i'll love you till you call the cops on me.
-lorde, writer in the dark

the window open
the crickets chirp
my city is asleep
but here i am enjoying my own company
alone with my thoughts
listening attentively to silence

after this day he starts to disappear again
where minute by minute
day by day
he goes
back into his spot in the sky
where he lets me bask in his warmth

but he's greedy
not letting me fully encapsulate
the joy and delight he provides
by taking away a minute of his light
each day

hopefully he doesn't hide behind the clouds
on june 23
otherwise this poem is a waste
if one were to even call this a poem

Pervasive yet persuasive,
As I inhale the cigarette smoke,
Ready to abandon my principles, I—
“Turn towards the door; party’s over.”
Yellow cabs captured in my sepia/****** lens;

Gritting my teeth, blood rushes to my jaw.
It always happens, and I announce that I’m drunk.
Reassure me; tell me I’m not a nuisance.
Let me hold your hand, please.

April in Dublin signifies not only a time and place, yet a feeling. A feeling of the brisk morning air, woven into the intricacy of light, sparse rainfall; enough to coat the blooming leaves on Ailesbury Road in droplets of dew. Tiny puddles form in between the cracks of the ancient cobblestone road, drowning the lush moss – basil in colour – that once grew in its place. As dawn makes her presence, the radiant sunlight peeks through the branches of the Sycamore trees, originally sheltering the lane from the indecisiveness of Irish weather. The earthy scent of petrichor emanates from St. Stephen’s Green, while the putrid scent of damp cigarette stubs race to reach the nostrils first. Petals of blush cherry blossoms gracefully fall to the asphalt path, with some caressing tender skin with its velvet touch. In the afternoon, St. Patrick’s Cathedral echoes in Church Latin, whilst the cars pass – with their bellowing engines – on The Coombe, pacifying the hum of pedestrian chatter that cohabitate simultaneously. As cloudy skies fade to a blue dusk, the lights jig the River Liffey; its yellow reflection moving with the waves. Crowds drunkenly skip along the quay, singing old Celtic hymns off key, while also digesting the sweet, caramelized, mild bitterness of Guinness – the finest of Irish stout beer. At the end of the day, the night retires to her slumber, anticipating newer ordinary, yet sensational experiences that May will bring along.

the record spins
playing its gentle crackle
reflecting the light of the warm afternoon sun
oh how it glistens.
it soothes me.

A resonant gratitude streams through my veins,
Consecrated to my middle school heroines, deflecting
The whispers of shame.
But they taught me that I do not have the luxury of shame;
I have a voice, and I must amplify it––that’s what my mother said.

Elles m’ont protégée, blossoming my oneness.
I am here now because of them, I harness their divine feminine
Strength.

Standing on the bones of my aunties, their anguish travels up,
Their histories following suit.
Beneath my feet, to my knuckles; charging my inner being
My spine is rigid, fortified with the duty––
To liberate, to reform, and to love.
“But my love,” she tells me earnestly, “this love, has been assumed,
Taken for granted, blended into the background of the White man’s portrait.”

My dun skin lives in the ambiguity of praise and prejudice,
And my sisters are dead. Exploited, first––then dead.
As were my mother’s grandmothers, when the Britons drew the line.
The assembly line, however, was an American invention––
Where the American Dream came to fruition. Commodified neatly,
‘Cheaply’ produced, and easy to swallow: fine [Black*] American craftmanship!

Her tomb
Stone, will be mined by her brothers.
He is unearthing the buried history, but forced to push coal into the fire,
Cremating the legacies of his own kin.

“So what are you going to say at my funeral now that you’ve killed me?”
Her lasts words, found amongst the ashes.

In this married life—you and I,
I water the plants while you still slumber.
And when I return, your touch is a warm contrast to the cool linen,
Like hot sand beneath my feet as the water drips down towards my ankles.
In this married life—you and I,
I am pleasantly silent, taking it all in,
That I get to lie against this headboard,
In your old t-shirt and my GA shorts,
Admiring your sun-kissed skin.
Certainly I am disillusioned, but I choose to be.
Because finally, there’s a boy in my bed!
The same twenty-one year old I met in the university courtyard,
Except now he’s preoccupied with stools for our breakfast bar.

Sometimes I avoid my own reflection;
How ironic for someone so vain?
This disillusioned caricature of me
Lives a life so removed from myself—
Thriving across the pond, In heteronormative fantasies,
Knowing that he too deserves love.
I know I deserve this love too,
But I hide from the mirror.
“To be free is to be handsome.”

“Dear Uncle David, I want to thank you again, and Wallis, for having me at your home in the Bois de Boulogne. It’s a rare thing that fate should allow a former king and a king-in-waiting to meet. To tell the truth, it opened my eyes to a few things. To the nature of kingship… the nature of love… and all the difficulties that go both… I’m sure you know the family would have preferred me not to visit you. Afraid, perhaps, I might recognize myself in you, sympathize with you. Well, let me confess that I do recognize myself in you. Your progressiveness and flair. Your individuality and imagination. What a king you would have made in a kinder world. What a king we were denied. It makes me so sad to see you living in exile, when all you did was take a stand for principle, and love one woman completely. You were cruelly denied your right to reign alongside the woman that you wanted by your side. But I give you my word I will not be denied what you have been denied.  The Crown is not a static thing resting on one head. It is moving. Alive. Divine. The changing face of changing times. And if, God willing, it has been ordained that I should wear it… then I shall do so on my own terms… and hopefully, make you proud.” - Prince Charles

don’t
         take
                 it    
                    away
                             from
                                     me
                                          from                ­                          
                                      ­            us
                                                     don’t                                                
                                                              ta­ke
                                                                ­    the                                                  
       ­                              love
that                                              
       we
            both                                
                   desire
                              and
                        ­             cherish.
the
                                      love
                     ­                          that
                                                      we
       ­           l
                      o
                         n
                            g  
f
o
  r

Cashmere of the Earth,
You carpet the ground;
Invasive in nature,
Creeping where you shan't be,
Uninvited;

Cashmere of the Earth,
What secrets do you keep from me?
For your fickle roots of deception cling onto the fruitful bark,
Only to be blown away when the clouds rage;
And the truths of your Eden call my name;

O, Cashmere of the Earth,
Lush is the lust of your soft touch;
For you are a blooming forest,
In which the fibres of your being blossom amidst the lures of this world;
Your growing greens grasp the barren ground,
The ground that cannot nurture you any longer;

Cashmere of the Earth,
You cushion the rocks with tenderness;
But you must clutch onto them harder!
Else the waves will erase the memory of your velvet embrace,
Leaving only the desolate stone;

Cashmere of the Earth,
Where are you to creep now?
The Tree will not sustain you any more,
For you are nothing but a mere illusion;
An ornate facade, soon to fade away

Kept under your bed is a rope of dried twigs,
Elderflower and lemongrass,
Exudes from the chipping paint.
Go, now;
Away from those who remember you leaning upon the neighbourhood postbox,
Next time, I’ll have younger skin.

I’ve let my finger nails grow,
A direct consequence of my unconscious burdens;
Does the weatherman know, Whether
the solstice will reign in full glory,
Or do I ponder this with my own leather-tanned skin, and unshaven neck,
If my peeling shoulders will feel the curt embrace of an August rainfall.

Gnosticism is my current question
Rummaging through the fabric of time
Every rip leads me to my childhood bedroom
Empty toy boxes toppled over, uniformly
Newborn cries painted onto this plane

Christian doctrines and hyper-pop
Radical leftists holding onto rosaries
At last, unity? Or performance?
Time, time, time—fleeting as always
Even as I contemplate these green crates
Stacked atop the black ones

one sip turns into two drinks
two drinks too many
words start spilling out of your mouth
words of hatred
words of insecurity
words of humiliation
words of mockery
if only that drink had spilled instead.

all of my emotions, all of them – heartbreak, ecstasy, grief, love – just punched me in the gut. and now i am nauseous. nauseous over reading a book, but in a good way, as weird as that may sound.
–––
reading about love is a hard thing to do when you've not experienced it yet. but i'm holding on to optimism; hoping that i don't have a boring rom com sorta love, but one that makes me want to rip my hair out one day, then bask in its splendor the next. gosh i just want it to be real. maybe that's why i feel this way.
because it's real.

my adolescence was meant to be viewed through
orange tones and heavily grained film

the sweetness of life
lies beneath the hard crust of the heart,
and stale mind.
only then, will you find
the sugar running through your veins.

on a chilly spring evening,
the ethereal voices sang.
above st. paul's,
the moon overhangs.

the tube passes by,
"mind the gap," he said.
eight-am rush,
the iconic blue and red.

it's quiet and serene,
the moss-covered graves.
yet by the chapel,
the union jack waves.

london brings me joy,
like no other city.
the next time i visit,
i wish it isn’t nippy!

we can sit on the bonnet of the car
wearing our muddy converse
blasting indie rock through the radio
on a pleasant summer evening
watching the willow tree hanging upon the streams of water
while you dig for the last french fry from the paper bag
and while i gaze at your sheer beauty

but for now it's a figment of my imagination
hoping maybe
you dream of this
too

Somethings I’m going to keep to myself
Like my secret Instagram crush

Grass strands braided into your blonde hair;
Overtures of a silent sunrise emanate from your pores.
Perhaps this is us? Where—
Heathens roam Victorian streets in
Elegiac fashion.
Rivers and
Streams form at the corners of my eyes now.

dear person twenty thousand feet below me,
i’m sorry i couldn’t be your shooting star tonight.
i’m sorry i couldn’t fulfill your wish to
leave;
your wish to wander.
but i’m hoping that you know,
i’m listening.
and i could feel your presence;
i could feel your urge
to be on the same flight as me
so that at least you could be somewhere
other than the four walls that entrap you.

it seems like we’re the only ones awake right now
while your bedroom lamp glimmers twenty thousand feet below me
and while i look out of the plane’s window, looking at your lamp glimmering twenty thousand feet above you.

but don’t worry,
i’ll be here, listening.

note to self
don't ever let someone 'fix' my poems
for i'm afraid they'll take away the emotion
from my handpicked words
words that reflect who i am
it may seem like i'm not open to criticism
but they don't feel the same way i do

Does he know he’s a poet?
The oceanic, the mystic,
The boy who sees his own reflection in his eyelids;
He sings Esther’s song on his way up the mountain.
With granite on his back,
And marble in his pockets,
He carries his alms for the Oracle Sisters;
Does he know the crevices of his brain are indeed rivers?
Replenishing his worn soul with rubies.
The ocean boy,
Disillusioned by his youth,
And with Crawfish swimming between his ankles,
Must he sojourn alone, in this desolate plane?
Or will he think of new landscapes, with a new Sun, new water, and a new friend?

oceanic feeling echoing throughout my house
while tripping over my plaid pajama pants
and the soles of my feet rejuvenated by the hot concrete

Green fingers roll down the hills
Embalmed with moss beneath the fingernails
Scratch marks on the clay path—where his brother lays to rest
Opal blues and hailstones, the colour of his tie, sitting
Loosely around his tanned neck and unshaven collar

Caro mio ben, Credimi almen.

He sips his cup with an assertion of an immortal wedding
Where cane sugar and hydrangeas line his bathtub
With his brown feet upon quartz tiles, he washes the salt that lines
His spine, his perspired forearms are bronzed and leathery
He sobs the Roman chant under the fountain

Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. Amen.

So Long, Cowboy
Red earth painted on your sun-kissed face
Marked the shadow of a veil
And the rim of your Stetson worn out

Was I really that mean to you?
To leave you in the dust
So that my sneakers feel the dry embrace of cracked pavement?

You walked to me barefoot at sundown
The fire outlining the silhouette of your ribs
In The Garden of Saint Paul’s Hospital

Your thin bones
Toothy smile
Fixed gaze

I’ll send you a postcard
You send me your love