In my library there are 6 books

1.

I was born in the ocean,

it was night

there was a light breeze

I know this is not true

because my mother can't swim,

but when I close my eyes

and click my heels

I see only gentle waves

draped in a midnight moon.

I don't know

what this means.

Or the kind of man

it makes me

All I know is that

when I'm at sea-level

everything makes sense

2.

To the girls who will

fall in love with me,

take note.

I will love you

violently,

absolutely

and without compromise.

today, tomorrow

and maybe the day after

What I mean is

the Star Trek laser gun

of my undying affection

is set to incinerate.

What I mean is

kiss me on the cheek

and I'll shine so bright

I'd roast a turkey at twenty paces.

What I mean is

I'm afraid my hands

are too big

to carry you safely

What I mean is

I don't know how to love at an even burn.

But some day I might just open a door

and be able to love you

everyday

every time

and everywhere.

But for now please understand

that when you are in front of me

I hear only the sweetest violin music

3.

The first girl I ever loved

was on the Disney Channel.

in the grey hours of morning

I'd lay there among yesterdays toys

waiting for her smile

her teeth jagged

on my CRT screen,

she flips her Technicolor hair

then rolls out

the anthropomorphised rodent messiah

that I had to worship

to prove my love to her

You see,

my seven-year old heart

was a sucker

for prepackaged escapism

in a sundress

so I accepted the Mouse

into my soul

and I preached his word

on the playground

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

I chanted,

a child soldier on a crusade,

Donald Duck water-bottle

held like a scimitar

I lead my school-yard congregation

in prime-time prayer

But then she started seeing her co-host

and I switched to the Cartoon Network,

You see

I learned what love was, Mickey.

It's a rat-faced lie we all tell.

And I'll never forget my first time.

4.

You asked me where I got this t-shirt

I took a trip outside of myself

and it was all I came back with

5.

When I was a little boy

I danced with God.

He told me stories

and gave me heroes to play with

but in my dance I spun away

and found the song of the universe

to be louder than the words on the page

The melody is old

and hard to hear

over the roaring thunder

but it begs us to remember

that somewhere,

something incredible

is waiting to be known

that we're all

waiting to be known

and for small things like us

the vastness is bearable

only through love.

6.

I am continually amazed

by the ongoing process of being human.

All of you amaze me,

you wonderful machines.

all cheekbones and elbows

and tangled balls of string

If these fingers were nimble enough

I'd rip myself apart

layer by layer

exposing the sacred chaos

and tiny infinities

that live inside you.

I'd do it every night.

Standing on rooftops and flagpoles

with a marching band and fireworks

screaming through a megaphone

putting all my gears and levers

on display

till my my eyes are steeped

in burning flowers

and the choking floodwaters

fall beneath my chest

Then I'd step back

and ask for your name.

"My name is Praveen," I'd say

"Take my hand. There's something I need to show you."

 

This poem starts with 3 disclaimers

        And an exclamation

1. In my short adult life, I have watched too many genocides play out at a distance to be able to tell the difference between near…and far…anymore

2. I know that the plural term for genocide is genocides, because I keep having to use it in sentences. This genocide. Those genocides. Our genocides. Your genocide.

3. I am not Arab, or Syrian, Or Lebanese, Or Tutsi Or Uyghur,Or Yazidi,Or Darfuri, Or Bosnian, Or Kurdish, Or East Timorese, Or Jewish, Or palestininian or Rohingya. I was not Sri Lankan enough to be there when my people’s own, bespoke, genocide happened, and ended. This poem is a reflection, a catharsis, an apotheosis of avarice,malice and vitriol from a bit too comfortable Subang kid who can’t look away anymore

And now an exclamation;   

Let this poem radicalise you.

They say there is no place

for anger here

That anger will smear

The line drawn in the sand

Jeapordize 

A Precarious situation

Like its so simple

Like we’re paying jenga

They speak like our anger

Is fire-wild and savage

But our anger is swords 

Scalpels

Razor sharp claws

A needle tipped storm

Darkening their horizon

Leave your anger at home

They say

Leave your red-eyed,

Tightly-clenched,

Fully-loaded

Sharpened

Honed,

Six shooter,

Earth shaking

Bass boosted

Too Loud

TOO BIG

TOO PAINFUL TO HOLD

TOO BRIGHT TO BEHOLD

RAGE 

At home

They say

Like it is baggage

That wont fit

in the overhead compartment

Then I say

       What is your anger for?

               Why does it exist

What are you cultivating

In your inner garden?

Why have you

bled into it’s earth

watering

an orchard of words

like missile silos?

To blindly praise the sun?

                  To shield grazing sheep?

                          Personality To sleep?

in their sheathes?

Till you sleep?

in the dirt?

next to them

Why lead an observed life

If you can’t observe the pain

They’re trying to erase? 

What is your anger for

If not to explode

A mushroom cloud beacon

Shining bright

For those who

have been exploding

for seventy five years

SEVENTY FIVE YEARS

That is a number that doesn’t make

Sense

Pain shouldn't have a lifespan 

Longer than the people

Who birthed it

There is no sense

I am looking between each lie 

And in shell shocked eyes

For the sense 

there is no sense

In this genocide

Those genocides

Our genocides

Their genocides

Your genocide

We live in a shared illusion

That this world

Is fair, and just

In exchange for the illusion

of peace

We surrender the right

To Truth

In exchange

For peace

We have let a cancer 

grow in our chest

So

What is your anger for

If not for this.

If not to cut out the cancer

If not for the light of truth

So let this poem radicalise you.

As I have it’s writing radicalise me

Let nothing stop the swing 

Of your sword arm

Wielding your barbed tongues

Honed to a fine edge

CUT THEM

Cut them deeply

Make them bleed 

their own blood

Instead of the 

blood of the weak

Let them know 

Its colour

Let them know

It's the color of fear

CUT THEM

Cut deep enough 

To see what they are

To show them what they are

creatures of fear

Playing at dress-up evil

Creatures of greed

Cosplaying power

Small things

Aping divinity

Painting over

Righteous fury

With the colors of hate

CUT THEM

So they know  their skin

Is soft  and brittle 

Like bible paper

Rip every lie

Out of its cover

And lay it bare

Bear down on it 

With the fire

Burning from your palms

Held outstretched

Dig your toes

Into the sand

And shine

I hope

That when the last 

torch bearing hand falls

Yours, and mine

Will be there to grab it

Before it’s quenched 

In bloodied mud

I hope

In the midst 

Of the avalanche

Of genocides

Of smallness

And fear

That you reach

for anger

Before you reach

for despair

It will take all of us

And everything of us

But it will be worth it

So let this 

Moment

Radicalise you 

Howl 2.0

 Howl 

Silently, 

you come to me

a weave of fingers 

like a lace net

Cast into 

the darkness

to catch me 

before I fall

Quickly,

You find me

Bare toes 

on frozen grass

Each step

a secret song

written out

On a bed 

of wild-flowers

Gasping,

You tumble into me

Twisting your back

To miss the fall

Of my gaze

Howling,

You bring me pain,

Dressed as a pebble

Gripped between

your tongue

And teeth

Let me devour it

and suckle 

On its hard seed

cradle it on my lips

like the slick

deep, taste of wine

Of razor blades

in honey-spice

As we turn sour

In the lantern-light

Let me bite into it

gently

and pull back it’s skin

Like i'm turning 

the pages of a book,

To read the rest

of our story

When it is done,

we will spread out,

like wet lightning,

emptied and electric

and warm our hands

by the fire.

We will cast

our shadows

across the earth

toss our coals

like spears,

into the living flame

And ride

it’s dance

into heaven

like little deaths,

like a held breath.

like broken crowns

on the heads

of broken kings

Striding.

Searching.

Heavy and Lost.

O candle-wick love,

and knife in my heart

O salt-stone,

and bread of my table

Still your hurried pace

And look to the sky

For we are wolves tonight

Long of eye,

And silver’d fangs

howling for flesh

and dreaming of stars.

The water will spill

 The boy sits

with a cup of water.

The cup is his,

the water is a lake

his hands are cold

like winter nests

In the tallest trees

The birds have left long ago

Leaving only the frozen sticks

He calls his fingers

He checks the glass,

And it is assuredly still

He is assuredly still

The day will come

When he has to refill the cup

When the lake runs dry

He will chase errant rain clouds

Through the vast chambers

echoing caves, the byzantine pathways

He longs for the days

When his feet will 

wake the dust 

of this old house

But for now

He is assuredly still

For he must be

The day will come

When the gods will stomp

And snarl

And play their games

And shake the branches

Till there are tiny holes in his walls

They will blow razor wind storms

Across the waters surface

Birthing waves 

too big for the boy to hold

A wake of swords 

Slashing at the cup

For the water is a lake

And it is not his

They will send teeth

Sharp teeth loud teeth

Winged teeth

To eat his chest open

And he cannot use his hands 

To shield the rooms 

Where he has hidden

Every quiet page

The water will spill

The water will always spill

When it gets loud

His hands will shake

And the water will spill

With fear, with rage

His hands will shake

The world

Will shake

And the water will spill

Outside the rain 

Is fighting to get in

But he cannot get up 

To open the doors

The vultures have pecked 

The doorknobs away

So the boy chases the rain 

through each room

Each blind corridor

The only thing showing him the way

Is the smell of wet tar, petrichor

And the music of tin roofs

Echoing in the too-quiet night

Where have the birds flown off too

Their song used to warm him

Where is the voice of his mother

Where is the candle fire

the wooden bookends,

And the stories they sang to him

Where is the smell of coffee

Not for him, cos he's too young

But he likes to witness

The way the dark and light

Mix together to make a color

That perfectly means home

Where is the sweet smoke

The eating of light

The hard made soft

The rainy sundays

Spent reading skin

From page to page

Where are the words of god

They printed on thin paper

For the ink stains his hands

Too deeply

And they must be still

The water will spill

And he has to tell god

But he has searched 

Through all these empty rooms

The boy chases god through each room

Each blind corridor

The only thing showing him the way

Is the sound of death, greed, fear

And the smell of cheap incense

But all he finds

Are half-made statues

Wearing his name

Their words are empty

Their cups are empty

They sing with ears of dirt

And mud

They trace the words on the page

with hearts of Nafs

instead of fingers and eyes

These birds sing empty songs

To empty nests

Thinking they have 

Stopped the sky from falling

But the boy has a cup

And the water is going to spill

But he, is assuredly still

Wild thing

 Call me a wild thing,

find me in the root

 at the base of

the old willow tree

Steeped in a shock

of wildflowers

up to my chest

burning bright

with a smile 

Call me a wild thing

where I built a house 

out of cherry tree wood

fingers stained red

I hid there 

till the wind was still

as mushrooms

as lilacs

as blueberries

Hiding from the hurricane

of razor blades

the shower of poppy seeds

the stolen breaths

between and in-between

Call me a wild thing

when my howl rings

on the moon-silver marshes

my steps tracing

a line in the earth

Stirring a dance of embers

Into a wild dervish

Of hands seeking god

Face tilted slightly

One eye towards the sun

One eye for the earth

ears listening for thunder

Call me a wild thing

O sweet one

O gentle blossom

O lantern of my soul

Sleep now

In the cherry tree house

I have built you

a bed of feathers

I have plucked from

the highest nests

Come home to me, 

sit by my fire

and rest gently

As you fall asleep

You call me a wild thing

And for the first time 

I believe you

 

*obligatory Death Cab reference*

(sung)"Who's gonna watch you die?"

Is a line from a death cab song
but it blinds me
like a neon sign
shining yellow

through dusty window glass

into the quiet dark
asking me
"what do you mean?"

Not mean like there
was a verbal misunderstanding
between us
but mean like purpose
like what is this amalgamation
of nothing finished,
of half written truths
and left-hand wisdom

in the shape of  a man
supposed to be

Like it was asking me
what I was going to die for
someday

Now,
resonance occurs
when two vibrating bodies
oscillate at the same frequency
Their waveforms meet
and each is left a little stronger for it

And this question

from the street lamps
resonated within me
and was reflected
and magnified
like a voice
from the bottom of a dry well,
a voice I haven't heard
in a while

(sung)"Who's gonna watch you die?"

Who

Like who will be there at the end,
standing proud as the
anthropomorphised outcome
of every choice you have ever made

Who as in who will care enough to
wait the countless hours
for your pointless existence to
run down
for that last burst
of electrochemical potential
to drain back into the cosmos
and mourn the space
you left in the world

Who will remember
that you were just
a fragment ofthe universe 

observing itself
from a different angle.
And all that ended
was a point of view.

Watch
Like who's going to watch you live?
What will be their contribution
to your song
How will their existence
curve your path
For when they walk next to you
you can do nothing
but harmonize
even if that means
you have to change
your tune.

Who
like who trusted you enough to
believe that the colors you thought
only you could see
were real
and in time began to see them too?
Who would love you enough

to let your madness
become theirs

cos for small things like us

this madness is bearable

only through love.

Die.
Like did you bring joy?
Like was there less
empowered fear
in the world because
you existed in it?
Like did you contribute
enough to the human chapter
and will the words
that trace your path
across the page
hold the reader's
gaze till the very end

And when you read them again,
will you recognize yourself?

Die.
Like will the
nutrients your body 

gives back to the earth
be more valuable 

than the imprint
your mind leaves
in the sky
that holds everything
together

Like an errant note
hastily thrust
into the last measures
of an ageless song.

Will that note simper,
and fade
or will it reinforce
the vibrations
drop-kick the melody,
rouse the orchestra
making it brighter,
sharper
clearer
louder
shaking the wood from walls
the nails from your fingertips
your toes dug deep into the sand
sending ripples to every ship
on the horizon

Reminding everyone
on this majestic journey
that the land behind the sun
shines from inside their chest
that the music of the spheres
plays to the beat
of their stomping feet

That the balance they seek
lives in the  endless dance
of particles like
dust-motes and embers
climbing to the sky
on the last breath
of a dying fire

Tell them
To never fear the darkness
or the storm
For it was the storm
that shook the branches
rocking us to sleep each night
And it was darkness
that held us safe
in it's arms till
we were ready to
to become light

Tell them
to never stop burning
combusting
incinerating
illuminating

cascading
into the corners of every room
to the edges of the night sky

Be the sacred pillar of flame
marking the boundaries
between truth and wisdom
freedom and fear

be the wonder,
magic
and endless fireworks
in every child'e eye

but also
may you be happy

may you be at peace

and find joy

in wind chimes

and sea turtles

and a big brass horn section

that plays

at the end of the movie

Hold my hand, 

o lamp of my soul,

and keep me company

I will shower 

you with kisses

and finally

sleep softly

Tempo

It is steady
the drum
the step
the heart beat thump
the flailing arms
the scratching chains
on lime green tile
cold, sharp,
and unbearably lost

It is bright
the stray voices
the shadows you've become
the faint web of moonlight
weaving thread unseen
in the crescent of eyes
searching the dim dark
for the dying embers
of a fire
you once knew

It is gentle
the dust
the old stones
the promise of rain
the softness of hair
that falls on your face
and in the infinite space
within each ebony strand
I find and lose
everything

Rise

The average length
of a hug
is 3 seconds,
but for the days
when I'm
at my smallest
I count to 5

Rise

This is for the boys
who don't drink fight or fuck
but hide wolves in clenched fists
to end wars they didn't start

This is for the girls
dressed in summer,
who know that giving light
means learning how to burn

Rise

For the twentysomethings
drenched in lonely
reaching for a love
they don't understand
For the night-owls
living in the shade
too afraid
of the blinding sun
and the rush hour nomads
racing home
to hold up their children

Rise

When your days
cut like blades
and you wake up
in the cold sweat
of unattainable potential
When you're broke
and left chewing
a tightly held breath,
to last the week till payday

Rise

When your front door
is a reminder
of everyone
that left
But your bed
remembers
every mistake
that stayed

Rise

Like your naked girlfriend
just jumped out of a cake
and it's not even your birthday
Like the bottle rocket
of your wildest hopes
is shooting across the sky
And for a brief moment
you're standing eye to eye
with god

RISE !

Like the school-yard rule books
never clipped your wings

Like you didn't know you
could dance till
the beat showed you how

Like you dug through
the pavement
and found the heart
of the world
beats only for you

RISE!

May the days
you wish you were
someone else
never return
May your never-ending
march to the grave
be a  parade
of musicians
acrobats
and fire-eaters
May you find heaven
in a sunbeam
And may all your dreams
come true

Cos when
the dust settles
the only things
left standing
will be the dreams
we all shared

So rise

7 Books (rewrite)

In my library there are 7 books

1.
I was born in the ocean,
it was night
there was a light breeze

I know this is not true
because my mother can't swim,
but when I close my eyes
and click my heels
I see only gentle waves
draped in a midnight moon.

I don't know
what this means.
Or the kind of man
it makes me

All I know is that
when I'm at sea-level
everything makes sense

2.
To the girls who will
fall in love with me,
take note.

I will love you
violently,
absolutely
and without compromise.
today, tomorrow
and maybe the day after

What I mean is
the Star Trek laser gun
of my undying affection
is set to incinerate.

What I mean is
kiss me on the cheek
and I'll shine so bright
I'd roast a turkey at twenty paces.

What I mean is
I'm afraid my hands
are too big
to carry you safely

What I mean is
I don't know how to love at an even burn.
But some day I might just open a door
and be able to love you
everyday
every time
and everywhere.

But for now please understand
that when you are in front of me
I hear only the sweetest violin music

3.
The first girl I ever loved
was on the Disney Channel.
in the grey hours of morning
I'd lay there among yesterdays toys
waiting for her smile
her teeth jagged
on my CRT screen,
she flips her Technicolor hair
then rolls out
the anthropomorphised rodent messiah
that I had to worship
to prove my love to her

You see,
my seven-year old heart
was a sucker
for prepackaged escapism
in a sundress
so I accepted the Mouse
into my soul
and I preached his word
on the playground
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
I chanted,
a child soldier on a crusade,
Donald Duck water-bottle
held like a scimitar
I lead my school-yard congregation
in prime-time prayer

But then she started seeing her co-host
and I switched to the Cartoon Network,

You see
I learned what love was, Mickey.
It's a rat-faced lie we all tell.
And I'll never forget my first time.

4.
I used to hate my name
It's too strange to be easy
but not exotic enough to be attractive.

Praveen.

I waged a war
set on a battle-field
of best friends,
and girl-friends,
it was genocide.

Prav

Half of it disappeared overnight.
as if I'd gripped it tight
and threw away all the parts
I didn't like
burying them six-feet deep
as if making it smaller
made it easier to live with.


When you say my name
you remind me that I hate it,
which is strange
because I don't hate it
when you say it.

It falls from your lips
like a dance and a dream.
Like a drop of paint.
and an ounce of fire-light.
You make the hard r sound mystical,
and you hide the awkward e's
inside the most sensuous way
you pronounce the n
that sits at the end
of the whole mess.
You make the v in the middle
feel at home.

So, to the world I will remain Prav,
the name I pin to my chest
like a battle scar.

But in the space
under my pillow
I will hide
the sound of your voice
and the memory
of my hated name.

5.
You asked me where I got this t-shirt
I took a trip outside of myself
and it was all I came back with

6.

When I was a little boy

I danced with God.

He told me stories

and gave me heroes to play with

but in my dance I spun away

and found the song of the universe
to be louder than the words on the page

The melody is old

and hard to hear
over the roaring thunder
but it begs us to remember
that somewhere,
something incredible is waiting to be known
that we're all
waiting to be known
and for small things like us
the vastness is bearable
only through love.

7.
I am continually amazed
by the ongoing process of being human.

All of you amaze me,
you wonderful machines.
all cheekbones and elbows
and tangled balls of string

If these fingers were nimble enough
I'd rip myself apart
layer by layer
exposing the sacred chaos
and tiny infinities
that live inside you.

I'd do it every night.
Standing on rooftops and flagpoles
with a marching band and fireworks
screaming through a megaphone
putting all my gears and levers
on display
till my my eyes are steeped
in burning flowers
and the choking floodwaters
fall beneath my chest


Then I'd step back
and ask for your name.
"My name is Praveen," I'd say
"Take my hand. There's something I need to show you."

Honestly

Can I be honest?

In this context my honesty isn't cruel, or angry. It isn't made of secrets or songs. It isn't strong enough to carry you down the aisle, or help you with your groceries.It won't swim with it's shirt off or ask you to prom, cos it's too shy, but I'll try.

Cos in this context my honesty is a card-board time machine that lets me climb in and close my eyes thinking of you,to later step out groggily into a bright, shining, silver-glass utopia where it feels like we've spent a lifetime together.

So like next Thursday.

Because in the perfect post-apocalypse of next Thursday,this maze of uncertainty that stretches out before us may have untangled itself to reveal the road we're looking for.

So let me be honest, because I want to say the lamp of your soul ignites the air in my veins, leaving only these arms with the strength to slow you down.

The slow dance of your hips is like wine. Moon colored wine that I will inevitably lose myself in every single day until they put me in a cage for spending all my rent money and food money and tax money on bottles of you.

I need to tell you this thing you put in my chest feels like an unfettered stampede of sweating summer school children and your walk is like the world's sexiest ice-cream man.

Every time you walk next to me you send an army of red squirrels marching up my arms and neck to seek refuge in the trees of my tangled grove. They have pulled the bones from my skull and the gold from my teeth to build a shrine to you above my head.

In the corner of my quietest heart there is a forest of teeth where time stands still. There I have buried my library of sharp edges and bruised knees to make space in my shelves for all the things I want to show you.

The space between your lips where your smile lives is a prayer to a distant god that will save the universe when the alien bunny people invade in their floppy-eared ships..

You make me want to fall on my knees and believe in god again.

Well, almost.

But this is how you make me feel.

Like I'm standing at the water's edge, toes dug deep, hoping that the fire in my hands is bright enough to cast your shadow across the sky.

Like I was the sky and you were a river and our destiny was to meet some day to form the ocean.

Like I'm 18 and lost again, trying to summit the mountain peak on a moonless night. Praying that each desperate grasp finds a bit of your skin to hold on to.

Like I'm 14 and stuttering again, my mind moving too fast for tongue and teeth to chase, chained to a midnight train burning hell-fire and moonshine to rocket off the edge of the earth into your arms.
leaving a trail of slow-motion particle effects and screaming passengers.

Before I walk the trail, I will wear my words like the armor of the sun and wield the bow I found in my grandfathers books to kill the evil dragon stealing your air. I will fire arrow after arrow at the thrones of sleeping kings to set you free that you might hold me in talons between mighty wings and lift us above the storm of the world into a never ending sunset.

So let me be the easy thing in your life, cos I know your life ain't easy.
Lend me the keys to your doors, and Ill be a a thrift shop sweater that loves you like a tailored suit.

Cos if I'm honest, you make me feel like I mean something.
And even if it takes the rest of my life, I mean to return the favor.

Quiet

Please, stop.
Be calm, quiet yourself
slow your hurried feet,
that I might find the path
up your narrow roads
that this fool might jump
and fall deeply into your skin
that taught me the stars
Into your voice
that lends sunlight to every morning
Into your arms that held me
when we stormed the summer palace.

So please, my sweet prince
rest here,
wander these halls,
and steal away my heavy eyes.
Like night, the ocean,
and the holy beast of every toke.
Like a knelt prayer,
palms meeting face
on dropped knees and fallen grace
searching the faithless
for a glimpse of the trace-less
in the far flung howl, and the returning thunder
and the choir of spring magnolias
in a honey-soaked breeze
In a bright storm of pages
and the reef of sunken ships
taken root in my lungs.
Like the flower that grows up to my lips
to speak your name
I search for you.

Fingers riding rusty veins
into jagged pores
and cracked jaw bones
into shaking sweat
I ache for you.

So hold me still,
keep me steady,
grab me tight
like a handful of seeds
and a chest full of flowers
touch me softly,
keep me safe
till the days of winter,
and the frost-blue cold

For when it is all dust and dreams
I will scour the ruins of your words
to find the hole you once filled.

Let it drain the silver from my tongue
that I might hear your voice,
and finally, sleep softly

They call me..

The way you say my name reminds me that I despise it. It's too strange to be relatable but not exotic enough to be attractive. It's a construct of hard, rolling r's with a slightly too long string of e's trailing behind it.

Praveen.

I fought and won a war against that name, set against the backdrop of my social circle and schools, and it was a genocide. Half of it disappeared overnight. I compacted it down to it's smallest possible profile, as if making it smaller made it less repugnant.

Prav.

When you say my name you remind me that I hate it, which is strange because I don't hate it when you say it.

It falls from your lips like a dance. Like a drop of paint. Like an ounce of fire-light.

You make the hard r sound mystical, and you hide the awkward e's inside the most sensuous way you pronounce the n that sits at the end of the whole mess. You make the v in the middle feel at home.

So, to the world I will remain Prav, the name I pin to my chest like a battle scar.
But in the corner of my quietest heart I will keep the sound of your voice and the memory of my hated name.

Fragment

Listen,
beloved.

In the dusk-dim dark,
of a red-sun evening.
In rain-sheathed light,
I sit and think of you.

My fingertips feel numb
and the words escape me.
But I remember it now,
the half-formed explosions
the almost conversations,
the fizzled expectations of grandeur.
They tumbled out of my mouth
uncontrollable verbal after-birth
misshapen, awkward and unloved.
starting and stopping in short bursts
Still born sentences,
gasping for air.

I lost something here, beloved
inside and within this shapeless dream
a piece of a fragment,
a figment,a fracture
of an almighty explosion

On this red dusk, dim-dark,
rain-sheathed evening
I recall only the warmth of your hand.
So lead me sightless.
Let me dwell in all your shadows
till my eyes are steeped in burning flowers
and the choking flood-waters fall below my chest

Teeth

It’s a noise. 

A god forsaken buzzing like a billion insects nesting in a hollow rock; reverberating through all of the hundred and eighty two centimeters good genes and nutrition have seen fit to gift you.

It’s all the hounds of perdition howling at your gates.

It’s the surface of a lake during a summer storm, chaos, fury and knife edge winds.

It’s the inevitable, creeping darkness, the slow-rot of roots in the warm earth.

It’s slowly losing your grip on the light you used to own and finding rage like you've never known.  

It’s a long-lost conversation that found you, and held you and kept you dry in the rain.

A gnashing set of stained teeth in the pit of my chest.

Falling headfirst into this fresh void, I place my hands on the scale to tip the balance.

Hoping to gain more than I lose.

Familiar

This cigarette feels awkward in my hand. The wind keeps sneaking into the gaps in my defenses as I try to spark it, so I do that silly dance that all smokers do. Transforming effortlessly from a hunchback with cupped hands to a crouched over bird-of-prey, moving ever closer to the ground like gravity's pull suddenly got too much to handle.

The gentle weight of the foam tip reminds me that I’m supposed to quit, but the storm in my chest protests.

How did we get here?

I coulda sworn that when I started this day I was 5 years old in the back of my dad's car. It was red and japanese and the smell from the air conditioning made me light-headed, in a good way.

We were coming home from dinner with people too uninteresting to remember, but they had a copy of White Fang that I found and stole away to a corner while the other children played.

It feels like you were there with me. Sharing the space on those cheap leather seats, the alternating dark-light-dark-light from the tungsten street lamps tracing a path across my face,waking me up in blinky-eyed intervals.  My dad still smoked back then, the sharp scent of Dunhill Reds climbing into the back seat with us.

You feel as familiar as that car ride, when we were neither here nor there. The social anxiety of the dinner mostly faded away, but the familial anxiety of home still a bit further.

I keep retracing my steps from here back to that night, and for the life of me I can’t tell when things changed.

You were there, don’t you remember? You listened to the stories I found in those books, you laughed when I childishly fumbled the big words, you loved the characters I made up when the stories didn’t have happy endings. We listened to all the same songs on the radio, and watched too much t.v, and crushed on the same characters.

I couldn’t have made up the day I met you, when you laughed at my jokes that weren't that funny. When we accidentally started smoking the same brand. When you fit yourself so perfectly into me that it felt like you’d always been there.

Or was that all in my head ?

I guess you felt so easy to keep near that I didn’t realize that you weren’t me, and needed more than I give myself. But that’s a mistake I keep making, and will probably make again.

You gave me that at least, before I woke up in the back of that red, Japanese car,eyes blinking half-asleep and smelling of smoke. You gave me a glimmer of hope that I could bring someone else into this. To once again share a bit of heat and laughter on the long ride home.

Momento

(I've been having trouble putting something into words. For months now, whenever I tried to describe what this year has felt like in coherent sentences I get stuck. And I just realized it's because Ive been limiting the theme of my words, and in doing so failing to accurately express a very long and colorful year.

So here it is I guess, it it's least compressed form)

1. This year has been a cut-me heal-me, a kiss me tender then leave me. This year's been a bipolar girlfriend with fuck-me-harder bedroom eyes. With days like blades and weeks like being lost in a vast ocean of lukewarm bath water.

2. This year I found the silent meadow at the center of the storm, the pebble at the centre the pond. It wanders my chest like an air pocket through waterlogged corridors.

3. It's like a toke held too long in the lungs, a cascade of sensations like dominoes from thundering pain to lightheaded euphoria, but always leaving a sore burning hole in your chest later.

4. It's the mixture of righteous purpose and fear stained guilt, like a holy man with his knife at the throat of an apostate.

5. A year of being lost. Of a long searching hand finding a ledge. Of a quartz crystal growing roots, and germinating in a dark cave at the heart of the planet. It's knowing that the universe takes an allmighty breath, and being allowed to share in it. This year is a tightly held breath, released in small bursts to last the week till payday.

6. It's been a year of light. All consuming and life renewing light. Light that bouces and spins and shimmers across the palaces of sleeping kings. Light that turns green after dancing through the branches of a mangrove swamp. I was blinded when I discovered and embraced the ever-present luminescence of all things, glowing phosphorescent blue like the cold-body radiation of a dead star.

7. It's knowing that when the hair and meat and humanity has been seared off your bones, what's left will walk to the volcano's edge and throws that goddamn ring into the fiery pit from once it came.

8. It's been a year of constantly knowing that I am loved, and knowing that what love I have to give is enough for now.

Yea, it's been that kinda year. Now onto the next one.

Massive

I think there's a special kind of visual largeness, a unique sense of condensed mass reserved for the larger men of Central Asian descent.

Could it be the colors our bodies wear, that meaty washed out brown sitting next to dark eyes and lips and night-black hair.

We grow larger again, sitting inside the tents of our large billowy jubahs, linen cloth to crease and add lines and definition to this unseemly mass. 

Hair, hair could be the cause. Curly, omnipresent, indomitable, always either too short or a raging growth of indecipherable locks.
Tangled shrubs of arm and back hairs add to that i think, extending, growing the edge of our silhouettes so that we may stand larger than we are.

Could it be that lumbering, swaying gait of a man walking off a heaily spiced meal ?

Maybe it's skin after all, not the color, but the texture.
Slathered in coconut oil perfume, rose water or sweat from the humid asian air.
That shine, that slightly awkward wetness may be that last little something that completes this picture, this image, this reflection, this moment of being obsessed with aesthetic massiveness.

Micro 1 + 2 + 3 + 4

1.
His head tumbled
heavy and low
A pendulum
between swaying shoulder blades
like twin scythes 

His eyes were dark
and lost
and wild
with the color,
of living, aching,
saffron

2.
His heart is dancing 
it’s doing little jumps and flips
on the upturned palm
of his out-stretched hand

It had walked out there to look at the stars
The stars make his heart dance in his hands
And so do you.

3.
There is a new stillness,
taken root within him
like an air pocket
wandering the corridors
of a submerged catacomb

4.
He pulls you closer
eye to eye with his humid scent
Find the path from his shoulder
through this grove of hair
to the place under his neck 
and his other teeth.

Teeth that are sharp and black
to leave a taste in your mouth
like old blood, chalk-dust
lavender and thyme

Teeth to excavate the pit
to forge the trail
between his rib-cages,
to discover the lost empire
of all his mornings

Cahaya

I have a declaration to make, and it's a sort of a personal revelation.
Though probably an obvious one, if you know me.

I love light. I adore photons. Glow-sticks, Ikea lamps, fireflies, matchsticks, I adore it in all it's moods and colors, from the soft diffused glow of a rainy Sunday morning to the room filling summer sun bouncing across floor and hair and sleeping faces.

I guess it started one day when I was younger, and I woke up from an afternoon nap to find myself trapped in a shaft of sun and about a billion dust motes. I was trapped because I could not pull my focus away from the dance of the particles and the smallest shadows they cast underneath them, like tiny pillars in this cathedral shining through my polka-dotted curtains.

One night when I was eleven I probably caused permanent ocular damage to myself by shining a hand-held laser pointer directly into my left eye. I had to see what it looked like up close, and laser light up close looks like an uncountable, wondrous mass of shooting stars are flying by your head all at once. You try to follow the path of each one with your eye, for naught.

Trivia: I sometimes sneeze when I look at bright lights/the sun. I always thought that was cool.

I guess it's fitting now that I work behind a camera. It's just an extension of my lifelong need to understand and capture something that is larger than me. Something that always made my heart beat faster, and has given me so much.

The calm ocean on a full moon, a paddy field draped in the perfect diffusion of sunset, there is music there for those who listen.