Her head on my chest
Softly she rests 
In the aftermath of loving.

This is the part 
The thing that touches my heart. 

I kiss her forehead
and run my fingers through her hair.

Listening to her sleeping
Lost in the feeling.

This is what love is, 
This is believing,
Conceiving something better,
I can't begin too.

Sleep peacefully My Love.

it’s the kind of sad
that doesn’t cry loud.
it just sits,
quietly,
in the corners of the room,
curling into the shadows
until even the light
feels heavy.

the kind of sad
where you can’t tell
if you’re tired
or just empty.
if you’re lonely
or just lost.
where music doesn’t help,
but silence hurts more.

it’s the kind of sad
that doesn’t need a reason.
just wakes up with you,
sits beside you on the train,
follows you into class,
and climbs into your bed
before you can even
close your eyes.

it’s the kind of sad
where you drive in the car
and you think you’re okay
until you hear the music
and burst out into tears.
for no reason.

and you want to talk about it.
but what do you say?
“i’m sad,”
like it’s news?
like it hasn’t made
a home in your bones already?
like it hasn’t decorated
your ribs
with every memory
you swore you were over?

it’s the kind of sad
that makes you ache
for people who aren’t coming back,
for versions of yourself
you barely remember.
for a feeling that used to be yours
before everything got
so heavy.

but still,
somehow,
you keep going.
even when it hurts.
especially when it hurts.
and that matters,
even if no one sees it,
though you wish someone would.

Locked inside the walls,
Sitting in the hall,
Trying to recall,
Yet I slip and fall.

What is it that inspires you?
What is it that desires you?
Is it inside these walls,
Or is it the outside calls?

Did I do something wrong?
Or have I been wrong all along?
Is it me who doesn’t belong,
Or is it the world that belongs?

The struggle is hard,
The game isn't fun,
But the process is an art,
And the player is one.

The inner voices ask,
"Am I done?"
The player removes the mask,
Killing himself with a gun.

she feel his gaze,
he feels her–
silent admiration.

"why not confess?"
cupid sighs,
but god only smiles,
"some love is made
to be felt,
not said."

for she
<>
"I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end"

Rumi
<>

writ in a time, for when
there is never enough,
and yet,
always, waves of too much,
needy for
filling feeling fulfilling

We must learn,
be self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

ah the tender time is nonetheless
rightly and wrongly
rightly now,

for I have stumbled,
overheated, sweaty, from the night bed,
at 4.30am into another darkened toom,
and I have smacked~stumbled into
Rumi
and her

our paths continuously intersect,
in the same but
in different cities, continents,
and yet,
diffident, differing,
we silently choose
never to close those lady~last few miles
and tie the knot of
eyes, skin, lips
the instruments
that transmit thousands of
neuronal explosions that
seal the deal

so we write in poetry,
in silence broken by the gentility
of fingertips soundlessly
and yet,
boundlessly rocking,
explosively soundings of
tap tap tapping

my music mocks me,
it is definitively god interfering,
advising, conspiring,
wiring into my brain
better lyrics,
idealized notions,
exactly appropriate
and appreciated

with the lyrics urging me on,
and that we must be
self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

but my heart trembly refuses,
insightful informing
that now,
now! is
the moment to exchange
vows of words,
though un spoke,
they require
written completion
through
& though
apart, alone,
to finally out loud confess
what has always been known, only to each other,
to be
so real

and yet*,

we will never exchange
these sentiments
in out loud words

but though this be lacking,
it will never
diminish
their  ultimate
intimate
truthfulness

and I ask,
is this a poem?

surely
it is that, and
so much more,
an essay, a letter on
invisible NML stationary,
a heart carving in
an oaken barrelling of
ancient vintagery

and that interloper,
Him again,
eavesdropping
on this private communication,
insists that I draw deep
from her favorite
singer~songwriter,
words that say it better,
that for real seal the deal,
in the saddened perfection
of total, enwrapped,
silence:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

and
it is time
to finish this task,
it is exactly one hour,
no time at all,
to complete a love poem that
is/was complete,
even before its
composition
and yet,
is never to be be familiar with
the finality of
completion
<>

postscript:

I taste your private shed tears,
hear the howling sigh,
but most of all,
'tis the explosion of
a deep smiling creasing
your lips,
spreading in all directions
saying and stating:

at last, at last!
a lasting, a confessional to you god,
though,
a through and through
silent
jubilation
                                              ­             nml

April 8, 2025
530am
New  York  City

No matter how much you watch
Stay alive

No matter how hard life is
Stay alive

No matter how easy it looks
Stay alive

No matter how much it hurts
Stay alive

No matter how much you cry
Stay alive

No matter what happens
Stay alive
Because if you don't
You'll leave your love ones wondering
"What did I do wrong?''