Eyes closed

Last night
I discovered pools
on my pillow of constellations
that sprang from my eyes
Even though I swore you off
like a sassy anthem
my head still drops the needle on the record
and i can’t stop it
Do not take this as a sign that he means something more than nothing
especially when
his last words–
I never want to see you again–
will be remembered
with eyes closed.

Why?

Did you find my words and my skin and decide they were both tainted?

Or was my negativity in believing myself not to be a poet too much to handle?

Could it be that you decided I was a directionless deadbeat who pathetically still lived at home because I work on-call and don’t have a regular work schedule?

Yes, it has been more than two months.

And yes, it still bothers me.

You shouldn’t have kissed me if you didn’t mean it because now I end up seeming insane
still
askingWhy?

Cushion fort

Sometimes, like today, I just want to hide in a fort made of cushions and be away from the world.

You return

Floating bits of letters
return to my hands.
God knows it’s always been me
at the telegram,
caressing a shiny button of hope
that words will get someone on my side again.
Too foolish owning a drawer
that they all have the keys to.

Maybe–
you could need someone
from time to time,
the way I do too.
And to receive the words,
to hear a call back to you from across
the invisible barriers and shields
a call that is a cup of warm tea,
one that nestles around you like a sleeping cat,
one that holds out an outstretched hand and not an upturned palm–

I wonder if you truly know what that means.

Drifting

Wanted to start off the year ambitiously

but now it seems I just come home and I drift away on waves of wires

caged within my chair.

Two hellos, two goodbyes

Be proud of who you are, they all say.

My friend John seems to meet guys often from online.

Sometimes, I wish I weren’t Asian.

Or I guess if I could wish anything, I would wish that people not have hangups about race.

But I guess that’s what I get for living in North America.

Two hellos, two silent goodbyes,

and one older man asking to have sex with me at work today.

And you wonder why I have no self-esteem.

Sorry

You told me
as you slammed the door behind me
not to text you
call you
tell you I’m sorry
so now I hope you’ll discover these words
by chance
and then know

I’m sorry.

Burn

I want to burn
with a flamethrower
all the impurities/
imperfections/
diseases/
scars
on my skin
watch it smolder
and cackle as it devours and heals me

2017

You told me last night
in the only place I see you now,
that we will be together in 2017.

You were conducting the orchestra
at my graduation. When everyone saw
you, they bowed reverently. But our bodies the only ones
standing, our eyes stayed
on each other.

You always had that effect on me.

With your hand on mine, we flipped through songs,
you laughing at my “bad” taste. I don’t see
your face, but I feel you there, warm and familiar.

I will be 29. You, 31. It will
have been ten years since we felt ourselves
together. Sometime, between the next
two and a half to three and a half years, you
will be back, and you will look at me,
and you will smile just like in the memories
I clutch onto every day.

You smiled, and it was as it you had never aged.

Then, when I woke up, I felt my face contort as if pulled
by wires, a sadness boiling from my gut to my face.

I cried.

Disjointed circle poem

Wrote this with a few friends, passing it around and adding lines so that we could only see the previous two lines. The result: a strange, disjointed poem.

When the prince leaves his throne,
he leaves me cold and alone.
And when I look at his eyes,
my soul turned into stone.
Sharon Stone is crossing her legs
This isn’t Home Alone
McKauley Kulkin isn’t calling on the phone
You don’t have to be scared to the bone
Time will tell when you’ve grown
If you indeed will still moan
When in Rome
all roads lead to home
Because the emperor knows you all too well
Every inch of your skin,m every human smell
You scratch and sniff but it won’t tell
’cause the secret will die with me in hell.