You were a faithful friend on many adventures over many thousand miles. Together, we spattered legions of our mosquito foes upon your grille. Within your cab we enjoyed hours uncounted of beloved audiobooks and favorite tunes. But, alas, we were rear-ended and you are totaled. They say, "There's no silver bullet." There was one.

the air is thick, hot, and forest green
with the daggers youre always staring
i cant help but sigh; theyre always for me
i never meant to destroy you
but ill take your gaze however it comes
you destroy me too

My desire was forbidden
The fruit on the tree
I was told that the fruit on that tree was too good to be eaten by someone like me
I reached up anyway and picked the forbidden fruit from that tree
I unapologetically bit into it to find out that it was so ******* sweet that I dropped to my knees and let the sensations to follow take over me
As its sweetness had casted a spell on my body people told me of its sin
I could never understand why what was so sweet to me could be considered bitter and rotten by those who claimed they only want what is best for me
Perhaps they are scared, and it has kept them from trying it
Perhaps I’ve known so much bitter that I had been dying to have it

She stood on the edge of the cliff, suspended somewhere in the distance between me and the setting sun. She looked back towards me, waiting patiently at the foot of her elongated shadow.

Her eyes were brimming with tears. Barely visible streaks of salt water already stained her cheeks, but across her lips, a smile. Wide enough to show nearly all her perfectly aligned teeth, her lips taught, almost painfully stretched across her face.

A laugh escaped her throat, something between a laugh and a sob and a cry, cut short as her lungs forced her to gasp, then falling into a spasm of short, shallow breaths.

The words fell like diamonds from her mouth to my ears, scoring my brain with their edges, blinding my inner light with their aura.

I was swept away in the moment, which I thought could never possibly end. But of course it did. And the silence that followed left me shattered and alone.

An escape made in earnest
The quiet upkeep of missing links
An upheaval of something good
To relinquish all sanity
As cracks begin to race across the surface
Dividing the tension across abstract faces
The sound of a jet engine
And the wind that grows ever warmer
The final rays of light
On this endless, waxing summer
In a chemical solution

I was never afraid of sleeping alone in the cold night,
I was never afraid of having meals by myself,
I was never afraid of walking alone on a summer evening,
I was never afraid of not having someone to share my popcorn,

I was always alone,
But I never felt lonely,

Till the day my eyes met yours under the moon-lit sky.

I will never have good financial standing.
My wallet must feel besieged,
Like the sacking of King’s Landing.
Money just flies through my fingers;
Like the angel of death,
Bankruptcy always looms and lingers.
I spend it on escapades and exuberance,
On journeys to escalate my studies of life,
To forbear nothing from its tutelage.

I will never have a peaceful, settled life;
No 2.3 kids, no doting, darling wife.
Neither will I have a Golden Retriever;
No picture-perfect moments,
No Instagram photo captioned ‘she’s a keeper.’
I will go the edges of the world;
I will unfurl hammocks, as the jungles get deeper,
As I hear the whispers of life,
And my ears strain to listen like receivers.

I don’t care about losing either of those prospects;
Uninteresting endeavours, uninspiring projects.
To me, only love deserves mourning;
It is the primer of all things,
The driver of all of nature’s calls,
The reason why the mockingbird sings.
That must be why my heart can’t stand the quiet,
Why I’m like a viral riot, an epidemic insurrection.
That must be why I’m mourning an unrequited connection.

You are everything I will never have.
I will have an empty heart, and empty hands.
If it never happens in this life,
I hope I’ll get to see you again in the next one.

An emigre to the cherry blossoms
You reveled in beauty
Trembling, flushed with wonder,
And unprepared for the
Wounds of worldly things,
Destroyed, like the blossoms,
By breezes.

We found separate paths
And yet
I can yearn to discard my
Blind certainty
And float like the knock-kneed angels,
Chanting the Beloved’s name,
drinking in the world,
again a child.

Do you ever think of me too?

I wonder; are you a warm,
Nightly summer breeze -
Or chilly and full of colors
Like the autumn leaves?

What are you going through?

Do you tell a tale of tidal
Waves, brave in the face
Of roaring seas - naught
But shipwrecks to chase?

I can’t wait to meet you.

I know not if our love will
Be easy or instant, or if
We’re two broken puzzle
Pieces that’ll somehow fit.

All I know is this -
It’ll have been worth it.

You crossed my way.
The silver threads
upon your disappointed head
imbued in me a willfulness
to stare, but not to see.

I paused to breathe
and seemed to sink
as fingers hanging by the brink
fed memories in streaming form
a taste of bittersweet.

Your eyes fell low.
Your footsteps leaped
with colors of a numbing grief
and sleepless afternoons that left
just power to retreat.

You looked not left,
nor to the right;
you kept the road fully in sight.
I shuddered as I watched you go,
to know time had erased your fight.