Which is better

To feel nothing
But a halcyon calm
Like a fine summer morning,
Or to be ****** to and fro
By the ice, spray, and lightning
Of the tempest?

To stroll the meadow,
Or to climb the mountain?

I've gone through both
Yet the answer still eludes me
I remain as ignorant as I was
In the days of my youth

But what I do know
Is how my chest tightened
How my breath caught
When you sent me a message
(Your very first)
And how my lips impulsively purse
As I peek at yours
And at the speck of a mole
Resting right below

What I do know
Is how I couldn't keep my eyes
From straying towards your corner
(Still can't)
And how my hand trembled
Just as I squeezed your shoulder
Bidding you farewell

Or how I've worn out my iPod
Replaying Jay Chou's ballads
As I sang my heart out to my steering wheel
Numbly crawling through
The maddening, seething traffic

And how the breeze eats my cigarette
Down to its filter
As I stare up
Dumbfounded
Mapping out
Tracing your face among the stars

How my neurotransmitters **** me
Closer and closer to a heart attack
And how my soul weeps and bemoans
The yawning chasm betwixt us
While you sit there infuriatingly oblivious
Chattering away about Warcraft and barley tea

All these things are
The few of what I do know
The last of which
Is how I'll never have you.

Fleeing
Tail between my legs
From the ravishes
Of your lashes
I take refuge in the ramblings
Of madmen long dead
Seeking to tap the will to power
That I may refute
Your imposing master-slave morality
Compelling in its distracting hedonism
Beckoning in its languid ambiguity
Suffocating my
Dizzying, radical freedom

Oh, noumenal world
Take me now.

One look at you
And I abandon
My categorical imperative
Doomed to the fate
Of a being-in-itself
Powerless to recreate
And renew its essence
Too busy being caught up
In your scent
I see what you are
And scramble to
The conclusion of
What you ought to be
With me

For you are beyond
That which empirical validation
Can encapsulate
You are
My Prime Mover
And life without you
Is nasty, brutish, and short
And Rousseau was full of ****

I flee
Because inner language
The beetle in the box
Can never be shared
Not even with
The most symmetrical of soulmates
And what we may share
May not even be authentic
What we believe
May not even be true
Nor justified

Are you not satisfied
With the power you already wield
Over me?

Please
My geisha
Do not let your lips
Be the antithesis to my pen.

I hate you
For who
And what
You are not.

I can only speak
Through masks
My cowardice pulls me back
Into the inky darkness
Even my ******* desire for you
I must conceal
In the haze of bravado and apathy
And the clawing ache
Your gaze summons
I must suppress
With the very essence of my spirit

Forgive me
For what kind man
Would resort to such craven means
Just to bare his very soul?
Surely not one worthy of you.

The Lion's heritage
Compels me and curses me
To the bitter fate
Of wandering the halls
Of lonely perfection
Eternity upon eternity

A duplicitous nature
Earns curses
But I am grateful
For the gift of masks
Without which
Truth dies.

Do not find love
For it finds you
And find you it did
Like the first beams of dawn
Kissing the dew
On the slumbering meadow

And what was once
A verdant vale of calm
Is now a riotous explosion
Of cerulean and crimson
Caressed by the velveteen kisses
Of the eastern breeze

The languid shore
Now a maelstrom
Of spraying foam
A gale of berserk fury
Poseidon thundering
Confronting
The forbidding cliffs
Of time

O maiden
Sighing into
The lonely watches of the night
For whom are those tears shed?

Tarry not
For Helios comes
To take you in his embrace
And within the tongues of immolation
Is purifying salvation
That even
The Twelve Labors of Heracles
Are impotent to redeem

And you are no frail Icarus
Jesting and boastful
Impertinent in his youthful optimism
Who eludes and placates
The assault of the elements

Now take the plunge
O Athena
Laughing into the depths
Of the mercurial Aegean
For she who dares the fates and furies
Commands Olympus.

Black coffee
Unfiltered cigarettes
Scotch, neat
Rare steak

Then there's me.

I'm no stranger to
Wry grimaces
When I share
Or comments about
How I'm
A snide, contrarian *******
Or
An unapproachable ****
A snob who refuses to fraternize
Who thinks he's better than us
And whatnot
Sure, let the reviews pile up
I've heard them all

If the taste of me makes you spew
Then walk away
And order your chai vanilla soy non-fat latte
Topped with whipped cream and cinnamon

The unadulterated stuff is
Clearly not for you.

I steal glances from you

Mostly
F
  l
  e
   e
    t
     i
      n
       g

But some
L  i  n  g  e  r  i  n  g

Minute after minute
With grossly familiar eyes

Until glances turn to leers

And hoard them in my soul
Racing against the coming winter

Hey,
If I can just have a minute,
You need to hear this.

This is me
You
It's hard to explain
But just listen.

This is something you need to hear.

I know you're filled with questions
With worry right now
But when the time comes
The answers will appear -
All of them -
Whether from within
Or from others

Either way
You'll wonder why you were so anxious in the first place
Things will sort themselves out.
Life's kinda funny that way.

Do you remember when you were fighting that guy -
Well, it hasn't happened yet
But you will be in mismatched fights
Both literally and figuratively
Where you feel outmatched and outgunned
But you will outlast -
It'll be like that.
You'll be in disbelief at what happened
But relieved that you made it through.
Just hold on.
Don't tap out,
Don't throw in the towel.
When things are at their darkest
And you wanna just quit,
Don't.
That's when your breakthrough
Is at hand.

****'s going to happen.
I cannot say what exactly,
But it - they - will happen.
And it's alright.
You may not think so,
But it will all be fine.

You're stronger and braver and kinder
Than you think you are.
Times will come when
Your world seems to be ending
But it won't.

You've survived countless storms before,
And you will weather many more.
And that's alright.
You can't lose,
Not with such profound love that you have in you.

You will hurt like never before,
Cry and lash out,
Question everything you have ever known.
And there is nothing wrong with that
There is nothing wrong with you.

You will fall,
Only to rise,
Again and again.
Each time will be better
And harder
Than the last.
Each incarnation is stronger than the one before
A level-up, if you will.

You will feel alone,
Forgotten, abandoned,
But you're not alone.
You were never forgotten at all.

You will be besieged
By rage and hate,
But you will not allow bitterness
To settle into your spirit.
Bile will not seep into your bones.
It's just gonna go right through you.

You need to - and will - understand
That the enemy is in you -
And so is the answer.
It's all been inside you
All this time.

All your struggles and questions and fears
Seem meaningless at this point
But they were necessary steps
They show you who you are
What you're made of.
Now you know better
Now you know
That fear is an illusion,
Anxiety is nothing
But the needless twiddling of thumbs.

Fear gives a small thing
A big shadow.
That's all they were and are:
Shadows.

I want to tell you
That everything is gonna be alright.
Just hang in there.
Don't sweat the small stuff,
Don't shy away from challenges,
And you will make it.

Just remember that life is not a contest with others.
It's a battle of attrition,
With you as your toughest opponent,
But you will win.
Dig deep inside you
And unearth the strength sleeping within.

It's gonna be worth the struggle, my friend
I promise you that.

I can't sing you a love song just yet
Or write you a sonnet.

I can't swim the English Channel for you
Cover the Amazon rainforest on foot
Or march into your office
With a bouquet of flowers.
I can't.

Not when we still have a long way to go
Interest has yet to bud into infatuation
And bloom into love
We have yet to taste
The elating highs
The crushing lows

We still have a ways to go
My dear
And I can't wait to see
Where this takes us
I really hope this works out
Because we're perfect for each other.
And you were my first love.

Life has much loveliness in store for us
Many poems await us
We shall write and sing of
Locked hands and lips
As we confront trials head on
And soldier on past the storms headed our way
We have yet to dance
Through obstacles
Or bullrush past the *******
And rest in the fevered aftermath
The torrent tapering to a patter
As we conclude our *******

So until love awakens
And passion descends
Let's take all the stops
Along our path
Let us linger and ruminate
On each other's lips

I do feel, however,
More than just
A twinge of delight
A titter of anticipation
When your message arrives
And I drop my beer
Scrambling for the phone
There is something
Promising me more
Than mere possibilities
I hope you feel that something too.
If so
Then let us see
Just what that something is.

Little surfer girl
Framed by the sun and waves and sand
Sun-kissed skin
Slender muscles
On display for her captive audience
Pulse in sync
With the steady music
Of the shore's breathing
Attracting the spray and roar
Of almighty Poseidon
Lithe body
Gliding on the water
Like how she has
Implacably skipped and splashed
Over the breaking hearts
Of so many who have pined after her

I need but a glance
To invite me
To paddle out and see
If I can conquer her waves.

Your sparkling eyes
Smiling
With delight

I ask you to be mine
By day
And by night

They called me
A *****
For hesitating

My doubts and fears
Leave me
*******

Those what ifs
And howevers
So entertaining

The rhetorical
The hypothetical
Always overthinking

Life is passing you by now
Dude
Oh what the ****

Will you now take action
Or just --
By God -- pass the buck

How long
Have I kept
You waiting

When my demons
Have left,
Issues now fading

Took me long
Enough
To realize

You've been here
All along
In front of my eyes

Took me long enough
So I'll cut
The foreplay

Some more pussyfooting
And you
Might think me cray

I know that you're busy
But if you're
Free

Would you like
To grab some coffee
With me?

To be alone
Is to be complete

They say
No man is an island,
But isn't everyone?

We're all stranded on islands of self-interest
Connected to others
Through flimsy bridges of temporary alliances
Mutual interests and gain

The more connected we are
The more isolated we become
Pictures and blog posts
Nothing more than facades

Anomie is the word of the decade

The individualistic
The self-sufficient
Is reviled
For refusing to play the game
To participate
In the masquerade
To jump through the hoops
Of social niceties

Somehow
To sit and squirm
Through ******* contests and gossip
To flap and flutter
In the howling gales of hysteria and contrived laughter
Is preferred over
Sitting alone
Revelations and epiphanies
Splayed out before oneself
Playing solitaire with one's reflections
In peace

Baby showers and mixers
Celebrated
The impenetrable silence
Of one's hermitage
Eschewed

The people-pleaser
Preferred
Over the lone wolf
The team player
Over the independent agent

I suppose
In an age of open doors
A locked one
Raises a few eyebrows
They'd knock and rattle
Then bang and kick and shout
Before leaving in a huff

Authenticity is now the rarest commodity
Valued over saffron and platinum
So people settle instead
For knockoffs

Alcohol-plied sincerity is better than nothing
A China-made Rolex still looks better --
Flashier, if nothing else --
Than a Timex

No man is an island,
They say,
Smirking
Frowning
Clucking with disapproval
Peering behind perfectly schooled masks
Nary a hair out of place
Looking at me
In all my artless imperfection
Paper, pen, and cigarettes for company

Well
Which of us here
Is truly alone?

I smile a little when you walk past
My already ***** eyes turn to slits
When our eyes meet
When you flash me a shy smile
I also crack a little inside
Knowing
Remembering
Here is another denied you

The smile I give back
Is true
The veneer of confidence I exude
Is not.

The toil of pulling my smile down
Shallow enough
To look friendly
Of keeping my gaze brief
Fleeting enough
To appear formal
Gets heavier by the day

I'm biting my tongue off
As you skip away
Humming
Smiling
Into the dazzling light

While I sit here and write my shallow poetry

These are the end times.

Judgment is coming
For our iniquities and apathy
For the ****** of the unborn
For worshiping money
For voting Democrat
For buying non-biodegradable products.

Or so they say.

I don't enjoy discussing
Or even hearing
About eschatology
When and how and why the world will end
Which is what seems to pervade the air at home
Every time the conversation suffers an unfortunate lull.

Some cathartic culmination
Of a Deity's wrath
No doubt for all the
***, drugs, and rock & roll
Humanity indulges in
On a daily basis.

Hearing about the end --
Demons born to women
Automatons wearing human skins
Talking animals
Seems so redundant.
The signs had been here all along.
We've been living with them for ages now.

What if
Instead of a violent, sudden cataclysm,
The end comes
As an implosion
Drawn out over billions of years?
What if the second law of thermodynamics
Is the prophesy
Doomsday prophets overlooked?

There are no aliens coming
To **** and subjugate this planet:
We're already here.

This is the end
We've been simmering in it
Fighting and spitting and cursing
In puddles of our filth and hate

The end has been unfolding
For the past few millennia
As humanity continues to multiply
Like rats beneath New York.

And here we are
Making plans
Getting married
Hoarding money
Getting **** drunk
Too busy preventing
The little apocalypses
Of our petty lives.

We're planting gardens
In the shadow of a warhead.

We all saw it coming
We were just too busy to care.

My world's already ending
In bits and pieces anyway
At random intervals

Every time I let someone in
And she inevitably leaves
Taking a piece of me with her
My sun dies in agonizing degrees

Even a quiet infatuation
Eats away at me
Crumb by crumb.

All those theories about the end
Forget them.
I'm living my own apocalypse
And surrounded by human-sized
People-shaped versions
Of the Four Horsemen
So shut up already.

Tonight, I've finally found you.

Your radiant beauty of a hundred summers
Is to me
The crushing despair of a thousand winters
One look at you
And I'm jonesing for a cigarette
One look at him
And his arm around you
And I need a shot of gin
To go with that smoke.

The lamb we ate
Was like broken glass
The salad like weeds
Naturally, I had to have seconds.

It's not fair.
I was already alright.
Having a ball.
And you just had to come ruin it.
Now I'm pining again.

This sliver of a woman
Willowy legs
Billowing auburn hair
Quiet hands

Gliding past
In fluid steps
Breaking bones
With feather touches
Of her eyelashes
Sighing velveteen butterfly kisses

My unspoken adjurations
Meet nothing but the
Silent grandiloquence
Of a raised brow

She will never be mine
So I force a smile
And dream some more.

Dear girl in white
With a pearly smile so bright
Shiest smile that shines for a mile
Reflects a purest spirit that holds no guile

(With a whiff of your soft hair)

Beautiful girl in white
Beholden I am by your sight
How I long to call you mine
On your supple flesh will I dine

(With a glimpse of your legs so bare)

Precious girl in white
Glad will I be to hold you tight
To gaze into your demure eyes
Until the flare of agony in me dies

(You make my heart aflutter)

Smiling girl in white
You make me feel just right
But how shall I hide my soul from you
Horror not even the gods can undo

(And tear my heart asunder)

Virginal girl in white
Praying by the crucifix every night
At this sight my fervor falters
The rosy illusion of you shatters

After countless battles,
We've finally gotten married.

Ours was not a lengthy engagement
If there was even one to begin with.
A long courtship, though.
Skirmish after bloodbath after slaughter
Fighting trolls and giants and the undead
We were comrades
Brothers in arms.
And then a quick confession
A purchased home
That was it.

Now we sleep in on weekends
Slowly wake to the cool darkness of the room
Make love with sleep still frosting our eyes
I serenade you in the cold evenings with my battered lute
As you tend to the crackling hearth
Before tending to my gashes and bruises
Earned from the day's clashes.

This must be what Valhalla feels like --
Coming home to you and a hearty stew
After a long day of fighting
Covered in blood
(Some of them mine)
Loaded down with loot.
Doing this for a lifetime seems preferable
To being High King for eternity.

Dragons may be razing the northern wastes
Savage tribes holding sway in the mountains
Rebels and imperials clashing in the plains
But in here
It's just you and me.
Nothing and no one can enter our sanctuary.
Like you said,
Brief as life can be here,
We have each other.

I may be the Thane of your hold
But you are the Thane of my heart.

A shield --
That's what the alcohol is for me
While I force a smile
As she jostles you
While soaking up the place with her laugh.

I smirk and jest and guffaw
While we besiege you
With relentless questions and merciless teasing
Like how they used to do to me
In Seoul.

Now I'm right here
Where they used to be
Bleeding behind bravado and brofists
Interrogating you
With half-meant jokes.

'Have you gone to third base yet?'
'How about a homerun?'

Sorry.
What we are
Are just ghosts
Of yesterday.

Cheering you on,
Laughing and shrugging,
Tasting the sweetness of the past
And sharing that look of,
'I know that feel, bro.'
Now it's your turn.

And it's just a matter of time
Before you come to us
With tears in your eyes
Shards in your heart
A ready spiel of
'You'll never guess what happened,
you guys,'
All set to go.

Yeah, we've been there
Done that.
Me being the latest addition to their ranks,
Yep,
We do know.
And we do understand.

So trust us
When we say
When the time comes
Just wait and see.
A delay is not a denial.

I really hope this works out for you, though.
If not,
Well,
You'll see.
Three days is nothing.
I've been there.

All those wasted hopes and plans
For nothing.
It's fine.
You're fine.
All good in the hood.

They told me to wait,
So wait I did,
Until weeks turned into months turned into years.
Then she came along
And I said, '**** it.'

Worst time to be so flippant.
The result was a three year roller coaster ride
That ended like the Hindenburg.
Nice.  

Next, I turned to the nocturnal comforts,
Selecting hour-long companionship
With a click of the mouse
That ends with the closing of the window
Tossing of the damp tissues in the bin
And stepping out for a smoke,
With Jay Chou crooning in my ear
Singing of love new and lost.

Closing my eyes
My memory summons my gramps.

Those Japanese devils
My grandfather would tell me,
Lighting up another Marlboro
Before launching into another rambling tirade
About the misery of post-war China.
I'll ******* **** you if you get with one--
Disown you, even.
Rest his soul.

Does Maria Ozawa count, gramps?
Would you **** me
Or give me a high-five?
(I'd get smacked for being insolent.)

Bamboo switch in hand
Grandma would sit me down
And tell me how they used to fight over sewer rats
With other refugees for dinner.

Grandma, you'd shake your head
If I tell you about the rats
I have to work with
On a daily basis.
Your move.
(Oh wait, you're dead.)

The wisdom of my forefathers
Fossilized in ancient Chinese tomes
Extolling the virtues of patience

There are gem fragments to be found in the waiting.
One perfects oneself as one waits
For the time to ripen.
Life passing you by
Is naught but an illusion.

In the meantime
I've resigned myself
To wherever the mercurial turns of life
Take me.
I'm happy with the status quo.

It's during times like this
When I wonder about you.

It's been
What
Two years now
Since we euthanized this beast of a relationship
Stampeding and rampaging
Leaving contempt and devastation in its wake

All the people rejoiced.
Finally,
They said.
At long last
Our prayers have been answered.
Glory be.

You deserved better anyway
Than this ****
So dense
For all his wit
This stupid *****
She couldn't even think straight.
C'mon, let's drink
Play badminton
Hit the beach
Forget about this ******.

Barriers demolished by alcohol and fatigue
Bravado has long faded
Given way to sentiment.

**** inhibitions.
They're legally dead at this point.

I should be asleep by now
But my thoughts are with you.

I don't want you back
(I think we're well past that point already, don't you)
But I do miss you.
The way we used to talk
About anything and everything
Your quirky, subversive little philosophies
That you gleaned from the mindfucks of your day.

Sure
Your friends hate my guts,
I'm guessing.
My friends sure as hell hate yours.
'That *****', is how they refer to you
'That nasty ***** with the rotten *****', to be exact.

Still I sit and wonder,
How are you?

I'm doing much better now.
That job of mine that you dissed on a weekly basis
Well
I got a better job now.
Dated someone briefly
(A minute compared to our three years)
Before she broke my heart
And skipped away.
Got a PS3, too, finally.
(Still no Mass Effect, sorry.)
Cut my hair
But grew a goatee,
Lost those love handles you always laughed at
(Thanks to my striking and grappling coaches and cigarettes
And my all-too repulsive coworkers.)

Still chill.
Still writing.
Although I've abandoned prose
In favor of poetry.
Whodathunk, right?

But I'm happy.
I'm sure you are, too.
It just bums me, I guess
How two people so crazy about each other
Willing to die for one another
Turn their backs on their families
Could go on and become strangers
Just like that
After some tears and substance abuse
And be complete and happy apart from the other.

It's 3 AM
And my thoughts are with you.
They never left you.
Not when I have to speed past your hovel of a house
Every day on the way to work
(And not a day goes by when I don't entertain the thought
Of running into you around the neighborhood)
Without wondering
If you've finally patched things up with that ***** sister of yours
If your parents are still ****** as ever
If you still think of me
Like how I think of you.

You're still probably up
Reading strangers' blogs
Like how you first stumbled into mine,

Or coding
Trying to beat a deadline
For yet another insufferable client from hell.

Because I really did love you.
You were an answered prayer
(By Lucifer, my friends would sneer,
Before spitting and demanding another cigarette
Another round of beer.)
But I truly did.

I just hope that you truly did love me as well.
You're still an enigma.
Very much so,
As much as the day I first met you.

4 AM now
And my thoughts are still with you.
When would they ever
Get with the program
And leave you
Like how I left you

With a final cry of
Enough
And a stride surer than a lion
Walking ahead of its pride

Because it's getting old
Smiling at myself in the mirror
All too pleased with what I'm seeing
Without having to ignore the specter
Staring beside me
Judging silently

Enough.

If I told you that
You'll be okay in a month's time,
Would you believe me?

Because you will.
You're stronger than you think you are.

(Not a dismissive I'm fine, either,
But 'okay' in the genuine sense.)

Lost in your grief and pain and anger,
You've forgotten just how resilient you really are.

Every time you hit rock bottom,
You discover a hidden strength in you
That you never knew.

When your worst fears come to pass,
You discover that there's life after the storm,
That the boulder seems more like a pine cone in hindsight.

The pain comes and goes like the tide,
But each onslaught will be easier to withstand,
Until it's nothing more than a faint murmur.

You will get back on your feet again
And dare to love and hope again
To dream new dreams.

You think this hell will last forever.
It won't.

None of this makes sense now
But it will soon enough.

And that person who did this to you
Won't even cross your mind.
When you do remember,
The pain fades more and more each time.

So love yourself.
Remember who you are,
What you're made of.

God won't help you -
He already gave you that power.

Do whatever it takes.
Go out
Or stay in.
Hit the gym
Meet people
Read or cook
Write and write and write
Make poems and stories
Make good art,
Like Gaiman said.
Whatever it takes.
Your recovery comes first.

You can do it.
I know you can.

Things will get better,
I promise you.

I would have loved to teach you
Chinese chess
And Muay Thai
Or even Brazilian Jiujitsu
Staining the mats
With sweat and stolen caresses
A serious session
That just might transition
From full guard
To full-on French kissing.

We could have watched Oldboy again
Together this time,
Or Glengarry Glen Ross,
My favorite movie.
And you could have shown me
A film major's favorite movies.

We could have tried the tacos
In Chupacabra,
The salmon sashimi in Sugi
(Their fresh sea urchin is the bomb, by the way).
I could even have cooked for you.
My vichyssoise isn't bad.
And you do love potatoes more than your own family.

Kayaking in the south,
Roadtripping all the way north,
Visited the stone houses and the honest folk
Of the northernmost islands.

Held contests
To see who could drink who under the table.
Your weakness is beer,
Mine is soju.
Could have seen who could hold whiskey better. 

I was dead serious too
When I said I was serious
About taking you
To the West Indies and North Africa
For that pilgrimage of yours.

I was prepared to hear what you had to say
About the things you see
The spirits calling to you
The dead dancing like wisps at dusk
Demons chasing you;
Skeptic or not,
I never would have minded you waking me up at 4 AM
To tell me about your latest vision.

Run cigarette companies out of business
Introduced you to my friends and my family
Listened to you sing and
Allowed awe to seize me again and again
Written a hundred poems in praise
And read your requital ones.

Kissed under the stars,
Talked in the dark
On the sand
Until 3 AM,
Exchanging yawns and hugs,
Bumming smokes off of each other
And greeting the sunrise
With a bottle of local moonshine
Bought from the fisherfolk.

Taken you shooting
9mm, .45, even 12 gauge.
Entwine my arms around you
Whisper in your ear
Inhale the cordite in the air and the smell of your skin
Teaching you shot placement
That you're pulling the trigger wrong
And hold your breath a bit and don't flinch.

Played Skyrim and CoD all night long
Yelled ******* at each other
While kicking *** on Tekken
And swapping spit in between rounds.

Made friends with your beagle
And discussed a life together
A dog, a cat, maybe no kids.
Just one, if ever.
Argued over names for the kid.

We had a real connection, too,
But, oh well,
How was I supposed to know
That you were just looking for cheap thrills
For transient pleasure
That the 'connection' was probably just one-way?
Maybe I'm just stupid.

I'll just have to find someone else
To do these things with.
Someone better, smarter, funnier,
But none of your legion of issues
The truckloads of your problems.

Have a nice day.

I dreamed that I finally met you.

The apocalypse was at hand.
The sky bled as it came undone
Brother murdered brother
Monsters roamed the land
Beasts spoke in the learned tongues of men
Elementals emerged
From the hidden corners of the earth
To take back what was once theirs.

It was in the bleakest hour of mankind
That we crossed paths.

Stranger greeted stranger
Like old friends,
A warm hello
With a twinkle in the eye,
Before one took the other's hand.

The apocalypse was anything but
If its conclusion is so serene,
Rendering the torrent of fire and brimstone
A drizzle of petals and dew.

Eternity ended too soon
As the tolling of the church bell
Called in the sunrise
And chased off the cobwebs of slumber,
Along with it,
All semblance of felicity.

If it had to be a dream
At least make it a prophetic one.

If it will take the end of days,
The death of a star,
A cataclysm of the celestials,
For me to meet you,
Then so be it.

Let the world burn.

Poetry is a healthier alternative
To picking fistfights with strangers
(OI. THE ******* STARIN' AT?)
Or stalking your gigs
While groping the knife
Tucked into my waistband

Because convalescing in silence
Is still better
Than having quack doctors and faith healers
Crowd over your body
Touch, rub, probe, poke
With their grubby fingers
Write you illegible prescriptions
Charging you a king's ransom
For 'professional advice'.

You just need to get out more.
Fresh ***** is the answer!
Pray. Have faith.
Geez, you're not over it yet?

It would've been better
If I just kept my **** mouth shut
And kept up the facade
A walking picture of health.

I don't need your ******* platitudes
Your uncomprehending stares
The drivel you proudly spew
Like how you so lovingly ladle out swill to the homeless
Assured of another mansion in heaven.

*******.
This is not a soup kitchen
And I don't need your pity.
(And condescension does not save you.)

Convalescing in silence
Is still more logical
Than rallying people
To eradicate sickness from earth
By arresting viruses
Putting them on trial.

A virus does what it does.
It is in its nature,
Like how stray dogs bite
And how ****** ****.

Poetry is the best choice.
It's active non-action.
Reflecting
While the seasons change,
The fullness of time comes,
And news of your impending demise arrives
Of when your moral destitution
Finally catches up to you.

And by the time it comes around,
My youthful ignorance will have bled out a bit,
And I will receive the news
With a smile, a cigarette, and a new poem.

Four bottles and counting.
It's still not enough to dull my senses
Or tranquilize my still-racing mind.
Not enough to dull my ears
To your voice whispering
In between clumsy lines
Blaring from the radio,
Not enough to blind me
To your face etched
in the writhing smoke of every exhale.
I've finished a whole pack already
Just to see your smile again and again.

When they told me that smoking would **** me,
They had no idea how true that was.
But they never told me it was the face in the smoke
That would be my undoing.

Six shots and a beer chaser --
Enough to make me dead to space and time,
But not quite dead to the world of dreaming,
Where your lips await me,
Where everything was still perfect,
And my happy ending was within reach.

My mind drags me down
To this infernal paradise
Time and again,
This quagmire of delightful lies,
Despite my feeble protests
About moving on and recovering.
Waylaid by my own consciousness,
What can I do but capitulate?

Thrashing about in this thicket
Of denial and disappointment,
All I can hope for
Is a toehold
With which to stand
Up against this onslaught,
Just to preserve my shaky hold
On sanity and normalcy.
To, at the very least,
See the pinprick of light
At the mouth of the abyss.

I've withdrawn from the sun
Busied myself with the amusing distractions
This world has to offer,
Buried myself
In work
Video games
Thai boxing,
But still pursue you in the dreaming,
Unless I down another bucket of beer
And guarantee a blackout for the night
And a screaming hangover in the morning.

It's a lot of work
Having to drag myself up here
Before slicing you off of me,
Piece by piece,
Tossing the already-rotting morsels
To the raptors
Lurking from the crags,
Anticipating
With rapt hunger.

Those poor birds
Having to settle for gristle,
Already spoiled by rancor and impermanence,
I hope they pardon me
Like how I'm starting to forgive you --
With resignation
Accepting
That it was all you had to offer
In your desolation and brokenness.
And maybe I should have known better
That you didn't know better
Than to sear your conscience,
That betrayal was all you knew.

The trek back down
Ought to be easy.
How can it not be
When I am divested
Of these memories staining me --
Of us flashing sickly sweet grins at each other
Breathing each other in
Serenaded by the music of our souls,
Each asomatous snapshot
Titanic in weight.

I'm surprised
The winds haven't carried me off by now.

They called me an iconoclast
Blessed
With a templar-like fervor,
Fueled by my devotion
To the intangible potentate, Logic --
Omnipresent, omnipotent.

But how could I be?
Not with Katarina and Bianca
Still resting in grottoes.
Not when I still stop by now and then,
Meandering in from my countless excursions,
Traipsing about in my mind,
To leave a few trinkets
And light some candles
And maybe a murmured prayer.

Those snapshots of memory
Revisiting me on rare occasions now,
But not a moment of recollection goes by
Without remembering
Katarina
Writhing beneath my grip,
Her slender fingers entwined with mine,
Or Bianca
Enclosing me in her warmth,
Her gnarled hands reeking of cigarettes.
Their I love yous, I like yous,
Whispers and kisses,
All branded on my skin.

No, sir.

Label me not
As one,
Not when I still keep their memories
On a pedestal,
Not when I still heave sighs
Of longing and fondness
To herald in nostalgia
And its hangers on,
Regret and despair,
However blasphemous.

An iconoclast I am not.
Anything but.
Revile me
For exalting heretics.

I deserve the rack and the stake
For becoming
Just as much a heretic
As the ones I was tasked to condemn.

I think
My tolerance for *******
Has reached its breaking point.

Now I spend my lunch hours
Squirreled away in the smoking room
Lost in tunes
Locked in with my thoughts
Scarfing down
One cigarette after another
And writing these ****** poems.

I don't care to hear
About the inanities of your sad lives.
It's all so bleak.
I feel most alone in a crowd.

I suppose
We all have our ways
Of coping
With the affliction of life.
Many seek refuge
In the mindless chatter of sheep
Others find their release
*****-deep in a wet hole
Or tasting blood and sweat
In the boxing ring
Or the warm, comforting embrace
Of alcohol.
Such blissful escape, all of them.
So what's wrong
With the hallowed cloisters
Of my mind?

**** the lot of you
With your petty dramas
******* hypocrisies
******* noises
Summoning up
The vilest contempt
Slumbering in me.

I am enough.

It started with a brofist
Interest fenced in
By the facade of indifference
Fueled by pride
And it ended with one.

Do you still remember
When we first met?
Us stealing glances at each other
You gnawing on your nicotine-stained nails
Me soaking in contrived nonchalance
Both of us clouding the air
With the static of bro, man, **** that, dude...
Supremely confident
In our juvenile, preconceived mastery
Of subterfuge.

How idiotic we both looked,
But how wise of us
To stay our hearts and tongues
With the ancient wisdom of abstinence.

You still sitting there
With half a heartful
Of words left unspoken -
Perhaps an apology was in there somewhere -
Staring in barely-concealed disbelief
At my abrupt flight,
I sensed your hesitation
As I waved goodbye
For the final time,
My back to you,
As I disappeared into the night.

Reading about the paranormal,
The unknown,
Hearing of ghosts and spirits --
It hurts.

The otherworldly
Stirs up the painful memories
Of you.
I'd rather feel
Horror and fear
Anything else but this.

The demonic
The satanic
Can do little else to me
That you haven't already done.

Ghostly visitations,
Hauntings,
UFOs and their merry little abductions --
They all remind me of you
Still lurking my nights

When people trade stories
About aswang and demonic possession,
Cattle mutilations in the middle of nowhere,
I get chills
Thinking of you.

You are as inscrutable
As the Works of the Old Men
As the Nazca Lines
As the Coseck Circle.
Deciphering the Voynich Manuscript
Is nothing compared to the puzzle of you.

Listening to UVB-76
Max Headroom
The Bloop
Rebecca Black
Makes more sense than listening to you.

Unmask Jack the Ripper
Explain the Toynbee Tiles
Solve the Taman Shud Case
And I can solve you.

It's far less taxing, really
And more merciful on my limited cognitive faculties.

Bring me the Mongolian death worm
And Spring-heeled Jack
The Wandering Jew
The Dover Demon
And the Am Fear Liath Mòr
Before I decide
That sympathy and love
Are more that mere legends
Roaming the windswept wastes
Of your icy, shriveled heart,
Closer to reality than cryptozoology.

Abandoned cities and colonies
Only remind me of how abruptly and senselessly you left,
Leaving me a decrepit mystery of ruins

You believed in Atlantis
I said it was Plato's illustration --
His Republic,
Like Augustine's City of God.

Perhaps this was why our Atlantis
Sank to the ocean floor --
We were just good on paper.
Or maybe we started slaughtering
Noble half-breeds and changelings wholesale
Out of a misplaced sense of pride,

Or our union was unholy
And rankled the senses of the Sovereign
Who deemed it an offense
And thus condemned it,

Or perhaps this was an act of mercy
The equivalent of what Lovecraft said
The most merciful thing
Is the inability of the human mind
To correlate all the ******* he encounters
And has to deal with
On a daily ******* basis.

That the solid waves of mindfuck,
Pushing and heaving like tides,
Emanating from little ole you,
Would have finished off
Whatever was left of my mind.

You believed in ******* everything
But us.
Lost continents
Fox spirits
Psychometry
Were-boars
The ******* occult
No problem
All that which science cannot quantify nor qualify
You embraced
Yet you ran from me
And into the arms of another.

You claimed to be an empath
So tell me
How do I feel
After what you did to me?

You tell me.

And isn't empathy
Supposed to make people more compassionate?

The **** is this, then?

These stories
Of yetis and apparitions
Poltergeists and precognition
Used to intrigue and thrill me as a child.
When I grew up
I started ignoring them.
You put meaning back into the whole thing,
However insipid.

I was a skeptic.
You walked the line
Between the physical and supernatural
At least
If what you said is to be believed.

You were nothing but a specter,
Luring another hapless soul
Out into the barren wastelands
With a *** of stew,
Just beyond reach,
To its doom.

You're nothing but a ghost
Of an angry girl
Murdered by the cruelty
Of your parents and the church
And now I'm one of your victims.

Now as I start to see
Faint vistas of the supernatural,
They start to run
With memories of you
Until I can no longer
Distinguish one from the other.

So I'll ignore the glimpses
Of lurid phantasmagorias
And lock myself in
My world of letters and literature
Of armlocks and flying elbows
Of video games and liquor
I will pretend your world never existed.

Please, please keep out of mine.

I thought you loved me.

I had so many things planned for us.
I still had so much left to give.

But you left anyway.
Now what am I to do
With these plans
All this love
But to fling them out
To be trampled by pigs
And eaten by birds

You lied to me.
You're cruel.
And why would I want to remain friends
With someone that selfish?

I tried to show you
That I wasn't like him
Blind to the fact
That you're just like her.

I've done nothing wrong
Except give my heart
And love wholly -
Something I will never do again

When I departed
Who knew
It was for the final time.
Perhaps it was for the best.
That's what I tell myself
In an attempt
To ease the sting
Of your abandonment.

A star is a star, after all
Meant to roam the frigid emptiness of space
To blaze and shine
Through the barren loneliness
And inspire bards and priests and murderers
Here on my patch of dirt

And this neanderthal
Was meant to walk this humble rock.
To vie for the heavens
Is blasphemy.
This simple-minded caveman
Can do nothing else in his grief
But perhaps
To find something more worthy
For which to paint his crude smudges
On the walls of his hovel.

The girl who captured my heart
And held my hand
And kissed my cheek so sweetly
Died back there
With my final vestiges of hope
In The Land of the Morning Calm.

Explore my mind
I beg of you
Walk the landscape of my psyche
Until your feet are nothing
But a bleeding pile of blisters

I'll expose you to all the truly inane **** I can dwell on
I'll show you the ugliness of my soul
The depths of depravity
To which I am willing to sink

I open myself to you for examination
For your scrutiny
Know me inside and out

And then tell me
If I still interest you
If you can still call my mind beautiful

I'll bare everything
In a desperate bid to drive you off
See if you can handle
The crushing depths of the boredom I can inflict

Because if you're just going to tire of me eventually
Get bored and walk off
To find the next stimulation
For your mind and soul
Then I'd rather you do it to me sooner
Than later
Even though I will never be the first
To leave.

A few more days
And we'll find ourselves
Sharing laughs once again
Lighting each other's cigarettes
Flipping each other the bird
Exchanging stupid grins
And holding hands
As we pontificate
And argue
And muse
On both the metaphysical and the mundane.

Looking at the same moon
Smoking when you smoke
Subsisting on digital hugs and kisses
(A sad parody of the real thing)
Pictures and memories

This is what we've been reduced to.
It's maddeningly frustrating
But I must endure.
(Something this old man is getting better at.)

It's not so bad
Anticipating your calls
To hear about the adventures of your day
About who you met up with
How many guys checked you out or hit on you
How many shots you polished off
And just to hear
The sound of your hello
Your *******, dude's
And your refreshingly innocent giggles.
Not bad at all.

It's better than nothing
While I'm counting the days
I stretch my hours
And inch sleep back
With Sylvia Plath and writing these little poems
To meet you in those tiny windows
Crowded in
By our time zones and sleeping habits

Succumbing to slumber
Only to be prodded awake
By the wailing of the phone
And finally
Plucking it out of the darkness

Just to hear
A voice
Your voice
Mellowed by sleep
Your inhibitions crippled by alcohol
Whispering little morsels of affection
And singing out trembling yawns
Moments before sleep claimed you from me

And I'm alone again in the dark

But smiling this time.

Virtual hugs ****,
You said.
This ******* distance
The longing
And all the
I miss you's
And image files
And sound bites
That mean the best
But don't do jack ****
To bring us an inch closer

I know.

Patience, my love.
Just a few more days.

Her hands told me everything
More than her piercing eyes
More than her articulate words
Ever could

They sang
Of realms crisscrossing
This ancient earth

Every crease
And there were many
Whispering forgotten lores

She is a portal
To different worlds
Strange dimensions
Where the fae dwell
And demons lurk

I don't know how
To dispel the legion
Shadowing her
Or how
To drive off her demons
But to be there
To listen
To love
To hold
As she searches
For answers
For meaning
To the colossal questions
That slipped through the
Cold balance sheet of life
Too deep to fit
Into its little cubicles
And neat labels

Torn between desire and fear
Do I advance?
Do I flee?

If I stay
And she tires of me
What then?

If I run
And wound her
What then?

You're stupid
They told me
For hesitating.
Go
They said.

You're a fool
They told me
For making the wrong choice.
Turn back
They said.

You're crazy
They told me
She's a free spirit.
You need to tame her
They said.

One does not harness a star
One does not subjugate a heavenly body

I may have grown roots
And she, wings
Nevertheless
I wait for her
To make her nest in me.

For even birds seek a perch
And foxes seek refuge

Now
As normalcy resumes
And our time slowly unreels
Inside my head
Crowding out all else
All that occupies me
Are her hands
Rough, calloused, and scalding
And beautiful with an unspoken tenderness
And millennial wisdom
Locked with mine.

She said
I like your mind

What I should have replied with was
I like you.
You are the night sky to my mind's cavemen
An enduring thing of wonder
Inspiring tales and legends and worship
And all that jazz.

Should have.
I would be mad to bare myself
Just to wither under her gaze of supreme boredom.
A man cannot embrace a star
To dance in her purifying flames
To cavort in pure energy
And live to tell the tale.

All mortals can hope for
Are those dark interludes of breathless awe
At the fearful display of the heavens

I was never meant to walk on her surface
And explore her depths
To foster such ambitions
Is to court death
To plunge into immolation

After a night of slack-jawed gazing
I have to do nothing else but retreat back into my cave
And paint on the walls.

After you left
My cigarettes tasted dull
The electricity in the air vanished
And my thoughts lost their luster
How could I frolic in the playground of my mind
When your voice still echoes
Bouncing around
From dank nook to dusty corner
And stirs and disturbs
Tired emotions
Long meant to be put to rest.

******* on my **** stick
On the abandoned sidewalk
I can still see us
Five feet away
Breathing each other's smoke
Beaming smiles at passing cars
Exchanging inanities
While I gorged
On lies of grins and fraternal love.

At the hazy bottom of the bottle
Later that night
Is when I realize
I only exist
In between our hellos and goodbyes.

When she sings
Celestials dance

Her voice summons sprites
Automatons ignited by a single utterance
Writhing and shimmering
Even in the shadows

The fae emerge from beneath oak leaves
Coaxed out of hiding
By what was taken
For a druidess' song

When she sings
I weep

At what could have been
At what is

She tosses a glance down at me
And juxtaposes elation with despair

My skin revolts
In an eruption of goosebumps
Not even whiskey can suppress

Each melody
Revealing
Unspoken depths
Nourishing her unassailable spirit
Flawless in her imperfection
Tempered in her brokenness

Her breath fills my soul
With effervescent aether

All my meticulous machinations
My impenetrable nonchalance
Those incorrigible wisecracks
The implacable facade
Methodically pieced together over time

Shattered

Undone by the whisper of a seraph

Get out there, my mother said,
Tossing me out,
Make friends
Play
Have fun.

Standing there
Seeing other kids playing house
Fighting over toys
Playing tag

This is fun?

Now I still stare with hollow eyes
People guffawing
Gesticulating
Laughing
Amidst clouds of smoke
And bottles of alcohol
Excitedly blathering on about inconsequential ****
While I blink
With all the enthusiasm of a cat

I'm bored.

These...creatures
Cawing nonsense to the thin air
Flapping arms to illustrate
Fighting over carrion
Bumming sticks off me
Getting my food
Borrowing cash
Asking favors

All this ******* noise
Meaningless chatter
About the flotsam of their petty existence
About what happened to whom
And oh my God you guys
You'll never believe what who said
I can't believe this and that how dare they

All this horseshit
Flowing
Rushing
Past me
Wearing down my sanity

All this hope and expectation
Wasted on people
On their shallow drama
On the inevitable disappointments
On the unnecessary negativity

I'm going home.

In a misguided attempt to escape you
I fled to Nietzsche.

Weak
Inconstant
They are cats and birds
At best, cows,
he mocked.

I don't know about that
But I've never stolen glances at a cow
And felt my heart turn to ash
At the gentle devastation of its beauty
While praying that the mild curry in my mouth
Somehow shrivel up my tongue
And singe off the unspoken entreaties simmering within.

(And my affection for cows
Extends only to veal cutlets)

Today
Nietzsche and curry failed me
Tonight
It'll be the familiar embrace of alcohol
Until you fly back to Beijing.
After which
Are other substances and their derivatives
To deal with the fallout
Your transient smile
Wrought on my worn soul.

You'll find your Persephone someday
She told me

Well, I have now.
She was a *****.

Now
In between cigarette puffs
I sit and wait and ponder
If we all had to wake up like that
Reality barging into the room
If all kids had to wander downstairs
And find daddy
Not Santa
Beer in hand
Tossing presents under the tree

Now all I see are ghosts
I see Persephone everywhere

All these people
Telling me to wait
I wonder if they still believe in Santa
Or Satan
Or in God

Sick doth my heart grow with longing
For you my eyes are always seeking

Again and again for you I pine
Wishing and praying to make you mine

For what more can a man ask for
But to open his empty heart as a door

To the one who is indeed most worthy
With her wit, charm, grace, and beauty

Gods and mortals alike fall at your feet
For to have you heart and soul is the greatest feat

Seeing your smile assures me of blissful days
My heart is yours to keep forever and always

the world won’t implode
if my lips touch yours

the sun won’t die
the seas won’t boil
the sky won’t fall
the earth won’t split

if my eye meets yours
if my finger brushes yours
if my forehead touches yours
as my arm encircles your waist

so what’s the problem here

if i bury my nose in your hair
if i whisper sweet nothings in your ear
if i press you up against the wall
and claim all of you

blood will not rain from the heavens
planets will not collide
beelzeboul will not rise
and the internet will not die

if i make you mine

so why

My heart refused to surrender
the memory of your lips
your breath
your voice
your eyes
your hair
your skin
your legs
your *******

So I did the next best thing
which is
to lock you in a box
and send it tumbling
clattering into the shadows of my soul
where even my darkest impulses
hesitate to roam.

For I have already scattered to the wind
thoughts of you
of where I used to nuzzle your neck
of your sighs as you straddled me
and rained kisses on my shoulders
as I explored the white plains and valleys of your neck with my lips
your opaque tresses enclosing us like a velvet curtain
of that spot behind your ear
that turned you into a convulsing puddle
of the secretive smirk
as your lips ambushed mine
while the bacon burned itself to a charred crisp
ignored for a few stolen afternoon moments.

The waters have swallowed up
the foregone moments
of silence as you devoured yogurt
cup after cup with manic zeal
of afternoon naps interspersed
with locked lips and remorseful embraces
of nights shattered by raised voices and silent tears
of quiet revelations as heaven descended
while you wrapped yourself around my arm.

The few treacherous strands of recollection
I leave to the roaring sands
sleek as silk and strong as steel
obstinate cobwebs sticking to my hair and skin
indifferently recurring flashes of reminiscence
such as
the painful cognizance only theology can exacerbate
how you restrained my hands
when their gesticulations crossed over into exaggeration
those truly rare moments of generosity
when you showed some semblance of affection
or even
your dogged efforts at breaking into my reverie
to teach me to look past my little bio-dome
and live in the world beyond.

What stubbornly remained I managed to fit into that box
which refused to budge
without much pleading
cajoling
threatening
and screaming
oh and
physical violence helped too.

And finally over the edge it went
banished
down to join the growing pile of crates
of memories
also written off with a flippant wave of the hand
and washed away with a burning wave of whiskey.

Someday
I, too, will write

And create a story as beautiful and hopeless as ours.
A story of wistfulness.
A story of sadness. Of lost love. Doomed love.
Oh, such blissful damnation it was.

I will recreate this story
Like how I held you once again in my dreams
How we smiled and talked and laughed again
Just like before.
And make people weep
Like I wept.

Someday, time and experience shall free me
To write like how I so desired today.

It's unraveling inside
Flooding and making a mess of things
And I'm helpless
Powerless to pour it out.
Words are still insufficient
- And perhaps will always be -
To capture what I had seen and felt.
(And what you truly meant to me.)

For a moment
All this rancor evaporated
To reveal the raw state of things.
I still miss you dearly, it seems. Perhaps I always will.

(The cold is slowly killing the dormant giant, but however long shall it take?)

And may I gladly accept it
As gladly as I have sought you out in the beginning
No longer carrying the shackles of bitterness on me.
Haven't I suffered enough, after all?