Leaving

You picture the day
The sky will be overcast
Leaves dancing in the wind
Tears in your eyes
The box you are carrying is heavy
It contains everything you've collected
And all the memories
Of that place
And you walk away
Giving your second home
One last look
You say goodbye

But when that day comes

It's completely different

And you're relieved that it is

Because you need everything to look like

Just another day

The sun shines and birds sing

Everything is perfect

Except that you have

Four or five bags

Containing all those things you collected

And all those memories

And you leave

Not saying goodbye

Because you don't even know how to.

Love

You told me one day 

That, for you, 

Love will never be as important 

As happiness 

And you told me this when I 

Confessed I was 

In love 

With someone who didn’t feel the same 

And I remember telling you 

How deeply sad I was 

About the stubbornness of hearts and

Wickedness of life 

And now I see you 

Or rather 

A shadow of who you used to be 

And this shadow never smiles 

It’s like a ghost 

Emotionless 

And I want to ask you 

If at least 

Love is enough to 

Hide the absence of happiness in your life

Not guilty.

I don't blame you

I can't

After all

Nothing was done

Intentionally

You simply didn't know

So how can you be held guilty?

You didn't know

 How I felt

And so for you

All those moments we shared

Sprang out of playfulness and

Some friendly fun

That's all it was for you

But for me

None of it was funny

None of it was done because

There was nothing better to do

Or because

There was no harm in crossing the line

Between those two worlds

One of friendship

And the other of

Love

So I won't blame you

And you need not apologize

It wasn't your fault

You didn't lead me on

You simply didn't know

When she looked around one day

When she looked around one day

She noticed he had left

And hadn't even had the decency to tell her

Or shut the door behind him

He had just left

And let the insects creep in

Blood-thirsty mosquitoes

And other flying creatures

Fragile fireflies

Heavy beetles

They all buzzed around her

And cast shadows against the walls

Reminding her of the dark crows

That lived in her heart

Flying and flying

Disturbing settled dust and

Scaring away what is good

And so he had left

Tired of the crows

Crows the color of her thoughts

And he had left the door open

Letting the creatures in

Even though he knew how afraid she was

Of those of the outside world

Obituaries

I’m sorry
I didn’t know you had died
I didn’t know
Until five years had gone by
You must have been there
On the obituary page
A photograph, black and white
A few words, meaningless
But at least, if I had seen it
I would have known
I would have recognized you
Immediately
And I’m sure
My mother would have seen it and said
“Such a young girl. Your age.
Now dead.”
And I would have said something like
“Such a shame. But such is life.
In the end, we must all die.”
And it is true,
Young or old,
Death won’t leave us alone
But I should have known
When you were gone
I would have said a
Final goodbye
But I’m too young
To make obituary-page-reading a habit
Like most my age,
I won’t find a familiar face on it
No one I know will be on it any time soon
Not for another forty or fifty years, at least
But you did, on a long ago day
You made it to the obituary page

Keys beneath flower pots

I have something that belongs to you
And when you asked for it
I pretended I didn’t hear you because
I thought holding onto it will stop you from leaving

You have something that belongs to me
And when you tried to give it back to me
I pretended I never noticed
And let you keep it so you’d have a reason to stay

And now, our borrowed somethings are a curse
To us both, they make us hate ourselves and each other
For thinking something so small
Could be like ropes that tie us to each other

Other people, they’ve replaced you now
Like I’ve been replaced in your life
And that is okay, we both know
But our borrowed somethings lock them out of our hearts

For when he, like many others, knocked on the door
And I said, please do come in
He couldn’t, for the key beneath the flower pot
Wasn’t for the door to my heart

And he asked me, ‘but to whose heart is this key?’
And I remained silent, for how could I tell him
The only heart this key would open
Is in a man who had left so long ago?

And he asked me, 'where’s the key to your heart?’
And I remained silent, for how could I tell him
That key now lies, useless,
Beneath a flower pot outside the door to your heart?

Thief

I didn’t notice it at first
I didn’t notice you were a thief
One by one
I lost everything
You stole most of it
You made them yours
You stole the life that burned in me
You stole the love I had in me
You stole all my happiness
And so I was afraid
Of having more of me
Stolen by you
So I got rid of things
I got rid of people
Just so there’ll be nothing
You can steal from me
And now
You sit atop your stolen goods
Everyone applauds your treasures
And I…
I have nothing anymore
I’m as poor as I was
When I was born
Because you,
You had so much
But you still wanted
Everything I had.

I hate you,
You little thief
I hate you
For stealing
What little I had in life.

I hate you.

Home

I don’t need people around this tiny world we live in
To read what I write, to understand and (mis)interpret
All I want is for you to find this place and to know my thoughts
All I want is for you to find, in my words, the universe I want to give you
And all I want is for you to give me a universe, your own universe
Just so I’ll have a place to belong to
Just so I’ll have a home to go to at the end of a long day

Love

You love
You are loved
You believe in love

And I

I wonder what
It is like
To love and be loved

And I

I look for it all over
Flowing in my blood
Dancing to my heartbeat
But I can’t find it
I can’t find
Love

Then I see you
With her
And I miss what she has
I want what she has
I feel a deep pain
In me
Like I have been stabbed
And I wonder
If this is what love feels like

You. And him.

You remind me of him
You remind me too much of him
You are both alike
Lanky, cute, random and
…
And you both
You love books
And have these giant worlds tucked in your minds
And you are you
So different
But so similar
So alike
That it scares me
That it makes me hate you too
Because you remind me of
The first boy to show me what love is
The first boy who told me it’s okay to be afraid
The first boy who liked me for who I was
The first boy to break my heart
So when your hand seeks mine
And you feel my body reject you
Don’t take offense
Don’t take it too personally
I live in the past
But give it some time
Help me erase the memory of him
Help me stop the comparisons
And then
Once my mind is clear
A blank slate
I’ll be all yours.

I promise.