one time
we were floating in the pool
(i don’t know whose)

and you told me about the conversations you were having with your therapist
how she challenged you to make the idea of
killing yourself
so complex that it would just be too much work to do

and as i floated nearby
eyes watching yours
our skin pale and wan in the moonlight and that muted waterglow from beneath us
i remember myself wondering why i knew
that we were never meant to be

our hearts too alike, perhaps
you always called me insane
but i never wanted to **** myself
i never had to come up with plans too obtuse to carry out
i did not tell you my thoughts while we pruned in the darkness

no

instead i longed simply not to be
that every night when i closed my eyes
my consciousness would cease
no future
no tomorrow
no wailing, clawing, inexorable creeping of time
tearing me apart molecule by molecule

i did not wish for death
but i did not wish to live
and trapped in that terrible ennui
you (and you) (and you)
drifted away from me

until the moon clouded over and i was alone
floating in the pool
(i don’t know whose)

Must have seen you in a field,
the trampled grass your bed,
your eyes fixed on the sky,
and the sky hanging on blooming fire
and leaves of ashes eloping with autumn–tainted summer.
You didn’t stir,
if not for the fence time drove into the paper soil in between us the song of chaos will probably sing it’s ominous song in my ears.
Not an inch, did you move.

Your thoughts might have been that of your mama, on her porch steps for the hundreds of dinner that waited cold for you that year.
Your papa must have passed a ball to a glove without a hand to hold it up.
Your dear Anna must have been trembling as her heart skipped a beat reading letters written open-endedly.
The hills around you stood mortally wounded, weeping for their trees, still you slept in between those pages while your home collected dust on the shelves that so few of us care to visit.

Still your eyes were fixed on the sky. Unmoved by clouds. Unperturbed by dying sunshine. Shards and shrapnel of ideas burrowing deeper. I knew your lips wanted to part and utter wilting words,perhaps the heaviest word to bear—goodbye.

War has always been indifferent to life.

I don’t know anymore, how to feel something again
Feels like I’m drifting, lost in outer space, to god knows where
Unanchored from everything, yet my chest is heavy, eyes are lifeless
Each day repeats itself, every conversation feels hollow, insincere

I bury myself in work, not to build, but to forget
Laughter doesn’t echo, smiles barely stretch, just motions
And if I disappear, would it really matter?
It’s not selfish, just silent. Space swallows sound, and maybe it swallows me too.

In this silence, I lay dormant—
I no longer expect anymore.
There’s no pull, no push, just a vast, empty stretch.
The stars hang motionless, indifferent
and I’m no different

time is passing by
at the rate it wants to go
in my head.
time now is stretching out,
as i take
two minutes
to do something
but it feels like
an hour
even now i feel like 3 minutes have passed
but i look at the clock
it’s still the same numbers
i stare at the same digits
over and over
engraved into my brain
but i blink
and they’re gone.
why has it been forty minutes?
i miss the days that i played
with people
and teased them
and laughed with them
but then i blink
i’m still in those days
but im missing something
i don’t even know what
i look to the future
i feel my future regret
maybe i’ve slipped up
in the future i’ll know
i don’t wish to know
but i don’t know

between
the monstrosities
of glass, concrete and steel,
i spy
an infinite expanse of Mediterranean blue sky,
transporting me to a spiritual high.

way up there,
a self absorbed lonely eagle
soars in ecstasy,
untouched
by the noise and suffering
going on down here.


© 2022

I don’t write poems in my language
The pain becomes too real
The wound that’s left is deep
It’s better not to feel

I don’t write poems in my language
I feel detached from this ordeal
Like all this didn’t happen
But writing helps me heal