There’s nothing better than
the feeling when someone
contradicts
what you tell yourself
about yourself
every day;
that you may have been lying
to yourself
all this time.

When you are miles away from each other,
and all you can do is smile
hoping that one of these days
all of those memories will come alive.

Only in poetry
do we still exist.
Only within each verse
can I still adore you and
only within each word
can I still find bliss.

Every night,
I bury myself in a grave
of blankets and nightmares.
Fortunately, it’s shallow enough
to crawl out of
every morning.

Look,
relationships can be great
but they’re not for everyone.
To be honest, coming home to the
same person every night is daunting,
even if it’s the one you love.
You may even lose a sense of who
you are because you are no longer 'you'-
but instead, you're defined by 'us'.
By definition you’re a part of something-
you share your life with someone,
you have another half,
without whom, it would imply,
you’re not complete.
And it’s okay to not be ready for that,
or to not want it ever,
or to have no idea what to feel.
But you’re not wrong or strange
for not aspiring to it and
you’re not missing out on as much
as you may think you are.
Don’t let what the others are doing
distract you from being you.
You’re doing fine, kid.

Our memories
bleeds through my pen
and onto the page.
Though I don't get to see
you smile anymore,
your beauty still shines
through my words.

Won't you fall
into my arms?
I can be your palace
or your shallow grave.

She tried to stay optimistic
But it left her cold and sick
Nothing good would come her way
She wanted to wish her life away

One day
you will forget me.
When your sun is
no longer in my orbit,
will there still be light
upon my world?

We are merely
ordinary beings
curated for the world to see.
Such glimpses into
another's life weaves fantasies
that simply aren't reality.

There are no ordinary people-
everyone has a story to tell,
a dream to chase and a
mind unto itself.
What is your
story?

We are just
ordinary poets in
an extraordinary world.
We have no fancy words nor meter-
what sets us all apart are our stories
and no one can take that
away from you.

You and I were
never truly alone-
our demons always accompanied us
through love and through pain.

I still hear
our favorite song
from time to time.
Each note still sets the key of you
and they're still ringing out
in my head.
There is no pause button
for this harmony
of you.

I think about our future cat
that is, if you wanted more.
Would we have too many to pat
or would they be ours to adore?
We'd argue over countless names
in between our countless grins-
these perfect moments hung in frames,
soaked in pure love and the finest gins.

I’m missing what we had;
love, lust - whatever you want to call it,
it doesn't matter.
What mattered was the warmth of your touch,
that angel voice that could melt my worries away,
the safety of your hand in mine,
the safety in your arms.
Call it what you will;
you could even call it a garden:
a sea of blood-red roses,
blooming, blessing all it touched.
But like many roses,
some of them had thorns.
In the end, we found ourselves torn,
pierced and wounded from our roses.
My thorns still remain,
lodged deep in my heart;
do yours still sting?
Nevertheless,
I still tend do our garden,
do you?

I found you
in the dead of night-
a lost and lonely wanderer.
So I took you in,
cleaned up this house and
made space for you to stay.
You stayed for a while and
we felt lonely no more.
This house became our house,
and when it was your time to leave,
this place was never the same
no matter how many times I
tried to fill your absence.

To this day,
it still saddens me that
our only photo was upon
the London Bridge.
Don't get me wrong,
it's a spectacular shot but
it doesn't give justice to
what we were or
what would have been.

Every smile,
every touch
and every word
we ever shared were
poems unto themselves.

It isn't the moments of joy,
or the merry memories I miss-
it were the moments of silence spent with you.
To be in your presence-
the quietude-
for it was only you who understood me
and my silence better
than myself.

Your breath
was as warm as fire,
your kisses raw and relentless.
Your tongue went wild inside his mouth
as if its life had depended on the taste.
We had caved into each other-
a hunger we could not satisfy.
And while I searched
for ways to justify our sins,
you were already exploring all the places
upon me that had gone untouched
for far too long.

What if we are not
the writers of our story?
A writer knows the next page
where as we are prisoners
of the past and present.
Hell, some of us barely live a story,
but merely characters in another's story,
or worse, nothing but a tragedy.

We don't really talk anymore
but when we do,
I cherish every word,
every giggle and grin
you reciprocate.
I do miss our conversations-
time had a way of slipping away,
like all my problems disappeared
but for those moments with you.
Indeed,  they take this heart on a rollercoaster
and I must remind it to keep still.
Sometimes I think that I shouldn't
talk to you anymore,
that I am only opening up wounds
I thought had healed long ago-
that my soul drinks your every word
as if to quench its thirst.

Why do I still dream
of you to this day?
You are no longer in my life-
you are out of thought, out of sight,
so what is it about you that
my mind still finds the need
to place you in my dreams?

Once someone breaks your heart,
it's hard to ever let your guard down.
A new person, a new heart-
one that does not beat so blissfully
as it did before the heartbreak.
We overanalyze their every word.
Are they lying or do they
really mean what they say?
Maybe they're hiding something
or maybe anxiety strikes again.
Maybe they will leave at any moment,
it wouldn't be the first time.
Indeed, we try to think outside the box
in hopes to avoid another heartbreak.
In doing so we lose a part of ourselves.

You keep pouring sorrow
into my glass that is
already full.
You pour
and you pour,
until it overflows,
and then you pour
some more.

Pain should
not break you,
it should introduce you
to a stronger you.

Chasing the night,
again.
Hoping for the one
to help me forget
about the
pain.

There is no such thing
as a life without pain.  
Pain follows from the cradle to the grave.
From the moment our mothers suffered
to give birth to us,
to the moment it all ends,
life is one big, precious, painful process.
So embrace the pain,
let it shape you, liberate you, learn from it!
Pain is a part of life so you may as well
learn to embrace it.

The worst pains
are worse than
the best pleasures
are good

There is a palace
that awaits you-
where you can feel safe,
loved and cherished within its walls.
You will never have to share
it with another for it
was built only for you.
This palace is located in between
these two lungs and only you
hold the keys to its red walls.

Baby, we're a meteor
and we killed the dinosaurs.
We scorched the Earth and
turned all that was
into ash.
Time has passed,
and not much has changed.
To this day,
I find myself
studying the fossils
and wandering
what could have been
if we had landed smoothly.

We live in
troubled times,
where leaders fail
and pandemics prevail.
Mass hysteria is
the only game in town-
society's going down
because we cannot hear,
and we cannot think
over the turmoil
spreading across
our soil.

Ah, I don't care anymore
if you still see me pouring my heart
onto the page in your name.
What more can you take from me?
I keep on writing your name
knowing that each letter
is a papercut unto this soul.

Be careful with me,
I tend to believe anything and everything
from those who seem to care.
And at the same time,
I doubt almost every word.
Is this a paradox? Yes.
Is this self-defense or have
my demons convinced me otherwise?
It's both.

It feels like an
eternity and a blink
since the last time
I saw you and I
have been prisoner
to this paradox
ever since.

Sometimes I crave company
yet yearn for solitude.
We strive towards things
that we know will get away
and yet we fail to comprehend
that basic fact of life.
We search for lasting happiness
yet find ourselves lost in petty things.
We want to impress the world
yet we can’t even love ourselves.
Let’s let go of what we think
we need to be
and become what we
want to be.

Love can make
you feel so vulnerable
yet so safe.
Love is indeed
the biggest
paradox
of life.

There you are,
never far,
never have been.
You are a part of me
and always will be
since the day you were born
until the day that I die.

They say it is unhealthy
to live in the past,
but it is okay to visit it
every now and again,
right?

When people of
our past speak of us,
they speak of a person
they do not know anymore
and that no longer exists.

It was good
while it lasted,
wasn't it?
But all things must end and
though I may miss it,
things are better left
in the past.

Most people are temporary.
Some of them can help you along your path
or even guide you on a new path
while others can get you lost
or even put you down
a dangerous path.

Every step you take,
every soul you cross,
each one leading you down
a different path with the
potential to change
your life forever.

Most things in life
do not matter and do not
bring happiness nor peace-
and so we continue the search
for something that does.

Where is my peace
after burning your name
and all the memories it held?
Where is my peace
after drowning the love
that still remained?
After all that's said and done,
where is my peace of mind?
Where is my peace?

There is no such thing
as a perfect person-
only those with less
flaws than others.

I wonder if you have forgotten me,
if I have withered from your sunflower
like a petal ready to discard?
Do I still cross your mind or
am I a forgotten memory
lost to the winters of time?
I still think about you from time to time-
I guess I have a harder time shedding
these petals I still hold dear
to this sunflower.

you are a sunflower that
coats this ground in petals.
They form a path for me to follow,
a path that will always bring me
back to you.

she was forever
the withered petals
of a beautiful sunflower
that never learned to bloom.