Hope springs eternal for those who've never
endured a wet candle wick.
Extinguished,
never anguished.
Relentless is the faith that hopes to light it.
Reason is the trust that it never will.
Yours is dry and darkened
but never dampened.
Your hope springs eternal as you only need to find the light.

oscillatory specks
dancing together
resting on the back of
that which can't be grasped
as wave nor particle
resounding gravity.

their delicate balance
and ballet offers
a stage in which
all is seemingly revealed
in its presence--
but,
nothing is ever
as it seems
so at the very least:
it is the ultimate carrier
weaving together
elucidation & illumination
highlighting the seams of
simple magnificence
that is contained within itself

burn bright, burn fast
all we have,
never lasts.

so i live in fear
that in and of itself
paints a picture
of the folly that is
the human condition

you're always dispensable
and so are they.
at the very least,
time's incomprehensible
for everyone the same

trying to listen
to you when you say
dream a little dream
to have reason to pray

i do have a dream
but quickly it turns nightmare
coming apart at the seams
when i ask to you stay
- - -
i find this nightmare
gets in the way
when i dream a little dream
just as you say

all or nothing.
all or nothing.
someone please save me
from this all or nothing.
for ages i've teetered back and forth
between the extremes of empathy:
no one's right
no one's wrong
when you find yourself
traveling alone to
the edge of both
how do you come back
to sisters
living in the mind
to become the mountain
used to churn oceans
and save the world?

all or nothing
please teach me
the ways and walks of
my sister
delphine

filling my insides
with your
poisonous fruits.
your breath
like venom
& your words
like knives
- - -
it's been years
but your gaze
makes me shudder
with terror

afraid of
which facet
you will now
present

is this what it feels like
to feel like you are capable
of being human?

to wake up sweating & shivering
terrified & your lips quivering
about what may be
and what you may see

to love so deeply that
loss weighs heavily on
your mind

to pray so piously to
be the one for you
but failure keeps
you close by

is this what it feels like
to feel like you are capable
of being human--

'cause i think
i'd rather die.

stuck in decay
swaying with bottles
throttling myself on cheap cigarettes
regretting all my wasted time
- - -
maybe this time
will be
the time

they had reached out.
if only i knew
how much they were hurting.

i would've listened
i would've ~been there~
for them

if only they listened
if only they could see
how much the world has
been weighing down on me

when i lettered them:
-Hello-

clouds roll by
in a sunless sky-
they come and go
as i stare out my window

overcast days they stay
more often than not
atop of each other they lay
tangled in a knot

these days it's hard to see
any light of the sun or
silver-linings undone.
instead they paint
distinct varieties of grey
onto a backdrop tinted blue-

& where there's blue,
radiance can shine through
so clear, so sharp
and then i become
melodic like a harp
illumined by the rays
captured by my upturned gaze.
- - -
but these days are overcast
& the mornings drenched in haze
so i march forward
wondering how long it'll last
until we finally part ways

hold a cigarette up
to my oxblood lips
ash falling down
my diamond-studded wrist

I'm the siren
fire of your desire
live wire

tripping over in my
six inch stilettos
sipping on Prosecco
singing in staccato
all the words i wrote
&
all the songs
i want you to hear

all while the smell
of sweet Black & Milds
circles the strands of
pin up curls
that frame my
porcelain skin
and you caressing my neck
taking it all in.

somedays it seems very clear
that December is never dear
to me.

snow-kissed branches outreached
atop snow-kissed mounds of cold

crystals gently laying themselves
upon the silent earth outside.
a silence that can only be heard
when all shelter from the
falling flakes outside.
- - -
winter after winter
i always wish as it draws nearer

for a family warming their toes
around a crackling hearth adorned
with red stockings and an initial
of our names on each.

to be drinking mulled cider
and mull over musings of the
yesteryear together. all while
sneaking glances at the neatly
wrapped boxes underneath the
Christmas tree we wreathed a
day after Thanksgiving.
- - -
but my winters have no snow
and no Christmases worth
watching through a window.
my family is myself
and myself is sorrow.

if you met me twenty years
down the line
how would you know
it was me after all that time?

it's any different than
past suns and moons.
You won't hold me
when they visit me nightly.
Kiss me Good Night
& sing to me softly
even though they
make me live
and relive
so harshly.
- - -
To forget...
...I'm left holding
myself.
Just as I have...
...in past suns
& present moons

i want to be magical,
mysterious & kind
while also doing speedball
in the bathroom line

i found a little mosquito
upon my palm
and in complacence
it found refuge
suckling on my skin
getting blood-filled drink
within my view

i let it stay
much to my dismay but-
there's nowhere i've got to be
and at least here
i'm of some use
as i stare at him
getting his fill

i now was afraid
the longer it stayed
of the plagues that it carries
or even just the bite
& itch that follows

i then began to wonder
as time dauntingly drudged
what if he was killed
as a sanguine vessel-
will it then splatter
on the murderer's palm
that suddenly becomes
painted by mine
or
is he just a little mosquito
getting his fill
?

like the dark winter sun
you return every morning
to my sky that you
left with darkness
just a short while ago.
- - -
but with your light
you forget to bring
the warmness
yet still, i stay
outside.

morning strolls
along dew-kissed roads
to greet the rising sun.

slowly sipping hot coffee
meeting the misty dawn
& scattering seeds
for the song birds
to continue their melodies.

french blue, shear drapes
forest green dotted with colors
of the flowers.

napping in and under treeshade
where we too enjoy
fresh baked bread
& herby jam.
- - -
no beginnings
& no endings
just relentlessly
unpretending

a page turns
& the year passes
but with us remains
all of our compassions

so let us proceed
into the next chapter,
lest we be relieved
til we find
all that matters

is still here
long after it disappeared.
it has revealed itself to be
something both long gone
and not of this world-
extraterrestrial
mystical
and divine
- - -
the harder i try
to grasp its name
the faster i run
out of time

i cant remember
the last time i had
something worth
- - -
remembering

embrace your mind
- only if it's kind
embrace your body
- but don't forget to be healthy
both are not you, only vessels
used for the service of others
who are none other than you
and you yourself divine
for the one is many
and many is one
- - -
so don't forget
to be yourself
only if yourself is right.

strung all around you
but i don't feel
a part of it
- - -
warm marshmallows
blazing hearth not shallow
burnt sugar sienna stars
atop the evergreen
Christmas tree
- - -
the lights
sparkling & shimmering
is this all that winter brings?

like a plague you catch on
incurable at least
death at most
- - -
you poke and ****
all my shortcomings
until i'm full of holes
- - -
can you see through me
and all that i've become?

fervent for being their likeness
yet abhorrent of what they're like.
down a rabbit hole
filled with champagne
until I'm neither like them
nor like myself
- - -
just somewhere
in between
still no where
at all

perfect little prose
shaped like a window
into our wandering soles
shaped by the steady soul
& muddied by the turning road

We are plagued and poisoned
by the big G & C- Government run by Capitalism.

In a world where we fight the images of ourselves and each other to attain CEO-status and Land Rovers,
-to make something of ourselves worth being.
The closest we get? Becoming the land rovers yet stuck inside with the comforts of our baubles.

How can we fight to become when we don't know who to fight? What is it we must become?

A new ad sells a new vision of freedom and authenticity.
And we give them our money in exchange for
healing,
feeling,
and maybe eventually
being.

Just like the fad they create
We are left desperate
To find the answers
to questions they distract us from.
- - -
We mean well but
it doesn't resonate.

rolling the boulder
up toward the heavens
hoping one day
to become the stars
- - -
rolling the boulder
back onto us
instead, turning into
the dirt that begat us.

scrambling quickly around the ferris wheel while trying to look out and around at the passing summit only to see unlit streets and broken tambourines. riding the high not forged down to the valley between two foes. whatever comes to me now i show. put it on display with hopes that it grows into something beautiful. within me, it's little less than ephemeral. what goes up must come down must also go back up but it's sickening down to the pit of my stomach to find no altitude to make myself a home. wherever i go. wherever i go, i don't know what i want to know. some spark be it magic be it profound, dive in head first in water knee-deep. stream of consciousness not enchanting nor disenchanting like the babbling brook so often written about. a haunting presence to be read but like the divine cannot be known and only felt so too are these cards that i was dealt.  still- i feel nothing but sick by the thought of enduring on a breathless path removed from my senses. thickening of any sense or desire to progress into the darkness around, to find warmth aglow guiding the way. this way forward, walk towards me. one step forward and suddenly i can't see inward or outward, still i'm told- to carry onward. onward i must go but muddied conventions run quick and clear constitutions disappear.  there used to be places and spaces carved into stone in the jungles for those like me. sequestered from shame by not fitting a mold indistinctly so. not for a purpose, only for daft languishment fading back into the collective unseemingly so. biddings left unbalanced, dreams remain in the trenches dug by unequivocal noise surrounded by pomp and confusion. i take two bellows to fill my lungs emptied by a stampede consisting of one-only me. footsteps drumming to quicken my unbeating heart into action where none is wanted. companion of conviction resolute in distractions to pass through the present day into a land of unventured composition. befriending brutal honesty but only the brute reveals itself. masked and muted by blithe forgivings. destined for isolation made worse by longing for kinship that has long sailed away back across the atlantic into another realm colored by iridescence that no longer exists and very likely never did. there's no way for me to know though: which way these words came from or which way they'll go. so i stay entrenched; my feet wet in this unbroken stream of consciousness.

syphoning all upon intake
where it whirlpools within
to a swirl of wistful nostalgia
of misty morning strolls.
safe in a valley amongst
the tallest peaks
sheltered from the expanses
& shrouded by warm embrace
of surrounding mountain tops
through which dew collects
in channels and falls
by grand design
reflecting iridescence
refreshing essence
rue of none.
-  - -
and with just one exhale
the storm is unleashed.

maybe it's because
i changed my name
that i no longer
feel like a child.

i miss the way
you called me mija
though i'll never
admit it.

is it too late
to change it back?

games of telephone
made to selectively hear
those who call
but the message is distorted,
incomplete at best.
maybe it would be better
to put the voicemails to rest
someday soon,  
we can all read the texts.

sinners and saints
in the world we paint
behind our own biases
rationalizing all we see

an eye for an eye
while we choose to stay blind
never asking why
we **** everyone we find

what should be quiet contemplations
in search of the being
become arms and ammunition
circulating the venom you're hearing.

when do we recognize
the cosmic sin
instead of justifying
using human spin?

one life over
another you say
really makes you wonder
the comic reality at play

midsummer night
a dream turned awaken
still fast asleep
to what we've partaken

with bodies not yet buried
the sword stays within
death soon ends dying
but truth always wins.

heavy sighs return once more
darkness prevails at day
still clandestine it must stay
for if i faced an inquisition
i'd be revealed a jester-
the sighs mechanical
& the darkness ephemeral.

what ever may be,
the sighs, however soft
& the darkness, however long
are rooted so deeply
fear and anger alone
keeping me alive & feeling.

just like in the world
short poems
get read
more than the
longer ones
as we're all
searching for
perfect prose
concisely put
to remind us of
what it is
that we feel
- - -
how many blankets
will it take
to make me feel
warm?