructor, free elective course, college.-
"your poetry is really good
for someone whose first language is
not english."

lover.-
"you are good at writing poetry,
but besides that,
you just seem clueless
almost
dumb
most of the time
you cannot hear
what i say
nor can you understand
much of it.
it seems like
you are lost
in your own world,
have conversation with me
in your head."

i want to blame all these people
for making me think
i must be really good
at poetry
for i hardly am
in anything else
that actually
matters.

night
flows peacefully over me
as i sink further
from the surface of the sea

i cannot
see you
any more

you
you of the beauty that cuts through my heart
you of a million years i have been waiting
not having known i would finally meet you
you of the last melody that brought me to tears
i always thought i could no longer cry
you
moved me

i never imagined
i would love someone like you
love anyone the way i loved you
never thought
i would ever dream of the ocean
and its waves of the darkest moments

i would have lost
my final argument
had the first light of dawn caught my eyes

love
felt so kind
unlike other emotions that i
learned
to feel

you
i am sorry
i never told you
it was my last kiss
i could ever give
i am sorry
i could not have given you all of me
though i devoted to you more of me
than i possibly could have to any soul
alive or dead

you
how could you ever
belong to this world

i missed you so terribly
i almost turned around
to run into your arms
but there was no star out tonight
to guide me back to you
i
lost it

you
will always be
my
       and my only
love

dear lord,

please

take me back
to where I do not belong

take me away
from where I do not belong