stranger

I walked with you to the coast
We sat on a bench and watched the city on the other side
It caught on fire
One house at a time
You weren't alarmed though.

I walked with you to the coast
There were purple wildflowers on the sidewalks
I bent to pick them up and my eyes made pitiful demands
So you plucked them too and gave them to me
Your heart wasn't in it though.

I walked with you to the coast
We sat silently in front of the burning
The fiery stroked a line across the river
Its tongues licked up the horizon
I might have left then
You kept on asking questions though.

**

dance

These will never be the last lines I write for you
Because I have never had you
Never tasted you
Never known your salty, never known your sweet
Because you elude me
And I am not worth you

Yet these are not the last lines I write for you
And this is not the last tango I dance with you
So listen!
Because Hope has sang her song in me
I stand still as her lullaby sways in me
As empty swallows the heart in me.

**

carry

I am going to carry New York City into my bed tonight.
Carry its sirens and silences and pretenses,
Carry the empire state building and things littered on its sidewalks,
Carry its lovers and their fingers which find each other.

I am going to carry New York City into my bed tonight.
Carry its weight and its weightlessness,
Carry its soft smoke so fragile so light,
That even the city cannot crush.

I am going to carry New York City into my bed tonight.
Inhale the city the smoke the lovers,
Inhale the littered people on the streets,
Inhale the silence and sirens and let nothing escape.

And nothing shall leave my lips tonight.
Until I breathe in the city's last breath,
Until everything else flees from my pores,
Until the city is so full in me -- that my heart is out of me.

**

post-war spoils

I wrote a few weeks about Hope. I was right about its power over me. About its inevitable invasion, its inevitable defeat. At the final moment before it bursts through my last line of defense and into the final chamber, I always have this epiphany, that what I had gambled on winning was rarer than I had realized. I think the rarity is what what drew me to the cards table in the first place. Deep down we all know the exact chances of these lotteries, but deep down we also know our uniqueness better than anyone else, and we think we deserve these prizes. Sometimes I think there's too much deserving in this world and not enough things to be deserved.

So we carry this consolation prize with us as we hand over the white flag. A second-tier product of Hope, cheap and empty, with a reassurance of quality trusted by neither the buyer nor the seller. The bitterness in the war-ravaged room thickens the air, so much so every air particle is forced to stand still. Maybe the bitterness is petty. But armed with the inadequacy of the consolation prize, I must make up for the difference somehow. And bitterness, regardless of its origin, always repairs my pierced armor better than anything else.

**

dorian's mistakes

I don't want this blog to be paused so long on such a negative note, especially since that chapter of my life has thankfully reached a satisfying period. What has taken its place are more frivolous problems instead. I savor the pettiness of these new worries, knowing deep down that it's a sign that the big picture is quite rosy. Rosy hardly ever breeds inspiration though, which is why this blog has stalled and sputtered. Still, I can't bear to leave it in so desolate a place anymore. It had escalated to a positively alarming note, and I want to rescue it. And to rescue myself from sinking back into that time whenever I come back here.

More or less, this blog is the mirror to my dorian gray -- it soaks up the hideousness of my life and is hidden away -- and I don't think this is a bad thing. Everyone should have a place to pour their darkness into, whether it's another human heart or just a blank page. Dorian's downfall is not in the mirror's existence but in his refusal to look at its reflection. Still, I need my reflection with a little bit of milk. So this post is nothing but an update, a reassurance that a particular reflection has been painted with too-sharp strokes, an attempt to round out the edges, a pledge to learn from Dorian's mistakes.

**

same

I can't post anymore about being overwhelmed by my incompetence. There are only so many ways to dress up a drowning metaphor. And there are only so many days I can sit on my high horse without it crumbling under.

For once, there are no more words. No words when even the most pungent of emotions like fear and desperation have gone stale. No words when their presence continues fluidly and without break. No words when the plummet is still the same speed as when I first faltered. No words when gravity's pull is the same as ever, and the earth is as flat as ever, and the what-ifs are as loud as ever.

**

flood

It's to safe to say you've left a mark, quite literally, on me this week. As the darkness wanes, I can't help but wish for the sharp, fresh pain to come back. Clean and jolting to the touch. The first seconds of the aftermath is always so exciting. Before the dilution of doubt, of analysis, of hope.

I wish I could stay in that moment. The first seconds of coming down after having been so high. The lazy drift toward the ground. The certainty of what just happened, and what will surely happen again. The unbelievable entitlement to such delights and their future promised recurrence. I struggle to keep Hope from slipping in, for she is always a double-edged sword, beautiful to the fortunate and oh so cruel to those who are not. I run around shutting all the windows and doors and nooks in my brain, so it would not sift in anywhere. Still, as I whip my head around the middle of the room I know it would come, after which my fate leaves me, either to plummet from great heights or to be mercifully kept afloat.

A shutter opens, and I see it edging closer. The thing about Hope is that it will be the last certainty, after which nothing is knowable, but before which even a fool will sense its coming. I touch the mark you left absentmindedly, its pain already dulled to an afterthought as I stand here, waiting for Hope to flood my windows and doors, waiting for it to defeat me.

**