Nobody ever talks about how the rain turns soil into mud;
how precaution tangoes
on the soles of your rain boots and
one misstep could lead to a concussion;
damage,
or a little scrape on the knee.
Nobody ever talks about
how caged birds sometimes forget
how to fly.
Mundane gestures marinated
as “special”
instead of something one ought to do.
He’s forgotten how to make her laugh.
When he says “baby”,
she could almost hear the anchor
pulling down the sincerity
in his voice box
along with the word “sorry”
and “sweetie, im never gonna hurt you again”
where his voice begin to crack
like tectonic plates that supported his
ego—
when he says “i love you”
nobody ever talks about the barriers
on beds and ******* and fetishes
to which the extent
of the phrase lies—
His i love yous were starting
to sound like a beg for ***
and his i love yous fade out
when he gets what he wants.

He gets what he wants.

The sea is still today
It's cerulean blue and gold
I think of the thoughts it carries
Within its hidden folds.
Its touch is soft and gentle
It soothes the ache of years
But I wonder how many waves
Are made from fallen tears.

I sometimes look back at 6th grade classroom settings
and i wonder about the times
i would raise my hand low enough
to be seen,
but high enough to be acknowledged
that i tried.

I reminisce about the times
when the words could’ve easily
catapulted out of my mouth
but there had always been bright orange road cones
placed on my tongue
with a permit;
my signature on them forged by
the things in my head that cause me to tremble
when i ask for directions without practice,
if i raise my hand without practice,
walk around without practice,
do some-*******-thing on my own without practice,
practice, practice, p-pr-practice, don’t stutter,
practice, perfect.
I sometimes fold my paper in half
because i know what its like
to take up too much space.
Turbulence always equals
plane crash.
Chances, to me, were always either just one, or only ever finite.


But he’s got that infectious laugh,
and he held my hand
the whole cab ride back home
until they stopped shaking.
When he wraps his arms around me,
I begin to understand that vacant parking lots
never stay empty for long and sometimes ringing car alarms
are better than the silence I pretend to love.

And I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get how people could be so courageous.
Anxiety has a weird way of
making the process of falling the scariest
thing of all instead of the actual landing.
But those brown eyes had reminded me that
love lullabies our troubles to sleep.
Love turns the quiet into a symphony
of voices of all the people
whose heart you keep in your palms.
Love turns the trembling into a warm embrace.
Love never had to be a home.
it was a resting place
even for the restless.

I tell you I think we're crumbling
but we both avert our eyes;
its not polite to stare at tragedy.
I kiss you
and I keep a countdown.

I know you're here
but you're already leaving.

She bites her fingernails in math class
The numbers have always been a dancing cacophony of
confusion.
She was dyslexic
and the vignette of her vision were all the things
she couldn’t understand—
even when she wanted to.

Her lips weren’t the kind poets would write about either.
They weren’t soft, and red like cherry,
they weren’t velvety—
they were always chapped.
They were never inviting.
She’s grown so fond of peeling
the skin off until they bled
out the silhouette of anxiety
washing her insides
causing external decay.

But there was no external decay in coloring
outside the lines.
In 1st grade her teacher had told her
that maybe something was wrong with her—
but maybe its the unfolding of protest
in the early days.
Where little me believed that
things do not have to be perfect to be beautiful—
to deserve to be seen as art.
There’s poems you could write about
at the sight of coffee stained sheets
or faulty flickering streetlights
or collected dust that had found home in book shelves in bedrooms.
The little things that counted
were the little things that kept the flame alive.
Maybe the sun doesn’t shine for us,
but the world in its vastness conforms to the reality
that there are beautiful things in life
we are still yet to discover—
nestled in between the cracks we don’t step on.

In church she cracks her knuckles.
She found god more in navigating through life
and survival from mishaps
as opposed to sitting on a pew and
being told about how she could go to hell.
And in the lightest of days
she hums.
She hums along the rhythm of the abstract and imperfect structure of life.
Which brings us back to the hero's shoulders
and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence and misery in the world,
but despite the abundance of it.

- mgv

You’ve made your way to the party.
Your heavy limbs were sending you signals of something else—
every step towards the door sounded like two velcro strips detaching.
You persist anyway.
The welcome shots of ***** tasted more like a welcome to leave,
and the kisses you receive by your friends on the cheek felt almost strange—
but it also reeked of nothingness.

Home was a recurring thought
but home was also four walls that make you feel disposable,
claustrophobic, and home shouldn’t even be called home
when your demons take up most of the residence
only to kick you out;
and if you are lucky they don’t follow you out
when you should be happy and with company
but today was not that day.

Home was lonely.
But people for peers
and peers for bulldozers were too much for you.

So you tiptoe your way out;
slithering out of your second skin — dead and unwanted —
flipped switch, getaway car, calculated answers to future interrogations.
But every car is a getaway car
when you’re always trying to get away.
And every getaway is useless when you end up in the same place—
where the quiet is too deafening
and the noise is loud enough
to turn glasses into shards and smithereens
you sometimes daydream about
behind bathroom cubicle doors
where you could’ve sworn you would’ve had your final getaway.

And when you get there,
they’ll tell everyone they should’ve been there.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve believed you.
They’ll tell everyone they shouldn’t have made that joke about you.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve done something.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve,
when they could’ve,
but they didn’t.

And maybe that was why it reeked of nothingness.

- mgv