my grandmother unscrewed
the door to my room
and removed the carpet from my floor

in the winter months
my toes went white and my fingertips hued blue
my lips marred red as i looked to the ceiling
and pondered my importance in this reality

i went to sleep that night and had a dream
i thought was so clever
in this dream i said: 'Roses are sometimes red, and violets
are rarely blue'.
Somebody hand me a Pulitzer this instant

in hindsight, my dreams were foretelling
as i awoke in the hospital with a headache
and diagnosis of hypothermia
the nurses and social workers sat in chairs
with my grandmother beside them  

i closed my eyes and visualized all the
yellow roses and white violets often overlooked
and with a few smiles
and words of affirmations to the guests judging my performance
I received a standing ovation
of vibrant violets and beautiful deep reds thrown on stage
and returned to the Tiled Floors.

What

scaffold

eternal bounds?

Is it sinew, shadow, vacuum?

You reach, spirals unraveling becoming. Who forged laws?

Can the architect recall genesis, or memory ash? Walls hum with fractal hymns.

Each question births a child, becomes a labyrinth, sings of endless corridors. Beneath infinity's weight, does collapse spiral upward forever unfold?

It is a serpent in disguise— its tongue promises clarity, but clarity is a chimera. Thought consumes itself, meaning devours its maker, and nothingness births the heaviest burden: the need to ask again, endlessly.

How much of this is reality
...I
perhaps it only exists when you perceive
....don't
How can i see it with clarity
.....know
perhaps it is only what you believe

I’m always forgotten because I’m never known.
They see me and my concept,
what they believe it is,
but they do not take the time to know me,
my insides and fillings,
my laughs and tears,
my thoughts and words.
I’m always forgotten because they never care enough to notice my light,
or my lack of one.
Superficial gifts and smiles
all at once in one Christmas night.
I’m always forgotten in their brains,
like tasks that no one wants to do,
a person no one wants to know.

Closer to new years now.
I’m always forgotten over the summer.
I exist,
lax and blurry,
because they don’t remember me if they don’t see me.
Every person creates a different image,
except no one actually knows me.
They just see.
They watch.
They imagine.
And they create.
Me,
in their brains.
But its not me anymore,
because a me doesn’t exist in anyone’s mind.
Not even mine.

To be just a face in somebody’s yearbook,
tenderly remembered by some eyes,
or maybe.. softly forgotten.

To be a passing stranger in the street,
Filling the background as if following
The imaginary script of someone else’s life.

—Coexisting in pages, or between the lines,
of multiple, existing storylines—

Playing the loyal friend sometimes;
The bubbly crush or the terrible villain
once or twice.

Whatever the role..
..we end up just lingering.

..craving.. desiring.. that funny, ephemeral feeling.

We end up just
    lingering,
          Yearning,
             Daydreaming,

to be part of
A day, a page.
A chapter, a year.

a fistful of wishes
is all i have:
if i let go, i’m afraid
they’ll wither away,
like dandelion petals
on the back of a rescue dog;
if i hold on too long,
I’m afraid -
they’ll crumble -
like my illusions of being.

the fist gets tighter;
and i’m still waiting -
for the punchline.

pulverized by desolate winds;
brutalized by ungodly kings;
capsized by the violent waves;
neutralized by the scorpion’s sting.

terrorized by the thoughts of morrow;
legitimized by a trademark of sorrow;
authorized to live in vain;
generalized - like the streets,
and the boroughs.

synthesized by the alchemy of remorses;
romanticized… like the dark horses;
mesmerized by the notion of vengeance -
hypnotized by even darker curses.

digitized by the ways of future;
mystified by metrics, and conjectures;
specialized in the pursuit of reality -
'civilized' by the grand architecture.

i could tell the time at an early age;
yet, i could never tell the misery
of the hour hand of the clock -
that lies in wait...
for what i imagine,
must feel like an eternity,
at the mercy of the minute hand
to finish a full round -
as it is, in turn,
at the mercy of the second hand;
only to move but a
fraction of an inch on its axis:  
so it can be worthy of its name.

surely, it’s the loneliest of
the three hands;
yet, perhaps, also the wisest -
for it knows what’d happen
if it ceases to move -
even for an hour, as it were.
you see, the illusion of a moving clock
is maintained only by the hour hand.
the minute hand could stop for a minute -
and we wouldn’t mind much;
the second hand could stop for a second -
no harm done;
but if the hour hand stops for an hour -
well, we’d notice.

i can never really tell the time now;
just the hour in which i exist.