my biggest heartbreak is still that these words were once dance:
the letters were arms, tracing invisible surfaces; the semi colons silences; the periods as fading stage lights; stream of consciousness as music, rhythm made available by choice. my choreography was a line of spirals made from bodies in diagonal formation--beatless, fleeting, smoke-like, diluted into the next move.

i had sworn my allegiance to this: the slowing of time in the practice. every breath taken lied down pulled my eyes further inside its sockets, closer to the soil under my skull - complete release of the body unto the ghostly embrace of stillness.

i let this take me.

We are the people who came before us: the crooked, the loving, the boring, the extraordinary, the joyous, the depressed, the sick, the healthy, the poor, the wealthy. You cannot forever shun your roots; you can only walk with them attached to the soles you own. You cannot forever pretend to forget and wish to not be a part of them.

This is growing up: accepting your source, accepting that you are coded in the system as a part of a larger picture and sometimes, that picture isn't the one you wanted it to be - whether for your own conscience or another particular reason. The challenge is to love yourself greater than what exists now and to love the ashes, the shadows that led you to be.

How long will you dwell on the mistakes of the past? How long will it take you to forgive the wombs that birthed you? How long will you forget that you are made of them, too?

I feel you like I feel dirt in my nails after a long day of work in the farm. I take you with me to the house, letting you stay a little too long after the work has been done. I let you be a transient mark of pride and of fruitful joy; I feel this as I wash you off with warm water. My hands are clean now, but I miss picking my nails already. It's a kind of fondness that sits with you in the evening near the day's end, over dinner, and on the way to bed. I try to fall asleep faster because I look forward to tomorrow - when I'll have you in my hands again.

your sartorial opulence arrests me,
mijn geliefde -
but i am learning.

when i pull pants that look like pajamas
out of the drawer
to wear to work,
i think you'd cringe
at my weak monday patterns,
incredibly unconventional for the modern world.

i look at you:
torn up jeans with indigo embroidery
and
a crisp white tee shirt
and
very nice leather loafers!

i'm intimidated.

i look again:
you smile
at me
and
at my weak monday patterns
and
at my pajama pants for work.

"mijn geliefde,"
you said with a softened gaze with no cringe.

little did i expect
the radiance
from sweet
little wrinkles,
nostalgic banter,
and walking canes.

i am happy i did not forget how to love the elders i walk with.

she was never my mother
                                             (nor father)


so i was
                                                                ­          unwanted



but only because i was never theirs in the first place.
it was simply her acceptance i wanted,
but it was her children's love that sustained me.





it is not the same.

invite me to your cradle.
                                           your womb.

if fire is your element,
and
this is your year,
and
if
you wanted to be an asteroid in the night galaxies
to find a place to land
and
if
she
  was your rebellion,
and
if
your rebellion never meant that you could land on
me:
the water that could soothe you,
   the ambush of esoterica,
     the place where you could lay your paranoia to sleep,
        the resistance you denied entrance to,

then -
you could have just said
so.

today
i arrived
and the earth
rejoiced without reservation

This is the fear of:

tripping (1);
walking (2);
smelling (3);
feeling (4);

(1) into
(2) towards
(3) the fragrant
(4) as if

(1, 2) a home with no love.
(3) scent of blood of those we neglect.
(4) I was the one wrong in this affair - even though I'm the child.

i had an epiphany.
it was that i didn't need you to need me to need you.
it was that i had bones that didn't have to hold anything up but myself.
it was that i knew deeply how intrinsic we were to your existence.
it was that i knew deeply how you thought this was true for me.
it was that i knew how you turned our chemistry into mud.
it was that i knew this mud is not me.
it was that i could be free of this.
it was that i could be free of this.
it was that i could be free of this.

like rivers;
like running;
like waterfalls;
like rivers running through waterfalls,
i felt the depth
and the eternality
and the cascading
of you.

but i also feel
this inertia
of me
moving
towards
the end
of
us.

the summer solstice
is your alarm,
    your imaginary invite
    to my streaming, rapid rush waters.

you want to swim in me,
                       bathe in the glorious break from noon heat,
                       & sink into my deep,
                                                      deep blue.

my only concern is that
you've -


                                                already drowned

?

Do you like silent women?

Because you sure do fill up the space with your own voice.

To the West she looked
And there he was alone - but
"Soon," declared the girl.

We weave our souls with the everyday canon, but -
I know the depth of lives we've lived together
in the grooves of our palms
and the intricacy of our thoughts,
my sight.

Me and you -
Five thousand years and we're still here,
in each other all along -
just like Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi told us.

We are still discovering
whether time and space ever existed between us
and if it will cease to.

I can see how I thought it would always be mine.

It's -
My chocolate stain on the beige carpet,
The black hair shed and left on the bathroom wall,
How the fridge opens smelling like traces of Indonesian fried chicken,
My body curves stamped unto the bed mattress,
Lavender incense that first greets my entrance,
The shoe rack that is never big enough for all my shoes,
The box of nostalgia under my bed.

That is until I had to leave.

like *******'s paint splattering on canvas
like Warhol's Campbell soup in print
like Cunningham's democracy on stage

she loves him like that; she loves him like Art

I like it when things aren't said.

When things aren't said, assumption lingers thick in the air;
The way that it fogs my vision is the most perfect way I would like to see the world.

When things aren't said the rumbling in my stomach stops;
no one anticipates, no one waits, no one attacks, no one comes up with a comeback.

When things aren't said, nobody has the last word.

When things aren't said, I actually don't know what to do, which gives me an excuse to not do.  

When things aren't said, I find it quiet,
and the night finally comes to an end.

I discovered beauty in the morning light,
and in the incongruent lines of your smirk
which is facing sideways at the moment;
your head resting on my pillow.

The slow buzzing of the outside world waking up
is no threat to the solace that I found last night
in your arms before we went to bed;
I do not move away from them.

One cold and quick caress from the breeze of daybreak,
yet another that is warm and lingering from your fingertips
leave me undecided between pulling the sheets closer,
or loving you again,

and again,

and again,

and again.

The slight curvature of the edges on his eyes would say:
"I am the wave, the tornado, tsunami that will wipe your glass wall
clear from all the dust and mud that you've chosen to ***** it with."

And yet, I feel like his walls are still marked too
from all the days he spent wondering about love,
and Love.

And from all the days he gave his heart out to the words on his notebook paper
to talk about longing, arrivals,
and departures of the heart.

And from all the minutes he spent listening
to all my words - without clarity nor coherence of the concept which I was talking about -
Instead, he let me
blabber.

Now those doe-eyes.
They glimmer with the confidence
of clearing everyone's wall,
but before that,
perhaps I need to plant a seed that is the Self within him
so that he'll clean his first.

There's something in the silence of our words,
in the wait for our next ones,
in the ecstasy of the present grace.

There's something in the silence of our union.

I have gathered all time tellers,
grandfather clocks, alarm clocks, phones, watches -
to tell you that : I have all the time in the world for you.

It might not be the most sophisticated way
to say that I have an ear for listening and a heart for consolation,
but don't be too skeptical with my methods.

Forgive me, maybe, perhaps, if I can't be so bold and concise.
At least, now we've got all these antiques to talk about.

You're never too much.
I see calm and solace, a rescue amidst this dream called life.
But you are not a savior - merely a teacher.
And my heart doesn't scream love; it screams Love.

You - well, you don't scream at all.

I still can not write about you.

Because every time, every single time,
I have to stop myself from seeing the world through my pool of tears.
It is as if I have to watch you grow from afar.
And I do, I see you grow -
without me.

I have so many dimensions in me, and yet none that I could release to find you again.
It is as if I have lost you, and that you have left, but you have never gone.
Not once have I not thought about reliving every particle of you.

Every time.
Every single time.
I see you grow - apart and away.

Sunflower stood in the middle of the greenness that is Grass.
She was folding her yellow crown jewels,
singing with the wind about the ray of luminescent light
that sometimes is there in the darkness that is Sky.

Sunflower was planted in the dirt that is Earth.
She was extending her curly roots,
touching the tips to the core of terra,
burning the ends of Her,
but she knows a little pain is needed to experience Love.

Sunflower still stood on Grass,
looking towards Sky,
experiencing Love,
and Little Moon was ready to give all of that to Her.

It's a bit past midnight -
So light under these fluorescents, but so dark in my mind.

On a couch in college, I am reeking of ****** deeds earlier, -
and of avoidance too.
Eyes drooping to a standard hibernation position, I try to sit up to let my hands finish these questions on the latest Middle Eastern borders.
Yet, still there is left a dent in my heart for all the **** that happened in the past week.

A sociopath with morals.
A ******* wanting to reconnect.
A friend with overbearing qualities.
A mother dying to love me.
An idea with no promise.
A bucket of philosophy.

I hope I'm not the only one coming up with ideas of how to escape.

I've grown older;

I am grayed and abandoned,
but renewed with Love pouring unto me like golden water on a white, marble fountain
in front of the Taj Mahal.

She's a bit smart and a little in pain,
so she takes her pills at dawn when everyone is dreaming
- while hers translate into crosses on her wrists for the loves she has lost,
and straight lines on her thighs as tally marks for each joy unaccomplished.

She's a bit ugly and a lot of beauty,
so she stares at the nothingness that she is
before any clothes, before any thing
- but how can that be, to be less of a person when nobody even said she was one before?

She's a bit honest and a whole lot of truth,
so she speaks censoring every softness that is of her heart,
but launching every thorn that ever struck her inner flesh
- it's for security, she says, and self defense...of course.

The Great Queen isn't everything that you see.

I've got nothing but words to make you hear me.

I've got nothing but words.

I've got nothing.

I'm sorry.

There's an anomaly
in my body.

I move so softly in the face of things,
but I'd like to move in nature;
it makes me a wild bird lost in the cryptic love for
thought,
kinesis,
and flight of the universe.

It makes me as fragile as the tides,
similar to an ****** prose - moving in its poetic ways.

There's an anomaly
in my body.

I say let's crawl inside the sheets together.
Let our hairs go wild, and our knees touch!
Here I go with a wink of an eye, and you kiss the other.

I say let's talk until our neighbors hear us.
Our arms can touch each others until the clock strikes us asleep.
Here I sit with one leg on top of the other, and you trace it with one finger at a time.

I say let's lock your door inside out.
We can hope no one will ever knock to wake us from the fantastic slumber of passion.
Here my heart is tugging on your sleeves - to peek, to understand, to see what I mean.

I say invite me for a sleep over on a lazy Friday night; you won't regret it.
I'm an artist when it comes to building fortresses, and a lover when it comes to you.
Here I observe the corner of your lips heightening into a smirk.

I say close your eyes and do not over think.
Your imperfections orient me toward you only more and more.
Here I say we should spend every day together until forever after.

My hair is blue from swimming across the ocean, sir.

Sometimes, you need fresh air,
and beyond the curb of ignoring an annoying party-acquaintance,
you step outside to feel the briefly welcoming air;
you think you'd overcome the standing hairs of your neck,
but you don't and you stay.

Sometimes, you need fresh air.
Slowly, after that last awkward smirk from your blind-date,
you reach for your cigarettes and head outside into the rather stark breeze of night,
leaving coffee for smoke, intertwined with the thin ice, that is breath.

Sometimes, you need fresh air,
and it's cold, too cold to leave the room,
and it's dark, too dark outside,
but you leave anyway because whatever stands inside is a spoiled pique unrelentingly trying to get you.

*Sometimes, you need fresh air.

How do you come close to an idea?

There's a path, but you're not sure where it leads you -
or maybe, how it will get you there.
Where?
Anywhere, really.

You look up and all you see is darkness -
no light, no stars, no supernovas
in the distance,
just complete isolation from the universe.

But you hear things.

And you wish you could understand this foreign language of whispers,
the kind that raises your awareness of your surroundings.
They raise their own decibels as you walk more into the path.

And suddenly, you see.

It isn't a light.
You still wish to see one,
but instead, you see the ocean - the echo of all living things.

Water. It was the water that has been speaking to you.
The waves congratulate you for your bravery to come to the end of the path.

You turn around to return, but the path has gone.

So, like a wandering child, you patiently look at the sky to dream;
a staircase falls upon the curtain of your vision.

You step up, but you are reluctant, scared that the path will disappear again.
Or that you can't come back down.

Retreat.
You retreat and rewind.
You settle down.
You close your eyes.
You lie upon the soft earth to listen to the steps you've never taken.

Where is your smile, your face, wrapped in the peach-colored roses and white blankets of youth?
Have we lost it?

Where you once were, there is a drop of tear from each of us.
An indefinite resolution, a short relief for remembrance.

Moonlight reflects from the tip of your nose and from ours too
as we sit under the tropical moon, wishing for more time together.
A dark breeze let by our bodies and confined us with awe.
But our eyes begged the stars to call our names too.

We were the night and you were dawn,
the waking light of our solace.

Where you once were, there are teardrops from all of us.
A chant of grievance, a slow sinking to the ground to reach for your trembling hands.
*I still want to hold them.

The house burned down and I wasn't there to witness it.
I wasn't there.

Our bloodlines dictate how close we are, yet the body only reaches as far as the fingers could touch.
She whispered to me, "The house burned down and you weren't there for them."
It's true - I was not there.

We fell out of the same tree, but I think someone took a bite out of me too early.
A part of me stayed, but mostly left.
And this is what I get for being too ambitious.
I could not be there.

Had I travelled under a different moon,
had I have been another form of legacy,
had I have not been me.

But, oh, why wish when you could have seen that fire!
Its blazing tongue licking the limbs of its victims, yet undulating in dew of beauty.
And years that I've been gone was not blindfold to my past.
It is the unwrapping of my coexisting souls.

Oh, I wasn't there.

Try, my love; try to open the doors to real pathways
It's running water under my floating house
in the ocean of uncertainty and misguidance now.
I can't live in this, I gotta move!

Look, watch as the tides show you that I can't play alone; another raft is waiting
A future home based on unreadable waters.
But we can't wait anymore, we have to move!

The fingers are pointing to different eyes every time you seek it,
but I'll still believe in man's second chance.
I'll move on now, but I'll come back to see if you're ready.

Is there a grudge that you're keeping, because I'm not coming back to fix that.

How could you be so out of times, my child?
The clock goes tick tock, but you are -
Enframed; untouchable
How could time be so frozen in your mind.

Enframed, untouched, what could you say to get yourself out of this mess?

The bells are ringing
The skies are dimming, their lights
Maybe it's time to move on
But you are still,
too still and unabridged

I rest my case and you win

Much of my stoic quality won't win in this world
Thank god I learned from you,
a valuable piece of information I suppose
And here, I still stand -
Here, I still breathe your air

My voice has been cut off from this telephone line we call prayer
My eyes have been blocked by this ray of bright loneliness
My arms, self-amputated, they move like crawling bugs on people's dead faces
My legs no longer move to take bigger strands on earth

No more melody.
Monotony.
Slashed by the unexpected and inevitable nature of fate - my hopes.

Where to find an opening in this endless void?
Face this monotony like you can escape it,
Nobody knows the end to this maze.

We ran so quickly that whatever's left behind didn't matter
A soul, a heart, and their monstrous enemies
They crawled back to follow us, but we did not ever look back

So take this : our words are our promise!

We will take revenge and our song will again be heard
As a chant or just silent whispers - our dreams will haunt you.

Skin.

They stick to the veins,
painting the **** to add more simplicity to a motley of already existing colors.

I wish though, sometimes, that I can take it off of you -
Just to prove that there's a heart that gives a **** about me.

In the midst of conundrum ,

massive leaks of an unknown entity
invaded the cardia of a lass.
Some say it was an accident,
some say she chose to open her doors.

Yes, that was a fifth of a decade ago.
On a pedestal, this entity stood tall.
Unbearing the word "compassion", yet -
rust of any clear understanding of the world

Vulnerable :
On to that word she had travelled
"In her head", said an entity,
"crushing her own trust in me".
End of story, - or so she thought!

Beneath it all, a fountain full -
Indelible memories alone;
just drift back and forth like a pendulum.
An awful ending?
No, it really is just a beginning.

Didn't you know I couldn't find you?
All over this almost empty room, I've searched.
You come with no warning or sound and it makes it harder to recognize that you're here

But then, you saved us and brought us home
Did you know the world stopped when you gave your arms at last?
I  should've never stopped believing, never stopped contemplating

So I did forget that for once we were one.

My spectacles differed than yours
I really thought we were separated
Those moments, too uninspiring,
I had no one to turn to anymore
I never have recognized that you've always been here

But then there you stood stronger than the earth,
Your feet planted deep
And the soil went outrageous

I should've never stopped asking, never stopped believing, never lost my trust in you.

none of you have changed since I've left.

the dim light flicker the same flicker;
as you approach me, i opened my hands to you.

but you stop.
and in reverse motion, walked out the door.

Has the sun risen yet?
Because I want to make sure the path towards home is lit for you
You got lost once, I'm not letting your eyes avert before you get here

A little cabin awaits you here, with me in it
Pick this or your gold-adorned walls in the other village

I don't blame you if you don't want to come back; the air here is soon becoming hazy
Just don't forget to write letters to me

Has the sun risen yet?
Because maybe, this time, you'll stay and I'll find this path of yours

I'll only leave if you want me to stay safe inside my little cabin

I hope your doors aren't locked because when the sun rises, I'll start my journey

Breathe In

Ready?
Visual, auditory, kinesthetic
Light, sound, touch

Buildings are of the same shape, stiff outlining
People talk the same way, smell like the same scents
The air's texture caresses me at the same places, softly

Breathe out
Have I left home at all?

Days went by
Eerie sounds of nature,
Across the forests of darkness
Trotted along to haunt
She still didn't wake up

In the mid of night,
She woke up and screamed

Screamed until she couldn't
Childhood dreams went back
And tortured her in her sleep
Ranting inside her all night, but she
Yawned and settled back to sleep

As I sat on a small chair
The chair of eternal bliss
Finding someone that would care
Someone who willed for a kiss

The chair of eternal bliss
It shone like a star
My love is more than this
A dream, a dream too far

It shone like a star
And it blinded my heart
It turned into a frozen bar
Of ice that could break apart

And it blinded my heart
Made its love go away
I had to run back to the start
Because I ran out of things to say