the one after twenty-five

a million ways to tell you, a million ways to touch you, a million ways to show you, my love, and a million reasons to not

I don’t know where I go from here... from countries to people, my reality feels like a magnet. I hold on to stories that no longer feel mine Only to believe in promises, I made up with time

No, I don’t know where I’ll remain, on land or underwater? my reality is always a daydream.

Our worlds collide, leaving no real impact, And we meet like two oceans that can’t be mapped.

I don’t know where I’ll end up from songs to poetry, my reality is a blur

With every passing day, the montage fades. time makes it difficult to make sense of it now

Because time and I, we’ve never really been friends…

we avoid each other on birthdays, at big parties and weddings... every time I’m late or decidedly early when I’m cooking for one but drinking for two or you know, when I listen to our song from yesterday

I think this was meant to be? Like that one fine Tuesday, you stopped saying hello to your downstairs neighbor and now you’re back to being strangers again?

it's emptiness that fills me, yes,  there really is no void

this hero's journey is flawed,  there is no rebirth, no elixir but only passage of time

Silence follows me around, like unwanted baggage weighing me down

I can hear myself a little too loudly, leaving no room for your echo

Silence follows me around, like windy, bitter cold entangled in my hair

I play my favorite song a little too loudly, leaving no room for my voice

somedays, I choose not to believe in love because somedays, there’s just no fucking reason to

memories from when I was seven, thirteen, twenty or even twenty-seven, come back stinging  

a fresh wound, I keep scratching an old painful song, I can’t shake off

I could taste their failure in my mouth, every time we ate together felt the anger burning in my ears, every time I ran out the door

there is no happily in their ever after. they live like two islands, separated by oceans yet bound beneath one sky

why did you let me believe that love is like a warm hug? because the warmth escapes my hands, with every evening sun And I close my eyes, wishing not to lie awake long enough to watch it rise again

my mind is split open sharp edges still agonizing through matter, latching onto ideas and invading our dreams

my body is an ocean turbulent and infinite waves hitting the shore, undulating with your touch fading into the horizon

even on the hardest days— when the plum sky refuses to shine through your windows when silence envelopes your body like a shield when the fear of nothingness haunts your chest like a drumbeat —time is unforgiving

I daydream at 3 am To fall asleep in the comfort of a life I build for tomorrow

I cherrypick my favorite thoughts And play them over and over again To trick me to sleep

I stand before you, exposed and vulnerable soaking in the vastness of my hope, fear and pride

I have never felt so infinite and yet so small at the same time for every time I walk toward you the horizon just keeps slipping farther away

Teach me how to do this every day this infinite loop of back and forth Make me understand how your saltiness doesn’t leave you bitter in the morning

I haven’t yet mended my ways, the one that circles and haunts near your by-lanes

I keep loitering around it, like a young high school girl yearning for your attention so that we can talk, discuss and consider—

I have moved, you know? I live far away now. We could very well never meet Never cross paths; this is as good as over As. good. as. over.

But when you consume me, so connivingly, so knowingly in my sleeplessness in my work in my solitude, in my very being— I don’t know how to be a stranger to you.

What do they call you nowadays? Melancholy? Misery? I wouldn’t know. Because I have been told, repeatedly, that there is no rhyme or reason that I should.

So, do me a favor and move along, even if I am standing outside your door. You and I both know you are a tourist. It’s hard to hide the baggage.

Have you ever seen someone drowning? Slowly, unconsciously, a little too deliberately?

Like when you're stuck in a loveless marriage; and the bittersweet existence of your children makes you crawl under the sheets every single morning.

Like when you felt like you were disappearing every moment of the day only to the disappointment of looking into the mirror every single morning.

Or like that time when you knew that you could swim that you were drowning on dry land only to find yourself gasping for air

glub, glub, glub sings the disturbed water completely at peace