When I was sketching this afternoon,
my strokes seemed unsure
and my lines were all wrong and
I realized some things about you.

The reason your fingers
always seem to be slipping
every time you try to catch a
handful of waterfall
is because once upon a time
the rocks that your soles were planted on
crumbled.

You used to be a deer,
the way you stood on new heights
and how you looked on
with a steady eye, so
when was it that you decided
one more step was too much for you to climb?

The burying must stop.
It has been proven time and time again
that no matter
how deep a grave is dug,
the flowers will give the bones away.

I don't understand why you
confuse seawater with fresh, because
I know that you've already stuck out your tongue
and tasted the sweetness of real freshwater
or have you?

You are dust
walking in deep shadows
where I cannot find you.
I have only a candle
and my words, but I will wait.
After all, in the beginning,
something beautiful was made from dust
and from a word
sprung a world.

And lastly I realized that
I hope that you someday read this poem
and we will sit together in the afternoon sun
and you will listen to the sound of new things
as I sketch with sure strokes
and just the right lines.

I spent three days in a daze two years ago, and three days lost again this year. I woke up and forgot what it was like to have a heart; all around was silence and silence and silence. The type of silence that shoots straight into the very core of all you know, as if you are noise and the silence is life.

In those moments I wasn't a soul, but an ocean.

This is what happens when a human body transitions into the sea, you see. It is drowning and suffocation, and no amount of screaming produces sound. There are no cries, only the murky crash of waves and the gurgling of sea foam. It is breathless crying, sorrow and endless emptiness, as if the entirety of the universe condensed itself into the tiny space between your rib-cage, and the stars burnt out. It is as if all the stars burnt out and their deaths caused the same death in you. The same sorrow, the same pain, the same loss - only magnified.

The coral reefs are stained black, and the sand is ash. The spaces where your lungs once were are now monuments to things you have lost. There are relics in places where there should be blood, and there is death in places where life once was. And as you feel this, you know it is inescapable. You cannot swim, only sink. Your heart is tar, an anchor sinking into the depths, until you become the sea floor.

-

"Is he really worth loving with all this pain?"

"Always."

(A.H.Z)

Silhouetted against a blank
Wall, lips curving
Dangerously;
Be still, my tender
Heart, your rapid palpitations will no
Longer be rewarded. In
Dreams your
Existence thrives within my own,
Five fingers wrapped
Around
Five fingers.
Slowly we were twisting, devoid of
Grace.

Once you were in full bloom.

A thousand repressed seeds,
Little
Whisps of hope sauntered effortlessly
From your lips,
released;
I was the warm summer wind, tugging each
Delightful murmur free,
Languishing in
The wealth, the weight of those promises, the scent
Of a new beginning..
How soon it became Autumn,
Your leaves tinged
With brown
Crumpling up, one
By one.

Those sweet seeds
Quickly made a home within the belly
Of a love ravenous
Fool, dissolving as
Steadfast as acid corrodes
bone.

Away, away....
You drifted purposely,
Without purpose.
Languidly, you attempted to brush away
The words, the very sentiments
That have stuck
To my ribs,
Like oatmeal.

What lives within the
Contoured ridges of your soul must be one hell
Of a mess.

He was for long on the river sailing since sunrise
When under afternoon clouds the hamlet caught his eyes
Wearied by the sojourn to that land a faraway call
The green beckoned to rest his oars for a leisurely stroll.

He sat under a banyan to heal his limbs of pain
Darker grew the clouds the winds hinted rain
His heart too was aching the heart of a lonely man
For he had left behind his sweetheart his beloved woman.

It’s not known if clouds swelled in his dreamy eyes
His mind was too obsessed for the Empire’s rise
There he stood on the riverbank an alien on another’s soil
That he must till to build a kingdom paying with sweat of toil.

He remembered his three children their skin’s blended tan
Their rustic eyes reflecting their mother the one his woman
He reminisced under banyan shade how he fell in love with her
Only if he were a little late she would’ve been burned at the pyre.

*The man loved that sleepy hamlet built there a factory
The trade post became a city earned place in history
The river still meanders laden with the tears of pity
That swelled in his eyes for the woman he saved from suttee.

Today as I went home,
even if I'm with my friends, I feel so alone
thinking of you made me feel so blue,
for you love her and I'm in love with you

this heartache makes me want to cry
but instead of tears, I express it with a sigh
for I don't want them to see
that I'm crying, because I'm falling for you badly

"it's just a little crush" that's what I say
but it's making a big hole, when I see you everyday
for when I follow your stare, it lead to her
and sometimes, I feel like tears are going to make my vision blur

I know it's pathetic, but when you talk to me
I feel so pleased and happy
but still, I know that you're not going to love me
cause, your heart belongs to her completely

you're just a fantasy
and you'll never love me in reality
I know that someday, you're just going to be a memory,
that I will remember when I'm lonely

but, someday is not yet today
it still is far, far away
but, I wish you'll notice anyway,
that my heart is breaking
and even though I'm smiling
just look in my eyes
and you'll see that I'm dying