if i could see your soul,
i would tell it to look upon itself in the reflection of a lake,
the kind that shimmers clandestine blue
from the tears of the waterfall and the love-lost.

if i could sense your soul,
i would feel it in the light that bounces off;
the rainbows bounce off the water
as they come into contact with both the light and the wet,
the way the sun and the sea kiss every dawn and dusk.

if i could speak to your soul,
i would tell it not that it is beautiful, even though it is.
for god knows how overused that word is, how many lips has ushered its accent.
i would tell it, that it is
rich.
the wealth of owning
layers upon layers of
shimmers and shines
of tangibles and tangibles,
of the flavours i taste,
and the textures i touch.

if i could taste your soul,
it wouldn't taste salty from tears,
or sweet from tainted melancholy and forgotten memories.
it would taste clear,
fresh;
freshwater that starts from the back of the throat
whose healing touch leaks,
leaving flowers to bloom in all the places
it has traced, and in all the nooks
it has graced.
the cave just under your collarbone,
the crook of your neck,
the curve of your hip;
treasures.

if i could touch your soul,
it would feel
warm, like a fire glowing
in its hearth.

if i could smell your soul,
it would smell like you,
like
home.

i do not think i failed to see the end come,
i merely feared it.
and yet
i still write about it -
the way a prophet writes voraciously about the inevitable,
never living it out. and now,
the paper feels more bitter than gourd,
the pen sharper than knife,
my thoughts pinching at my brain.
i feel hopelessly ambivalent,
distraughtly confused,
achingly wistful.

there's no words for your
absence; an unfeeling ache
that traps me sorry.

am i too flawed to love,
or are you just unable to love me?

i do not know what to think.
it used to be a lack of breathing that came with a lack of feeling
just as night succeeds day
just as the thunder precedes lightning.
now, i just write -
thinking this act of releasing could relieve all the pain.
but it can't.

for a prophet never feels the pain of his people until they live out his spoken truth;
so my brain never feels the pain of the heart
*until it has been broken.

tell me, o lover, if you see me as junk
one that you can toss aside like some ******* ****
god ****** it, that’s how I’ve been feeling recently
and all I’ve been hearing are my returning pleas

bouncing off your ears, they ricochet
so please don’t blame me if I may
give up all hope, give up all love
extinguish between my palms the proverbial flame

that myths glorify, lovers worship,
fools surround, the burns of which, they keep
scars of their sacrifice cover their bodies
their faces, marred with anxiety and crease

but still, knees kissing the stone cold floor,
merciless, unrelenting, just as your core –
has done to me, stripped me to flesh and bone
as you condemn me to the fate of davy jones

heart ripped out, spilling flesh and blood
the altar they cake, our pasts they flood
arteries, veins, pulmonary, aorta
they are all crushed under the mortar

you wield under your hand, so very unconsciously
so please please please, oh lover
you do not know how much power you have, don’t you see
you will always mean the most to me.

your palms, they hold life and death --
the former, rekindled with the warmth of your breath,
the latter - soot after fast-fading embers
clouded with memories to be unremembered.

so
stay.
let our hearts be heard.
okay?
and maybe, just maybe – you could say
those three little words.

before they go away.