False Positive

I hate my photograph,

it is not me-who stare

at you behind the mirror.

That false reflection

with curved lips,

chinkee-eyed to greet

a hello. To whom?

 

I don’t want witnesses

to frame me in that split-second

prison cell of disguise.

I buckle down, and sweating

my bones, electrocuted,

dead nervous of strangers’

gaze into my inner being.

 

I hate questions.

I hate it when you whitewash

a harsh reality with a soft answer.

It’s a scalpel dissecting

an organ, trying to find

hidden tumor that metastasized

blood flowing a river

and then you drowned

along with drowning the negative

until it sinked in.

 

Please,  tell the doctor.

He is not welcome here.

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Tipping Point

Verges means being pushed to the edge.

Like you are being confronted at a knife point

and you just can’t turn around but to dive

into that abyss while you don’t know how deep it was.

You always say that you can’t let them ruin you

but it’s a plain lie you wish that all is perfect.

 

If only you can cut the wire and kiss the voltage.

If only you can let the rope grip around the neck.

If only you can break the mirror and embrace danger.

Would it change a thing? Ah but no, you just go on

struggling with your inner demons and chase them

wielding that sword to cut-off somebody else’s head.

 

For you, everyday is a waging battle of wits and reason.

Perfection is costly. Holiness is fatal. Which one are you?

Nobody is born a saint and you won’t believe it too?

Do you suppose to expect the world will applaud a hero?

You raised the bar too high and it left you there isolated

basking in your self-proclaimed brand of narcissism.

 

Tell me now then, how it hurts to held onto the razor’s edge.

Or screaming mad in silence when you temporarily got insane.

Does it worth to feed people’s expectations and drag your feet

into that unending precipice while you can’t discern the apex?

Excuse my French, but I think you need to stop this disillusion.

Take a turn towards the direction where your heart leads you.

 

You might be a simple man- confident and unpretentious. Free.

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For The Ones We Left Behind

Think about the pen and the fingerprints

romancing in the glistening dust against the sunlight.

The faded photographs with watermarks

of remembrances salvaged from the past.

Brittle to touch and slowly turning to ashes.

 

Think about the bookmarks of dried rose petals

and the faint smell imprinted to the pages,

rescued from the years of forgetting the ones

that mattered most. And the dreams that never

meant to be owned like the earth where I stand.

 

If the promise of coming back becomes a distant memory-

counting each sunrises and every new moons. Let hope

travel its feet while I sit beside by the window waiting.

For innocence will turn my graying hairs to white

and youth will leave me like the wilted leaves of autumn.

 

The season changes and they say time heals every wound.

But the scars of our love-thorned lives remains relived

in our book of days. I wish the summer winds will carry

the ashes until forgetting. I wish sleep will banish the things

which I failed to tell you when you left me. I moved on.

 

I have written letters with the pen until it dried out of ink

I have recorded our memories for fear that it will be lost too.

And my waning mind gave birth to words I have bookmarked

with fresh flowers that blooms from the same earth I will lay

with my dreams. I am not afraid anymore of the longest night

 

until tomorrow.

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Steel Bars

I am perched here inside with distances to roam

only my eyes can see. You are out of reach.

The wind blows from distances afar

bringing me in yesterday’s news. It’s cold.

And the noise reverberates like a broken record.

 

Tell me about freedom. Day in, day out.

Of walking in circles, and the light travels into the night.

Tell me about resilience. No matter how it looks-

a hard shell but brittle and fragile within my mind

where it builds edifices of dreams. Towering

 

over my need  to run away and get lost

untangled into distances unhindered.

Restrain my hand from gripping the bars

of steel I layed propping up my self-esteem.

I will run untamed like a wild horse.

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Come

You see, light can be a scary thing.

 

It reveals something you won’t confront

by the mirror. You won’t by your shadows.

This ceiling, will you know how far

I have travelled without moving?

Beyond which my eyes can see.

The mind wanders alone. Come

closer by my bedside.

I’ll whisper something, a story.

Like a baby crying at mother’s

giving birth. Hear the sound

of the first rain after a drought

and how it falls on the parched

earth. A seed hibernates too long

through the darkness, alive.

Set free with its fragile arms

embracing the sky.

 

Will you tell me the truth?

Have you seen the surging ocean

drowning you out of the blue.

Have you felt something taking

root beneath you, peace.

Lullabye of the mermaid

lulling you to sleep

and believe in love

like the shooting stars.

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Specimen

We lived in a world where

statistics is synonymous

with being number one.

Measuring up in a yardstick,

struggling our lifetimes

competing for spaces

reserved for subservient

imitators of culture and class.

 

Like crabs crowding and grabbing

and pulling each other down

wanting to rule the world. People

above people. Force against force.

 

For those who dared raising a fist.

For those who questioned authority.

For those who defy their masters

raised from the land they call-

the first world. Their birthright.

 

Is it about what you’ve been taught?

Is it about how you’ve been raised?

Have I been misplaced by fate?

My skin’s darker, hands dirtied,

swollen by hard labor. A gap

so wide I couldn’t leap forward

a privilege’s bloody to break.

 

The one with the skin much paler

has the prime seat in the house.

The one whose ideals are taller than the tree

had their palms oiled by the scent of money.

And their minions bow down in worship.

 

Supremacy over self-worth. Fanaticism

over humanity. Millions, blindsided

servants to little gods awaiting benediction.

I can’t do but keep silent and curse

the soil in which you were born,

giving you a seething stare in envy.

 

Shall I borrow then, your language

slipped out of your tongue? For I will

put sounds to the syllables of freedom

to speak and tell you, “our time has come”.

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You Left Me With Things

Here, in the box are things that you left me.

It’s been years I kept them hidden under

my bed. Should I throw it away? A burden

 

that I should burn it aflame with the world

like this tongue of hatred growing each day.

Oh sadness, it lingers through days like rain.

 

I have learned to befriend loneliness. I am

a castaway and a stranger to my own skin.

Chained to asking myself of what, why or how-

 

I build myself a wall of defense in silence

shielding me from these ghosts of abandon

and fear. Believing I have moved on but no.

 

I ran away as fast as I could in circles

until the soles of my feet bleed in despair.

I hated you and I should tell you that, now.

 

The blue light to my cigarette starts another

round of stinging away this loneliness

floating in loops through the night’s surreal air.

 

The beads begin forming in my mugs of beer

unknowingly- which of those are my sweat or tears-

blurred in the sad memory that you left me.

 

Remind me of things in that box of dreams,

by the time I know it, smashed to the floor

again. Made me satisfied to learn emptiness.

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