a t-shirt. one that is a terrible color. 
my mom's least favorite, burnt orange. 
it shares a disgusting likeness to rust. 
and yet my dad would wear it everyday. 
regardless of everyone around him's distrust. 
"no one would dare to wear that in public" 
my mom said, she was wrong. 
perhaps when she married him she was not aware 
of my dad's inexplicable connection to 
this terrible color, or to t-shirts in general i guess
for about six out of the seven days a week regardless 
he would be wearing that same shirt
for the almost 20 years they have been married 
he can be found wearing that same shirt
however, there's a slight misconception
he doesn't have just one shirt 
he has dozens of those nasty burnt orange colored shirts 
and i suppose i forgot to mention that it's to support a football team
which seems shallow in theory but the aforementioned is
non-other than the texas longhorns. 
my dad grew up there and attended college there. 
he wasn't even a part of the team, and yet 
for the last 35 years he's been wearing that same shirt.
i simply can't understand his undying affinity 
i barely recognize the mascot of our own school team. 
there is a certain dedication, a certain love that he must feel towards this place, towards that team. 
however as i'm writing this poem i simply can't ascertain what it's all supposed to mean? 
texas, a place of southern accents, cowboys, and racism. 
not somewhere i typically tend to associate with even
though it was the place where i was born in 
on a Tuesday almost 17 years ago at about 1pm 
and of course i arrive
too early for my own good, 
so i stayed in a hospital in ICU until they said i could
be taken home to a house i barely remember. 
i wouldn't call that place home. 
and yet, my dad wearing another variation of his classic burnt orange t-shirt today 
that reminds me that's where i came from 
i came from burnt orange beginnings. 
and even though i might live in a blue ocean paradise as of now. 
that's not where i started. 
i tell myself that i am so much more that the place my life began in. 
so instead of loving where i started and the color that comes with it. 
i continue to despise that burnt orange color and compare it to rust 
and all other things that fill me with unexplainable disgust. 
but in the spirit of honestness. i don't hate it as much as i contest 
don't ask me about it however because for sure all i’ll do is protest
but even when i was little seeing that orange shirt and ******* car 
arrive in the driveway of my old school was truly the best 
looking for that ugly orange shirt at the end of the day when he always asked me what i had learned
hugging that terrible orange shirt when i'm crying 
after scraping my knee on the concrete
taking car rides with that orange shirt seated beside me 
that seemed as long as a lifetime to go see the turtles on the north shore  
after watching him present himself at a showing of a house we could never afford
watching that orange shirt fumble and stumble teaching me to drive 
fixing my air conditioner with this orange shirt at 2am
after a nightmare session that left me too rattled to sleep
that orange shirt who attends these loud rock concerts that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy simply to watch me be happy
that awful orange shirt that has seen me sad and happy and everything in between.
you know seeing that orange shirt for nearly every day of my life
has conditioned me 
and truly i hate it, the dustiness, the rustiness of it all. 
it’s disgusting, appalling and above all terrible. 
but for some godforsaken reason i also love it. 
i love it with my entire heart,
i truly love that stupid orange shirt for all of its awfulness
and logically i know it's not the shirt but the person inside.
because my dad is one of the most amazing people
i know and i hate to admit
but that color has grown on me, because of him
it's become home to me, 
it's my dad.
and maybe i'll never figure out why 
my dad loves his college football team so much 
maybe i don't need to 
what i know is that while burnt orange may be a truly terrible color, 
it's become home to me.

I closed and locked the bureau
Shut.
I said it was finished
But, honestly, I never meant a word
The prose written on a misty window
Requiring heated breath to maintain presence
Time would only fade it all away
In the moments passed since then
I have stared mournfully at the blessed white skin
That wraps my wrists like swaddling
A surgical blade in steady hand
Contemplating cutting out that playful creature
Who keeps me dancing between here and there
Trouble, I find, as he dwells not in this soft flesh
But deep within my off beat heart

I left a love letter tucked between piano keys
And still find pennies under the sofa
Blown kisses tucked in breast pockets
So as not to float unto another’s lips
I left a note beneath your pillow
So your head might rest on its soft caress
Sometimes when you’d kiss me to insane
I’d open my eyes to the moon-struck presence
Of true content in your ghost face
I never knew such beauty
Perhaps I made you up inside my head
I often wonder, should I blink
Would I find myself alone in bed
I look into the mirror to remind myself I’m there
Slowly, my reflection shakes its head in despair

We met in the most deceitful of places
Something opaque drew me to your side
I toppled then from the trapeze
And fell into your dilated eyes
I must steal my soul back from you
For the rustiness of my words appals me
Oh God, love is the most lonely emotion
They will laugh in mockery at my aching
For time will heal the deepest wounds
But I, I stress, am a terminal patient
And they, citizens of the world,
The great grave fillers
Do not believe in such a sickly diagnosis
For there is bliss in ignorance
My dying is an art
As though closing the door is the end of it all

I wear your clothes around an empty house
My feet take me to the mirror to stare
Into dead eyes and back
To bed
Where I may pretend
That the journey has not been marked
By the stroke I cut into the life line of my stretched palm
In an attempt to whisper to the Gods
I wander busy streets glazed over
Conscious that our feet once went together
Along these very bricks to memory lane
My shadow sinks to the dust of the ocean floor
Like a child holding its breath
It is clear
It was not us that could not go on,
But me.

for some reason i always write the most in january. the words seem to flow out of me --- a tsunami, monsoon, typhoon --- of words I've been aching to bleed but never have the time nor patience to set free. words that have festered in the crevices of my mind for who knows how long. words that I've kept close to my heart, like a pendant, a talisman perhaps.

and it's not like I'm complaining. writing, after being away from it for so long, makes me feel like a soldier coming home to his wife. he bears the marks of war on his skin, in his mind, in the hollowness in his eyes. he is glad to be rid of the gunshots that riddle his sleep, glad to be back home in loving arms, but he cannot shake the feeling of being inches away from death, no.

writing again is coming home, but it's not the same. there is a rustiness in my fingers, in the muscles that make this thoughts into coherent strings of symbols. there is an absence i cannot shake off.

but God knows i will try.

Now that the war has ended
Vanquishers counted the vestige
Of casualties, eulogising the forgotten souls at the unmarked graveyard.
But we waved the olive branch to stop the callous carnage.
Victims' dirge polluted the air of regret.
Table of settlement shedding tears of rustiness.

Now that the war has ended
Widows endlessly waited for entombed spouses to fail failure of loneliness.
Glory of souls stored in the belly of graveyard, protesting early exit.
Darkness of sorrow eclipsed rays of joy.
Tears from the cheeks of the cenotaph promulgating decree of condemnation
Cemetery gathered glory, treasure, and destiny in its banks.

But now that the war has ended, let the kakaki of peace sounds.