“Images of Love”

All of us awoke in that same cold room, that same hard mattress
Begging for the feeling we had in the womb – now we’re drifters, just
Chasing that whisper from our mother’s embrace:
“Danger may come, but take my hand you’ll be safe”

Evenings in the park playing Hunger Games, escaping round the bend
For us life was just waiting till recess came, and on Friday the weekend
Good thing the worst thing was just a scrape on the concrete, and then
Holding on to our sleds as we skid on soft sleet, wishing winter wouldn’t end

I don’t remember the moment I knew there’d be another
Just know it was joy burning bright, like an ember I’d hold forever
Kicking his little feet, trying to say my name, my baby brother
Love was oxytocin on repeat, and if I could feel that same flame I’d live forever…

Memories come down hard like the winter rain, as I stare in my
Notebook… time wipes away pain and puts it all in a gold frame – will my future be the same?
Or am I finding my home alone, just a hole built for moles?
Pondering this makes me wanna stop writing, and just
Quick – hug my parents and brother and see an old movie
Race to the park and meet with old friends, but

Some spirit, voice of an angel and face of a goddess, beckoned me as I walked
Then I knew there were higher levels I hadn’t yet unlocked…
Unphased, onward I stalked, and in the dark of the forest, the spirit
Vanished – like the desert mirage – before my very eyes
Where did it go? – not a leaf rustled and still I couldn’t hear it
(XO sent 2 days ago, still no reply)

Yearning for lost limerence like I’m losing time, dreaming of
Zooming through the present with you by my side

“Misadventure”

Sitting in my room
I caught a whiff of autumn…
Came from the window

Thinking to myself,
“It’s so late already,” but –
Know I can’t help it

Cold night smacks my face
As I climb out the window
Yearning to explore

On the fire escape
View of the Heights behind me
Heart beats in my chest

I take one wrong step –
Face first in the foliage
Bad taste in my mouth

Brushing the leaves off
I hear a truck’s loud clanking
Coming closer now

Running like the wind,
Drums in my chest quickening –
When my phone wakes me

“To the Ones We Hate the Most”

Sometimes hate seems like a faraway place
Like Guantanamo Bay, or Alcatraz
Terrible but safely beyond reach

But each one of us has the whole world inside,
From the beautiful ecstasies to the horrific crimes
Because all of that was done by humankind
No use pretending we are nothing but kind

So here I am to confess
To shine a light to the darkest corner of my mind
Where the new plague is invented and the next ideology professed
I can’t believe how much I hate

I don’t know why but in the movie Monsters Inc
I wanted to the kid to die
Sometimes I get paranoid…
Think people are trying to steal things.
I still want to forget that I remembered
What the color of their skin was.
I can’t believe how much I hate.

When the train comes late, when it leaves late, when I’m late
(even when it’s my fault)
I hate something, like cursing out once you’ve stubbed your toe
I look at the other people passing by
Not realizing they are evil just like me I wonder…
How do they cope, so pacified?
I can’t believe how much I hate.

I can’t believe how much I hate,
the expression sounds truer every time I say it.
What I thought was beyond me, I realized controls me
Hopefully with these verses I can rob it of whatever power it gained
From festering so many years in the dungeon with no light, so pained.

“Fireworks”

I look down at the concrete jungle below.
Perched on a century-old fire escape,
The only sound is the beat of my heart, as though
Pushing me off, giving me shape
When I will ever get back home?

I breath in the winter night and shiver.
But something makes me stay –
The lights crackling in the distance, such brilliant shimmer
Is must finally be New Year’s Day.

I stand up, and close my eyes
I can hardly withstand the force of the sound
Then I gaze up at the night sky,
So beautifully adorned with colors that dazzle as they pound,
Is there anything more beautiful than a background of simple black?

Simple black – I see it in my mind’s mirror
Too crowded with fear, doubts and insecurities,
Like the crowded streets I see below and behind
Sometimes I want to wipe out all my impurities
The fireworks could come close enough to touch

“Theme for English 220”

My brother has always been my best friend,
But at five being with him was like overtime without end.
In the summer we would swim and jump waves in an aquamarine sea –
The fire of his soul would never dim, even from reality he wanted to be freed

So he’d draw and draw from my imagination’s well,
hoping that somehow his thirst I could quell,
until it was sitting there dry – gray stone baking in the sun…
his rainbow fantasy no longer seemed like fun.

“So what happens next,” he would soon ask?
Yet the more we continued, “And then?” never lacked
I knew deep inside he felt a little bit sorry,
I knew even more he wanted to continue the story

Now I look back on those moments…
With the fog of memory gone I can see all the missed potential
Aren’t stories our only raincoat in the midst of life’s harsh torrential?

And whether shouted to the wind or whispered in the night,
Or told to your brother racking your brains with all your might,
I wish I could go back in time and think of it like just another grind

I wish I could see the future, confident in my craft
Yet I’m stuck in the present, the harsh tides holding back my raft
So I whisper to the mirror with tears in my eye:
“The teller of stories” – yes, that is I.