i spend my days sighing away, digging away at each layer of disillusionment. when will i get to the bottom of this? when do i get to see my bones, all bleached out to a lifeless tan? when do i get to poke them around like live coals, desperately reviving a dying fire? when do i get to see myself, in my highest, truest, most foolish form, and have the closure — both underwhelmed and overwhelmed?

i've lived longer than my younger self would've allowed; tell me, did she know me much better? did she live just long enough for me to inherit her despair? have i gone dancing too much with illusive lights, only to get home heavy, burning, and blinded? did she know it all along? did i know it all along?

tell me, was it all for this? tell me, in the name of all my splendid highs and in the drawn-out silence thereafter  — is this it?

only true poets listen to the voices in their heads

i tire myself out. i bite on my heart and spit it out — press my fingers on the dents, the teeth marks, the parts that are supposed to hurt. and i watch as it breaks into a thousand glasses. dreams. futile daylights. i watch, ever so quietly. i watch, unfeeling.

in bed, shrinking to the smallest space my skin and bones will allow. in bed, with my sorrows growing, sprawling out in every direction, all for the world to see.

how can i go and fade quietly when my hurting is a loud, lurid spectacle under flashy, purple lights?

february is inside me like a cursed fetus. it eats away at my ribs, making a gap big enough for me to sink into a quicksand of motionless hours and crumbling bones. i hate myself for having written these words, but february beckons with ghostly arms and i shrink to myself like a well-trained beast — step into my hollow chest and crawl farther and farther than before never to be seen again.

someplace else, icarus has taken one look at the sun and recoils like a banished angel. lo, the cheerless shadows befogging. lo, the waxen wings he clipped — swallowed by solid ground. lo, the skies melt above the sea, in horror, as he falls in place over his bones and sinks into his sunless chest.

how can i constantly forget something as innate, as natural as breathing — how do i stop holding it intimately and finally see self-transgression?

February Morning!
How gracefully you in your nostalgic attire trigger memories
and this profound understanding;

The rushing energies before school
How I wish I could go back and take hold,
Of those hours of pure fantasies that wasn't disturbed
by the thought of my parents getting old;

February Morning!
Maybe your fragrance wouldn't have hit me so hard,
If I wasn't preparing towards a seemingly fresh start
in the lands of the lake poets;

And I now wonder,
Intimidated by your Swift withering,
how life has hypnotized me into singing
words of worth
for the synthetic and tangible shimmering;
I feel you've woken me up from an hazy conscious;

Next year,
If I'm to feel your caressing light again,
It mightn't be from my beauteous and evergreen nest;

Maybe you'll come in a different costume,
bearing a distinct scent
That I'll both adore and hate;

Maybe because
your wind will then carry a cold solitude
and I'll terribly miss my brother and our silly disputes;
while the chaotic kitchen clangs would seem so distant
comparing to the silent heaves of crocuses in outside gardens;

February Morning!
I know if I get to know you there,
My heavy hours in library won't stop me from reminiscing;

Maybe,
Nostalgia would strike me more violently
but this time
accompanying a yearning that'll pierce my heart silently;