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.

Pick me up out of a dozen
Light me up
Inhale deeply
And crush me underfoot
When I'm ash

Am I just a chapter in your book
A pit stop on your way to your true destination
Another flower to pick, sniff, and toss
A trinket for your phone?

If I am
Then leave now
Sooner than later
Before you stain more of me
With your touch
And I shall run once more
Into the familiar embrace
Of desolation.

I saw forever in you.

If I hadn't
I would have let the tide take me
And drag me back down
Where my ghosts await
Their eyes luminous
With a disappointed anger
Festering and simmering for generations.

Or had you sought immortality?
To press the ink from my soul
And let the smears bear testament
To your triumphant ensnarement
Of a hapless poet
Who
Left in the wake of your caress
Has no recourse
But write poem after poem
As one forces pus from a boil?

Will I be the last
To whom you promise the stars?

If I am
And if you're here to stay
Then make your home in me
And together
We'll weather the storms of life
And ravages of time

We'll **** off years
Smoke away reams
Gulp down pots of coffee
Just talking and conversing and chatting
With our mouths
And hands
Exploring each other
Mind, body, and soul.

Marvel time and again
How we stumbled into each other
How we simply happened
Wonder
What were the odds?
As we catch our breath
In each other's arms
Steadying our breathing
In the dark

Leave trails of new experiences
Shed new memories on top of still-fresh ones
Tread on them until we reach the moon
Make plans and hold hands
Plotting our next course
From one star to another
Until we reach the corner of the universe

Give all of us to each other
Wholly
Fully
Willingly

I'll give you everything
All of me
If you promise not to leave.
I chose you, geisha.
And my nerve will not fail
Even as I risk
Another plunge.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lightning was never meant to be tamed
Moreso by mortals
Ask the foolish and the brave
Who died trying
She belongs to nature
Her mistress is great and terrible
Who swallows villages on a whim
And decimates cities with a gesture
The tides and hail are hers to command
The very ocean and the earth her lackeys

Lightning is appreciated from a distance
Keep a wide berth if you value your life
It strikes and immolates
With nary a warning
It is beautiful as it is deadly
But why then
Just why
Do I override my instincts
And walk closer and closer to you
Even as the brushfires
Creep closer
Inch by consuming inch

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Forget
Demonic possession
Or being burned at stake

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

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

I've been told
That I should get out of my shell
Expand my world
Or some ****

But how can I
When you are my world
Your skin my fields
Your tresses my forests
Your laughter my wind
Your smile my sun
Your embrace my gravity

Is it such a crime
To shut out distractions
To nuke these poachers from orbit
And keep my haven tranquil
Secure from the taint of the Other

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I pulled back the thicket
Brambles and thorns
Bordering my mind
Inch by inch
To let you slip inside

Hi

I hope you don't mind
The pestilent storm of neuroses
The angry winds whipping around
Eroding my cognition

(They all say
I ought to stop overthinking

They don't know the half of it)

Pardon the mess
The litter of apprehensions
Flotsam and jetsam of rumination
Tangles of tangents
Smog of chimeric thoughts
Sticky rambles festering in the corner
Acidic drizzle
Of obstinate wayward tunes
Insecurity and fear
Eating into the pillars and foundations

If you don't mind terribly
The clatter of sleet
The noisome fumes
The skittering vermin
The sheer clutter
That would make packrats shake their heads

If you don't mind
At all
Would you stay?

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.

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

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.

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

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?

It's always,
"Man down!"
God.
Man up
For a change.

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.

The abyss beckons
Its gaping maw opens wide
And to you I cling