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

night meditation

there is darkness
and the lone voice of a teacher miles away
preaching presence and stillness,
the importance of nothingness-
hidden in the background I hear him
sometimes
I even listen

he hails emptiness
and slightly, I am proud-
It's all I have

beforehand
I saved a few minutes
going through the rounds
desperately searching for that
which may comfort my frozen soul

pain
pleasure
sticks and music
you.
in this space where you once were

sometimes
when there is kindness and mercy
I drift to that place
where I am almost asleep
and I am beside you

sometimes
I feel the night finally embracing me
before I feel it slip through my tired fingers
like vapor summoned by the waning moon

stolen by a sun that came too soon

Let It Be

open your eyes
and let the fragments
fly back inside your weary head
Piece by piece.

They are harmless specks that hurt
only because you allow them to

Maybe you collect pain to feel numb,
but no explanations are necessary.
no one needs to understand-
even you.

It is what it is.

Let it be, paul sings,
And he is right-

Because after the night
light will always be here,
A coin toss between
a pleasant blanket of glorious warmth
and the heavy scorching curse of heat
Be it comfort or defeat
You and I, we deal.

Just like heavy clouds that form
to shower upon us its fleeting rain
A steady drizzle, A raging storm
Gentle moisture, or a hurricane
be it in pleasure or disdain

the sky, she throws the dice
when she needs to decide

As you and I
we wait

powerless as heaven seals our fate.

Quarter life crisis

is drinking me dry.

Two Ghosts

I felt the first ghost a few days ago

while driving home,
I dreamt that I loved you
and we were happy.

It was my hand that you held
inside her skin
I felt your warmth through her eyes.

Some learn early in life
that you get what you need
and rarely what you want

I wanted to love you, and after all these years
I realized that I still do want to

but maybe loving you is not what we both needed.

And I see her laugh at what you've whispered in her ear
the way I used to, before I started running away.

...

Ghost number two I felt while cleaning my room
one usual, sleepless evening

I didn't really keep your photograph
I just can't seem to lose it

dropping from books and other crevices
whenever I release my room
from stagnant dust

a smiling portrait of you as a little child
an ageless smile so new inside the photo's oldness
inside my mind's own oldness
which doesn't really need reminding
because it never forgets.

I wrote you a song that you never heard
about how love cannot be faked
How true my lines were, now I'm not so certain
but the notes were as truthful as any truth I've known
and the proper words for it might come in time
in case the first one turns out to be a lie

maybe someday, in an imagined conversation
you'll let me know what this all means

and in my mind,
we can rest
knowing we both did what we can.

sleepless.

A solemn, tragic voice
treads across a sea of ethereal strings
helplessly clinging
on an acoustic guitar
To remain afloat.

selected songs
play on a radio beyond reach
as hazy eyes slowly adjust in the dark
hiding under sparks of stars that seem to glow
from fake and faint
to real and proud
and far.

Sometimes other voices
join in reciting melodic rhymes
one of them, mine
barely a whisper but divinely on time
Guided firmly by the beating pulse
pressing in the tender corner
of my tired temple

soon, in a fistful of hours
these distant little plastic stars
will give way to the arrogant sun

But for now, they remain burning
now, loudly burning,
As loud and as deep
as the reverberating sound
playing on this radio beyond reach-

that sound
urging,
wooing this dark room with its fake pentagons
to once more, surrender me
to the merciful arms of blissful sleep
so that again and again,
it may wake me up,
and remind me-

of You.

echo

you are a part of me now.

and no one is to blame,

but chance alone.

its not a cause

for absurd alarm

its not obsession

nor a sense of possession

not at all.

now

you exist

like a sacred song

whose notes I will never forget

nor unlearn,

even if I tried

and when I close my eyes

fractals that I may sometimes see

will resemble how your smile might look,

outside my head

into my heart

its how my silence

could be a discreet shout,

calling out to you;

subtle yet strong,

in ways

that I can only try to do

and this time

in my muted reality,

It will be me

playing the part

of that melancholic echo-

and this will be you:

the very spaces in-between

every time that I repeat.

last rant before you expire

Fate delivered my muse in an accidental plane
and although it failed to apologize for taking too long
how can you not forgive a beautiful song
however unusual its package may be

and instantly
I knew that he is the most beautiful sound I'll ever hear
So I chained him to my ear, without him knowing

and his poetry reminded me that I have no use for TV
cause I've no time to spare
from reading
and writing
and thinking of him
in-between the intervals
of each word I encounter

and in secret,
the small flame of my matchstick
silently morphs into a roaring forest fire
fed by the past, bursting with things I've left unsaid,
fed by his cynical words in my head

and without a word,
he makes me want to write
so I write.

and when I get stuck, the image of his voice
guides me through every stumbling pause
and safely
I arrive each and every time
pulled by the illusion of his presence-
comma after comma,
cadence after cadence.

Ordinary People

7:30pm and tears are framing my eyes.
Not sad, just tired, sleepy.
(time to inject myself with energy)
Another one with a number of grammys under his belt
will be holding an arresting show
and I have in-demand patron tickets for free
everyone is excited:
my proud phone won't stop screaming
alerting me of messages dripping with envy

how does one humor irony?

when this is all i want to do:
curl up in warm a ball while reading the book of your thoughts-
I want no other company but your words
I want no other song but your song-
so I arm my brain with the fragile rhythm of your verses instead
to carry me through the glittering night ahead

And now I reach the part
where I clumsily grasp for words
to end this stalling masked as a rambling poem
so that I may start pasting on my priceless, practiced smile,
pretending that gold is worth my while

and later in the coliseum,
while standing and swaying with the eager crowd
and screaming in hope for an encore or two
My honest wish would be this:
For the echoes of my applause to travel far,
far too distant for all of them to hear or to see
for my genuine acclaim only to rest
wherever you may be.

The Sleep Cycle

in that place between being awake and falling asleep
an army of voices including mine,
whisper night after night of feeling empty,
as darkness dissolves the illusion of comfort laid
brought by the fraudulent brightness of day

and before you completely shut your sight for the night
you speak:
what is emptiness anyways, but a feeling?
an emotion, relative and unfounded
grounded in the vast, indeterminate truth
of pristine... nothingness

but the distance from your dreams
to your every waking moment-
from the safe womb of truth in your sleep
to this space of absolute uncertainty is infinitely immense-
so wide that questions cannot help but arise,
on why, seemingly without choice,
you end up always on the same path
always doing the same thing
always opening the same door
that leads to the world
of perfect... fiction or fabrication?

but answers are not quite ready to reveal themselves,
so in respect to the stillness that you cannot see
you swallow your questions instead
and just... cope.

powerless, you stand witness as the cycle endlessly repeats,
as once more the powers that be signal the deception to start
and you have no choice but succumb to the sun
as it prods your eyes with sly lights that lie

and as you breathe in the morning air,
(with its atoms, made of sparkling, shining promises)
you make room as this time, it is the darkness that dissolves
and you wake up smiling,
just as you did a thousand times before,
hopeful...
blindly believing once more.