the bottle is

the
bottle
is

the bottle is empty

had its contents been precariously dealt with
or
drop by drop assimilated?

assimilated?by the cloths of
silk pashmina cashmere
or the blackness of a tuxedo

i might never
ever
know, my father forgets

to the left

to
the
left

to the left of the bottle
is another bottle
quite smaller.

it is filled with
pink liquid
half full--or half empty

barely used by its
current owner
it smells like apples

and by the bottles is

and
by
the
bottles
is

and by the bottles is a ring
with two keys
that open locks somewhere

of COURSE!

why, what else would you
use a key
for?

the darkest
alternative for a key's usage, though
is to

hurt
some
body
with
it

metal
grinding the
skin

and the bottles

and
the
bottles

and the bottles thrown
the former can shatter
the latter houses a liquid

but,

but,
but,
but,

why?

he is home
he came
from siam yonder

shouts from the ground floor
heralded his return
smile escaped from my static face

call out
his name
thunder, rain

dark face
swivels to the left
five foot ten rises up from the plastic chair as dark as him

i
expect a hug
but lo

i am not a child, not anymore
a protocol of high fives replayed
and the traffic of words return to the highway of arsenal, chelsea, man city

I still listen to music with words
When I am writing words

Sunlight streams through the window
Trees sway outside, with branches scratching the glass window
-
I smell fresh coffee beans
Starbucks, from the Philippines

A piece of paper flutters down
I look at it with a frown.
-
And one thing I suddenly recall,
It gives me an idea, a reason to stall

From what I am doing, (hummingbird mind, my friend.)
And I went into an imaginary glen.

With only my pen and my notes
For company, then my mind began to float.


He wrote in the most perfect handwriting
Compared to my scatterbrained black scribbling

He strummed a chord on my heartstrings
Without him even knowing


His name sounded like
the gold-tipped wings
of angels.
While mine sat on the
brown earth,
dreaming to the skies.


Though, once we'd meet once a week
And I would smile in the hallways
looking like a freak

There was always something idiotic
the way his teeth stuck out like a bunny's
He reminded me of Ishaan from Taare Zameen Par
A dyslexic student, great artist, had a smile so sunny.


I'm playing Owl City on my mp3
That's our secret anthem

Tears were there
The melody from the speakers
I wished I could've sat beside you
When your fingers waltzed over the black-and-white keys
Now I'm sitting all alone by myself
Tapping on black-and-white letters on the Mac


Even though I play the violin
I can't accompany you
My bow screeching against the strings
Just doesn't do your mesmerising piano justice

What I can only do is write
And draw with a cheap ballpen from a meeting hall
I will draw your eyes and your crooked grin.
And my dreams of you that remain unfulfilled.

I finish the poem
Rip the page out of my notebook
And tape it to the wall with my other works
and newspaper clippings, oh just look.

Tomorrow I take it down again
Slip it into an envelope
Wonder if I should buy a stamp.
Maybe mail it overseas with forlorn hope.

A month passes by,
The envelope gathers dust under my bed.
Oh my darling, oh my darling
The chances with you are hanging by a thread

We're going to fly back home once more
So I decide to get you a keepsake from here.
A wooden owl, carved by hand
I slip the poem inside, thinking what you'd think when it appears…

you may cry now
hello seattle
coffee beans on the window sill
wilting sunflower

i didn't know
you would leave me in a battle
thought you'd save me they ****
but new blue skies every hour

ginger cat meows
only him and i in apartment
tv is on laptop charging
clothes on floor and bed

how you left it how
sit on the chair i can't
you aren't sitting with me darlin'
cat is hungry wasn't fed

open fridge there is a note
buy one milk and three breads
your handwriting
when do you come

cat is ok he ate in boat
in bathtub toilet paper shreds
i write in book keep in margin with love like rome

why is there soap you put in the fridge?
humming bird mind
air conditioner legit
empty mailbox work to do

photos of bridge
ice cream so fine
nice to be happy a bit
maybe it will last, coo!

bet your house messi score that
he did not he missed goal
change channel mancini's scarf on coatrack
blues miss him too do they

will you read this on your bat
cricket is good you are better, soul
is there internet or is there lack
hope you will find way home yay

i don't wanna hear her name
i don't wanna hear her name

you and me
you and me

just

impossible
utterly, impossible,

cannot i wish?

she doesn't know
nor you

only i

and i will never tell

but nevertheless,
you and her
bound to find
and me

me in the gutter

Rickety shoulders and rickety bones,
No longer is my resolve as stubborn as stone.

For the stifling heat and heart-drum-beats
Have drained it all out of me -

Not a single drop left to drink,
And my fate’s been written in ink.

We refuse to look into the lens of reality,
Never looking up from our books.
Unmoving when the rain pours down,
We wade through muddy brooks

We drink from cups and drain them to the dregs,
Only smiling when we see each other's disconsolate faces
Awakened from the dark depths,
Cast into the most uncharted places

Our broken fingers count the drops
Of each snowflake at the edge of autumn,
Blazing wildfires to destroy mistletoes,
Beating the rhythm of someone else's heart-drum

Our lips sing overtures to the spring grass,
Bringing forth the onset of the sunrise,
Dreaming that the fallen world,
Is actually what the angels sing of on high.

It may be fun
It may be nice
I'm trying to be nice.

Pull me in
You grab my hands
Look back and see my teeth glint unwillingly

Why don't you see
Why can't you feel it somehow
I know you are not numb.

The grass pinches our feet
You say you know they *****
But can't you hear me?

Glassy fingers
That belong to you
I want to kiss them

Pulling me towards
A big roller coaster
Look at me, boy, look at me.

What?
I said look at me.
We're going to the ride now, tell me later.

You are strapped.
I am strapped to the coaster's seat too.
The contraption starts to whirl…

You know I'm scared
I need
To hold your hand.

What are you saying?
I can't hear you!
Ah, that's right.

You don't hear me.
And I wish I could hold your hand
But you aren't next to me no one is

She is next to you
And
I am not.

You don't hear.
I hear you tilt your head to look at her
I hear your heartbeat go faster

Nice, I am trying to be
To both of you
I hear your fingers land on hers

But her name is also Nice
Like in Italy
I've always tried to be her

And this is not fun
I wish I could pull off the straps
I am trying

I can pull them off.
Get away, from you
Because I love you it will be better this way

The contraption is still on
I am hanging on the edge of the roller coaster
And you have to hear me.

You have to hear me
You have to hear me
**You have to hear--

"Please give a warm round of applause to Miss Phoebe!"

And the crowd drowns the host as they
put their hands to work and legs propel them upward,
all resulting in an overwhelming standing ovation.

"Go to sleep," said Yohaan to Ishaan
Who was busy doodling on his wall.
"But Dada," began Ishaan,
"I am doodling a tale so tall.

"I know you always tell me stories
Before I go to sleep.
But, my dear brother, it is my turn now,
To make you plunge in imagination so deep."

Yohaan looked into Ishaan's eyes.
They were big and dark and round,
Sparkling in the lamplight atop the drawer
And the innovation swirling around.

He remembered the nights when
Young Ishaan sat wide-eyed listening to stories from his lips
Gripping his pillow and burying his head on blankets in laughter.
Now the worlds of yore fizzed from his fingertips.

"Achha," Yohaan sighed. "Make it fast, haa?"

When I first met you, I didn't make friends with you right away. I thought you were an unmovable rock and I didn’t try pushing to start a conversation with you because I feared it would be an awkward one - as fleeting as a stone skipped across the water - and I thought you weren’t worth it.

I circumnavigated you for weeks on end. You were a quiet, windless lake, and I never thought it would be possible to hear you speak to me because there was no common ground between us. We didn’t find a piece of thread to tie our makeshift tin-can telephone together.

Yet, one day, there was a time I needed to ask someone for help. Of course, you were not my first choice. If everyone else wasn’t busy, I would never have broken my silence with you that day.

What was it that I needed? I wanted to know the translation of one, tiny foreign word I discovered attached to two blocks of stone set into a necklace. You were about to walk away, but I mustered my courage to tap your back and ask a question. When you answered, I understood that the word was a symbol for war and separation.

Ironically, it was the word that bridged the gap; the thread that made a way for us to exchange our first, real words with each other.

Artsakh. It was the word that made us friends.

Artsakh* sparked a conversation between us, and I was surprised because you were interested enough in our first exchange to share a story, which led to another, and then another.

The words you spoke to me in your feathery-soft voice splashed ice-cold water in the face of my parched first impression of you. You were no longer an unmovable rock - no, you were a broken rock from which streams of cool water gushed out. I washed my eyes from that stream and saw you as a new friend who opened up his life to me after a long time of silence.

One of the reasons why I found you so difficult to talk to was that you always hid your eyes under tea- or black coffee-coloured glasses. I have always believed that eyes are the windows to the soul, and when you cover yours, it’s like you’ve barred up your soul from the outside world.

Then, one afternoon, maybe because it was too hot or too dark inside the room - I don’t really know the reason - you took off your corrective lenses. And for the first time, I finally saw your eyes. They were a darker shade than your cinnamon-coloured hair, and I was taken aback because they were so beautiful.

I knew that I had to tell you what I thought, because maybe the reason why you always covered them up was that you were insecure about them or with your inability to see rightly with them. Since beauty always garners admiration, I also needed to mask the affection that suddenly bubbled up inside me. I wanted to bury it, and I did get to lay it to rest - but, I used a glass coffin.

If I succeeded in putting it six feet under, I wouldn’t have abandoned my books, cut off my sleeves, and waited under the shade of a tree with our friends during a hot day for you. At least I was rewarded with seeing your eyes again.

Of course you noticed me, and I had to shield myself from the rays of your bright gaze to hide the fact that I could hear fists pounding and small cracks forming on the glass coffin inside me. I looked at it and saw a huge spider web etched on the surface.

I’m not sure if I should replace it or allow it to shatter. But I feel like filling it up with cement because I need peace to think about things that are more important than thinking about how I feel about you.

What is it that I like about you? Beyond your eyes, obviously, I also like how you’re more quiet than everyone else - and despite that, you’ve let me in and let me become a part of your story.

Yet when I see you, I try not to see the reserved and silent expression you wear everyday, but I peer into the future to find you doing great exploits and baring your iron soul which has found the great power to influence within.

Because I’ve seen glimpses of that soul--like the time I asked you to write down your dream on my journal. I read that you wanted to be good at the career you chose, and that you wanted to help people.

The other friends whom I also asked to write their dreams usually wrote variations of the first part of your dream, but they didn’t usually express the second part. So I like how you included that you wanted to help.

I hope we will continue to become good friends. And I believe I will be there to witness you building bridges to more people like me, and even a bigger bridge that makes a way for the next generation towards a brighter future for your country.

And I hope for the day when you no longer hide your eyes. Because what they are two diamonds in the rough; two bright suns which will pull out wide smiles from the people around you - and most importantly, out of your own lips.

He wrote in the most perfect handwriting
Compared to my scatterbrained black scribbling

His name sounded like
the gold-tipped wings
of angels.
While mine sat on the
brown earth,
dreaming to the skies.

There was always something idiotic
the way his teeth stuck out like a bunny's
He reminded me of Ishaan from Taare Zameen Par
A dyslexic student, great artist, had a smile so sunny.

Do I listen?
Oh, it is rude to listen.
To something that is not mine.

One's voice is as sleek as platinum
The other is my father's
Refreshing as lemons and limes.

Catching wisps of it
Their words are quite curious
About coffee shops and dinosaurs.

Sometimes it's not really
Worth listening to
The subject is too unknown and too far.

I imagine where they might be sitting
Surely not outside our black gate.
It is too hot for anyone to be outdoors…

So they must be on the grey garage
Sitting on the bamboo chairs
Or standing on the floor

Anyway, my thoughts
Drown out their words
My eyes flicker around the computer screen

My sister talks too loud
I reach for the white earphones atop my desk
Play Owl City's 'Metropolis', which I must say sounds serene.

God is like a puppeteer,
That He should fashion invisible strings

To move about the dancing stars in the expanse of the midnight sky;
To bathe the Earth with light and wild colours from a new Sun;

To clothe the lofty mountains in snow;
To raise and lower the ocean tides through the pull of the Moon;

To cause foundations to tremble before His earthquakes;
To split the dark horizon with His lightning;

To give the breeze the voice of a gentle whisper;
To embrace the valleys with sweet-smelling grass and fragrant lilies;

To provide song and flight to many birds;
To shake the boughs of a mighty tree and let fall richly delicious fruit…

      So that all these things might call our attention,
Gather us all to sit down before them, watch, and fall silent.

And see
  And listen
   And feel
    And smell
     And taste

The wonders of the glorious show of His love.

The corn leaves sways with the wind.
So does my heart
Your coming and going is like that of a sparrow
A few years in length.

The raindrops are falling on my head, forever drenching me
I was with you in the forest, and I watched you as you grinned.
Though those days are a silhouette, no longer in my possession
The rain is still here, I don't know what will follow

Your dark eyes, hazel, if you look too close, betrayed me
I gave you my collections, but you tore them apart,
I wish I had never listened.
I wonder if I will fly again, I wonder what will give me strength.

I don't even know if I'm going to end this foolishness in making you see,
That you had become the subject of my depression.

But I'm not letting go.
I'm not letting go just yet.




Here I am, in the company of myself.
Shattered?
Perhaps I should have never gathered the bread.

Take a picnic to a meadow,
A walk next to a creek.
Spend a day in the mountains,
Swim in the ocean so deep.

And tell me there isn't a God.

He wants the stars in the night sky,
but you are the sun.
He is yours, and you are his,
*when everything comes undone.

The man in the Moon said,
"Will you be my friend?"
And I said, "Why not?"
That time, I didn't give it much thought.

Since I only had a peso in my pocket
I hitch-hiked a ride on Tycho's rocket.
Tycho happened to be an old playmate
We talked and talked, but it didn't seem like Fate

"Where have you been all my life?"
he asked, face filled with strife
"I don't know," I laughed.
He chuffed me, "You've always been so daft."

I slipped inside the module
And we landed on the Moon, every molecule
Tycho slipped me his calling card
As we cleared my passport with the watch guard.

The guard looked highly philosophical.
She asked, "What are you looking for, pal?"
I smiled, replied, "The man in the Moon."
She pondered, "Being a watch guard can be a boon."

"There are only five men in the Sea of Tranquility.
Damian helps in the recreational facility;
Sam is a family man, with his wife and three kids;
Tamjid herds sheep; Michel hunting for quids.

"Quintin is someone who lives far, far away
He weeps every hour, easily swayed.
But he sits on top of his car,
Singing to himself, counting stars."

"Quintin might be the man!" I say with much clamour.
The watch guard cheers my endeavour,
Giving me a hug and a packet of chips.
I look back to her and the Earth is in eclipse.

The angel was in my room the other night.
I found him weeping by the brook.
I asked him why.
He didn't answer me.
But he stopped crying.
And disappeared.

I went to the arcade.
There was a new highscore.
And the angel was trying to beat it.
I stood there and watched him.
He noticed me.
Then he bought me an ice cream by the shop.

And flew away when I smiled at him.

I thought there was red in his cheeks.

There were three fluffy feathers left on the ground.

My best friend used to say three of some things meant something.

He told me what they said before he moved away.

I love you.

The angel was in my room the other night.
That morning I got a letter.
From my best friend's mother.
It said something that made me go into the brook.
And to the arcade him and I always used to play in.
The letter said my best friend had died.

I didn't think so.

The angel was on my chair by the window.

His glow contemplated the lamp I always had on.

I put the feathers back into his hand.

He smiled at my touch.

I love you.

It pains my fingers
to write something I know I
have to write,
rather than the carefree bliss spent
over hours of
e n d l e s s
scrolling on time wasters.
Like this one, I know…

Almost everyday there is
regret
and remorse about
the things
should have done and that
should have been.
And

there has very little
been done about it.

So my days remain forgotten like the dusty old cloth bookmark hidden between a crevice on a vast bamboo bookshelf.

No, you believed, and maybe the heavens heard.
The wind blasted in just as I feared,

And swept her away, away from you and me
She is gone from us, towards beyond what the eye can see

Eyes as light as the green leaves tinged by sunlight--
Hair as gentle as the vines that twine along the garden wall--
Though you are older than me,
Your laugh is as young as a little boy's

When I lived in that city made of dreams
I never dreamed I'd meet someone like you
And, while you are so unexpected,
so new and unanticipated,
Why do you now remind me of that place
Which I know like the back of my hand?

Why is it that, as I struggle to find the words to describe you
and how you represent many a thing that's new
in this life of mine,

Why is it that I go back to that place I've left?
Why do I describe you in terms of the memories
My heart aches so bad to return to?

You and I have talked about this --
wishing to go back to those times well-cherished...
I know I haven't fully healed yet.
And I know you haven't, too.

For someone who's been through a war
Battered and worn by grief,
Why does your heart still seem tender and soft?

Why do you care so much for others
When so much has been taken away from you?

God only knows.

God only knows why I met you.
God only knows when I'll tell you about
What makes my heart whole
And what keeps me at peace,
Even if I can't explain everything that's happened to me
Even when it hurts and I feel like no one else understands me

Because it's Peace that will mend your heart
--Nothing missing; nothing broken--
You were made to be beautiful for a reason.
Because the Creator, the Artist who made you makes
Everything beautiful in His time,
Everything beautiful in its season.

And though the world sends you its lies,
Know that you are His work of art.
His purpose for you is to have hope and a future,
For He has set eternity in your heart.

There can be a day
When all your tears will be wiped away
By the hands that made you,
By the hands that saved you.

Though much has been taken away from you,
I believe there will come a day, my brother,
When you will meet that King, that good and perfect Father who will show you your true worth.
You are worthy not because of anything you do.
You are worthy because of what He did for you.
You are worthy because of His love for you.
And if you let Him, He will heal you.
He will heal all your wounds with gold.

Glinting in the sunlight--
Nothing missing;
Nothing broken.

bye
die
sigh
cry
try
lie

I see:
White skin, short black hair;
The tall frame of yours walking
and walking and running
Running alongside your father…

Running inside my mind
Laps and laps around longings and memories,
While an uncertain despair sinks deep into my stomach:
The thought that…
maybe you’ll never care as much as I do.

But I still see you
Dropping on one knee on the grass,
Searching with a flashlight to show
The bright-eyed little boys the little spider I found and was now running free

I still see you
Dropping on one knee
To tie that one boy’s shoelaces,
That little namesake of yours.

This was from years ago—
But I’ll never forget, though you may have already
Small moments of you… being you:
Caring and careful…

And I eventually realized it was characteristic of you to hold the door open for me one day;
That it was nothing special, just you… being you
but I’m glad to have seen that.

And I hope you don’t decipher this because knowing that I love you may be disastrous
Because…
maybe you’ll never care as much as I do.