Within stirs a persistent bane

birthed while on her mother’s knee,
endorsed with fiery warnings
loudly proclaimed from weekly pulpit.

Now her bones grate
against the cushion
while the rhythmic cadence
of rocking chair
runners on hardwood
breaks the dim silence


as past misdoings reverberate

on the back walls of her mind.

Disquietude prompts obsessions
she endeavors to prove invalid.
Her desire to flee

from reminders of falsehoods

and fake passions

nags her endlessly

like unforgivable sins

haunt a cloistered sister.
Neither pleas nor prayers

quell her remorseful ruminations.

You came here to show me your side,
I looked up at the sky
seeing a storm unfold,
surely it would break through soon

I could see that this wouldn't end well,
I would be soaked in remorse
as soon as you uttered those words

Those words,
shaped liked daggers
ready to split me in half

It was never good
when you would raise your voice,
shout at me
as if I were partially deaf,
or a simpleton

You were such a degrading
*******

I had no respect for you,
and you had zero for me

I could see the fire heating up,
behind those ****** **** eyes
that gazed at me
as though,
I were the devil incarnate

You were a melting block,
that nothing
and no one
could stop from burning

The hate,
the anger,
it boiled deep in you

It was like hell
was inside of you

Nothing I ever did
was just right,
and all you ever did
was fight

i'm not seeking an end to this sorrow,
because i feel that feeling as sad,
broken, remorseful as i am
might propel me
to doing something
about changing my existence
for the better, not temporarily,

but permanently.
i want this summer
to be the summer
whereby i effectuate this change,
effectively return to the world
from the shadowlands
in which i've existed for so long.

this is me telling you that I'm letting go
months of emotions running dry
have led to my unrelenting disinterest
and you'll tell me I'm selfish for it
but we both know that it was bound to happen
my love for you was toxic
and eventually turned to waste
but you didn’t want it
even when it rested in your palms

this is me giving you honesty
that years of cutting edge realism
are flourishing in my mind like a disease
and I am realizing things I could have never imagined-
for in the end I was not your moon and stars
and that’s alright
instead I was my own galaxy
eight planets and all, but in the end just a speck
in the epitome of universe in your eyes

this is me saying that I am no worse or better without you
we both bled from our wounds
but unlike you I have already licked mine clean
and begun draining into other sources
this is not like me,
for usually I tend to roll in the mud I create
until I am encased in my everlasting remorse
but like you’ve said before, I have changed
and while we grow apart I wish not to be bitter
nor sweet, for we were neither
generalizing our relationship
is insulting to its legacy

but I still wish to be remembered
as something, as anything
don't let me become a blank space
we were written in pen
long strokes of dark ink
that seemed endless
and now the paper is torn
bits and pieces
of what once was
bits and pieces
isn't that what we both are?

Language
is one of my favorite things
for which I displayed
an early facility
I toyed with foreign languages
but went no further
it wasn’t where I wanted
to spend my time

I wanted to save the whales
improve education
fight poverty
protect our environment
a whole host of causes
I visited in a repeating cycle
whirling faster and faster until

I created my own vortex
and then found myself
at the far end of a wormhole
with no idea how I got there
much less how to return
and found myself observing
every time I behaved badly
in excruciating detail

A tactless comment
a thoughtless act
each small transgression
building stone by stone
until I created a fortress
walling myself within
this invisible shield

When we touch
is it you or me
who feels remotely?

All dissolves into Oneness.

17 July 2005

“What do you want,” he asks, his eyes bloodshot.

“Hurt me.” She says. “I want you to hurt me.”

My father
Was a violent person
Hot tempered, serious, tense.
Always, always tense.

I tried to deny it
But deep inside
I feared him.

Whenever I sensed a sudden change in his eyes,
A sudden flicker of anger on his face,
And even a sudden thickness in the air,
The fear kept creeping back

It was not the alcohol
That turned him into a monster.
Just how, in the right mind of a person,
Punch his wife,
Tear her hairs out of her scalp
And leave her body with bruises?

Just how, in the right mind of a person
Abuse his wife in front of his daughter,
Nonetheless of her daughter’s presence?

He’d hurt me too sometimes
When I tried to intervene,
To save my weak mother away from his grip.

He never apologized.
Not even once.

Regret & Remorse
Are photo-shopped
Pixels of fragmented
False memories.
Reboot.
Enjoy the whole show.

There are so many words left unsaid,
so many feelings left untold
but I know that someday
they will all unfold.

The devil carves his name into my skin
The blood reads: *disgusting