There's few spaces
in this world where
a sea of faces
doesn't scare me.
There's fewer spaces
in this world where
the faces turn up
to me and smile -
real, actual smiles -
and not the fake ones for shady profiles.

I love you guys.

I see Open Eyes -
filled with a thirst
to know more,
see more,
be more,
be better than before.
Eyes that do not blink
at the introduction of something new, views that don't flinch
when given something
to think about.

I see Open minds -
welcoming the creation
of a brand-new world,
one where art doesn't
have to shuffle along the sidelines
of a room,
where society can leave
 its guidelines at the door.
 I'm sure that we here,
today,
are the first to realize
that art creates a life
beyond the arbitrary
beating of hearts.

We're children
 of the first thinking generation,
 catching on to swinging anchors
from sinking ships
 to swim up and
 breathe in the first gulps of art.

two eyes looking for hope
two arms reaching out for you
one heart - empty handed.

I cross seas
of tired backs
with broken bones
and stretching haversacks.
an ocean of people
f l i n c h i n g
 at invisible attacks
from a faceless few,
a layer of dew
s e t t l i n g
on morphing faces.

veins that appear
blue,
   green,
       yellow,
            red
on the skin of this city
often pop out and disrupt it.

where lives change
as easily iron tracks,
where lives are organised
into shelves and racks,
when a chain pulled
is a life lost,
or
losing.

my brain is useless.
it is my eyes
that run over
the edges of your mouth,
greeting the sky,
when i watch you
watch the birds
fly towards
their innocent idea
of a home.

my brain is useless.*
my ears hear
the quiet sound
of your laughter,
when it tries to peek
through a steady stream
of my babbles.

my brain is useless.
it is my arms
that i trust
to not miss a single second
of encapsulating your
every word,
   every glance,
       every movement
        that you lavish
        on me.

my brain is useless.
it is my words
that do not fail me -  
i can dress you up
in the prettiest allegories,
the most mesmerising
of metaphors,
the most flattering adjectives.

my brain is useless,
but you
have the power
of rendering all my syllables
an extravagant waste,
an unnecessary hindrance,
with
one
   single
       word.

*(or maybe three)

i stand out
in any room
like the only exception
to any rule.
i recklessly disobey
the sciences,
math,
and art.
i stand apart
like every wobbly word
in a sentence
that lives
in a secondhand copy
of a book.

i am not easy to look for
in a room
full of talent, though.
i  h i d e
between the pauses
in a conversation that
i shouldn't be interrupting.
when you talk about
art
   and love  
        and life
all I'd like to do
is
hide.

besides,
i could never belong
in the same sentence
as any of the great artists
that you talk about.

so i stick to the walls
i line the sidelines
with a fraction of my presence
- one thirds of me
simmering away at
the bottom of the sink.

i think I'm the only exception
to a world-wide rule.

You are the silence
in an overflowing room,
overlooking the brim of
the glasses full of art that
are about to s p i l l forth
from you able hands. i am
the low murmur of voices,
ebbing through an empty
room - no shortage of
"excuse me"s or of
cleared throats.

You are love, when love
disguised itself as ink and
ran freely through pages
in lines that looked a lot
like poetry, only if
one looked. i am the short
staccato splutters of syllables
splattering and spoiling
fresh canvases of pure
imagination - rendering them
u n c l e a n,
        u n u s a b l e,
                u n d e s i r a b l e

you and i, we swirl through
pages and mics and minds
and crowds and rooms and blinds
like no shackles forged from doubt
could ever bind us.