If you can't prevent something...it is imperative that you prepare for it.

It's hard to keep going everyday without you...
I miss you, y'know? I miss you...

I miss your smiling eyes that belied your emotionless face
I miss all our long conversations into the deep night
Whether they were absolutely meaningless or serious
Just to lay with you long after I should have been asleep...
Yeah, I miss you...

I miss kissing your forehead everytime we had to say goodbye
I miss the anticipation of seeing you after we'd been away
I miss all of your poetry you carved into my spirit
Barfight
On How to Love a God
If You Talk Enough Sense You'll Lose Your Mind
Nadya and Fatima (Such a great one)
Sun Kissed
Woman Lay With  Wolves...

I bet you didn't think I'd know your poems like that...
But you overcame my stubborn heart & I carved you into me
Molded and sewed every stitch of you to me
& I miss how you stole my heart away...
& I miss how I fell in love with your mind long before I fell in love with your body. (What a body it is, too)

I don't know if you'll ever see this letter to you
Part of me doesn't want you to because you'll know
Just how many tears I've shed missing you
& how bitter I am that you were ripped away from me

I miss you, y'know? I miss you...
& even though you're gone away
You left your sparkle in my eyes...

The first winter I ever loved
coincided with my introduction
to Summer.

Three years younger,
she had defeated China
and in her wake lay one thousand men,
mouths hung open;
straining for her ear-shot.

Every taxi driver
spent more time looking in his rear-view mirror,
every ticket collector tarried
in the purchase; a hope to extend the moment
that he could be there, with her.

Used to watch her across the office,
her pencil skirt, precise eyeliner;
the way she would smell her tea
as it brewed in the flask.

Used to stray outside her classroom,
listened to her speak Chinese
to a room of students that would listen intently
as unfamiliar tones spread
across her easy smile.

She sang her tentative songs
over vague karaoke nights,
we sang together in English;
our neighbours sang in Thai.

I took her to the mountains
on the back of my motorbike,
she talked softly in my ear;
her legs pressed close to mine.

The first winter I ever loved
coincided with my introduction
to Summer.

The most beautiful woman
I had ever seen.

I lay still beneath her friendship,
bit my tongue in misplaced passion.
I stood and stared as she walked on by,
into the arms
of anyone’s

but mine.

You annoy me very little and I hardly think it’s fair
To place a box of scorpions beneath your favourite chair
I so enjoy your snoring and your dodgy thyroid gland
I don’t stand at your bedside with a pillow in my hand
Your laughter doesn’t make me twitch or sound like mating seals
So I won’t be crushing any glass to sprinkle on your meals
Adorable, your litany of whys and wheres and ifs
I’ll not be booking holidays near isolated cliffs
I love your lack of empathy and sullen, lifeless eyes
No need for poison pancakes or exploding custard pies
If ever you should doubt, my love, the way I feel for you
Recall this host of nasty things I’ve managed not to do
Thus far…

Don't leave me alone in the house
For just like me the house refuses to function without you
The TV seems uninteresting when you are not there to watch it
Food loses it's taste
The taps refuse to co-operate
The curtains tease and torment me
The cat doesn't want to eat
For just like me he seems lost without you
The fans and the air-conditioner seem useless
For only you can calm the fire that burns my soul
The lights don't seem to work
For nothing is as illuminating as your presence
The house without you seems like a graveyard
So please come back
'Coz the bed just like my heart is getting cold....

-to be human is to sin

you tell me that good people are everywhere
but where are all these good people
when the facts are screaming
"emergency, emergency"
"alert, alert"
when the facts say
that almost every ******* this planet
has at least once in her life
been touched in a way she didn't consent to
the facts say that most ****** predators
are known to the children
fathers;
fathers have ***** their daughters
while mothers cry silently
because the world does not want to hear
the stories under the blanket
the guilt and the shame
the pain.
the pain.

you say there are good people
show me
show me
that boy who gives to charity
his hand rode up my skirt last week
that girl who prays five times a day
she watched as her boyfriend called me a *****

my five year old cousin knows what it's like to be penetrated

i lost my virginity before i got my period

my best friend doesn't want to be touched because she sees her ******'s face in every man

i was blackmailed by a boy who said he wanted to marry me

my mom;
my mom and i have bonded over
what it feels like
to have
a man inside you
who doesn't
doesn't
belong there

what kind of god wants an empty heaven?
because the kind of people on this earth
the filthy **** who carved their names between my thighs
there are too many
there are too many
men who have done
women who have watched
silent observers
silent thieves
murderers
no one says anything
then they pray to god
but their sins
their sins are on my skin
see me
see me as i burn
see me as i burn
because if these repenters
who have lived their lives
hurting others
who say their grace
then stuff their ***** in my face
if these repenters
are who i will find in heaven
then i do not want to go
i do not want to go
to a heaven with them
i do not want to go
to a paradise
that looks a whole lot like hell

but if god
chooses to not forgive these repenters
then heaven will be empty
because we are sinners
we are all sinners
we ask for forgiveness
then do it again

i have lied
i have cheated
i have wished ill upon another

tell me; am i good person?
was he a good person?
when he ***** me then apologized
when he ***** me then prayed
when he ***** me then cried
and said he made a mistake

when he ***** me
said sorry
and did it again.

if he makes it to heaven
i'll take the other train
if he does not
then none of us will
because our devils are too clean
and our angels too *****

i'm not quite sure if i'm looking for repentance or for revenge
i have done wrong and i have been wronged
is there a place for me in heaven?

what kind of god wants an empty heaven?
what kind of god wants a heaven full of sinners?

where is the god that will love me?

where is the god that will forgive me?

we were built so fragile
just about to fall
but look at how we fight
look how we stand tall

human bodies
weren't made to sustain
but we conquered it, we broke it
we bared the pain

from typhoid to bad falls
a deep cough, mental stress
after all we are susceptible to
you'd think there'd be nothing left

but we have survived plagues
we have fought through the wars
airplanes were built to sore the skies
submarines to explore the waters

heart break can **** you
(trust me, i'd know)
but 7 billion broken hearts
and we still don't let the hurt show

we walk into work
we raise our children
we do what needs to be done
even when we're broken within

we help one another
empathize with anothers pain
put aside our worries for theirs
even when there's nothing to gain

kindness, solidarity
contribution, charity

we are the children
of a nation that survived

when the volcanoes erupted
when the ground shook
when our homes were consumed by fire
and all we could do was look

when the floods took our babies
and the tornadoes took our homes
we rebuilt from ground up
and prayed for our children's souls

prayer and endurance
might and fight
we have pushed through the darkness
without the promise of light

ask me and i'll tell you
how my dad was so sick he was left for dead
ask me and i'll tell you
how my mom sat every moment by his bed

ask me and i'll tell you
how many nights i slept well
ask me and i'll tell you
how my mom never let us find out he was ill

ask me and i'll tell you
the tears she wept when he was well
ask me and i'll tell you
the tears she wept when got up and left

ask me and i'll tell you
i've seen hurt, i've seen pain
ask me and i'll tell you
i've seen guilt and i've seen shame

ask me and i'll tell you
the stories of my grandparents during the war
ask me and i'll tell you
that they still smile, even though they remember the horror

ask me and i'll tell you
how my aunt held her 12 day old daughter
(her name was nour)
ask me and i'll tell you
how she kissed her forehead before laying her in her grave

ask me and i'll tell you
how easy it is for humans to break
ask me and i'll tell you
how easy it is for their worlds to shake

but ask me and i'll tell you
how much strength we have shown
even in the depths of darkness
we still have hope.

we are the children
of a nation that survived.

don't tell me about your first love-
tell me about your last.

tell me how he made you believe in love
when you thought your time had passed.

tell me how he made you feel
when you thought the butterflies were dead.

tell me how you tried silencing your heart
and all the crazy thoughts in your head.

tell me how he taught you
to love just a little bit again.

tell me how it was like taking your first step
how it was like to once more begin.

tell me how you thought your heart was dead
how you'd been hurt too many times before

tell me how you saw yourself falling for him
and constantly wanting more.

tell me how you thought you weren't worthy of love
tell me how all those thoughts vanished with one touch

a year, a decade, a century
how no time with him was too much

tell me how he excites you
how you're seeing colors you didn't know existed.

tell me how you finally gave in to giving love another chance
how you couldn't fight it, no matter hard you resisted.

tell me how you thought that love just wasn't for you
tell me how being with him makes you feel love is just for you.

tell me how the world seems just a little better
tell me how the grass is greener, the sky a little more blue.

tell me about your last love;
the one who really stayed.

how he's the missing piece of the puzzle
the one for whom you always prayed.

tell me about your last one
the one standing by your bed.

the one you hold on to a second too long
before you forever rested your head.

it's raining and
the sky is cracking and
the clouds are growling and
all i can hear
with my ill ear
are the gentle drops of rain

the rain has broken
all the telephone wires
there is static when i try
to reach out to you
the internet died
sometime last night
and there's no way i can
speak to you

the cable was taken away and
the lights are flickering and
my phone short-circuted and
my laptop overheated and

i'm disconnected

i'm thinking back
to our last few days
and thinking of
the words i never heard
the words you never heard
when the calls dropped and
the line went numb
did you ever even hear me
when i whispered
"stay"

and i wonder now
maybe that was the problem all along
maybe we were always on the verge
of making our always into forever
and maybe our love just got stuck in

bad connection.