sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    something unrecognizable
i tell it to sleep peacefully or   to remember the embrace of a friend long gone

often the body becomes a symbol of what was lost
a friend a childhood a reason   i tell myself the bruises are just autographs or love notes   they never stay but i convince my body to feel them   still  
is this desperation or just another species of grief?

i have discovered so many that i’ve run out of names
“crying on the side of the highway overpass”
or “a sound i did not recognize as my own until months later”
or “a dream i had once but wish for still every night”
or “picturing his broken hands folded over a lifeless belly covered by a worn football sweatshirt”

sometimes i believe in ghosts   i was taught to fear the sacrilegious  but i lost faith since    

january has been ten months long    the chill follows me no matter how far i run

sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    but mostly i trick it into becoming an unremarkable hollow thing

Do not mock me as you hand me your perfunctory nod.
This spotlight I'm in has no fame.
I am in the light.
It is obvious that not all light is righteous.

I am trapped by the prison of quarantines.
Placing me at the centre.
You bully me with your hostility.
I am your Aunt Sally, your easy mark.
Your missiles hit me right in the bullseye
As you climb your ladder of success.

But, know I am collecting it all and when I stand tall.
Your character flawed must fall at the mercy of my

Resilient Bellowing.

By Shaheen Klaaste

You always just want more.

Longer kisses, longer hugs, more time spent together.

You'll drive around the block five times just to keep them another hour. Everything is another story to the bookshelf you are building..

Their happiness becomes just as important as yours. You learn to love what they love, you'll want to be better.

Because they've made you better..

a mottled stone of
ruddy brown, spotted:
the freckles on my mother's breast
of feeling whole; of love

the way I look at her
the infinitesimal touch,
my love, the impossibility
of desire

This; feeling my love
for you pulse in my
bone marrow,approaching
oblivion asymptotically

The ageless plight of persistant awakening,
Thoughts protruding into my every day,
The restless inner noise of ruminations,
Rustling windy bow-quaking wispers,  remain.

The restling of memory spurs a conversation with the past
Concerning things I have done,
As I recourse for resolution within the recollection.