Now the cuts
have faded to pale seams,
from the girl
who left her key on the counter,
and took the why with her,
and the friend
you hadn’t seen in years
but still called brother,
his paintings hanging quiet on walls
in rooms no longer yours.

like the ghost of an old song,
still in key
you rise again
fingernails dark with soil,
burying sunflower seeds
in morning’s cold fog.

The dog needs feeding.
There’s toast to burn,
and leaves to steep.
You carry your small life
like a cracked bowl
that still holds water.

After years bent in ritual hunger,
knees pressed to rice,
tongue dry from vow,
nights lit like altars,
no revelation came.
No divine telegram.
No trumpet of truth,
just the kitchen humming
and the silence after the call.

Only the widow neighbor,
waving through fogged glass.
Only the pipes in the wall
clunking like an old lung.
Only the light
barging in
without your consent.

You believe in coats
with missing buttons,
safety pins where zippers gave,
old threads that never matched
but held anyway.
You forgive the past
not because it asked
but because you need the room.

It builds in your bones
like wind in an empty house,
constant, uninvited,
and full of old names.
Like a tune half-remembered,
only the hum
remains.

i just lit up a matchstick,
like a rock striking the bed of still water,
creating ripples seemingly impossible to control.
the matchstick ignited the moment it made contact
with the red phosphorus on the box's side.
it burnt so bright, so sharp—
i watched flickers of it, the tiny fire—a world of its own.
the flame started blue at the centre,
turned white, orange, red, and a bright yellow.
was this the sunshine's glow?
or the fire that grew from it?

i watched the match start to shrivel up,
the tip that burnt the brightest went down the fastest.
it dropped on my skin,
left a tiny scar in its midst.
and then the stick caught fire—
slowly, gradually, it ate itself up.
the world swallowed itself whole—
the world that the matchstick had created on its own.

such innocence. i wonder if it had life—
oh, but it did have life.
born with it—well, made the way it is supposed to be:
burn, leave a light, which lasts longer.
the originator of the fire, further.
and it dies because of its own existence.
the box that it comes within
carries what brings it to its ending.

and all those, multiple—oh so many,
that come within a box like a well-settled family,
leave one by one, burning themselves apart.
i wonder if the ones remaining behind know their part?

isn't that the irony of human beings as well?
our own worlds, created by us alone—
swallowing us whole,
and often the ones to bring us to ruin: our own.

sometimes i wonder
if i were to kiss the flame,
pull it in my arms, hug it, and set myself on fire—
would our worlds collide?
would i break the loop of life?
would i find the warmth i require,
or would i too turn to ash,
like the matchstick as my friend?

what would it say—
the flame, as it embraces me in return?
would it be like the caress of a mother’s hand,
or the sizzling burn of my father’s?
would this comfort be my destruction?

i wonder if the matchstick ever regretted its purpose.

I slipped through a portal in my body
and ended up in a strange place
am I dreaming? I asked
no, I replied, I am here
strange beings beckoned me through dark corridors
a tall pale man looked on, meekly lost
I passed tests I didn't need to pass
went through another portal in a tiny spaceship

the next station was similar
a woman who was not a woman called me over
her mouth was a gaping orifice filled with balene brush
her face was covered in antennae like stalagmite
she was a dwarf
a shifting creature of other constitution
a dimensional being of some odd persuasion
are you still the same consciousness? she asked me
wondering if I had slipped up or down while traveling, outside my identity
yes, I replied, still conscious
another of her kind slunk over, eyeing me in a predatory fashion
she waved him away subtly
she talked my head off with incomprehensible prattle
perhaps attempting to sedate me, for her opportunity to latch on
I began to fade and then
an alarm went off

I was pulled abruptly
back

he had this light in his eyes.
i never thought i would see “home” so vividly
until i looked into those eyes
those sweet brown eyes
filled with light.

i look into your eyes now
searching for the light he had
and i see nothing

i ask you thousands of questions
to understand you
like i understood him-
or so i thought i did-
but you say nothing

you make me smile
but not laugh like he did
volcanic eruptions of pure bliss
now valleys of yearning

i fear i’ve gone too far
and i can’t go back to him
what would he say anyways?
he still wouldn’t want me
though i was so sure he did

and you’re smiling at me
and you’re complimenting me
but i’m looking right past you
trying to see if i can see him
through the crowds and swarms of people

you look at me, and i smile back
but i’m staring into your deep brown eyes
searching for a light
that only he had

better is the biggest fairy tale of all time
the mirage in the desert before
a promised land i’ll never reach,
predestined to dwell in the wilderness
with my gloom my doom

No age.
No mass.
Just motion.
I do not experience time.

To me, the beginning
and the end
of the universe
are the same blink.

I have seen the inside of your eye
and the bone of a dead star,
without stopping to ask
which was which.