Love is as to a dry well,
The heart akin to the empty bucket.
I would be convinced that this is hell,
Had I not tasted of heaven.
Is this a shadow realm?
Like mirrors' reflections?
Is there someone like myself?
Aching & longing for one to reach out?
True in their intentions?

We were  like COMPADRES,
we've been TOGETHER SINCE BIRTH,
YOU WERE ALWAYS There for me,
you also knew MY WORTH.
You knew my EVERY THOUGHTS,
PET PEEVES and so MUCH MORE,
My (B.est F.riend F.orever),
is what I TRULY ADORE.
You were like (MY SHADOW),
OH WAIT!!!
That's what you are,
even when I WALKED DISTANCE AWAY,
YOU WERE NEVER, EVER TOO FAR!!!
When I felt COLD AND LONELY,
You were ALWAYS BY MY SIDE,
You STAYED RIGHT UP ON ME, and
You ALWAYS was MY GUIDE.
When I felt like I was ALL ALONE
the LONELINESS SEEMS to NEVER END,  
All I have to do is: LOOK OVER MY SHOULDER
and there she is:
MY SHADOWY FRIEND!!!


B.R.
Date: 8/31/2024

I was asked to explain what I mean by
"Dead Inside"
Typically I pawn off a joking motion
waving my marionette arms
to hide the rabbit in the hat
I adequately nick-named misery
because it keeps me company.
But if you sawed me in half
I'm quite certain all you will find
inside is a silhouette of  man
dancing around in a light box
doing the same fruitless jig over and over.
A couple of loose strands
and a few holes in the images
but the end is the beginning
and I am putting on a show for you all now.
The curtain is  my mouth
strung so tight you'd think it was a smile
And the words I say spin round and round
not a genuine frown in sight.
The light may be on inside
but the picture never seems to change
day after day,
collect the pieces off the floor
get up,
fall in love,
trip over the same type of girl
have my heart shatter into pieces
fall back down on the side of the road
remember how uselessly alone I am;
rinse and repeat.
This is paper thin love
and see through expectations that will not fail.
And it doesn't matter which way you spin it.
Its A tragically bad silent comedy
that doesn't need a narrator to explain
Just how miserable the person inside really is.
My heart is just a silhouette of a man
and if you think you can put some tangibility
behind it and not have it shatter into 1000 pieces.
Congrats you too have joined the circus.
and spin round and round in my light box.

The first half light crescent sneaked out
catching a glimpse of you glinting  
exuberant on the pitch dark
edge of the other side of the pool
wrapped in pure kohl.
Time and again matching the vision
it waxes into the full moon.

Awake all night in the serene shadow
down the blinded silhouetted earth.
I can see out off its calm lock
a firefly flies out and maybe afar
but that view might not miss no star.
But does even the moon see the tuberose
blooms in dark earth deep down the kohl?

At the very end of the forest you will see
A lonesome silhouette standing in the sea
It seems gazing at the infinite horizon
While bathing under the vivid light of the moon

It was clearly a silhouette of a person
A maiden with a hair that was adored by dawn
And a body of an hour glass in the unknown
Sparkling as though diamond on a podium

But it is not what peaks my curiosity
It was the feeling that surged through me
Like seeing a very candid photography
Void with lies and ambiguity

But when I tried to reach out to the lady
She recoils from me instinctively
Now my thirst to know her identity
Burns in my throat painfully

Eyes of the stars are
on the wings of the fireflies.
Guess who is marching
in the moonlit night?
The moon rows down
on to the river.

Has the Huri squeezed
out of the gem packed
tight door of paradise?
Basked out on the gripping
bank of the Sal Sabila River,
only to spill a heady perfume
drop down on the stunned
awestruck silhouetted night?

The eve has long gone far
to wear a khol of this
mesmeric shady contour!
No one, not even you
will want to miss the peak.
Where it all begins with
the tuberoses riding the wind.