The glare of morning off crystalline shells
Suits wove endlessly from lobby to desk.
Minute hand towers over 8:45
Pungent smells of black coffee,
Stale air perspiration absorbed by sterile tiles,
Downtown, Jersey, Brooklyn gleam
as the crescent copper sun continues
Lady Liberty smiles.
8:46
Before you knew the ground beneath you
shattered.
A blanket of black invaded the poorly ventilated
rooms.
Panic took over the buried primal instincts.
Another statistic, another number on the ledger
that will never balance.


About to open a folder piled upon the rest.
In a flash all shook with momentous force.
Screams echoed in fear of the unknown,
Chilling how quickly the room became dark,
The blue sky faded behind an unbreakable
wall
Unable to move pressed up against the cold
Glass
An attempt to escape the unforeseeable
Events
My head was pounding and breaths became
Forced
Break the window, just break the window
For God's’ sake we need air.
Ravenous orange had broken through the floor
And the four walls.
Upon contact the glass broke - air flooded in.
We hung out of the windows, gulps of air.
Make a decision, hope for pure intervention, a
Safety net.


1,2,3,jump…
Light as a feather when you leap from the 94th
Floor window.
Escaping the smothering black cloud from within.
Close your eyes, breathe, in and out.
What thoughts were going through your head?
Were you hoping for a miracle angel.
A tumbling image stuck on replay.
Your death captured in history.
You had to jump.
It was a very public way of dying.
Onlookers witnessed the whole ten-second journey.
Death was your only option: swallowed by
Painful singing flames or
A courageous end to your life.
Evil that day determined fire would seal your fate.
In a last attempt you fought back and cheated
Death’s cruelty.


Stuck at the window frame fixated on salvation.
There’s no other way, the heat is too hard to face.
Just step out, let go.
Fly through the clouds.
Hands clenched by my side my ears still ringing.
I breathe in a heavy breath, felt the air filling my lungs.
Sorrowed breaths.
Debris to chaos.
Ash to souls.
In midst of death it was serene.
Closed my eyes and let go.
The way i flew would’ve made my parents proud,
For that day the only thing that saved me was the
Camera that caught my body in suspense.
By a stranger in the crowd.

please don't tell me,
that i should be my first priority,
when i am but one out of many,
and many are far more burdened than i.

please don't tell me,
that my comfort is of utmost importance,
when there are things far better than "comfortable,"
that lie far outside of my comfort zone.

and please don't tell me,
that no one could love me more than me,
and do not tell me,
that i can fix all my problems by myself,
that i am the solution to all my mistakes,
and that i am my own savior.

if all i have is me,
then i am hopeless,
and i am limited to failure.
don't lie to me.

on the contrary,
i have a Creator,
whose name has been shunned,
because no one wants to give credit where credit is due.

do not lie to me,
you only fool yourselves.
while you selfishly keep the glory,
He provides for you;
giving you all that you thought you had given yourself.

do not lie to me.
i know better.
and, for your own sake,
do not lie to yourself either.

I once knew his hoofs
and replete must till his day
he ate fast and spate a master
in his lure where whip plays hot 'twas a twist
he'd take a pie in a ******* harvest
by whim did flatter his tongue again!

Amongst the people I held together,
I, somehow fell apart.

death floats through the cities
casts its shadow across the deserts
sneaks into villages and huts

sometimes quietly
sometimes with a deafening blast
leaving corpses and rubble in its wake

no time a safe time
no zone without its horrors
no end of suffering for humankind

religion once more a deadly weapon
harnessed to serve power and greed
all saviors sacrificed in vain

my sophomore year of high school
i found God
i found Him in achy bones and ink-stained fingertips
i found Him in late night sobs
and screaming into my pillow
i found Him in grieving
and trying to love again
i found Him in trust issues
and fragile emotional states
i found Him in brokenness beyond repair
God uses the broken, the hurt, the weary
God uses me.

You thought you could spread your legs
to the first stranger who spoke your name,
but even then you were so ashamed of your skin,
the marks and scars of the body you were born in
that you eloped.
You never came back.

You asked what you had to do to be loved.
To be wanted.
It was all you've wanted.

The first boy whom you confessed to smiled, amused,
and asked, so?

It's the question you've been trying to answer all your life.

so?

Your first kiss was at eighteen, ugly and untouched.
He only wanted your body,
but you've forced yourself to think otherwise.

Oh, love.
It is so sad to live in your own body,
to watch him watch her,
watch her link her arm around you and starts
telling you about her problems

Problems.
oh, you had them too.
but you were just a listener,
with ears always, always open.
you felt like a mute. your mouth filled with sand.

Do they know how much you love yourself?
You did.
You had to.
You were trying, but no. You were not enough.

At night he is always there, in your bed.
Your brother, i mean. Whispering how much he loves you.
But in the morning he is gone
and you have not seen him ever since.

This does not make sense.
No, no more questions.
Nothing will ever make sense.

Today, you texted a boy who used to love you,
and when he didn't text,
you nodded to yourself.
it's alright. you expected this. be calm. don't panic.

your friends call you the queen of sarcasm, of loudness.
Some asked why you were always so depressed.

Depressed. Empty. Sad. Vulnerable.
It's all you've ever been since the day
you saw the front door close behind your father.
Since the day you left your own country.

But your days no longer revolve around your mother's sadness, or your father's violence.

And you are too old now. No more lighting candles. No more days of fresh hotel sheets and smells of sunscreen.

In December, a boy confessed he liked you.
You didn't want to choose him because you were lonely.
And when you wanted to choose him
because you were lonely, he was not there.

You thought if he comes, you would give him all your love.
All the yellow light you've been hiding in your heart.

You wanted simplicity. Love and his eyes.
Stop, this is getting too long.