·Yet Again,·

Yet again, I find myself enveloped in a deep darkness.

Drowning inside my own head, choked by my own thoughts.

Despair dawning upon my insecurities.

Again, I find myself trying to look for myself,

Trying to find myself.

Man was made for woman,

Same as I believe you were made for me.

A blend of hope, and faith, and pain,

A blend of you and me.

Yet again, I am sinking, lost in my past lives,

Trying to figure out

If the voices in my head are truly my own.

I find myself succumbing to darkness,

Listening to the devil on my shoulder, yet again.

But again, the angel tells me to still my mind,

Listen to my heart,

Flow with the wave.

Yet again, I am stuck.

Do I listen to my heart or my mind?

Succumb to the evil,

Or cling to the purifying light?

You feel like a natural instinct,

And yet, my mind forbids it.

"Hurt", it calls you.

Yet, I am inclined to leap,

To trust in the heart, to trust in the hurt.

And yet, again,

'Lance of striking thunder'

I find myself pleading.

'Strike me with your might,

Guide me towards your path.'

I am lost and dumbfounded, yet again.

I am lost, looking for a crumb,

A divine sign that my next step or leap forward

Will not end up crushing my already fragile heart.

I believe, I know I should.

But then again, should I?

•Whiskey Dreams•

That cold, strange familiar feeling is creeping back again,

Breathing upon the windows, "Let me in"..

I can't help but see the world as empty once more,

Every opportunity ceases to mean something,

So I crank out more words,

Extrapolate creation from my nothingness to feed my hungry soul,

Why can't I feel any more??

Nothing but regret and anger fill the room,

(Drown, damn it drown!!!)

All the life boats take us to an empty-promise island,

A land so full of empty promises

It practically dribbles out of the ears of the dumb to listen,

I see happy people everywhere and I silently judge them,

Because she made me an empty shell with no remorse,

A by-stander in this world

Watching these crystal cups splinter light through whiskey drags and fine-cut glass,

As memories touch the counter

With sweat-stuck fingers and long broken hearts,

Will these shattered bottles and alcohol-stained shirts ever wash out your love??

She'd be the death of me, as it turns out, and deep down I had always known it,

I walked into her love cautiously,

Carrying my self-doubt like luggage when boarding a plane,

Carefully placing it in the cargo bin above my head where it stayed,

Hovering over my head until we reached our destination,

But she knew and packed lightly

Because she had absolutely no idea where we were headed,

See, I was being cautious at first,

But her being completely drew my soul

& before I realised it, I had fallen too deeply for her...

She was more book than girl by the time we crossed paths,

So I opened her faded cover,

& as her spine cracked, I realised-

She had been handled far more than she had been read,

She was a soul demanding to be heard

In a body refusing to speak,

& yet even in her silence, I could hear and understand the lonely whispers of her soul,

Before long, I realised that she had opened me,

Terrifyingly so, to the idea that a person can be as equally addicting as a substance,

Falling in love with her had always proven to be a very wonderful adventure,

She made it look so easy,

& my God, was it easy,

She had poisoned my body in the most intoxicating ways,

& even now, worlds away from her,

I sit patiently in wait aching for a fix,

You could parachute out of a plane

& still not know the adrenaline surging through my veins whenever we touched,

You could scale a building

& still know nothing of the fingertips etching my skin,

That take me to heights I have never known,

She was a fire that set my soul ablaze,

I tried drinking to extinguish her,

But now I drink to rememeber what it was like to burn,

I had always loved to hear her speak,

& even if her words were rain drops,

I would drown before I'd ever stop her rambling...

She surrounded me with shards of her brokenness,

She cut me wherever she wanted, whenever she pleased,

& I happily bled for her, because it helped ease her pain,

She had destroyed me-

But far more often I had suffered destruction by my own hand,

& if I cannot continue loving her despite the fact that she cut the last string holding together my being,

I'm afraid I cannot love myself..

These pages have fallen victim to my bleeding pen as I drain its core dry,

Yet the emotions never measure up,

The pens will dry, the pencils will dull,

& still you will stand giving me more and more to jot,

Darling you could paper a million trees and I would still overflow with words,

With ink from my fingertips to write those ever failing words,

As my heart attempts to tell my mind what it feels when it stops dead in its tracks for you,

I would love to forget you,

But as the ice cubes sit lonely in their cold glass towers,

Memoreies of you, of us, plague me,

I will not allow myself to be defined by the reasons you stopped loving me..

I am a by-stander in this world,

& as I watch these crystal cups and splintered lights,

I leave with bottles to spare..

It has always been a pleasure loving you.

•Battle Scars For A Broken Mind•

I am two people in one living body,

The mental processing split down to one reality,

Everything that's happened in a tiny span of life,

Crammed into a cranium with the archeology of strife,

Our day-to-day experience, our personal impermanence,

Molded by the world within its bustling circumference,

Born this way or formed this way, our bodies take their states of disarray,

Fragile things, fickle as newlyweds,

Bruised too easy but our brains, they're thunderheads,

Cascades of information passed through every inch you touch,

Everything you see, hear, breathe-

Sensation's a human crutch,

Overwhelming the thalamus comes too easily for some of us,

We lock up, shut down & forget about our worldliness,

Imprisoned with our sympathetic systems on repeat,

Some will fight anxieties, but us, we accept defeat,

Is this what we deserve when our brains are missing a piece??

The lack of feeling, when our synapse forget their happiness release,

Are we broken when we don't turn up our frowns??

Between the feeling that we're empty husks & living with the imperfections,

What can we do about our depression other than our own self-expression??

Self-medication, dug into our skin with claws & let in riven,

Covered all the scars, dotted I's, crossed T's,

Yet somehow I think they'll see through our niceties,

Missed meals, lost lunches, social life trying to make us rethink,

The feelings are still coming,

They bring us to the brink and push us..

It's really hard when life is worthless, mirthless,

A wild strange world resides up there in our heads,

The culminations of strange fantasies manifesting into air,

The struggles of twisted realities & structures with their maladies,

Holes in our brains too big, or just discrepancies,

Awareness is a formula of chemicals like dopamine,

But it hurts when you have too many people think you're just obscene, not natural-

A freak.

It's hard when life is so bleak,

The dehumanizing difficulty of having lemons

But being unable to make lemonade,

It's every mistake you've ever made put on parade,

Flashbacks & memories too much for the faint-spirited,

All of them walking nightmares, the hippocampus disoirted,

& people call us weak for somehow surviving this journey,

How we hope our brains can destroy it, make it evanesce,

All these broken synapses,

Memories of breakdowns & relapses,

Spark in vivid cacophony, a harmony,

A symphony of singing salutations,

Of first greetings & familial relations,

Days in & days out, fantasies coming in waves & going in bouts,

Think, what are we??

The totals of the agony, summation of futility??

Chemicals in a drunken cocktail of misinformation,

Learned behaviours & ambition,

These fireworks of our mysterious impulses,

Keep returning to us, till we fall to ashes...

Inside the darkness is where I stand,

Here, it is cold & very lonely,

But this isolation has somehow found it's way into the depths of my heart,

It has become my sole desire,

It is here that my thoughts flow best,

Even with the pandemonium knocking on the other side,

Yearning for me to join in it's endeavours,

It is here that I am complete, such madness in this existence,

Constant reprisal,

Ceaseless torment,

Incessant psychological shifting,

Constantly questioning if the last move I've made is initiating suffering upon my current resolve,

Constantly attempting to invielge myself into believing that what I've done is necessary,

But at times I am forced to question my disposition,

Was it worth it??

So many questions & none of them encompassing unequivocal responses,

Every move taken is a guess,

& there is no way to assure that the resolution I have attained is the correct one for my situation,

I dream of the light at the end of the tunnel,

But I have no means of knowing which path I should take to reach it,

I'm eager to sprint but I have nowhere to go,

Yet on I go,

Not realizing the only thing I accomplish is discontent,

& I will remain in this cold & lonely darkness,

Within the depths of my soul's void...

•Absent Memories•

The ticking of my watch doesn't give me as much comfort

As the sound of your voice over wires,

If I called you now, would you pick up the phone??

I need to hear your voice

Because it is the only thing in the world that makes me feel less alone,

I want you to tell me if God is really real, angels too,

I'd really like to know because kids are screaming in the dark

& I don't want them to feel so alone, as alone as I do,

My body shakes in the dark,

This earth quakes in the dark,

I cannot feel the reality of hearts beating

& this entire world feels too much like a dream,

Because you have always been my tether to reality,

But you left, and you took my reality with you,

The shaking of my hands reminds me that you're not really here,

& I can't seem to get the point-

You're not here.

So the words start to slip & my hands start to slip,

& it fills me with fear because you're the only one who can convince me that this is all real,

The demon in the corner is screaming, arguing with the voices in my head,

& last night I thought that this was all just a game,

But your taste is in my mouth & my breath has been replaced,

But the aching memory of your sweet gentle face-

I can't get it out,

I can't get you out,

Someone needs to help me,

There is something in the walls & the world is blurry,

& I'm fading and it feels like everything is slowing down...

I thought I heard your heart beat through these walls,

& I swore I could feel your breath on my neck,

But I have forgotten the feeling of your hands against my skin,

& I have forgotten my own name,

& I have forgotten to speak to you like I used to,

Then again, I've probably been forgotten by you anyway,

I am a ghost-

Locked away in a drawer in the back of your mind,

& I'm right here.

I'm right here.

I am right here!!

I've been screaming for so long I'm not even sure if I'm real,

Often I think I'm dreaming

Because my voice shakes & my eyes are lost in a fog & you can't hear me,

I'm screaming I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

I AM SORRY!! at the top of my lungs,

I will never forget you or the way our lips tasted in the morning sunlight,

But it's a pointless promise, I guess,

Because I don't even know if I'll ever hear you say "I love you too"..

For a second you were here with me,

But now I'm so afraid & so out of place,

Because the only thing you left behind is me,

Thinking that maybe, just maybe, you were never even real..

•Lost Constellations•

I take a sip for every thought of you,
But too many drinks make a hazy head-
A thin line between clarity & peering through a traffic of images of you,
The harmony of your tenor,
The stupid, goofy grin we both once shared,
In drabs, our souls drip away,
Though the clear transparency of your tone mingles with my opaque dossier,
One look is not as simple as one glance used to be,
Reliving through a blanket shell,
The ''mirror darkly'', the apt quote,
Now feelings fracture the edge of new circumstances,
I collect them in a decanter, you see, for my own pleasure,
At reconvening evidence, pocketing it like copper coins,
You abandoned your place in my heart in one whisper,
Yet simultaneously, you crept away,
Crept away into a veiled concept like a spice element amongst my dew,
Performed a show for all the eyes
But neglected my introspective, skip-a-beat type care,
So I sit here & play with the remains of my alcohol..
I thought I heard the strain of some lyric once in the dark,
I thought that sound might be you,
Or was it just a simplified version of hope threaded by some anti-Cupid-type demon,
With a promise of a sweeter success,
Forget the chorus & the organs of love,
Or the ''operas & musicals'' in mountains of my taste,
I want to hear your solo again,
The lightness in your cocktail accent
& your questions, unimposing for now,
& every word unspoken that will follow-
An affair of the soul, indeed!!
If flirtation begins, the thirst must be quenched,
If one eye closes, it must be opened by the other,
I drain the last of the second cup,
& the memory of your smile
Is nothing more than fingermarks on the glass..

I wish I could have known how many people look just like you,
How I can glance a silhouette from behind,
& choke on my heart in my throat
Before my brain has the chance to override,
It's not you, it never will be you,
I wish I would have known the clarity of my memory,
How I can still remember every hair peeking from your nostrils,
But the graze of your fingertips across my goose-bumped skin
Is lost in a void of forgotten thoughts,
I wish I would have known,
That the shitty song that you loved & insisted to play on repeat
Would repeat forever inside of me,
& I hate it, but not as much as I hate hearing nothing,
Nothing at all,
& sometimes when it rains & I'm drifting far away,
I feel like I hear your footsteps on the pavement,
Your key in the lock,
Your clumsy body causing the bed to squeak as you crawl in next to me,
Sometimes when it's chilly out,
I can see my own breath form a cloud of warmth
Before the cold breathes it back in,
Then I look up at the stars & somehow I feel closer to you,
As if I can hear your warm, smooth voice whisper in my ear,
''I'll never be over you'',
As if you're right next to me,
Planting small little seeds that will make my love for you grow,
As if that's even possible..

But now I know, you've never cared about me,
Yet no matter where you are, you'll always be with me,
& I know that's selfish because you were never mine to keep,
I now know that you've never felt the same,
But some day, in some way, I hope you'll understand,
That not once did I not see you as something I could hold on to,
& that it was just something beyond my control,
But you see, you were the stars in my eyes,
A fire that has never died,
& no matter how many times I tell myself that I've never crossed your mind,
My heart believes otherwise,
To me, you were the most beautiful unattainable being I had ever seen,
Gliding quietly through the world, while everyone you met fell under your spell,
You were everything that I wanted & something that I couldn't have,
But you changed me & now I'll never go back,
Because the stars we see in the dark sky are long gone,
& now, so are mine...

•Anywhere•

Needless destitude,,
Hopeless solitude,,
Bridges I left unburned are now collapsing under the weight of my memories,
It only takes one bad day to remember how alone you really are,
To see how vast the world really is
& just how insignificant you are to the world,
Now imagine if every single day you had was a bad day,,
Then imagine meeting someone that understands your soul,
Someone that looks past your eyes into you & loves whatever they see,
Someone that makes every single bad day bearable by her simple words,
''It'll be okay, I'm here for you'',
I met someone like that, & not just in my head like I usually do,
& she made me happier than I ever thought possible,
She was the only one allowed to-
Touch my scars,
Caress my whispers,
Breathe in my secrets,
She was never one of the crowd, she was THE one in the crowd,
A single soul among billions, yet within her existed the world entire,
She would leave me weak, breathless, speechless every time I looked into her eyes,
But you don't need words because her eyes are poetry itself,
Her beauty never screamed to be noticed, yet she was the most beautiful person I ever laid eyes on,
All you had to do was pay close attention & her glow in the sun would draw you to her,
She showed me that there is nothing more beautiful than the complex beauty of simplicity,
Turning from the spotlight, she laid a finger upon my lips as if to hush the room,
& she whispered, ''Your soul's darkness is mere grey to me my love,,mere grey..''
Everyday I wake up & my mind is instantly inhabited by thoughts of her,
Thoughts of the one who everyday assisted me in beginning my hours of daylight,
I would surface, make a cup of tea & sit in my seat next to the kitchen door,
Watching as the sun kisses the ground,
Always accompanied by her smell, which seems to spend vast amounts of time just lingering around,
This is a passion beyond my eyes, beyond the haze of sense,
When they type, my fingers disappear & they cannot speak of her again,
My only hope forms on my lips-
That my breath will find her breath in the ravishing darkness under the Eye of the sky..

& I fill my lungs with ash in an attempt to find my sanity,
I want to cough up the blood that your fingertips drew from my veins,
I held my head down while I screamed,
I breathed in the dirt you walked on because I was afraid,
So terrified of your absolute power over me-
The power that you used to heal my bruised heart,
You were the monster under my bed that I never thought I would meet,
I tear myself apart stitch by stitch looking for a way to breathe you,
I build this shell around myself,
No venomous affection can pierce this skin of broken memories,
I hide from all humanity because people bring fire & poison,
But you are the only one who knows the secret chink in my so-called impenetrable armour,
You melt away the metal with your fiery love & beautiful eyes,
So I try to lock myself in a cage, a self-made prison,
Closed & locked away behind layers of hatred,
I bury myself in a bullet-hole of empty days & sleepless nights,
I've been balancing on the tip,
On the edge of nothing for fear of falling into something that might be beautiful,
But see, if it doesn't involve you, then the beautiful something to-be is reduced to rubble reeking fumes,
Toxic air, toxic despair-
& I inhale, regardless,
I have never been good at playing games,
My poker face is as secret as a highway billboard,
My soul as stealthy as a fire alarm,
I'll lay my cards on the table-
Spread my muddled aces, tell you I'm afraid,
I'm scared out of my wits,
Destiny is calling & I don't know how not to follow it,
Some would claim the opposite of safety is danger,
But I beg to differ; It is opportunity,
For in it lurks endless possibilities, any imaginable disaster,
I am young, I am free, I have the world ahead of me,
Urged to erase these memories of you, of us, & let my heart grow big,
For I am allowed to bloom, but I can't admit I'm too terrified to,
I'm expected to be myself but put my emotions on a shelf,
& simply soak up the sunshine pouring down on me,
As if we were never, we..

The truth is, I am & will always be in love with you,
I've wept my sheets into soggy tissues every night
At the prospect that I will be facing a future that no longer includes you,
I'm not quite ready to let go of your love yet,
For I've found there's a little boy inside me who's not quite old enough yet
To accept his fairy tale romance is being snuffed out before it has a chance to breathe,
You touch my hand, smile, ask me what's wrong,
& I say nothing-
I do not wish to waste any time I have with you drowning in the pain of our impending doom,
Still, in the dead of the night, as I watch the satellites disappear behind the clouds,
My heart fragments like shooting stars as I realized we have to let go of all we are,
From that first night we met, you pressed me to your skin,
I knew that there would be no other to dwell within the silent folds of my soul,
Now it all has to go.
The girl who once held me strong, yet soft & tender in her arms,
Whispered into my kinky hair,
''I'll forever be there'',
Let me fall off into anywhere...

•Holding Hands With Passion•

I was always an unusual little boy,
My mother told me that I had a chameleon soul,
No moral compass pointing me due North, no fixed personality,
Just an inner indecissiveness that was as wide & wavering as the ocean,
I belonged to no one-
Who belonged to everyone-
Who had nothing-
Who wanted everything-
With a fire for every experience & an obsession for freedom
That terrified me to the point that I could not talk about it,
& it pushed me to a nomadic state of madness that dazzled & dizzied me..

Apparently, I chewed the umbilical cord off while I was still in the womb,
I couldn't get out of there fast enough,
All my life, I couldn't wait to do anything,
When I learned to crawl, I would cry
Because all I ever really wanted to do was to walk & when I learned to walk,
There was nothing I yearned for more than to run, & not just to run, but to run away,
My point B was more like point Z,
& point Z was my destination, farthest known planet away,
& to not be able to breathe was not that high a price to pay,
Every cause was a cause I was willing to die for,
I didn't have opinions but I had a passion,
& if you think that passion was blind, I'll be the first to let you know-
Damn right it was!!
But to not be able to see is the price I have learned I could never pay,
It is the only sacrifice to chill my bones,
& the only expense I could never spare because ignorance has never been bliss,
& bliss has never been at the starting point-
When I was in my mother's womb..

There's a reason why I wanted to run away,
Eagerness was in learning, bliss was in knowing-
What to put passion behind,
What to fight for,
What to stand against,
& which fights to flee,
I will always know that to die is to be void of passion,
Because that is the root of life, at least it is for me,
Because getting a shot in the gums so as not to feel the pain in the tooth
Has always seemed so crazy to me,
& is probably why I detest those shots and visits to the dentist,
See, I can stand the sight of blood & the pain of it being drawn,
& only hope for a scar, and better yet, a story & a moral to teach,
Knowledge to share & spread & a cool little mark to trace
Or to wince at the memory of but never to wish for it to vanish,
& to never resent,
Even if that pretty girl from school went-
''Dang, that's one ugly-ass looking scar!!''
Because my scars will always be there for me,
But you would leave me for perfect skin, atendered piece of meat,
Mine is too flawed, or maybe even fat,
Or maybe even too fat for you,
Too dark or black, not light enough,
I need a sign that reads-
Warning:- Not for the weak of heart,
P.S:- Kind of weak in the heart,
Oh but P.P.S:- Kind of hard in the head,
& one more thing:- Easily depressed,
Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot to add:-
Easily side-tracked but not easily misled,
& my temper is hot enough to contract a fever from,
But that is what happens when you hold hands with passion,
& you let it be the ring on your finger, and the immunity to your morality,
Water that is like a fire to your fire,
It's the key to keeping you cool but only feeds your flame,
& the only thing that keeps you hydrated,
But a probable cause your inevitable demise..
Easily, the best decision I could have ever made,
Was when I was still maybe just a foetus, or an under-developed baby perhaps,
Was to run away, because I started so early,
& I've made it such a long way that to go back to the days of my blind passion,
Would take so long that I'd be long gone by the time I reached point A...