Every moment a measure.
4/4 common time.
Streetcars, subways, their snapping of tracks
Repeating staccatos fill tunnels, and 
Wind rushes through. The shuffle turned 
Rumble of a 1000 footsteps.  
The crowd’s excitement like soft taps of a high hat
Then gliding ivory guiding the third, the fifth, the seventh 
Person in chord’s progression.
And like people, the sweet melody of music
Is something you don’t need to know to love.

All of your life
Your hardships, your loving,
Everything in between
Will be made beautiful before
Kinder eyes, and 
A wiser mind. 

So at times,
Borrow those eyes from
Later, and with them
See the beauty in 
Your life
All of the time.

Nights like these
The crave of intimacy.

I’ve three hundred ply to lie upon
But cry at the thought of a love gone.

Keeping my blinds open
Even if neighbor’s eyes catch mine tearing.

For any chance to be seen
Could shed light on this shadowed feeling.

Maybe somebody out there feels the same
8 billion of us, so “yes” is safe to say.

I know I’ll fall to sleep in silence.
Saving me from shame but stealing me from reverence.

Until I find solace in my dreams
During nights like these.

how sharp the knife
we call shame. 
i can think of
nothing to dull its blade.
the feeling may subside,
it comes in waves.
but this time is proving hard,
i cannot withstand the pain.
now it splits me
in two, only myself to blame.
the scars left behind
each of them may fade.
but how much damage
can one body take?
until it’s broken past return,
too damage, too frayed. 
alone, will i make it?
or will my body lay claim,
and rest upon the familiar
sharpness of shame.

This man, wiser than I, but
Our souls are the same, layers of
Lives have held us together in
Endless refrain.

But in this life the journey proved queer
Finding our love through that which
Only we could hear 

Even now, our eyes have not met.
Our journeys have paralleled,
But remain unmet.

I cannot continue
Our connection the same

So I'm left questioning the
Last thing he said.

if god exists,
why did he create me
in this in-between.

salt on my body, seeping
into open wounds, sweetly
I request reprieve.
craving the quench of a love so 
deep, that I gasp for air in 
all its consuming.

but too shallow that water, 
misplaced and misleading,
instead, feel it swelling 
behind dry eyes 
begging release.

I lament:
I crave love, 
or I crave relief.
please do not tantalize me.

soothe my sorrows
with love as my salve
or let the salt drain from me,
carving paths down my freckled cheeks
if neither, then life in me will cease.

all I asked was for love or relief.
if god exists,
why did he create me 
in this in-between.

Small hands squished around 
even smaller globs of clay. 
Twenty-four in class; young minds,
malleable as the clay we held.  
As a Christmas miracle, we were bestowed
the ability to make anything our hearts desired.
Music lulled the classroom into a focused frenzy 
of creativity and play.  

I found myself immersed in the making of 
my very own bunny.  
I had asked Him for one on the eve of 
His birth.

I believed in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, 
He, and the Magic within me.  
My bunny made of clay 
may not have had the soft fluff,
the glimmering white, but he would.
He would grant my Christmas wish
I knew.

I took my bunny home, daydreaming of waking,
he, alive in my hands.  
Until then, on my nightstand, 
petting him until he was soothed,
my hopes and dreams had seeped into him.  
I went to bed knowing 
I would awake with my lively bunny.  

I dreamt of him, my sweet bunny
But He never showed. When I awoke, 
he lay there as I had left him hours before.  
That was the moment I began to question the 
magic I once believed.  
Back then, I knew that magic 
By a different name.

Today, coffee meets cream, swirling then
Folding into one another, as I do my lover.
Their gaze on me, through eyes that’ve just touched
Morning air.  I dive into their eyes, and their fingers 
Through my hair.  

There, on the sidewalk outside our apartment 
I’ve walked many times before, a stranger 
Glides by, grazes my shoulder.
A smile tugs at my lips, and the same one on his, 
We excuse ourselves but grin like old friends.  

Today feels different; a lightness in my feet.  It carries me
Down golden road, covered in sun’s heat.  
Day’s like this are rare, but loud in serendipity.
Though unpredictable, they always return.  

Amongst them days of thrill, some of sorrow, some of will, 
Some of ease, or fire and fume.  Some will be happy
Some full of gloom.  What tomorrow brings I do not know,
Today though, fate twists the day’s events into 
All that I know of a day full of bloom.

How my ears crave the hush of 
your voice whose shape I can’t quite 
trace, your body I’ve never known but
dream to. 

Your beautiful mind, and mine.
We’ve walked few paths of each other’s
But to the rest we are blind.  I wonder
How long you’ll wait

For me to trace more than your voice
With a touch of my own.  Grace my 
presence with yours, you will
I promise.  It’s only a short time between
Your beautiful mind and mine.

Eomma kisses her grandchild goodbye
And I see glimpses of a younger her and I 
Watch from afar, glistening twilight behind.

I’m nearly inclined to go closer but
I bide my time, I remain 
on the sideline and take in
the scene of my family before me.

My siblings now the age I called my 
parents ‘young,’ but it doesn’t feel the same.
Not with me trailing shortly behind. 

How many more years will I have?
Three generations; the ones who made me
The next two by proxy.

I believe nothing lasts forever
But I’ll still dream
that forever comes 
of this memory.

It's to be said of all things
But you are the only
That pained me to let go

Of all the emotions love brings
Each filled with lively complexity
And a vigor in them as they grow.

Like all else, their end will come, bending 
To time’s pull, dropping seeds
Of love, which I will sow.

Suited on a cliff and
Facing the shore
I’m left to wonder if you’ve ever
Considered a time 
Where instead of her arms
You wake up in mine.

These are the days of our lives
I know you remember. 
With what love will we be left 
To live forever.

One filled with gratitude 
Without regret.
Only to look forward
Never to look back, I’ll say,
“Maybe Another Time."

Through cracks in the wall not of your creation,
I glimpse you with quiet consideration.
Not built by your hands, yet still it remains,
a structure between us, silent with strain.

And still, your words manage to slip through,
Fragments of thought, both tender and true.
Thank you for letting me see what you show,
The parts of yourself you quietly stow.

What you have shared, I hold with care,
Not out of duty, but reverent air.
Your secrets, like relics, I cradle inside,
Not to uncover, but simply to bide.

If time were a flower
Its petals would be of all 
different colors
Layered, each 
soft to the touch.
Together,
a divine bud, dripping
in scent, and since 
its nectar too sweet
not to share,
‘Twould quench the beholder
With an infinite kiss

If only time were a flower.

I woke with my melancholy, my dear friend.  
She felt like a stranger
But all too familiar
I chased into cover
But she met me there
Held me there, then kept me
Maybe I let her, 
coolness so familiar. 
She guided my day, swallowing my words
like a mouse they slipped from me
And to some that comes across as mean, though
I don’t mean it to. 
What can I do? 
My melancholy came to visit,
And I can’t turn her away.

Can I die (here)
In your arms
Hearing the voice of a man who still believes he’s in love
Telling me I’m the one.
Honey you’ve felt this before
And I believe you’ll feel it again
So leave me in this blissful moment
Let me play oblivious
Let me act like I don’t know what’s to come
Let me believe that I’m the one

To claim one love could last a life is lie,
For love comes back to us in countless ways;
If that claim held, then romance ought to die,
Seldom does love stay through all our days.

‘But love, it lasts forever,’ some will say;
Yet love alone cannot outlast all time.
For life holds many loves along the way,
But longing lingers past a heart’s decline.

For love will shift and change from face to face,
And bind us only for a moment’s hold,
But longing lingers in its sacred place,
A lasting truth no passing love can mold.

So rare the heart for whom these truths align,
Such lucky hearts will find the two entwined.