Clouds

Disperse with promises
to reach the very ends
of the sky
to touch
the furthest emptiness
if it means
to lose one another

And then one day
return
tired, old, wrinkled, bled
with no more words

huddle close
and rain

Don't Write About Me

"Don't write about me," he said. So I did.

we don't live
as rectangles
straight, this way or that
then turning
because you say so

dust collected on your words
all that time, unused
unrecalled
I pulled them out of that old trunk
(memory)
shook them out
I scrutinized, discarded, saved

every time you move
you leave something behind
an old receipt
(the price quite steep)
a rainy afternoon
spent looking out the window
mail
video store cards
a cup, presented
on the first lonely birthday
books you never meant to read
soft things
hair collected from a pillow-

these remnants
they don't fit you anymore
but words
you fold, hang, frame
wear, drink, paint
you save- take them with you

"Please," he said, "please."
(I nodded, promised, lied)
"Don't write about me."

The Artist

He died from being an artist. Or was he a postman- delivering loveletters? Yes, he died of a broken heart.

He was a poet who lost his words. He misplaced them and couldn't find them anywhere.

He looked behind his fridge, he looked under his bed. He searched between the pages of the books on his shelves. In desperation, he even undressed his lamp and peeked under her shade.

He saw her bulb and wondered if maybe the words had evaporated due to her yellow heat. So he sat back and took a deep breath- he inhaled and he inhaled and he inhaled. Without exhaling.

His lungs exploded, shattering his ribs, which punctured his heart. And he died and he died and he died- all night long.

Words

A soft blue chair, that turns in its place. A blanket, green and orange. Lampshades salvaged from left-along-the-sidewalk. A wooden table, crafted by a friend. A piano- Mozart's "Sonata in f minor." Old blown out candles from I-wonder-when (dust settled around their wicks). Books, books, books, spilling from their shelves: dictionaries, anthologies, novels, journals, poetry, Shakespeare, bible, Quran, others. Framed pictures, paper lanterns, bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. A desk piled high with more books, books, books-

...and behind them, my love, in his stripes, floating in his words.

Waited

“I’ve waited my whole life for you,”
you read
this ground
beneath our feet
turn to me and
kiss

I’ve waited

The Girl Can Sure Scream!

Sascha:
i was at the walgreens the other day and wanted to ask the lady for condoms and earplugs coz i was looking for both..but i couldn't do it without you...too funny.

All This (1)

My glasses
sometimes magnify
Sometimes they diminish
His words

All This (2)

One morning, I woke up
and told the whole world
how wrong he was-
Many mornings,
not just one-
But this evening
I wake up realizing
he wasn’t
So wrong

It's Almost As if You Never Existed

So it is. Just like you said it would be. The shorter story. No love no glory. It’s as if you never existed. Never came and went. Never came. Never went. What do I have to show? Some pieces of furniture that I remember shopping for with you; that entertainment center that the TV rests on (the TV you insisted on, the flat screen, huge fucking TV)- that entertainment center that you so had your heart set on you were almost unhappy that they didn’t have it in stock at the store- so much so that I called them every day until I found it at another location. This futon that we bought together, too, and as memory recalls, we were fighting that day, too. These songs that play in the background while I write that I attach to you, to memories of you, either because we heard them together for the first time, both loved equally (Did we love each other equally? As equally as we loved these songs?), or because they made me think of you then, and so they make me think of you now. This heater that buzzed all night long in that apartment of ours on top of the hill; this heater that you so despised when you first came to visit me in San Francisco that January two years ago. That bar table that your parents sent us, US, for Christmas. That dictionary we used when we played Scrabble and you made words I knew weren’t real. This coffee table that we put that 1000 piece three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle together on. This song that’s playing on the radio now, that I don’t think I would have ever noticed if it weren’t for you, and probably wouldn’t have cared too much for if you hadn’t fallen in love with it (Did you love this song more than you loved me?) Oh, how you hated these sheer red curtains of mine. I think I will keep them forever.

It’s almost as if you never existed. Never came to be with me, never left. If it wasn’t for all those memories I have, I would have wondered if I’d imagined you. Who knows, I might have imagined you and everything I “remember” of you.