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I was calling you today

on the middle of a bridge

that lit up colors

striping through the

night skies

i like looking at



and i thought of all the times i had spent

chasing dreams, chasing chasing chasing

fat stacks of money a sense of accomplishment a life worth living



and i thought

thought about my life and its trajectory

through the streets of broken stones

spent staring at cracks on pavement



there is this hollow feeling in my chest

i feel a conscious space there

there is this empty feeling in my brain

it feels disconnected from my body



they do not respond to my emotions



i reach for a smile but my lips do not respond right



i am walking but my legs feel so light

but my arms feel heavy

my head remains bowed



but friend,

where are you



i have forgotten what you look like
  Nov 2016 The Anonymous Joker
belbere
you said i was exotic,
and i said ooo
what do you mean?
exotic like a fruit?, like
i don’t know what tropics
you think i came from, was
imported from, but you read
my skin like the label
on a flavour of coca-cola
you had never been
offered before and i
was refreshing, and
different. and you liked
the way my coke-bottle
curves felt beneath your
fingertips, said you’d never
tasted caramel
like me before,
you said i was exotic.
like i was a work
of west african art,
even though my mother’s
from the east, like
i was from a storybook like
1001 african nights, like,
you saw my cover and you were
hooked, never did think to
look beneath the jacket,
just wanted stories like the
ones scheherazade sold,
i was your sheba
and you my solomon.
we rode lions across
the sands, your kiss
was salt on my lips,
i needed to quench
my thirst and you offered
me the brand new flavour
of coca-cola.

you said i was exotic,
like a pretty foreign thing,
some mail-order thing,
special delivery
just for you,
a flavour of coca-cola that you
had never tasted before.
it's not a compliment
i find it comforting sometimes that relationships are impermanent and that maybe one day the relationships that cause me pain and confusion will also simply melt away.

i look at the stars and i never get tired of the way the wind blows through the strands of my hair,

the leaves fall onto the roads

like they did a year ago

gradually it's less cooler to use an air-conditioner

maybe better to use a heater

lights become softer, clouded by the mists of solidifying vapor in the air

life keeps it tides

and i find myself surprised that the ebbing tide has still left me with sandcastles of relationships

i once built thoughtlessly

i take comfort in the impermanence of relationships

and the insufferable company I bring
  Jul 2016 The Anonymous Joker
belbere
i swear
i tried to catch the sun,
collided with icarus
on the way
he said, “hey,
where are you going?”
and fell
before i could tell him.

i said
“icarus,
there is a terrible
beauty to this world.“
i said
“icarus,
i want it all
to burn.”

and he burned,
crashed into the waves,
his flames flickered
and died.

i swear
i tried to catch the sun
before he did
but he stole it in his wings,
betrayed the sky
for a light
brighter than his own,
he was a shooting star
that i couldn’t swallow.

i said
“hey,
where are you going?”
he told me to make a wish
and fell.

i swear
i tried to catch the sun,
collided with him
on the way.

i said
“icarus,
my world is beautiful,
but terrible.”
i said,
“icarus,
i want it all
to burn.”

our wings melted,
and as the sky rained wax,
we burned.
your heart thumping next to my ear
i hear it and i can't even focus on
what you say
your hand is on my head my shoulders
my hips my back
i hear only the thump-1-2-thump-1-2-thump
and i wonder if my heart beats faster
and i want it so desperately not to
i wonder if this is your usual heart rate
i want to study you and take your pulse every day
find how often this heart rate comes to you
is this faster than normal? is this slower than normal?
is this normal?

i hear the steady beating of your heart and i can hear
your throat
rumble above me and your chest responds and i hear
i hear the pumping of air in and out of your lungs
the hands that are in my hair, on my shoulders, hips, back
nowhere inappropriate
and my legs are beside yours

and i wish i had the courage right now to sit on your lap
look deep into your eyes and kiss your hands and
ask for you
and for your attention and love
have you at my feet
carressing the spine of the arch of my feet
with your finger pads
like you caress my hair right now
i want to nibble on your pulse, your throat and kiss
the chest cavity that hides the thump-1-2-thump-1-2

i want to hear your voice rumble above me in laughter
and hear you hum close to my ears
i want to hold your hands and kiss the fingerpds
that you touch my feet with
i want to stroke your back when you're upset
and hide you away when you're upset
because i know, like me,
you never liked letting people see you cry

i want to wrap my hands around you and scratch you on your head
behind your ears
i want to be the one to make you laugh

i want to be the one you talk about and blush
the one always on your mind

i want to sit uncomfortably close to you
and initiate contact
make you go red with a peck on the cheek
hear you thump-1-2-thump-1-2 faster
when i lie beside you to watch a movie
or just talk
stare at the ceiling or stars
something


i wish and i wonder
if i only like you because
i can hear that thump-1-2-thump-1-2
in my ears whenever
i have need of you

but you
you never felt the same way,
did you?

i freeze when i look at you
and i get a little breathless when i see you smile
when i see you walk
sit or lie down and
i lose my breath a little bit more
when i see you

but i always see you with someone by your side
or you don't see me and
and i don't think this is a safe bet
i don't get close
i don't play vulnerable
lovestruck
or infatuated

my neck feels good against your hands, i hope
because your hands sure as hell feel great against mine
*but i don't do vulnerable
lovestruck or infatuated
it's in the echo of my voice coming back to me
sitting on the bed of a packed room

the spaces on the walls
where my pictures used to be

a slow dwindling of faces that i saw every week
people increasingly passed out passing out passing by

it was the slow changes in the air and the frequency
with which the sun let its rays drop

the slow wave of people ebbing around
and how much stuff i suddenly had
and then just didn't

why does this world curve the way it does?
i don't ask for the physics but the philosophy

how will i see your face one day when we're the only ones left?
this world after all curves you away from me

oceans and continents
my home split into two my people split into two
torn between different countries continents
ways of living

my life packed into boxes and suitcases
maybe it's not at all it's written up to be
but it's been a great ride

and i let life take care of me
but your face moves and so does mine
it shifts
and i wonder if i ever needed the world to be flat

familiar is nice
change is difficult
i state the obvious but
my heart is in my throat
my hands shake and my legs aren't enough to support me
my my my my my

i don't know where this feeling inside of me began
and i don't know where it ends

i remain perched on the precipice of life
making my calculations
even as winds change
i'm always a step a beat behind
barely anything but that makes all the difference
so i am swept away
the steaming ground sporadic
calmed by balmy humid evening breeze

pungent sharp tang of *****
lifting into the air

i remain naive
eyes covered
walking face forward

my hands my maturity
but i have none

i wear headphones
the news headline flashes

businesses rise
people becoming impressive

my hands my maturity
maybe i've regressed further

i talk of trivialities
but people talk of people
talk of doing things with
people who do things

and i do not do things

so if i show them a poem
do i get a job
if i show them a poem
am i doing something
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