I don't fear the dark
My eyes just adjust to the twinkle of the stars and the rays of the moon

I don't fear heights
The clouds just soar around me, masking the spot on which my feet are found

I don't fear creepy crawlies
My body's design has just deviated from my micro friends, and my skeleton runs within me

My only fear is that I'll never hold you close to me in the dark of the night
That I won't be able take you to the heights of heaven again
Where the world is just a tiny speck to what we, together, have become

Turn my eyes inward
Scatter the nerves that flirt with shades pale and bright

My skin crimson and sour
Like an untimely foetus
Let it roll into a curl facedown

Reduce that deadly tongue
To the serpent it fears being
Race down to my swollen belly

When the trinity is gone
Darkness will prevail
And we'll see once again.

Standing on the scenic overlook,
(the one just a few miles out)
the city lights shine brighter than stars--
multicolored luminescence burning
its image on the insides of my eyelids,

and you, who drove me here,
(some 3AM adventure created
from a series of “I-don’t-know”s)
inch closer to the precipice,
sinking knee-deep in snow before
facing me with eyes that seem
backlit by street lamps and 24-hour signs.

You told me how you so loved
the feeling of being awake and alone,
while the city slept and yet--
I felt only loneliness,
stinging silence scratching marks,
my ribs battered from working
too hard, and I could feel them
cave in beneath solidarity’s weight--

alone, though you stood beside me
speaking of snowflake matters
that melted as they touched my ears,
your words dripping into my hair,
wasted on a mind preoccupied
with retrospective tunnel-vision:

First: the morning I woke to find my mother
screaming and stomping loud,
her plate broken on the carpet and
when she left, my father’s eyes, they
turned to sea-glass as he stood blank
(gone, I suppose, in a different way),
leaving me responsible for my little sister,
who hid behind the corner.

Then: the time I found my little sister
crying into my jersey-knit sheets and
asking me to help her skip school--
she couldn’t bear to face the boys
whose uninvited touch lingered
painful on her adolescent skin
(self-inflicted cuts would appear
in the following months)--
the memory drowned with whiskey and ***.

Later: my mother’s cancer--
no, liver failure that nearly killed
everyone who waited in the white-walled
hospital, bad food sour on our tongues,
stomachs cramping hard as if we felt
the surgery deep inside our own livers--
and I with my classwork, face buried,
because no one should see me cry.

I suppose the sandbag solidarity fell upon me
in parts, dragged me from lofty childhood,
each moment a simultaneous end and beginning
to all that followed and held me far behind--
further still, though you stand only
one foot away from me, near enough to reach
(and I can imagine my hand outstretched)--
somehow the cityscape seems closer.

null

You made me love you
Don't you see?

Standing in front of the mirror
When the gaze goes beyond the eyes
Through the window you enter
The world you had left behind
So many anecdotes start playing
A retrospective film
So many memories come rushing
Reliving those days in solitude
From the mirror they gaze at you
Asking you questions
After all these years
You still do not have answers to many
It’s futile to go in search now
As you would like to step inside
And search among the memories
Only if you could do it any different

Torture; the mark of a beautiful woman left on your brain.
Tearing chunks out but, it is fair game.
She had conscious to steal your heart in spite of potential pain.
But all she did was use you in light of her own gain.
You stuck with her because you love her, your feelings can't be tamed.
You'd break any cage for her despite how many hearts she's slain.
In retrospect it may be that you're the one to blame.
You made so many mistakes... too many to name.
You stayed with her because she had became
The only thing that made you feel whole with nothing to gain.
But gain, that's just it. Its personal gain.
You know when you're apart, its too hard to gain
Someone who loves you who shares that pain.
And even though she didn't love you, she certainly knew pain.