Circonflexe

His arms unencumbered me,
removing all signs of weakness,
seasick though I was,
I somehow survived through stormy season. 

A whisper, a glimmer;
strategic breaths that kissed my neck.
A runner, a sprinter,
only he could rescue me from wreck. 

Inside my tattered mind,
two wrongs could never make a right,
until he blessed me with his Francophony
that made me blossom overnight.

Equanimity.

Like the fog protects the sky,
I held you close, with watchful eye.
Incapable of enduring another loss,
as trees mourn leaves slain by the frost.

On bended knee, I gave myself to thee,
only canines know such loyalty.
Like petals perspiring with dew,
there can be no me without you, too.

So, I just dance like second hands,
that measure time, in all the land.
I am the key—you are my lock;
like lyrics in our lover's rock.

when the dams burst, we will patch them up with words

"Tell me again, where is it you stop and the succubus begins? Why is it that once we separated we both ceased to exist?" A vanishing act, in two parts.

Act One: My pitiful proposal right in the middle of study circle was the first arrow to pierce your unfeeling heart. A feat more noble than neon on the periodic table. And you? If you were an element, it would be gangrene, the way you suddenly appeared and immediately created a crime scene. A biohazard more toxic and lethal than Fukushima. You radiated light, and at first glance I was blinded. Now that each individual shard of shrapnel has been plucked from my silver eyes, I see that you were nothing but nuclear. Once a dream within a dream, until you decayed and became a fucking nightmare within another godforsaken nightmare. Like those matronly Russian nesting dolls, but instead made up of demons, until there was nothing left but desolation.

Act Two: What happened to the wide eyed hopeful freshman that I met handing out pamphlets to save the rainforest or feed the world or whatever cause you'd attached yourself to at the time to make your human form seem believable. That same kid with the thick accent from East L.A. who arrived on a full scholarship to help inner city sweethearts avoid the inevitable—getting initiated into the first gang whose leader fell in love with her. I should've known the damage was already done and that you were the greatest con artist to wield a pen as a weapon. You seduced lovesick idiots from all walks of student life. Who knew future doctors, lawyers, and politicians could all be so easily swayed. Either way, you were a lost Latina princess who made men feel like one of your Latin Kings.

What happened to our heroine who refused to be branded like the cattle that would never be found on her plate. She was skilled in every recipe from cookbooks of anarchy. Who knew sometimes even soldiers sold out and became the same sheep they swore up and down 'til kingdom come that they would never be. The very sheep who required shearing and saving from a slaveowner who would rather refer to himself as a shepherd.

Behind the scenes a heavier battle was brewing...a conflict that was as deep as canyons grand, that had way too many layers. Our waxen eyed protagonist met his Waterloo in a spicy Puerto Rican seductress. Together, they personified academia, every interaction either ended with evacuated lecture halls or underneath ramen-noodle-stained-thrift-store-bargain-basement sheets. Spectators sighed at the sight of these star-crossed young lovers like modern day Montagues and Capulets. Together, they were an unstoppable machine.

Lovestruck or love's fools? The line between their overlapping identities faded with each day. They put blood, sweat and every last teardrop into the resistance. A revolution like no other, they claimed, that was the brainchild of their brilliance. As they grew closer, their separate clumsy heartbeats merged into one single thunderous rhythm. Surely nothing could come between a love that was united in humanitarian efforts.

By the time graduation robes neared, and colours reappeared across campus, the string that bound these altruists had started to come undone. Consumed by consumerism, a worldly woman in designer threads stood in place of our former rebellious lioness. As she appeared to be a phoney, her subjects rightly labeled her a fraud. Soon, her expensive appearance was a liability to their cause.

One black Friday between thunderstorms was when this War of the Rhodes' came to a halt; she turned away in anger only to be struck by his left lightning bolt. Electrified, and hurt as we reach the final breaths of real love, as it often ends. Only fairy tales wrap in happiness, why else would they appeal to us heartbroken humans.

What about healing, like we planted trees? What of the hospitals, where we pulled smiles out of the broken and the weak? What about the prisons, the detention centres unjustly holding refugees? Where did we stray, where did the love go? When did our own silence need to be bought with violence? What about orphans, widows left to starve in the streets? Where did we go wrong, to get here today? What about love, sweet love that doesn't end up settling in court? When can we return to peace and harmony? Unless we turn back, we won't have a pretty planet to watch on TV. If Satan's greatest con was convincing us he doesn't exist, isn't it time for us to accept we got ourselves into this mess?

Spellbound.

You change states 

like a magician.

From fire to water, 

then back again. 

I feel you in the air, 

you ground me,

like the Earth. 

And then you vanish. 

Poof!

In a cloud of smoke 

you disappear 

and leave me reeling. 

That is when 

I started 

searching 

for you. 

Dancing in the moon's shadow, 

I retrace my steps. 

The light from a single black candle 

casts a glow on my intrigued face. 

My breath steadies, 

my mind's eye 

replays pleasant memories of 

us together. 

I would look possessed 

to an outsider,

but you. 

You are inside me. 

Only you see my concentration. 

Devoted like the congregation

of some old, unfamiliar church. 

You become my religion; 

I worship at your altar. 

Prostrate at your feet. 

Suddenly, the smell 

of sage fills the room.

Rejoice. 

I am released.

I float up to the ceiling, 

then higher.

Looking down on stars, 

holy water bursts forth 

from my stony heart 

and I feel my way back to you. 

I am light, 

you are the dark. 

Flesh of my flesh, 

blood of my blood. 

I taste you on my tongue, 

and know it won't be much longer now 

until we return to childlike innocence

and enlightenment. 

Silencio.

Find me where the cacophony of sounds
meets the deafening silence.
Devoid of noise pollution,
where our bodies do the talking.

Search for me in the unbeaten drum,
I hide in guitar strings that have yet to be plucked.
Most evident in the pregnant expectation
of an audience awaiting an orchestra's first notes.

Where aria meets melody, 
and where the beat tickles the rhythm;
you will notice me dancing between the lines,
like a whirling dervish, intoxicated.

I am in the sighs, and the frustration,
every exhalation between lovers in a spat.
There is much of me in their reconciling,
in the fire that rekindles their romance.

Listen closely and you will hear me, 
in the few moments of silence 
before the birds arise.

That is when I am most serene,
when I feel as tranquil as the sun 
that is about to fill the sky.

At the bottom of the ocean,
where it is eerily quiet,
I can be heard singing with 
the whales who break the intimidating silence.

When you are sad or lonely,
hush your mind and listen to your heart,
I will always live inside you, 
for that is where I end and where I start.

Puzzling.

And he makes me want to carve myself.
Starving from extended winter,
I beckon to you with a finger.
Trembling; my veins fill with splinters.

Wooden slivers cut me from the inside,
I race towards any assistance.
Pressed, I pray for brooding brilliance.
Why do you play my ribs like piano keys.

Signal to you with smoky urgency,
peer into your zippered soul,
through magnifying glass eyes,
I catch you in action.

Hinting at the secret;
the secret code to my hunter heart.
You can access its emotion.
But do not tell the others.

Capture me in your net,
I beach myself on your bed.
You become the shore,
I slap at you lazily, like ocean.

Flowing, we crash into one another.
Resonate within me like cymbals.
I vibrate—cut me in two million pieces.
I win with my hands down.

Hold me in your clammy palm,
then blow me away, like dust.
Just let me scatter.
I yearn to know all the places!

No longer a mortar fortress.
Refined by this scandalous resilience.
These broken embraces can get so jumbled.
Shutter me. Forget my vulnerability anyway.