maybe I’m lying
maybe I’m protecting myself
like you told me to

               I listen to our song
and I shed another
and another
like a tap that’s been left to stream

               my thoughts
they scream
they shout so loudly
they want to converse with yours

               and my hands
they desire yours
and my shoulder
wishes
oh so wishing fully
that your head
would rest on it once more,

               that we’d lie down
my arm around your neck

               that this would all be a nightmare
that you’d come to me
with a solution,

               that I’d meet you
perhaps another time
to tell me you still love me

you’re the light
radiating from a light bulb,
in a dark dust-filled room,
the molecules of air
become visible
when you look their way,

they appear as floating
clouds of pixels,
as though we’ve discovered
the software room
of existence
---
you look away
on the wall,
and I hope you realize
darling, I see none
but what your eyes
view, because light
still radiates from you
in this room,

you see a wall
cracked, grey, with Roman letters,
and I see
the Trevi fountain of Rome,
perhaps a little romance
would do us no harm  
---
you look my way,
with eyes so bright,
and my vision deteriorates
unable to see anything
like a car nearing
in the middle of the night,
and its head lights flashing,
blinded I become.

possibly looking into your eyes
blinds me,
and white all I see--
darkness.
---
I blink, once and again,
now,
I see vivid purple and blue
figures, faint
from looking your side for far too long.

(Ajna)

and perhaps,
this is how I love you,
everything I see
beams with happiness
as though the only Chakra
elevated is Anahata,
but when you leave,
my vision blurs,
and I never see the same again.

every time I speak
to your best friend

I pray to every Aztec God
and once holy Pharaohs
and stones worshiped
on this planet that
he tell me you are nearby,
or that this was all a big sad joke,
or a prank

or that you would come back
but no.

I want to feel your lips pressed against mine
as you moan my name
while I surrender a smirk
after you fall to my neck
and form rose petals above my shoulders,

I want to hear you speak
when it’s late and no one’s awake
when it’s you and me
beneath the trees and the towers
as we look from below
captivated by the canvas above us,

I wish to stay by your side
when you tell me you must leave
for your job or your mother
and I wish to linger as well
when you plead for my company
as I ignore my family.

If it weren’t against tradition
I would plant flowers on you
every time I’d think of your lips
and if it weren’t for our religion
I would sleep beside you
in the most innocent of the phrase
and literal in the sense
to stay by your anatomy
as our souls fly to the sky,

I am reluctant to enunciate these words to you
in worry that you’ll see me
the same no longer
because I hide behind a veil
through my speech and my stance,
the swaying and rustling skirt
when I find myself dancing
steps away from you
as we stroll by the beach,

Now I know this may not concern me
but if I were to speak
and unzip my censored language,
I would tell you
that I crave you
and your mind and your body and your soul
and I want you, all
with your scars and your moles
and the crooked smile
which forms above your chin
as you paint your lips
against mine.

His chest moves
upwards then inwards
as a man
would wave
from left to right,

when every breath he borrows
from the atmosphere
is returned
back to where
it once came from.

His mind presents itself
as a knot
to untie
rather than a melody
to twirl to,

And perhaps, this is why
he snores asleep.
Every ten minutes : A Thunder
striking for a second
or two.

He resembles a glass of water
in which the liquid seems clear
though present,
eventually evaporating
as the tasks
he ticks of the lists
every time
his eyes wake

from the dilemma
of justice
in a city
degrading
the artists and the painters,
the poets and the dreamers,
the physicists and the biologists,

whilst praising
corporations handing titles to
women as
inert particles
flying off a boiling ***,
and men,
as the controllers
in a virtual video game,

He wasn't dreaming.

Her lips looked like two lakes
smothered in blood,
and her laughter; an act of splitting the sea in two,
the brushed teeth – soft salty shore
the widened mouth – its split
the emitted sounds echoed – fluctuating waves

Her breath was that of the
water particles; the sky its destination,
sunny, humid, a blessing – showers, blistering rain

Her anger, lightning bolt, contagious, unwelcoming
inflicting sickness thereafter
a-choo, a-choo, another,
spreading quickly then quicker,
causing a quiver, a stutter, an utter
“stop. Bring us blood again,
lakes of blood again”

willingly, submits, humming chirps of birds,
she announces
the end – an eventful beginning
sun rising, rainbows forming, she is laughing.
Again. The sea is splitting, again.

It scares me
to know that I loved someone
three years ago
and feel the same no longer,

that you love me now
and perhaps
a year from now
love someone else.

often; a wave of ideas
and emotions hit me, drowning me
as I lose breath
and reach out for a pen
to spill the ink,

only to find
that the ink is
cheap and dry
and has been forgotten
so I float again.

I’ve been quiet for a while,
silence has devoured me
into nothingness,

I’ve been watching more,
perhaps reading
seems too much of an effort
or an act we’d usually do together,

I’ve been thinking,
about you and the times
we’ve spent with one another,

I think I’ve replayed
the first time
I met you
a hundred times
without any exaggeration of the thought,

and I’d replay it
a thousand more times
if it means
your presence by me.

I was about
to enter
a state of unconsciousness;
relaxed limbs
and a resting head
on a soft mattress
and a puffed pillow,

then you came along
and spoke
to my thoughts
and demanded I write
and listen to you
translate your presence
into free-versed
lines and stanzas

and I always
surrender to your demands.

I’m afraid
and I write without
the second-thought
of the word following this
or the word before that
or the correct use of vocabulary
or the eloquence in the structure
of these lines ,

inconsistency has drowned me
and I’ve sold my soul
to love,
to you
and you’ve destroyed me
and my poetry
and all the art I once
found ease in creating.

I cannot read you a poem so good
for I can write none,
nor play you a song so tuned
for you’ve heard better,
nor write you a letter so accurate,
for my language cannot convey such -

such flame in my chest,
spreading as fast as forest fire
when the thought of you meets me
behind my troubled thoughts
you sweep, as heavy rain falls
on Amazon.

it is a dry feeling
in my soul and my mouth,
as though speaking
seems too much of a troublesome act
to commit

as though a crime,
to utter a word
or two
or a sentence
or a phrase

so I’ll stay quiet
in hopes that the people by me
will understand --

and if not, let them be
because I only care for you
and you’re the only
one
who can release me
from this
selective mutism.

It has been happening
more often
than the usual
lately,

I’ve been meaning
to write
but erase
and erase
then press backspace,

I twiddle with the words
and the lines
and the sentences
as a nervous juggler -
but find none
adequate enough for my message

so I try and enter your mind
to take out a word or two
and insert them here
in a passage
or a poem
but who am I to fool?

All I know,
all I am certain of,
all I can find myself
able to say
with some eloquence or proper phrasing
is that I love you
and perhaps
it is all I need to know.

I feel like my emotions
are no longer under my control
because once all I felt was love
and sadness would only hit me
when I’d go back home.

Little did I know you were a nest ,
I was a bird and every night
I would sleep on a branch that wasn’t my own,
because darling, you are home.

he told me not to speak
with a voice so soft
fueling melancholic atmospheres,

so I kissed him on his cheek
unaware then, that it would cost
my eyes so many tears.

I’ve missed you  
and writing this
has been long        overdue,

       I gave you my heart
though it tore apart,

you halved it with your words–
       your ever so charming choice
of vocabulary:
       the knife
which shred it open.

Now if I hand you
       the device which
              pumps the air into my lungs
                     and allows the flow of life
              into my veins
       would you tape it back together
into a functioning pump?

or would you        throw it
into the well
and        drown me along
secluded within such thoughts?

Perhaps I
       must ask
              myself
first.

I remember laughing during class
when everyone thought
I was mocking someone
when in fact
I remembered you
and something you said.
making me giggle,
forming an instant smile on my face.

I remember walking on the pavement
looking to my side
re-imagining us
discussing things we wouldn’t discuss
with anyone else.
or at least, with very few
and you’re of those few.

I remember waking up early, wondering
if perhaps I did
because you like the morning
unlike me
for I love the dark
but maybe, I’ve learnt to like the light
because you adapt
to what the people
you love, love.

I miss you now
when you’re so far away
and I cannot call this a poem
because It is not,
it is but jumbled sentences:
thoughts that I meet daily
when I remember you.

My mother told me
that I seemed carefree
and I was thinking of you,
I gave in a smirk
and told her there are no worries
that I was happy
when to myself
I knew it was because
I had remembered something
you said,
making me smile
again, as every day.