nothing will be sold today. the rain comes and
no one will see the neon signs in the mist.
the cities of steel and glass
are merely sandcastles at high tide.
helplessness, our human nature.

still, no worries,
in the minds of children, soothed by
their mother's sing-song,
or strangers sharing their first meal –
yi is cooking ramen for everybody,
while the finnish girl just finished her story
about her grandfather and his eleven siblings.
it's a beautiful day.

Dallas days, smoking in your acura legend,
your face veiled, watery eyes.
Tom, I asked you to teach me poetry.
You opened your dictionaries of devotion -
for me to run away, again.
Under a weeping willow, we dug a hole for a time capsule.
Our lives were small enough for this rusty lunchbox.
See, mine was never a kids’ drawing on the refrigerator,
but a western, a shoot-em-up.
Can you understand, just a little,
how it was home I was running towards?
And still, in strange places
I spoke your language of tenderness,
my extinct mother tongue. With words
so ordinary, so simple.

Those memories
                  the warmth of you
make it hard to imagine 
that you are buried somewhere in Iowa.

I revisited that cow pasture with our tree,
my hands clawing at the frozen earth to get time back.
Tom, you promised me poetry, yet all I can write is
please come back to me
in a hundred variations. How I long
to bargain your soul for mine.
Your little toy airplane, the one you gave me
when we were kids, still stands on my nightstand.
This time let me teach you
about the cruelty of freedom.

I.
A little pakalolo for you and me to light up,
can you hear the tom-tom of the beat,
dissolving into a smooth sax…
That night in the discotheque, my god,
you were so handsome under neon lights,
swaggering with your schoolboy smile.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of
the green-golden-halo around your iris,
inviting me in to adore you.
In the space of bodies, I grasped for the untouchable,
so greedy for this tenderness stretching out
in the dark heat like a fat cat in the sun.
You left east. I smell you on my skin, I smell
freshly mowed grass, wash drying in the wind,
the pure air of the high mountains.
I never really touched you after all.


II.
When you spoke, I only heard your voice, the melody,
its joyous tremolo, its tired flatness,
the deep bass arising from the middle of a storm.
We never called each other by our names. We didn’t need to.

I walk to the open window, below,
the busiest street in the city, silent at 2 am.
The air is buzzing with uncertainty. Just a minute ago,
your tiny room was drowning in light so orange.
I thought that sunset would last forever.
Forever? I’ve wanted you more than anything,
more than sanity, more than life itself.
For ever ever?
The sky melted into ink. It meant goodbye.


III.
It’s your song
that moves within me what can be voiced only in clichés,
as if I couldn’t talk about the deep end of love
without comparing it to a gushing river,
turning gentle into rough then gentle again.

Pisces Moon –
next lifetime maybe,
you'll be free and I'll be brave
and we won't know each as we do.
If it's real, does it matter, what kind of love we're given?

we’re standing in front of the theatre. they’re playing love,
a misunderstanding, a dream
that’s been killed by living it too much.
it is mostly trivial, this story of two people
desperately describing the sun to each other,
while only being able to point at shadows.
seldom they saw the same silhouettes on the ground.
is that ever enough?

it was enough for joy to linger,
as dusk painted your room in shades of red,
your walls zebra-striped. this eternal sunset.
it was enough.

we saw it, briefly,
looked away,
and walked in different directions.

and love remains
a misunderstanding.

We are both shyly engaging with the madness on screen,
distorted faces, screams from nowhere –
I don‘t believe in hesitation,
having always indulged in my impulsivity.
Not used to waiting, calculating, anticipating.
I was very careful not to let you sink in,
although your teeth aren‘t very sharp.

I don’t pay attention, I’m too focused now
on how my arm is pressing against your shoulder –
this golden halo
that your touch casts onto the here-and-now;
no moment can ever be insignificant again.
Oh, it feels so nice to be with you,
real nice.
Makes me wanna travel all the distance
from Tokyo right to your doorstep.


Morning arrives with it’s awkward limbs that will be drowned in black coffee. Yesterday there seemed to be no more blue tomorrows, but now your eyes greet me and I don’t know what to say.

I.
in this space without shadows,
i was a witness how this world became stranger
until it wasn’t mine. the memory of touch carries the torch,
through a deserted island, an abandoned house,
another girlhood turned ghost-town.
his sour amaretto mouth
closer, closer, closer.
saturday mornings i used to watch cartoons on the tv,
big goofy characters. these pictures come to me from afar
and dissolve into black lava,
at his hands cold metal sting.
with the tenacity,
i cling onto the hope of forgetting,
monuments were built for
gods and prophets.
so it goes.
somewhere in the world
mouths move around the filthy word,
forming the saddest companionship,
like two orphans who recognise each other.

II.
once upon a time,
i believed in a magic stronger than seduction.
why don’t we try to be less entitled?
after all, nothing was promised.
those of us,
attacked, assaulted, agonised,
in the sacredness of home,
in the public eyes wide shut,
fade into TV static noise.
how loud are the sounds of this
realism replica,
in bold letters proclaimed
now available:
FEMINISM!
(sold at every fast fashion retailer)
ALL GIRLS ARE BEAUTIFUL!
(but we still need to profit off your self-hatred)
LOVE IS HURTING
(why don’t you try to see his side?)
it’s nothing personal.
shame just happens to make good money.

You are still with me
hidden in between all of my words
and sometimes that's enough for me to love you.