when I was younger
home was the best place ever.
whether it was birthdays
which now feels like
a long-lost dream. since we lived in a tiny
house. a family of six huddled up together
in a tiny room to celebrate. maybe times
were simpler or maybe we didn’t have much then.

or on days, mum cooks
which always was a rarity.
she never played an active role
but our younger selves made sure
at the end, we’d be grateful.

things began to shift
when we grew older.

the happy house felt like a dark
gloomy one. smiles began to
be replaced by shoutings.
birthdays began to be less common
and sooner like we all imagined
it would become something
attached with the past.


when i became older
i tried becoming friends with
my younger self. somedays were
a disappointment. somedays we faked it.

I’m still trying to.

At times
I think of myself
as an onlooker, an observer.
At times, I live my life
by witnessing it.

At such times
when I step aside from the midst
my anxiety ceases to exist.

I sit on the counter, feet draped over the sink watching the sun rise over the trees through the open window
As I bring my coffee to my lips I feel the familiar chip
The one that my lips have felt every morning for years
This cup snuggles perfectly between my small hands, the warmth shielding them from the cool spring air

This cup has been through a lot
A few moves
More than a few lovers

The Alice in Wonderland decal has worn off and the seafoam enamel is cracked-- a mosaic of all the times I didn't care enough to hand wash it
The handle fell off once, I wanted to practice the Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken things with liquid gold
But I'm a college student, so glittery modge podge worked just fine

In many ways I am this cup
Used, well loved
Slightly broken, held together with glitter and good intentions
I don't mind the cracks
In the cup or in me
Cracks show that you are strong, can handle whatever is thrown at you, heartbreak or linoleum
They also allow light in
To brighten when darkness is all you can seem to find

As I reach the last sips of my coffee the sun is well up
My cats are hungry and I'm running late
Some days it's worth tardiness to reconnect to a part of you you thought was lost

Today is one of those days

O why, O why, O why was I born in this non-laternlit world?
No!
O why, O why, O why was I born in this non-torchlit world.
What woe!
And try, and try, and try I do, to fulfill myself, all others, too!
And try, and try, and try I do, to remind myself, all others, too:

That it is not man's devices that light the darkness,
but the sun's brightness…

Crumpled paper damp with ink,
Immortal words washed away in the running stream.
The paper breathes longer than I,
whats behind longer still,
for the same worries I carry
are etched in the walls of Pharaoh's grave.

When the candle of life is by saliva-wet
fingers extinguished,
Sighs resound and glances cast at the
vacant seat my voice used to occupy.
The present man soon dances for the prying eye of
Retrospection.

A picture printed on the page in many days,
full of laughing smiles and vacant gaze of youth gone
blank,
The Retrospect looks closely, trailing fingers softly
over the black white rendition.
An all too human fear creeps to mind,
and he quickly turns the page.

The wound
though old
and hence
looked closed,

the pain
it caused
was quite
obtrusive,
even after
all those
years, were
somehow
left behind,
oblivious of
the misery
it created.

Couldn't leave
it like that,
insistent pain
made to decide at last,
when it was
opened again
memories
sprayed out
copiously, like
dark, coagulated blood,
never before seen.
Then, fresh blood
started to ooze
as if reluctant
to close the wound,
unable to forget
emotions that are
made to sleep
anesthetized.

How alike--both born in Bergen County
among mansions and stone-lined yards,
but my childhood had been framed with lace,
yours a light bulb broken before tasting electricity.

My mother called me your “moral compass.”
My sister said I kept you from disappearing--
as if you were born from leftover ashes
smearing the stone hearth black

as the nights we’d lie awake and you’d
asked me what color to repaint your bedroom
and how to talk to that boy from your class.
You insisted I spend every night at your house.

Sometimes, we’d race our fourwheelers wild,
I always lost, far behind you--and further still
when you found that skin-and-bone crowd with
*****-stained clothes, their teeth and eyes

yellow as their cigarette-tarred fingertips
and when they stumbled near, I smelled
breath foul as the stench of a mouse
dead in my car’s engine--slowly burning out.