“There I am then back in the saddle, in my numbed heart a prick of misgiving, like one dying of cancer obliged to consult his dentist.”

I'm a slave to my whims

Never lasted a verse when my peace of mind
Was the price to pay
In the few years into my shock of an adulthood
This heart of mine
Grew so spoiled that I spare him the toil
Of picking the best of the worst
I drift at ease through the changing gust
It's been delightful
Detached my anchors of commitment
Forgot my aim
Lightness was both morbid
And liberating
My nickname was changed with time
From Warrior to Capricious
All these countless enterprises to fill
My expanding emptiness made me Jack of all trades
A lover of all shades, only pushed towards the sunlight
Holding on tight made my palms
So numb
That I let go of the precious
Without realizing

I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night
When I've died in a dream

Laboring myself with thought
To pass on the hours until dawn
So demons wouldn't invade my brain

Why did The Lord send us down here ?

Clad with a consciousness
Weakened by humanness
Our first prize and yet our greatest vice

To feel, could be the heaviest burden
Isn't it ?
But to live like death was an utter lie
Or idle through the days as we lie without a care
Just to die in vain after so many years
Of being docked at the bay
Perhaps were, in the end
Only one and the same.

"Then I went back into the house and wrote, it is midnight.
The rain is beating on the windows.
It was not midnight.
It was not raining."

Komerobi

He said after a moment of comfortable silence
"I got a question.
It's a bit too forward but I need to know :
Would you

Would you ever be with someone younger in age?"

I took my time
Reading between the lines

I said, "How young are we talking?"

He said, "Does it matter ?"
"In a decade, it won't"
He said, sometimes people think they are born
Into the wrong generation
So they age so fast to catch up with the years they have missed
And it's so unfair
That their love never waits on
Sometimes, never remembers
The promise they made in another time
To find each other again

"That sounds familiar.", I said

"It's because we read the same books."

"We did."

"So, what do you think ?"

What do I think ?

I think I did remember, a while ago
When I thought I was going to die
I remembered how his lips stuck out when he murmured
To himself
His rhythmic way of breathing out his words
His lean limbs, awkwardly long
And his inordinate perms
His eloquent gaze behind his thick frames

But I
I failed to remember the details of his face

I look for him
Among strangers when I walk down the street
And I tragically
Tragically

Can't remember if I loved him

Truth is, I never loved before

In this time

To remember how it would feel

And I never wrote a love poem that was true to my heart
At the time
Made it a point to cross them all when I'm done bleeding
Toss away the crumbled pages
When I, in a moment of frenzy, have jetted all down
Lines he spoke to me on long evenings
Lines he probably thought to himself at the borders of slumber
Never believed they would cross through time and space
To reach me

Your whispers live inside my head

They drive me insane
Out to the streets without an aim
Out screaming at the face of the darkness
Atop the highest dunes ,facing the planes of nought
Driving past my destination on deserted roads
Engraving into my iris the colors of the tiles
In foreign allies
Breathing in some foreign sighs, holding them longer
So I could taste the smoke exhaled from a foreign pair
Of lungs, twisting in a foreign kind of despair
Over a foreign breed of cares, in some foreign land

It was all to find you and, alas! it was all

In vain

These verses you shot into my veins
Spell out as I cut myself ,when it rains
In November
These morsels of words and acrid metaphors
That you passed on to my throat, while bidding my lips farewell
I disgorge while twisting in pain
Trying to find a clue or two in the mess I mean to wipe
They were timeless letters from you to I
And I try to write back, heaps and heaps of pages that I scribbled in reply
In gratitude for the chance
In regret for the wasted years
In fear of forgetting
In agony of loss
In delight of short lived infatuations
Brimming with the idea of you
Perfumed by the unfounded memory of you

And I never loved you
Despite all, that part was true 


They say an afflicted heart never lets one
Fall asleep at night
The butterflies flutter wild in their guts
And a few might escape with the sighs they let 
In the presence of their beau
They say it makes one wander off too far
On crisp afternoons
Their cup of coffee gets cold, the wind flips some pages
Past the one with the word that brought a lover's apparition
Into their thoughts

Where was I going with this ...


These morsel of words and acrid metaphors

Are tender apologies that would never reach

Through
Because in my wanderings, I've found myself
At last
Became whole and full of love
My time started moving
Forward in age, backward in spirits
And I could never make sense of why

Would one seek the source of all maladies
To heal a trifling sore

I never loved before

And I said "No", for all the wrong reasons
That was my longest letter to you, I thought

He said, "Good,
That's good, because love is an invention"
I said "how so?", a bit disheartened
He said, "Loneliness
Is so incomprehensible to us
That we look for an exegesis
Inscribed on someone else's palms
We stumble upon a stranger with matching inscriptions
We link our hands to unlock the script

And we think we have found what we lost at birth."

I paused at length
My cup of tea grew cold
Wind blew hard through some open window
And the pages flipped too fast
I couldn't recall the word
That brought your apparition into my thoughts
But I think I broke a precious vase
While I spaced out, trying to recognize your face

In another stranger.

Die Toten Seleen

I cry easily
Of late
Throw tantrums for matters
I used to mock as I nudged them beneath a rug
Tripped on the hump the other day
It's grown this big while I wasn't looking
I cry when I can't point a finger
At the origin of the pain
I burst into fits of anger
When I fail to explain
Why it hurts when my limbs are sound
They have a mean odor for such a clean existence
These fumes of despair
A bottle left half open
They grows less in volume as they poisons the air
Because it ain't fair to suffer alone

"Look at me", I implore

As I bare my flesh to you
Words betray my will
The insufferable rogues
I am released from the spell
To my great dismay

"LOOK AT ME."

I yell

I endured so bravely
And it's my time to crumble
Fall and rubble
And you don't seem to understand
That a drop of rain can bring down a mountain
One's spine grows weary
When enough time has passed
Their back won't handle the lightest
Of sacks
The candles in their eyes die quietly
Their lungs grow sick of
Holding in their sighs
And their skin
Starts to crack
It won't contain the swelling waves
The twitches in their nerves
The witches laughing in dark corners
On moonless nights
And their bodies grow so thin
Fighting all these battles within
Betrayed by beliefs
Burdened by brothers of kin
In abundance of love
In want of solicitude
Both in fear and in craving
Of eternal solitude
Dropped their blade by the tenth blow
Because they knew in the marrows of their decaying bones

That they
Could never win.

Torn Pages, Scratched Lines

I don't remember when I wrote this, it sounds old, and sincere.
And untrue to my current state of mind, but it deserves to see the light nonetheless.


1//

You have been bitter all your life
Over the time you have lost
On precious people
And higher callings
Your youth, your zeal
Your vigor and your appeal
All were in vain, for you never made it
To happiness
This bitterness started to seep into my skin
It took quarters deep within my cells
I am mirroring you
When we are close, you could feel it
When I pour my heart and my voice breaks
Into many pieces and my eyes glisten
And I say all the truth in its most agonizing rigor
It terrifies you, to your bones
Indeed, more than I'm terrified of becoming your shadow
You are afraid of my living the life you never got to live.



2//


Tonight you crossed my mind
It was a gay party, and I stopped laughing
To remember you properly
It's strange, for I haven't thought of you
For months past
But I like to believe it's because
You were thinking of me at that moment
Did you know, I loved you since the very first encounter
Perhaps
One never trusts their heart when time is the question
I loved you still, when I came to know
That you thought of it as a game
Because I looked like a puzzle
I loved you even when I started to notice your car
Lurking outside, and following me around
When I caught winds of your prying
On my affairs

I loved you still

When you pretended that I
Was a ghost, when I waved hi
And when I saw you stealing glances
From the corner of your eye
I loved you all this while until
I knew how much it tortured you
To silence your heart
It was genuine after all
And you had to suppress a feeling this strong
Endure this long
Yet still chose your pride
Over a shot at happiness

You deserve to suffer.



3//

You said you'd never introduce us
I took it as a joke, and laughed it off
You knew as I knew that it wasn't as such
That was your habit, mixing petty with
The sugar in the coffee you serve
I don't have it anymore because
When I used to sulk and weep I
Had to pretend that I can't see
How your eyes twinkled
For years I thought it was comfort
At finding company in this coldness of scourge
But you liked to see someone's weaknesses
Lain on the tray
It must've gave you comfort

I try too hard, don't I ?

I follow the book, and check to see
If my services were up to satisfaction 
I try too hard, and it makes folks like you comfortable
"She ain't going no where
She needs this"
You think it's out of naivety
When it's just because I never tried
At all
When they were around
And I can't live with the burden of my Should'ves
Clinging to my shoulders
For the rest of my life
It wasn't so bad, when I
Had a reason to run away
For once.



4//

It's not I, it's you.
All you.



5//

I miss you badly.



6//

That was a lie
I've already forgotten
What I walked away from
The moment I turned my back on you
When one is the deserter,
It makes perfect sense
Because they got all the reasons listed
Reasons not to look back at all
But I miss badly the person I was
When I was around you
Funny
Loud
Outspoken
Adventurer
Beautiful
Innocent
That was a lie
I miss how things were
When you were around
All was in order
Having someone to be lonely with
On a Thursday night
Lay on the sand, exhausted of our
Wonted togetherness
A queer playlist shuffling
Silence for hours at length
Was comfortable for a change
I miss the way you used to talk nonstop
When I was in the mood to listen
Only stopped to take a breath,
As if you only got one chance to say it all
Before reclining to your usual moroseness
You were a major asshole when it was my turn
To act like a child
That part I don't miss

That was a lie
All of it

I miss you badly.



7//

I've never felt so alive
Until I started to live
Like I'm going to die
Before my next breath
Liberating
I'm so afraid of fading away
That I'm making all the preparations
So folks wouldn't miss me, as bad
When I'm gone.



8//

When autumn arrives
The Ginkgo tree sheds its fans
For the wind to carry away
She will never get there to see
If her kids made it safely
Her bare trunk still abides
During long summers
It harbors a few nests, and
Sustains a broken swing
Unarmored
Heavy
Full of holes
Lonely
Still stands undefeated
She had nothing to lose
And yet has lost everything
She's not happy, but greatly satisfied
She's not sad, she is just weary
I am the Ginkgo.
The Ginkgo is I.

I'll omit the chain of events that led to this moment :

I ran out into the night

Barefoot
It was dark and no other soul was to be found
In that calm desert

Sand was cold between my toes
I could only see ahead as far 

As my headlights could illuminate

She looked helpless, all her tires stuck 

Between heaps of soft mush

Smoke was oozing out

The city lights were glowing in the distance

Flickering candles on a flat cake

"This was a bad idea"

I thought

But I was laughing to myself like a madman

I ran out into the night

And with every step my feet grew heavier

Sinking in a swamp

The wind blew colder on my dry cheeks

I turned around

In vain, I searched for the way I came from

Tracks disappeared, crossed each other teasingly

My footprints faded
Hills multiplied, I could swear there were
A few moons even

And my engine whined from the distance
An old beast, licking its wounds
And all directions felt the same

Where I came from
And where I'm going
Quietness reigned
Even my car disappeared
And I, alone, giggled
In the darkness
"How about that for a pickle?"
"You have an odd sense of humor"

"It's the time to freak out now, 

Isn't it, Atticus ?"

"Indeed it is"

"Then why am I not despairing ?"

"It's just too familiar"

"Almost comical, eh?"

"But what if you die here ?"
"I won't"
"I know, but what if you die here tonight
And no one knew?"
"Knew what ?"
"How this feels, right now?"

Darkness ahead
Darkness behind
Darkness above
Darkness beyond
Darkness within
Darkness without
Darkness was so kind after all
And for the first time
I was living a metaphor
In reality

I ran out into the night
Barefoot, roaring with laughter
I was lost
I was cold
I was alone
I was exhausted, terribly so
I was scared

But I never felt more alive
In my entire life.

La Donna è Mobile

"This is splendid, 
But this is a self portrayal, my dear
That is to say, you are rightly wrong
Beautifully so
I've watched you for long
Your strokes betray a meticulous nature
Too faithful to the system
You cuff your imagination
Take into consideration no ingenious feelings
Angles too small
Compositions too light
Protrusions too bright
You try not to break the rules
And hence killing the soul of the technique
Holding your tools upright
You erase and re write, step back
Grimacing
And then again, attack your plain
Furiously
Like a child with no restrains
Never know when to stop
Not even when you could see it so clearly
That you are ruining what could've been
A master piece
By trying too hard
To make it perfect

Your work is unique in that regard

It's so like you
Layers of mistakes, undiscovered
Erratic flaws, hiding in the shadows
But you are missing the point
It's not about what you see
It's about what you want it to look like
And you fail to realize that
The sole idea of perfection
After all, in your eyes
Is your own."

Lonesome and satirical like a Gogol book.

Fragile and disregarded like a Fitzgerald poem.

Repulsive and pitiful like a festering wound.

Proud and irritable like a Dostoyevsky heroine.

Bare yet brimming with joy like a Blues song.