“Come home with me,” he tells me. it’s the softest I've heard him speak. he’s a feet or two away, my back turned, but I know that if I see him, I won’t be able to finish what I’ve started.
“I can’t.” I hide the crack in my voice well; years of experience will do that to you. 
“Why not?” I look up, contemplating. the skies are ashed up, and down under, the people cry for retribution. 
“This world needs a hero,” my voice is almost a whisper as I say this. “And if I can’t be it, I need to make sure someone is.”

my family doesn't do meanings. they charge ahead constantly--unbound by the shackles of tradition and heritage.
i hate it. i hate it. i hate it.
we make no meanings, for meanings change. they are the dandelion seeds that blossom with each of our steps into the wind. they will follow the wind--they will not look back.
i hate it.
traditions? rituals? we have no time for that. no time, no time. life is too short for the things that time has taken under its wings. we are young, we are free. must we be controlled by the norms of the past?
i hate it.
rituals are simply fascinating. the olden days where darkness thrive and fear sank its teeth into the bones of this earth, were rituals not salvation, were they not what kept us going? the silver linings of newborn hope clutching for a rattle that would answer its every call? yes, rituals are fascinating, but they will remain...

there is a beating lump of iron in me. i took it out yesterday, polished and decorated with the finest gems i could find—i gave it to the blacksmith. i told them,

make me a sword out of this.

the blacksmith did not reply. they took one look at it and said,

the best i can do is a dagger.

I walked out with an iron dagger a side blunt and the other cutting through diamond.
 

He will take your flowers—your lilies, your roses, your gardenias—and he will make crown out of it. He will hate every second of it, but he will do it. he will do it for no reason other than the fact that he can.

when the moon reaches for the clouds
i remain a flame lit for only her

fear is an unbounded rabid dog in the face of rotten flesh
hers is that—only worse. she may seek and seek in the depths of my flares.
she will find nothing but smoke and charred skin

her agony reflects from the looking glass
[my light can only deceive so much]
the silver glass thinks itself smart
truth does seem better than candlelit lies


I’d like to tell her there’s no gospel truth
                tell her even the dead dream

my first one was picked by my mother
rebellious she was, but pliant
as she held me she murmurs
“I’ll call you ————”

my second stuck on me 
a duckling imprinting it’s mother 
“Here, this one’s yours.” I knew though
it wasn’t mine to take

the third I picked
in a bucketful of words strung together to sound out music
my conductor could not make symphonies

fourth came unwillingly 
a lion bearing crooked teeth—served none but it’s god—
soft words did nothing against
gunmetal hardened in altar hearths
i had no choice but to make it
submit

[filthy is control when moral bound]

but fifth—
fifth was mine by birthright 
call me truthless [call me liar]
fifth was only mine to take, my constellation to etch, my
empire to forge, mine
to tear down again again again until
it is only mine



define me i dare you
tell me what i am
my label will not make me

soft she is, in her drapes of emerald silver and rubies
a crown—not of garnished gold and the like—no, a crown of aged leaves on a hundred yeared tree like her own nation
a crown that whispers for oldened sorcery that no longer exists, whispers a revolution that prolongs and ceases with each mortal/soul that leaves it
she wears herself like a queen, not a king—never a king—wears her burdens like the pins in her hair; numerous they may be, but she keeps each in her mind before she relieves them.

soft, she is—
but the unrefined earth that lies beneath her fingertips tremble at her touch

soft, she is—
but molten jewels harden with time and age, and so does she


soft, she is
she has always been soft[soft eyes, soft smiles, soft soft soft—]


soft, she may be—
but she has taken the word ‘monarch’ and made it her own, torn down all other meanings except one


soft,...

Apples are probably my favorite—I don’t know why. it’s the most common fruit, and yet, I find myself lost in the possibilities of what an apple would look like between your lips.

Rue is a pretty word for three letters, it’s meaning even moreso, and yet, rue is the first word I think of when I recall the red of your rimmed eyes.

Ire is what takes Achilles as he mourns for Patroclus, and I—if needed be, I’ll ransack Troy a thousand times over to not see you cry.

Confinement sounds like salvation more than anything in my ears—my salvation has always been you you you—confinement is my sin to bear, my salvation is yours for taking.

Little by little, perhaps I’ll forget you—my dreams are liars with silver in their hearts rather than iron—perhaps, I’ll forget your face again again and again

Loose is my hold on my mind. It wanders through oceans in blued skies, through doors with...

i have a home inside me—inside my soul.
it’s a little broken, a little tilted to the side, with tattered windows and shelves long devoured by termites.
but it’s my home, so i can’t hate it.
sometimes, people come in—with an invitation, without an invitation—they always come in one by one with curious eyes and silvered smiles.
some people leave as soon as they come in, perhaps they had no time, perhaps they didn’t like my house.
that’s fine,i think, some people wouldn’t like my home.
some people stay for a while, and i welcome them so.but they see the shattered windows and eaten shelves, and they leave as well. perhaps they thought less of my shattered windows and eaten shelves, perhaps they were disgusted with them.
that’s fine too, i think, some people wouldn’t like my home.
there are others as well, others who stay for years and years and years.these ones don’t mind my broken little house.sometiems, they...

‘tell me how regret feels like,’ 
                                             ‘—it’s a bitter green, so bitter you mistake it for sweet                        it tastes like the unripened mangoes you ate in july 
it smells like your sun-dried clothes after a swim in the ocean
                                               lingers like the dead bird that crashed on your front door
it feels like that time you couldn’t speak, when the stares bore into your back
it is the sound of your parents’ fading footsteps
                          a little kid lost in an amusement park
feels like the end of a race you lost
 ...

in the thousand faceless poems i've read
the moon has never been named a 'him'.

'he' had been a moon when 'she' was the sun
it has been a silver-chipped tooth
                  a force of untrifled gravity
   has been the envious moon, Romeo calls out to his lover by the balcony-
                                                 [arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.]
the moon and its eclipses,they say, how mysterious.

alas, I have never found the moon mysterious,
                                                    nor enviable
                                   ...