stacks

are we done placing
inches between us?
our meager attempt at evading
consequences of locking
eyes too long, the fear
of falling within few chance
brushes of fingertips,
the wayward scents and sounds
of one trespassing
on the other’s senses.

we’ve begun placing
time onto the distance.
stacking up seconds like playing
pawns and royalty over checkered
boards we play on, venue
of a platonic dalliance meandering
in a masquerade, gambling on charade
to wed with hours and tone down
passion to fondness.

are we ants building
a sea wall of crumbs
in the face of an ocean bent
on realizing our ruin, against
an implacable desire dwarfing
our reluctance? we've begun
covering the inches leading
to two roads diverging,
each cluttered with its own flavor
of loneliness



2015.mar.12

gems

I came to work that day to find they determined
I’m made of sapphires, like many of my co-workers.
There were also ones made of emeralds, aquamarines,
a couple made of fire opals, and one made of rubies.
I wanted to say, “Yes, I’ve known for ages that I
am made of sapphires, but can I be made of emeralds
instead as that’s my birthstone?” But someone else
beat me to it, big nice dude wanted to be big bad dude
and made of rubies, not sapphires. They proceeded
to shred his defense, through witness after witness,
through exhibits A through Z, reducing his erstwhile
spirited complaints down to whimpers, proving him
beyond a doubt made of sapphires, so I kept quiet.
I instead started to think of legal means to break
into a house somewhere in central United States, one
that’s prone to be carried away by a tornado and
slammed right onto a flattened, evil, unsuspecting
witch in a faraway magical land where I could bump
into a trio of odd fellow travelers who would happen
to harbor similar longings like mine and would gladly
walk with me to where a wizard is ensconced because
said wizard would grant wishes and I meant to ask
him to turn me into being made of emeralds instead
of sapphires, I meant to ask him to swap my heart
with a second brain and it would be better that way
because all these emotions for you are starting to
take their toll and get in the way of thinking
logically. But we all know there are no true wizards,
only poets and their blurry lines between truths
and lies. I contented myself with absent-mindedly
clicking my heels together and listened to
the clinking of loose sapphires in my feet.



2015.mar.06

the fortress

There is nothing left to say that can safely be laid out under the scrutiny of the public eye. I have exhausted all my means of crafting the message I needed to find you. If chance allowed for the words to reach you, for the words to touch you in the way they were meant to, then I am glad. If not, then you are the star whose attention I was never meant to bask in, locked in your stronghold. And if you are, I only hope that once in an age of peace, in need of fresh air you'd open the gate of your walls. And if you do, may you look around the battlefield that surrounds you, among the tattered banners of those who besieged you. And among the debris may you discover pieces of how much you meant to me, from a time long lost, and that will suffice.


2015.feb.27

sestina for moonbathing street dogs

I start with throwing a guess at your eye color,
This is becoming routine in our nightly tryst.
I am running out of names for brown, black, and grey;
Still I land none closer to the answer: wrong, wrong.
The rest of my night is spent chasing your shadow
Across this night-multiverse enslaved to your whims.

What would I give to decode all your shifting whims?
I could stare at you till the moons yield their color,
Still, your truths insist on staying veiled in shadow.
If only you would consent to a daylight tryst.
But too early I found that appeal to be wrong:
There is no black-or-white when it comes to you. Grey,

Grey: the weaving worlds underneath furs you wear; grey:
The storms on cold nights mirroring your tyrant whims.
If I can brave your rage to risk a kiss deemed wrong,
If only, if only. To steal your lips' color.
Yet I could not risk on gambling to lose this tryst.
Was this your wish? That I'd be shackled to shadow?

What would I give to dissolve into your shadow?
To be part of worlds you carry, lost in the grey;
Mindless being: one with you in a nightlong tryst.
To not suffer the punishing lash of your whims.
To be gone, heedless to existence of color.
To be none, unable to sunder right from wrong.

But, love: I never blamed you, how you named me wrong.
You knew I come with heart enveloped in shadow.
You read the darkness I carry, knew my color.
I don't blame you for cloaking yourself in this grey.
I know your look, I know you saw my kind of whims.
But, love: why keep me bound to this maddening tryst?

What would I give to reap the harvest of this tryst?
To unlock the quest to undo all I made wrong.
To once and for all solve the mazes of your whims.
To liberate us from the shelter of shadow.
To find you outside the borders of night and grey.
To hazard a lifelong stare, drown in your color.

I don't care how the light falls wrong in your shadow.
This tryst can be a dream. I'd settle in your grey,
Kneel to your whims. To forget the taste of color.



2015.feb.12

exhale

try, is all i can muster,
to armor my constitution,
i must resist you

deny, if you decipher air,
if i exhale your name too often,
a sigh named after you

try, to be the liar,
the devil to save you,
from my apocalyptic love



2015.feb.04

inhale

we came here for the oxygen.
we may have come from the stars.
for years we didn't realize it was from the green.
so we ate their young, then their limbs, then their everything else.
they never complained.
so we ate, ate, ate.
ate, ate, ate.
feasted on.

then we had an idea to have roofs over our heads and walls around our skin.
it had to be made out of something living.
the animals squealed too much, they loved their skin too much.
so we turned on the plants again.
we went to cut, cut, cut.
cut, cut, cut.

does the world seem less green to you now?
it's getting harder to breathe.
running out of forests to eat.
look up at the stars, now.
think there's a somewhere we can land?
somewhere to inhale the life out of.
we'll name it after this one.



2015.jan.25

reader

if i can open your life, like a book,
first i will need to pry, carefully, the covers apart,
a finger firmly on the spine, the edge of each page sliding,
a slow cascade sideways, against a thumb,
and i will need to free, to drown myself in,
the sweet smell of words in print.
this may be the only time to do this.

the dive comes after,

the words will come at me, in torrents,
i expect that, from what i know about you;
and i will be ready for this, and i will want this surge, but,
at times, i will have to resist your current,
understand me when i want to take this slowly,
when i will have to linger at every sentence, every word,
i may not have another chance to savor each.

if you don’t mind my pace, then,
let me ride your roller coasters,
let me clamber up your highs and stumble down your lows,

let me in.

because, for better or for worse, this all will end,
because, if i can open your life, like a book,
the closing is inevitable, (and i know it will be undeniably too soon)
and all the pages will cascade back to sleep.
all the words will fold back under the covers,
the roller coaster ride will come to a halt,
this fair season will give way to a world without you.
our climbs will have claimed the summit.
and our falls will have marked the ground,
and you will be a memory, fragile, susceptible to straying away,
in my mind that’s too much of a colander,
too many holes. all too flawed. all too human.
inevitably incapable of holding on to you.



2015.jan.23