the sky was below
your dangling feet.
offsides to a building
you stay seated.
boxes and more boxes;
geometrical shapes
in your field of vision.
hard straight lines,
unforgiving.
alone alone alone alone
alone alone alone alone.
if you look up,
maybe you can find the sea.
a twisted reality—
but who are you
to deny seeing.
because stuck in the
darkness of a blind
terrifies you more than
a box full of other boxes.
unforgiving.

the words are water
and they flow,
and they flow,
and they flow,
and they also             get clogged.

the days where
imagination swirls in your head
and there's a nonstop thrum of a drum resting inside
because your mouth is shut,
unable to puke it out,
and the days where
your hands are dry,
pens inkless;

the days where you feel dead,
the days where you

careful, you might trip!
the roads are rocky and a little mean,
though for this clumsy ball of sunshine,
tripping is nothing but a routine.

your peers tap on shoulders to call;
"little baby, go outside and play,"
mom will plant kisses on your forehead
and tell you to be careful on your way.

puddles after showers; splitter splatter!
wipe your legs clean under blue roof;
tall people and words that taste foreign,
the tip to hold another hand home is a little goof.

twenty two, twenty three, twenty four

hours in a day

like the white rabbit,

we watch time and stay at the bay.



ten, eight, six, four

words like ‘it’s not good enough,’

or maybe just simple and badly-woven adjectives,

sometimes it makes us feel blue.



thirty, sixty two, countless

nights spent dreaming with open eyes

but all that comes are unkind;

worse than reality’s piercing swords of ice.



yellow, red, blue, nonexistent.

what we know is counting down

to the day the string snaps

the insides spilled; to everyone, its uglies shown.



three, nine, twenty seven

years spent as busy as a cat on a hot tin roof;

the forgotten summers fell into piles of ashes,

yet to our bars of efforts, everyone stays aloof.



one too many times

it happens.

one too many days we thought

**** it up.



(so we did.)



six,five, four

ages we were taught numbers and their orders.

nowadays, **** it up and

count sheep throughout math.

there's the

black blank

sky.

and then underneath are

stars in form of

streetlamps; car lights;

like s  p  o  t  l  i  g  h  t  s

on a stage, feet tangled

in a tango with death,

dancing with so much life.

it's like an          insult;

yes,           true,

s   m   i   l   e   s

are simply cynicism.

you stand in
the grey;
because absolute
black or white
lacks
the beauty of
balance
that you love
so much.
stand in the middle of
the scales in
iustitia's hands;
that's what you
say when
someone asks
who are you with.
but in reality,
flip the coin over,
open the blindfolds,
rid of the façade.
and everyone
will find that you
are indeed the
most hideous.
the puppeteer
and the raisonneur;
everyone was fire
and chaos was the smoke.
but you, you
were the lighter.

i shut my eyes and:
if you came
back, sorry
between your lips;
leftover fingerprints
of pride's embrace
all around you.
but you left pride
a while ago,
nonetheless.
and maybe
that would be enough
for me, for us.
because i have been
waiting for you
to come home.
and it's the whispers
of my heart
to the shooting stars;
and for the residue
of what we gripped
inside our palms
to never turn into
'what should have been's,
and instead into
'what will be,'
'what waits,'
smiles of the near and distant
future.

and i closed my eyes:
maybe this one time
i wouldn't make it right
because we would make it past.
i thought.

i thought.

that would be enough;
but reality was
late to the meeting.
and when i handed
my heart to you
eons ago,
you didn't place
your faith into
my arms.
reality was
late to the meeting.
because when i waited
for you to come home,
you did not.
for you liked the past
more than the present;
and that's where home
locates to you.
for the shooting stars
was deaf to my cries.
and the residue of what we had
had already turned into
'should have been's and
'will never be's.

there will still be smiles
in the near and distant
future;
but it will not be my smile
next to yours,
nor my smile carved by you.

today mommy gave me
a really warm mug brownie
but it tastes a little salty.

i'm a small man who can't give big things.
forever sounds like a grand promise to make that
i'm unwilling to make and no one can fulfill.
to be the best sounds like something i'm not and i'll never be;
to make you the happiest sounds like a forced future,
like trying to tie down an unpredictable dark horse
and telling it to sit down like a dog.
and true love sounds like a far too abstract,
far too bizarre concept to grasp,
far too incomprehensible and universal—
too big compared to the little me.

but you can hold onto these words:
no matter how many other hellos and goodbyes given to me,
i can promise i'll kiss your knuckles before you sleep every night.
i can promise i'll hurt you;
but i can also promise i'll chant apologies like a prayer,
tear-stained cheeks or not
and scarred hearts or not.
i can promise the odd times while the sun is up
that i tell you my weirdest ideas.
i can promise the odd times while the moon is up
that i plead for touches, hugs, kisses;
crave you close so please hold me tight.
i can promise the odd times all day that i tell you:
i treasure and adore you.
because i really do;
every time of the day
and anytime of the day,
i do.

and everything about you always reminds me
that you're one of the greatest things to ever happen
to the earth, to the living and to me.
they say promises are meant to be broken and
words are just meaningless sounds and symbols;
but nothing is truer when i say:
i really want us to celebrate your birthday together this year.

i am the light of cities,
not a star on the sky.
soft blue veins under
the expanse of skin;
like asphalt road branching
and pooling into roundabouts.
black pooling on irises,
pretty brown freckles on it.
it does not **** you in,
it's the windows of a house;
let you explore and love,
let the world peek into
the veneer of your heart.
tips of fingers like
trees during winter;
ice princesses sitting
by the sidewalk.
i am not an egg of the galaxy,
but a product of human hands.
years of pinky promises and empty threats
has shaped me into who i am.
i am not what the universe
made me to be;
i am what others contribute to
and what i myself create.

humans paint the galaxies;
stars poured by the gods
on a piece of dark, endless canvas.
the nature talks about freckles and moles on a maiden's skin
and how interesting connecting dots into intricate shapes is.

humans boast about love.
all the mediocre melodies to woo, cupid unleashing arrows,
and the cries written on minor scale;
blacks and whites of the piano.
the unexplainable look on one's eyes.
things they left unrecorded though—
ones the studio of the universe releases an album of:
motorbike roars as a boy speeds through countless others
that are deemed insignificant,
compared to the thought of his mom waiting at home.

for centuries and more centuries,
the poets go on about emptiness.
the caging abyss, they said,
of sadness. a dark place.
but seasons whisper the stark difference
of breeze nibbling on your skin
and of the dropping temperature of winter
harshly piercing your senses like knives.

dancers waltz to the moonlight,
reenacting silent screams and insanity.
but withering flowers' petals got themselves caught up in a game of tag with their own kin.

it's funny how humans talk about the comparison (as i am doing right now)
of the art we make and the art that is already there before us.
when the universe tries again and again to teach us
what kind of little majestic things we are, what kind of little majestic things surround us.

*(must say, we're quite dumb. unable to understand.)

you taste like the fizzy sodas,
watermelons in summer,
the afternoons i spend daydreaming,
clear skies inside milk cartoons.
we meet in between the lines,
touch sparks like fireworks
and heat melting off our walls,
we're two lines crisscrossed
into several points,
constellations and corners.
first kisses,
shy touches,
getting to know.
you taste like the strawberry lip balm
you put on before dinner,
bucketfuls of cotton candy,
midnights that sound like gentle waves,
middays that promise fondness.
let me catch your bottom tier
between both of mine,
catch your hand under the table,
catch you when you fall.
i am no traveller or adventurer,
but i'd be eager to map out
your every nooks and crannies.
fill in your edges as you caress my curves,
finish where you start and
end when you begin,
meet you every time i dream
of the cloudless nights and the stars
above your rooftop, inside your eyes.
i am not big on promises
but set again another date,
let's do this again
and i won't be late.

there's a sky
inside your head;
starless, cloudless.
stretched lands
inside your mind
that are a little
too large
for the one small you.
you're no god
despite how
people tell you
you're invicible.
you are just a man;
and men die
out of isolation.
you can't speak
out loud, because
nobody's there
to hear your sounds.
so you live
under your own sky
on your own land
that feels a little
too large
for the one small you.

if there
has to be named,
one thing i like is
sincerity.
the way the ocean
is unabashed
in loving the land,
waves kissing shores fierce;
the way the sky
cries and shouts
in his misery;
the honest way
facts stay true:
water flows always down,
freezes always ice,
dies always unseen.
if there is anything
whose taste i adore,
it's sincerity as
my stone heart offers
no empathy, as
news break hearts
and not all souls weeped.
if there
has to be named,
one thing i like is mystery.
it is in the way fire licks
and flickers and burns and
playing is a bet
of safety and danger,
how the weather roars
or settles calm as dead;
unpredictable.
it is how my lips
are pressed tight
against each other
and my heart a windowless,
doorless house.
mystery in the way we smile
behind frowns or cry
behind laughter.
if there's anything
whose taste i adore,
it's the mystery
i subjected on you:
is this heart cruel
or kind?

it's sunny outside
and i can hear voices of
children laughing with
no care of the world
and i wonder why
can't i bring myself
to do the same
to you

all these saturated colors
surrounding my room
yet a frown stays rested
on my lips
because yours aren't here
to kiss it away anymore
and maybe today i'm a little
under the weather

i keep my phone
three distances away
for fear i'll see
the curve of your smile
but carved by someone
else

i'm sure i have gotten
over you
there are no bitter
feelings nor regrets
i just wish you wouldn't
smile that much

it's not suffocating. it never is.
air flows in so easily, very much so
that my chest is full and fuller and
suddenly about to burst.

i scramble for the saddest tragedies,
hunt for angst painted on pages.
all just to cry for a different reason.
put an ice on it,
leave my mind from it,
all just to numb myself.

missing someone isn't waves.
missing someone is the sea,
it is the endless, unbounded by time.
like tangled feelings personified and
ducking your head into the sea,
and breathing burns.

all of it is plain fuckery;
the thoughts in my mind are blasphemy.
honors stripped from me,
i begged fate a thousand of pleases
to put out the burn, pull up the drowning.
stop it from hurting so much,
because i'm dragged to hell by my heartstrings.

purple clouds
like cotton candies
taste oddly heavy
similar to a kind
of disappointment
my mom once
spoke about.
three fingers in
deep between
pale lips
such contrast
that would have
been ironic
in its own epitome.
but now its
a little funny
tongue heavily
dipped in
confusion and anger
both at once
like chocolate sauce
slick and thick
and lips parted
almost screaming
in either pain
or pleasure
or pride.

lights on the ceiling
d

     r
       o
          p
             ping.
there is an earthquake
inside this house,
it wrecks      THE
            W A L L S
but reassembles
the destroyed mirror
we bought last week.
the cage is gold
steel cold hidden
painted with ichor,
your god and the
sacrifice
gone
abhor.