in dreams, her heels dig into the soft overlap
          between ocean and beach, an underbelly
she ebbs and flows to phantom melodies
          of spectral murmurs, un-broken.

she is adrift, with the liberation of seabirds
          amidst salty, swirling sea breezes
all gradients of blues poured over ice,
          and the cocktail of fluttering wings,     beating, pumping

                                  like an undamaged heart.

i. ablaze
no canvas can hold your portrait
all fine lines and smudges, 
like this crumpled paper heart can.

no acid earth blooms sickly flowers 
so vivid and surreal, 
like your lips formed falsities
hollow insignificances, haloed in sickening silence

no song croons heartbreak
quite as heart-wrenching as
these words you leave unspoken. 

and nothing lights up this darkness quite like 
the dazzling glow of how 
i burned up for you:

                               
ii. fluorescent
at night these empty streets whisper 
rumors of embers stirring, rekindling
the remnants of a great fire.

out of ashes i rise, singed and searing to touch.
lights and cigarettes line the paths forward
and backward; i wander them aimlessly.

nothing lights up this darkness 
quite like the glow of how
hundreds of streetlights burn for me.

iii. ceasefire
nothing lights up the darkness
quite like the glow of how
i illuminate from the inside out again 

no longer an all-consuming blaze—wild and destructive,
or a fluorescent light—the artificial brilliance a borrowed comfort 
i cannot call my own;

i uncover my heart to find light again,
not an uncontrollable fire, or the reflection of a stolen light,
but the halcyon glow of a ceasefire.

iv. light up the darkness**
and nothing, nobody can light up my darkness
or line my street sides
quite like i can.

i. you will miss him in drizzles and monsoons, in swells and tsunamis. you will listen to his favorite song for hours; it will hit you every unexpected moment. it will hurt, stab, ache, and you will suppress constant screams with strained lips.

ii. you will collect everything he gave to you and wonder if it is dimensionally real. you will sleep in his shirts, retaste saltwater kisses, and reread conversations as if there's something you missed the previous thirty times. absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it rips it apart and you cannot stitch the ragged halves with no thread.

iii. you will feel his touch presently in everything you do. it will be soft and cruelly comforting. it will constantly and inescapably linger. it will haunt you in early rainy mornings and dark lonely evenings.

iv. you will read endless musings on love and philosophy. you will entirely understand foucault's prison. you will live in steinbeck's tide pools and stars, and relate to simon bolivar trapped in his labyrinth. you will wonder why everything is like this, ugly and broken (and also if you are becoming delusional).

v. you will drink tea that scalds your tongue and stand outside on freezing nights, numb and overfeeling at the same time. you will ask the silent moon a thousand questions. you will see him and blink, head swimming, heart pounding in surges. the stars will wink and the wind will mock you.

vi. you will have blissful afternoons you forget and sorrowful nights you remember. it will still consume you in bouts, devour you in spells. nighttime will become both your enemy and remedy: it will wickedly remind you, yet help you heal.

vii. you will try and fail to make sense of him (and the universe in general). you will grapple with reality and yourself. perhaps you will never know why he stopped loving you: you will keep wondering how some things can just be left broken.

iix. slowly, slowly, you will sprout on your own; you will be tender and nearly whole. most importantly, you will realize his love brought you an entirely different kind of happiness.

ix. you will stop worrying and trying to piece together an empty puzzle. even the deepest scars find their way of fading. your mom was right: stop picking at the scab and your wound will heal.

x. you will learn to love yourself in ways he never could have loved you.

am I unique? fear not, she says, for
no one breathes pine needles the way you do and
no one bleeds stars the way you do and
no one, no one whispers of scarlet mornings
the way you do.

but what, then, does it mean
to be here? is it your voice
dancing in my dream last night? is it
the way our fingertips speak of
quartz, of ink? is it the icicle
antlers we planted this morning? is
it the soft scratch of birch bark? of
outside? is it the emptiness
that defines us?

all of this and more: I cherish
these sunlit midnights,
the memories of broken
storm.

as the night quells, soft and gentle,
the incessant humming in my head subdues to 
a murmured hush, and the white noise is but 
a grey    fog  veiling hazy promises and barbed fears.

the darkness seems to hold its breath as you say: look 
       at the meteors,        they fall so heavily tonight!
it is because we all placed our wishes on them.

yet i only see your tired orbit
set in the horizon of your stony shoulders;
like shooting stars burdened by wishful thinking,
you bow under a burden of universes:
          phantom hopes and frayed strands,
          as if you were afire from within,   the moon
      alight in lining of your skin.

tonight the waning moon’s gentle glow flickers
as if in stop-motion, like confused blinking.
in a lingering afterthought I find —

in solitude time is all-consuming,
and i am in an hourglass; time, a thief,
creating a vortex beneath my feet
and in solitude i find myself wishing desperately again.


the darkness is so softly suffocating as you say: look
at the meteors, they fall so heavily tonight!