she shot a floral arrow through his heart
and prickled him with nectar from the divine.

My skin dreads your fingertips ghosting over it
Whispering lullabies from the distant shore
My lips dread your pair that trail butterfly kisses to the juncture of my jaw
My ears dread the dulcet tunes murmured from your pillow lips
That caresses the inner workings of my heart with bonafide admiration

My heart—the one you have—is the only one that adores every little gesture you make
Every slight remark
Every subtle action

But the rest of me does not want you
Because as much as I adore you
I cannot picture us together
Without the image shattering again.

i find myself drowning in murky waters,
an oil spill of equations and metaphors,
quandaries and paradigms.
the sun is a constant overcast even on the most blinding days,
faces are grim even with the brightest smiles.
messily scrawled words read chaos on pristine canvases,
incessant scribbles drill canals into my brain.

one tentative tap away,
always one tentative tap away from reality,
but never quite there,
and so i fall deeper.

thin heels clicking against glossy tiles,
heavy footsteps shuffling into classrooms,
distant chatter stalking my shadows,
actuate stings of dread luring me in.

thread-like strings are attached to my limbs,
a marionette with a feeble attempt of procuring freedom,
i am a victim to disorder.

inundated with scattered pages,
furious streaks of neon hues form riots across my desk.
before me stands a mirror of my very own thoughts,
and my mind takes everything in
only to be left with nothing specific in the end.

i work with a jumbled puzzle set,
consisting of no essential moment
to print itself onto my memory.
yet there remains a fascicle of nerves
screaming,
waiting to be heard,
but it becomes like me—submerged in murky water.

living in chaos is living
where moments are constantly out of focus
and the abundance of simply everything is too overwhelming.

but to wake in the earliest hours of the day
when the sun is still yearning to lie upon a mattress of stars
and neighborhood lights are flickering onto rusty street signs and empty tar roads,
is a blessed refuge from the tumultuous scenes
that plague me daily.

silence slices through the fog of my cognition like a bayonet,
and i blink away my sleep-addled state to take a dip in the tangerine skies.

nascent rays gleam over rooftops,
trees become silhouettes on an oil painting,
and golden clouds blush from the soft caress of the sun.

for some reason,
the experience felt foreign,
like a mirage of all of the images i was never able to grasp.

dawn is a portal to another realm,
a shelter to shield myself from the murky waters,
only there’s still no escape—
i’m just no longer drowning.
instead,
i find that i can breathe.

(chaos is loud but silence is louder;
i wouldn’t mind listening to silence for a day,
because i’ve already been listening to chaos for years.)

rest your heart on the edge of the thread,
tangle it in thin, withering cloth,
and send it traversing through the sundry of takers
with a serpent underneath their tongues.

when you dream,
dream of the nebulas.
the infinitesimal galaxies within galaxies,
a universe inside itself.
let the aureate stars guide you
to your final destination.

if the pain hurts so bad
that you’ve gone numb,
how is it any different
from not feeling any pain at all?

if i could rewind time,
i would swallow myself in the darkness for you,
just so you wouldn’t have to do the same.

Take a stroll with me
Lets walk on the decrepit road
beside a dulcet rivulet
Asleep from the susurrus of the stream

I fall into step beside you
Ask you to hold my hand
And let me listen to the susurrus of your heartbeat
Just the same

besieged by tumultuous mornings and bleak skies,
zephyr from the crystalline ocean
becomes the only trace of innocence left among this chaos.

i held you on my tongue,
you were **** and squeezed my tastebuds
before melting into a sickly sweet syrup.
even golden shots of dizzying acid
weren’t enough to wash you away.
i was forever tainted by your taste.

you leave cryptic messages for me to decipher,
sprawled across rusty street signs and gravel roads.
they whisper white lies and empty promises,
enshrouding the way back home.

it's hard to bury you in my heart
when you were just a few seconds ago
knocking on my door,
stuttering hello,
making a dent right there in my lungs where air should be.

now you're sitting across from me,
just a reach away smiling at,
in love with,
kissing someone that could've been me.

come home to me, darling.

i left breadcrumbs for you along the river, along the trail, but the forest decided to keep you a while longer. all to itself. how selfish.

you’ve always been so sweet.

so irresistible.

honey drips from your lips and coats your face like a candied apple. it’s not halloween yet but the children yearn for a taste of preserved innocence.

you’ve never been a sweet tooth, you say. perhaps you’ve grown sick of yourself. your sugar tongue melts away into bitter lies and sour endings.

the caramel from your tears form rivers in the crevices of your wrinkles. quick, the pool in your collarbones is overfilling, drowning yourself in what you’ve once hated.

now, you’re just the same:
deadly sweet like the rest of them.

inject glitter in me and sprinkle me with stardust;
smother every inch of my body with a brilliant sheen,
maybe then I'll shine just as bright as everyone else.

perhaps it’s the false sense of security i seek—
i’d do anything to hear those sweet words murmured in my ear,
like a lullaby from the devil.
i just want to feel safe again,
and breathe in your gentle laughter and honey smile,
even if it wasn’t me you’re laughing at,
but my naivety.

another tear sheds,
another petal wilts.
the decrepitude of the garden
becomes more palpable with each passing day.

shooting stars are the tears of the universe.

you bare a soul entwined with love tides,
so let me rest at your shore
and stare into those deep blue eyes.

i’ve always believed hugs to be warm until you refused to meet my eye and everything about you read regret.

we wanted to forget so we hugged,
but the hug itself was made out of apologies spoken from quivering lips,
raw throats throbbing from all the screaming,
and shameful gazes hung above wet cheeks.

our last hug ached when we tore apart.
it ached because it knew as much as we’d like for the adhesion to last,
no amount of layers we apply to the cracks will be enough to keep us together.

i used to always find warmth in your hugs,
but our last hug was ice cold.

fire can never be fully diminished
as long as wind exists to enkindle it once again.

form a truce with your fears and build them into warriors,
set them on the battlefield and prepare them for war.
we begin to realize who our true enemies are when we fight beyond our own kingdom.

she planted flowers in my heart;
they're beautiful, but they just grow a little too fast.

i seem to have misplaced my heart
and now i can’t find it.

Oh darling, don’t cry,
this is merely love’s way of getting revenge.

he was a great juggler.
he juggled hearts—the more the better—
no need to fret if one fell from his grasp,
there was always room for another.

your skin was weaved from moonlight and glistening dust,
that danced with the fireflies
and painted empty canvases atop empty canvases.
sometimes in the latest of nights,
i can still see a fragment of your soul,
illuminated on the silken sheets.