What hath we done?
What time do we live in?
Feeding off horrors and faking laughters

We stead on the land, the land of the dead
The land enriched with their moisture, we harvest our food

We nurture our little ones with apples,
The apple tree grown from the little boy shot in the war

The final will of inheritance brings smile to our hearts
Still, we cry at the old man's funeral

What hath we done to live in this world?
What time do we live in?

This world, a burial ground.

Sharks can't swim backwards,
they can only move forward.
But forward is a circle
and they'll never know.

We buried you in cherry
under the juniper tree,
and with God as my enemy,
God isn't there.

Dark mountains and
stalactite tears
blending into cave
marks on the wall.
A funeral? But
warmth and belonging
and a community
of travel, hope, legacy.
Footprints on the ground.

Second Sunday and the church bell is tolling.
A million black ghosts hover around you,
Perhaps finding the choke of white flowers consoling.
But I know their time of wilting will come soon enough.

How dare they
Bring me here.
A silent scream into the swirls of smoky incense,
Filling the hall with scents of ash and our youth together
For me, pouring just one glass would never make sense.
So they tell me, this will fade.
Don’t force it.
Wait your turn.
But I’d rather stay in your reality than their lies.
So I beg them:
“Please, let me burn.”

fifteen minutes.
nine hundred seconds.
that may not seem like a lot, and compared to hours, it's nothing.
but on that nerve racking day of january 28, 2017, seconds dragged on and it felt like an eternity passing by and all i could do was sit there and watch as time filled itself.

fifteen minutes was the difference between seeing my grandfather alive and not lying lifeless in a hospital.
fifteen minutes was the difference between being able to say goodbye,
and having that burning guilt in me knowing that i couldn't.
fifteen minutes was the thought of how i hadn't seen him in months, and now i wouldn't be able to even see him alive.

tears, agony, and pain were smeared all over that hospital room when i walked in.
tears flew down my cheeks and held no mercy and uncontrollable sobs fell through my lips.
we were all heartbroken in unision, like an orchestra with broken strings and instruments. ones that could not function properly.

i regret a lot in my short amount of time on earth.
i regret not being closer to my grandfather when i had the chance.
because that chance, has now spilled right through the cracks in my fingers, fell through the surface of the earth, and fused with his decaying body, six feet underground.

fifteen minutes isn't a lot of time, because the moment you take your eyes off the clock, you realize, fifteen minutes wasn't enough time to begin with. and even if you want more, time is irreplaceable.