What more could I ask for
For I could have buried down to hell for my sins
But with you, it’s a heart that embers in gold
The shadow behind my thought
Flickering like the fading light of a storm,
Yet steady—like the promise of dawn after the night.

Where I was once dust, now I am breath,
Each word with you, an echo of what I could have been.
Your touch, the warmth that revives the cold,
A map to navigate the chaos within my soul.
In your eyes, a horizon I once feared to see,
Now the only place I want to be.

and though we breathed the same breaths
under different skies
and in different tongues
though the whispering birth
of one
was the death of another
both righteously tainted
both cut open
bleeding into me
and her
and us
and them
and god i wish there was no them
i know
i know i know i know  
the room was ink
and cheap leather
and there’s no room for god
in collars or letters
but have your bones been mended?
and
has the bleeding stopped?
because their hands
are still red
their wounds like honey
sticky
infinite
crystallized
so, my love
it’s time you learn to sew!
stitch up your broken!
sever the wicked!
make your mosaic!
and i’ll tattoo it on my sleeve
i’ll bottle it up
and swallow it
and when it sinks into the ocean of my body
i’ll think of them
and hope
that some day
under some sky
they can taste it too

The fire had  a chance to redeem itself once more But this time it will provide warmth to the people around it instead of burning them.

Is this what redemption looks like?
The agressive roaring of the fire now whispers soothing words into my veins.

Instead of ashes, embers rise,  
A dance of fire sparks in golden skies a warm light twinkling in my eyes.

He found me,
in my abandoned castle,
chasing the dead.

Dancing with despair,
in the daylight.
as it had me in chains,
at night.

My fears,
befriended my sins.
And this medley,
got me twirling to its rhythm.

Amidst this ill-lit feast,
I saw a face.
I stopped,
To get a better glimpse of him.

I fell on my knees, weeping.

All this time,
he has been waiting for me.

Each of my teardrops,
turns into a snow-white pearl,
in his hands.

Then,
he gently,
put them in the pockets,
of his holy tunic.
And I looked at him in awe!

He smiled and said,
Pearls made of tears,
always reminds me,
of my strongest warriors,
on earth.

I found the city a pitiless thing.
It smelled of steel, concrete and the bay.
I use to sit on the sea wall that edged
my old college condo, the one I shared
with a black cat, and sing Otis Redding-
skipping the whistling part of his song
because my lips could never purse the
right tune- and watch the tide roll in
catching rainbows in the sun’s glint.

It  was the inhabitants I couldn’t take,
all rude and loud, smelling of salt
and stale fish scales and crab shells,
so snared in tiny toils, frail and idle,
their itching needs thirsty and *****.  
I lost my wonder in the traffic dust,
the night haze and starless nights.
I avoided touching that life less
it should defile me in its lost light,
night terrors and phantasms.

Then, in the small church in
the out of the way corner,
I found her, a strange vision
trembling, ready to emerge
just past the reach of my mind
and the urge of my will. She existed
beyond all jaded aims and
drab  dissemblements,
something unfounded, unbuilt
but ready, waiting to be built on.

On my birthday she bought me
a lounge chair to grace my
unfurnished balcony, on the
very day I purchased my own.
And there we sat (my desire),
watching the city unseal itself
across from me in a sweltering love,
constantly revealed, being
forever built and rebuilt on
in pain and unfathomable will.

In the night of purple murky clouds
that fell from heaven, a heavy haze
envelops the old palace, a velvet shroud
that blinds all but the keenest gaze.

Yet there atop the palace gates,
a spotlight sends out golden blades
to slice the velvet and spite its weight:
gleaming swords by brighter spirits made —

A signal to the clouds, return up high,
cast off their shroud and kiss the sky.