When the tides of ******* rise
Engulf all meaning left in life
And the noise of life becomes dramatic
Existence reduced to a hiss of static
When the revolting mess we call humanity
***** everything up with its insanity
And I give an inch but they take a mile
You are my one reason left to smile.

If Dawkins were right
And faith is a farce
A human construct
If Nietzsche were right
And man has outgrown God
As a child outgrows his toy
Then all this
Hemming
And
Hawing
Would have all been in vain
All ****** folly
And this time could have been put
To better use
Courting you
And we would be
So very happy
Together.

~

Yet if the scriptures were right
And we are spirits made flesh
Having appointments with divine destiny
Then you are but a thought
A temptation
Testing me
An exaltation against His knowledge.
A boon you are not
But a bane.
And I am to nail it all
To the foot of the cross
Just as how I am to nail my flesh,
My sinful nature,
To this altar.
And in Him
Shall I find all-transcendent peace.
For putting the Kingdom first,
Shall I receive His best.

~

That is,
If.

However much fun was had
Playing catch and tag
Exploring the day away
Suppertime always comes around
Friends say goodbye
As mothers call then yell
Come home and wash up
Right now mister
And the playground falls silent

One day
You'll meet the person you were meant to become
But didn't
Maybe because of bad decisions
Wrong life choices
Poor impulse control
Sheer laziness
Selfishness
Crippling addiction

You'll meet that person
And flounder in the tearful aftermath
That quiet devastation
Of the could-have-beens and what-ifs
Wither in the fallout of regret and remorse

They don't tell you these things in school

That if you'd just reined in your temper a bit
Had been more generous
Overlooked life's little injuries
And spread goodwill instead of vitriol

What a difference it would have made

You realize these things just a little too late
When your life is half-spent
Frittered away
On petty squabbles and noxious grudges
Like cresting a hill
Only to see your path end at a sheer drop

If you're lucky
You'll be too far gone
Drowning in your pit
To even realize
The incarnation of foregone potential
Staring at you in the face
And so
Pass the rest of your days
In blissful ignorance

They don't tell you these things
Or how to at least maintain composure
When you get waylaid
By these belated revelations

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.

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.

Like how the bottle is a crutch for alcoholics
Is what you are to me
More and more
Day by day

And if you leave
The ground may just swallow me up
If the sea won't have me
And the sky withholds her lightning

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

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.

A whiff of your nape
The sway of your hips
A swish of your skirt
Enough to get me on edge

How long must I wait
The taste of your lips
Your ******* so pert
Climb in and join me in bed

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.

If it comes down
To choosing
Between me and your dreams,
I told her
Leave me
And pursue your dreams.*

She fell silent
Unsure how to proceed
If she can truly say
That she would pick a man
Over the sky

Unaware
That I would rather
See the familiar face
Of desolation once more
Than cage her
In the mundane

(Oh but how I hope
For her to bring me
As she flies south for the winter)

I got my friend back
For all of five weeks
Before losing him to her
There's always a her involved
Claiming, seducing, stealing friends away
My friendships and love life
Should never be mutually exclusive
Maybe I care too much

The manic racket of the world
Is but a whisper
To our song

The noxious vitriol
Neutralized
By the dulcet tones
To which our hearts harmonize.

She is a sonnet
Given breath
A heartbeat
With lightning crackling in her veins

Given voice
Brimming with the fury of celestials
Her crisp footsteps
The pregnant wake of summer showers

She is the song
I will sing
A lifetime and more
The only one I will know
For none other
Shall grace my lips

My waking hours I spend
Begging for the alms
Of her lovingkindness
For the intense gentleness
Doled out tenderly
To orphaned souls like mine.

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

Put your ghosts to bed
Though they stomp and cry and pout
A new day has come.

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

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

Treading bile
Paddling to keep my head above
The maddening waterline

Every moment is a struggle
Not to flip out
Not to give in
To negativity
To rage

This is my karma
I harbored hate
Now it possesses me

If I breathed my last tonight
Do not grieve long
I will always be with you

If you woke up tomorrow
Fallen out of love with me
I would regret nothing

If your moon dims
If my sun dissipates
The spectral stars still stare from afar

Because
I never held back from you
Not a drop of love
I gave you free rein
All my love
Never counting the cost

So that
Should my life or your love end
I can walk back into the darkness
Unencumbered by the shackles of regret
Knowing that I gave my all

I know why ghosts exist
And I refuse to be part of their ranks

Forget
Demonic possession
Or being burned at stake

Behold true terror
When she told me
Her period's late.

Salty days or sweet
I'm here to stay
One with your heartbeat
Dragons we slay

I'll hold you close
Through sun and through hail
I won't let go
Our love shall prevail

When your footsteps start to sink
And birdsong falls deathly quiet
When your breath starts to fog
And the snake's gaze greets you at dusk
Follow the lanterns

When fewer stars come out each night
And the sky smudges with the void
Every new moon comes in shorter intervals
And infant cry echoes from the woods
Follow the lanterns

Follow them through decaying towns
Through arid plains and foggy swamps
Seek them out in heaving crowds
And the choking smog of cities
There is always one nearby

Amidst the darkest nights
Or the coldest, crushing depths
The screaming heat of midday
Soaking the highways and byways
A lantern flickers on for you to find

Even when the rain turns acrid
And cats jump into lakes
Your spouse drives daggers into you
And the very walls swallow your voice
The lanterns will preserve you

When the baker speaks riddles
And the pages bleed into waves
The village ***** prophesies
And rebukes the high priests
Find your silver cord through the lanterns

Cling to them
When you sleep to vultures' lullabies
While your skin itches for a razor
Or wine starts tasting sweeter
And sips turn into gulps

Follow them through vale and cliff
Snow and drought
Seek the lanterns' warmth
Until your shadow returns
And ale tastes bitter again

When the sands finally shift
And you bathe in dappled sunlight
And the robins' song graces you anew
Remember the lanterns
Lest the frost takes you unguarded

Long may they guide you
Through doorways and cave mouths
From hamlet to palace
And keep your golden bowl unbroken
For many winters to come

Pursue the lanterns relentlessly
Fiercely
And perhaps one day
You will plant and light lanterns
For your sons

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

I hate you
For who
And what
You are not.

Though the rain and clouds blanket the sky
My world still thrives and spins
In your dazzling radiance.

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?

Stolen glances
Bronze sunsets
Feather touches
Sapphire dawns

Unspoken entreaties
Suppressed tears
Tender kisses
Furtive giggles

Moonlit midnights
Spilled beer
Breathless moments
Moist gropings

Crisp autumn
Tokyo sky
First snow
Auspicious meeting

Crowded Christmas
Bended knee
Diamond ring
Torrential felicitations

Seething traffic
Placid drive
Harmonized songs
Punny banter

Perilous storms
Locked hands
Whispered prayers
Renewed hope

Winter noon
Tearful vows
Golden rings
Joyous feasting

I used to lose myself
When I was with you
Mind chasing my pulse
Mouth talking up a storm
Judgement bogged by infatuation.

Now I lose myself
When you're not around
When our apartment is reduced
To the hum of the fan
Alone with thoughts that get bleaker each day.

And how I've lost myself indeed
These past weeks
Reduced to a mute apparition
Robbed of purpose
Bleeding colors
Sentenced to face alone
The echoing shadows of tomorrow
And whose remaining thought
Is the warm spring of your return.

Though the fire fades
And the lights dim
As is their wont
I will always give my very being
And climb into the altar
To kindle the flames
With my body
To usher in the new age
With my life
Time after time
Without fail
Until these bones
Are nothing but ash
And even so
My love for you
Will endure
As an ember
Undying.

I wonder,
If you were still alive
At 104 years old today,
If you would have been proud of me,
If you would have liked what you saw.

You knew me as the toddler
Who insistently took your hand
Before crossing the busy Chinatown street,

But not as the awkward teenager,
Anger simmering beneath his acne-riddled face,
Eager to prove his growth,
Trying too hard with his vitriolic rants,  

Neither as the young man
Floundering about in his twenties,
Dissipated on intoxicants,  
Groping about for direction,
Pining for a woman's companionship,

Nor as the married man
Who had attained independence,
Having found a way in life,
But now longing to regress to boyhood,
Sublimating his regrets in bad poetry
Scribbled between issuing memos and contracts.

Just what did you see in that toddler's future
As he waddled across the bumpy cement streets
Dappled with horse manure spilled from kalesas?

Did you see a man with broad shoulders,
Employing hundreds and feeding their families,
Making a tidy profit week after week?

Or perhaps an academician,
Erudite and eloquent, a debate juggernaut,
A far cry from his forefathers' humble beginnings
In some fishing village from Bumfuck, Nowhere, China?

Or did you just hope
For your grandson to retain his heart
The same one that prompted him
To take your hand as you crossed the street?

I still think of you at times
And wonder how things would have been
Had you been around,

If you would have bore our valley days
With your trademark stoicism,
Anchored father with your presence,
And have finally reined in
Grandmother's bladed tongue,

If we would have eventually shared
Your daily quart of brandy
After weathering with ascetic patience
The sound and fury of idiots.

How you would have seen
With your own eyes
The clan flourish and increase
In members, clout, and material wealth,

How you would have sat
Stone-faced but proud
As I took my steps to patriarchy
And started my own tribe,

Albeit with someone outside our race -
Worse yet, a descendant
Of our colonizers from the war.

(I wonder how much convincing
How much yelling from father
It would have taken
For you to relent)

I know I look back too much.
I guess there are too many unexplored paths,
Too many phantoms who remained acquaintances.

Or maybe I'm just like father,
Habitually framing the present
With the context of the past,
Always romanticizing the bygone
With the wine of sentiment,
Though reality would have been harder, drier,
And we needed the magic of romance
To make reminiscence palatable.

Thirty years have decayed my memory of you
To but a reconstructed charcoal sketch  

But it does not make me miss you any less.

I don't need an occasion
To appreciate you
The things that you do
The way you are

How you
Wrap your arms around me from behind
Or
Leave a puddle of drool beside my pillow

How you prepare meal after meal for me
With love and care
Or how excitement blooms on your face
When I come home to you after work

How you speak with tenderness
And treat me with such patience
At times when I **** up
One too many times

I need no reason to say
That every day with you
Opens my eyes up
To things I couldn't even dream of before

To treat you extra special
On Valentines
Would be an insult to the other days of the year
When we have each other no less anyway
And love no less anyway

I did not treat you any differently today
Because I didn't need to.
Neither did you.
We always give each other 100%

So instead
Here's a 'just because' gift
Since you did want me to write more
A 'thank you' gift
For the years of bliss
I don't need a single gift from you
Your presence is already enough of a gift for me.

That's a jumping spider
I told you that it wants to be left alone
But still you persist
Because who can resist
Its lilliputian beauty
So exquisite
So fragile
And it would certainly meet doom
At your equally
Exquisitely
Lilliputian fingers

I spare the spider your brutal curiosity
Like how I wish
Life would spare your innocence
From the groping, grubby
Fingers of this broken world
Ignorant to your transcendence
This filthy world
Eager to offer you gilded trinkets
In exchange for your radiance
Pure joy unsullied
By the taint of human guile
It's foie gras to them
Though there are higher things
We are called to

I'll show you

Beautiful dreamer
Lying in the waters
Tell me your visions.

Of phantasms of dead dreams
And former lovers
Crying to start over

Wilting chrysanthemum buds
In autumn rain
Blossoming in a swan song.

And when you're done
Look to the horizon
Impatient with lightning

Angry and pregnant
With new dreams
And restored promises.

The Land of Waking
Has awaited your return
To your rightful helm.

New frontiers await your conquest
Abandon your turgid wishes
Seize the present with both hands.

But the blossoms will never end
Water your garden
After your ****** battles.

I would freeze time if I could
Hold you fast and tight
Breathe in your scent
And watch our son
Build and govern his kingdom
Kiss his cheek and hold his hand
While he dreams of cars and trucks
And we share noodles, trade stories
Yet
On time marches
Ever so cruelly

Sometimes,
I wish
Time would just
S T O P
For a second,
For an eternity or two,
So I could make this moment
Of fragile perfection,
S T R E T CH
Just a bit longer,

Before the brutalities
Of life and space
Come crashing back in,
Stomping on our delicate
Silent symphony.

Oh, for but a moment.

When the spiders come
Peeking from the smears on the wall
And the fog menaces ever closer
Inch by sinister inch

Strike the flint
And kindle the flame
Keep the darkness at bay
Stand your ground.

Hold fast
Lest the slick spill over
And bid the June Storm's return
To drench the stoked fire.

Stay in the light
Seek refuge

Before the tide catches you
And drags you into the deep
Before the spiders swarm you
And sink their venom into you.

Seek sanctuary
In the Patriarch's drawing room
Abide and rest to
Face the encroaching shadow.

Buttress your soul with peace
Fortify your spirit with tranquility
And arm yourself with assurance
All taken from the Patriarch's armory.

Fling yourself
Into the purifying light
Of a hundred suns
Before the darkness envelopes you.

Your hands remind me of hermit *****.
Fingers fat and tiny
Curling inwards into your cuffs
Shying from the world and the cold
But blossoming to grasp at joy
To grab at a slice of bread
Or point at an excavator.

As you turn a year older
Your hermit ***** will move into bigger shells
And they'll start to reach for bigger things
Like pencils and books and controllers
Or perhaps ball into fists of rage
Or splay out to throw ***** and high fives.

Some day
These hermit *****, nestled in cuffs of linen and silk
Will open doors and sign contracts
Pluck strings of guitars and hearts alike
And hold its own pair of hermit *****

Even so
I hope they'll still fan out to hold my hands
Warmly and tightly as before
Though they fully enclose mine.