The words are not the same anymore,
wrapped in meanings that are concepts far
beyond my eyes, that fall upon my lips,
empty and bitter and fading.

My poems are like foreign aspects of my life now,
disappearing under my finger tips without further
notice, kneaded into the paper under my palms
and leaving me slowly, dreadfully, painfully.

Who am I now, that my voice has waned?
That the moon on my tongue no longer revolves,
with the earth and the sun, left trap in a desolate darkness
filled with brighter supernovas, and wanton galaxies.

Who am I now?
That the thread of my being has frayed,
and slipped, and weaved, through the contours of the universe,
as I slip easily through the cracks without being chased;
without being noticed (and I regret and regret, and regret, because I wish that they had).

Who are we, now that I'm gone,
and that you've gone with another? That you've followed
in their footsteps, left me, with one foot entering my grave?
With a rough necklace dangling across my collar? With silver lining your eyes, and with an exuberance that comes with letting go?

What are we now, that my poems no longer hold the essence of me,
as it remains to long for you? What are we, that we no longer hold what was once dear for us? What are we now, that the physical form of who I am remains to fade alongside your death? What are we, when all that remains of our past selves are gone?

Who are you?

My fascination for the morbid,
and the unthinkable is grotesque
in all manner, though it is something
that I do quite relish
for in the concept of it all,
I am quite taken by the blunt
cruelty of the world,
though I am not such a person.
There is loneliness that drifts
amongst those who breathe
simply to survive;
and then there is struggle
and ache,
and misery,
to those who understand far more
than what I can.

My interest is grotesque indeed,
to simply watch scenes unfold
like the wings of a raven, unfolding
like plastic fans with cheap rings at the end
slowly coming undone
as time wears down the bones;
no longer breathes simply
to survive.
Her lips become unsealed,
as she spills her urge to
confront her lover.
He hesitates in the face
of an oppressing threat.
They cry under great pressure.

I am fascinated, by the flamboyance
of the suffering; their strong strides
that hold no actual magnitude.
Their faux smiles that sing of
fresh blood mixed with their saliva
hiding behind trembling teeth;
strong hands that hold far tighter
than usual, when I comfort them,
and their suffering bleeds out of their wounds
like the lungs do oxygen,
and mind you, it surrounds me like a fog.

I have a morbid interest,
of watching it all unfold,
but that is what I simply am.
I am a bystander; a silent witness.

I simply wonder why these people
have the urge to come undone
before me. Why am I such a good
ear to their loud silence.

But ah, I understand now.
I am the same like them;
as you are me now.

For days I followed
your looming shadow
stark and black
towards that shining hill,

Used me like a ladder,
climbing to that point,
as I stood below you,
silent and still.

I let you use
all of my limbs,
my body and mind,
torn and bruised

You tore away
my nerves and bits
always expendable
in your use.

You had a heart,
a cryptic mind,
my hero guiding
with his touch,

Who had a side,
of flint and still,
so dark and scary,
that I knew such.

But I never knew
what you were doing
if you asked or you stole
everything in between

As you looked past
that stormy hill
and left everything
that you've always been.

The emptiness rests within me, flowing through my veins and my bones, solidifying the feeling of one-ness that resides within me alone. How do I stop this feeling? How do I stop this un-feeling?

I do not know the answer.  It is unattainable, far beyond the scope of my state of mind. I understand not what makes me starve through the night; what makes my lips ache and crack; what makes me sleep through the day; what makes me lie awake when all I want is to die.

If I am a tapestry, a threaded piece, then all I want to do is to tear my nerve-endings apart, perhaps slowly--or quickly, whichever it may be. I want to pluck every thread and slowly pull myself into mere shreds of who I am until nothing is left. And I want to permeate, like water evaporating through the atmosphere.

Unseen by the naked eye.

Maybe then, when I join the very air I breathe, I will know what it feels like to become something.

To simply belong.

The sour of the metal spoon
clings to the roof of my mouth.
My eyes water, lips pucker,
as my hands tremble underneath
the low light of the humid room.

The movement of time grates on
my frozen nerves, thrumming
within heated flesh. Death sits across
from where I am, as I feast upon the
offering that life gives.

The food is cold. It is ash in my mouth.
For I have stuck to the same food for so long, I have found, I am not content
with the serving I have chosen. But Death waits patiently, in his alcove
of mystery.

It is time, and I know.

I dine with death, with spoon and fork in hand, and this is the food I have chosen.

This is the life I have lived. My choice that I ponder, and we concede. It doesn't matter what food we eat, with what we eat, and how we eat it. But by the end, I know.

I have chosen something terrible, and Death will hold me by the hand alone, as we leave, side by side, to the door outside.

Here, I face towards the indiscriminate darkness, and before I say I am nothing, I say, "I am one".

And so, how are we to move on from a love we desperately hold on to?

The beast rolls around the corner,
its head rearing, taunting and playing
the piano keys like Beethoven on his last hurrah,
proudly smothering my chest with an ache,
an emptiness.

"Only between us," you say, a glance my way,
a reassurance, with a cloying smile. My heart tightens,
"No," I was about to answer, but my thoughts move,
the dictionary in my head turning "no" into a, "Yes, of course".
Turning my truth into a lie,
my heart the severing line.

Giving my frown the definition of a smile.

Beethoven still plays the piano in my mind,
playing his wonderful concertos and sonatas,
this deaf man.
And you can call me friend, your comrade,
your companion, in that less of a jumbled dictionary of yours,
filled with dog-eared pages and highlighted words.

"You matter to me," I say with every ounce of conviction.

You can hear me, but unlike Beethoven you never make a sound.

And I am the broken recorder, testing my conviction.

But as Beethoven is deaf,
in this mental dictionary of mine,
filled with contradiction,
you are the only word
whose definition is friend and foe,
both one and the same.
Too near to the line to be different.

And the strange thing perhaps,
is that it has never changed.

Our love will never be a thing of today or tomorrow, but it will always be there. It exists, and blooms first thing in the morning, but even if you don't find it, it is there. Only, it is asleep, and you wake up, only if it matters.  

Some days, I wake up with a hole in my chest, some days, I wake up with my chest filled with too much, that it hurts beyond words. Do I burst with joy? Burst with ire? Or burst into red dahlias and daffodils?

Because I always hold the watering can with earnest, the grooves of its handle imprinted in my hand, as I water my garden each and every morning. And you don't notice them, the flowers that I make bloom.

You gave me the red dahlias and daffodils, and I always close my eyes at night, thinking one day you will notice.

And I know you won't.

But I go on anyway, with my morning gardening; keeping the soil, cutting what has died, keeping them alive from morning through night, caring  this way always, without self-regard.

This is my way of love.

It hurts inside, you see,
because you never think of me,
the way you think of someone else,
someone who I'll never be.

But don't you dare come closer,
don't come to me this time,
when you lament all about her,
How dare you think it's fine?

Because I've known you longer,
and I still think it's unfair,
how you know little about her,
but forget that I am there.

And yet, I know this isn't love, but
nevertheless, it hurts,
how you inflict pain on me
without actually saying those words.

Where there is thunder that reigns
down the emptiness of your flesh,
in a war hidden and filled with apathy,
to sink behind darkness , once named shame.

There it is, the torn kingdom,
that you've claimed as your body.
The temple which you've loved,
but never cared for in those aeons of silence.

Where you pretended that doing nothing
would solve everything.

And so you weep, for the unfairness of it all,
as you claw at your already mangled flesh,
and press for the warmth of your heart.
Pretend that the rush of blood is a rolling blanket.

You swallow those shards of glass, and emulate the heavens,
and pretend your body with jagged scars
is the place for honourable heroes; pretend your triumph
in this barren, damp land of storms
is the place where thunder always reigns.

A place for heroes who never won, but died in their place.

Their eyes meet, and out from their lips comes the sounds of stuttered words, fingers unsure, eyes searching, hearts feeling visions that race through their minds. It’s as if this moment was paramount, even though faded memories only led to the time of now. They do no think. They only feel. Their cracked, papery lips never felt drier than before, but as if prompted by a spirit that harboured the edges of their souls, words tumbled out into a thin, fine stream—as if practised through aeons, and memorised by their immortal spirits, eternal in finite bodies, and ingrained within their tired minds, they say, “I’ve seen this before.”

And only their spirits know if it is true.

The higher curl of the other end of her lip. The exasperation present in her eyes. The small sound of her snort as she looked away.

He loved that look so much.

God, he loved it.

And it was so unfortunate, that it was only now that he was admiring it. Only now that he was loving it, for the last time.

He took a breath.

She didn’t.

Let your knife
Pierce between my ribs
Fall in my embrace
To let you sleep
It’s so different
From how it used to be
So different
From how it seems


As your hand
Slips right through the cracks
Squeeze my heart
Shut until your grip slacks
Save me from
The hurtful words
Save me from
How it used to hurt

So when we’re done here now
Just shut me out
Let my corpse fall down
Until you won’t look back
Leave me to
Bleed it out
Leave me to
Die right now
Leave me so
I can sleep safe
And sound

Softly breathing by midday,
she turns to me with a soft smile.
She brushes her hands across my arm,
asking me to stay for awhile.

My eyes move as my heart beats,
struggling to even make a sound,
as the sweetness captures my heart and eats,
leaving my soul truly bound.

And so, as she eats away at my fruitless love,
toys away with my aching heart,
I'll let her have my sadness she seeks for,
to rot with the feelings that I impart.

His finely-tailored suit
contrasts the callouses of his hands.
His combed dark hair
hides the darkness in his eyes.
His steps the shadows of the underbrush
does not decide whether he is there or not.
His unnerving silence
speaks of the battle of an ongoing conversation.

However of a dichotomy he might be,
he is the same man.
The same kind.
Same impostor.
Same boy
with the same lies.
For we are all the same,
with tailored suits,
when we have something to hide.

He told me he liked things special.
Liked things different.
To be on the edge.

So I set myself on fire,
painted myself with the colours of flames,
lit myself with gasoline and gave him a blazing fire.

And when he got too close to the flames,
he told me I tore him apart.
That I was the reason he strayed away.
Why he had a reason to be safe
from the danger he made me into,
and fell into the arms
of a girl who he hadn't asked to change instead.

I feel like I can do nothing on the face of the earth
as they fight on the other side of these walls
as my tears fall into the green pillow I hug to my chest
as their shouts echo their way into my room as a witness
as his cries fill my ears with pain and hopelessness
as I put a fist to my mouth to strangle my cries
as I try to silence their voices with my mind
as he hits him again with his knuckles or his belt
as they misunderstand and accuse for no reason
and I tumble down an empty hole that feels like no light
can pirece this cavernous, vast darkness I’ve fallen into.

And then I hear him beside me, putting pitiful tissues
on his scratched arm, tear stained lashes and tousled hair
bearing the testament of a spirit’s spite and anger.
And I wipe my tears away, and I open my mouth to tell you,
but I cannot say it aloud, for they might come for me.
But I promise anyway, “One day, I’ll make them pay.
One Day.”

I breathe stale air again,
painful in particular,
burning me inside.

I remember this feeling—
this foolish fall down the steps of my heart—
the shaking of my fingers when I met your eyes,
the trembling of my voice whenever I talked.

I know this feeling.
I know it.

And I’m breathing stale air again,
painful in particular,
burning me inside,
because the one thing I know
is that this feeling hurts,
every time.

With one look,
he sets my soul ablaze.
With one look,
he can end my passing days.
With one look,
he taught my heart to stay.
With one look,
he took my heart away.

“You say so little, to nothing. Why are you so quiet?” He asks.

Before she can even answer, he presses his lips against her’s, stopping her from speaking.

i do still care over what they think;
what the demons seem to say
and what my friends seem to say,
and it pains me to even say,
that I do still care.

because when i turn to myself for comfort,
Even I’m not there.

And I told him, Ivan, don’t shout.
And he did, and he couldn’t hear me;
he was too busy, leaning over the edge,
teetering on the point of immortality—
on the edge, on the edge, on the edge.
He’s still there.

Then, is it okay to cry enough?
Isn’t it okay to keep helping him?
Or am I too stupid to believe—
“Ivan, please stay. Please don’t go”—
that he would stay, even after I’m gone?

Because, I still cried, even when I left him first.
Because I didn’t want to stay to see him leave me,
and is love okay this way?
Is this what love for me supposed to be?
Am I really that naive to have believed its lies?

I left. But I can’t help but feel that I’m the one who lied.