I wonder how I got here, secluded in a grimy apartment filled with smoke. We drink gin and tonics with mint like it’s the ‘20s; we sit and talk pop culture because we know. Taj has somehow become the effective authority on all of these things, paid to social network and connected to Hollywood; he’s very skilled at playing to people’s wants. My Cadillac sits intent next to me markering in a recent drawing for his newest class. He’s already famous for his graffiti, one day I’ll bet you this extra credit project will be worth money. He drew me a fox for Christmas. Valentines day is coming up. He never tells me he loves me. Jack is watching me watch him out of the corner of his eye while putting on a new remix of an old song. He leans over and asks if I like it and I nod. I feel bubbled up with *** smoke, frozen in time and vaguely uncomfortable. I’d guess this is what it’s like to be “too high.” I want Caddy to notice, but it’s Jack that’s pushing my hair back and telling me to drink more water. It’s sweet. Despite his need to be seen as a womanizer, Jack respects Caddy too much to even try with me, he looks but he doesn’t put on any faces for me. Everyone thinks so hard about how they’re seen.
Jack says his New Year’s resolution is to do less *******, even though no one asked. Everyone hears but no one reacts. I try to keep moving my toes and stop shivering. Across from me Ky and Nate are reading the encyclopedia in open-mouthed awe. In a room full of intellectual up and comers I feel like Hemmingway did when he was my age, how all the minds gravitate to each other and sit in a ***** room by the beach and let the creativity go. Like Mary Shelly and the whole gang writing Frankenstein and Dracula in the same trip.  After a while I think Taj is going to make it, Jack will be a politician and Caddy will be lost and with another woman. Ky and Nate will still be smoking and reading the encyclopedia, all the way down to ‘z’. I am like my mother: attracting the company of smart successful men who pay her selective attention.
The door burst open and the cold air stayed in my pores after it was closed. Rodger invited himself over. It would have been all right but when Rodger is wasted he forgets his manners. In his animated state he managed to kick over Caddy’s favorite smoking piece, insult Jack and look at me a little too hard. His girlfriend had immediately passed out on the couch, but she never smiled or spoke to me anyway. Her head was cradled in the lap of a girl I hadn’t noticed. Her hair was perfect and her eyes shadowed, the liner and mascara smudging its way slowly onto her high cheekbones. She stared at me but didn’t speak. I tried to smile, but didn’t want to give away the champagne sensation covering my skin, still too up to speak. She had already formed her opinion of me, some young ******* the arm of an older boy. She was once in my position, I’m sure of it, we are the same kind of beautiful and empty eyed. That doesn’t stop her from judging, in the total of 15 seconds she looked at me. Her self is tamed and mine is wild still. Unintroduced and unnoticed by the men in the room, we have an understanding and a mutual dislike of each other, only to defend ourselves.
The room takes time to settle, a bowl has been packed for an entitled Rodger, and now that everyone is calm, Cad sits back down and puts his arm around me again. I lean into him, protected and anchored, whereas I had been floating or about to puke a minute ago. I don’t know what I said but Caddy seemed annoyed when he said “Just let it happen, embrace the feeling,” and so I kept quiet for ten minutes or so. The high was infected with guilt. Next time he looked at me-- it could have been an hour—I whispered, “I can’t” and finally he heard me, and stood up.
Cad came back into my vision with a glass of water and turned on Drive, prompting Rodger, Mrs. Rodger and my pretty enemy to leave. Ky and Nate had gone long before I could focus on noticing. Taj left for trivia night down at the bar and no doubt some girl; wrapped up in a cashmere scarf and cardigan he kissed my cheek before he went. Jack also took his graceful leave with the Rodger group to woo some girl who knew exactly what she was doing to herself. He did have a straight nosed charm, Jack. I could not blame this girl, one of many (I am embarrassed for her; I have been like this ******* many occasions).  
Taj had been sent the advanced copy of Drive in blu-ray, so we snuck it from his room and watched it that way (the only way Taj would see movies now, it is the future (for now)). Kavinsky came through Cad’s new speakers the boys had spent half an hour trying to wire earlier in the night. “They’re taking about you boy/but you’re still the same” crooned Lovefoxxx as Ryan Gosling cruised down a street, ****** intense in driving gloves. Gears shifting and motors growling are very ****, I tell Cadillac so into his ear, as he pulls me into his arms and covers me up with a blanket.
The movie was perfect, maybe because it made me feel less dizzy and sickguilty (Cad knew it would) and maybe because Ryan Gosling can wear a white satin jacket. I loved it, hardly noticing when the absent roommate Travis strolled in with Taj and tacos somewhere around 2am.  Colder as Caddy got up for a burrito, left me alone on the couch for the kitchen table. Registering Taj taking his place, playing with my curls and talking Hollywood to me. I’m staring over at Cad in his chair, he makes eye contact once or twice and I blow him a kiss before Taj repositions my head toward the television and my ear back where he can speak into it.
Eventually Cadillac taps Taj on the shoulder and motions for him to get up. With Cad back I can relax and I fall into sleep just as the movie ends. Taj and Trav have gone to their own beds and Cad leans over me, picks me up and takes me to bed knocking my elbow on the doorframe along the way. He apologizes and kisses my head but I am too tired to care. He lays me down on the bed with crimson sheets and takes off my boots but then sternly says, “Mimi, you are not a child.” and so I must get up and undress myself. He wraps me in a duvet missing its cover and his arms. I trust him long enough to fall asleep.

-

Standing in front of the stove it was hot, but I am easily overheated. He came up behind me and said in my ear, “you’re lovely” watching me put the last piece of French toast on the large stack, getting ready to scramble eggs. He kissed my cheek. Then my neck and then my lips, taking me away from my cooking to be pulled against him, for a sweet short minute and went back to the living room with his friends. Jack had mysteriously reappeared in the night; he said he locked himself out of his apartment after leaving to see one of his girls. Taj just sat and blasted Radiohead over the new speakers, shouting something relevant at me. I scramble the eggs and make up plates, two pieces of toast each and a nice healthy pile of eggs. It is gone very quickly and no one says thank you, except for a smile from Caddy and a kiss on the forehead. It’s usually enough for me, knowing he likes to show me off to his friends. I sit down with my cup of coffee and plate, within a few minutes Cad suggests he takes me home. I resentfully take time to finish my coffee. But we are both busy and he is right, so I say goodbye to the boys and gather my things. We drive with the “best MC on the game these days” (so I am told) over the weak speakers of the car. Cad drives with his arm around me always. Cruising into my building’s parking lot I lean over for a kiss on my forehead, nose, lips. He says go, but his hand still sits on my shoulder so I stay for a little longer. “You’ll probably have to let go of me if it’s time for me to go Cad,” I say quietly, with a tentative smile on my face. He grins back and lifts his arm. I slide out of the suicide seat and smile at him, but he’s looking at the radio dials. Then my face. His eyes give him away, softened around the edges with affection. Maybe love, but he’d never say it and I refuse to say it until he does. I try not to think about it much as he drives away to smoke up again with his friends. I wonder if this is how it will always be, but then I realize our kind of “always” is only the next few months. I turned unsteadily and walked up the stairs to my empty room—dark and overheated smelling heavily of sugar and spice candles-- with the geese outside my window for company. I haven’t slept here for days.

for you, we bundle into the car,
the littlest
(half my brother and twice my nuisance)
and the middlest
(14 going on favorite)
the bitterest
(only girl and pen-in-hand)
and the biggestest
(20 years
of bombastic nonsense)

30 minutes and four cornfields later
he'll start.
"i have to ***."
"there's a bottle up there, dad."
"dad, i have to ***."
"dad."
"dad."
"dad."
and he's going to *** in that ******* bottle
which will inevitably stay in the car for the remaining 8 and a half hours,
sloshing and yellow
too dangerously close to the color of something
you would actually drink.

the two youngest
will get into some sort of argument
some sort of argument that i will intervene in.
"shut up!" he'll say.
"chill out!" i'll shout.
"you chill out!"
and my father and my stepmother
will eye from the front seat
until one of them turns around
("relax, madeline!" sharply).

and then the oldest
like clockwork
will act like he knows more than he does about something
(my father will just chuckle, but i'll begin, "bullsh-" i'll begin, but my stepmother will hiss,
"madeline!" as if i've killed somebody
even though the 8-year-old curses even worse than i do).
he'll make a face at me
and i'll make a face at him.
the littlest will
inevitably
stomp on my seatbelt about 30 times a second
which i will not be able to stand,
and we'll get into an argument which will turn into me
versus
the whole car
(afterwards, much stewing,
and resentfully cranking my ipod up as loud as it will go).

9 hours and 12 thousand cliff-faces later

we'll get there.
we'll make it.
we'll only be
a little worse for the wear.
we will be swept up by our twelve billion aunts
our nine billion uncles
and our three billion cousins,
like we always are.

someday something will be missing.

first it was your back,
and the postponement,
and eventual cancellation of our trip.
then it was your surgeries
(why weren't they working?)
and then it was a series of words i don't understand

stage

                                                               ­                                           inoperable
           ­                                 3                               ­             

                                                               ­          cancerous                                                      ma­ss
lung
                            malignant
                                                                ­                                              radiation
                                    
            therapy        ­                                                                 ­                                                 chemo

you may crumple in
on that blackness inside you,
that's eating you alive
one lung at a time,
pushing,
on your back,
until you can't even stand.
the fabric of our family
is plucked by this
disease.
this is my poem, my plea
for you
and for us,
that you not pull into the blackness,
and that you fight the tumors and the tests
and that you win.

What’s in a name?
It is what turns heads
It can cause a quiver in your body
Or a smile to curl onto your lips.
A name can be tarnished
Or reborn.
It can make you stand out from the crowd
Or join the masses.
It is more than what society deems
A socially acceptable form of
Introduction.

So let me introduce myself:
I used to feel my name in harsh syllables
Rooted in the language of my people’s history.
MAR or MIR meant bitter.
Like having the wrong taste in your mouth
Reminding me of MARor –
Eaten on Passover to remember how burdensome,
Difficult and bitter the Jews’ slavery in Egypt was.
IAM (YAM) – ocean.
Tumultuous, never still.
Always swirling and scaring children out of it.
MIRIAM – my Hebrew name.
Bitter sea.
I grew into that name resentfully.
I reacted when I was called that by fellow classmates,
For what else could I do?

But time went by
And I began collecting seashells by the seashore.
The ocean became a treasure and my name
Had a new ring to it.
Yet when eighth grade graduation came around I was given the option
Of writing Mariya instead of Miriam.
I was going to high school where I didn’t know anyone.
So no one needed to know my bitter past.
I also learned that a name was not made up of syllables
But of sweet sounds.
Mmm – like the taste of something so delicious your eyes close
And you feel yourself melting.
Aaa – you’ve just finished your meal and on this hot summer day
You find solace in the cool water running down your back in the shower.
Rrr – racing, running, reaching for the sky.
That’s the sound I want my plane to make when I can hold a piece of
Cloud in the palm of my hand and feel its silver lining.
Iii – the sound of “and” in many languages. The sound of something more,
Reminding me that this is not the end.
Ya – the sound of agreement and conclusion. As if that is all I have to say…so yeah.

This will be the best poem
I will ever write.

Who's to say if it will be my last, but one thing it is not is a first attempt at finding the right words to convey to you.

And finding the right words
has never been a challenge for me,
but ******* if you aren't giving me a run for my money presently, insufferable me with bleeding
tongue resentfully.

I say that word with an intrepid disposition, because I do not resent the person, but the action: The act of unwarranted silence.

I'd like to think you have a limpid conscience of the beautiful woman you are, at peace with yourself, when at the present time you are consumed with future maybes and counting seconds. So maybe adding myself to your equation was selfish, and brought complications when thinking about anything linear, considering all of the variables.

There was only intention to
rhapsodize the zealot I met on a mutual wavelength, a double helix we all share that some of us forget about, yet here is the reversion, the Neanderthal, the ******* who grew a beard to expose himself, looking at this whole experience all wrong.

Instead, there is Royal Purple Prose to look as extravagant as you are stunning.

Now all that's left is cognitive dissonance to later become
addictive retribution.

I love you to the moon and back, yet on earth, I hate you back and forth.

I am happy with a suppressed sense of agony. So ecstatically vibrant, yet miserably tormented.

I live day to day, walking and “maturing”, yet move no further than beyond the grave of a past, long dead and gone.

I’m awake, don’t you see?

When I wake, I open my eyes in a helpless sleep. Outside my tiny being, I see nothing but me.

I call myself a mother, or a father, but never gave birth to a daughter.

We call ourselves a “family”, but exist so disconnected — wavering and dislodged, apart and separated. Smiling resentfully, painfully, excruciatingly.

All for the cameras of course.

I am respectful — to be respected! I shower in lies, and cover you too, so I need not see any offensive residue.

I am a strong person, cowering and contracted to the slightest sight of error.

No vulnerability.

I’m brave, don’t you see? A plastic rock, standing impervious to the sea.

I love you, I love you, I love you. But I don’t see you, nor hear you, don’t know you.

I understand you, of course, “I understand everything!!!!” But I don’t see you, nor hear you, don’t know you.

I know you, I know you, I know you. Yet I don’t see you, nor hear you, don’t know you.

You’re crazy, poor child! Why can’t you lie like we do!?

Why can’t you NOT feel like we do!?

Why can’t you NOT see as we do!?

Why can’t you just “forgive” and “accept”? Take it all, all our objects in their entirety and forget the emptiness of your soul. Sacrifice yourself, for you need not forget, we gave it ALL.

Don’t you know yet? This world is OURS to own. A “truth” to be known.

Your perception; a mere fallacy to be shown.

Don’t you know yet?

Everyone agrees.

We stand before an army of validation, against your small speck of reality.

All memory, all harmony, all said and done -- buried beneath.

We are the bringers of truth, the proclaimers of wisdom and sound guidance. And you, our poor child, just a little voice to be silenced.

A lost soul, drifting outside the “right” path.

Reach for our direction.

You’ll travel upon a dusty, well-trodden track, and with feet now imprinted with scars. Rest assured though, for we travelled there too; feet too ***** to bear and too numb to care.

Take our confident hands, our dearest child. We’ll lead you through a clear path with tainted feet.

You’ll fall and we’ll rise in disbelief.

You’ll scream and it’ll only echo our fears.

I need to be enriched on a Tuesday afternoon
I may begin to lose my grip if it doesn’t happen soon
The drama club was my first choice, little actresses and actors
But clearly I was overlooking certain other factors
They all think they’re DeNiro, Kiera Knightly, Judy Dench
But they’re so bad that all they do is make my buttocks clench
They constantly repeat themselves digging ever deeper
It’s a shame they have the acting talent of a railway sleeper
There is so much over acting, extra cheese with all the ham
But they like all the attention so no one gives a ****
The play’s a melodrama, a very moving tome
But I’m only moved to tears because I’m desperate to go home
I just have to tolerate it for a few more painful weeks
Despite the fact it grates on me each time one of them speaks
A soon as they perform I’ll be free of these woodentops
I’m actually counting down the minutes til this torture stops
I am so bored of hearing about Maria Marten dying
At least when she takes her last breath, I can finally stop the lying
Yes you heard me, all this time; I’ve lied just like a pro
I’ve told each and every child in here they’re vital to the show
I’ve told them their performances will make their parents proud
Despite knowing that their only talent is in being loud
There’s no way I could tell the truth, I won’t crush all their dreams
I know they’ll all learn soon enough that life isn’t what it seems
What sort of teacher would I be to tell them that they’re crap
To say their acting talent won’t ever put them on the map
To tell them that they have more chance of flying to the moon
Than of picking up a golden Oscar statue sometime soon
So I shall grit my teeth and paste the smile back on my face
And pretend that I’m in rapture at their lack of skill and grace
I shall say congratulations every night that they perform
And I’ll stand and clap for each of them until my hands are warm
I’ll do this all but don’t be fooled I really won’t enjoy it
I’ll be seething all resentfully as through each show I sit
I will forbear for two more weeks, just fourteen days of pain
And then I’m never coming near this drama club again
Next time I’ll pick more wisely, think more clearly before choosing
Or I suspect it’s more than sanity that I’ll be loosing
My grip on that is tenuous to say the very least
And working with these divas has woken up my inner beast
I think I’ll try a nice relaxing book or homework club
Or perhaps I’ll save us all the stress and just go down the pub
Yes… that’s what I’ll do

On
Days
Like this
When the deep blue skies
Shed their clouds
And made love to the horizons
Shall
We lay
On bedrocks
And lash our feet
Into plunge pools
And
Watch
Vuluptuous waterfalls
Walk elegantly down rocky staircases
And
Make
Mockery
Of the blue pants
The waters wore

There
The thunders
Will leer through the skies
And try to catch a glimpse
Of our foul acts
And
Even become
A parodist of her cuddly winks
And
There again
Become a beggary
Of my artistry,when I wove her eyebrows
With flowers

Moments
Like this,the rainbows stun with brilliance
And the umbra and penumbra
Will glare resentfully
Then
She will
Treasure me
All her secrets,dreams and fears
On the ***** of my tongue
I
Remember clearly
Like the romance played
By the moons at mars
When she said"without you,its hard to survive"and blush
And
I had tell her
All the tales of love from Adam

Yet
How sad!
When time gulp
Beautiful memories in haste
Like a drunkard
I had died six times
Till she came and breath life
Into me one more time

Yet
Today,I wobbled solo
To these environs like a jittered cheetath
Truly,I had been cheater

O,
How I wish
I can wash her off me
Her touches,her tastes and her smells
But someway I'm cowed
I might drown,and lose all hopes
Of beholding her sight one more time

I
Have no peace
And all prayers
For solace suspend
Beneath impervious clouds

Now and then
Will I starve silly
At motile moons and stars
With a little hope of her sight one more time
I'm caged in her absence,yet I lay in no cage
Am wholly buried yet I lay in no pit

Cheats

©Historian E.Lexano

On
Days
Like this
When the deep blue skies
Shed their clouds
And made love to the horizons
Shall
We lay
On bedrocks
And lash our feet
Into plunge pools
And
Watch
Vuluptuous waterfalls
Walk elegantly down rocky staircases
And
Make
Mockery
Of the blue pants
The waters wore

There
The thunders
Will leer through the skies
And try to catch a glimpse
Of our foul acts
And
Even become
A parodist of her cuddly winks
And
There again
Become a beggary
Of my artistry,when I wove her eyebrows
With flowers

Moments
Like this,the rainbows stun with brilliance
And the umbra and penumbra
Will glare resentfully
Then
She will
Treasure me
All her secrets,dreams and fears
On the ***** of my tongue
I
Remember clearly
Like the romance played
By the moons at mars
When she said"without you,its hard to survive"and blush
And
I had tell her
All the tales of love from Adam

Yet
How sad!
When time gulp
Beautiful memories in haste
Like a drunkard
I had died six times
Till she came and breath life
Into me one more time
Yet
Today,I wobbled solo
To these environs like a jittered cheetath
Truly,I had cheated

O,
How I wish
I can wash her off me
Her touches,her tastes and her smells
But someway I'm cowed
I might drown,and lose all hopes
Of beholding her sight one more time

I
Have no peace
And all prayers
For solace suspend
Beneath impervious clouds

Now and then
Will I starve silly
At motile moons and stars
With a little hope of her sight one more time
I'm caged in her absence,yet I lay in no cage
Am wholly buried yet I lay in no pit

Cheats

©Historian E.Lexano

ladybum intimidates

wandering in the median

body bent,

hair coarsely pulled in crooked pony tail.

what happened to your face?

were you born that way?

with cupped hands, pleading-

stopping my car at the intersection,

driver’s side window-

my trying to be cold but guiltily relenting

people are watching and

what will they think?

your crazy eyes pierce me desperately

wild emotion and

something once described to me as crocodile tears-

Tensely clutching the steering wheel,

hastily scooping change and used fuses

to pour them into your hands

wishing you away-

some kinda spell of some halfhearted charity.

depart depart leave my pity intact

so that I don’t see myself

in the gaps of your missing teeth.

the guilt you spill

making my heart heavy

like a gull in petroleum.

I still see you from time to time

and resentfully I examine you,

ladybum-

bent body, missing chin and Baba Yaga legs.

thinking you some kind of witch,

avoiding you like

cracks in the sidewalk.

The girl
who loves too quickly
depends too stubbornly
waits too impatiently
follows too clumsily
falls too easily

The boy
who loves too affectionately
guards too protectively
listens too jealously
walks too zealously
talks too flirtatiously

Both hearts
that broke too bitterly
longed too strongly
left too resentfully
forgot too angrily
love still, unfortunately

Yearning for you
Makes me angry with myself.

So **** angry
That I literally weep with rage and horror,
Sometimes several times a day.

You are such a
Such a
Such a
Why do I want you, even now?

And I mean want want WANT you,
Desperately, angrily, resentfully,
Want you like the world wants saving,
The rain wants rivers,
Want you like a fallen angel
Wishes he could be with God, again.

She just lays there still with a crooked smile holding a bouquet of roses in her cold hands. The accentuated brightness in her cheeks is all I can notice over anything else. It's three in the afternoon and I can only imagine the sun to be hot on her skin as she lays there motionless. I now in this point of time stand in front of a crowd holding up a piece of paper that was previously compulsively folded to about as small as I could possibly get it. Honestly I never ever wanted to open it again.

Their eyes all fixated on me, drawing for an emotional response. I felt an overwhelming responsibility to say what the others could not but even then I found myself drifting into a daze of absolute apathy. My mind was far too withdrawn, I must confess. I sought refuge behind my own eyes. I felt the distance becoming me. I found myself taking in the scenery, I wanted to remember the day as it was and nothing more. My tendency to romanticize has left my eyes sore.

All I could think was everything seemed so green and it was far too bright given the circumstance at hand. The trees looked young with age and I thought it to be kind of ironic given where I'm at. Honestly I wanted so dreadfully bad for God to cry when I could not. I felt wrong for not shedding a single tear when she passed, but never did I question that I was the one who was shook the most.

So here I am utterly numb examining the stitches on a suit I've worn once prior. This suit once tied with wonderful memories of the sacred bond of my parents marriage, now tainted with a day that shall only be recalled as a day of departure. I asked why but thought it to be all too meaningless, a gesture almost but I thought what was the point of it all? no one could ever possibly tell me what this all could mean, they lacked the proper experience to do so.  Death shook the hearts of so many, what made me so special? My overwhelming feeling of self importance played sweet delusions in my head, suddenly I was alone among many, and lacked the ability to connect with anyone truly. From that point on I was acting.

I felt so very alone and saw it as a product of an unfair Gods doing. Nothing on this earth could have made my hands stop sweating in the heat of it all, almost as if they were crying when my eyes could not. The paper I was holding became smeared with sweat and what I wrote was barely even legible after that. My mouth is so dry and my throat won't stop choking up, I can barely speak.  

I look to the crowd and draw no emotional response, I am so alone, I see this now. The echo of despair bounces against the walls of my mind, it's settling in all at once and I begin to lose my ability to even talk. The priest comes to relieve me of this heavy task of reading underneath such emotional pressure and guides me to my seat. I am shaking and he takes what I wrote to honor her, the least I could have done after all she did for me was finish reading that **** letter!

He carries on in my place, his intentions I like to believe were pure while assisting me onto this next branch of my life, he could have never known the branch was bound to break, he could have never known how his actions would traumatize me. With that seemingly kind gesture of finishing my speech in my place, he started the beginning of all my irrational fears, he instilled my phobia of accomplishment. Echoing louder than all the other nonsense fears and delusions that found themselves bottled up in the new found battleground that was my head. He was a scapegoat to direct all the blame and give me a reason, if I couldn't read one measly letter and give that speech I wrote to honor her departure, how could I ever accomplish anything ever? The one thing I needed to do I couldn't even finish, I was weak and I knew it. Absolutely and completely unprepared for the conditioning that was to take place in the near coming future. I was nothing without her and I knew that, deeper now than ever before.

I can only describe the feeling as when you're having a nightmare and you become so afraid you wake up in shock, shaking in fear, but I couldn't wake up no matter what I did. I pinched myself to add to the cruel concrete of reality, to assure myself all of this was real and with doing so I felt a grave dread sinking in me when I didn't wake in a fright that I so desperately craved, I was stuck here in this no good reality. My life had become an on going paralysis from that point on.

The funeral progression came and went and the woman I once saw as my mother was just a memory and a fading one at that. I didn't know what I felt, there was an indistinct numbness and I couldn't really understand any of my emotions. It was my first time experiencing true apathy. I kissed her still cheek warmed by the harsh sun, threw soil on the coffin and watched as the people left to go on with their lives, maybe I should have followed in their steps but as she sank into the ground apart of me did as well.

I wen't through the motions that were to come. I made appearances and I shook so many hands, shared countless embraces, so many forms of condolences offered my way but I could feel nothing. I was a hand to hold and a mask to bury all your guilts. I must have been a skilled actor or everyone is as self absorbed as I was. They lacked the empathy to understand how anyone besides their selves felt. No one knew how truly empty I was becoming.

I wore a mask, first of many I must say, see you needed to be able to act just to avoid people using you. They didn't ask how I was holding up because of general concern, they only asked to put their own guilt at rest, go through the motions and pretend to be sad, so they don't feel like the horrible people they actually really are. Maybe I picked up on all that guilt and transcended the mold of my own emotional limits but it was hopeless.

They related everything to themselves and how they felt about it, they seemingly had the mental capacity of apes and were all trapped in their heads just as much as I was. Thinking back nothing existed during that time to fix how I felt, or mend all the pain I had been feeling.

Many condolences were offered and the fridge filled more and more with food that my increasingly lacking appetite and the settling sickness I felt in my gut telling me this was all wrong. "How could food possibly make the loss of a life better?" I thought resentfully.
I looked for a place to direct all the blame I could but was left with finger pointing back at me, I was alone, grieving and all I could feel was overwhelming guilt. A guilt so astounding, so large of a package, I could compare it to holding the sun on your shoulders, with immense weight and searing hot pain coursing through my veins. A weight so crushing it felt like I was going to be obliterated into dust scatted across the far corners of the cosmos in a single second. I kept feeling like I was going to break any second but held a calm composure as if it were my job. Now the obvious answer was to find an escape, to redirect this madness, to give relief to the anguish I had felt. I didn't want to ever feel pain of that caliber ever again, and I was going to do everything to assure that but how I ask.. How could one ever have a clear conscience, when they felt guilty for things they had not even done?

It was a lonely night
and the moon was bored.
So he looked down
and saw two lovers
out for a night time stroll.

Ever the romantic, he grew ecstatic
because tonight he would make sure
they would fall in love a little more
by the time the night was over.

He bent his sickle-head and started to collect
his starry friends so he could rearrange them
in a more alluring manner.
In his haste to showcase his talent however,
he failed to notice the disappointed couple
turn their backs on the empty sky.

When he realized he had lost his audience,
the moon was left to contemplate in silence
the folly of the stargazers’ impatience.

If only they had waited,
he thought resentfully
as he scattered the stars
into the night absent-mindedly.

It was nice talking about my future plans with my parents. I really didn't expect that they'd give me the most enlightening advice and realizations. They made me understood the consequences I might come up to that I have never even thought of when I transfer to another school as a senior high school student because all I thought of was that I'll be left behind if I stay and my friends would still be together in another school. All I thought of was them. All I thought of was you. But then, my dad told me that we're all going to part. It might be sad and painful to think, but we really have to end up going to separate ways. We'll be on our own. It's an individual battle. The only positivity that came up was that we'll be meeting each other again in the reunion. High school is really the most joyous stage of the education process and parting from the people I got attached to is a normal thing to be miserable about. I'm slowly starting to accept the fact. And from the past weeks that I’ve been hit by depression, all I focused and I’m focusing to do up until now  is to treasure the moments that I am with them because there’s really nothing I can do. I am not in control of their life and the reason why they decided on their choice was that it was also for the good of them. People really do come and go. That’s life and the least and best thing I can do is to be happy for them.

Before that moment when I finally understood my parents’ point, there were times when I cried myself to sleep while I talked to God in my mind for 4 consecutive nights and resentfully asked Him, “Why?” I cried at school. I cried in the jeepney. I cried and no one really knew why. And it’s really a traumatic thought because the only reason I cried was because of them. That it hurts like hell to let them go because actually, I’ve really planned to leave. I started to plan it when I was in my ninth grade. It’s just that I got so attached to people and that in the early months of my last year of junior high school, I decided to stay because I knew and they’ve said so, that they’d stay. Until it was just 3 months before the school year will end that they've changed their decisions and application forms were the only thing they’ve held ever since. They were happy, but in the contrary, I wasn't. I tried even if it took to pretend and fake my true possessive feeling about them leaving. And so, I got out of place because all they talked about was to leave and here I am now in the middle of distress. I chose to stay because I wanted to be with them and suddenly it’s like the world just turned upside down and I’m the one who was left in the air. I cried.

But most of it all, it’s just a heartbreaking news to know that you are part of them and it hurts that I cried a river and most of it was for your ocean. Lately have I perceived that there are a lot of rivers that leads to an ocean, not only one. Most of the reasons of the tears I’ve shed was because of you. You were the cause of my grief. You never knew. And perhaps, you’ll never know. I didn’t want to let you know because maybe, not that I'm being so presumptuous, but just maybe if you did, you’ll have to change your plans and that my emotions will drive you to the wrong path. I didn’t want that. That would mess you up. You’ll have regrets and you’ll be really upset when I have always wanted you to be happy. And so, I’ve set you free. I supported you and let you push through to what you really wanted even if seeing you leave would give me such a heartache. Until this time came when I cried, then paused to wonder and ask myself that if you were in my situation and I was in yours, would you cry for me to stay? Probably, you wouldn't. I know, but it’s like climbing a tree without any branch to accept it. The truth hit me so badly. But even though we are to part, I know that everything that happens now is in your hands and it's all for the sake of your future. I am sincerely happy for you. I have loved you and I always will.

And to everyone else, I have loved you too.
It’s really true that life doesn’t always go the way we planned it.

-an advance farewell to the people whom I got attached to and now I am to part with
and most specially to the greatest extent who once told me that I was
e x t r a o r d i n a r y,

h i m.

3/15/2015

everywhere I roll
on the bed there's a
glass bottle waiting
to be crushed under weight
and bleed shards peppered with
red chrysanthemum petal

excuse everything I do with
"I was manic back then"
everything was beginning to get
tragic back then truthfully

first baby december days
and here we are in March
we haven't spoken in three months

and we will not forever.
I know when you say
Never Again you mean it because you had said to me earlier I Love You with the same vehement strength and I knew you meant that.

When I think of it,
butter knives pry my ribs open
the pain of the cut still hurting me

such a long time afterward and
nowadays I spend my days sitting on steps smoking a pack, kissing men trying to replicate something. And what?

it seems I am so detached from love, now I am trying to replicate me leaving a dorm room looking around hoping no one noticed

and sitting on a bench writhing because
I have so much to say and not one soul really truly wants to hear it, besides from men who've seen me naked and read my poems and

I only find that thoughts of dying,
not suicide of course just dying
are the only accustomed ones that I enjoy

I ***** onto the sidewalk
(hopefully my weaknesses my desolation right? Like the black humor of plague times)

blink my eyes
(Patients of severe depression are said to have melancholy, heavy grazing eyes. See Ian Curtis)

check my phone
(last call I made out was 8 hours
ago. no call back)

move toward nassau street now,
the long term suffering victim
of too much love,
and I can understand
why people **** themselves after

ten year long relationships.
however I am not so vexed,
just resentfully doleful and I

decide I shall blame tonight's
little dorm room nightstand on
sweet hypomania.

As I run away
Thoughts overtaking me
I've signed off for good
Hating how much I need you

But you find me
With your busted finger
Resentfully childish
And everything that I've ever needed

“Why?” is always what the doctors ask.
Why I sip time away while my life tick tocks by
Why I puff puff pass till the night fades to sunflowers,
Igniting blades of grass as low as I,
Running from my own mind for hours upon hours.

Blame the broken nature of my heart?
I’m advised to
stop lovin’ him, her, them.
When I’m pretty sure I never started.
‘Cause of an absentee father with an ******* twist.
Decides to leave, but couldn’t leave it be.
He had to call sometimes
and fly us down for Christmas and ****.

If you’re gonna disappear,
then you’d better leave.
Burn your fickle ties to all things ‘me’,
all things ‘we’,
and everything that will never come to pass:
The goodbye kiss as a yellow bus pulls in.
The footsteps counted as we sway to Smokey Robinson.
The paternalizing glare as he reaches for my hand.
The pair of footsteps beside a white laced train.

Stop confusing me.
Don’t be the reason for the bloodstains on my sleeve
Bleeding out any remnants of you and your scar
The recurring reminder that
I never learned what it was like to be
cared for correctly by a man.
See
I got so many ******* pillows in my bed at night
because I always wondered just what it might be like
to have a warm body next to me to hold.
But I flip that pillow over,
other side,
as always,
so undeniably cold.


But does the turbulence end?
Where does the line between disappointed and destroyed begin?
And the Reverend preaches.
But **** a sin.
This book of perfection will not
teach me about a life fully lived.

And we’re all living as children on the hot seat
while heaven’s questions are never answered.
The reasons
as fleeting and restless as a dancer.
Still, we are promised this cure
and force fed pieces of truth
as we’re expected to rest assured,
the trivial youth

And Father He preaches x,y,z
while 'x's mark the spot
where a why is never seen
until life’s eternal 'z’s
are resentfully
received.

Now look at what’s become of your kids.
I wonder if you will ever own up to what you did.

This tornado:
all you gave us to breathe
as you decided to
Quote, Unquote
Leave

The loneliness comes without notice
Not even a courtesy call
I beckon it in resentfully
Ask it to brush the mud off at the door
No words exchange
No need
We've been through this before
I pull the sweater over my head
And scrunch the jeans to the floor
He runs the bath
I lay in the warm tub
My eyes fix on an empty ceiling
As it's hands push me under
Gently, smoothly
The water feels comforting at first
Until like a flood the heightened panic enflames
I try not to stir, it'll only make it worse
I lay in the moment, the seconds that feel like hours
I can't breathe, I stop thinking
It's only when I let go, does he
Removes me from his grip
Allowing me space to catch myself
He stands up and lingers
I lean against the cold tiles until I regain myself
Then he vanishes and I hear the door slam shut
His job is done, for now

Don’t give to her reluctantly
or resentfully
There are no warnings in her life;
no blinking lights
She knows any moment could be the last
Not for life; at least not her own;
no, it wouldn’t be right
Instead, it must be all around her;
to the things or people she loves
Life prefers cruelty to kindness;
to win an unjust fight
But she said, “I won’t give you up;
it’s not time yet”
It will always be her nature;
no matter the frost upon her heart,
the path remains steadfast in her sight

Sometimes I wonder why I came to decide
To end my life with suicide
But this idea should be set aside
For life is worthwhile with the Lord as my guide

All my fears and my despair
I thought they were beyond compare
But when I turned to face defeat
My Lord was there to save and all was in peace

I always doubt why He picked me
Resentfully sinned and troubled with anxiety
But when I’m praying on my knees
His unconditional love is all I can see

My soul was broken, my heart has been bound
My mind was ripped and my hope is nowhere to be found
I lost my everything, this is the end
Wait, have you forgotten?

You still have the Lord,
your Father and your Friend

“Are you listening to me?” she barked.

“We are over”, the last thing that my ears told my conscious brain.

After that, bitter justifications oozed out of her mouth; soaked in hatred and drenched in the disgusting scent of decaying words she had held in for so long.
Tears drew closer to those babbling lips as her entire being began to blur; my focus leaning to the wall behind her. I wondered if the shade of her brain matter would go nicely with the décor we had chosen for our family home.

“Are you listening to me?!” snarled the ***** – pulling focus back to my glazed eyes.

“We are done”

I smirked.

I felt like the audience at a comedy, that moment that the last character discovers the plot. I wonder how long she had been fighting this. We had been dead for a lifetime – the lifetime of our daughter.

We had met thirteen years prior. I - the charismatic, romantic screenwriter - walked into her florist shop seductively exclaiming that there wasn’t a flower in the place that rivaled her beauty; and even fewer that warranted dinner with me that evening. I proceeded to buy the most expensive bouquet in the shop (her recommendation as a gift for my gorgeous date that night).

Three years later and we were married. ‘Until death do us part’ we had vowed – now I wish my lips were the Grim Reaper and I could kiss the bride one last time, alas, our mouths had not met in months – those marriage counselors could trade jobs with CPR instructors and no one would notice (“listen”, “feel”, “love”… whatever).
We spent our honeymoon in the South of France, and the South of each other’s pants. Oh, to be twenty-seven with wealth, health, and luxury. To share all this with my new fair beauty, that never seems to fade.

“I thought we were past this”, she declared resentfully.

‘We’, as if my infidelity had anything to do with her. She had ****** the very soul out of me, or worse – my belief that there even is a soul – and she couldn’t even give me my ******* adultery to hold on my own.

Her career had blossomed abundantly; the once manager of a corner florist, now owned the largest national nursery. The fruits of her labour had sprouted a forest of success, success that I had not reaped in my work. I had moved from screenwriter to ****** mystery novelist, still being paid for putting ink to paper. Although, it would appear that my ink was not worth as much paper as my wife’s trees produced.

I find my writing is best right after I *******, and I have been writing fantastically of late.

“Are you going to say anything…”

Words, like lava, spat from her volcanic mouth, forming molten rock in the ocean of my nonchalance, just another pile of ash ready to be colonized by my apathy.

“… or just sit there in your cocoon of self-loathing?”
What does she know of self-loathing? It is not a razor-blade and a bath tub. Destruction is a twenty-four year old aspiring writer with flowing red hair and dark skin – I think she goes by Lucy now, probably short for Lucifer.

You don’t have to have nothing to hate yourself, you just have to feel like you do. My disgust was hidden, vaulted in a titanium safe, in a top-floor apartment uptown. I drove there in my Mercedes with built-in seat warmers, nothing to heat up the heart though.

“You’re such a great father to Cindy”, she continued while moving to sit next to me, as if proximity could birth empathy.

“I just wish you were as good of a husband.”

My robot head rotated towards her defeated existence.

“I wrote a poem for you.” My first words to her face. I could see her Titanic heart split; I used to say these six words all the time, they were as common as ‘I love you’ back then.
Her eyes softened as she smiled in anticipation.

“If I had one wish
I’d wish you were a cigarette
then I could set you on fire
and no one would even turn their head”

Her smile inverted. The ship was taking on water.

I stood up and walked beyond her to the door.

“Cindy, sweetheart, we’re leaving!” I called to the other room.

In ran the nine-year-old gem of my life.

“Grab your bag and say goodbye to Mommy.”

As I was shutting the door behind Cindy I glanced back into the living room. There she still sat. A static statue on the ocean floor.
Drowned. The entire Atlantic above her.
Sea salt water of self-loathing.

They say you cannot love another if you don’t love yourself – I hated us both, unconditionally.
This beaten heart could never love again.
I shut the door.

They rest, there on a windowsill, wondering on how to act; the pain of the past had brought the constant blues.
Alone at midnight, clueless, their mind an unsolved puzzle.
How they’d love for a figure to awake, maybe they could be alone together.

Droplets of rain drizzled down the cold glass of the window; mist engulfing the atmosphere. Cloud’s tears merged with theirs; they wept together, in a peaceful solitude spent leering resentfully at the ever so vacant roads.
Each parked car: isolated, secluded, in an  exemplary position for the foe with savage schemes, feeding from the terrors the night. Seeking their reinforcements in brutal hours.

Amber street lights reflected ominous shadows of the trees with faces, expressions of all sorts: fright, delight, madness and sadness. Perplexing confusion scraped into the tough oak.  
Like a jack in the box, leaves sprang up into the wind; surging through loop the loops to an unknown destination. An unknown home, in a village of poverty. That’s where they had lie, in a location ****** to destruction and a law lacking consideration.

An overwhelming, overpowering desire to become real, to be something alive, possessed them as if depression was the new supernatural.
Crookedness humiliated their figure like sniggering hyenas. To perceive a demon of your skin receives you a glorious enlightenment; love is not craved, happiness is not to your taste (but you do not know if you like something until you try it) and the iced wall sealing you from reality cannot be melted.

If life’s an unescapable film, all they could ponder on was the obsession over the idea of this film finally coming to an end.
No one else exists but you.
Crooked the way I’ll remain-
Sit upon the bay in pain
Inescapable prey, death lane
Why wouldn’t you want to stay?

You’re awfully talkative when you drink too much.
         Painfully silent when you are not.
Why can’t you talk to me without it?
         Resentfully. Am I that woeful to be
         around?
Apologise again.
                                             You didn’t even
                                               acknowledge  
                                        what you did wrong.
Blissfully unaware of your own mistakes
                               or rather
         Blissfully unaware of my existence.

A love story too  

We are making love
But in your eyes I see
You think of someone else.
At ******
You shout out the name
“Rudolf.”
Who the hell is he?
I resentfully ask.
The red-nosed reindeer
You say and smile.