Death is not the greatest loss
The greatest loss is what's dying inside

I've got an ache
Deep in my chest
I can't seem to stop the bleeding
From my veins
Their pouring out my secrets
Telling the world all my mistakes
I've got a death wish
With my name on it
Maybe I wished it myself
Maybe I didn't

If you're ever on the riverside
where the sun beats your head
you would see the old man
selling hats of palm leaf
but you care not to notice him
having already smelled the sea
and too keen to cross the river
travel southward on the island
till the saline wind scalds your eyes
your skins itch to jump into the waves
yet the man with the palm leaf hats
would not cease to tell you
how burning would be the sun on the sands
and so badly you need to protect the head
by parting bucks that mean nothing to you
but a world to the mouths he feeds
and before you stamp on him a final no
she has one atop her hair
beneath which her eyes flutter like butterflies
her sun rouged cheeks untimely blush
and two born anew lovers
merrily head for the sea
having bought romance
for forty bucks.

We attempt rescue, unable to bear
the stardust-coated dragonfly
beat, beat, beating
frantic on the glass.

We entice him to perch
on our extended lifeline-broom
nurse him in a box, where he flutters
quivers, lies quietly blue.

My son cries bitterly
as we place a minute cross
upon the dragonfly grave
while intoning our final goodbyes:

We honor those who have fallen victim
to this fatal architectural trap, lured
by skylights of enticing white-light death
and the paned illusion of freedom.

In admiration of winged determination
and perseverance in the face of futility
we carefully tend the fragile, curved bodies
lay them here to rest under the mock orange.

years of gauze-weighted detritus
swept beneath these ponderous shrubs
a reminder - what seems like freedom
                                                         ­           often isn’t.

Early hours; the
parts of sleep
     recalled;
          a fly opening
        it's silk cocoon,
   a foetus moving
in a jelly womb,
   irises and corneas
         assembling into eyes
                    eager to explore
                a world outside;
      those first times
when regrets are
               abstract concepts
                             not feelings
                        growing roots
       in subconscious pools;
all the things I'd redo,
              my deepest desire
                              to be anew

I wonder if God
    sees our numbered
breaths, how many
     have been & how
many are left,
millions of digits
    shifting above
our heads;
the old woman
 on the park bench
        with just 500 left. 
The jogger with 100
   between now &
        tonight when he
will exhale
     for a final time.
I should scale mountains,
         stare at the sun
  make my amount
  count, every last one.

You & me
     are entwined,
       a vine wrapped
    around your
rib; my spine,
your death
   does not sever it,
       I feel the pull
          at night in my
       bed where I
hang off your
every word,
    so much I have
      learnt to dread
        the cursed
   dawn; the way
it silences your
tongue, but this
   light is not for
       long, I wait
          out the day
     to hear your
twilight song