It began in the hallway
Lips gingerly moving to the tastes of bottles.

It started light.
You had those same Atlantic eyes that would rage hurricanes in my memories


I could do this for centuries.

Following you all these years
thinking that perhaps I would
one day overtake you on this
wandering path travelled so long.

I never did make it to Bethlehem
nor kept any other of the
hundred promises that I've made
to so many, some spoken aloud
and some made silently.

Of all the lives these other
pilgrims say I have touched,
I never could seem to
touch yours.

I am old now, and weary
of the sands and the winds,
beautiful as they are I
am sure that they also
have tired of me.

Where is there left to go?
I know now that I will never
find you, will never
be found by you,
weeping on the edge
of some oasis.

I have no answers
to my own questions
nor do I think does
anyone else upon this
road that leads where
all others do.

a treatise on compatibility this is theoretically
presented
by a linguist with limited trigonometry sense
   and since the heart beats and is 360 degrees
I sought out a tangent to measure her with
    or sine to figure out logically
whether we were compatible
             like functionally
on a straight line or tangentially
    perpendicularly
in degree and cosines or measurement mathematically
similar
then found no co-efficient to portray
her smile
fell out of my array
with nothing else
to equal
her.

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

A shoebox of letters
hand written on yellow looseleaf
pages upon pages of promises
written in red ink,
a coffin in need of a burial
a reminder of a life
and a love denied.

February 14th, 1989
penned within my first year
the name at the top is not mine
but she writes to him
the way you will write to me
only two decades later.

I shiver as I read each draft;
to realize our failed romance
was but an echo of the past.

Spiralling downwards,
Bitter taste of coke slipping in between the bumps on your tongue
And months from now when I try to think about you
I will remember the way you looked at me
And how time stood still
So it felt just like you were standing across from me
Throwing your unsaid medals at my throat
I let them slide down to my chest
It burns
Like the acid streams of coke surfacing my lungs
And I cannot breathe
All I can think about is why do I cross paths with people I am not supposed to fall in love with
Coke sliding down your throat
Swallow your golden apologies you never were brave enough to say
Crackling fizzling drink
I have been in love with you since May
And every look out has been a habit, I still try to find you in a crowd
I still try to swallow the bitter fizzy only slightly sweet taste of coke down my throat
The same way I choke
On every apology I never said to you and how I almost but never did tell you how much your cheekbones remind me of the sunset.
Timeless
This drink will never age and neither will your eyes
Visceral bubbling youthful
I have been waiting on nothing
I feel the acid burn in my throat in my chest and it erupts as I ***** every scent I’ve had of you, every gaze we have exchanged while she looks at you and smiles
Electric
Like the fizz that touches the insides of my stomach
I want to look at you and smile
And all you do is watch me
Sipping through your straw
I am drinking coke
And your eyes say it has been a while and look at me, look at what I do I want to show you what I do because it has been far too long
Child
I am not a child I am a hazy incense drifting through hollow walls, corridors and people infested places
Everywhere I turn I cannot breathe
I need something to quench this thirst of longing
I have collected from every instance I never get to see you, every moment you look at me and she is with you
I want to keep these aluminium tabs
I want to push the bubbles down your throat, tell you this is how I feel every time I look at you and you look at me and we say nothing
I want to tell you I have been doing just fine
And that you are wearing the same shade of red I’ve been feeling and this coke can shares the red we are crying
I want to say I am sorry I looked back and I wished so very hard
Sohrab
You are between these lines the coke can holds, every droplet that condenses on this metal surface, cool
I have something to hold and I don’t know what to feel
Only the acid taste of coke