is the sadness
not sad enough
to make me feel
anymore?

I am writing. I am trying to write, rather. Because despite the number of books I carry on my back every day, I seem to feel the heaviness of the world more vividly, all the layers of sadness, all the in-betweens. I write because pain continues to follow the trail I try so hard to erase. My grief will never be enough to be noticed and there is no consolation after this. I try to write because there is no other way. I try to write because at the end of each day defeat seems to welcome me home and sleep has become an escape instead of a place to rest and waking up feels like an obligation rather than a gift. I am writing not because I am ungrateful but because no one listens except for the pulse I put in my pen. I try to write because I can never say it out loud. I don't know what this is but it has rendered me silent.

I write because emptiness shouldn't weigh this heavy.

i must have been colorblind when
i first saw love
when i thought it had brown eyes
and tan skin
when i thought it looked good
in polaroids around my bedroom wall

i must have been colorblind when
i saw love
when i saw his hand holding mine
palms warm, fingers intertwined

i must have been colorblind
when i saw love
taking photographs of me
in a bookstore
skimming through the pages
of a book he'll never read

i was blind
when i lost love
somewhere in the crowd
when i let love go
when love never looked back.

We stayed at the rooftop that night. Watching the cars come and go, the people crossing the road.
Silence filled in the gaps we never could and it was alright, we were alright.
We were quite a long way from home
and you were homesick because I could not provide you a home anymore. I thought we were still alright.
It's not that I didn't notice you were slipping away. I did, I did.
But I just thought we were almost perfect,
then I realized I was the one who loved more.

it was a late afternoon
when I opened
myself
naked and bare
to the heavens above
nobody listened
not a single deity
rescued me

the same day
that evening
when all the world
was silent and still
I prayed again
hoping that this time
someone would hear
the only voice
that was near

in between the night
and the daylight
there I would wake
in between its heartbeat
across the sky

mourning
for my own life
mourning for a death
that has not happened yet.

let a broken girl
pick me up
from among
these beautiful bunch

and carry me around
and call me beautiful

while my petals fall
on every path
her feet treads on

while I am wilting
in her hands.