Pessimistic trails,
A mosaic of failure on our backs.
Somehow the chaos formed a pattern,
Thinly veiled by time.

Point between,
Raging forward - endless.
Even so we are hidden inside this gift.
Show us the wonder of it,
Every moment passing
Negating into,
Traces.

For then,
Unacquainted strangers will
Tie together those soul-fed strands.
Unknown intimacy, love beyond love, shall
Remain a dream for us
Evermore...

there was a time
when i called this place home
onward and upward
a steady stride kept

i was blindly unaware
that this 'home' was not safe

had it been,
it wouldn't feel
so unfamiliar now

this is what happens
when forward is the only direction you know
never in one place long enough
to know what home is

i'm stagnant now
moving in no direction
learning only
what home is not

it's not where my head lies
not where my past lives
only somewhere in the future
i'll find what home is

Inexplainable emotions,
Connected by spiderwebs.

Rather, the past and present
Webbed together by
Haunting cobwebs.

Regrets left to haunt,
The present left
For us to decide.

Steung together and
Streched thin

Who are you?
My haunting present?
My nightmarish past?
My bottomless imagination?

Or the black widow
Connecting it all,
And leaving the dust
To settle,
On my abandoned heart.

what comes after
does not
belong
to
m
e
o
nly
what
happens
in the present

each one of my days
has a number
the numbers have been passing

at age 19, I knew this:
in order to live,
you must be conscious of the numbers

you must be awake,
life must be in your brain
veins are not good enough

every moment,
the numbers increase
and I start to see colors more

I can't see the future
I can't change the past

For once,
I pause
and breathe
and laugh

Because in this moment
I am
So, so
Alive

We used to run around the streets in Elmhurst. Play football and bounce the ***** off windshields. Get into tussles and act like tough guys. Somebody on the block always opened the hydrant when things got too hot.

There wasn't a lot of running inside the walls of my high school. It was a train to a bus ride away from home. But it felt a world away.

I'd meet the homeys after school, out on the handball courts in Broadway. Sometimes I didn't bother going to school. I'd skip straight into acing fools on serves.

It's a habit I've kept with me over time. I've had trouble seeing the opportunity right in front of me because I've believed things had to be a certain way. I believed new relationships couldn't be formed as strong as old ones. But I was wrong.

I made it through high school. First kid in the fam to graduate out of college. First generation middle class man from the streets of a lower class upbringing. I don't get to bare that too often. And I don't get to speak my speak all time. Often times I've had to change tongues, dig outside my element to feel a part of something. More often I've chosen not to do so. Out of pride? Out of principal? I probably know as much as you. And that's nothing. But wherever I am, there are places that I came from, people I have met, things that I have been. And without them I'd have no words for you.