i adore it
the way you grab me
by my chin
start an entanglement
you want to prolong
like forever

i adore you
but i do not 'like' you
i'm merely attached to
your arms
your wandering palms
your lips, and
the melting *** of cigarette smoke
with your natural scent

treat it as goodbye
goodbye to silly pipe dreams
goodbye to new-fangled beginnings
goodbye to what could have been

little girl, you better hold on
hold on tight to the charcoal
sturdiness of a railing, to the
warmth emitting from the
barrier of your father's arm, for
the bus would bring you there
once, twice, a hundred times
to the first turbulence of a
flight you are onboard from the
very start, and like that tedious
twenty-two hours to america
like the cousins who followed
the eldest, coolest brother up
hanging on an escalator track
turbulences come one, another
until the odyssey sews to a close
along with your shredded dreams
your corrupted perceptions, your
wrinkles, your bruised, weary heart
which would thus lay within your
burnt, soulless corpse

the night consisted of me hinting at the presence of a guy
a guy i really like, a guy whose name
like a reverie, i could not bring myself to utter

i talked about everything because i do not care
i do not care about you, your enamoured face, your
saccharine words, instead i batted them away
as if they were unwanted flies harassing a dim light
of which they are enraptured by, devotedly yet
foolishly

by the end of the night i had grown tired of entertaining
the ghost of the guy whose name i could not utter
of glimmering gutlessly at my blatant apathy
of being a subject of novelty

you were the kid, strung on by a piece of nothing
and i was the power-bearer, merciless in
faithless speeches, indulgent in frivolousness
so i halted the meet, streamed mindlessly towards
a place where i renounced my false interest
my douchebaggery, then proceeded to wipe off
the kiss you'd left on my unwitting, unwelcoming lips

i do not like you, do not want traces of you to
envelope, overwhelm the traces of him on me
but i don't think they ever will

i) i write about 'love', 'romance' and 'intimacy'
like the bounce of pebbles on a train track
so perennially, so frivolously, so rashly
yet the only sentiment i am truly riveted by
is the hollow static of 'desire' -- one that
washes off with the grime from your body
at the end of a high

ii) everything is transient

iii) and so i think i am

she picks up the phone and dials
(a number she doesn't know by heart)

hello, she says, hello, he replies
(the man's voice is buoyant
upon her attention, resonant
with her affection
the corners of her maw twitch up
but only slightly, he cannot hear it
it is barred by the pride of her heart)

she continues, are you free to talk
i was waiting for you, he whispers
the faint breeze of his murmur enters
her body, lines the utopian passage
with a speed like that of cigarette smoke
(the air in her lungs turns nonexistent)

so she speaks, he listens with hushed
wind at the back of his chords
cracks pepper the tone of her speech
and she stumbles on the unexacting words
(but he thinks that it is the most tragically
beautiful sound in the world, and he
conceals the itch circling his palm
the dullness chilling down his spine)

hours later, the rant is a conversation
about medium rare steaks, apple tarts
and that old man in a red dress dancing
down the shady street they were once at

they hang up the devices smothered to
the side of their mirth, fluently
(irresolutely)
they peeled them off their ears and
laid them down on their shivering chests
(are they breathing, are they not)
they go to separate diners with that
extra bounce in their step, and a
daze in their eyes

the next time they convene
it will be as if nothing had transpired
in memory, there were no tears
no faint yelling in the background as
they utter their mutual condolences
none but the quiet, unsaid melancholy
of 'you', 'me'
of 'us'

my little girl, she is sitting by the steps
in a white dress stained with the taint of
her own despair

i drive towards her clawing at her skin
she says, daddy, the itch is staying
it won't go away
and the blood drips as tears from her eyes
painting her white dress with a more blatant
plague