I will be like a tree to you
neath whose shade you lie
as the days pull you down
and my branches long for
the pull of your weight-
the only kind I will allow
to pull me down.

Painless is the way
I shed my leaves for you,
die a slow death
all for your love for a golden autumn,
and again I come back to life for you,
because winter is a lonely business.

Your faith in my hold
is strengthened over these glad years,
unbreakable perhaps,
like how my roots are interwoven
into your ribs.

My poetry is eternal for you,
growing each day
and when you cut me open,
the rings will tell you of the years
I bled for you.

I will be a tree to you,
your very own Eden,
and the day I die,
I hope my roots reach out to you
when the time comes for you to
marry into the earth.

Only a vehement storm
can put me down.

I went looking today.

I put on my red boots
and my blue pants
and I opened up the doors.

I went looking today.

I went through the parks,
the streets, the empty hallways.
I got lost looking for a lost you.

The crowd carried your scent,
carried me,
and I was six and a half miles from home.

I put on my smiles
and my cloak of courage.
My watch ticked away the time my heart drove my feet to you.

I went looking today.

I went looking for you.

I searched the corners of boxes,
under the shade of rose petals,
and in burning letters.

Because I had to.
I had to find you
before I lost my mind.

My bones ached for the home in you,
my heart refused to keep a beat continuous,
my skin began to come undone.

I went looking for you today,
only to stop before your door
and walk all the way back home

still in want.

"I'll wait for you,"
when we were kids,
you had said.

But Jack's still comatose
and Jill is dead.

You never came.

I cannot find
my peace of mind,
the weight of which crushes me
and I know not where I am again.

Like being so far away from home,
the smell of clothes
takes me back to the
last time I was in them.

I trace these thoughts
as I trace the curve of your spine-
immaculate ridges like the ride of
the cobblestones on your porch.

I find my solace
in the perfect arches of your shoulders
like the hold of the hearth
that keeps me warm.

I stow my secrets
into the unbreakable weave of your ribs,
safe and sound into the vault
of your tireless heart.

And dreams I dream
to the lullaby
of your ebb and flow
heartbeat.

I lose you
like I lose my mind-

effortlessly.

Today if you had asked me
what love still meant to me
I would look at you,
diving in the abyss
of your brown eyes
and look at you look at me.

I'll tell you that I loved you
before the first spark
ever hit your armoured heart
to light an everlasting fire.

That the words which escaped you
cascaded down on me
like a million rivers unfolding
to reveal their anger they kept
hidden long enough
to allow the heat to die down on their own.

That the truth in things
didn't exist in the ways,
in people like we wanted to.

If love was an inferno
to walk through
you know I would.
That with every burning touch of the coal
beneath my feet
would be another step closer to victory,
closer to you.
That this was the painful esctasy of love,
and every ember was like the ones
that burnt in me for you.

And I would tell you
that you were worth it.
You were worth it all.

A tight hug, tearful farewell.
I hope fate conspires for us to meet again.

Six years isn't a short time
six hours a day was never long enough.

I will miss you
like the cold skin misses your touch.

I will smoke rings of memories around you
till Saturn pines for you.

A tight hug.
I will never let you go.

You say doctors will
make the best poets.
They will search your emotions
by the skin; cutting open to reveal
and revel
with surgical precison.
They will play with
heavy drugs and blades--
nothing shall hide beneath
the armors of bone and muscle.
They know the anatomy
of the heart too well.
They will find the things
you have hidden in your chest.

I say
doctors will never be poets.
They are too mechanical,
too fast with their edges
and ridges.
They cannot see the pain
as pain but merely as an anomaly.
That sadness is black bile
not melancholia.
They cannot sing to you
but only clammer in medical jargon.

Poets will use their imperfect words,
and perfect rhymes
to find the secrets of your rib cage
with ease.
They will find every flaw
of your broken body
and make it the best story
you've never heard.

Doctors,
they will put love to define as
a momentary rush of adrenaline,
an arrythmia for another human
caused due to an imbalance of the heart rhythm.

Poets will tell you
that love is the first jolt
of life for them.
They will say love is a state of euphoria
that takes those irregular rhythms to perfect symphonies.

Doctors say that
veins carry blood
devout of oxygen.
I say that they carry your broken emotions
to their feelings factory
to mend it within its beautiful catacombs.

All those doctors
will find and fix you
with perfect solutions.

And these poets
will do their best
to be your perfect solution.

I hear some music
muffled away
in the dark
evening sky.

And I get the feeling
that I want to
love more
than hate.

If I could put to words
what this year was,
I would say--
****.

**** this ******* year.

Thirteen years into
the second millenium,
was as unlucky as the number
said it would be.

This year was about
being on my own,
being sad,
being alone.

Yet I found,
poetry, and that death
could never be the answer
to questions I'd rather not ask.

I found friends
in people halfway
across the whole
world.

Love from the people
of my kind--
poets--
who loved and despaired.

This year was not
the one I would remember;
because new beginnings
are often disguised
as painful endings.

So here is to
my new beginning.

The heart where once
love resided fell too cold.

Now the flesh turns
an uneasy grey beneath
a thin layer of dusty frost.

When touched,
the fingertips stick and the cold bites.
Few dared to warm
the space with their hands
and now neglect has my heart forgot.

There's an uncared for path.
An overrun piece of forest
nearly hidden in the brush
that leads to a cave.

There's a cool breeze
that staves away my curiosity.

I have stopped counting,
the days, for they are now
just seconds and hours that pour away
into the blankness of life.

It doesn't pain me because it is an
understanding that for you
love could never mean anything
more than a prolonged feeling of monochromia.  

You have fallen,
and fallen again.
Love is nothing more than
a chasing game for you.

But if I had never
come into your life,
what could, in your ways of life,
it have proved?

Nothing.

It was the mischief of the cosmos
that wanted us to be.
Else the weaves of the universe
would come undone.

We have our stories
already written
by a known
hand.

All we are,
are characters
waiting.
Till our curtain falls.

Please don't play
with my heart,

I only have
a few pieces left.

This is not
hiding away,

I just don't want
to take any more of your crap.

Allow me to slip
into the darkness you created.

Let me
chase shadows.

I once used to run
with both my legs tied together.

Now I just lay down
wherever it is that I stop.

Please don't play
with my heart,

this is no longer
yours to keep.

I'm not sure if you and I have ever
been apart, long enough to make me
wrest my dark secrets
and revive you from the back of
my manic mind.

You have been my companion
for however long it could have been
and I have tried as much as I can
to run from you.
Away from you.

But sooner or later,
your easy reach into my soul of torment:
you know where to hide, where to look for
the things I thought I lost,
will make me return to you.

And with this silence,
I thee wed.

Maybe it is numbing cold,
the weather there,
as you taste the snowflakes on your tongue
and picture us making angels on your porch
while still stealing the warmth from the breath
of one another.

Maybe it is not so white until December's wake
and when it rains, it pours.
Your car is probably stuck in the snow
when I was busy making a snowman
that I couldn't wait
to destroy with you:
we don't need anyone else.

I cannot wait to see
what winter is like in Utah.

Till then, I will just reminisce
of salt mountains
beside the oceans.

Fifteen years since I was safe.
Six years since I had a peace of mind.
One year, six months since our first kiss.
One year since our last.
Ten months since I last felt your touch.
Eight months since we had a conversation.
Seven months, five days since were were together.
Two months since it rained.
Two weeks since I last cried.

Three seconds since I last thought of you.

*My memory is my greatest enemy.

December falls upon my eyes;
I am scared as hell.

The numbness of limbs,
the sorrowful gray
that casts over me and you
and what we once used to be.

December will be the death of me,
I know for sure
because this time
I sit alone with my sword unready
and the candle flickering.

The winds will whisper
in my ear, things I already know
and unto you,
the realization that will never come.

December,
I am afraid.
I am not strong enough
to face you.

Trust is like
handing someone
a candle
in a storm
and expect them to
keep it burning.

Fine, I will confess.
You have me.

You have me smiling at
the perfect shape of your perfect words.
Though half the world
create the distances between us
you map them with
the mere presence of you.
And I feel lonely no more.

You have me awake at night,
combing the depths of my half-awake mind,
searching for pieces of you
to go to dreamland with.

I sometimes blink twice
on a perfect moment,
as if to take a mental picture for you.
I sometimes rub my hands together
to feel how warm your face might feel like.

You have me.

You just do.

I saw you today.

As you sat with half
of your face facing
away from me,
I prayed you would look at me.

You didn't then,
but you met me at the staircase,
laughed,
and disappeared from the landing.

I saw you today.

And I don't remember
much of anything else.

One year, seventy six poems
and twenty five thousand glances
later.

You are gone.
I am alive.
Still.

He is here.
I want him to be.
And only for myself.

The wants have disappeared,
the time has finally come.

Give of yourself for yourself.

So I shall
this time
take a step forward
no more two behind.

Feel whatever comes,
take whatever gives.

*Almost dying with a smile on my face.

A shout from across the dark,
you are impossible.

People are trying to sleep;
you are trying to keep me awake.

Please stay awake
You must stay awake.

If you fall asleep, I will be forced
to awake you from your deepest dreams.

Please stay awake.

You are shaking me and speaking not
in whispers into my ear.

Your sweet voice is humming into my mind,
singing to keep me awake-- cheap I tell you.

Please stay awake.

*I'm afraid of the dark.

I am caught up
amidst a drama.

Your father is arguing with your mother,
the noise is penetrating from beyond
the locked doors,
while I am standing outside your door
witnessing your surprised reaction.

A glass shatters and you shut your door
and ask me to come with you.
We ride on my bicycle to the lonely field
behind the school.

My heart beats louder than ever before,
so loud you can probably hear it.
You are trying to explain the situation at home,
the noise and the apologies,
while I am biting my lips,
trying to tell you why
I drove you out your home
at ten in the night.

You stop and laugh,
and tell me that your best friend
broke away from you
and you tag him--
that *******--
and I swallow nervously.

You suddenly rant of how
he always says the wrong things,
was always a bad friend,
and did the worst.

You tell me of how your parents
are so sickening
you are thinking of running away.

You
look
at me
and tell me that you are
sick
and
tired.

Between the lines of fear and blame,
on a very cold winter night
in the deserted field
you and I are caught amidst a drama.

A drama yet to unfold.

A sweat beads on my forehead--
I have something to say.

Your father is no longer mine's business partner,
my mother hates the dressing style of yours
and
I am in love with your best friend.

I cannot tell you that,
because this is not the time for a drama
to set ablaze the floors of our minds--
we will need it tomorrow.

We've got our math test.

I'm not sure if it was a drunken idea,
or one of ecstatic stupidity,
but finally, from indirect jokes
we took to the alley,
greasy and haunting in itself,
we crossed the deathly narrow lane
to the tattoo place.

Neon-lit and consumed in the atmosphere
of alcohol and some illegal drug somewhere,
we picked out the incomplete chain--
one for you and one for me--
so that when our bodies came together,
we completed each other.

We completed each other.

You got yours and I got mine.

And now a year later,
you have had yours removed,
and are now thinking why you got one in the first place.

But you never knew, did you?

I didn't just love you,
I loved you for who you were,
for all you were,
for all you had been.

I wasn't just a stupid girl,
filled with the butterflies of first loves.
I was in love with you.
Fallen, completely.

You left your scars.
You left your scars.

You would never know, now would you?

That while you were looking away,
I got mine
in permanent ink.

**We completed each other.
Now
I can barely complete myself.

The rain drips on your forehead,
much like the ways it falls on the others.
Yet on you they feel like the burn of an acid,
and warm like your tears.

The slurs are now muffled
behind the door
you decided to shut forever.
While they still bang on them,
don't let them in.

Somewhere along those hasty corridors,
somewhere in those strings of angry words
you found
the strength to light the brightest fire.

Your words are now
the ones
piercing their hearts.

You make us stay strong.

Your eyes.
Your voice,
and most of all,
you in your green blazer
with your hair swept to a side
and a shy smile.

No,
not your smile.

No, not now.

Your smile not now.
Because you are smiling now
with your peaceful eyes
in your sharp green blazer
to the girl sitting across the hall
while I
am walking out the **** door.

The clocks tick down from hours to seconds
leaving me at the end of a lonely road
where you and I stand at different ends
of the paths we used to tread on together.

Always out of time, aren't I?

Running.
Breathless.

I don't even have the time to put on my
**** shoes.

I am rushing down the corridors,
I don't have the key to the car,
I'm still trying to put on my shirt
and I am trying to do it all at once.

Rushing.
Out of breath.
Tears now falling.

Too late, always, aren't I?

Like a thunderstrike straight to the chest,
I get news--
far too late for the girl far too late--
you are somewhere on a bridge
waiting to take a leap of faith.

Lost in seconds pouring away
like rain on the sill.

Lungs ablaze.

Six blocks down to the river.
Distances counting themselves
from inches to naught.

A splash in the river.

Always too late.
Always too late.

Lost you.
**Too.

If the skies would break out tonight,
you will see the fury--
silver white streaks across the prussian blue,
that every once in a while,
the night too,
shall give in.

The rain rips through my turpentine roof,
splitting the cold raindrops on my forehead,
while somewhere across the city,
two lovers meet under the canopy
of a shared umbrella.

They will eventually get out of the rain
that brought them together
and reach across the surfaces
for hands in the darkness.

And get into a car,
drive away,
forgetting everything else.

Lightning strikes,
thunder roars.

They get scared,
the driver flinches
the car screeches
and I lose the only one I have.

The car swivels,
hits the one on the road before,
a flash of light
and into the one forever.

Headlight.
Heaven.

They will drive away
from the rain that brought them together,
while I will still stand there
in the rain that took away
the love of a forgotten man.

We're falling in love in reverse.

Julie was a winner.

Her eyes were made of stars
that had fallen off the sky
and they twinkled every time
she smiled.

She had dreams, and ambitions,
she did not ride on high horses,
she did not trust the words of great men,
but followed her own sense of direction.

She loved life,
and a boy who never could understand
what love actually meant.

Like flowers in spring,
her madness grew in vivid colors
and she could feel the surge
in her veins.

She was a like a flower.

And like a flower in the fall,
today was the day,
she decided to die.

She took a deep breath,
and drowned herself in cold lavender-scented bathwater,
falling into the forgotten forevers
to lie quietly, finally complete.

Julie wasn't a lie,
she was just me.

My mind is a tinderbox.

Only awaiting a reminder of
the taste of your breath and your many loves
to spark up and light a deadly fire.

It is vulnerable to hate, jealousy and other
fiery emotions,
and more than once have you deliberately
caressed the ends of this box
with an emery touch.

It feeds on past sensations of the skin,
forgotten beatings of the heart,
and promises only skin deep--
they are still just the sensations
from crosses you made on your chest.

It is a bubble, waiting to burst.

But make no mistake,
it is very powerful.
Do not, and I repeat, do not
let yourself be swept away with fuzzy emptiness
and homely tempts.

It is awaiting only a weak moment.
Like a swish of warm breath
on a stack of old dry grass,
to start a fire so bright
you have to squint.

So you left and I got into a car and drove up to the hills.
I drenched my eyes in the green hues of the trees and
drank the misty air.
I filled my lungs with fresh emotion and said,
"Oh boy, where have I been?"

I put my feet in the water, and felt the feelings gush in.
I felt my cheeks turn wet and my eyes raining
and you come flashing into my mind--
yes, I regret it--
I regret you.

You arise from phoenix ashes and hide beneath the bed.
You are a knife stuck in my chest, twisting in with every heart beat.
You are a lost opportunity and a scar on the wrist.
You are my lost love.

So what if you are sorry, you think I care that I have become
a part of the dust neath your carpet, struggling to revive.
Yes, I would like to hurt you, and hurt you so badly
you feel the need to caress me again.

I drove up to the hills, a place where you are not
and I realized, that happiness is really just sitting down and eating
cheap Chinese out of melamine plates and putting your feet in the water
and thinking we'll learn from our mistakes.

I took a paper and a pen and sat down to write
a plan on how I was going to make a time machine--
because I had to, I had to go back in time and change your mind--
but I flew past papers and entire diaries and I know there is
no more ink
left in this world to continue writing.
Yet, I still have no more than a mite of sense
in a huge mathematical mess
of fractions, functions and graphs, and sad handwriting.

I put together my math with metal and I scoured the earth looking for the exact things to perfect my monster creation
and satisfy the algorithms.
Time was not going anywhere and you are awaiting my perfect words that I actually tell you,
and stop you from taking the step outside the door.
I spent, seven years to just put together the courage
to finally plug the machine
into the socket-- a humble four-point in the wall and all it took was the turn of a switch.

I spent years and all my time and all my youth,
all my mind and all my life creating a time machine,
so that I fly by the light, going back into the time to that very day
when I first saw you and take a the seat in the back of the train
instead of the one next to you.
I would take the one opposite to where you sat and refuse to even look at you.
Because then, we will not begin something we would never be able to end.

I am here now and all it takes is the turn of a switch,
a time machine to end all of the worries.
A turn of a switch and I would be able to fix all my life;
I created this thing with all my life, so that I can forget you.

And glory! I am successful.
I forget you, but not by the power of a time machine
but I forget you nonetheless.

I set my room on fire and jump out of the window.

I could take care of you-- I can make up your bed,
make up your mind; I could colour the sky from blue to gray--
not because you are sad but because it is your favourite colour.
I could do the math, hold up the papers, read to you at night.
I would come and comfort you when you cannot sleep.
Draw the curtains to wake you.
Fix you where you are broken; I’ll use the perfect words.
I can make you smile; I could lie on the floor with you
and create dust angels and then hold your hand and watch
the world around us gently fall apart.

Like some sort of sordid fantasy in the tangles
of my subconscious belief, I
think that maybe some things must be waited upon to make come true.
That I must wait for the dream to unfurl, like the petals holding
tightly onto you and my talks to the mirror.

You have no idea of how terribly, insanely, amazingly
I can put my feelings
to words and not in my voice, that you are awaiting to read my mind and
my hopeless efforts to convey the feelings I hide so poorly
behind incredulous yarns of vocabulary.

I must wait, I tell myself for I, wait so intensely for my illusions
to come to life.
That you put to words the thoughts in my head without me
telling you so--
that you have read it all, the words, the thoughts and all else
and you love it without obligations.

But alas, have you found me, in the depths of oblivion
and I see a smile beginning to mark your face, for yes
you have found me and my words, dancing to the endless sonata
of feeling shy and courageous, all at the same time.

Found myself staring
into the cold ceiling
thinking
if this could be right.

Weary soul and broken body,
you found me
when there were none
to see.

Right before this
we condoned with friendship,
but now
you've got me thinking of ties
more than them.

With my flesh and bone
by the telephone
waiting,
your overdue phone call.

Stealing glances and hushing breaths
you barely look at me now,
only feign an ignorance
and refuse to
pick up where we left off.

Call me a friend
Call me a cheater
Call me a liar
Call me a lost enchanter

But call me.
Just once.
Tonight.

Somewhere over your rainbows,
lies still
my beating heart,
which you've thrown away.

Somewhere under your shadows,
is a shard
of my life,
still trying to piece with yours.

Somewhere in your mind,
I'm there
wondering if you'd ever,
say yes.

Somewhere in this empty house,
I lay still
waiting for your voice,
to break our silence.