un, deux, trois...

un is three o’clock in the morning,

ensnared in your bed sheets,

for tossing and turning all night,

longing for something you know you will never have.

deux is a bitch taunting you with her curves.

deux is an unreachable dream; she runs her forked tongue

across her cherry red lips and smiles at you –

and you know that she will never love you.

trois café, s’il vous plait will never sound as right as deux café,

because trois is a triangular merry-go-round

that one would eventually fall out of. 

Sometimes (very rarely) I Miss Chinese

他在血红色的

      花瓣上

写了一段

轰轰烈烈,

撕心裂肺

     的

        爱情。 

Laura

was her name and she once had flowers

growing out of her hair –

they were usually blue flowers, because

she was always feeling blue

but that was when he was still around.

that was when he still called her darling and they

went for walks and watched movies but they didn’t really

because they were too busy making out.

that was yesterday

and yesterday was a thousand billion years ago,

it was before the visigoths sacked rome and

before the dinosaurs and the neanderthals.

yesterday was a thousand billion years

before the big bang

or was it after?

she didn’t know, couldn’t remember anymore

because when he left, he took away everything

she ever was and ever will be.

she didn’t even feel blue anymore because

she never feels anything anymore. 

Some Words Are Just Too Sacred

/always/

is never a good word to be used

in love.

do not reassure her with words interlaced with

‘always’. she will be soothed and appear to be assuaged but

it will be a word that would come back to haunt you

like a bloodhound. it will sniff you out years later,

aroused by the dwindling affection you feel for her, the

utter dissatisfaction and insipid detachment in your relationship.

and it will devour you.

i will always love you,

will become the most fearsome boogeyman

under your bed and in your closet.

/always/

is for the use of immortals.

there are people who understand love (these are the immortals)

and there are people who vaguely grasp it, but are

too afraid or too ignorant to penetrate it

further. to delve deep into its core, and yet

never lose sight of the starting point,

to never forget what your heart might have forgotten.

and even then,

it must be a word that can only be written; it must never be spoken,

for the spoken word, even when whispered, can be devastating.

1001 Arabian Nights

i sometimes wish i was born in the desert sea,

under the harsh, unforgiving glare of the sun, during

the worst of desert storms.

i dreamt of rising like a cobra from the ubiquitous sand,

with the trickle of golden grains sliding down my body.

once i was a king

but that was before caesar.

theirs are a tongue i would give anything to speak.

rich and thick and creamy like the scented cones propped

upon ancient egyptians’ heads they rolled out of their mouths

like a lullaby.

even the words smell like

za’atar and cumin and cardamom.

the evening air tastes like baharat and the waning sun.

they say that only the strongest survive

but what is never born

may never die. 

Pending

Going back to
Reality - isn't an option. But,
Easing my soul into
Yours. Is.

Things That Change

Once upon a time I was

flesh and blood and bones, 

I breathed the infinitesimal stars and the sky

and I breathed the universe.

I had the fire of the sun

between my ribs and 

the swiftness of the wind

in my legs 

(I unfolded them like wings). 

I had hair interwoven with thunder bolts and a 

head full of hurricanes. 

Perhaps I have spun on my axis alone

for too long. 

Perhaps I swallowed the inexhaustible salt of

loneliness too much -

because now, my 

dreams are scattered like constellations

in the perennial night

and my heart

is the color of

dying leaves. 

It's Part of Nature

Kiss my feet and they will blossom into an amaranthine meadow of flowers.
Kiss my arms and watch them twist into great, serpentine rivers that intertwine like double-helices.
Kiss my shoulders, they will stretch into two bridges that interconnect planets and systems.
Kiss my lips and taste the golden elixir of honey. You will be immortal.
Kiss my eyes and they will be the eternal stars to guide you through the endless nights.

May 7th

Because I let myself wade
into you too prematurely;
first the ankles, knees and thighs.
And suddenly I'm up to my shoulders
in you.

Everything was measured and everything was slow,
and because of that
I believed that I was safe
in the impenetrability of time.
I didn't know that I would
wake up one day
to find that I am
the color of your blood.

Love is A Sticky Mess

My tongue is leaden with
particles of you,
and my soul weary;
I love you
but I love you
no more.

I am more

ghost

than solid flesh. I

roam the piceous concourse of

your murky mind too long,

too often.
And I saw

Your shriveled bones.

I love you

but I'm suffocating. 

You crowd my lips 

and you clot

in the pores of my 

withering skin. 

You disgust me,

but I love you

and I love you still. 

B is For

B is for Blue Balloons.
For Breaking Bones, Bloated Bodies,
and Ballerinas.
Breathing in sharply, I can't help
But feel the sudden ache in my left
Breast. I imagine my heart
Blistering, Black Blood collects in the sacs of pus like
Bells of hell. And,
Bruised, Bleeding, Between Breaths,
I
Blacked out.

Save Me From Me

My skin is raw and
my heart whorls,
so my darling will you
please
soak me in you?

Smear yourself on me:
On my cumbersome limbs
on my
throbbing flesh.
You may suck
away
the delirium
and the morbidity
and the abyss
from the pores
of my
skin.

Promise
you'll make me better.
Promise you
won't let me drown
on dry land.
Promise me,
because I
terrify
myself.

Love Your Tumor

You said you want to
Kiss the wound
that is my mouth.
You would
suck away the
cosmic, eternal
darkness
into
you.

But you
don't know that
nobody will find the pain
in me,
because I am
your tumor. I
am your pain.
I love you
but I will never
wake again,
even if
I tried.

Goodbye Darling

Your love left blisters on
my heart,
your breath stained
my skin.
And now you say
you would leave.
Again.

Alright
you may go.
But first,
could you please
find me a donor -
I can't grow
another new heart
anymore.

I Miss You

I miss you.
And all I am breathing are thoughts.
I gasp and splutter and there is no
air. Only dense clouds of
memories.

The little droplets of anguish run
like blood - rolling and tumbling onto each other
they clot into masses of black and they
choke me
to the point of delirium.

In my lugubrious dose of morbidity
I cried with a thousand eyes.
I wander alone
in the reverberating hollow concourse
of your absence:
missing you and hating you
to the point of death.

Insomnia

The nights would not let me sleep;
the daylight blinded me.
I am left to stagnate, vegetate
and to regress.

Purge my mind from skin to bones,
disrobe me from it:

for such thoughts I have;

of the grotesque and the deplorable
that would consume me whole and alive.

Would that I could be empty breasted again -
breathe freely as though the particles
of air would not choke me to death.
And my heart of flesh and blood
does not weigh like gold.

Yet the hellish din would abide, issuing
from lips burned black of thirst
to murmur the most egregious words
from which rang the ugly truth.

L'enfer d'Humanite

We are the haunted and the haunting;

eyes stark, limbs suspended

we drift through the years

unaware of the phantom vulture who 

licks its beak at our asininity.

Cold and alone,

we all yearn to love and be loved.

We empty ourselves of a paramour

only to be filled with another and we

wanted to cling, 

but there was nothing to cling on to.

The dead leave us starving 

with mouths full of love. The world is

in vicissitude, yet we remain

unyielding and stubborn and we moan

incessantly, pathetically until in a rage

God kills us. 

And so we die. 

Deepest and Darkest

Better to be cradled in sea shells
And float through the millennium of nights;
Alone and forgotten, but infinitely
free - free as I had never been,
from the alien hurt
and from you.

I've loved you too long
and now my soul is bloated -
swollen for feasting on you:
you and your perennial
cynicism. My dark prince,
you hold too much darkness and I
inhaled too much of you.

Of black I know too well.
Viscous and tenacious it clings
so possessively to me, to my
body and my bones. And
there is nowhere to hide
from the swooping sadness
that creeps up on me.

Better to be cradled by the whisperings
and sleep through a thousand years;
uncomprehending and dispassionate, but
miraculously living and breathing
as I had never been. 

The Longest Night

In the darkness there is but
White flashes of flesh:
My arms and yours;
the half light.

The reverberating hollowness that
Captures my heart holds
Dominion over me. Every
Heartbeat hurts and

I couldn't breathe.
It doesn't matter that
We're breathing breathlessness
Into each other.

And it doesn't matter that
We both know we
Won't last the night.

I love you the way

Waves love the shore. 

There were times

when I was filled 

to the brim with tender love. I 

Loved you gently and I wanted

You

In my arms.

There were times 

when my love seemed like a 

hurricane: urgent and unrestrainable

I 

Thought of you

All night. 

But if you asked me

Why I loved you,

I would've had no idea

Other than I love you

And I do, I do.