Cooking is worth the mess.  
The spices, the sauces, the sticky spoons.  
The bowls, the pots, the empty plastic wrappers.  
Fragments of me scattered across the floor.  
Dreams hiding in the crevices, fears lingering at the base.  

Maybe I’m worth the mess, too.  
I am the recipe, a dish still in progress,  
A symphony coming together, no matter the excess.
It’s in the mess that flavors are born,  
Sweetness pulled from bitterness.  
Each scrape of the spoon, each flick of the wrist,  
A step closer to something whole.  
Each spill tells a story, every stain leaves a mark.
And like the meal simmered slow,  
From inedible to flavorful, I, too, can glow.  

As I clean the stubborn flour clinging to the shelf,  
I remind myself—the meal is worth the mess.
This beautiful, messy, imperfect process—  
It’s proof that I, too, am worth the mess.

She said it tasted good—
the salt, the cream, the cheese—
her words like a melody
I didn’t know how to hear.
Nothing was wrong?
But that couldn’t be.
My hands, so used to trembling,
Covered in doubt and oil.
I stood there,
awkward in my victory,
trying to accept the compliment
like a rusty vending machine
taking a crinkly dollar.

Insults come by the dozen,
Sharp dimes that cut me clean,
familiar in their weightlessness,
easy to pocket.

But these **** compliments,
they are a currency I can't trust—
complicated notes with symbols and pictures,
written in a language I must decode,
pressing them to the light
for counterfeit marks
before I dare believe their worth.

They stick to me like unearned badges,
heavy, yet soft,
Meant for a self I refuse to see.
Still, I hold onto hers,
tucked awkwardly in my palm,
a note I haven’t yet learned to spend,
but one I want, desperately, to believe.

I wrote a thesis on what killed you.
I found the disease.
I took its name and studied it.
I broke it down piece by piece.
I spent my college on it, and then my residency.
I learnt words like
critical congenital heart defect and cardiomyopathy.
I wrote my thesis on what killed you.

I did not know what it was when mom told me.
I did not know it when you slept in blue drapes.
I did not know it when you missed my rehearsal.
I did not know it when I saw blood in your smile.
I did not know it when it took you.

But now I know it,
know it enough to write a thesis.
I know all its crooks and crannies,
all the histories and complications.
The early signs and the medications.
It took a while, but I know it all now.
So I wrote my thesis on what killed you.

I labelled all the tiniest arteries,
I wrote of all the chemical compounds,
the mutations of the genes,
the factors that influence it.
I even wrote about the treatments.
I analysed the plethora of cases,
“At least 200,000 people every year are reported to die….”
You were one of them.
“Smoking and drinking were the most commonly found factors among…”
You weren’t one of them.

I wrote about what killed you,
I didn’t write about the beeping sounds
I didn’t write about the knots in my stomach
I didn’t write about crying at my rehearsal
I didn’t write about all the cords and tubes that didn’t save you.
I didn’t write about the flowers you could even lift your head to see.
All I could write was your first name on the cover.

I didn’t write a thesis on what killed me.
I wrote a thesis on what killed you.

When I fall in love, I don't twirl my hair,
No coy smiles, not even a playful stare.
Instead, at 3 a.m., I'm pacing the floor,
Like a detective chasing ghosts once more.
Hands clasped tight some where behind my spine,
Broken glass, missing jewels, spilled red wine
One cigarette-holding fingertip
Tracing memories of a sunken ship
In the kitchen light, shadows stretch and sway,
I'm held in my thoughts I can't chase away.
No kicking feet mid-air, no hearts shaped bloom,
Just circling my mind in the quiet gloom.

A cold case of a love I can't quite name,
All the evidence whispers just the same.
There's a mastermind behind this feeling
My heart's swollen and my brain is seething
So I pace in circles, night after night,
Wrestling with these feelings I can't set right.
A detective lost in an unsolved crime,
I can't let them get away with this time
This time it's personal, I'll get those crooks
My heart's on the line, keep it off the books
Shakespeare said all the lovers burn in hell
Once this case is done, I'll visit as well.

she is light
I am shadow

the sun calls to her
and in return for her devotion
lives in her voice

gifts her
with his smile
allowing her the use of it

she invites his embrace
he marks her as his own
with tender bites across her shoulder

always she seeks him

in his radiant domain
is her joy

my shaded world
where I find comfort
chills her

the tenebrious realm
sings to me
in the key of solace

echoes in the darkened chambers
summon her fears

she shivers

I return her
to the warming luminance

our hands clasp
half in light
half in dark

connected across the boundary
we blend
into one