night bleeds indigo and gray, and
a california chill seeps deep into bone.
white hot spotlights melt through my joints
as I watch you through half-closed eyes,
ignoring the ache that creeps into
the chambers of my heart.

among strangers, only your face remains clear
while my vision dims like dying lightbulbs.
for a moment i forget my lines;
but i am not an actor.
then we share this golden-lit bus, you & i,
skin sticky with sweat & iced tea.

five steps between us feel like miles.
knees bump over gravel...
bump, bump, bump...
through cuts of moonlight and lonely cigarette trails,
i wish you'd turn my way.

and my tired eyes will wander the aisle
while the voices between us fade like old leather seats.
footsteps mark time passing
on this midnight bus ride.

shadows will dance under streetlights,
and the words i want to say catch in my throat
like dewdrops at the sound of your laugh.
spring feels distant now,
and still i'd wait for you.

brushing arms leave trails of fire,
hands running through tangled thoughts.
my body resides between Newport's shore and sea.
i remember a friend's words:

"what else can you do but admire from afar?"

days later;
missing the midnight bus ride back home.

they’re everywhere,
in the cupboards of the kitchen and
underneath the dining table,
in our voices when we speak.

the exchanges between my mother and i are always
lasers, ****** care, whatnot, money —
leaving our words on the stairs
like bricks in hopes the other might trip over them
& asserting ourselves like a flash of lighting first
before the thunder.

i drive a hard bargain with my mother
I wish I didn’t know about
because she tells me as a daughter I
must not get involved with the boys of this world
I am easily more expensive
to nourish, to dress, to please —

that it is all because
”we are silent but angry women in my household”;
and this is true, i know
my sister likes to leave a disaster using her door
when she slams it shut to let everyone know yes,
she’ll do the dishes but maybe not tonight.

my mother likes to poke fun like needles —
her teasing turned daggers when she half complains,
half laughs at the sorry state of our stormy household
until I breakout into pimples. then she bursts into a gust,
disappearing until she can prowl again.

and then my father, who does not speak to me but
so passionate with the wilderness of his youth
left behind under the monsoons back home, his feet stomp
on carpeted stairs when he is full of my mother’s words,
ready to charge like a water buffalo in the rice fields spooked by a snake
and I can’t help but wonder how our home is still drifting,
barely intact on this boundless sea
and i can no longer see the horizon ahead of us

because i, on the other hand so full yet so empty about myself
all the time, keep to myself like a stray cloud -
so I carry his fire, first candle of his flame, like all the ones before me.
see that my heart is laden with a churning thunder, though I have no right to be;
perhaps it is the love offered in our unloving words
that are exchanged like gifts at our family gatherings, building

quiet storms.
they are everything that i am
that i will do,
that i will become.

there’s a clear distinction between getting what you want
and wanting more than what you can get, she says,
kneeling in front of a piping hot kettle and a small bowl
accompanied by a humorously small bamboo whisk.

Bug-Eye looks at me. the meaning of a sentence is lost in the hexes of her wings, her spindly thin abdomen, the way her fragile limbs twitch.

she tries to smile. she doesn’t. i turn to the murky pool in front of me, losing myself in the way the petals relax on such a delicate surface. the air is thick with heat. i collect more than enough sweat upon my forehead.

you need not ask for more than what you have. nor ask for less than what you deserve.
but why? my reply lingered between us like an afterthought.
why ask when you could have more? the clink of china, the unsteady stirring irritates me with her ungraceful, jerking movements. Bug-Eye relaxes. silence. the grove is clear.

she turns the cup in her hands, once, twice, thrice; her spindly fingers tracing the grooves of a world not yet explored. her eyes watch me closely. all five hundred of them. i turn away
to watch how the koi fish do not swim through the water, but
become stagnant in a place the water feels best.
we kneel on the grass, sipping the green tea as quietly as one can. that is all i am left with.

perhaps this is the reason why i do not ask for more;
nor deserve any less, because
we simply are given with all that we need.

it is said that
“when once you have tasted flight,
you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
for there you have been, and there you will always long to return”
& i have never felt the same way.

the sky: broad & open as it is,
her great blue beauty
will never have the same grit &
smell that dirt gifts me.

i’d rather kneel on the pavement beneath me
than suffer the misery of clipping my wings.
because i’d rather seep into the soil
than have the stratosphere melt away my freedom.
i would have the earth eat my bones
than dissolve as a fleeting cloud

if i ever die,

please turn me into a blade of grass,
amongst mud & rubble,
perhaps in a cemetery
or a meadow.
maybe i’d become a sapling
growing in a park
or a rock, unearthed.

i’d be more at home with that;
tethered to this world
rather than a fleeting moment in the sky
in the air,
in the wind.

this world is mud-luscious &
puddle-wonderful
so the sky cannot be the only
limit

valentine is a martyr. or is it ‘was’--
because he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter
imprisoned for caring about the marriages
of his soldiers...

the present, feb 14, valentine's day
    
where the couples celebrate
and kiss one another with glee, lipstick and wine
staining skin, like roses,
rotting in the pretty glass vases of this house that
have become the symbol of the addiction to
a lovely shade of lust

and where do the single people go for sanctuary,
to hide away from the flocks of married men and women
& teenager couples
with their fingers interlaced,
the celebration coursing through their veins;
    
love really is a losing game
full of gambles
    
i think i finally
feel like valentine
    
forever &
loving