On The Trail of the First High

1)
Lucid dreams of major/minor despairs
You stretched to reach with your talon claws
Cry out baby sheep and take that leap
Movements, they set off paranoia
This dying state of frenzy is rather dire.
Tick Tock, Tick Tock the graying clock
screamed and moaned through time block
Sing to me, my dear nothings
But please keep that burning fire going
For soon, I will return and unlike this
It'll be similar to that first kiss.

2)
Sometimes I run with my arms out before me
I have no faith, in order to be
Longing has become the glimmering scales
that I shed as desired revival of
misplaced trust.
There's this hunger in the pit of my stomach
It's a darkened cave, where senses are off
and honesty is never really enough.
To strive for that mark of approval
has set me back light years of progress
like leaving school and missing recess.

3)
The painter, Max, never stopped looking
for that woman, who will grant
Good Earth's wishes and speak frank.
One morning, Max woke up with his vision
and began his labor of love on that white canvas.
Days, weeks, and months it took to manifest
but a face is evident on the horizon.
A lady with a Roman nose and fiery ringlets
Her passion burns through, like magnets
searching for its counterpart, in his art.

For A Lover, Away

It's like the morning after
with the sun spilling through
curtain slits

You lay there, so beautiful
among ruffled bed sheets, peaceful

The warmth of intimacy
hums softly on my skin

Never had I felt so
at rest.

You send me butterfly kisses
they flutter lovingly
on my collarbone
like a necklace,
so adorned.

The hummingbird
excited
within me,
listen close, my love

For this is a love note
written,
a symphony
played,
solely
for you.

Comatose - Skillet

I don't understand how it happens

I can still smell traces of you on my bed
and see the sleep in your eyes

where are you now?

I feel the roughness of your hands
against my soft skin
I feel the gentleness of your touch
against my aching back

I sent you back

I look out my window, hoping
but your spot is vacant
as if you were never here

You've gone away.

I can still feel the chilling water
from dipping my toes into the fountain water
Hopping stones to be closer to the sliding falls
we sat like that
isolated and content, twice
under the sun, under the moon

You've gone away.

We stroll to careless whispers
With promises to climb that one tree
With witnesses to us being together
at long last.

I've lost consciousness.

In the quiet parking lot
in the midst of the darkness
we sat at the back of your truck
smoking our greatest high,
the presence of us.

When?

I have pictures and countless proofs
videos to the sound of your voice
the way your scent lingers, ever so
the way my desk left disarray
with remnants of you.

I could live in your arms forever more
But I can't.
I can never walk around this place without
thinking you were there too.

Breakfast on Sundays at Rosie's
My first Chipotle burrito
Falling asleep to Benjamin Button
Blasting Skillet on the highway
Going on long journeys
Drinking the best Ice Tea under the sun
Talking about things we don't care for

I've been left.

Tell me, until when?

3 Generations of Women

She sleeps on the hospital bed again tonight
there's only so much in life she can fight
Alone, surrounded by hundreds of
strangers full of bleeding stories,
latching on forgotten glories.
She's old and fragile, a little lady
Don't let your bad dreams haunt her, please
Let her rest, Let her heal

She's a puppet doll, attached to strings you pull in delight
Plane ticket in her back pocket, she won't board her flight
Heaven only knows how many times she's cried
over the used.
She is injured but cannot afford her savior.
Don't let your bad dreams haunt her, please
Let her go, free her suffering soul

Skies are graying and clouds are racing to cover
the last of the light
I see out the glass windows, my city, my home
But I'm already losing sight.
I'm horrible at Hellos and
even worse at Goodbyes
Don't let your bad dreams haunt me, please
Let me run, let me see.

Stuck

Last Friday night, my friend and I went to our first poetry reading at the Urban Juke Joint, it's a once a month get together in NYC. All the performances I was able to catch was utterly amazing. Even though I may not relate to some of the topics, such as slavery, I left pumped with a sort of creative energy. I think the most enriching part of the night was their open forum, where anyone can take the mike and share their views on that night's subject. I learned that I'm not a poet, but I speak poetry. There's a difference.

For the past few months I've been stuck. I couldn't write anything decent probably because I'm not riding on any sort of emotional rollercoaster. I pushed myself yesterday to write this following piece. It's not my usual format of poetry, it's more "spoken-word."

How long has it been since you left me?
I can't recall.
They say that time heals all wounds
well they lied
because they clearly have never been in love.
Oh God, were we in love?
Who knows but we were certainly
tugging on a thread that
would have no doubt unravel into it.

How long has it been since you left me?
Too long.
For awhile I couldn't stop thinking
about you
obsessing
about you
stalking
you on MySpace,
because people from Indiana don't go on Facebook.
So much of my life it took.

Then suddenly I learned to forget.
In almost an instant
you became no one.
I forgot
how great you used to make me feel
how your voice was enough to make me smile
I forgot
all that
and moved on.

Now, after however long
we're talking again.
Yet it's what we don't speak about
that screams bloody murder.
We're not talking about how I live further
than the girl you exchanged me for
We're not talking about how we really feel
in your head I'm still unreal
We're not talking about
all the things driving us mad.

How long has it been since you left me?
It doesn't matter
I'm long gone.

Inspired

So a few weeks ago I went to Ohio for my college orientation, and while at the bookstore I picked up a poetry book called, "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair," by Pablo Neruda and translated by W. S. Merwin. Personally, love is the one thing that inspires me to write... at least my better pieces. The flow of Neruda's work is really captivating; each line enraptures. Even though it's only 20 poems, I still have not yet finished it, not even half. I like to spend my time digesting every word, interpreting and understanding before preceding. So here I give you one of his poems:

So That You Will Hear Me
By Pablo Neruda

So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.

Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.

And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.

It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.

Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.

Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.

Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.

But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

Unfinished Pieces from Draft-Long time ago

I don't think I've ever felt so alone in my life.
Everyday for me is an inner strife.
The past, the present, the future
they are nothing that I can nurture.
Past love, I can't help but cling on to
because my heart still wants to
11:11 I prayed for him to find me
Convinced that he was the one I need.
And I think I still do, my mind won't let go.

Past tense, Present tense, Future Tense
Past Participle, Present Perfect, Future nonsense
Here now, is a boy that I like to speak with
but he's not someone I want to be with.

___________________________________________________________

Take these keys back
they were never mine to keep.
And this box full of letters
that you've written for me, so deep.

My watch had stopped at half past eight.
That was when anger took you away.
I will never forget the way you looked at me
I'm not the person you want or need.

A Moment From Last Summer

Bryant Park

The grassy green grass in the middle of the square
The chairs left disarray without a care
I sit on one of them, beneath an umbrella
beside an old man who is lost in thought
watching water sprout from the fountain.
It's sunny and it's drizzling.

I sit beneath an umbrella.
To my right, I see the top of a carousel
turning and turning, I don't see them
they're blocked by trees and rows and rows of bushes
so much green.
I wish you were here, came and been.
I want to dance with you
on the grassy green square
surrounded by careless chairs.

We'll let the drizzle hit the top of our heads
and we'll keep swaying
and the old man will glimpse over once
and turn his head back towards the fountain
and maybe he'll reflect back to his younger years

full of romance.

Some Poems from the Past

Again

My mom, with tears in her eyes, said
"If you hurt me again,
I will not care about what you do
anymore."
I cried.
Because I realized, how close to the edge I am.
And to become dead to her, is death
of me.

Karma screams at me, all the time.
I hurt her, so he hurts me in turn
over and over and over, again.

I never cry, not because I don't like to
or want to, but because
I'm a living drought.
And those rare passing showers,
I cherish greatly.
So much that I often peer into the mirror
and watch with awe
as my face scrunches into damp deformity.

What gives him the right
to pull the rug beneath me
over and over and over, again?

I keep assuring the world
that I'm alright.
That he's the last person on the face of this earth
who can hurt me.
But I used to think I would be the last person
to hurt her, because I love her so much.

We always do the things, we're not suppose to.

Independence Day

You used to be extraordinary to me
and I, your ordinary.
But finally I realized,
it's the other way around.
I was your something special,
your worldly possession.

We held onto each other on that teacup ride,
spinning spinning we lost control.
When we got off, I couldn't hold it together.
You left unscathed.

6 months of beauty became ugly
in a month's time.
You were never really mine.

I hurt over that, latching on
never letting go.
Wilted was I, fast becoming Cupid's sigh.
Using telescopic eyes I see space.
You've become someone else's shooting star.

Eyes shut, hands clasped
I wished and wished
for something holy, sacred.
And I got it, my final goodbye.

Not to you.
Not to me.
But to we.

Left in Dreamland

Black
He brought to me the spectrum of colors
with fresh new rollers.
We're going to start painting your world,
he said.
Hesitation was afraid.
Where do we start?
I wanted to know.
He poured crimson around me,
of what looked like a ... "Peach?"
No silly,
it's a heart
you can't see because you're within it.
And that was my relationship with
Black
We work together painting his visions and
I never knew what they were till I ask.
Soon I stopped and
Black
took no notice.
"I'm sorry, your art is no longer appreciated here,"
I laid it down;
He turned and left my ground
with his bundle of colors
save for one.
It was a can of blue, with a note
to say, "It fits you."
Day and night I paint over
our past labors
canceling out all the residue
with my blue.
Blue figures in a blue world,
they all blend.
But Pablo and I
will be the only ones to understand
Black
may have left blue
but I left you.

Dry Spell

The sound of cars rushing by
The voice of reason losing way
It's so unnerving.

I thought I knew where I was
Who I was to become

in the grand scheme of things.

But people run
and they turn into lost blurs,
composites of rejected colors.
And definiteness and determination
are soon shot.

I never protected myself from harm's way
because I thought

it was the only way to live.

Yet I find myself not living with a reason
just simply breathing to see.

I thought I knew who I was to be
but even the most clear headed
can find themselves locked in a dead end.
I refuse to back up, because it won't be enough.
Not enough to cheat a smile
on the tear stricken face of a young girl.

After all, I'm not five anymore.

Being Buoyant

I am a castaway on an island
You dropped me off once upon a time
been two months, here I stand.

Every passing day made it clearer
To experience romance, gives life
and purpose derives from it.
But when it slips through
into the cracks of the earth
all the once perfect scenes of us, vitiates.

I had the picture of you,
crystal in my mind.
Circumstances became boulders
and this borrowed boat of ours
became shambles.

I came ashore,
telling myself you drowned loving me.
Words of empty comfort is what it is.
But my mind need not tell my heart.

I don't wish for you to save me again,
I only dream of the feelings
that kept me afloat.
Buoyancy is what I'm searching for.

Cancer

We were electric.

I was a cigarette that you lit
my first smoke, start of a six month binge.
My lungs soon gave out
but habits are hard to break and
my longing became cancerous
as you linger by, delirious.
It doesn't matter, you have no cure.

There are days when I'm convinced
that it's better.
And then I relapse
and false hope remains as so.
They all look at me with somber eyes
feeding me with chemo lies.

Before operation,
I prayed hard.
I prayed that you never say
you love her.
Not until the day
you find that you love her more
than you ever loved me.

You've found another spark.