the air is filled with the scent of spring flowers
whose names i do not know,
whose deaths i will not notice.

messiahs and heroes
pass by each day and night
in nameless droves.

in my travels i kept meeting philosophers:
the first philosopher taught me that i need
to grow up,
her medium, a picture of regret;
the second philosopher's advice was
to stay away from philosophy for my own good,
she told me straight faced and direct;
the third philosopher told me i need to
get to grips with just how much i will never know,
and i learnt just how attractive i find wisdom
and how out of reach she really is.

in a kiss
is kept a fragment
of eternity
and a torturous memory
when your lips drip poison.

within ten minutes of getting home
i'm already ******
and reminded that the highs
are always followed by the most atrocious lows
already moaning in my poetry
and loneliness has been keeping me company
since the moment i left rooms full of laughter
and my silent room full of unread books and forgotten pages
hasn't yielded an answer
already moaning in my poetry
always moaning in my lonely poetry
and i remember a precious friend told me
he had been jealous of me for achieving scenes
that coloured his angst riddled dreams
in times that i don't like to remember
that were anchored by secrets under sleeves
and crude masks, and childish fantasies,
and fake pleasantries, and keys to an empty home,
and a nauseating shape and face, and a lack of talents,
and an absence of stable or intimate relationships
—pft, what's changed?—
and he couldn't believe that i was jealous of him
this whole time
and i will keep being so for time to come.
but it still pleases me to see him succeed
even from my unseen observatory of squalor,
and i do adore hearing his lover speak of
how her love for him was born in fire,
awkwardness and innocent symmetry.
in all my travels, i have never found anything
more beautiful than friends
and why should i need to?

our curses make up the rumbling grey
that blots out the sun and spits
spears of fire into our retinas;
our blessings make up the very
earth we stand on
and seldom take account of.

i remember reading somewhere
that when some of the first poems were being written,
they were made with rhythm and rhyme in mind
because it was believed that would
carry their messages further, all the way to the gods!
i'm not yet sure what i'm praying for
nor even if it's gods i want to be heard by.

no one seems to understand me but i
understand why that is the case:
they can't read minds; and mine a mind
i haven't even deciphered yet,
a territory of oppressors and elusive solace.

what can i say of my pain other than
it hurts?
why do i insist
on sweating out confessions of demons
and performances of buffoonery
when my belly is full of *****?
and why does the sight of the ceiling
at 4AM so often act as a catalyst for tears?
perhaps a life of depression
is the most agonising way to die
(if only for how much time it takes),
though certainly i am still ignorant
of the true horrors that lie behind
the veil of privilege undeserved.
the conquerors' half of my blood
feeds a fountain of guilt
while the conquered half whispers
of sorrow, revolt and broken chains.
oh endless body, give strength
to my transient spirit fading
that i might share it with our flesh.

your soul is a fragment of a puzzle piece.
my soul is a fragment of a puzzle piece.
the souls we love, hate, don't care about,
don't know, grieve for or have forgotten
are fragments of puzzle pieces too
and each a world unto itself.
i implore you,
explore.