Master-piece

And I found a hell in her,
a planet that became barren,
that used to teem with life,
that wore happy like spring
and promise like sunrise.

Where every lungful of oxygen
used to be sharply exhaled,
forming weightless laughter
the sort which echoes
in confined spaces
longer than a smile does.
How dulcet a sound
that has turn to destruction
with the most marred of instruments.
A toggle on the world's silence.

When feeling the weight
of her head on my fragile shoulder
sent anvils and anchors on my heart,
hornets stinging my ribcage,
begging to take more of me.
And the smile on her face,
a painting torn to pieces,
that I, the artist with no training
burned in my wake.

You will get better.
This isn't over.

Convergence Past the Fork

Our paths do meet and I see you again. We are both tired and wounded but tonight we sleep in each other’s arms and that is more than the other road could have given me. Your flushed cheeks and transparent eyes tell me you feel the same way.

And everything that has led to this has been worth it

*Shrug*

But it's my nature, I said.
Trying to change it would take a lot of time and effort
that would ultimately defeat the purpose.

She Says Apologetically

"I'm sorry."

What useless words. So craved, so meaningful and still...

I can assure you there are anchors and anvils attached to those two measly words. My apology is as heavy as every ocean and every sea. I could scream it till you were deaf and still wonder if you believed me. I promise you, I'm so sorry that I say it in my sleep.

I wish my apologies healed hearts.
I wish they did more than tear you apart.

Firefighter Logs

You need to know
that while I don the gas mask
and fireproof jacket every smoky morning,
I do not pray for fires.

I do not french kiss the tongues of flame,
do not shower in gasoline rain.

What fireman slides down the pole thinking
“I hope the fires will be unquenchable this time.”
What dispatch personnel holds the radio thinking
“I can’t wait to hear the silence of lives on the line.”

I am no certified firefighter.
I do not pray for fires.

We’re back in the snow and I wish I could see the sky right now because I’m pretty sure night has fallen. I’m pretty sure the world knows where we are but they’re just afraid to walk out this far — afraid to leave their cabin, their firewood cavern which chimney smokes hope halos in the night.

The Restructuring of the World

I am fashioned full of rhymes
and half forgotten things.
You are staccato bass beats
and immortalized memory.

And in the temporal symphony
of clicking heels and west tornados
all the dichotomies congregate
find marriage in harmony.

Luck likes the taste of us in her mouth.
We linger —
like mushroom smoke in the aftermath
haunting the rivers
and coloring the winds,
having an era named after us
be it a coronation of destruction
or majesty.

No Man's Land

I.
In all the hollow stadiums
never did I imagine it would be us by the vending machine,
cranking out old war stories,
eating expired skittles and drinking cold coffee,
our bodies silhouetted under the bleachers.


It was a sweet nectar, black rose kind of evening
and the fog made it seem like everything wasn't in focus.
It made it easier stumble into sinkholes
pretending that we were all along
puddle jumping.

II.
I could've told you then
and there were so many things.
But to you, I suspect they would sound like nothing but a sordid tale
spoken only to lull youngsters into shaky oblivion.
You'd take it for nothing more than folklore
and from my lips, even more fraudulent.
Not to mention the lack of trust I had for words during moments like these.


Because all that you have said, all that I have done -
nothing but wild reflections throwing cast iron heat in the daylight.
Through the breaks in the bleachers,
the sky looks down,
a tender gaze, a knowing smile,
the constellations spelling sin like G-I-F-T.

III.
You propped yourself up on your elbows
held the can to your mouth,
wincing as the cold aluminum paled your lips.
You planted a coffee stained kiss at my jugular
and pulled back only for me to lock my arms around your neck
and fasten my lips to yours, cold and warm,
a thermostat romance we knew too well.

IV.
I dread the lightening of the sky; in truth I do.
It becomes the dispelling of illusion,
the bottoming out of sleep deprived drunkenness into harsh sobriety.


The glass pieces now we use
to make picturesque iridescent tinted windows
will open cuts on our fingertips only when the sun rises,
only when your head hits the pillow,
only when you forget that ours is just a temporary world.


Like most things,
you can only start getting hurt when you start waking up.
Maybe that's why we're still here.
Maybe that's why we're hiding in abandoned stadiums
underneath bleachers that creak in the slightest gust of wind.

V.
I haven't slept in three days and counting.
It is such a cruel trade off.
It is in your presence that I feel the most at peace -
thoughts barely any energy to run free.
How rare it is for me to find someone I can fall asleep with.
And yet it is with you that I cannot waste the hours with.
You and I - we are already a dream. If I close my eyes,
the world will wake up with me.

Regarding the Overflowing Trashcan and the Ever Empty Page

I long for the day
when I hold fear by its beating heart,
feel its breath come and go
in the racing pulse below its neck,
when its legs are two stumps
finally incapable of pursuing me.

I will crush its windpipe,
pulverize its voice box
for all the lies it spewed
that I believed to be truth.
And as its vitality slips through my fingers,
the eviction will be official.

And in the extra space I will plant my ego.
and I will water it daily,
trim it should become overgrown.
I will have conquered one demon.

Drawbridge

At the end of it all,
you can have the door cracked open
time and time again,
expose the world inside for a minute second,
wear your outsider heart on your sleeve.

But it is never truly open
until the hinges break
and the wood falls to you feet,
breaking free of the frame and all.
There,
an open drawbridge
an open world
slowly blending into yours.

They do not belong to themselves any more.