Kitsch

If I ever felt that I hadn’t written a poem in a long time,
I’d start writing fucking bullshit,
I’d use the word ‘eight’ eight times,
eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight,
I’ll mass produce it,
and one of the copies will scream!
“eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight,”
What is the fucking difference?
As long as I obscurely talk about heartbreaks and idyllic scenes,
As long as I know what to write about,
it’s a poem, right?

All the moments we miss out on,
I’d say her eyes were beautiful,
and the hot chocolate was getting cold,
fucking let it, it’s one-hundred-and-thirteen degrees Fahrenheit outside,
I could do with some bloody cold,
but you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,
and her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her,
and a cinematic change in how her hair was tied
in one and an ohmigosh half hour,
and I’d use the word ‘palpable’ four-hundred times,
and ‘skip’ another one-thousand-five-hundred-and-twenty-seven,
randomly generated kitschy number,
jesus christ man,
does sentimentality even have its own color?
as soon as the chameleon is exposed,
it runs, it runs, it runs, it runs,
it jumps off the table,
wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,
it has no table manners,
it dives into sewers, it hops into puddles,
and comes back a little black,
and makes me a little blue,
colors can also be so kitschy,
and that makes me feel a little yellow perhaps.

Glass Jars and Vases.

Once you’re broken,
you’re never whole again.
I once saw broken vases,
shattered glass jars,
I tended to them,
patched them up,
meticulously and with precision,
as if I had just made them travel back in time,
kept them on the living room table,
decorated the vases with tulips,
and filled the jars with water,
But on days the flowers are too heavy to hold on,
on the days the water is full to the brim,
I see cracks and deformed contours and tectonic plates and jigsaw puzzles,
I avert my eyes, I hide in my sofa, I scamper to the bathroom,
but I cannot run,
I’ve these cracks all over my fingers and arms and lungs
and vertebrae and feet and heart,
Some along where her skin used to brush against mine,
some along tired, young feet,
some along a backbone upright in the turmoil,
some which make me gasp for air, and some
which make my heart skip more than just a beat,
and on these days, I realize, how irreplaceable grief is,
and how irreparable the jars and vases,
But I do it all the same,
I shift the tectonic plates of my life around,
I solve the puzzles,
I water the tulips,
After a night when I’m leaking out of myself,
I’m back at it again,
with the tape and glue and patches
and I’m fixed up real good once more.

Barriers.

A pretense,
a facade,
walls,
invisibility cloaks,
bursts of laughter,
moats with no drawbridges,
headphones,
islands with no ships,
a mimed wall,
deserts with no oases,
barriers we must erect,
mind must stay healthy,
we must stay happy,
with smiles,
farcical insipid morbid swiping,
bracing, always bracing,
and never knowing.

Barriers don’t break. I don’t break.
Shall not.

Waltzing all by myself.

Candles burning in a jazzy room in my heart
I’m waltzing all by myself
fingers kind of blue
no waist to hold on to
close my eyes
sepia delight
dim lights, sweet nights
saxophones and jazz
monotony and razzmatazz
all by myself.

What lies beyond the horizon?

What lies beyond the horizon?
The sun is setting
and I am on the wrong shore.
In these parts
the sea isn’t even the color of translucent blue,
But why am I fantasizing about this shade and hue
when the crimson and vermilion lights of sunset
are somewhere far away?
Crimsons, vermilions and orange.
Colors I fancied as symbols of our love,
But it is sunset and I have lost track
and I am on the wrong coast.
Well, at least the moonrise is mine.
I cannot bear it, this inescapable longing to seek
what awaits me on the other end of a horizon
of time, an expanse of sea,
I am not afraid that I won’t swim
I am terrified by this inexorable need
to sleepwalk through it.
Bright lights, bulrush baskets
Your sunsets were full of exploding melancholies
while mine are as colorless and neverending as they come
time passes but I lay the hourglass on its sides
and nothing goes nowhere
The sands of time are smoothly stuck in eternity
perhaps one day I’d leave the hourglass on a beach
bury time in the sand
poetic justice I’d call it
and the sands of time will wait until the waves take
them away to what lays beyond.
I wonder whether the plaintive metaphor of the hourglass
will come back someday from its journey
to tap me on the shoulder and tell me
that the horizon contains nothing and everything is here
I’d have worn my sandals, kept my notebook inside,
picked up the bag and my pieces and moved away by then
my footprints extinct on the beach.
I’d have walked away
in search of more moonrises.

Twelfth.

When I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of you,
I freeze. All of me freezes inside.

I was a breeze. In a terrible storm brewing in your heart.
I wonder how much it has taken away and apart.
And how much have I.
I foolishly think to myself that there is something
greater than us at play here,
something that none of us can too well comprehend.
There isn’t.
I have knocked at the door of your eardrums
to seek shelter from the icy winds of forlornity.
If you ever opened the doors, you would perhaps
see my teeth still clattering.
But what I’m afraid of is the hurricane inside
of shattered mirrors and torn out pages
and flying pieces of memorabilia.
But I wake up in the middle of the night
thinking of  this.
And I freeze. All of this freezes for an instant.
And I can’t go back to sleep.
Dreading the gunfire.

I’m a breeze. I’m a terrible storm.
I’m laughter. I’m the gunshot.

Dirge.

Do you feel
the dirge of two cleaved hearts?
Do you feel it wrapping you
in a way that you are too human
to comprehend?

What do you feel, my son?
What do you feel, my daughter?
What do you feel, mother?
Love, what do you feel?

The trumpets, the trumpets
protect your eardrums, protect your eardrums
my vulnicura, my vulnicura.

Untitled #5

Have you ever felt deep melancholy
lingering at your larynx
waiting for its chance to rise up?
I have.
I take it all in, I keep it all in.
I do not want to know
what will happen when it swarms
my lips, my tongue.
I am afraid.
I clench my fists and wait.
I wait.

Traveling.

A certain Sunday morning
I got up, serenely, from the bed
decided to leave out by the window
packed my blankets well
remembered to turn off
all the scheduled alarms forever
and deactivated all social media accounts
propped myself on the bed
fixed the center of the foot
at the windowsill
climbed up
looked outside
then looked over at my palms
and at the back of my hand
saw wrinkles
traced meandering lines with my other hand
put my foot down
picked up and gazed intently and fondly
at the hourglass gifted to me
years ago, preserved right at the bedside table
sand still sifting through it eternal
found my way back to the closet
booked last minute flight tickets
packed my bags
and left.

Amphibian.

I was the child of the ocean
a brother of the shore
an amphibian
picking pebbles by the day
and swimming naked by the night
What if I walk along the line today
and tell you that I do not
know how to swim anymore?
That the thought of drowning
now terrifies a man who’d boldly freestyle
and lazily backstroke in the salt of the ocean?
I do not know why it happened
but I remember almost sinking once
it was high tide
and I wasn’t too careful
What does one think of
when the froth brims up to
your lips
gushes into your nostrils?
I only remember terror
inexplicable
I was saved
I remember being carried to the beach
in the arms of my mother
resuscitated and resurrected
I woke up, seeing people
and you.
I did not know then
That we would come this far
How do I tell you today
when you are on your sick leave?
And who else do I tell
That it still haunts me
to even wander out into the low tide
under the moonlight?
That I do not know where my home is anymore
That my gills disappeared
And my lungs still fear being engulfed
What if I told you
That it frightens me
when you venture out into the night
and saunter along the sands
loving the solitude that the breeze of
an ocean brings upon the turmoil inside you
that you might find the remains
of a child who almost died here?

What if I told you
that I’m out tonight
skinny-dipping
and determined to swim again?
What would you do?
Would you come out to save me then?
Or would you swim with me?

Sometimes when I stare into your eyes, I fear you would write the same poem for me.