Big and bold, in the likeness of capital words
burning through my lids:
"WE ARE DATING NOW!" screams at me
in the darkness.
Tell me why, what little happiness that
resided in my diminutive heart, died down without a sound?
I should be happy; smile graceful, heart light as always,
to know that you have found someone.
He deserves you, and you deserve him.
My feelings don't matter, put way beyond the display,
behind, behind, behind.
You matter to me, and come forward
before everything I know and feel,
metallic taste on my tongue,
heart bursting every so slowly,
yet now, I say otherwise.

The screen remains dark throughout the night.

(23 messages from Your Favourite Girl)

Suddenly, there's more than distance and heat. There's your heart and your soul.

Inside your embrace, and your thrumming flesh. There's more, there's more, I want to know.

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

I've met him twice; for months; and now years, into jubilees.
His name is Gabriel, and he means regret (in the language my heart only began to speak after him).

The way I know him, sinks deep into my soul like a splinter, hurting me more as he burrows. He refuses to love; is willing to be cared for. Never returns, doesn't even borrow, but nonetheless, he takes, and takes, and takes. He is a selfish man, the regret I've named Gabe.

We once held hands, and when I looked into his eyes, I poured my soul into the void he called his heart. And he took that love-and took it all, all, all and then gave it away.

My heart learned how to write songs because of Gabe. It broke, and it learned, and it began to write as if the endless words I wrote were expectant of the love he never gave; for the hurt he always seemed to be generous upon.

And I drank it all up, with a pinky held high, and he was not made of the substance I thought him to be.  But Gabe was a lesson, was an epiphany, was an age-old history (of aeons of regret).

Yet, he was once the substance that had made me.

A bitter heartbreak over a cup of tea.

We’re midnight wanderers together.
The moonlight loves us, just as we love each other.
We stay by the gas station, watching people flick cigarettes and smoke dangerously close, but we never stray from the possibility of burning. Never when we’re in each other’s embrace.

And we felt infinite back there, at the gas station, seeing cars zoom past us, feeling the lonely night creep back. Seeing the stars above us go into motion. Feeling the emptiness that receives no bottom as we drown in each other’s running time.

And our eyes capture each other. And the human is captured. Just in each other’s sight. The ghastly existence of each other, acknowledging  we are mere immortals inside rotting bodies, and we knew we could feel it. The humanity that seeped into our bones, and the melancholy and sadness, and the ephemeral happiness, and the days of lodging and the emotion that fuelled our existence. In the gas station, fuelling cars.

We were aware of how limited our time was, and the feelings that replaced our fervour to chase after time. The blunders that caused our reckless fate. Our emotions that finally destroyed us.

And we stayed that way in the gas station, waiting to be burned into ashes. We accepted our bottomless dark emotions, platonic yet deadly, because that was the way it was. We fell in love with each other's humanity, one that needed to be let out near the gas station, just in case we burned ourselves.

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.

It was slow and sudden, and I was stuck in space when you slowly tucked your hair behind your ears. I stared for too long, my eyes shooting holes into your fingers, into your shadowed skin, into your tear stained lashes, and into your quiet lips.

You were beautiful, your smile says it all.

Your eyes says it all.

And when you looked up and your eyes met mine, I looked away. I heard your laugh escape those closed lips, and in this time of a battling silence, I was internally screaming and crying, shouting and smiling. I was sad and happy, and you were making me that way.

You didn't know.

"What are you looking at?" I heard you say, and that voice. There is no other voice like that in the world.

"Nothing," I answered.

Everything. That's what I'm supposed to say.

And you didn't know, and it was better that way.

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.

We build our bridges of starlight
only burnt down by the blazing sun.
But we've just transgressed to night,
where owl wings have come undone.

The rat scuttles past the forest floor,
leaves crunching in their path like the fall,
as some people leave open doors,
when they have no one else to call.

The owl swoops in to take its meal
on four, short weak  legs.
The shadows across her window
shows the two dropping into her bed.

The owl took its meal and ate;
his stomach was now full.
The man had what he wanted to take.
He left a feeling so cold and cruel.

Burning bridges isn't fun
if they can only be seen at night.
They can only be burnt by the sun,
and these were bridges of starlight.

This is why we burn and we fade
because we are mere gasoline
attracted to flames.

I remember your smile,
how it caught mine so eagerly.
Having your fingers latch my heart,
just to make me look silly.

But we were so young back then,
I've yet to learn healing now.
But the imprint of your love burnt me,
and I still have yet to know how.

But I still can't seem to hate you,
nor forget who you really are.
Because you've made me feel like burning matches,
and I still have yet to light the dark.

There are no coherent words escaping your lips
Your eyes pry mine open for me to see and listen
Your neck strains against your collar to choke out the words
I only wanted to hear what I wanted, versus what you said

Your chest rises in a motion too fast, I stumble
You cry because of the words I refused to accept
You plead with me to come to terms to the truth you mouth to me
But I refuse, because my fingers covered your mouth instead.

her fingers are numb
thinking of touching him
not because of how cold he was to her,
but because the warmth was never for them
in the first place.

In cords and ribbons;

she does not speak.
People don't know whether to
scoff, or to pity, both maybe.
Yet she continues,
her tongue clicking,
her hands swift and nimble,
as she cuts up her little heart
and neatly wraps each one
into a package with a small,
small love letter.

Simple words, straight forward
and easy to decipher, with
meaning so plain and tangible.
Her tongue clicks, words still
quiet, her fingers folding the envelope
so delicately. Scissors lay on the table,
for cutting bits and pieces of herself
into each small package.

She hopes, with the light of a candle
and a flicker of a match stick,
that people would notice
her silent devotion.
Would not scoff, nor pity.
Hoped they'd smile and laugh,
as they read each part of her;
saw each part of her;
noticed each part of her—

that were all in cords and ribbons.

Oh, she's crying again.

She stutters.
Because there are too many words to say.

She hick-ups.
Because the words were hard to swallow.

She heaves.
Because the pain is too much.

She wipes away her tears.
Because there is no handkerchief or tissue to offer.

She smiles.
Because she learned how to cry many times, before learning to hide.

She limps away.
Because a girl like her had tattoos, painted black and blue.

She comes the next day.
Because there is no other thing to do but expect the same thing.

She's bleeding.
Because writing with a red pen on her arm was a habit of hers before bed, and she loved painting her bed sheets and bathroom floor red.

She heals.
Because getting hurt makes your body do the same thing.

And she cries. Again. And again. And again.
Because it's the same thing all over again.

She stutters.
She hick-ups.
She heaves.
She wipes away her tears.
She smiles.
She limps away.
She comes the next day.
She's bleeding.
She heals.
And she cries again.

And she does the same thing.

She makes my heart weep.

I'm a quiet woman.
A dangerous one at that.
Give me love, and it's dangerous
for a woman like me.

I don't burn men;
I don't provoke women.
I don't mount weights on my shoulders,
I don't move castles just for myself.

I'm a quiet woman.
A dangerous one,
that once you give me love,
I will swallow lit matches
into my gas-filled lungs
and breathe fire
to my terrible world
to burn, burn, burn
and rub ash on my skin,
hoping it will fix my aching heart.

Hope peace for a dangerous woman like me.
Hope nothing else will fall apart.

I found solace in the darkness
that has robbed me of my freedom.
The darkness that feeds off of me
when I am nowhere near light.

It dictates my inner most fears of
lingering in the shadows of my own being,
yet lighting a path to my incendiary fate
that I know I can suffer for eternities in
the hellfire of my mind.

But the rain rocks my windows, and thunder claps
against my ear like a game in our room of heaven and hell.
It rattles my inner most being, and the strings that
tie me to my friends and family sever themselves
in the fall of twilight. From that, I know,
darkness has robbed me once again of light.

It’s a bitter fate I had the opportunity to accept;
darkness was then a conformity that I lived with.
My place of dwelling. And from letting this darkness
inhabit me for so long, I have come to love it. I have come
to live with it, for without darkness, light will be no more.
I have learned to love such a feared part of me. A loathed
part of me. I’ve seemed to forgotten it even existed along with me.

Darkness was but another part of me that couldn’t exist without
the light. I was given a chance to live in this world, and I would live. I will live. But life comes before death, and tragedy comes in the middle of our peace. Darkness is just but one of them I have come to accept.

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.

I believed that love existed
in many different forms.
Like letters with tear stains,
and texts lighting up a dorm.

That love is like water,
that it can be someone in your arms,
that it can slip through your fingers,
without your phone ringing in alarm.

And I believe that love does exist,
if you perceive it to be true.
Even if you don’t see it there,
it is right next to you.

This is the worst feeling
to be drowning on something
that's not there.
Becoming the empty shell
of a fool who had fallen in love
with the thought of loving someone
instead of the action of doing so.

And you never know how much
it hurts to love someone
when they finally let you go.
And you never know how much
more it hurts to know
that you already had a chance
of doing so.

We are all so weak.
Soft. Tender. Transparent.
So easily scarred.

We take things. Break things.
Hurt people. Hurt those we love.

We swallow the shards of
fragmented words. We all hurt ourselves
when given the chance.

But it all wasn't for the attention.
It is the spiral to our breaking point.

But we are so weak.
Soft. Tender. Transparent.
So easily scarred.

We never seem to get enough.

Comes his waking breath
against my pinched face
in the early morning hour
of our lofty, soft embrace.
He pulls the sheets like the tide
of a sad twinkling moon,
making sure to hold me warm,
so that I won't leave so soon.

If I fall down a rabbit hole,
once or twice,
is it deliberate, or a mistake?
Am I being too nice?

I peer over the edge,
and throw my feelings down asunder;
hope it floods the rabbit hole,
as clouds rumble with thunder.

But it floats to the top,
and now, I have my own wishing well,
with bunny carcasses, snakes, egg shells,
oh well.

Empty it, bucket by bucket;
burry each skeleton in a bed of flowers,
until there is no evidence
of the feelings that I cower.

And rumble, comes the next thunder,
before I even wake.
I've stumbled down the rabbit hole
again, it floods the gate.

We're just paintings
on a plaster wall,
where chips fall
to the linoleum floor,

where we sweep aside
the love and the loss,
our prayers that we cuss
when we have nothing more.

Our exhibit is open
to the ****** and the wicked
and all the good and the naked;
those who blindly trust.

Our love chips off
but we are fine with that
for we never look back
pretending to say, "we must."

In years, maybe
when we're fading and old;
ripped off the frame,fold,
when we're hastily stashed away —

If we were humans,
who could move, love, kneel
kiss and frame, and steal,
please ask me: "would you stay?"

And, yes.
Yes, I would, anyway.

There are steel shears
in your lying hands
and a dress of hedges and thorns
that are my shielding woods.
In the back of my mind, as you hack
away at my limbs and marrow,
cut through bone and sinew;
I pray your blades grow dull
in what is left of me,
for steel simply rusts,
while I simply grow.

They came before dawn,
and took us from our cribs.
But we ran and ran from
our place full of woes,
riding until the next tomorrow.
Ghosts running to the horizon.

But we were transparent in the light,
even as we held hands.
I didn’t want to be a ghost on the run.
I don’t want to feel like the things I could hold
are far away and nothing but a mist.
I don’t want to feel like our love is nothing but air.
A ripple in time that fades away.

I want to meet your lips.
I want to hold your hands.
I want to hug you when I see you.
But I’m a ghost in the horizon,
drowning in the sea.

I see you, but you can’t see me.

I climb,
in the lip of monsters,
in the best of demons,
rock, fire, ash,
skin dark and flaking,
tongue to the roof,
feet scraping,
to the precipice,
of here and there,
to before, into beyond
"in love"--
"into death".

The living room is silent,
and my fingers are cold.
Have you come by in awhile?
Have you chewed on your nails,
pacing by the porch, before you brushed the brass knocker
with your rough knuckles?

The woolen blanket is missing,
from the back of my office chair.
I remember you stole it as a significant memento for yourself, when you stormed out. Your words knocked ice
deep into my throat, until it caused me
to lose the right words, to help you stay. Keep the demons at bay. The woolen blanket rarely helped,
unless I pressed the cloth into your
tired shoulders.

Do you miss me?
Does my touch still linger?
Sometimes, I see you across the street,
and frost grows at the edge of my glasses; a silent fury benign of threat,
but full of pain, making my bones creak and my back tingle. Makes my teeth chatter, and sweat build.

I still wonder,
when I peered behind the peephole,
to your bent head that looked
at your wavering hand by the brass knocker, scared to knock at the door.
Did you still love me back then?
Did you miss the press of my palms, and the kiss I gifted your forehead?
Was there still a remaining shred of love, left there for me?

But the living room remains silent,
and my fingers are cold.
When I see you across the street,
my heart drops, and your shoulders
are heavy, with or without the
woolen blanket. My glasses fog,
and every time I look into
the tiny peephole, not a single shadow remains there, for me to see.

Between the street, and porch of mine
that seems to rot away into the years of its growth, the rift only grows farther and farther apart, that even sorry cannot begin to cover the ravine between us.

I clench my cold fingers and cry, the day I finally acknowledged my futile efforts.

Between the porch and my brass knocker. Between you and the door.

Somehow, our love ended here.

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

Bravery is swallowing iron, belly pooling with lava, as I face towards the horizon. Death croons and taunts, offering their hand, and I give no response.

"There is time for that, but not now. Not yet."

I watch the horizon grow, before I feel Death's icy hands on my neck.

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.