Don’t go home hungry
like them.
There is bread in our house
that the mouse can’t reach.

I can make dinner out of water
but if you walk a little further
down the road where we promised each other
we would live forever
you will see that life grows underground.

As the leaves embrace the passing of time
they hold on to their mother’s arms
like you once held on to yours.

Eat your dinner.
And if you ask for more
I will give you the world.

The bridge between your inevitable death
and the life you have ahead of you
is narrow.

I walked passed it last night
the memory of you drove me
to madness
as you stood there,
smiling, sick, dead,
your silhouette still tangible if I had made an effort to move
closer to you.

Crawled up on the floor, the tiles of the hallway felt so real
against my ribs
that I woke up in grief.

I used to dread the day my world would end
because I knew that I would have to stay while you found peace
in the Heavens.
I wish you well but resentment builds
mountains that clog my unconscious heart.

You would do good by His side
looking down on me with Grace,
with more love than He could ever give me.

Each time I see you is a reminder that life
is not so eternal,
that I will lose you soon
that I should have been more careful in crafting
better memories of the times
you put me to bed,
the times we danced to old tunes I couldn’t understand yet,
my feet on yours because you could still hold me
in the palm of your hands.

The times we sang our song around
the Fountain of my youth — do you remember if there was ever any water flowing?

When you are gone
I will dance with him instead of you —
you shall not worry because he does not mind
when I step on his shoes.
He is as good as you.

Each time I dream
I remember.
I have no way of knowing if all this is true.

It’s December

Time means nothing to me.

It could really be November

All I know is that I can’t see the grass anymore from the window or up close

Everything freezes, everything looks dead but how can I tell because I am not sure what death even is

Maybe being dead means you get quiet, you stop moving,

Maybe all I know is that it takes a while for people to die…

I think?

Dad brings me to the park because he knows I like competition and because he knows, somehow that I was brought up to be a perfectionist.

He lets me win, I am too young to understand that this is what love is all about, too young to notice that the end of someone begins at the start

That wrinkles can’t be fixed with anti aging cream

That they are a sign of imminent death.

He’s just dad, he’ll be okay.

15 years later I wait for snow in January, it takes an unusual amount of time for it to get here.

Why is dad getting old all of a sudden and why can’t I stop thinking about death?

He looks like he can still race me and win

but something isn’t right.

Or…

Maybe something is too right because that’s the way it’s supposed to be anyways

Who am I to change the order of the world?

Not too long from now I will start saving for his grave

When I can’t even save enough for tomorrow’s dinner.

Why is it as expensive to die as it is to live these days?

Give me a break, this time of year isn’t what it used to be —

I miss the days my brain was nothing

I miss the days I didn’t exist.

I don’t care much for the things that make me happy anymore,

I have lost all faith because I can’t feel past the pain that burns holes in my stomach

The burden that comes with age and knowledge is too great.

How funny it is that dad is sitting by the fire laughing

while I mourn a death that hasn’t happened yet.

I love until I die. But I get angry when the cold creeps in, where are You? I feel insane for wanting time You already gave me, guilty for being me — too much like who I was before, I only allow myself to breathe because You let me. It’s a gift from God or just from Your mother. After all, she gave me You, without knowing I would take You away from her for a long time, for ever.

You are made from the dust that God used to create the Earth and no matter what You think I know You are good. I have picked you from a tree and tasted You, and I know You are good — good like the kiss from a rose, warm, heavenly so, good to me is good to all. I get frustrated by the imperfection of others when they fail to be like You only to remember that they don’t need to be for all I care about is carefully tangled in my sheets, blissfully unaware of the rest of the world, because the world is happening in Us — ruins of what once were made anew crafted by Your fingers around my neck, gentle reminder that the artist makes art in his image, that since You are beautiful, so am I.

We exist in each other in the form of a promise. Our bodies drip and bleed and soak the clothes that we take off anyways with sweat. My first instinct is to lick Your tears and let the salt tingle my lips until I am high enough to see colors that don’t exist. In You I see the color Desire which coats Your mouth with the thought of me — You know it’s okay to want to give in, to give up one thing for another when the other is right here begging You for more of You, all of You. You suffer because You hit walls you built on Your way to Your Faith, walls I take down not because I am selfish but because You deserve to feel as much as You want. We are made of passion, of hunger for one another and the temptation we are led to perceive as a sin is no temptation at all — only a mere attempt amongst all others to say “I love you”.

She fought against the idea of insanity although it had clearly affected the way she saw herself and saw the world — perfectly ordered expect for herself,

Which made a lot of sense considering the fact that her anger sprouted from the smallest discomfort or the smallest, most invisible, imperceptible nothing,

A nothing turned into something big not because she wanted it to but because she was a drama queen in need of a problem to chew on with her white, straight and numerous teeth —

Something she had long taken for granted for she never smiled and therefore never noticed the small dents or bits of foods stuck in between.

As for her, she was like a chewed piece of meat, stuck in between a million things also. Her own teeth eating herself up as if starved by the time spent waiting on someone to knock at her door and tell her:

“I’ve missed you. Where were you all this time? I promise I was looking for you and not just sitting around doing absolutely nothing thinking about only me.”

Nobody came for her as she sat at the foot of her bed playing a tune on a guitar she never knew how to love because no one knew how to love her either

Although many had tried but she was too petty to admit to her mirror that she was surrounded all along by good people and that sadly, she was not like them. She wasn’t good, at all.

Where does it all come from? It seems never ending.
I go outside in the yellow boots I got for Christmas years ago
and I let the water in as I would a stranger.

It’s unpleasant,
it’s cold, and tight, and suddenly I forget about all the wonderful things in the world.
I get angry.

I let it linger on my lips
because words hurt me so I hurt others,
and while each drop of rain hits the Earth with Love, pain hits me with warmth.

It’s a reminder.
It’s Love from God; they say it will save me
if I surrender

but when I look up I see nothing.

The rain only speaks to me in riddles,
that’s okay because tonight it falls for me
and nobody else.

Tonight, it’s September
and that’s enough.

They feed on me.
My left foot is already
half way into the Ground
and if my purpose on Earth is to worry and die
I would much rather be Theirs than belong
to the others.

I wonder what I taste like and I wonder if They care
that my nose is too round
that my mouth isn’t straight
that I have gained weight
that I didn’t shave.

The Dirt under my nails doesn’t bother me
One day I will become a Flower, or a Tree
something Beautiful worth looking at in Silence
by those who put me there.

You can step on me
my Roots are tied to the Rulers of an Underground Kingdom
and that makes me Eternal, unlike you
whose words will one day disappear from my Memory.

The Worms haven’t gotten to that part yet,
I will ask them to
dig trenches in my Brain, find you,
and Feast.

Tomorrow you’ll be Gone.

The darkness whispers chants I am not familiar with.
I rarely spend my nights outside
Although I am a victim of the cold
I will not die from it.
But the bird I brought home with me
Would have frozen to death
If his bleeding wing did not kill him first.

I killed him yesterday.
The moon smiled down at us
But you have to be careful, okay?
Don’t get fooled by how bright it shines for the moon and the cold
Are good friends.
Together, they are The Master of Death.

Things have changed since yesterday
When I put the bird in a box
And the box put him to temporary sleep
And temporary sleep turned into a frozen picture —
Forever still.
He was lying on his side when I found him
Blinded by hope I pressed my finger against his body
And for an instant I imagined a heartbeat.

I fooled myself
Became too good at my own craft
Be wary of me.
All birds go to heaven
And I will never get to meet those I sent there
For I am the true Master of Death —
I live on the other side.

My neck is red from your lips;
The blood that rushes to the surface in an effort to write your name on my skin
Begs the night to drag on for a couple more hours
Until you get enough of me you say
But you never do.

I watch you watch me
Since your eyes tell me things you feel too shy to say out loud
You want nothing more than to hold in the palm of your hands
My lower belly, my hips
You press your chest against my back, gently
We are no longer separate

Only morning threatens to tear us apart
Or we could lay amongst the stars,
Folded together like origami
I will make art with you,
Paint over your skin with my breath
And with this breath I will give you the life you deserve
One you will get to live outside of your bedroom walls,
Free from sleep
Not from me.

I once walked through a forest in search of a shelter. The painless life I aspired to lead crumpled up in the pockets of my coat, and too tired to open another drawer, I drifted to the place I came from. The ultimate end is a life free of sorrow but is it possible to reach it before its time?
I look down at my hands, so young and yet so dry, so tired of holding nothing but loss.
All the hurt that flew through my body threatened to stay indefinitely. The bench I sat on hugged my thighs the way nobody had ever touched me, the sweet Automne air, colder than it had been the day before, made its way down my throat like a friend. The answers to my questions were written in the things I failed to see for I was made blind by the gift of being mortal. Being mortal is being careless and while I thought I was protecting myself from the reasons that made me human, the way that I fought for the life I thought I wanted was not the right way, yet it was in a sense, because it brought me here. There.
I am conscious about the places within me I am usually not aware of. The longing doesn’t stop although time seems to and for a moment I listen carefully to the voices in my head that tell me good things. I can be gullible when I want to.
The world is a beautiful place so I look at it the way I am meant to. My eyes betray a certain melancholy about what once was and what never will be. I compare myself to a tree and I feel better. Trees are irreplaceable and although I am finite and remarkably small, I am also worthy of admiration.

It hangs where I can’t see it,

pressed between the ones I love.

Unloved.

It’s been there for four years but

it knows that I will never touch it again.

I gave it a home, held it to my face,

kissed it, bathed it in tears.

It’s not its fault but it’s because of him that I stopped caring.

Sur la route glacée, je te cherche. Cela fait quelques semaines que je marche, le ventre vide et les yeux remplis d’espoir. J’ai froid, je tremble, et la pluie ne m’épargne pas ; les gouttes sur ma peau sont comme des lames tranchantes, elles se faufilent entre mes pores et coulent le long de mes os. Elles atteignent mon cœur, qui ne bat que pour toi.

Cela fait plus d’un mois que j’essaye de m’habituer à ton absence, mais je ne cesse de rêver d’un été sans fin, sans adieux. Mes lèvres se souviennent de la courbure de ton menton et de l’amertume de ta peau, un mélange d’eau salée et de citron.

J’ai peur d’oublier ton nom. Je le répète, l’écris et le chante dans les rues, la nuit. Car la lune m’écoute et me fait des promesses auxquelles je tiens, des promesses d’amour.

L’amour, je veux t’en donner. Si tu me tends la main, j’en déposerai un peu, ou beaucoup trop, car je t’aime même quand l’hiver menace de nous séparer. Si tu me tends la main, je t’apercevrai peut-être à travers la tempête. Ton sourire fera fondre la neige et mes rêves deviendront réalité.

Ce matin, une brise du Sud me caresse la joue. Mes yeux se posent sur les draps à mes côtés, froissés, chiffonnés. Allongé dans un bain de soleil, tu m’observes. La chaleur de ton regard me brûle, mais je ne m’en plains pas, car je t’attends depuis toujours, ma saison, mon amour.