She was once the ink of poems.
Now, she is the blot that bleeds
Through every page I try to keep clean.
A mirror I simply cannot trust;
As its fragile glass that always screams when held.
I bear the weight of two homes.

I recline in a chair of brittle oak,
Fashioned from fragments of lost endeavor.
Cloaked in silence, the air itself awoke,
Bearing whispers, dust-bound forever.

His hands no longer chart unknown seas,
The maps of youth long frayed and worn.
Quiet tomes rest like sleeping trees,
Pages hushed in binding shorn.

Through glass, dim twilight bleeds regret,
Ivory panes painted pale with grief.
Garments draped in sorrows set,
Each clasp marks memories brief.

Hours drift, strangers to his face,
Dust spins unsure, in circles slow.
Garbed in remnants of lost grace,
In one exhausted body.
A pair of shoes that never rest.
A heart that negotiates treaties
With broken logic and manic thunder,
Just to keep the child from hearing
How close the sky is to falling.

She does not know of gratitude.
Only gravity.
She does not fold laundry;
She folds reality
To fit her comfort,
While I bleed time into corners,
Hoping peace grows like moss
Where no light reaches.

And Still…
I do NOT break.

1st gust
drowning puddles with chimes
underneath
the hem of a guava tree
when i am robbed
of choruses
sung by the rain

with the coast
comes warm white sands
but never the taste
of salt on the ground
packed in like
grandma’s sweaters
permeates the smell of
freshly cut skin

i am fond
of bruising peaches;
no longer as
youthful as they
used to be.
expired hearts;
they are only fresh
for a week

how do i keep warm
the memory of you?
do i stash it away
in the arms of a girl
ready to be birthed
into a world
too desolate for its own

i watched the hope
crumble before my eyes
a stale concrete prison
i pushed my way out
just to see you
being burned alive
and i could not
weep, nor
could i cry

left me
to die in a moat;
acrylic coffin
meant to be
a gift for someone
happier than me
and watch my
expiration date
at my end, join me

you watched my
petals wither away
robbing me of
that which
i first loved
because i missed
you

i wish
i could
keep you
warm

her hair was dark , like the night
Of cloudless skies and starry nights;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Met her eyes and stared right through;
i saw what she wanted
so i let her go, to cry to the heavens above
to Which heaven day denies.

Look at you go—
you did not leave alone.
You took my sweet heart,
which overflows with love.

You took away my smile;
it's hidden under a bed of thorns.

Look at you go—
you did not leave alone.
My body floats around you.
Remember the way you held me?
My hair still flies
with the Bombay winds.

Look at you go—
you didn’t turn back to see
the blood, the sweat, and my guts
poured out like the sea.

The only words that I speak
are of you leaving me.

The singer wrote her pain on a page,
And sang her songs on a stage.
She was going to be engaged,
Till her boyfriend left in a rage.
She wrote another song,
Feeling like she had been dragged along.
She wished he hadn’t been so headstrong,
Perhaps her heart had just been wrong.
She never quite moved on,
Though she found another guy,
One who truly loved her, one who made her heart flutter,
She still had him in the back of her mind.
One day, she and her new fiancé,
Went on a date, and she saw him with someone new.
She knew it had been long ago,
But when she saw them kiss, her heart fractured in two.
Her fiancé didn’t know what to say,
As she ran away, overcome by pain,
She found herself on a stage; she wanted to flush the memories away,
So she opened her mouth,
To an empty crowd,
And she sang.

Eleven-years-old should be bold and boyful
Joyful, jelly beans and snow on Christmas
Robert Frost’s birches, swinging on branches
Latching to hopes that have yet to become.

Seventeen should be dreaming, dress-up as grown-up
Growing and grinning and racing the time—
Sprint to the finish, and then look behind
Hours to minutes and seconds to breaths.

But his face had roundness that gave way to edges,
Glittering, forged from the weight of the press
How much can you take away from the boy?
You take and you take until there’s nothing left.

He howled at night, at the stars and the sky
He’d have pulled down the moon, if only he could
And he should, he ought to have clawed down the heavens
For the hole gaping wide, for a god who deserts.

And still, though he trembled, sweat slicking his skin
When he saw you watching, he gave you a grin.
It was tender, titanium, tenacious and thin
And tremulous, breaking apart in the wind.

His fingers pressed into the dirt and the dice
Then he gazed at you, O Fate, like a vise
His heart made of gold but his eyes made of ice
And he told you, O Fate:
“𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.”

I used to knock
She would answer
All around the clock
She never asked
Why I was so late
And with a smile
Opened the gate

Always had space
For the quiet ache
I couldn't erase
We talked for hours
Went for walks at the lake

I wore out
The welcome in
Now I doubt
If i should knock
And if I do
The once open door
Stays locked