Dark cherry rests
Upon the heart left to know

The realness of the world
Beyond open doors,

Beyond the softness of the
Light pouring through

Stained glass.

There is nothing and also
Everything out there

Beyond the familiarity
Of the tartness that sleeps

Within wounds.

I long to see me
As you do,
Entirely foreign and
Mundanely beautiful.
I wish to trace
The curves of my lettering,
Attempting to decode
A message I have already
Memorized.
I have already unraveled
All of my mysteries but you
Still startle at each creak
Of the floor, each squeak
Of the door.
Nevertheless,
That elsewise wonder
Is only reserved for
Strangers.

a neighbour
plays saxophone
somewhere down the street
it sounds like
they are at
an open window
practicing scales
bursts of pieces
previously mastered
other segments
yet to be perfected
those standard exercises
again and again
with missed breaths
and off-note *******
building in complexity
but slowed down
beyond recognition
with their concentration
no doubt
seething at times
behind closed doors
as fingers refuse
to obey
not moving fast enough
assuredly enough
it should annoy me
it usually would
this distraction
while I try
to read or write
the stumbling repetition
of practice failing
to make perfect
but today
there is a calming
in the familiarity
of it all

I'd wish to know, if we're only an idea of tall tales that meet the skeletons in both our closets and thus, it solely goes romanticizing my tarnished land.

In fury, my escapism brought me home away from home and there he was, he's the familiarity I'd wish, I never know.

So dear, he's already 'a home',
I'd live and die at times he's all I have and so this borrowed chance, as to what I afeared of, my love is building; a labyrinth, I'd never wish to escape.

There I was, staring from afar,
is it just the night scene that makes my periphery hazy? Or we're on a geomorphological process of meeting an another celestial body; you were standing there, wondrously daydream- like, as that time came unbeknownst to me.

There is a strange familiarity on you
that changes my animosities— a paradigm shift, and all the long way leads to you.

I used to see cars individually
not as parts but the people inside
those people would be driving around me
and we’d wave to each other
while navigating clear roads
I would recognize their car
out of familiarity
the city has grown since then
I don’t recognize cars anymore
just brands and colors
creating the traffic jam in front of me
as my engine overheats.

and alone, i rediscover my old habit of making out stars from the trenches
and finding the road of your childhood home changed
sky to sky
and you are not    the first snow
but you will witness the snow fight
the boys spoke no other language than their own
they threw, and fell, and built larger shadows of three
inseparable ever since
laughter disappearing into walls
i rediscover city lights flickering off
closing shop, on the bed singing into a screen
‘goodbye’
‘you will see me later’

You might not want
to admit it
but truth hath spoken:

what makes you stay
is the same thing
that hinders you
from growth...