He stood fifty times his height,
his palms pressed against the glass
separating him from the road in their glamour;
blurred images of car in their splendor –
and there isn’t the
familiar scent of coffee –
I call this pandemonium.

Nothing beats a day in a café
redolent of the finest Arabica,
he’d inhale deeply and recall :
unroasted gives the sweetest scents
of blueberries –
roasted’s entirely different:
fruit, sugar, perfume –
They call this addiction.

Mnemonic – a wind chime
lost in the array of winds.
“You used to be my cup of tea –
I drink coffee now.”
These words slip out of his dry lips,
and a lone tear trickles down a milky cheek;

They all say if they’ve got love,
they don’t need money –

And he’d say if he’s got coffee,
he doesn’t need love –
He calls this heaven.

delicate and limp
they lie between the spaces
amongst hard print on factual papers;
occasionally unrealistic figments
of self deluding fantasy.

“they’re luxuries”, you mumbled,
a lament towards their rare materialization
in your few hours of slumber;
the soft impression leading souls
up the garden path,
misleading for they were
not all that pleasant.

midway after sunset
your heavy breathing is the
silence i hear; your silhouette
limp against the amber lights.
they came once again,
desperation had come
once again.

you squinted into the distant darkness,
“oddities veiled by a coat of blur,
though a fantasy felt as tangible
as the touch of skin;
i’d fall endlessly down the pit.
most of all, pathetically i had no one to
catch me.”

temere -
they speak lightly,
their dulcet voices competing against the
melodious harmonies of soothing ballads –
parallel speeches,
repeated utterances of
love.

paliona –
people say repetition brings
mastery, perfection;
if these hackneyed statements were
germane to helpless endearment,
I would’ve taken the plummet;
a timid step off the edge of the concrete building
towards the gravel beneath.

nemesism –
yet too much of heaven is a sin,
smothered by the scent of lemongrass
dappled with the caresses of
ebony tresses;
your silhouette fades to nullity;
and I fall against the prickly surface
of gravel with the memories of
the raxeira drawn along the parquet floor;

your hand lying in mine.

they all say:
don’t take what you don’t need.

feet on the pavement,
ice cream in one hand, a balloon in the other –
his mind’s too preoccupied with
longing for baseless freedom and perhaps
he neglects the melting semi-liquid
losing its vibrancy.

some nights he tries to erase
the parallel lines drawn between
reality and reveries,
piecing lifeless syllables together
to paint a picture of her blurred finesse
which he barely recalls.

he’s inhaling the thin sheet of fog
surrounding his sepia recollections
of a short span of time-
without being certain of the identity of
the defined silhouette hiding beneath
layers of ataraxia.

the harsh fumes trace crimson paths
against bare skin as he chokes,
questioning if she was poison,
or a monstrosity from within.

once a daydream,
her : venom in his veins.

he remembers the echoes,
the cries
within the darkness of
the cluttered flat –
the sound of newspaper against walls,
and bare palms against stained tiles.

and the muffled melodies
formed by the cerulean
bubbles leaving one’s dry lips –

flakes of dry skin falling off
her calloused fingers as he
held her hand –

and the sound of an
injection, a transparent liquid
****** into her veins –

leaving her to question
the price of happiness against
the facades of one’s financial state-

for thin sheets of paper reeking of
sweat and wine never
sufficed to anchor her thoughts.

they were never sufficiently strong
to cause her to gravitate towards
sanity, and stability in the darkest
nights.

I had my daydreams,
my exhilarated sentiments as I
stood before the flawless soul;

Our story would’ve been written
after sunset,
before fluttering candlelight,
amongst the slow dance of shadows-

His sudden endearing simpers
akin to vibrancy in
pink tinted yoghurt kept in the
tight embrace of a glass cup;
delicate yet strong.

We’d be paper cranes – kept afloat
by the taut arms of a thin string
holding on with the strength of a tightly
tied knot; the closest we’d feel
to empyrean happiness.

A groggy gaze at the still night sky
separated by thin glass
and abruptly the constellations in the sky
are fathomable;
leaving the desire for sufficient courage
to profess my fondness for his unblemished,
endearing self.

perhaps fragments are easier to maintain?

patching up, trying to make up for the gaping hole within my soul, its arduous.

i found more holes, more empty spots in the crevices of my sanity, confidence and abilities.

i found out what i needed to work on, but i left my words behind

the utterances that used to echo in my head to spur me forward.

but this led to them shattering into fragments, falling onto my bare feet, piercing bare skin.

yet i found that these pieces didn’t always fit, involving the need to severe some portions off.

i found what i should work after, and along the way i’m picking up the pieces.

and most of the time, i'm just being foolish.

i noticed that i largely overestimate myself.

but reaching a point where it get overwhelming, i shy back into the comfort of a damp, crumbling cardboard box.

i like to explore things, snuggling up against the warmth of cotton knit sweaters.

with parallel lines across her forearm
she smiled at the constellations,

he used to speak with soft tones,
every line which slipped through his dry lips
incoherent pieces meant to be left
separated.

burnt paper and crumpled promises,
they weren’t parallel lines
with the fortune of an interchange.

yet they both learnt lessons,
severing memories from empty souls;
trembling backs barely in contact,
her choice of route the converse of his.

love is often said to be the antithesis of selfishness-
and she could only wonder if
it was once humane
to break one’s wings.

(j.y.t)

\/

Within the melodic interludes
between the verses of words falling
against her disarmed sentiments,
she fell into slight slumber beneath
the cold caress of wind and a velvety dark sky
with the thoughts of reliance and solace
replaying in her
mind.

/\

Beneath the amber tinted heavens,
amidst the quietest of fields,
amongst the silence of gentle breezes –
Their first meeting replayed in its
entire glamour, the feelings
as distinct.

She spoke, her words flowing onto the
boulevard teeming with murmurs of
her breath, the sole thing she
wished for against the fleeting moments of
a proclaimed shooting star,
a wish made before the puff of candles,
a thought she held tightly within
her grasp.

The courage, it had found her in her dreams –
a sole characteristic,
a certain ability which
spelled out for her clearly within the
gaps amongst the green grass that
she was a different person altogether

/ /

“Could a parallel universe come
into existence?”
Her thoughts treaded wearily,
breaching her regulations as they waded
through the murky grey waters,
their legs ticklish from the touch of
playful fishes and their supple beauty –
Parallel universes intrigued her,
the thought menacing yet
fascinating.

Considerations were placed,
her mind as befuddled as before –
another her,
a less timid mouse,
a sanguine attitude,
a worthy partner.

\

If they had lived in the fairytale,
in the childish thoughts of a
though foolish yet it was the finest –
a stronger girl,
a better standard,
perhaps a relatively matching soul
for the brown hue that hid under the
comfort of his black pearl hair.

I used to think that
if I made a trip back in time
I’d be fast enough to stop you –
I used to think that a
selfish rewind would bring you back
safe & sound.

You were a silent child,
one who would lie limp – an apple in your right hand;
amidst the wasteful afternoons they’d spend
flailing below the soft clouds;
you were the boy whom
nobody would notice in the
dusty crevices of the neon shades of
red and green.

Submerging into the soft memory
cushions of our childhood I used to
smile, waves of sepia nostalgia
sending chills, along with a tinge of
sweetness.

Remembering your traces was bittersweet,
now more bitter than sweet; a lopped ratio.

Maybe if I had been quicker on my flat feet,
maybe if I had been more sober on a silent evening,
maybe if I had been there you wouldn’t have left, would you?

I used to wonder, watching you lie limp;
where had your teeming enthusiasm gone,
where had your everlasting positivity
faded to,
was it in a dark corner?
or had it left along in your backpack;
or had it disappeared;

You were a victim to
the vicious lies spat by the most innocent
creature called hope;
you were left to desperation amidst the
busy street –
you were left to nothing.

Perhaps pushing your palms together
and wishing for the best
was not sufficient in the maroon eyes of
death in which you’d see your reflection,
tired and worn.

Maybe if I lodged my right knee
against the cold marble floor,
and begged hard enough with
the sole image of your sweetest –

“We had nothing to our name but the old
mutual understanding that we were together, a mishap; a disaster.”

And by now perhaps I was ill,
gravely ill from the dearth of
the fruits, the green apples which well pleased
by pitless avarice, because
[perhaps even an alteration in our memories wouldn’t change our ending]

i stayed up last night to the accompaniment

of solitude and quietude – the mere

traces of your presence

fading along with the sound of raindrops.


i pondered about the existence

of foolish words –

we, us, love,

and there was nothing more apt

to picture our foolish thoughts

amongst the reveries of pastel pink skies.


nothing besides bittersweet stupidity.


the entire notion of how we could’ve

been taking polaroids of bright hues –

if only.


if only we had been blessed with the

simplicity of raw parallel lines carved

against rotting wooden tables.


if only we had been moored to

our first impressions –

cold and unworthy.


but i had to admit,

as the thin sheet of paper slit

fragile flakes of skin –


perhaps i wasn’t sure of how to

treasure and clutch onto things.


or i’d rather choose to believe

that the angles of my fingers

weren’t to your liking,

and the gaps between these helpless

pieces of skin and bone were too small –


too weak, to form a taut yet sturdy

support for your soul,

greedy for flight.

Overlooking the damp greenery
she stood, her palms trembling –
she clawed at her features,
her pale skin leaving her thin jawline
as she fell into a pile of nothingness,
a soul who hated her façade.

The clock was twitching, its arms crooked
yet robust – she had her conditions within
her fingers, her arms losing strength;
if it had been a lone fight,
it sounded futile
and hopeless.

She waited for soft utterance,
a quiet apology or a silent promise of
commitment – yet she got her own voice
echoing back through the hollow
corridors, her solitude embracing her
more than anything else had
ever attempted.

Her shoulders slumped,
her hopes darkened into the
fullest shade of pearl black, her
eyes gaping galaxies of uncertainty as
she had become a buoy floating
too far out into
sea.