The Present -

She had both arms behind her head,
Her eyes two focused machines,
The soft glow of the lamp light,
A nonfiction book she silently reads.

Just as the clock striked ten,
All trails of thoughts fell silent,
She slept in the middle of the bed,
The sheets smelling of detergent.


- Two Years Earlier -

Twelve o'clock, the digital clock read,
Every light was on in her apartment,
She turned on the right side of the bed,
And stared at the plain cream carpet.

She tried reading something,
But every corner of this place was so unwelcoming,
As if remnants of the past resident souls
Still loomed around, their presence pestering.

With her new keys clutched in her hand,
She so quietly closed her front door,
Once her lungs were filled with fresh air,
It's like she finally reached a shore.

Aimlessly she passed block after block,
Till she found herself in a subway station,
She plugged in her earphones and closed her eyes,
Relenting to her doubts and insecurities in their collaboration.

"Laugh, I Nearly Died. Hmm interesting choice." A voice said,
Yanked from the heaviest sleep, she looked startled,
The stranger smiled, "I love The Stones too, I mean who doesn't..."
She smiled, but it was half-hearted.

She learned that he hated U2 and thought they were overrated,
And that he never slept at night, only slept during the day,
He marveled about how beauty dwelled in the darkness,
And how he didn't believe in coincidence, rather in fate.

At first she was quite, studying his every gesture,
Uncertain of this sudden turn of events,
But she soon found herself relaxing,
Not anymore keeping track of the time they spent.

He commented on how she looked nervous,
She confessed that she has moved into a new place,
And as the stars were lead to be more astray,
They were stargazing at the night's endless race.

The first rays of the sun revealed her lighter shade of hair,
They never once stopped talking as they roamed the streets,
Dawn whispered with promises of a shared breakfast,
But he suddenly smiled once then looked at his feet.

"I don't believe in cell phones, here is my email, do you know how to write an old-fashioned letter?"

He punctuated his sentence with a grin,
And it matched the growing one on her lips,
She was eager to agree but held inside her over-excitedness,
With a nod, she mumbled a yes and took back one step.

Flecks of orange reflected in his eyes,
She memorized their resemble to gold,
And suddenly all she wanted was to sleep,
And relent to her dreams as her reality revolts.


- The Present -

It was ten to six, she'd just returned home,
She sank in her warm couch, pulling her cat in her lap,
The air smelt of her favorite herbal tea,
She heard what felt like the crunch of a paper scrap.

It wasn't a paper scrap, it was something far less significant,
It was the letter, the one she printed and placed inside her diary,
Her cat was the only one to know where the stupid paper laid,
A reminder of a briskly short-lived story.

She detached her cat from her lap,
And detached the reminder from her heart,
It was easy like that, to unwrite a story,
Only in the folds of her mind was it a part...

"Every sailor knows the sea is a friend made enemy,
And every shipwrecked soul knows what it is to live without intimacy."

She hummed her favorite U2 song.*


T.B.C


(Maybe...)

Darling, you could only burst
and explode in the perimeters of a cardboard room,

The least collateral damage you could cause,
would be to the neighbors walls in the adjacent tomb.

But here as I stand, the breeze yanking both arms of my jacket,
I'm embracing a volcano and savoring the heat,

Till all of my senses are saturated,
the soles of my feet well acquainted with the earth's crust beneath.

I take this as a sign,
Close the very last eye of mine.

And drink in the untamed air,
And volunteer my lungs with a prayer.

I** could only ricochet,
The familiar ashes of me washed down with the fireworks,

And to your cardboard room, I'll be a new moon,
Disguised as a sun wearing a blazing smirk.

You'll try to keep track of the collateral damage,
And mourn the burnt pieces you found that once shone,

You'll think the big bang was the chaos of the world,
Your bent neck could never show you that bygones shall be bygones.

What's holding you back,
Letting the tension in your shoulders string you around,
Maybe dreaming as an action wasn't meant to be earthbound,
We were meant to live aloud and die quietly, life is in the sound,
Every step you retreat, will come back at night to hound.

When are you planning your attack,
In the theater of the wild you love to wear the deer's role,
Planting reasons in the dirt till the mutant rain falls,
Maybe you're waiting for further evolution to make you whole,
As you gather around you the corners of your mold.

Your mind is dizzy as you walk the same tracks,**
Revolving around the temples of monotony,
Getting cross-eyed and your stomach is feeling funny,
Your pack of thoughts forever remaining bundled in a colony,
In your world, the bare walls have never felt so *lonely.

Between two shoulders,
Between two ears,
A civil war ignited,
Bones shrieking in fear.

Conflicted pilots,
Sliding down locks of hair,
Liquid bombs,
Dripping from eyes, be aware!

Life was never meant to be easy,
Pebbles were meant to collide with feet,
Every now and then, we're bound to be lost,
We go a million ways to find the right street.

And as more events shatter our hearts,
More glass gets broken, more souls adrift,
We discover ourselves among the ruins,
And get to uncover our healing gift.

We test our abilities, we get first degree burns,
We try a million shades of complexion,
The very first scream of a beating heart,
The very last sound before we tread to the other dimension.

It's played and replayed, it's spring then it's a massacre,
And all the trophies lining our top shelf,
We sweat under the fever before the finish line,
We walk the fine line between loving and hating oneself.

Align your balance,
Before the drawbridge closes,
Between two shoulders,
The two blades are foes.

Separated by a spinal cord,
Arms and thoughts collide,
Stare straight ahead,
Know that this is life.*

● ● ●