When Misery learns Human Shape

When Misery learns Human Shape

Would the rain truly fall only for you

and the moon grow pale and kneel before you?

A stony road lies far ahead,

while the last train always leaves without you.

How can life define misery

when it speaks through a thousand faces?

One arrives clothed in joy,

slipping quietly into the chamber of the heart,

where illusions carve endless schemes.

Sink into the deepest reaches of sorrow

to witness how life has humbled you.

For how is one meant to master the mind

when misery strips away all sanity?

Circle of Cycles

Fear is born where every trial awaits us,

as miracles bloom the moment you dare.

The edge of the cliff strains your last nerve,

makes you wonder,

yet still you wander on,

your sense of direction undone.

My vision clear,

for everything begins at one point of uncertainty.

Rays of light flutter far above,

reflecting the past untouched by despair.

The unborn resembles zero itself,

empty, yet strangely blissful.

It never suffers the pain of rejection,

neither winning nor losing.

Kinder,

perhaps,

than surviving a million deaths and rebirths,

only to return to the void once more.

Asymmetry

(after Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki)

Where does a lost mind wander

after being taken by something obscure?

Do the walls even have an answer

before he crawls into that dark space and goes still?

An eerie, dreamlike haze of blue lingers,

vague and distant, yet he still aches.

Stars scatter across the sky,

shattering light into dust that redraws the wounds.

The stars flare into blinding light, he closes his eyes,

missing the ghost that steals those bluish hours.

Pictures of distorted reality surface in flashes,

pulling him back into consciousness.

It’s just another day, life pushing him forward,

unaware of what his soul tries to erase and seal shut.

But he, the boy who takes form in that lucid dream,

reads the scars differently.

He merges with the scars, every cut running through his bloodstream.

He leaves the world he knows too soon,

only to end up in the same broken fragments over and over.

Lost completely in what he once believed love to be,

a price he understood far too late.

Walking out is not an escape, and floating changes nothing.

He goes on breathing, but even his shadow no longer recognizes him.

Throwing himself into one thing after another, aimless,

merely to learn how much damage a body could sustain.

Does the sky really lie beneath their skull?

How long have they already been orbiting the same black sun?

Never collide, one too light, one fallen into the abyss.

They give loneliness different names.

One can’t recall, and one endures too much.

Yet they are bound by a gravity called pain.

As satellites turn toward each other,

an unvisited room of memory disappears.

But no one heals.

Nothing resolves.

Mystery lies bare,

revealing only more bruises

their skin remembers.

in a trance

After hours trapped inside the numbing flow of traffic,

I stepped into a quiet I had always longed for.

Beyond the bus stop lay a dull, vacant field,

still better than a life counted in red lights.

In the middle of that soulless field stood a red-brick house,

the kind thought safe from a wolf’s breath.

The driver began telling one of his worn-out stories

about a place no one wants to claim.

The horns called everyone back inside.

I rested my head against the foggy window.

The engine rumbled to life,

and the world outside smeared into a blur.

That was when it moved.

By the house’s window.

A wave,

or a warning.

Almost a face,

almost nothing.

The Observer

bougainvillea near the door curls its petals

built against recurring storms

my endless restless steps through the dusk

it knows I’ll collapse

till the bird whistles at dawn

bougainvillea no longer wants to open

not even silver dew could intervene

the warm breeze tries to give me courage

to keep a smile painted on my face

something is missing this evening

for I see no petals at my feet

has it been blown by the wind like a thief

or has it left on its own?

who could be strong enough

to stay beside a weary soul

cursing every morning?

I come home to an empty room

staring at a glass I never even touch

I shut my eye and a small galaxy awakens behind it

oh, dear!

what kind of vase is that?

soft petals I know so well,

fixing their eyes on me

as if whispering something:

“a pair of eyes remained,

taking my place, watching you”