When the thieves broke in,
They broke my mother’s heart,
They broke my naiveté,
They broke my maternal lineage,

By making her closet bare,
She stood barely recognizing it,
Stared at her safe,
Her
Bulletproof
Fireproof    
Apocalypse proof
Safe
Code c r a c k e d,
Deadbolt door eerily open.

“It’s just jewelry,” she muttered,
        [Passed down from one generation to the next,
        Dating back to an invaded India,
        Surviving six hundred soldiers,
        Smuggled within folds of saris through seas,
        Stories etched in souvenir gold].

“At least we’re all safe,” she stated with conviction.
        [Yet I couldn’t help but feel,
        A physical furthering,
        From my immigrant ancestors,
        Who passed along secrets with every pendant,
        Who whispered hopes in every ornate hairpin,
        Who stored their aspirations in every accumulation:
        Real riches knit with poetic prospers from the past].

How funny
To imagine the thieves
Pricing a priceless object --
Ironically making it worthless
Because the burglary left behind
The heritage.

3 AM and the famed
“World’s Best Coffee”
Isn’t doing the trick.

Dawn at diners
Is where the lonely
Gather for company
‘Cause we’re tired of
Laying alone on a bed
Too big for one
Too small for our thoughts
Too much of a reminder.

[Your imprint still fresh,
An outline to the right side of my pillowcase,
And some nights,
When I’m consumed by thoughts of you,
I’ll crawl into the depression,
And let the space engulf me,
Until I remember that,
Just ‘cause you laid on the right side,
Didn’t mean you were always right,
And a strange metaphorical hope
Bubbles out of me,
When I remember that
Hearts tilt to the left,
But, when you left,
It was quite heartless.]

We prefer indistinct strangers
Who we secretly hope
Have stranger problems
That maybe they’ll share
To make ours seem more bearable
But, more often than not,
We sit in a shared silence
Fatigued, insomniac, alone together,
The (lonely) only chatter with the night shift waitress.

I learned to juggle with oranges,
You learned to juggle with women.

Many oranges fell,
Dropped,
Bruised,
[Learning process after all],
But I mastered the trade.

I can only pray you didn’t.