I open my eyes, look up at the clock,
which now, unbeknownst to me,
ticks backwards.

I sigh, gazing at the window,
only to be met with the sun
setting like a stranger,
unwilling to share its grief
as it had done before,
with its awry, dark clouds
and tear-streaked face.

The flower pressed
between the pages of a book I once read,
now lay wilted.

It was, I reckon
too late to realize,
the stars that once graced the nights,
now were lifeless and forgotten.

Glancing down at my bloodstained hands,
and the hollow shell of a person
that once bore my name,
my piteous heart dripped
with forlorn anticipation.

It was then,
when I heard the whispered hums of a dirge,
the very disdain coating my guilt,
That I had once vowed to purge.

From the start,
it wasn’t the wilted flower,
or the lifeless stars,
that were dead--
it was me,
the person who I was before.

I sometimes hope
in the midst of wakeful nights,
that the peace we all look for
is perhaps something like
a kind, quiet embrace
where I can close my eyes,
letting my mind go blank
and step into a world of solace.

I hope that it would feel
like the soft crackle of fire
on a harsh, winter night,
the warmth consoling the cold
I've felt for decades;

Or perhaps that it's the quiet hum
of a lullaby I once knew by heart,
and allows me to slip
into the blurred lines
between life and eternal rest.

As tears pour out relentlessly,
a cold ember of desperation
fills my aching lungs,
desperate for a fraction of warmth
that the once lit flame provided.

The water pulls me in deeper,
scattering the pathetic remnants
of the depths of devotion,
that ache for you.

And as sunken eyes
akin to the bequeathed stars above,
call out your name through the
torments veiled by moonlit waters,

The silent sea cradles
what now are just chronicles,
of my drowning woe.

As the ephemeral night passes on,
flourishing beneath the moon's luminescence,
the will to survive in this constant place
referred to as 'home',
goes along with it.

Just close your weary eyes
and feel the demise
become one with your veins,
as your heart drips
with transcended oblivion.

The feelings you once harboured
have now departed from the shore,
the forgotten waves
coming to an unavoidable end.

To drown in your sirenic gaze
is what I yearn for the most,
even if it leads to my
inevitable undoing.

I yearn to forget
these strokes of ancient paintings,
that decorate my soul
with the triumphs of
unidentified feelings.

The carefully carved muse
that once lived in my mind;
now drips in reverie, one by one,
as silence takes over its reign.

The soft murmurs
of deep repose
whisper to me,
a breeze across my shallow heart,

As I slip into blurred lines
between life and eternal rest.
The unruly yet calming
resonance blesses my weary eyes
with a tender kiss.

Above, clouds continue
to grace the sky,
and even then,
I can't seem to muster up
whatever resides within;

This tide of once pure emotion,
I now must learn to resist.

As I board the boat
of silent destruction and pain,
I watch it sail far away--
blurring into the haze of mist,
becoming one of the many stars
that may have shared the same fate.

The moon caught fire,
the warmth slowly seeping
deep into my awry, hollow veins.

But the only thing that could quench
it's ember-lit flames,
was my lovesick yearning
for you.

The stars are tears
shed by the Universe,
as it yearns for an ounce of solace
in the vast, empty place above
where it's accustomed to survive,

Despite an obscure reluctance
we've all grown too familiar with--
burden heavy on its shoulders,

In spite of young children
wishing upon it every time the moon ascends,
revealing its ephemeral, yet foolish glow.

Did you really have to change,
the moment I turned 11?

How the days we'd spend together,
suddenly turned into trying
to ignore each other
and screaming in the kitchen?

Maybe one day,
you'd see what I feel
and what I tried to convey.

How I drowned in my own thoughts
as a mere child,
while you were busy
fighting with mom,
or scrolling on the endless feed
your phone provides,
which hopes you rot.

I guess it wasn't for me to speak,
to tell you what it really meant
to raise someone,
or how to love properly.

But could I really blame you,
if that was all you'd seen as a kid?
passing on the poison given to you
that deepened the scars,
causing your unhealed wounds to bleed out,
while you knew nothing on what to do with it.

I didn't wish for anything grand
or the materialistic things
you ask me to be grateful for
I just needed you to understand.

To listen to me talk
about my day,
or ask me why I was upset
instead of yelling at me
to stop looking so annoyed and grey,
every waking moment.

You always make a point
to ask me why I changed,
from the sweet little girl you knew,
to whatever I've become now.
perhaps, did you ever stop to think--
why?

if you don't want a child
to grow up,
and become someone
what reason is there to raise it at all?

I suppose,
at one point in life
I'll learn to forgive you.

But all that comfort I yearned
and still do most of the time,
has yet to be returned.

It waits in the silent, dark place
between your anger and mine.

well, Dad,
did you really have to change?

The feeling of nostalgia is so foreign,
yet so wistfully timeworn.
like a photo of your ancestors
you've never met,

Or books written
in a once spoken language,
you cease to understand.

Such as a worn out toy,
that at one time brought joy
to a young child's heart.

Or the scent of a cherished candle,
kindling the remnants
of a distant, elysian land.

It's like a place you've never been
and will probably never be,
but the silent warmth it provides
is enough to put your weary eyes to sleep.

Reminiscing old, long-lost memories
that we once lived for,
is like pressing on bruises
that are not yet healed.

The bittersweet pain of our reverie,
seeks to mingle
with the weary, blurred lines
of the so-called 'peace'
we've come to accept.

Maybe it’s not the silence
or the yearning for what's long gone,
but the desire to at least,
for once, feel something
in this slow-burning,
hope-filled fever dream.

The storm that once
overtook my soul ceases,
a soft zephyr taking its place.

I gaze above as the Sun
reaches its zenith;
away from all the chaos
I yearn to leave behind.

All that could be heard now,
were the echoes of blazing thunder,
blurred into the faded hums
of a lullaby I once cherished.

Would it be wrong
to attempt painting the blank canvas
that's been sitting in my attic
for longer than I've had it?

To witness the sky paint itself
shades you've never seen;
blooming with thorns of yearning
as your gaze turns away?

Or to be drowned
by the soft reflection
of worldly glee,
as the moon begins to fall?

Oh, tell me --

Is it really wrong
to pour your heart out,
when you've never had anything
to pour at all?

Memories are what we would call
the ephemeral hues
on the canvas of time,

the intricate outlines
of painstaking work
seeming a blur from the distance;

all blending into the faded echoes
of our past regrets.

Perhaps, the one sole star
that we wished upon as kids,
wasn't ever about the glowing speck
in the seemingly endless sky above.

All it took
were a few wakeful nights,
to realize--
it was, and always had been,
you.

Even if you burn my heart
until there's nothing left but ashes,
I'd still adore the flames
that ignite us for eternity.

What path in this warren of life,
made you go from affection
in everything you said,
to disdain in your nostalgic eyes?

The promises we uttered,
expecting to keep them for eternity and after;
now dissolved in the acid of your treachery.

Was it just me who had that intention
of never leaving until the end of time
or, were they merely just a game of your deceit?

The mirage of your trust and insistence
of partly carrying my burdens,
as I did for you,
now reduced to ashes
from which an ember lowly emits in its wake.

The very envisage of us being,
that would hush me too a deep repose
on sleepless nights;
now keeping me up until dawn.

Perhaps,
it was my fault
for expecting so much.

For assuming you were
the one friend I'd needed,
in this deep, hollow concept of living.

I suppose what I'm better off with
is a barren version
of the shallow expectations concerning
human existence.

Often times, I reckon,
what would be of us
if we hadn't strayed apart to divergent voyages.

It is as though,
due to the circumstances uncalled
or our fraying nexus of connection,
we just weren't meant to be.

The inept waves of loneliness felt
are but a sign we are human;

Weaving shattered pieces of misery together
in hopes of being perceived
as complete again;

Apprehension clouding the mortal ideas
we call emotions.

And just like how
wisteria bloom and flourish
in the unbeknownst shadows of spring,
your once befooled heart
shall also find it's way.

Mankind is a mosaic
of everything they have done in their existence;
insignificant if the pieces cease
to fit against each other,
all intertwined into one melancholic,
woe-filled work of art.

Is poetry like rubbing salt on already open wounds,
or is it what heals them?

Is it the cure to the poison present in our soul,
or is it, instead, the bane of what we feel?

what if in lieu,

poetry is what keeps mankind alive
through words once unsaid and unwritten.

It carries on our prophecy
and alleviates the vague suffering
present in the deep pit of our insufferable, mortal minds.

Poetry,
is the way our soul inevitably bleeds.

Is sorrow defined
by the absence of something you love
or the echoes of what you once held dear?

Or is it defined by the lack of warmth once felt,
the only remnant now, the shadows you learned to fear?

Perhaps it is neither.
Or perhaps, it is both.

All I know, and have known,
is that sorrow is what you feel after letting something go.

Time heals, they say,
but have you ever noticed
how every word you breathe is a sharp, unrelenting sting?

How you choose to speak them anyway,
no matter the agony they bring?

Have you ever noticed
the way I pick at every bruised scab
on the depths of my frayed heart,
that I once allowed you to hold?

Maybe it was my fault,
how I needed you to stay,
even though all my efforts
were nothing but in vain.

And as the blue-painted skies
slowly start to turn grey,
I still can’t find it in me
to look at you with disdain.

Although you might prefer to give up
on everything and leave
than watch wet paint dry;
I’m the one who's left to grieve,
over every truth and lie.

If the stars above could paint the vast, vivid realm
That seeks shelter in your eyes,

Would it be fair to decline?

Or perhaps, it was always meant for us
To wave goodbye at the end of time.

We are the things we so desperately desire be kept concealed:

the unsightly sensation of blood
painting our stained hands,

the sheer amount of hopelessness coursing inevitably
though the warren of our lifeless soul.

we are, what we are not.

I gaze as the Sun retreats to its hollow cavern of darkness,
The stars a faint reminder of the vast emptiness that lies beyond.

A dove flew across my view,
And a daffodil gently landed on the windowpane.

Yet, it wasn't long before I realized that the Sun had set before it even rose.

Like a candle,
The reflection of our shattered, but beating heart continues to grow Dimmer
As the passage of time goes on;
Kindled by our growing sorrow and the want to be ignited yet again for one final time,
The hours fleeting by as flowers wilt
And the ever-lasting rain ceases.