I don't need
     your     namaste flower-
power    poetry         words
     that       barely break   the
skin               give me something
strong like gin     something with
a little                sin.

        I don't want your
fluffy words               I want something       seldom heard
    something I          can always use
something that'll        leave a bruise
           so bomb the page I'll
light                the                 fuse.

Tears drown my cheeks as the brisk air caresses my chin
The unerring coercion calls itself
home
This vice-ly steel; these foreign teeth
the man beside me asks
"who were you"
I answer
"I was a lot of things."

it's strange—
on some nights,
i lie down on my bed
in the evening heat only Manila could give,
i feel like my soul drifts from
this body i could never love,
it decides to leave and venture off elsewhere
because i'm always just wishing i were somewhere else

then suddenly, i feel the weight of my bones again
i'm back in my bedroom,
and my body is sinking into the mattress
because when i realize i'm still where i am,
i want to disappear instead

Waves of blue destroy the shore,
Littering particles of memory behind.
Flashes jump and fade before grasped,
Eyes closed embracing the sea breeze.

I lived in a castle made of sand,
I gazed through sea glass windows.
I swam in a bucket of bliss,
I buried my woes with a shovel.

Ocean storms destroyed my home,
Brewed by rage buried beneath me.
Photographs covered the shore,
And my shovel was misplaced.

Can you

hear me?

I never thought I’d be screaming, going back to you

And your displaced sacrilege

I believe that I can help, if you let my vision lead you on.

Sanity’s left through the window we left open

Nothing but misery breathing in,

as we drift, drifting over,

and over

everything but finding nothing shutting us in

to prevent our dissolution

Disease crept in and kept us from devotion

Never breaking but never living in

what you’d call close to real life

or real life

itself, I cannot tell across time’s definitions

so I come back to ask of you.

Can you

hear me?

I never thought I’d be screaming, going back to you

And your displaced sacrilege

The builders of Stonehenge
Were pelvicly challenged
So they erected a monument
In such a way
That it could be interpreted
As a displacement activity.

And the rest as they say
Is pre-history.