After all this time, I have learnt to write in the dark. See, this jukebox plays every night and it wouldn’t shut up no matter the pounds I fed. Such is the night of a writer; it goes on shuffle and repeat. And sometimes I hear your voice. Most times, it sounded like folding a picture of us and keeping it in the pockets of a stranger’s jeans, probably ending up tumbled and dried. I ask myself if it could have been a painted canvas. It’s just the thought of you that haunts me at night. If you ever do heart to heart talks, let’s talk about haunted houses. Some people get out of it; some don’t; some re-enter just for the thrill of it. I might be all three and I might not be the most played song in your playlist. I have tried several times to write about you, but none of them sounded right when I read them out loud. Some may write what they believe and some may write to believe; I might or might not be both. If I survived writing this prose, how could I be sure if it was your voice haunting me or if you were just a house I sought refuge in? The Northern Lights stays in the Aurora Zone; no one said that they’d ever Go West. Your skin on mine was like a child holding on to candy, I never wanted to let you go. When I wake, I only wonder if you have ever missed me at 3a.m.. I could make a mixtape titled: I heard you in these songs. But you were one who basked in the light. So I guess it’s safe to say that what was written in the dark stays in the dark.

Dark were your
yesteryears, so
some corners of your warm
heart stay tainted still

I want to
rip the
black from your inner-
most

no matter how you

might bleed, curl it up
and throw it into the

abyss where the remains
of other pain-dragons slain

remain.

in all the photos
he was a young man -
my father

handsome and smiling
a useful smile

i tried to find one from later
when he was a bystander
on my street -

older, unsmiling, obsolete
- there were none

i wish i had known
how he felt

now that i do.

r ~ 11/25/14

i was tired,
i was chained,
i was hopeless
and You sang to me,
"you don't have
to carry the world
on your shoulders.
you don't have to
wear those chains.
you can be free.
I already forgave you.
you are blameless."
and as You sang your
song, i realized that i
was the one who
put on myself the
chains i wore.
i didn't have to
carry them, i didn't
have to be a slave
to my chains, to my sin.
i tattooed myself
in shame and i hid my
face from You, not knowing
that all You ever wanted
was to wrap me in your
love and clothe me in grace.

a piece of cheese in the caged house
smells so fine walks in the mouse
when in hunger in the need of food
it stops not to ponder if it should.

a billion mouse and most think straight
not breaking head on cause and effect
live by the meals and between the breath
not balding in the fantasy if god is a myth.

happy they aren’t like a few other-wise
brooding contemplating what’s lying in disguise
but just being mouse salivating on the food
without morals or scruples of should not and should.

when hungry craves food some sleep and rest
never bothering if their life is a complete waste
if you think detachedly of the wise and the mouse
it would seem both cohabiting the same caged house.