Another Saturday evening that I wish I could leave my house and spend time around others
who have crafted intricate masks to hide their hurting, but my mask is crumbling
because it has been worn too much lately, so tonight will be spent
curled up in bed.

I can't escape the storm of thoughts and emotions and desires
and expectations and memories and songs and nightmares and
E V E R Y T H I N G
swirling through my head.

The pain swells in my chest, bubbling up but unable to break out
because these demons refuse to let me assign words to them as I try to cry out for help -
so I stop trying and I lie down to let the burden rest on my heart,
heavy like lead.

My attempts to break out of this funk are futile
(this monster knows me worlds better than those who wish good upon me)
and the harder I chase after hope the more
I am filled with dread.

Sometimes it feels like I've gathered together the shreds of my existence
and made great progress in patching together the pieces with the meager tools I've found,
but my tools are coarse and jagged; they leave behind a
blossoming trail of red.

While I labor so diligently to create beauty wherever I wander,
the shadows laugh at my sorry attempts of pursuing happiness when they know full well
that in order to demolish my collection of mismatched tatters all they must do is
keep pulling at the thread.

All I desire is to reach out and connect with others who are more experienced than I
in travelling the road of misery, but have learned to look up and focus on the bright beams of light that break through the clouds instead of letting the rocky path
rip them to shreds.

One time I found another that was hurting deeply, just like me. I wanted to know how he sang of light and peace while at the same time housing those demons within his soul. I tried to learn by befriending him, but my presence was too much. This isn't just my mind playing tricks on me.
I am clingy; it's what he said.

The boy was driving out
Before he forgot himself
“What did I believe”, he cried out,
“On the bookshelf?”

But it was awful chilly, it was
For an afternoon
So he turned to friends, but spoke none 'cause
A mouth don’t fit on a loon

Biding time with a droopy eye
And changed his name again
Goes by a fool with a cool catch
To earn his name on cement

He is the son of summer
Winter at his feet
Doesn't remember forgetting his innocence
No matter who he meets

Yes, ma'am, thats's a dual voice you hear
He seeks high fidelity
Fully faithful, a sun-fearing queer
The caricature to be

On the stage, the things that he wrote
Those memories bygone
Come crashing down on him and he can't emote
The clown's not having fun

Finding time with a droopy eye
And changed his name yet again
Goes by a fool with a cool catch
To earn his name on cement

He is the son of summer
Winter at his feet
Doesn't remember forgetting his innocence
No matter who he meets

Praise be to cherry pie
And all the faces that made me feel that I
Could settle on "by and by"

Praise be to anyone
That put me under the blistering sun
I'll get back there, its true

I just got more to do

With the familiar blur of familiar frames -
Wearied, we wait discrete
Worried that we cannot breathe
for the wind is yet to take us away…
do you think much longer?
—
We blend in to the scene
like a sail in the overcast,
lingering in our subconscious -
striving, aching for the sting of summer to melt us in the sun…
when is it coming?
—
The frost bits our lips,
Fastening the deadly silence
A fascinating mind, hidden in fearsome chambers -
Collapsing with the dead leaves of our own trees…
How much longer?
—
We hesitate to bloom,
Blinded to our own beauty.
Another day, another season
Believing we are better by ourselves, the world is bitter…
Spring is shunned by the silence -
—
But we are fine;
The wind will take us away,
Summer’s sun will melt us,
The leaves will fall, and nature will bloom.
But we are more than we seem…
we breathe.

I may have made myself a nobody,
Almost invisible to the world,
But I see the theivings and decievings
Better here, on the outside.
I could tell you what I see and hear,
But should I ask for something in return
Just show me what's on the table.
We'll be strangers until your hearts content.
I don't lead nor follow.
I stay here on the outside.
I see and hear plenty to keep me aware.


                                                «c.h.b.»

There.*
That look of disbelief.
But yes, I am. So I'll be brief:
I am an actress.

"What?"
I know, I'm really not the kind
of girl that quickly springs to mind
when people think of those inclined to say
"I am an actress."

"But..."
I'm quiet, self-reserved and shy,
that girl who never seems to cry,
the one who never meets your eye, but yes,
I am an actress.

"How?"
Because you think this mind of mine
is great, that I am sitting on cloud nine.
For though these mangled thoughts creep up my spine,
You seem to think my life is fine,
so whilst my sun appears to shine,
I am, indeed, an actress.

They say "leave your box,
Go out and make yourself known,
Without a care in the world.
Be yourself."
But what if your box is your world?
And you never cared if people don't see it that way?
Those close to you, especially.
They really mean, "Be yourself but just not like that."


                                             «c.h.b.»

When I first met you, I didn't make friends with you right away. I thought you were an unmovable rock and I didn’t try pushing to start a conversation with you because I feared it would be an awkward one - as fleeting as a stone skipped across the water - and I thought you weren’t worth it.

I circumnavigated you for weeks on end. You were a quiet, windless lake, and I never thought it would be possible to hear you speak to me because there was no common ground between us. We didn’t find a piece of thread to tie our makeshift tin-can telephone together.

Yet, one day, there was a time I needed to ask someone for help. Of course, you were not my first choice. If everyone else wasn’t busy, I would never have broken my silence with you that day.

What was it that I needed? I wanted to know the translation of one, tiny foreign word I discovered attached to two blocks of stone set into a necklace. You were about to walk away, but I mustered my courage to tap your back and ask a question. When you answered, I understood that the word was a symbol for war and separation.

Ironically, it was the word that bridged the gap; the thread that made a way for us to exchange our first, real words with each other.

Artsakh. It was the word that made us friends.

Artsakh* sparked a conversation between us, and I was surprised because you were interested enough in our first exchange to share a story, which led to another, and then another.

The words you spoke to me in your feathery-soft voice splashed ice-cold water in the face of my parched first impression of you. You were no longer an unmovable rock - no, you were a broken rock from which streams of cool water gushed out. I washed my eyes from that stream and saw you as a new friend who opened up his life to me after a long time of silence.

One of the reasons why I found you so difficult to talk to was that you always hid your eyes under tea- or black coffee-coloured glasses. I have always believed that eyes are the windows to the soul, and when you cover yours, it’s like you’ve barred up your soul from the outside world.

Then, one afternoon, maybe because it was too hot or too dark inside the room - I don’t really know the reason - you took off your corrective lenses. And for the first time, I finally saw your eyes. They were a darker shade than your cinnamon-coloured hair, and I was taken aback because they were so beautiful.

I knew that I had to tell you what I thought, because maybe the reason why you always covered them up was that you were insecure about them or with your inability to see rightly with them. Since beauty always garners admiration, I also needed to mask the affection that suddenly bubbled up inside me. I wanted to bury it, and I did get to lay it to rest - but, I used a glass coffin.

If I succeeded in putting it six feet under, I wouldn’t have abandoned my books, cut off my sleeves, and waited under the shade of a tree with our friends during a hot day for you. At least I was rewarded with seeing your eyes again.

Of course you noticed me, and I had to shield myself from the rays of your bright gaze to hide the fact that I could hear fists pounding and small cracks forming on the glass coffin inside me. I looked at it and saw a huge spider web etched on the surface.

I’m not sure if I should replace it or allow it to shatter. But I feel like filling it up with cement because I need peace to think about things that are more important than thinking about how I feel about you.

What is it that I like about you? Beyond your eyes, obviously, I also like how you’re more quiet than everyone else - and despite that, you’ve let me in and let me become a part of your story.

Yet when I see you, I try not to see the reserved and silent expression you wear everyday, but I peer into the future to find you doing great exploits and baring your iron soul which has found the great power to influence within.

Because I’ve seen glimpses of that soul--like the time I asked you to write down your dream on my journal. I read that you wanted to be good at the career you chose, and that you wanted to help people.

The other friends whom I also asked to write their dreams usually wrote variations of the first part of your dream, but they didn’t usually express the second part. So I like how you included that you wanted to help.

I hope we will continue to become good friends. And I believe I will be there to witness you building bridges to more people like me, and even a bigger bridge that makes a way for the next generation towards a brighter future for your country.

And I hope for the day when you no longer hide your eyes. Because what they are two diamonds in the rough; two bright suns which will pull out wide smiles from the people around you - and most importantly, out of your own lips.