Slumped shoulders, a spine wire hanger
holding a jacket up. Taut sleeves, out-
turned pockets, warped collar,
and a gap-toothed zipper.

Elastic wrists plunged into shallow
pants pockets, tight like shoelaces
before the midnight untying.
Rose-gold hamper slid

beneath the box spring, dragging
cereal pieces to a fine dust
then dissipating with
the morning ritual

bed spread, bed sheet tearing from
a sweaty body to the tune
of a near-siren on the desk.
Leg swing and saunter

to cold tiles like broken glass. Clockwise
turn the shower dial, act clean, turn
it back. Fingers swipe 'cross
the medicine cabinet,

leaving droplets to race to the white wood
frame. Bridge thresholds past the fan-
diced ice air hallway to the closet.
Creep the door closed behind,

pull drawers to the end of their tracks,
find pants. Unhook jacket from bed
post, throw it on one sleeve
at a time, and plunge

elastic wrists into the shallow pockets
and leave.

I'm in Pittsburgh all the ******' time. Well, I used to be.**

I used to go bridge jumping,
lace ***** bungie jumping.
I had options, now it's Market St.
over the Susquehanna or the
long bar at the pub.
****! I miss the Steel City like
missed calls, not at all then all at once.
Stuck in Pepsi-Cola Central, Pennsylvania, in an armchair down the hall from my room flooded with pictures of lovely Pittsburgh. Single-pane windows come close to glass
skyscrapers. Kind of.

Not at all.

Grandpa’s heart stopped before
a doctor demanded
Atropine of a nurse.

My dad knelt to obstruct
my view of grandpa’s bed,
and told me he was fine.

I pushed past Dad’s blockade,
gripped the icy bed post,
and pulled on grandpa’s sheets.

The actors that did not shirk
their lines before death
were the ones most deserving
of life.

A while back, Nick and I sat
side by side
in split-back forest lawn chairs.
Huff and huff
the porch's coat of scarlet stain,
talking like
existential cab drivers.
Legs on legs
crossed like war trenches or
window blinds
or a cold zipper's cold teeth.
Life or death.
More life on rye, Swiss cheese.
Holey talk of Jesus Christ.
Cross the cross
and hope to die; I know we will.
For now, though,
skip small to get to big talk.
Cursive hand
separates notes and throws out
the *******,
but everything at that age was *******.
Challenger
never blew up, Dillinger
never robbed,
we never dissected life
to see its
uncertain pancreas.
We're kids but can't act like it.
Qualms with calm,
and clever wordplay plays footsies
with my thoughts.
My stale bread secrets take up
too much space.

Is it my counter-counterclockwise
mind wasting time? Elbows
on the dining table pulling my angel
hair into grid-like times tables.
I’m invested in this non-conversation
table. Ich liebe dich, mein Freund.
I’ve got commitment issues and four-ply
tissues for when my eye lashes start
peeling apart. My grandpa died in 2005
and I’m all but over it. I’m holding
his kite string, but the reel is almost done,
like VHS tapes rewound then fast-forwarded
to the good times. Power Ranger birthday
and everyone’s wearing dunce caps
with elastic chin straps ‘til they snap.
Snap! Snap! Snap me back to three-years-old,
and I’m singing in a Robin costume
‘cause I knew I’d always be second best.
I had an identity crisis around fourteen,
so I stopped buying sunglasses
because I found myself in other
peoples’ shadows. But now the only shadows
they’re casting are the ones from their headstones
and from the fields of flowers cradling
them like they once cradled me.

Fast-forward, I’m genuflecting in gym shorts
before myself in a mirror smudged with plum
felt. And I seem small compared to my life
spelled out in Expo marker markings.

America'd get its independence
two days after I lost mine
to a high school halter top
twisting my heart like funnel cake.
Although love was still
much a concept four years ago,
I new what "a break" was.
It was the last fifteen minutes
of geometry, ten seconds
beside the Homecoming goal line,
it was me on a rotting bench
watching myself in shallow water
two slow moments before diving in.
Blue Skidoo into a boulder
because I don't know what I'm doing.

A wanderer of stardust like no other, does not ask why,
The mountain dew don’t weep nor cry.
Transparent and pure in its own plight,
Some phenomenon just shines that bright.
Just like the rainbow in the sky.

A lost traveler with a bow tie,
Remember your strength as you scrape by.
The battle goes on and you are the only knight.
A wanderer of stardust like no other.

True love is vast as the blue sky,
Even if the enemies deny.
You keep your armor on and fight.
Till the end of twelfth night-
For you know heaven is nearby.
A wanderer of stardust like no other.

~
I am standing in such a space
that like an event horizon
where there everything is moving towards the dark
and usually the opposite is the light

The two ways are very distinct
the light
and the dark
but I am wondering for light
And I see,
any existence of objects that stand on the space,
and even time moving towards the dark

The attraction of dark is too high
its gravity beyond,
attracting the young and the old
it bends all the waves and moving towards the black hole
passing as clouds through the event horizon
where there I have stood
there is a boundary
between the heaven and hell

On the boundary,
the hell I see very near
and the heaven, I saw before
cause still I have some feelings
and all my feelings are accumulating in the bean
but the feelings have a little gravity
either good or evil
neither soft nor compact
all drops from the heaven's wall

It has grown more with time
compact more and more
either in core of heart or in pore of spaces
neither in sticky sand nor in the serene soul
all are moving toward the dark

And finally,
I see a big crunch in the dark
but still some particles of light are floating over the dark
and some are still struggling on the horizon
others are waiting on the event horizon to move toward the dark hell
and I am standing on the wall of the event horizon
neither my mind wants to move in the hell
nor I can moving back to the heaven

~
@Musfiq us shaleheen