The scene is a certain school courtyard, full of certain adolescents. Boys and girls are criss-crossing haphazardly and are bustling about, caught up in their respective little lives. They go in, out, from and to their tiny and certain daily adventures.

A certain boy and a certain girl look at each other as they walk; their eyes meet.


CERTAIN BOY:

When I look at a girl in the eyes, I imagine both of our lives up until the singular moment of iris and iris, me and her. I imagine us somewhere in the beginning of a little chick flick movie of sorts.  Or the starting line of a flowery poem. Or the prologue of some great literary novel... Though that moment of pupil and pupil is the first ****** in our mini romantic comedy.

I can see the whole story being laid out:

The nervous greeting, the fruitful giggling, the blossoming smile. Then the shy hand-holding, warm hugs, the sweet first kiss, the ***** grab and tag and rustle in whatever shadowy make-out spot in the school. Followed by commitment, sentiment,  "I like you"s , "I need you"s,  "I miss you"s, "you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and I don't wanna lose you"s and finally- "I love you"'s.

And then of course the inevitable bored, lifeless, un-innovative, sad, miserable, heartbreaking and mundane conversations that happen once the mysterious honeymoon period disappears. The under-appreciation and the desperation and perhaps some cheating, but more likely to be found is loneliness.

This then ends in a 'break' or break-up, which are essentially the same thing.

However that may not be the end just yet, they might just get back together. Maybe. Maybe not. But no one has that much time to worry so... On to the next big thing.

But-

I can already see that whole story being laid out:

The nervous greeting, the fruitful giggling, the blossoming smile. Then the shy hand-holding...


CERTAIN GIRL:

Why... why is he looking at me like that?


End of scene.

Sometimes I like to wonder,

does my pen move
the same way as yours?

Does it
             dance?
Does it
             sing?

                        Does it
impel a grateful piece
of paper to smile,
and laugh out
tiny bubbles of its dream
to be admired in the Louvre?

Or does the paper bleed
angry droplets of deep-coloured
ink-blood from its ink-heart
from its ink-soul; or does it cry
little black tears
from its dark fountains of literature?

Does the paper feel
all of these things
as you sketch your last
line
or as I write my last
word?

What then, when every one of your pictures
makes words in the thousands?
How many more chunks of eternity
can you paint versus my poetry?


                    Yet you say I understand you.


Sometimes what you paint
flickers like in the movies,
and every frame

makes me wonder

if the way my pen moves
is just something someone animated
in her free time instead of studying.
Maybe then it wouldn't be too much
to say that sometimes
you sketch me into life.

Maybe then, this is why, sometimes


                    you say I understand you.


Even if I can barely hear your oxygen
over the noise of glittering pixels
that often disappoint us when we seek
more
than these strange profundities online,
where emotion is a commodity
and not ink... not paper...

It doesn't matter.

Because maybe my pen
was sketched by you.

And maybe
your poetry, your art
Dances. Sings. Smiles.
Laughs. Bleeds. Cries.
                                     Breathes.


                    So you can as well.

I can see beating a dead horse
Is still in fashion

Main street
The ebb of traffic leaves me sick

This is a city of repetitious fits
Transparent monotony

Lush draped the walls
Gold freckles cheek to collar
I shook the dust from my lips
And lost hours

I left kisses on dead children
Old as the houses
I grew friends in the field out back
Under dead forests

Guilt
Shattered glass
They’ll cease existing
When I pass

Some hurts feel too often
Like old love

Abjure the bones broken in,
The first lift frissoned by
The moving trees slain on the shift,
Rivers and risen flowers cut,

My statuary lurches betide
The nap of bent wing saluting.

My aviary is a fluttering bed,
The scattered head REMs my flight,
My feet in cloud extend for landings
Tings the belled bound legging.

My falconer bows with pride
In the stall bent wings stooping.

My clawed creature glides for only
The pitching sun or shining moon
And my flights execution, the hooded
Head, end trails my falconer.

My days, fowl to the lunar kite,
Assail the winds open wound.

A tiny presence in the womb,
he listened to her voice
and fell in love
at first hearing.

He heard her and felt her
and tried not to hurt her,
and waited patiently
for nine whole months.
...
His happy days
began and ended
the day he breathed his first,
and his mother breathed her last.
...
The story of his life continued,
first love never forgotten,
second love never known,
third love never owned.
...
Beliefs, hopes and expectations
confused him as everything did,
he yearned and yearned to make ends meet
but never quite succeeded.

His dreams floated
in the river of his Future
where it met his Present
and passed his Past,
like unrequited love.
...
The boy deprived of love,
finally found love
when he stopped looking for it
in humans.

His dreams then ascended
from the river to the sky
and met with reality
colliding with bliss on its way.
...
Thus went the story of his life.

~Moniba.