You weren't here yesterday,
Nor the day before that
As a matter of fact, you've been missing from your spot for a few days now.

I wonder if I'll see you again
Sitting by the window,
Lovely eyes focused on a worn-out book,
Your lips forming a small smile with each turn of a page.

Will you ever return?
If you do, maybe I'll finally have the courage to talk to you.

it feels like I've been walking on the same pavement riddled with the same fallen leaves spelling out regret and trap. it's lined with trees that look so barren that everything is starting to sound like the same kind of goodbye though I'm not really sure what they're saying goodbye to.
Reflective surfaces come in the form of my empty palms
and the crunch of leaves and the snapping of twigs just seem to whisper in my mind.
I've been walking on the same pavement and I'm not entirely sure why it is the same kind of brickwork. A little sloppy, if you ask me.
The signposts are broken and rotting and I haven't been able to make out the words that are haunting the seemingly endless bounds of my mind.
Have you seen the sun yet?
I can't seem to make sense of anything from the slight rain and the dense fog. There are stains on my sleeves and my shoulders are weighed down and sagged.
I've been trying to reason with myself that this is what I ought to be doing. I've been trying to reason with myself that this is the path I should be on to find whatever it is I've been looking for. I've been trying to reason with myself that I belong here, on this dark and cobbled pavement while my arms are riddled with horripilation and my chest is sputtering blood from the hollowness of it all.
I've found a weeping willow - it weeps like the heat from my neck and I haven't felt the coldness settle.
There's frost on my fingers but if it is any consolation, I have no idea how to love or deserve to be loved.
Where has the time gone? Can you tell me?
The rabbit holes are empty and there is a void where my heart ought to be. My lungs aren't burning but there's smoke escaping with every breath I let out.
It's been too long, it's been too solitary. I can almost feel the brittleness of the skeletal structure that keeps me collected.
And time has escaped me.
There are no sounds and my ears are deafened.
The cold is settling.
I can still see the pavement.
It's still empty.
Is there no life here?
Can anyone hear me?
I can feel my thoughts echoing.
Hello?

It was those blue eyes, sparkling with words
I dreamt about reading but believed it impossible
Too beautiful to be seen with nuclear nerds
In my breakable beaker, you'd never be soluble.

A mismatched juxtaposition, atom for atom.
Even if I permutate, molecule by molecule.
We could never have struck stable equilibrium,
I could never escape the premise of ridicule.

Spent too much time postulating the unknown
Spent far too long balancing tricky equations
Head dug too deep to realise a factor that had grown
An external variable that had encroached with similar intentions.

My hand slipped from the scale when your finger touched my own
I forgot the words "controlled reaction", momentarily
Seeing goosebumps on your skin, and other bumps now shown
I gently pushed your wayward hair behind your ear, daringly

A moment frozen in the range of sub-zeroes
Dare I forgo the mandatory steps and arrive at a conclusion?
If I do I'd garner the title, "the nerdiest of all heroes!"
My "spidey-sense" failed me this time, and awarded me with a "fist-meet-face" reaction!

Happened in a blur, nanoseconds that sang in mock.
What was it that left me in a twirl?
Propped myself up to see the wrath of a crimson-faced ****.
All fists, no brains who yelled, "Hands off my girl!"

All this hilarious yet passionately painful hullabaloo
Let me drop the beaker of sodium in the zinc basin
Forgetting not to get it wet, the moment, clearly now unglued
When suddenly, "BOOM" it sounded like a pending cremation

Jocks, and nerds, and screaming cheerleaders
Hit the ground like a lunchtime scene from downtown Baghdad
And Blondie whispers in my ear, like a gypsy mind reader
"Maybe we should cool it, for I am in love with another lad"

Her words hit home and burned like The Lindenburg on fire
Amidst the fracas, cracked voice stammered to mask my bruised latent ego
"Nothing improper... Just an attempt to save your locks from the Bunsen burner
Science is my only love, just so you know"

Thanked God for my eyes and the need for correction lenses
Those thick convexes made it easy to not reveal
Steadied my frames and packed in hasty pretences
Accusing eyes followed as I exited the room with tears concealed...

Pieter Meyer
**ryn

"What if he'll break your heart?" My best friend asked.

"What if your heart shatters down into pieces and you don't know what to do anymore?"  My sister asked.

"What if someday, I will hurt you?" He asked.

"I don't have a heart."
I replied.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

Magnets;
lock and key;
and, the unsubtle,
bolt
and *****.
These are things that collide harmoniously and do not dispute

We are not such an archaic, mechanized metaphorical construct.

I feel us as primal,
torrid decadence;
a deliberate impassioned vulnerability:
an animalistic exposé.

Unfocused, infinite black holes
expanding
to be lost within

Quivering circle of solicitous, engorged fuchsia
steaming harsh,
needy
attempts of oxygen recovery

Soft powder snow
melting over olive tree trunks,

quaking with endless echoes resonating from beyond the hills above

A thunderous harbinger centers chaos,
rampaging gust-like vibration through taut roots,

a volcanic eruption.
Lava geyser

blazing till all energy
enthralls the earth.

What I see for us is a metaphor in nature.
I will be the seismic activity
and you
will dance above me.

Your world will collapse against me

in my relentless motions.

And when you stand again,
I will bring you to
your knees

in my aftershock
and show you strength that will move you mountains.