She began as a child
With naive hope of a better future
One where her dreams came true
And the darkness of her past kept
Only in words

Yet here she sits today
That same hurt girl
No longer a child
But still with the fire of hope in her
Now holding the same weight but ten fold

She feels like she can no longer move
Crippled by her own self doubt
Stuck in her ways
An illness she thought time could cure
Yet here she remains

May 10 more years pass by
May she stand up and move forward
May she be who she wants to be
May her dreams become real
May she be happier than I

I look at myself
I see flaws

You stand right next to me
Scrutinizing, pointing at each one in dissatisfaction

It’s with love that I show you your flaws
I’m making you better

Are you sure it’s me you’re looking at?
Is it me you’re criticizing?

Does it make you feel better to belittle me?
Do you feel better about yourself now?

I blame you and still drown in self hatred
Each word, sent with love drives a stake deeper into my heart

Am I truly in the wrong?

You ask me if I love you
If I care

If I don’t even have room in my heart for myself
Do I have any love to spare?

If your lips brought me salvation
It was your words that condemned me

Your body that brought pleasure
Your intentions that brought pain

If I have known happiness
it was you
If I have known misery
it was you

It's always you

If she was a dove
I was a crow

She, above
I, below

She brought love
I brought woe

She got you
something I could only dream of
I got blue
knowing it was time to let you go

She
is the ghost that haunts me
She
is the villain that thwarts me
She
is the shadow that never leaves me
She
is the monster that keeps me
She
is the person that I see
She
is the ene(me).

No,
I don't know love
because love is pain
it's a body that doesn't fit
it's a aspiration that can't be touched

Love is a ticket
to travel down guilt
guided by lights lit with gas
with a relentless hand pushing
to end up at someone else's destination

No,
love is written in ink
to be read on a page
love is a scene acted out
to be enjoyed on screen.

I don't know love, not like it was meant to be.

After you
I thought my world had ended

After you
I figured there would never be another

After you
I was lost

After you
I found him

After you
I am loved in return

After you
There was him

She caught your eye with just a glance
While I racked my brain to chase you
To come up empty every time
Yet all it took her was a "Hi"
I used to think was I not enough
What did I lack?

But I know the answer now
It’s simple yet it’s cruel
Im not her
I’m sure I’ll never be her

10 years of chasing
A delusion I dreamt up myself
One you didn’t share
Because I’ll never be the one

I know the answer now
It’s simple yet it’s cruel
It’s realizing im not her
It’s me you cannot love

Your eyes follow her the minute she enters the room
I practiced a thousand times to have you turn my way
Why does your heart come so easy to her?
When it’s like grabbing at air to hold in my hands?

But I know the answer now
It’s simple yet it’s cruel
I’m not her
I’m me and that’s ok but that’s means I won’t have you

Maybe I’ll tell you one day
But seeing her dress and that look you have on your face
It’s better you didn’t know
These feelings they’ll stay with me
Where they have been and always will be

I know the answer now
It’s simple yet it’s cruel
I’m not her
No, I’ll never be her

To you I'm a ghost
a body of empty comfort
while you seek for her

you're gazing at a reflection in water
ruined with just a touch
always looking for something
you can only experience in glimpses
slipping through your fingers

I'm the candle that burns the smoke you wish to cherish
the wick that you light constantly for ephemeral smoke
a wisp the comforts your heart for seconds at a time
my love a fire repeatedly stoked and extinguished
for your selfish seconds of relief

you're looking through me
when you look into my eyes
a vehicle to transport you her
you're looking in the past
at a different time

In our embrace,
we're both searching for the one thing we'll never get
the warmth of the other

There's no us, it's only you and her.

It's because I'm not her
It's because she's the one and I'm just me
Even if I switched places with her
We would just be friends
It hurts because I’m not her

I’m the one who chases
Whose hand reaches out to remain empty
She’s the lead in your story
The truth is you never left me
I was never a contender
I’m the side character in your backstory
In the background as the sidekick

I could see it in your eyes
No matter how hard I tried
I’m just not her
Yet I see your easy smile
That utter joy in your face
How could I?
How could I want to ruin your love?
Even if I wanted to hate her I couldn’t
Because I could see it
I know you so well I can understand
I can’t be her
I’ll never be her
And you’ll never be mine

WHy?
I've been screaming it in your face
End me before I do the same to you
If I had met you before
Would we still end up this way?
Before I went down this path
I could have turned around into your arms
Yet one of us must meet the cold embrace of death
by the point of the knife that each of us directs at the other
chaste kisses we share with knives digging into our hearts
we share a love
we share a hate
but our goals clash and so do our lives
we both will lose
but only one loses their life

Why did you hesitate?
If you give me an inch I'll take all that you love
End me swiftly and let me feel your love one last time
tender words we whisper in secret
glances we take when no one is looking
even our dances of death together is an act of love
a love doomed is better than none at all
our time was meant to be short
we can't come out together
your hands shake as your sword digs deeper into my skin
Don't you dare pull back



don't cry
if you can't bear to blacken your heart
I'll do it for you
After all I can't let my darkness touch your light
Just one tug inwards and I can finally rest in your arms

Let's meet again in another life
I'll give you my heart without the ugliness of the world clouding my intentions
I'll live for you
my hands won't ****
We'll embrace until our hair turns silver
In every life after that one we'll be together
just not this one

WHy?
I've been screaming it in your face
End me before I do the same to you
If I had met you before
Would we still end up this way?
Before I went down this path
I could have turned around into your arms
Yet one of us must meet the cold embrace of death
by the point of the knife that each of us directs at the other
chaste kisses we share with knives digging into our hearts
we share a love
we share a hate
but our goals clash and so do our lives
we both will lose
but only one loses their life

Why did you hesitate?
If you give me an inch I'll take all that you love
End me swiftly and let me feel your love one last time
tender words we whisper in secret
glances we take when no one is looking
even our dances of death together is an act of love
a love doomed is better than none at all
our time was meant to be short
we can't come out together
your hands shake as your sword digs deeper into my skin
Don't you dare pull back



don't cry
if you can't bear to blacken your heart
I'll do it for you
Afterall I can't let my darkness touch your light
Just one tug inwards and I can finally rest in your arms

Let's meet again in another life
I'll give you my heart without the ugliness of the world clouding my intentions
I'll live for you
my hands won't ****
We'll embrace until our hair turns silver
In every life after that one we'll be together
just not this one

Do you know what's most heart breaking about growing up?
When the sand castles built in your youth are
eroded by the waves of time
When the card tower built on childish whimsical fantasy
tumbles down when dealt the hand of reality
Then the world turns from the magical into the mundane

The wonder is lost quickly as the transient towers of naivety break
What else can it do but break?
It's foundations were steeled by a faith in an illusion so strong it became concrete
When the faith is challenged and it is lost, the illusion becomes realized and the tower falls

Just like the sunset of yesterday, the miracle of adolescence becomes a beautiful memory
Lost quickly to the tides of time and is gifted just once
Never to be experienced again but whose evanescent beauty is indelibly burned into the heart
A reverie once simply just life

This road of life is one way
The only direction is forwards
We're limited to looking back through the glass of the present
Do you now what's most heartbreaking about growing up?
It's when you've realized what you've lost
when you've already lost it

I know a love
she isn't sweet
she's the nectar of a flower
whose thorns cut into my lips
when suckling her saccharine syrup
tainted with the metallic bitter zing
of my dripping blood

this is only normal she whispers in my ear
such tenderness
this is love
this is care

I've taken her for my own so
I must pay the sanguine price
How nice!
my battered lips stretch into a bloodied smile
for red is the color of love
it is only natural to bleed for love

I know a love
she isn't sweet
but she is mine

Today's buried under the promise of tomorrow
tomorrow's yesterday adrift in delusions
of a future in vain from the inaction of today
the future of today cheated by the yearning of the subsequent
the past a lesson forgotten today yet relived tomorrow
Goodbye yesterday's tomorrow, it's time to lose the present to the future and the future to a present endlessly hallucinating
the progress of another day another time

Run, run little birdy
go as far as you can
faster, hurry!

The farther the better
the problems you've left behind
you can't handle the pressure

The fake sun you seek
is only a mirage
an easy way out from the problems you've wreaked

You should know you're meant to fly
Yet why
why can't you understand it was you sigh
who took yourself from the sky.

In our love story
The world was pink
your embrace was my home
quiet nights spent under sheets
each breath with you in mind

The world was beautiful
Cherry blossoms bloomed to the music of our love
thoughts of you followed by bright smiles
pleasure that broke through dawn's light

The world was ours
eyes that only saw each other, lips that only knew us
intertwined in soul in body, with each touch our souls were one
I love you-

The end.
Our love story, it's just a story
Stories end, lives continue
No matter how beautiful
when I wake up we're only strangers.

Look I know my own shortcomings very well.
I procrastinate.
I’m lazy.
I have no ambitions.
But there comes a time when you should look inside yourself and look at your own flaws.
I am not your mirror.
Something to yell at because you see yourself and what you could have been.
I have my own demons and flaws that I acknowledge.
It’s time you acknowledge yours.

I don’t understand what makes it so hard for you to understand
That taking someone’s flaws and mocking them with it
Constantly pulling out their weaknesses again and again
Day after day and then comparing them to others
Is not a way to motivate someone
To reach the heights you dreamt them to soar
No what you’re doing is asking a chained and caged bird to fly high
What height?
How high?
To a sky I can’t see?
Because I’m stuck in the darkness of my own self hate, self pity

Guilt is not your weapon to wield
My wounds are not your higher purpose
You do not seek to heal
You say it’s for my own good
But why do you say I used to be so much better than then
Yet they were able to reach such heights?
Is this some kind of cruel punishment that I deserve?
Is it not your own face you’re trying to save?
While stepping on my pride, my being, my person?

I’m trying to be a better person
Next to you
I’m lesser than
I’m just no one.

The string that tied us was always heavy
Hung from it was silver and gold
I watched you hug them tight like they were your treasure
But did you look at the one on the other side of that string?
I let you keep it, not sparing me a glance
And I watched you stretch that string
Until it broke
I had chosen you
But you had chosen silver and gold
So I pretended
Pretended we were still tied
The only thing that kept me in this pretense
Was the blood we both shared
Now that they've flown away
far from this misery and fakery I called marriage
It's time I step away
My heart has scattered enough gold
There's nothing holding me back.

I live in wondrous worlds but none my own.
Reality is the nightmare from which I awake.
The lives I choose to live are but a fantasy.
Dreams are fleeting; my world is absolute.
Time stops in the make-believe.
It can only tick without end, for
that is life.

They say to find yourself
I found myself lost
I know I can leave
I keep myself here at a cost

Self worth
it decreases with my inaction
but I find that inertia keeps me complacent
when I am lost I can hide from my troubles
my fears not existent

You see I'm not lost in position temporally or spatially
I'm lost in my ways
I know who I am
Just not what I want to be

I have a road but I don't want to pick a direction
yet the more I wait
the bumpier and uglier the road gets
what if it's gone one day?

Then...

Then I'll truly be lost.

I live in between the wisps of dreams and echoes of stories
I am man
I am woman
I am thing

I live in countries, planets, solar systems, universes, realms and times
I fly on mounts of wondrous creatures
I fight wars of bloodshed wielding scheme, sword, and sentence
I fall in love

Yet I die with "The End"
because the life I live it's not my own
It's a collection of words, it's a collection of images
It's fiction

When "The End" is here, I am me
And my problems become mine
Reality must be acknowledged
But here as me is the last thing I want to be

I knew you loved her
Your eyes sang with gold and mouth full of tenderness
You were happy

I was the flower that was easily admired
but quick to rot
easy to throw away and forget

Did you ever realize?
You cut me from my roots
placed me in a vase and left

I had to watch you leave with a smile
She was a flower that bloomed under the light of your smile
I hope you don't pluck her buds as you did mine

I'm no longer a flower.

this isn't love
this isn't love
this isn't love

What you have is a problem
your insecurities I don't want them on my shoulder
they're not mine to carry

you say you don't compare
you're just giving me a model to follow
but I can't be everything you've dreamed of

this isn't care
this isn't care
this isn't care

You say that it's all for me, what about my feelings?
every day is another problem with me
another complaint

my face
my body
my life

is there anything else you'd like to complain about?
Whatever do I have left for you to nitpick at?

What you want isn't me but your ideals
I'm sorry
I can't accept this kind of love, it's selfish and corrupt.

this isn't love
this isn't love
this isn't love.

Laying there eyes glazed unfocused,
I wonder
What do you see?
Do memories flash across your eyes?
Memories of your hometown.
when you were younger
Your family some who have passed and few who are still living
The heat and humidity of your hometown ruled under a regime you fought against passionately yet futilely
The trek through the ocean to freedom, to the free world with your two younger sons
Or do you see them now grown up?
Your sons and daughters now parents
Their children now adults
They bustle around you busy as you lay still
chest heaving, body tired, breath light
phones ring
nurses come past
an anticipation pungent in the air
a sadness pervades the house
love fills the surroundings
as cries slice through the air
your family watches you and
you are no longer looking back.

I have never truly understood the finality of Goodbye.
I expect hello to follow
even though goodbye was the end
we were parting
I had it attached with expectation
even though we are parting we will meet again

From when I was a child, I was told to say goodbye to my grandparents whenever I left the house
Grandpa liked it that way
He liked to know when we were leaving

I knew exactly when he was leaving
Grandpa liked goodbye's
So this time when it was his turn I would know
Right until the last moment
When the breath left his weary lungs
and his eyes were gently guided closed for the last time

That was goodbye.
This was his end.
Our last goodbye for a long time.

On the way home from class,
I slowed my rushed pace and
paused.

The usual rustle of leaves
bite of the brittle air
sting of sharp wind
was replaced with
a strange stillness

Like frozen time,
still and quiet,
wind absent,
cool air that comforted

I stared at the vibrant leaves
they were like bright embers
before ash
the spark of dazzling vivacity
before the end

I found peace
in the transience of
beauty
age
life
for just a moment
I was living for the moment
not for the past
not for the future

A moment I owned
that walk on a fall day.

I was a fool to think
that I had found it
when I was already on paved path
set right in front of me
and all I did was follow it

Now I am lost
when all this time
I thought I was found
I traveled farther into the maze

What a fool.

Your beauty woke me up
not the one on your face
but your love
your unbelievably
beautiful heart

How could love be so full?
Why do you love me?
Can I love you back?
Wait for me!

                                                     too. late.


                                                         ­                          When my eyes opened
                                                          ­                                           yours closed
                                                          ­                                your heart stopped
                                                         ­                                         At it's last beat
Thump
                                   Thump  
                                                         ­             Thump
                                              ­                                                       I am awake.

I grab a rock
I carry the rock
I place the rock

to remind myself
that even stone breaks
because you were my rock

and now you're in pieces
I'll put you back together
even if you don't want me to

Because I was the one
who broke you
I'll give you my life

In return
when I piece you back together
grant me this wish

and forget me

I'm so tired.
From all this weight that you put on me
It's weightless
Countless of them push me down
They become heavy

In my head
I thought that I was strong
Standing tall in triumph

but all along
I was wrong

Because before the weight even got heavy

I turned my head
let my knees bend
and bowed in defeat

What standing strong?

Is my dream your dream?
Or is it the dream I dream?
But I have no dream to dream
Because the thing I dream is not a dream
Could this dream be a night mare?
Because I have no dream?
A not dream is only a nightmare
My nightmare is not my dream
But my nightmare isn't your dream
My dream is not that nightmare
What is my dream?

I am lost.
I'm not trying to find myself,
because I'm too scared of seeing a clone.
I don't want to be the same.
Yet, my path is one so identical to another
it's undeniable.

Same color
Same end
Same road
Same one

So I choose to be lose because I'm not going to be finding that path
I'm going to be making it
Because being lost is the only way I'm going to be found

I use many words to build a curtain
My soft wall

You think talent
What I show you is just an illusion
A show within a show

Piece by piece
You'll never know the line between truth and fiction
A fantasy is much more colorful than reality

I use many words to build a curtain
Because a curtain is all I have

You are handicapped.
Your heart, it's lacking.
with that hole in your heart
you took your daughter's sight.
you took her heart.
Trapping it in your embrace.
Letting your husband sink into a void.
Where he can no longer distinguish between
the night and the light.
He becomes empty just like you and
soon?
Soon you'll all be like the night
a place where stars were meant to outshine.

Slender fingers the played with soul
Black                                 black   black
            White      White
Tender lips bare a voice bathing my heart
staining it with it's sound
Singing a song that beats the rhythm of my heart
Thump.

                 Thump.

                                  Thump.
With every strum possessed by your sound
my fingers bleed, a pain registers in the heart.
Do you hear that?
Do you heart that? Our music. Our harmony. Our souls.
My sound, my soul, my spirit they're yours.
Why is our music so silent?

                                      you're not mine.

I miss the easier time,
when life was blithe,
when being guarded and held was okay,
when responsibility wasn't so heavy a burden,
when adulthood was a distant future seen at night in sweet dreams,

Then I woke up,
I grew up,
These dreams became a reality, adulthood a few years away,,
Responsibility my shackle for freedom,
a little bird pushed out, still learning to fly,
When life became based on the consequence of action and second chances too few.
I miss the easier time.

And they stayed dreams
continued to be nothing
nothing but a wish
full of thinking
with no result of doing.

Back to a much simpler time
When the past has passed
past: the present is a future you had only
heard about
past: The future decided on your very back
go back go back go back
You are small you are free
Fly back
far from the future that you seek

Little girl! Little girl!
Where are you?
Little girl! Little girl!
Come back!
Little girl! Little girl!
Please.



Please. I-


I need you.
I know I left you.
But I need you back.

Once upon a time we were happy,
Maybe I was foolish then to think we were happy,
I was young and still naive.
I would never know the problems that would manifest with age
With every year that passes,
another piece chips away.
Sometimes, I'm fooled.
You scoff, but I thought we were happy.
I forgot our problems, I was blind to see the crack.
I turned away from the empty space.
You can't deny that, because you chose to ignore them.
Every year that went by,
every kiss, every hug, every conversation
We lied to ourselves.
We thought that we were happy,
we thought-
We didn't pay attention to
Our problems, our lies, our secrets, our misery.
Why do we lie?
When this time we were happy becomes a once upon a time,
can we say that it was happiness?
The heart behind the shell of our bodies
It bled.
It became so void that we couldn't see.
Now here we are you and me,
smiling like we shouldn't be.

Is there is reason you must be so manipulative,
deceptive,
backstabbing,
conniving?
Why are your cliques like gangs?
Gangs that cut down dissenters with words as lethal as a bullet.
I want no part of you.
But I swore to this lifestyle too long ago.
Young, naive and too enamored by its mirage.
Bound, stuck, shackled.
Pressured by cowardice.
I stay.
Too unsure of myself.
Too scared to look up.
My eyes ignore and stare at the floor.
Because I have two choices and the one
I choose is the one to survive.
Survive your toxic poison.
I become the person I loathe, hate.
I gossip, backstab, sneer, snicker.
The antidote to you, I'm too frightened to grasp.
Held deep within my pocket, it burns a hole.
The same hole I let it fall through.
I let you taint me .
I poisoned myself.

Yes.
I lied.
Only because I know.
Would you accept the truth?
No.

Yes.
It's bad.
Because only I know.
Would you forgive me?
No.

Because I know.
Because I hurt.
You are ignorant.
You are pain-free.

Don't make me tell you.
I'll just lie again,

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