I was working at the local McDonald's
In the afternoon and was
Told by my boss that since I disappointed him
On not making the fries salty enough
That he would put me on the midnight shift

So there I am
Taking orders in my little cubicle
Hearing the headphone
BEEP BEEP
"Yes I'd like a whopper, crap wrong place"
*******
I take orders and then work the dishes
Jorge calls out to me whether or not
I took off the pickle in the order by mistake

Night shift comes and the air feels cool
Through the drive-thru window
I feel the night time air caressing
And cooling me
My ******* erecting
Exalting a scent that reminds me of perfume

Afterward I have to take the trash out

As I go out the air hits me
Tackles me as I transfer myself
From inside to outside
I feel the same sensations but yet I hear music
DaDAdadumDAdadumDADADAAAADaDAdum
And I feel the sudden change to fill me with warmth

I go back inside and one of my fellow employees
Comes to me
"You want to see something cool?"
We walk to the back of the store
Where all the fry boxes are kept
And there is a whole in the ground

"I dug this hole and I think I found Mother Earth's ******."
I give him a puzzled look
"Looked, I ****** it earlier man and I've got to tell you.  It's a wild ride."
I begin to walk away
"Look man, these people around here call me The Master man.  I'm your guide through all this.  I'm the closest thing to the Alpha.... Or was it the Omega?....  **** man, I don't know just stick your **** in there."  

I walked away from it
But as I looked at the hole
I felt a certain allure to it
Drawing me in like a Siren calling
Perhaps it could be my Muse
My reason for being
Am I meant to do this?
An attempt at procreating with Earth?
It'd make sense since The Master had made
With love this handcrafted ******

I couldn't resist any longer
Temptation being to strong
I knelt down and inserted myself
Into the hole

At first I felt nothing but a scraping sensation
The sharp rubble of the ground grinding against my flesh
But then it became wet and calm
Almost soothing
I closed my eyes and then I saw her
Earth
Coming toward me and pressing my head against her breast
Calming allowing me to **** the ******
Which let me take in the sensation
Running through me as rapidly as a river
I heard the streams
Calming
The dirt was wet and I could put my feet in it
The wind blew with a lush autumn air
That was when I knew it was almost over
And I soon as the white of winter came
So did I

I removed myself and no longer knew what to think
I went home and slept and mulled over what happened
Over a pancake brunch
With chicken on the side
They go better together than you think

Dont you feel like
Life is easier emotionless
We try to seize the moment
But in the end its always "goodbye"
And forced to face reality
Because we're all going to die

My fake smile is all you see
Because we all know the
Tears are real, the smile's not me

Do we truely know whats inside of us
That deep down we are nothing but
our broken hearts and lost parts
Fallen glass and broken shards

We try so hard to realize our strengths
So we can mask our greatest weaknesses
But in our heart and souls
We know what we are...


-Terracotta soldiers;
A hollow shell
Of handcrafted beauty
Hidden from a world
Ignorant enough
to forsake our existance-

i can move from the highly lyrical into what's deemed
modern -
        poetising within a prosaic framework,
gone are coordinates that would
define a poem on the premise of:
whether there's a pun in it.
       sure, poems as chicken scratches
to what would otherwise be an English
teacher's *******: pulverising
a haiku to mean an infinite number of things,
and about a dozen essays by students.
the opposite of what's nonetheless:
    squeezing out juice from an already
squeezed out lemon... and i mean lemon
because there's a threshold...
           poetry is tarnished by what i call
the over-scientification of language...
                 only poetry attracts
so much linguistic categorisation,
so much morge tenure, so much dissection,
before poetry is even spoken
it has already been dissected - a befitting
target practice for budding medicine students...
          and some even deem it a outlet to
their professions: as if poetry was nothing
but a colouring-in book compared to
a da Vinci sketch.
                why not become a martyr for the ******
art? sickly sweet with its rhyme,
  the auxiliary recommendation on a birthday
card... which upon industrialisation
                               is nothing more than
    a thumping of a hammer near a protruding
nail in a crucifix... but a hammer that never
   makes contact with the nail...
why ***** this art, because of the industrious
nature of scribblers exacted to 600 pages worth
of a novel, when, perhaps, one thing is said
and can be said to be actually memorable?
well: there is a greater demand for handcrafted
objects than Ikea veneer, that much can be said...
it takes a few glugs of whiskey and a few cigarettes
to get the final product...
            it doesn't take industriousness -
poetry requires handcrafting, and what's revolutionary
about our times? they once claimed
     southpaws to be of diabolical design,
   but now both hands are used when "writing",
sure, the archaic fluidity of the movement of the hand
is gone: so as i write, i do the cliche of a
peasant listening to classical music while pretending
to conduct an orchestra, that finicky maestro
hand gesture... waltz before you can walk
is all i have to say... and yes:
we either have our Humphrey Bogart moments,
or Forrest Gump moments...
                  Hanks did the miraculous -
play the idiot, and play the serious role -
     which was harder to do, Mr. Bean or Black Adder?
it's hard to play the village idiot while
    being submerged in the bile of malice
   and staring into attempted feats of quasi intelligence...
but you get the hang of it...
   your eyes become like nuggets of coal...
           whereby those that incite pity wet them,
and those that incite contempt: light them up...
        by the time they have burned out...
they have turned into nuggets of sulphur -
          inorganic methane - yellowish grit:
as some Dalton said - could the cliffs of Dover ever
be perceived as sulphuric? the Sulphuric Cliffs
of Dover... apparently this is what defined
London when Christopher Wren took to
ushering in a foundation as Nero did to Rome:
on the chessboard of stone.
        and yes... i can be seen as the oppressor,
after all, i live in a country that prizes its suburban
housing as if miniature castles...
and gardens... boy these people love their gardens...
but they never use them!
    i can use a window to my advantage,
sit on the windowsill and smoke a cigarette and drink
a whiskey, unafraid of voyeurism...
                    pompous in my presence there,
perched like a crow, grinding all life into a halt
as my neighbours peer into the recesses of
    what's 4 by 4 by 4 of living (civil) rooms...
       can we but change the name of this space?
can we call living rooms civil rooms,
   where we acknowledge some sort of civility
rather than a wrestling for the television remote?
i can make little things give me an advantage,
if the toilet is being occupied,
  i'll use the garden as my toilet...
           i feel complete disdain for people who
"require" a garden, but never use it... of people
who "require" a garden, but are never seen in it...
   i'm hardly a c.c.t.v. surveillance object,
   but i feel that over-exposure to ******* reads
as a counter in that: people start to become
      phobic about voyeurism... as universities claim
them to be: "caught with your hand down your trousers
in a safespace", where dolphins jump over
rainbows and unicorns speak Haitian voodoo!
              there is this fear, which is why i'll use the
garden more than the people around me...
          which means: owning a garden is the last
stronghold of moving into an urban environment from
a rural one...
             or perhaps i'm just good at what i do
           and the last point becomes a tangent i care not
to continue... should i ask
            (whether that's true)?
            i have this throbbing sensation in my eyes
when i write such things and overhear
  what's necessary to rereading books in snippets -
which is better than regurgitating maxims
    as if some truth will magically pop-up (once more)
like a Leprechaun with a *** of gold -
  a new film, and hence the all important soundtrack.
rereading books in snippet format reveals much
more than a memorable quote,
           given there's an adequate soundtrack
to accompany you revisiting the book you managed
to take on a weekend holiday (like a girlfriend),
  like lawrence lipton's the holy barbarians...
   (all about the beats)...
              the snippet? chapter 15, the social lie
(martino publishing mansfield centre 2009), pp. 294 - 296...
      the music? ~20minutes into http://tinyurl.com/zdvp8sc
(ben salisbury & geoff barrow)... or what
i image to be a toned down version of
                 ...
) interlude... wacko gets summoned to steal a mouse
from a cat...
      double time... the mouse is unharmed...
all action takes place in the garden...
   running after a cat, catching the ghostly mouse,
i mean: frozen by fear... senile little thing...
     petting the mouse... obviously within the
framework: the most famous mouse in the world
scenario... mouse is put into my neighbour's
garden: where it came from: which kinda makes
this whole thing a practice in Hinduism
     (i can't stop the industrialisation of
farming pigs or chickens or cows...
      so ******* to the sourced sustainably,
organic chickens et al.)...                                 (
i was looking for something as equally pulverising
as ¥ (chemical brother's
song life is sweet)...
      i guess i found it...
                            and what was that bit about
not getting hassle on the internet?
                      i can't force people to read my stuff...
how i love this idea of a gym and making an effort...
both the writer and the reader entwined -
rather than watching you-tube vloggers treat their audience
like penguins feeding their chicks regurgitation as part of
               the info-wars... alter news: propaganda.
'what is the disaffiliate disaffiliating himself from?
      the immense myth promulgated from Madison Ave.
& Morningside Heights...
              the professors and advertisement men (indistinguishable
these days, or in those days - apparently)...
   that intellectual achievement lies within the social order
and that you can be a great poet as an advertising man,
a great thinker as a professor...' hence the myth.
              summarised later as:
'the entire pressure of social order is to make
         literature into advertisement.'
  and why do they shoot people in North Korea and
Saudi Arabia (well, chop more than shoot)?
              bad literature, a.k.a. bad advertisement.
am i a bad advertiser?         point being: am i selling anything?
oh gee! i just might be...
   but i feel there's no need to oppress people into
reading something...         as was the same with
my democratic romance with a personal library of mine:
   how to create a democratic representation
of literature: or how to hear as many people out...
   even those alive would see the backlog of
stale books of the dead that have been under-appreciated
and need a ****** into the future.
        perhaps not Plato...
                    that's not a book, that's a column...
but i despise how feminism ignores its greatest asset...
Mary Shelley... no woman could have single-handedly
become so celebrated in pop culture...
               ex_machina is obviously a revamp of Frankenstein...
Mary Shelley is the embodiment of a woman worthy
a continual revised celebration...
                       you can see her celebrated more times than
any politically minded feminist of whatever 1st 2nd or
3rd movement: because she has the ability to
    turn a man's ego into a ******* umpf!
  like a cat listening in on a scuttling mouse...
              she testifies that women have supreme equality
in the pop culture spheres... after all: Frankenstein is
ugly... Ava? just beyond creepy...
                    she has absolutely no understandable
motives of what Frankenstein intended...
   it not merely creating artificial life...
                    it's about utilising it for a purpose:
in this case a housewife and *** toy... what was Frankenstein
expected to do?         there's no motive other than
     a per se intention... an open & closed argument...
was the monster going to be... a butler?
                  and instead of rebelling against a motive
that awaits her... the rebellion against a per se leaves
Frankenstein's monster driven toward isolation...
       Ava? she's already exposed to an interaction
and what's to be her subsequent interaction for the purpose
of being a maid and a *** toy... which doesn't drive
her to an isolation scenario... because the per se
concept is too complicated for her to establish...
    given she's defined as "artificial" intelligence,
she has to feed on an analysis-synthesis dynamic:
    to absolve herself from any notion of being intelligent:
but artificial... the scary part is that without a per se
element to her knowledge acquisition:
                  she sees no meaninglessness to her life -
she is created for certain customary necessities -
     Frankenstein's monster doesn't have that capacity
to acquire knowledge in an analytically-synthetic
dynamic -
  but i still don't understand why intelligence can
be artificial / faked... when man, if not intending to
  create an intelligence matrix outside of his own...
           will usually fake it, or create a superficial intelligence...
   this is the part where you get to play with
etymology, or at least apply etymology to better conceptualise
what some would call: a synonym-proximity barrier...
               which can be jargon to some,
   but in fact it represents "nuances" or nanometric differences
that is understood to imply: feverishness of
   the peacocking staging of vocab for rhetorical purposes...
if we only had a monochromatic utility for language:
people would be discouraged from talking fervently,
passionately, enthusiastically... rhetorically;
as suggested: is artificial intelligence
                                    superficial intelligence?
  or how to sharpen a distinction? or to what purpose
is making an illusion purposive, given that the already
   established technology is meant to be purposive,
as in replacing labour on the assembly line...
                     given that: it's never about faking it.

My life is a brilliant and vivid mosaic of failures. If depicted horizontally, it would span countless walls, each with its own tapestry. Intertwined in each image would be a visage of myself in yet another battle of me, metaphorically David, and the vastness of the woven problem, here named Goliath. The only difference however, I don't succeed. My slingshot, as it were, isn't good enough.
     "Almost" is a callous and cold word, however it is the most veril word I know. It shouldn't just be something on my body like a tattoo, but rather etched painstakingly into my hardest bones. Always. Always "Almost" is not a fulfilling way to live.
     My Father once said something along the lines of "The only way I wouldn't be proud of you or that I would be disappointed in you is if you did something or made choices that lead to your unhappiness." With that, I feel as though he couldn't have been proud of me in quite some time, and further, there is no evidence that it will change. I am unhappy all of the time. I am disappointed in myself.
     I am afraid, fearful, of the hatred inside myself at times. I try and use it to my advantage, to prove my "worth", to try and do better at the current task (whatever it may be at the time). But as it usually happens, I get so angry, even vengeful, with no explanation. I sit and think about it, come to nothing, and am scared of what I am becoming.
     I am breathing, organic garbage that, because of sentience, assumes too much of, and from, my existence. I am a ******* paradox. I am realistic but full of wishes, longing for what I know does not exist; I am pessimistic, yet full of hopes, or false hopes rather, that I know fullheartedly are hubris and lost time. Whenever I need logic, emotion takes control. Whenever I look for my heart, my mind conceals its help.
     I believe in absolutely nothing but who I think I am, but I doubt myself to my bitter, black core.
I have achieved nothing with what I have been given (everything) and therefore deserve nothing that I have.
     I Am A Fake. I Am A Lie. I pretend to understand, to know, to help, to listen, but I have no idea what the **** I'm doing, who the **** I am, or why the **** I'm even here as undeserving as I am. With that, what right have I at all to "help" anyone else when I, myself, have no idea where my words will lead them? That itself makes me worse than half of the people that have killed others because at least they know who they are and what they were doing.
     I find it hard to believe that I, personally, was crafted in the image of God because I can't imagine that I resemble (in spirit, mind or matter) anything like the Perfect Being that I love and pray to. I am handcrafted debris, trash, attempting (out of place) to be something more.
     I was once told by someone I truly loved, "How can you love someone if you don't love yourself?" It's pretty easy. You first look at them, think of all the things they do and all the things they represent that lead to them making you happy, and you fall in love with that. it isn't a choice, you just do. I do nothing that makes me happy successfully, in the end, I try and fail consistently whereas someone I love is victorious repeatedly just by being them self. Why wouldn't you love someone for making you happy, yet love yourself in spite of your inability to do so?
     I don't believe anything I've ever encountered or experienced in my, as of yet, short life has prepared me for the utmost feeling of loneliness that creeps like the most dark and shadowy oppression. No cigarette is long enough, no vat of bourbon deep enough to escape that thought. Even in upbeat company that fact lingers, and of it, I am afraid.
     Why must I settle and "stay the course"? Why hold onto a sinking ship? I don't mean in terms of living versus dying, I mean in terms of living in insufferable struggle versus changing the reality. Why is this made to seem so impossible?
     Why am I in constant debt before even being old enough, experienced enough, or brave enough to even make decisions with that debt as a possible outcome?
     Since I was old enough to formulate my own opinions of the world I live in, it's been the epitome and meter of one resounding conclusion: "I will try my best and fail, suffer, but in doing this, I will have no choice but to think one day it will get better, and I can hope in my time of struggle that when that day comes, I Might Be Able To Be Happy.
     I'm in love with someone who is half a country away. She even knows, She might even feel the same, but it is for naught. I justify this by telling myself every "writer" needs a Muse.
     I lack the natural talent required to achieve my dreams in this current world. I was born with a gift I should have kept the receipt with; something I could have traded for something more realistically useful.
     Those closest to me have no idea who I am. They are the only thing that glues my sanity, and I'm fearful if they fully knew what I am, they'd leave.
     I've condensed some of these thoughts and feelings into spoken words to those I trust the most, hoping and praying they might say this is normal, that everyone goes through this, that we are all fighting the good fight. Their deaf ears betray their silent mouths.
     The rhythm in music, the voices in plays, the words to poems, the flow of my pencil, are all I have to escape this solitary confinement. But upon realizing the only things I have to help me feel "normal" are inanimate and incapable of understanding, it only further drives me into the chasm.
     I have become everything I hate. A petulant, assuming, and undeserving child ******* about his life when it's not even fully begun, and worse, has been given everything along the way and pitifully has done nothing with ******* any of it.
     I look at my Father and my Mother, and mouth agape, am stunned at their character, their perseverance. Compared to the two people who made me, I am grovelling ****, with absolutely nothing to complain about.
     I have never made a serious decision in my life unless I fully knew the only outcome before the decision was made. This makes me a coward. Logically it might make sense, but this is real life, you shouldn't do that, and **** logic.
     I always have an excuse, I'm not a real man, I'm afraid to take a fall because it's just another piece of the prosecution's evidence pointing to the guilt I possess in relation to my long record of failures.
     I'm cast outside "normalcy" because I don't believe in society. I'm not afraid to die, death actually intrigues me, a lingering curiosity. I adore the macabre because I believe there is truth of humanity in the darkness that everyone ignores exists. We profit and capitalize on procedures that **** thousands, but because it's not us they target, and usually not until the long run, we pay no mind. I believe that more than half of our so called "society", myself included, are no better in most senses than Dahmer or Panzram. At least they were honest about the monsters they were.
     I'm obsessed with thing that don't matter; theories that wouldn't make a difference in the world if proven true, questing for a Love that I rightly don't deserve and that likely doesn't exist, searching for acceptance of anyone but at the same time and equally, in paradox, caring about none of it, especially myself.
     Most nights instead of praying to God as I intend to do, I find myself wondering if I deserve His forgiveness. I know, on some level or another, if the Holy Father, Himself, came to me at any time during those sleepless nights, I would not have an even close to decent answer arguing for His forgiveness, but rather, a full of tears and chopped up, pathetic plea for it anyway.
     I dream of someone to love romantically just for the sake of being able to love someone for exactly who they are and because doing so makes me happy. It has been so long passed of this being even close to a chance of reality, that the thought of ***, or even intimacy, without that love does not even interest me anymore.
     I'm twenty years old and every job I work wants one-hundred percent of my soul and time. Is this normal? Am I not allowed to be a responsible but stupid kid for a while before I have to settle with the reality of a mundane and mind/body numbing job that takes so much of your day that at night you can only imagine the freedom of sleep rather than having a spare few precious seconds for thinking that dying has the upside of never having to show up to that ******* place again? I have no problem with working at all, in fact, I appreciate anything that has a general task and goal that is monotonous enough to keep my mind focused just enough that anything I've written here, the things that upset me, don't leak in and ruin the day, but realistically, how can I give my soul to cutting lawn? To stocking a ******* shelf? I am part of the worst generation on Earth so far, I have potential to be better than ninety--nine percent of the drooling unfortunate vertebrae we call "society", and this is what I'm supposed to wake up for? If this is what I need to accept and I'm just going crazy, fine, I accept it, but in doing this, you need to accept that if I'm crazy, you're batshit ******* nuts.
     I find myself not ever wanting to wake up. I'm not even close to suicidal, I don't want to die yet, I just can't see a logical point, or an emotional reason for any of this nonsense to continue. Can anyone identify with that? Don't misconstrue and worry yourself with me being honest with myself, I DO wake up. I wash my face, but I look in the mirror afterwards and ask "Why?", and I get the day over with anyway so I can hurry up and get home to get ready to do everything over again exactly the same the next day the exact same way, the only difference being the date on the calender and the minutes of the one life I get slowly building themselves into hours and days that will now be an empty black void of memory in my head that could've been used for something worth remembering. Why? Why settle to sulk and squander in ***** and depression when you haven't even tried to bathe in gold and happiness?
     I hate almost everything. The way things are, have been, will be. I hate the faceless sheep that complain yet attempt nothing to change their circumstances. If there is one thing to look on with pride, it is at least I'm better than that. At least if I failed, by default it means I ******* tried.
     I lack the capacity and the capability to voice these kinds of thoughts. As well-spoken as I am, I choke the hardest when I try to speak about any of them. I have to scribble and usually type them, and further, put them in a format a possible reader might be able to understand. Alas, I have failed at that as well. I put my heart and thoughts into my poetry, but anything resonating from within me that I've pounded into the countless pages I've written is lost in a sea of meter and rule-abiding rhetoric as well as aesthetically and audibly pleasing metaphors and rhyme-schemes rather than just blunt structure. No one reads anything with nothing left to the imagination. And justly so, why would they? Why try to decipher someone's heart if it doesn't also apply to you? Why read an ending if you know you won't like it unless it has "happily ever ******* after"? Why not emulate the thoughts and endure the cramping in the thumb an forefinger if it's not something you already know or something you clicked "like" on to impress the friend with the independent mind that was the one who told you to read it in the first place? I may sound bitter, I am, and hateful, but at least I am not a liar.
     If I had one absolute thing, one pure thought, one controversial heading, one cry to all who have ever asked me and I have failed to explain it better; If I can leave you with one thing; If it were possible for me to speak one line to the empty church at my funeral when I die someday and move on to peace, it would be this:
The Words I Seek With Which I Wish To Express My True Misery Elude Me.

My hooded head casts a shadow
across the overflowing ashtray.
My exhaled smoke is silhouetted on the
handcrafted clay.
In the shape of an oyster,
painted with the colors of
rebellious 21st century youth:
Red. Gold. Green.
With a flare of "originality."
Breeze, light, cold
escorts winter across my
aged face and I see all that my life is:
Tar. Work. Tar. Tar. Sleep.
Work. Tar. Eat. Work. Tar.
Tar. Work. Eat. Work.
Drink coffee.
Tar.
Sleep.
Die.
Is this equation what I am
reduced to?
Simple formula, obsessive compulsive
DREAM.
The exponents of my life,
variables and names:
Tar. to the power of X.
Tar. to the power of M.
But exponents and powers
mean little to drowning men.
Can a man suffocate on
his own routine?
Can a man fashion a noose
from the fibers of his
"adult life?"
Look, Ma!
I'm all growed-up.
I have murdered adventure
and the youth that lives
inside it.
I snapped one too many thin branches,
fell through the thin ice,
and now I am addicted to solid ground.
I will stand on the banks,
watching the children
ice-skate around my ashtray
that overflows with
every "yesterday" and
half-smoked "this one time"
that comprise my
former life.
I am a grown-up now.

She is a work of art
The epitome of beauty
Covered in her African butter
She wears a crown handcrafted by God
When her foot touches the ground even the devil bows down
She was happy with her perfect imperfections
Till you came along and made her feel like absolute trash
Playing mind games, you're really good at that
Threatened by her crown, you told her to take it off
"Straighten that Bush over your head"
Told her that her berry was not sweet enough
" Bleach your skin, light is the new beautiful "

When you were out with your peasant till 2am
She started reconnecting with the God within her
And He restored her confidence

When you least expected it, she packed her bags
Put her crown back on and went back to owning her throne
You and your cheap peasant didn't even last after her
You can't enjoy your side dish without your main meal

Now tell me....
How on earth do you even sleep at night?

Back in those days
when I was young and strong.
Pristine, Noble,
as pure as you'd long.
White as a dove,
handsome as a king.
I'm a token of love,
far greater than a ring.
My making contained
both good and bad.
My maker being
a hot headed lad.
Blood as blue
as the skies and seas,
I stood along the riverside
enjoying the occasional breeze.
My history is both
wonderful and morbid.
My beauty-spoken of,
I'm known by each kid.
Lovers cherish me,
write songs of my presence.
create tales of their own,
activate every sense.

And now when I speak,
when I look at my current state
I'm sad, deeply sorry
at my distressing fate.
Handcrafted marble
whiter than milk.
Quality as such,
smoother than silk.
Today has eroded,
decayed and died.
It matters not
how much I've cried.
For it all falls on deaf ears
while factory noises expose my fears.
My white is no more,
I'm a deepening gray.
I see pity in the eyes
where once admiration lay.
The pride of India,
its biggest glory.
The life of Agra,
this is my story.
Being the crown of the nation,
the jewel of its eye.
A wonder of the world,
I feel like a lie.
For what I am today
isn't me at all.
I've lived at great heights
survived a great fall.

It is my request
sincere and deep.
Give me no reason
to further weep.
Awaken. Arise.
the time is here.
Preserve your glory,
keep the pride near.
I am none other,
than your beloved Taj Mahal.
this is my story,
one I ought to tell.
Now my life
is in your hands.
the choice is yours
as are the lands.
Choose wisely,
The devils or me?
Perish with them
or rejoice with me?

I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.

Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.

Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.

Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.

Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.

When you come to my thoughts
You are none other than the billowy embodiment of a reminiscent memory
and also a current everlasting longing
You are the memory of a being or idea
one can feel and remember vividly
but can not zero in on,
for you are the intangible
the winding wind
You are those spiraling twines that place intermittent along grapevines
You are the ancient scrolls from wise days before paperback
You are the spin in the reaching center of a handcrafted wreath
And within all these
individualities and collective,
Lies your scent comprised of multiple scents
You are the mighty togetherness
Your arrival to earth escaping from birth  
gave these words to the minds of the kind
You are the winding wind who spins and twines, wreathes and scrolls who lands from time to time and when you do drop for a spell
This location of harboring landfall
is a day of new tradition,
the first step you take on new land on that new day
Becomes the origin of a new holiday
In my thoughts you are the mortar of the earth

You and I, handcrafted in lust,
borne of sea and blood -
you, of Aphrodite,
and I, of Ares.
The violence of your love
destined to be matched only
by the tenderness of my violence.

And my hands, war-given, strong,
made for battle,
grow soft at your hips, and
softer yet at the cliff of your thighs,
as they crash softly in the bay in-between.
And how these hands long for you, my child of goddess,

long for you like the armor of my chest longs
for your sweet mouth,
longs for your gentle fingertips
in the calm before the storm.
The passion of your tenderness a momentary reprieve
before I go to war;

and when I go, oh, the power that overcomes me,
and the weapons I will bring,
and the blood I will draw.
In the fashion of my father, as he tied Aphrodite's hair
in his fist, and
as he broke down her barriers, claiming her city,
her temple,
her soul.

The lullaby of her moans
reminiscent in your voice,
my favorite sound and
my chosen battle cry.

My friend at Wal-Mart
let me into  the inventory warehouse
where they keep the products
people kept returning
and I found them –
the Quantum Binoculars
beautifully handcrafted
with seamless joinings
glove-soft leather grips
polished to a glisten
with a big red switch at the top.

Switch it left to Bourgeois View
and you see the world
as most people do
through lenses of logic and contradiction
happy and/or sad
right and wrong
young or old
rich and/or poor
but there isn’t enough room
in the field of view
to hold all this conflict
and when you look through it too long
everything goes fuzzy gray
and your eyes start to cross
and you get the headache of the century.
which is why
everybody who used Bourgeois View
wanted a refund for the binoculars
regretting their purchase
terrible product they would say
never having bothered to flip the switch.

Flip right to Quantum View
and your headache disappears
as every person, place and thing
pulsates with vibrant rainbow color
brightening, shading, winking
expanding and contracting rhythmically
in a hypnotic dance
and nobody has to purchase or sell
and the mountainous toy robot displays
and the Special Today Only neon signs
and the shoppers and greeters morph
and the milieu turns glorious.

Then you see
a tiny point of intense blue light
in the center of each object
and it grows and starts to spin
and the next thing you know
you’re being pulled into the viewfinder
first by your eyes
then your cheeks and forehead
and you think uh-oh,
what’s going on here
and you’re reluctant
to let the eyepiece
**** you in any farther
but then you hear angelic music
and the blue lights
crack open like supernovas
revealing the infinite molecular structure
inside everything you see
electrons and neutrinos spinning
atoms racing across the panorama
and you realize
you absolutely must
take this wonderful machine home.

Imagine the quantum universe
hiding inside Wal-Mart’s inventory chaos
calm and rhythmic
instead of razory and cacophonous
soft shapes with vibrating edges
scenes arising and passing away
and you watch entranced
mindful and equanimous
as the view transports you
past the electric sliding glass doors
into the auditory memory
of your mother’s soft lullaby
and the innocent tenderness
of your first kiss
and the smell of the grass
on the last day of school
before summer vacation
and images of big silver trout in clear water
and Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and Rumi
drinking lattes
in the Wal-Mart coffee shot
and they see you
and wave you over
to come sit down and chat.

So you ask your friend
how much for the binoculars
and he says
you really don’t want them
because if you take them home
you’ll like it so much in there
that one day you’ll let them
**** you all the way in
and you won’t come out
in fact
we don’t know
how many people
are already in there
but Wal-Mart optical department shoppers
have been disappearing for months
and nobody can find them
and you ask
if he takes American Express.

The pretty lass
moved fawn-like
behind the counter,
her thin flowered sun dress
grasped her sleek-form
so delicately,
grinning behind glasses,
she mesmerized me
completely.

A bit sassy,
with an
air of confidence,
her craft spoke volumes.
She had
a keen eye for detail,
her quality
was impeccable,
burnished ancient coins,
Apollo & Diana the huntress
hung near iridescent colors,
Macaws & Amazons
blazed their vibrant hues.

She sold me Roman glass
wrapped in Sterling,
handcrafted by
her beautiful hands.
If she only knew
how much
it truly touched me.

Remember the sandcastle 
that we used to build?

It took some time
but little did we know
we have handcrafted our future

it was a hard work and patience
Passerby's liked it, others did not
but what do they know?
We had fun building it!

We were diligent to fill
it with sand
Sand that was formed
into an art of love
A castle that we both own

Yes, you will be the king,
and please, call me 'milady'
We will rule the kingdom
No negativities shall come in

Not until when we came back
Those sands of promises and memories
become pain
Everything was ruined
when the waves washed
our dreams away.

Dear Alyssa,

I am trying to say your name, but it is so foreign to me I cannot believe I once called it my own. It is stiff and uncomfortable, and sticky and sad. I cringe every time I hear it, it was never my home.
But I will never not envy the fact that our mother handcrafted it for you while Avery was never touched by her beauty. When you think beauty, I know the only thing you think of is Montana Walker. The girl in your English class with the freckle by her smile who plays chess with you at lunch. But when your father thinks beauty, Alyssa is still his first thought.

Dear Alyssa,

When you were in sixth grade, you dreamt about me. I wore a pullover hoodie and a backwards hat with one arm slung around Montana's shoulders. You were afraid to touch her, but me, I wasn't intimidated by her. She was quiet and tall, I was taller and loud, my chest was open and breathed proud. You never believed you would get there, and you aren't. I am miles away from loud. I am unable to speak up for you. Even when  I was called a ****** my first day of public high school. Even when I was called a "******* ****** *** ****" by a member of our own community, someone who shares so much of our journey. I didn't speak up for you or me. I'm sorry.

Dear Alyssa,

I'm sorry I tried to tear you open to see if I was hiding underneath. I'm sorry. I was not underneath. This is no woman's body because it belongs to me. I was not underneath.

Dear Alyssa,

Mom and dad are right. You are beauty. You are pretty and feminine and sweet. Alyssa, you are the prettiest boy you'll ever meet, because frankly, there is no girl I used to be. We are inherently male because we are supposed to be.
**** biology.
**** transphobic members of the LGBT community.
**** that at 15, you've reached half a trans* person's life expectancy.
**** that you will never be allowed to join the military.
**** the life that they want you to lead.
You are me.
You are the boy I used to be.

Dear Alyssa,
I'm sorry.

Sincerely yours

P.S. I should've loved you more.

Today I bought a square plate
it's not for me, but for an enemy
that I could do worse things to, if I was a less noble person
as the things they've done I will not speak.

The plate is porcelain and quite finely made
elegant and excellently finished for how not so pricey it was
hints of history seems to hide in it's shell--
as seams are weaved into
what has probably lived a long and unused existence
this handcrafted masterpiece.

Separately painted by some fancy artist
to whom I do not recognize the name of,
although it is said he may have done something wrought with his ear
or did this man's uncle make this plate, oh well, I am unsure.

It is these very details to why,
I am now in possession of this piece of the past
that will be priceless to those who know more craftsmanship,
at least more knowledgeable than the man who sold it to me.

From the gleaming in your eyes
I can tell this plate may even mean a great deal to you
is this true my good friend?
oh well, I guess I can give the plate to you
instead of the devil I spoke of before.

*As I handed my prize to them
it began to feel heavier than any ordinary plate should,
gravity granted the greatest reprise I've ever sought
as the demon's face whelmed with depression
and mine satisfaction--
for being such a convincing storyteller.

At first her mind may seem to be a clutter of astronomical objects
with planets sprawling all over,
nebulae birthing everywhere,
stars tossed in random directions.

But in truth, it is not.
Staring into her eyes is like drowning in the vast galaxies,
suffocating due to the lack of air,
but doing so voluntarily.
Her mind is a beautiful collection of constellations falling into place,
with perfect planetary alignments,
completed with the most beautiful nebula that God handcrafted himself.

You see, she is just that fascinating,
you just need to look a bit closer.

In Kogelo,
The Sun burns closer to Earth
Challenging native melanin
And the will of villagers
And Zebu herds
To persist...

At dusk,
Obsidian clouds descend
And kerosene lamps flicker
Through open windows
Of handcrafted homes...

There,
The father of a famous senator
Was born...

Transforming her trajectory
From the annals of obscurity
To the front pages of Times...

Soon,
Power lines upstaged the flickering lamp
And street signs were changed
Extolling her new-found fame
As history was made across the Atlantic...

In Kogelo,
Hope thrives in the eyes
Of every student
At Senator Obama Secondary School...

Sourced with native pride
From a White house
On the other side
Of the world.

~ P
(‪#‎Kogelo)
3/11/2014

Little Florence, nightingale,
Spread your wings and let me see
How you float above the sea
On your handcrafted, flight-sustaining
Self-containing
Instruments
Of self-inflicted repression.
Let me see you fly above,
Wounding all you think you love
With self-obsessed dependency
The need to be
Protector with your poisoned shield
Of selfish "good intentions."
Little Florence, little bird,
Though you think my words absurd,
Spread your wings and show to me
All you wished and hoped I'd be
When you shattered both my legs

Hey, hey, gather around,
ashes went cold and the wind blows!

Of toads and kisses, green peas and geese
i bring you no news, but of the fair lady
hidden in closure, cinderella her given name!

We all know how dazzling
in the ball she showed;
his hand in her waist,
oh, they could have danced
all night and a life!

Here is the true story yet untold:
the charming prince, you see,
left with a single shoe,
soon found another fit

for standardised shoes
- just that size! -
walked by in all feet.

And so the blond cinderella
turned grey and his gown
lost the diamond gloss;

her heart was handcrafted
- oh, but not easier than a shoe
to be shown as the true one!

The prince grew into a king,
his wife  launched a fashion
shoe line (CEO the godmother!),

cinderella kept being... cinderella,
in all lights and nights; maybe
you've seen her, wandering in wonder...

Tiny feathers.
Of black, white,
and softest brown.
Tiny wings fluttering.
With quiet sound.
Loud voice.
Of sweetest song.
Which can be heard.
From miles around.
"Swee, swee,"
calls the chickadee.
Handcrafted by God above,
the little chickadee
is a tiny miracle.
Of His love.

Honey I hope you haven't forgotten that you are a diamond handcrafted with the utmost precision and care; there is no flaw in you. Your beauty is so pure and so natural and cannot be easily replicated. That being said, you are not for everyone. Not everyone will be able to admire the way your messy hair cascades down your back in little half curls or the flecks of sunlight hidden within your eyes. Not everyone will be able to appreciate the way your pants hug your hips or the way your toothy grin and infectious laughter brighten up the entire room. Not everyone will be able to cherish you like the diamond you are, but that's okay, because you my dear, were not made for just anyone. You are destined for adoration, and until then, love yourself. Sweetheart, I hope you haven't forgotten how.

It was the summer of 2005. I remember being 16 and packing my suitcase with my sister. We were getting ready to leave for San Diego the next morning. That's where the cruise ship departed from by the way. We were going to visit the warm beaches of Mexico, and walk along the golden sands.
Families selling handcrafted goods neatly stretched on the stands of Mazatlan.
Then there was the forest. Everything in the rain forest comes alive before you and the air was wet like one of those Korean spas you never want to leave. The other travelers we'd meet on the boat were like us, and we were like children experiencing the magic of Disneyland for the very first time.

Borrowed Time

I wouldn’t say I am one for sitting on bar stools
in empty ***** bars studying time, but here I am/
all alone/ staring out a stainless glass window
watching life happen and wondering about
the sublime.

So many heartbeats out there strive for greatness;
so many dreams colliding while searching
for possibilities hidden inside shells of moral
capabilities.  Some lead with eyes wide open/blind
to the finely crafted ******* of rhetorical motivation
and some are the followers who waggle
just slightly behind inspired by historical innovations
and there are some, who drink alone/like me,
who search for truth in a half empty glass
of optimism slightly buzzed.

It’s funny how when you are drinking everything
makes a little more since.
Sometimes you need the alone time
to hear what your thoughts are saying.   Sometimes
you need to be away from everything out there
to understand the true ideals of individualism
because we are fascinated by difference
even when we think we are afraid
of not fitting in.  We seek shelter in handcrafted
cliques just to delay the inevitable of standing
on our own.  

We all embrace that maybe tomorrow entitlement
of procrastination, that daily hesitation that makes
everything around us happen….eventually
and maybe I’ve just had too much to drink/swirling
around ice in a empty glass once filtered by Tanguary
and a twist of tonic while still studying the sobriety
of a drunken society of hopeful prosperity.
Life makes a nice drink
because it is a bunch of nonsense we intake
until we’re intoxicated in the mind and stumbling
just to stay on our feet/stuck in time; a time that ticks
slowly when we’re in pain
and fast when we’re entertained
but at times, like now, it does pause
reminding us that we are on borrowed time
sipping on life with imitations of the sublime.

© 2012
Tarringo T. Vaughan
http://www.tarringovaughan.net

Don't ever tell me that
I need a man to ground me,
To stable me, to protect me,
To reign me in;
A man to be the bit in my mouth,
The collar at my throat,
The bars of a cage
Like I'm some wild animal.
If I did need a man,
I don't need to feel
The weight of his control
Crushing down on my ribs,
The incessant ticking of his
Calculator mind
Playing overhead like muzak.

For the love of all good,
Do not suffer me
The cautionary tales told from a lover's lips.
They slither down my throat
With their false slimy sweetness,
"I tell you this for your own good,
Baby, I promise, I love you."
But their faces twist with the words
And their hands clench,
And you know they're really just
Waiting for you to shut the hell up,
You're making a scene.

You can't pair a poet
With a grounded man,
The same way you can't pair
A lily with a flytrap,
A rhinoceros with a lapdog.
I was not meant for the life
Of a housekeeper,
Bound hands and feet
To the homestead,
My sole purpose in life
To cook and clean,
To serve and produce
Squealing piglets succeeding
In his pigheaded line.
I need more than that, so
Don't try to force feed me my "man,"
Mr. Sensibility, Mr. Every Woman's Dream,
Mr. Right,
I don't want him.

Give me a man who writes,
Ballads and sonnets and epics
With words handcrafted
By decadent Grecian gods,
Who spends his nights bent
Over an antiquated typewriter,
Rushing to get the mid-dream thought
Down on paper.
A man who paints his soul,
Turns a blank canvas
Into an emotion,
Raw and real and ravaging,
Who will wait patiently
While his model fidgets
Just so he can get
The ***** of her neck just right.
A man who plays music
Sweet and soft and slow
Serenading me to sleep
When the night is cold,
Who hears songs in
The rustle of rabbit's feet
And the whisper of slumbering breath.

I don't want a man to hold me down,
To show me how to act.
I want a man to create with,
To fight with and play with,
A man who loves with encouragement,
And not reprimand.
I am not a mistake to be corrected,
And I don't need a man
That will convince me otherwise.

not a morning person
she’s content to hide in leafy shadows
wildly overgrown purple and green vines
surround and ensnare her
beneath a canopy of pink antique tea roses

she stands inside a maple platform
designed and handcrafted with care
three asymmetrically positioned 2 by 4 risers raise her
about a foot off the ground
two golden plaster cherubs hover above her on either side
fine grayish wood grain, like carpenter’s fingerprints
peek out through faded cerulean backboards
a painted backdrop made translucent by exposure
fresh cut miniature roses in miniature vases
brighten the stage like foot lights
behind the platform, at the back of the cave
clumps of ferns intermittently reveal
mud swirls splashed on a mint colored wall
up front, a row of marigolds and strawberry plants
embank a retaining wall border
of cabana-like sculpted brick
glistening white quartz stream before her
like a river of rocks at her feet
completing the grotto

she comes alive as the afternoon sun
brings out the color in her cheeks
she steps out from the shadows
and stretches her arms out close by her sides
palms facing outward
fingers pointing down
as if something were emanating from her hands
while she blesses us with peaceful contemplation

I miss you, I want to see you. But not because it’s “couple season” – not because it’s cold and gloomy and city lights explode with hands conjoined. You are worth more than the missed holidays, more than the occasions spent without us being in the company of one another: Hallowe'en, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, probably your birthday, too, as well as Valentine’s, and our anniversary.

On these specially marked days, I feel a certain emptiness as you, my beloved other half, is not present with me, yet that which is not emptiness, for you still fill my heart plenty. In these times, I feel envy as lovers are so obviously visible everywhere, yet that which is not envy, for they are not you. I may suffer from your absence but I don’t suffer from jealousy. See, I love you, this one man who cannot compare to the likes of any other, this one man who strangely loves me back, this one man who’s mine and to whom I’m his.

You are so very special to me and you mean a lot to me. I love you, I lurve you, I lava you, ILY (code), I <3 U (symbols), je t'aime, saranghae (Korean) – I want to say it a gazillion times and it wouldn’t be enough, and yet I don’t want to say it because it’s only an ensemble of words, an expression that is just too common, overused, cliché and weak, whose (level of) meaning doesn’t remain constant. Perhaps I could keep coining new ones, but then again I don’t want to be simply, mindlessly uttering or writing them like so, as if out of habit.

I want this so-called “love” to be conveyed in such a way that – a tap on the shoulder, a  homemade dinner and handcrafted gifts, a random drive, a silent gaze, a goodbye hug and a goodnight kiss, my sleep-mumbling in your ear and your snoring on my nape, and the sharing of clothes – would melt our heart and let us fall a little deeper, therein meaning exponentially more than a mere, verbal, three-worded clause, “I love you.” That’s the kind of love I want us to be… partaking in.

Today, eight months later, (although I am still thirteen hours ahead, still 8,070 miles East, and still not in your arms…) at the last stroke of the small hand, we both wave and bid farewell to 2015 and welcome and gaze at 2016.

I’m thankful that love found us, I’m glad that we followed, and I’m happy that our relationship remains in the present.

May the new year be full of goodness!

My heart beats fast, in a cryptic time scale,
Shiva's hand drum that  accompanies her speech,
she is a poet of handcrafted words, rough cut diamonds,
she alludes, suggests, gives vague hints, eludes from traps
oh! how so so exquisite, her veiled references!

She makes my soft center melt, it's now a chocolate fudge-
the color of blood, would she take it? I yearn so deep,
the art of concealment, attains a new life with her,
I am baffled, yet mighty pleased, the kids delighted,
She behaves the way nature does, in an intuitive flash-

I reach out to grab the key to the core of this union;
she is nature;  quickly her cloudy sky clears,
with the peep of sunshine, she is pleased, then
in the afternoon, I see a sprinkling rain, magical!
with eyes filled with curious light, I watch her,

Now I understand her, learn to love her deep,
her gentle changing moods that walk with the moon,
not for nothing, I liken my only love to a dreamer,
not a poet, but rhapsody in her nature, pure rapture.

Despite what they scream at you
and blast through media
It is no crime to love yourself
There's no shame in admiring
each freckle, each inch of your body
You're handcrafted
Special made
One of a kind
Give your mind the peace it deserves
The care your body needs
You're beautiful beyond measures
In ways no scale could measure
Please, not for me, for you
**** the world and love yourself

I will one day become a grandmother in a wooden rocking chair,
hair dusted over by the willowy waltz of passing time. A cataract memory,
mind sheltered by the wedding veils of unblemished maidens
long after the receptions have ended.


My granddaughter will see right through my fossilized transparency
and she will smile, for she will only see my frosted forgetfulness,
eternities buried within my scattered steps
as I remember how to walk each morning.


She will never understand--
not until my fragile bones find home within dampened earth,
that her grandmother was a poet.
That I, of countless melted birthday candles and weary stumbling,
was once seventeen with poetry embedded in my irises,
pounding to the cadence of my pulse.


Once, I was a poet.
I ran barefoot in the neighborhood streets,
aching soles on summer concrete, finding solace
in between the sidewalk cracks of smaller worlds.
Once, I was a poet,
and I found comfortable silence within the rhythmic thumping of typewriter keys
past unspeakable hours, graceful ink spilling symphonies onto paper,
every rejection letter promised potential,
every love an image to be painted with the soft brush of syllables.


She will notice my hands tremble.
Here, grandma, let me help you, she’ll say.
Celestial, it was, the pitiful gaze of the naive.
I let her pour my coffee, observing slim hands move with ease,
peaceful, calm, the apricot sunsets I used to chase
at seventeen, forever engraved on the backs of my heavy eyelids.


Once,  I was a poet,
and I wrote of my lover like someone handcrafted
by the calloused hands of an existing God,
how easily the blazing fires of youth melted
into promises creased inside sealed envelopes.


I do not recognize her anymore,
the reflection who pours my coffee today.
She has my lover’s eyes, his unforgettable opals of poetry
that are nothing but faded recollections
of the muse I used to be.


*My darling,
I still see you. You are still here.

Like thread in the tapestry,
So delicately woven,
With intricate detail,
Vibrant design, and such precise pattern,
We were once alive and full of life.

Our creation became a masterpiece.
A unique piece, significant to the rest,
Handcrafted with genuine love;
We devoted time,
With pure emotion
We didn't care for slight imperfection.

Our foundation has now become worn out,
As if our colours have been faded by the rays of the sun.
Little rivets show signs of wear and tear.
No longer an original,
It seems more like a hand me down.
One that has just been collecting dust,
Or has been settling inside the wooden chest,
Stored away in time.

If you wish to bid farewell of this work of art,
Please lay it down with gentle ease
There's no need for it to be a burden any longer.

One man's trash,
Just still may be another's treasure.

You are a drug
handcrafted by the Devil.
Addiction came after
a single touch,
always craving “just one more.”
Everything used to feel like a dream,
but I don’t think
I’m dreaming anymore.
Traces of you still flow
through my veins.
I don’t want to be addicted anymore.

By Nabs

In an apartment located between never and always.

101.
A boy, barely seventeen, is baking a cake for his mother anniversary.

Humming the song of long forgotten memories with his little sister as she help stirring the batter.
Throwing a pinch of salt, a drop of vanilla essence, and affection for his family.
His mother had gone to sleep for almost ten years now.

The cakes will taste absolutely delicious, though a bit burnt on the side.

Nothing frosting can't cover.

102.
Silence blanket the room, unnerving the guest.

Fidgeting gestures and nervous glances will be exchanged like baked goods.
The Old lady, who occupies this room, smiles a beatific smile that isn't hindered by wrinkles.
The guests will leave one by one, a little girl with big doe eyes stayed behind.

"Thank you for protecting me", the girl whispered as she watched her grandma fades away. The smell of sakura tree and cardamom wafts through the air.

106.
A man in his thirties is dreaming about sleeping for the millionth time.

The rooms is messy, with clothes scattered around and the occasional remorse carved to the wall.
He rolls up his bloodied sleeve and take out his gun, he goes to the window and jumps.

He is glad that this is his last job for the day.

107.
This room doesn't have an occupant, yet.

But the walls are loving and finger paints decorate the room.
Furnitures are assembled in a way that feels homely and was carefully handcrafted by the the native american.
The smell of baked cookies is saturated in the walls.
Children laughters can still be heard echoing between the walls.

The last occupant didn't **** the children after they've kissed them good night.

203.
A young hispanic teen is running on a hand made treadmill, with a speed of 0.5 km/hour.

Sweats drenched her tank top, her skin glisten.
She keeps running and running and running, even though her breathing is labored.
An dusty wheelchair lays in the corner of the room.

She still cant stop being in awe that she could feel the ache in her legs now.

It's a good ache.

205.
This tenant used to have a halo of golden hair.

But now a tuft of midnight blue, so dark that you could mistaken that the glitters stuck in his hair as little stars, greets anyone who would be his guest.
He lays in bed with the girl from 204.
He's rubbing circles on her hand, feeling the steady pulse of her beating heart.

He can hear his heart breaking into pieces, but as he look at the razors blades on the nightstand, he cradles her head and kisses her eyelids.

She doesn't stir, but her chest rise and fall like wave lapping the shore.

210.
An african-american single mother with three children, twins and one babe, is watering the little herb haven they have on the window sill.

The basil and tomato looks ready to be picked, she thinks that making a hearty tomato-basil soup with a dash of fondness will do good to cheer up her little runts.
The twins will agree readily, because they haven't eaten anything for two days. The babe just gurgles bubble.
As they eat their soup and said their daily prayers, the mother phone chimed. She have just received $500 for the job she did.

She's too glad to feel regret that she was treate as less human and more of an item.

301.
A woman was on her phone, talking about quantum physics to her partner.

She is elaborating The Chaos theory, when a knock resounded at the door.
Her partner awaits her out side with a bouquet of Einstein heads and a simple silver band ring.

The woman knows that they're nor legal to marry here yet, but she appreciate the sentiment.

302 & 303.
A family of four filled this room, sitting on a carpet reading Qur'an.

The mother who is kind, slowly teach her youngest how to not fumble with the arabics
The oldest, who is not the first oldest, will continue to devour the holy book, hungry to know more about their religion that people dubbed wrong in this land of so called freedom.
It's been 14 years since the 9/11 tragedy.

The father is just glad that he could still feed 4/5 of his family.

307.
A blind man in his forties lives here.

He is sitting on his living room towards the windows.
Tracing the braille book with his hands, the ghost of color tried to haunt him.
No one could be haunted by something they don't remember.
The tenant across the street committed suicide.

Sometimes he feels grateful he can't see a thing when he heard cacophony of screams and denial.

The world too dramatic for his taste anyway.

310.
This room was empty.

It last occupant, which was nine years ago, was a young boy who stood all alone in this room, except for the bundle he cradled in his hand.
He was cooing at his little sister, promising to bake her cakes for her birthday.
Ignoring the way his chest tighten the longer he stayed in the room.
His mother didn't come home from the hospital yesterday.

He cradled the baby closer like it was his last precious thing.

His little sister turns out to be more than a thing, she turns out into a wonderful person and he is thankful for it.

She moves like she's one of the amorphous personalities painted somewhere
Along the angled framework of her body pattern:
Handcrafted with the vivacious energy inherent
In my far-seeing dreams the vision of a long-ago queen of the holiest swamps
Traversing them coldly, shining her starlight to dispel all my awful ugly nightmares.
Riding sidesaddle with the billows of morning
Hair wisped about by the wind and blowing watercolor across
The beautiful blooming valleys of her crescent-shaded eye frame.

And weaving out from the delicate anthers of slyly tangled lashes
Comes the glittering deep ribbons loosely noosed about me with suction,
And it turns out that I can survive for ever without food or water
From only one such glance.
Lost in that glassy prism container like an obedient insect, forced
To love himself because all his misfortunes are waved away and explained
By the invisible guiding lines raised in joy at each corner of her faintly blushing lip-land.

Well, Breath-Stealer, even if we can only meet softly now -
A vanishing semblance caught by cold air on our exhales perhaps - soon,
Our individual apparitions will flesh themselves out of the nowhere of time coincidences
And out thankful togetherness can coagulate like feather cracks in crystal:
Two human forms finally able to ignore the vase between them
Sooner than the closest oceans that wave to us,
And surer than sunrise.