I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(the reasons why you’ll never know),
whisked away in winter’s winds, your sleeping sighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Well, I’ve often made my way
within the dark before the day,
but it’s never that I’ve ever felt this lonely.
So I leave this parting note,
the first farewell I ever wrote,
though these lines embody more than farewell only.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go,
’n what I’ll find you’ll never know,
concealed in clouds of untamed clover, tussled hair reminds me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Alas, my love has grown too strong
for I’ve lain with you so long
with your every need perceived, though never spoken.
’n as I try to disengage,
I’m like a tiger in a cage,
hesitating ’fore a padlock hanging broken.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(across a bridge you’ll never know),
to quench abandoned burning hills, your yearning lips remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Should you wake and shed a tear
finding me no longer here,
save your weeping for another, not so ghostly.
’n if you scan the spangled sky,
as you ache when asking why,
realize ’twas really you I wanted mostly.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(reshuffling cards you’ll never know),
defying fate beneath the stars, your diamond eyes remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Shun the shadows in the late
disappearing through your gate,
aghast and groping through their early morning sorrows,
like the echoes of my thought,
flitting, fleeting, overwrought,
as reflected in the realms of vague tomorrows.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(’n what I’ll see you’ll never know),
pursuing pebbles on a beach, your freckled nose reminds me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Should you glimpse a troubled form
within a restless ruby storm,
turn your collar 'gainst the wind and never follow.
For by then it’s much too late
(yes the distance far too great)
and you’d only find the feathers of a swallow.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(along a road you’ll never know),
adrift on half-forbidden paths, your slender back reminds me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Should you yearn once more to tease,
unleash your breath upon a breeze
’n let the whispered winds of yesterday caress me,
and perchance recall the time
(when our love was in its prime),
I relied upon your laughter to possess me.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(’n it’s so hard you’ll never know),
entwined in twirls of fortune’s wheel, embracing arms remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Once I was yours and you were mine
sipping pearls of purple wine –
except these haunting hints, there’ll be no spectres chasing.
’n if the flashbacks grow acute,
I’ll strum the strings upon my lute
subduing bygone ancient ghosts, still standing, facing.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go,
’n what I’ll hear you’ll never know,
though echoed in a thousand drums, your throbbing ******* remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Well, the candle by my side
has now melted down and died,
though its fire blazes on within the mirror.
And the clock behind the door
is throbbing, pounding with a roar,
as my moment to depart approaches nearer.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(along a shore you’ll never know),
engulfed in deep and distant tides, your restless thighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

But I’ll take along the ring,
the one you carved for me in spring,
though it journeyed as an orphan on my finger.
And I’ll hang it from my neck
while I ***** a lonesome trek,
as a keepsake of your ardor, while it lingers.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(’n what I’ll see you’ll never know),
immersed in fields of flowers wild, your amber eyes remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close behind me.

Now I’ll kiss your sleeping eyes
ere I mount the blushing skies
as I bid farewell, adieu, in morning’s splendour.
Then I’ll fade within the haze,
immured in miles of my own maze
as I wander, breaking chains of love’s surrender.

I’m on my way, I’ve got to go,
’n when I rue you’ll never know
the pulsing passions of the past and shadows that remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
till the phantoms start a’ fading far behind me.

You are quick to question but
Occupy cisheteronormativity mindlessly
Unprepared for queer identities

Assuming I lack knowing of myself
Reshuffling the same deck of cards
Engaging in a play of poker with hatred

Subjected to foul treatment
The words you spat
Unsolicited and unflattering
Chasing my mind endlessly
Kidnapping me hostage

I have been coated in sweltering biohazards
Nevermore to find protection and healing

To see another day seems impossible
If my own blood casts me away
Malevolence becoming motherly
Eliminating my mental health
,

Its those who think they are greater
Trailblazing a performative show
Sabotaging an already discriminated space

To go another day with your words
Itching down into my skin
****** becoming friendly
Envisioning how I'd feel left alone


From the moment you open your mouth
Orchestrating emotions like a ballad
Reconsolidating the toxic bond with binary

Can't seem to wake you up
Having to constantly do the work for you
And what am I left with
Naive justification and selfish excuses
Gravitate your energy into doing better
Exploitation is your entertainment

It goes beyond
the voices in your head
to tap
into the
beats of your heart
reshuffling
your
plan

I am the universe.

I’ve died a handful of times
Yet somehow resurrect each morning
Every nightly loss of consciousness
A sour taste of what awaits.


From where I have come
I will inevitably return
A change of state
Galvanized by time.

Deconstructing, dissipating
Reshuffling, rearranging
From infinity to solid and then back
To infinity once more.

The universe is me.

I am abstract, not concrete
A hologram self
A bundle of dying and newborn cells
Held together by the stars.

Not planetary, but nebulous
A dark matter beyond the grasp of my
Quarter century old mind
Materialized from 140 million centuries past
And an eternity to come.

I am the universe.
The universe is me.
There is no death in forever.

1.
… from now on, a reshuffling of diction,
word-acrobatics, perspectives gleaming
with thought: somebody built an orange tree
against the other things around it, to devour
boiled eggs in the porcelain hand of a plate,
the convulsions of the world can only go
a short length, it’s a matter of …

… regression, like tumbling downstream
over the backs of boulders …  

2.
… near the end of his journey the man’s voice,
as dull as ashes, a cracked seed ready to burst,
declining through the dark, a short distance
to a wintry end: traveling alone to the bottom,
sound of his dusty age drawing in the earth
lying at the edge of bones: today, the light,
tomorrow the ledge: think lightning fast …

… his affliction is not pain but death: cold
at his feet, like frail children ...

3.
… even in the icy spring of March, your eyes
were the stars melting lingering snow: we lay
buried in the warm blood of naked bodies, like
refugees in a new land, and the wind that did
not reach us, and the ice that could not find us:
outside, the silent streets could hear thunder
beneath our blanket …

… ask me where she is, the one who ignored
my heart, who was gone by summer ...

======================================

from my unpublished manuscript: Fragmented

©dah / dahlusion 2019 all rights reserved

first published in Record Magazine

At 24,
I still don’t know who I am
and who I want to be,
I still get bouts of anxiety,
Still questioning my hopes, my faith, my identity

They tell me I’m smart, I’m pretty,
As if things get any more easy,
But the truth is I’ve never felt any of it,
Constantly reshuffling puzzle pieces that don’t fit,
Which part of me is smart when all I feel is clueless,
Which part of me is pretty when this face no longer lights up with hope,
When this heart just feels... incomplete

Things I dreamt of doing have become a distant reality,
I’ve lost track of time, writing poetry at two thirty,

Is this what growing up really feels like in this century?
A deadly pandemic, an economic downfall, a political mess, a vicious war-zone,
Too much of this turmoil and emotional complexities
For my head and heart to make sense on its own

grey textile, rocky roads
delectable in locomotion
mechanical reshuffling
human trenches
herds obscuring
worldviews
and the bus that drags on
breath of trepidation
heatwave of monoxides
grey and wool
thicket of sorrows, unfulfilled
dreams, blanket of
undying sleep
a bus bell,
signalling
the stop. bus
stopping