Venice

Today was a revelation

I stayed in the quiet lane

Of sleep 

And stillness

No words - just sounds

Plates from the neighbor 

Dogs barking

The engines of cars passing 

I am not here. I am in Venice.

I can still feel my heart, 

beating to the sound of your breathing 

A crooked pillow on a lumpy bed 

with all the words we've never said 

My ears on your chest 

With your arms around me

I am trapped in that memory

I don’t want to be anywhere else

Without you

So I stay

Long after you’ve gone, I’ll stay

In this .gif in my head

Where this fragmented image restarts

Right before you stir me awake

Right before you sit up and reach for your clothes 

Right before I start feeling that familiar, 
pounding panic in my chest

Right before I whisper, please stay. 

... and you don’t. 

Temperance

He makes me feel 

like Fire 

and Ice 

all at once

I am repelled at how

I am desperately,

infinitely attracted, 

Dependent now 

On the resolution 

Of all his contradictions

Impatiently,  I lovingly wait. 

And in his eyes

Lifetimes of deceitful truths 

And honest lies

Swirl around without a sound- 

Kaleidoscopes 

that I have found,

Addressed for only me to see-

Undressed

and longing to be free

Taco Tuesday

Mark

Now,
the question is
How-

to block certain thoughts
When I look at the clock

"oh, he's still asleep"
or
"He must be awake now"
or
"it's 1:43,
time to remind him of me"

How-

to stop longing for him
to see what I see

"look baby,
the moon tonight is lovely-
remember how we named him Jerry?'

How
to want hard enough
not to want
this yearning.

to start erasing
each and every Mark

How
How
How

when he is tattooed everywhere-
glistening in the sun,
glowing in the dark.

Youare@gmail.com

We are dusty fragments of the same story,
You and me
with miles of possibilities that will and won't be
the heaviest of empty spaces in-between us -
the only certainty we're allowed carry

I wish I had rubber arms that can stretch as wide as the world
so I can knock on your door
deliver myself the kisses I blow-
I stopped trusting the wind a long time ago 

What is love anyway
but block-frozen emotions set in cotton:
stocks shipped to oblivion,
floating in transit in this sea of truth and un-truth
in this place where nothing is real but these:

 1. patterns of musical haze,
and

2.the eternal vastness of this god-forsaken space

and lastly, this

3. Judas, this cycle of yearning -

overwhelming
underwhelming
overwhelming,
underwhelming.

When You Start it's Hard to Stop/Trapped

To learn little by little 

with infinite time,

insurmountable space

to my personal mime

languid, ethereal

imprisoned, cerebral

idyllic enchantment-

 are you ephemeral?

In search for denouement

imprisoned in verses

forgive how I'm toxic

and strangely quixotic

I'm still quite fragmented

and you're tessellated

ubiquitous lassitude

bound and unaided

If this leads to pathos

well, I'm already jaded

If this leads to elation,

I can be over sated

this fixation, I'm wishing

to meet its cessation,

like this maddening rhyming

I'm now terminating.

You Remind Me of Someone that I Don't Remember

You remind me of someone that I don't remember
every time I hear your voice I feel I've heard it before
In a rush of warm familiarity you are endeared to me
And every note in your warm tone is a rediscovered memory

I feel like I've been where we are
In this space of knowing and not knowing and learning
And your smile is a smile I feel I've previously seen
Nostalgia's embrace, all consuming

You remind me of someone that I don't remember
and every time I hear your words I feel I've held them close before
it whispers back to me, this dull ache, this blunt joy
a discarded truth I feel I'm again to employ

Its still in my fingertips, the curve of familiar lips
And without sense I search your face for my fingerprints
and when you laugh I hear the points where our voices embraced
are they neon intimations of impressions erased?

You remind me of someone that I don't remember
and a part of my heart itches and burns, trying to recollect
in a maze with an undertone of confusion and regret-
with no answers allowed to give me solace
not now, not just yet.

Ireland

come with me

and leave for a while the world 

that finds it so easy to forget you

At Dawn We'd be in Ireland

Me, where I am, with you in my mind

in a plane that relies on my command

on when to fly and when to land 

or when to fall

beyond the wall of clouds

I hear the invisible ticking of that digital clock

dots appearing in liquid air 

reminding us that this won't last

as much as we need it to

as much as I need it to

Exactly like how time is never enough 
where we used to be

where we always return

where we are trapped 

immobile in that cruel joke

Life should be the dream

and we escape by waking up to this:

chaos and colors smiling in perfect harmony

in seats suspended a thousand miles above land

flying not in worry nor uncertainty

your hand resting on my hand

Ireland below us

three moons above us

in a purple sky with blue stars 

here

Where we are always safe

where peace in me is what you find

where I can always read your mind

Where it happens all at once

where time we never had and time we will have

are all present in this moment
that stretches to the ends of infinity

and laughter is laughter that never retires

and tears are merely tears never stained with fear

no thoughts of leaving and being left behind

no thoughts of keeping and being kept aside

Where you look into my eyes

and you see your eyes 
reflecting the secrets of my soul

stories that only you can bear to contain

without judgement or effort

because my stories are your stories

here, where you and me

are one and the same

your hand resting on my hand

The universe smiling above us

Ireland below us,

patiently waiting

until its time for me 

to wake up.

nostalgia

I long to be able to listen
to songs i used to love
without apparitions of moments
tainted by the intensity
of your memory


oh! to be cured of you
and the light of your extremes


where no fragrance is off limits-
where pleasant scents
are not betrayals
but smiles waiting to blossom
no nostalgia to wrestle with,
no deep inhaling and closing of the eyes
revealing confusing hopes of reliving
refusing, inviting


refusing
inviting


oh! to be cured of you
and the light of your extremes


where the pleasant past is not a myth
where senses are not stolen
traded to a bitter future void of warm sensation
void of truth, sound and hue
void of you.

to be full of hope once more

to live, breathe, taste and feel

the little remaining of my fleeting youth

to once again be drunk with life

and everything I once held true

oh! to be cured of you
and the light of your extremes.

Headphonaut

I.

when you told me then, that you were 34
and that you looked at the stars for comfort
your voice caused an invisible blanket
of intense unsettling energy
to swirl into existence
suddenly appearing through the air from nothingness
its unseen colors lingering a bit
before tickling my ear and entering my head
a doubt-killing arrow
whose fingers shocked my hollow brain
into sudden alertness

I could bridge the gap of 10 years.
10 years would be easy.

I could add beauty and color in your projected gray life

I could be your salt.

laugh-er and listener extraordinaire
the fresh pure breeze of youth you seem to always feel you've lost
contrast to the chaos you've lived to rant about
to write about

maybe I could amuse, or better yet, amaze you
and enter the hourglass of your life,
wedging myself in the middle, to block the falling sand
disarm you with wit I thought I had


II.

You are 36.
and 10 years seem to stretch farther and farther
you move too fast, and I can't keep up

you and me,
we are in this space
where time is nothing but distance.

as I remember,
a mosaic of sharpened dull emotions shape-shifts

unfounded optimism
unbearable lightness
shy, certain, earnest confidence

is now a montage of moments
moving inside this archaic analog film strip
playing on a slow loop inside my head
slow enough that I can count each hole on its sides
slow enough that each divider is not a divider
but prison bars in a lonely cell

slower so I can analyze and analyze
so slow it stopped making sense
so slow
that
I am
trapped

bound in the infinite frames
of an endless instant