In an aesthetic coffee shop,
Scribbling away with glee.
Drinking to my imagination,
Is it only me?

In this aesthetic coffee shop,
Where lovers often meet.
I hear fragments
of what their life has been.

Talking over coffee,
They think they are strangers to me.
I observe,I know,
I share their happiness, a witness to their vows.

Sadness and pain,
Sometimes the outcome may be.
But they still come to this coffee shop,
Unknowingly drinking with me.

I am not the only one,
Voila,it's not just me!
There are other artists in this coffee shop,
Observing and scribbling like me.

it's past 12 midnight
-and that should just be okay
  given with my quarantine body clock,
but i haven't slept for the past 36 hours:
  -i walked around the city,
  -i exhausted my brain with responsibilities,
  -i distracted myself with hobbies,
but i just can't seem to sleep.

it's amazing how overthinking really rallies with your mind,
and how it affects your whole biological being.
it's amazing how, one brief moment with a stranger,
bugs me like this.

his lips,
his warm embrace,
his sweet voice.

i just can't seem to sleep,
i
need
him,

Open hands.
open eyes.
open ears.

Mindfulness, told me to care.
It didn't let me know how to deal -
how to deal when others don't.

Mother, Father, Brother, and Sister
everyone I've ever known,
how do you deal with the loss of feeling.

How does one cope without
an ear to the ground, an eye out for another,
and hands ready to pull people up out of their stupor.  

Yesterday, my cousin died.
I had no relationship with him
other than when people I know
talked about him going in out and jail.

I contacted all his brothers and sisters,
no one had spoken to him in years
and his overdose was met with a shrug.

He might have been the worst kind of person
and still here I am meeting his end
with confusion and unknowing
for why his life couldn't have been different.

he met her at a very strange time in his life. no, scratch that. that was basically a quote from fight club.

i.
but frankly, he did meet her at his lowest lows
when he wanted the vortex to **** him in so he could vanish and rest and maybe find peace-
for his girl was gone and left him to fend for himself in this chaotic world, scattering the past, present and future they’ve dreamt of in a hurricane before she did, one that ****** the life out of him
his girl, the girl of his dreams, the girl he dreamt with, the girl he dreamt for, the girl who shattered his dreams gone

ii.
he slowly opens up to her
and she slowly gets to know him
well mostly, his love story left to die with its tragic ending, another tale of an unrequited- now one sided- love
she doesn’t really mind for she’s known pain and misery,
known them enough to last almost half of her lifetime
she knows how having them as company turns living into the art of merely breathing
and so she refuses to take flight from this almost stranger who, because of the way circumstances have rolled she’s stuck with
misery loves company doesn’t it?

iii.
he has turned her into his shoulder to cry on
changes taking toll with time’s passing,
yet their connection remains constant,
their unexpected friendship unfazed
two people with the same wavelength, gliding with the same frequency,
relatively similar to soulmates
and they could end up together in the snap of a finger, voila
as easy as how random they picked up
but nothing easy is ever worth having

and try as they, she might,
it seems like it can’t be


iv.
she’s always there for him
she’s seen him cry, beat himself up enough times
she’s aware that he could be quite a handful
perhaps ignoring his constant “i need you’s”
and “please don’t give up on me’s”
and evaporating one day into the air and blocking his number would be the best option;
letting go could be her salvation
before she chooses drowning over keeping her head up for one particular boy-
she’s the one consistently found on his side
she’s the one with the 2am jokes when the world decides to act as his shadow
and the one with the random spur of the moment topics that never fail to amuse him

v.
sometimes he’s left wanting to lose the remaining sliver of hope he has for humans
so he makes her out to be just like everybody else
on those occasions when he wants nothing more than bottles of ice cold whiskey and packs of cigarettes from dawn to the late night hours, to cease existence
he expects her to appear and announce her leaving
and he’s left with this internal satisfaction all the time when she lets down his morbid expectation that she’s given up on him
she remains on her place in his life

vi.
but maybe she’ll never be the girl

even if she’s always with him,
always nagging him to get out of bed
and live this ******* up thing disguised as life
even when she becomes this bright light trying so hardly to outshine her darkness and his darkness
even when she manages to see the good in him
even after she lets out her “i’m here for you’s”
and “i won’t leave you’s”
and “i got you’s”

she’s still not the girl
there’ll always be this wall,
barricading the distance
no matter how little between them
all the while the lines get blurrier

vii.
she confuses him enough for him to get a grip
and even feel in the state of denial he’s locked in,
really looking through her remains his failure
even after it all, majority of her is still invisible
somehow she’s still a stranger,
just strangers who because of their own messed up loneliness,
bared their souls out to each other
and their needs and attachment
get in the way too soon blinding them,
thinking it could be something more,
something it’s not

viii.
strangers.
maybe that’s all they’re meant for

Deep dark days
The curtains of pain fall
The stage is covered
We don't know what's behind
It's the future
Something we can't determine
Looking up at the sky
Walking for a mile
We are all strangers
Lost in time
Our mind is complex
Full of emotions
we ourselves don't understand
If  we are deserts
Then the dunes are our minds
Constantly shifting
No reason no rhyme
Lost in this strange land
We are all alike
Yet we are different
In how we see life
We are balloons hollow on the inside
The rubber expands as we live our lives
But the question remains
Did we do anything worthwhile?

There was a time;  ironically,

it was when in that moment, time

suspended indefinitely for me;

That I thought,

I would know you forever.

just like that
you became just another stranger
who knows what keeps me up at night
and knows what makes me feel alive

I stumbled across a letter from an old friend,
its contents were long and wordy but they had their end.
It was just her way of saying she appreciated our friendship.
A friendship unanchored, blew away with the wind
with paper sails that have only thinned.

Birthdays used to be a grand affair; a day to celebrate
but each year the wishes dwindle down so I reciprocate.
Radio meets silence while we're both aware of the days
until it becomes a memory of the song that no longer plays.
Too busy trying to navigate channels that changed.

Then an invitation to a graduation came to me one year
a wedge of uninterrupted distance bridged by a, "Dear."
I don't know if olive branches can hold my weighted heart
but I sent my response to expect me there
before I decided to not care.

When the day came you said, "I didn't think you would come!"
I kept quiet how I cried in my car a block from
your home. I hid my face in your arms and squeezed you tight
because the wedge between us was five-years wide.
"I said I would," is all I replied.

And we asked each other questions that friends don't ask.
What did you study? Where do you live? What do you do?
We joke around but do not laugh as hard as we used to.
My past brought to my present like a nostalgic gift.
A chance to heal over our ocean-wide rift.

And there were no known reasons! I can't turn back the clock!
I just drifted like a small boat barely tethered to its dock
until a storm came and everyone forgot to tie me down.
Or maybe it was on purpose, or maybe I couldn't secure me.
I was the fourth in a unit of three, send me out to sea.

But there is a positive to all of this turmoil
there is a reason the invitation made it to my door.
I rowed myself through the five-year waves back to shore
and tethered my boat and checked the knots times ten.
When friends become strangers we get to meet again.