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Buffering signs and fading smiles

Signals cut off before they reach

More scraps tossed into the growing piles

Remnants wash up on the polluted beach

Why can’t you hear my voice?

There’s a million words raging in my head

You don’t understand and that’s not my choice

When you only see me as an unraveling thread

Feet sink through ice

Markers run out of ink

Will the courage I’ve gathered suffice?

Or will I find myself on the brink

Of the wasted cornucopia

Wandering souls tugging at my sleeve

Living in this dystopia

Where no one is allowed to leave

Everyone huddled around the screen

Waiting for their fate

Faces reflecting off the sheen

Of their helpless state

All the while you become impatient

When you don’t get my pleas

And you look for a replacement

But then the screen will freeze.

Scented Candles

She retreated again

Into the world in her head

Treading through the dusty library

Running fingers across stories she’s re-read.

A recluse to the outside world

Her insecurities kindle the fire

Needed to light the bittersweet candle

To burn her all of her desires.

She lights the first candle

Which releases the woody scent

Of her family around the campfire

Helping to put up a tent

Then she lit the second

The metallic smell of blood

When she scraped her knees riding her bike

For the first time in her neighborhood.

She lit candles that let off smells

Of all different kinds

Of warming summer nights

And peeling lemon rinds.

She smelled her dad’s plaid shirt

Before he went off to war

She smelled his mint aftershave

That still lingers at the door.

The aroma of books

Putting her to sleep

Her mother’s minty breath

As she helped her count sheep

A walk in the garden

Of strange and beautiful creatures

And an impossibly bright moon

With human-like features.

All the eccentric perfumes

Combined into the room

Defining who she was

Weaving into life’s loom

She lay there content

As the flames caught the library

The shelves coming down in ashes

Their souls being set free.

Left on the last piece of the smoldering wood

She jumped off of it too

The stories and smells previously plaguing her mind

Evaporating into the blue.

Strange Police

I think I'm quite lucky to live in this world
With strangers to uphold the law
Breathing filtered and purified air
Nature scrubbed clean of every flaw

As I walk down the smoke filled sidewalks
In an opportunistic town
I think "What a time to be alive"
As my self awareness goes down.

I'm traveling the depths of the world
At least, the parts I'm meant to see
Avoiding the part called Freedom
It's too complex for me.

At least I am able to read
In this glorified prison cell
I'm reading dangerous books
Devouring the stories they tell.

My life is constricted by guidelines and rules
Telling me how to live
For this I am grateful for if I am not
There'd be no one to forgive.

Because sometimes something takes over me
It makes my whole body freeze
The animals and demons eating through my head
My, what strange police.

Misfit

Don’t listen to them

They’re telling lies

I’m not crazy, I swear

No matter what they’ve left you to surmise.

I’ll show you what I mean

Just take my hand

There is a place I go to think

In a faraway land

It’s where I recoil

In hopes of solitude

Blocking myself off to others

Being mistaken for attitude

Really I need to be alone

Other people scare me

With their rules and twitching smiles

Telling me who to be.

For years I’ve blocked the exits

With rivers of tears weighing me down

But somehow I’ve opened up again

A straggler in a deserted town

If it isn’t a hassle

And you had the time

Would it matter to you

If I invite you sometime

Into this world I keep barricaded

From other scary things

Because you’re the only one

Who’s noticed the stubs of my wings

All I ask of you

Is to not let me down

Because that’s the whole reason

There’s a permanent frown

On the place that used to smile

Over nothing much at all

Until I realized what a cruel world this is

And my grin started to fall

Now I am all alone

But you were the first to try and mend

My broken past and heart

So your way this message I send

I remember what happiness feels like

When I’m around you

I can only hope that

I make you feel like that too.

The problem is I’ve forgotten

How to express how I feel

I can’t control how I act

So please don’t turn your heel

I hope you know how much I care

There’s only so much I can do

When the impenetrable walls of my fortress

Can let no one through

If by some chance

It all works out in time

Honestly answer this question:

Would you be mine?

Dark Hallway

My hands out in front of me,

Groping into a black void,

For some form of familiarity,

In the midst of what is already destroyed,

The cool breeze in my hair,

Feels like a raging gale,

And with every step I take,

I am unable to exhale,

Plunging deeper into the dark,

Trying to find the light,

But only finding darkness,

Darker than the night,

Fighting back fear for the unknown,

Trying to stay strong,

But the black is seeping through my crevices,

Filling me with wrong,

All the while insecurities,

Lingering in my heart,

Spread to my body like cancer,

Threatening to tear me apart.

Skeleton Flower

In the garden of life

Unknown to most people

Thrive beautiful colors

Under the invisible steeple.

The fauna that are there

Are of the most exotic kind

Each as unique as

The person they define.

They sing together in harmony

Carelessly dance in the warm wind

Rejoice for their lives

As the population thins.

Just as in all settings

In society

There is one recluse

Who rejoices privately

The skeleton flower sits lonely

Under the darkest shade

For fear of the moisture that might touch his petals

And break down the walls that he made.

For a skeleton flower is able

To withstand the burning sun

As pigment leaks into its petals

With this appearance they can stun

The second moisture touches their skin

The gap they worked hard to create

Immediately drips off of them

And their deceptions start to break.

The people whom they represent

Are sensitive to pain

Yet people don’t recognize their beauty

It causes them to feign

Who they really are inside

And being transparent and proud

Is as hard to them as it is to others

To find the true meaning they shroud.

There’s a skeleton flower in all of us

None of us withstand pain

So we must take turns being the sun to restore

Our friends’ happiness again.

Line

I'm walking on a line
Of people who are just like me.
I don't know how long it is
Only that it stretches to infinity.

My legs are starting to hurt
But weakness is a sign
of humanity and punishment.
That freedom is not mine.

It has been too long
A week, a month, a year
A decade and a half
A century is growing near.

I find myself wishing
To fall off the coordinate plane
To mess the mechanics of the grid
For the repetition to refrain.

Wrestle with the power of numbers
The thoughts of brainwashed souls
Give into the tug of an easy life
As the clock in the background tolls.

I will keep walking on this line
Until I cease to exist
And enter another dimension
As the stone path will twist.

L'appel du Vide

A cold metal claw
Tightens around my ribs
Keeping me tied to the ground
Feeding my mind with fibs

The void calls to me
Whispers in my ear
Screams my name in front of my face
So that the meaning is clear.

A glittering embrace of adventure
A siren's angelic trill
Morphing into sharp-tongued venom
The melody cold and shrill.

Hold on for dear life
To the lamppost in your dreams
Don't cross into the forbidden
Or you'll be crushed under its beams.

My feet are sturdy on the floor
But when they escape the ground
I'm tossed in a self-destructive world
Throwing me around and around.

It plants itself in all of us
Spreading evil through our core
Unwittingly we nurture it
Until it seeps our of our pores.

Four Walls

Sweaty hands left fingerprints on the walls
Of the claustrophobic cell
Bodies melted into an ocean
As the clocks and paintings fell.

They clambered out of my house
Left empty chip bags on my floor
They crinkled under my feet
As I closed the swinging door

I made my way to the couch
Pressed my fingers against my head
I heard the doorbell ring once more
You stood on my porch and said

The most amazing things
About the mysterious world of space
You led me through the darkness
All I could see was your face

Hand in hand we fell
Through exotic worlds
Spiraling through rainbows
As our lives unfurled

Let's journey through galaxies
Never leave a speck unexplored
Meet our imaginations
And leave the gas pedal floored.

Alas, we near the end
Of this glorious time
You go back to your family
And I'll go back to mine.

Now I stand in the enclosure
Of the same cell as before
Waiting for another adventure
As the ceiling becomes the floor.

Dear Mom

Every year, it happens again

Mother’s Day will come and go

You say we’re all the presents you need

Yet all our love for you doesn’t show.

I look around myself

For inspiration to express

The way you always raise me up

From out of my self-created mess.

I want to find a proper way

To tell you how I feel

Instead of this poem I write every year

Even though these words are real.

Life is a puzzling game

With its complex twists and turns

They are brightened by the torch you carry

Through the storms of my life it burns.

If you split open my head

And took apart all the knots

Amongst the pearly tears you’d find

You in all my thoughts.

It’s easy to forget the freedom

Bestowed on me by you

When all that seems to matter is me

And the mistakes I want to undo.

The things you say to me

Can hurt quite a bit

But that’s because they’re the words

I give the most credit.

I wish I had the talent to tell you

What you mean to me

But my words tumble to the ground

Like apples on a tree

I harvest these precious words

Hold them up against the light

Till I find the perfect ones

That express my feelings right.

It is with sincerity

I present these words to you

Hoping you understand what I mean

And the feelings that I imbued.

Dadiji

I know we don’t see

Each other very often,

But whenever we do,

My heart begins to soften.

All the time, your face is a smile

And love everyone unconditionally.

You’re always willing to go the extra mile

And follow rules traditionally.

I’m proud to call you Dadiji

And always have you there

To visit or call to say hello

  Papa

Don't walk so fast, Papa
Don't hurry along
Give me some time to catch up
And hurriedly join the throng.

I want to follow in your footsteps
To make one meaning clear
I love you more than anything
This statement is sheer.

But how can I follow you
if you are so fast?
Please wait for me, dear Papa
I know I'll catch with you

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