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

I entrusted you with a tiny flame
to grow and to protect.
Together we grew it into a bigger one
You held it for me
So that one day I'd take
it back.
Why'd you douse it?
When it was still growing?
When I trusted you with something so important?
To me.
You ended what I believed in,
because you wanted something bigger.
I thought you'd be different.
But like every other shelter of
that little flame,
you failed.
Because you saw something more
magnificent.
You lost sight
of the beauty that you held in
your hands.
So you let
the rain fall through,
your crumbling will
and let it drip on the
growing flame.
So don't ask me for
another.
My match can't light another.

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

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 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?

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

I hate you.
You push me around.
You mock me.
You say that it's only for my benefit.
Do I look alright to you?

You insult me.
To push me forward,
thinking I'll do just what you're asking for.
You say you love me.
Does love feel like this?

Does love feel, as if every single day.
I'm the one feeling guilty.
I'm the one who gets hurt.
I'm the one who has to keep trudging along,
on the sharp glass of your broken dream.

Must I walk the same ****** path that,
you so kindly laid out?
I don't care?
I keep pushing these feelings down.
Smiling, joking acting like it's normal.

You think you know me.
Do you know what I feel?
You feed me your pointy lies.
I can feel them, scratching my insides.

I bleed and slowly I unravel.

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.

Sitting there looking at that window,
I wonder.
What do you see?
The trees of a jungle, vines hanging down.
A peaceful green sanctuary.
Exotic birds, chirping and flying through the air
in a whirlwind of panic.
The roar of an airplane passing overhead.
Screams cutting through the air like a knife.
The warm metal held tightly on your hands, fingers on
the trigger.
Looking down, at the jungle floor, you don't
even flinch.
The jungle floor, drenched in blood and the
bodes of the fallen.
Death, its stench wafted in your nose.
The image fades away,
to a bright sunny morning.
The tree branches swaying with
the soft breeze.
Your gaze shifts to the two backpacks.
Long black hair swinging back and forth.
Muted laughter ringing into
your silence.
Your grandchildren,
walking off to school.

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

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

I write to give a voice to the mute, the silent, the unable.
I write to paint the leaves on a long forgotten tree.
I write to remember all that has passed.
I write for those who can’t
I write for people, with people, to people, and at people
I write for a dream, to create and mold that dream
I write to argue with the known and to question the unknown
I write to give value to things that have been cast aside
I write for the joy, and the bliss
I write for the sadness, and the pain
I write the truth
I write the lies
I write for the perpetual and the transient.
I write, I read, I write, I speak, I write
The power my words hold, the beauty my words hold,
They empower and brighten this world.
They are the weapons I hold on my palette.
I wield them to leave an imprint on a white canvas,
A canvas, yet to be infested with my candor,
This world of taint
This world that my words, make drift away
Gone is the stress, strife, and worry
replaced by a fantasy, a story, a luxury
something reality can’t get a grasp on,
something that takes it all away.
My word is art.
My word is life.
My word can.
That is why I write.

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'm a lamb dressed in a wolf's skin.
I didn't **** this wolf, I had no power to do such.
I was just there at the right time and at the right place.
I picked up the dead carcass and stripped it of its skin.
Leaving the bones and meat for something else
to find.

I wore this skin and headed to the wolves.
I was greeted and licked.
I threw at them lies,
that were accepted without suspicion.
I ran with the pack.

I made friends.
Friends who could only see my cloak of lies,
I had spun it too beautifully
That it out shined myself,
and soon I was living a lie.

My sheep parents, liked my
clever use of the wolf skin.
They asked me to run with the wolves and eat with them.
I would no longer be prey
I nodded my head.

They too were fooled by the cloak.
My hooves and frail limbs were too frail to run
such distances.
My teeth too blunt to piece the skin of another
animal.
Despite this I could have tried.

I could've tried to build up the endurance,
or sharpen my teeth.
I was living the lie I had spun.
I was lost in my lies.
My cloak had become a light that blinded me

But that blinding light became a beacon to others.
My cloak was admired.
I stood there in my wolf's skin,
pretending to smile.
That I was really living this way.

That I could really run with the wolves,
That I could really eat like the wolves,
That I was one of the pack,
That I was a wolf.
I was all but.

The sheep nagged at me.
They wanted to be the devil
that would raise me, the angel.
Instead they dragged me down,
with the duty that they piled on a back still growing,
and adding more
each time a new octave reached.

So as the wolves ran from the shaking earth
beneath our feet.
I stayed, sitting on the crumbling earth.
The sheep sat with me blindly.
Believing my cloak, they never saw me
They sat there as the crumbling earth dropped
them down into the darkness.

The black pit of my mind,
where no light could shine anymore,
where they fell until they hit
the bottom.
There, I sat waiting for them,
in the wolf skin that I ripped.

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

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

My arms flail around, my legs kick as I try,
Try to reach the surface.
As I try to get out.
I claw at the water,
doing anything I can to
propel myself out of the water.
You stand there.
Oblivious to the water,
you don't see it.
"Stop acting! It's nothing!"
My tears join the substance around me.
You don't see them either.
Can't you see it?
My voice squeaks.
You can't hear the sound of my cries.
My vocal chords muffled by water.
I sink further and further in.
You stand on the land, shaking your head,
disappointed.
Weak and tired, I stop wasting my energy.
My arms shake, trying to reach out to you.
You offer no assistance, thinking that I can just
do it myself, that I just want attention.
Instead the cold hands of darkness close my eyes,
and pull me further into its arms.
How do I get out now?

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.

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

.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­This.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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,

Hello,
I'm behind you now,
we used to be hand-in-hand.
I've been listening to your stories
but now they're getting muter

You're growing up
I'm still the same
You're looking for the future
I'm stuck in the past
You're running forward
I'm dragging myself

Your figure is disappearing,
You left me behind.
I can't see you now.
Silence.
Good Bye.

I'm scared
I'm a mess.
Can you help me? Hello?
Please! Anyone!
I-I-I can't! say no.
My throat is raw
My knuckles red
My heartbeat racing
I scream
HELP! HELP!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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 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.

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.

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.