you're a pulsating pull in the midst of a thousand memories, one memory, too big to contain in the shell of a self i shed long ago. if it were easy, i'd have torn you away from the neurons you occupy and stomped them beneath my feet, feelings and fears and all. the rhythmic knock you tap on locked doors, your sigh fogging up the car's frozen window, dry lips and your hesitant but truthful yet undeserved sorry. your crooked canine tooth, your hand reaching for the length of hair no longer there for two weeks after you get a haircut, your slight lisp between the s and r when you say that's right. none of these things are special to you, but the culmination of those little things threaded you into a web i cannot escape from. 

is your dream your own? how did you get here? what do you want to do?

where did your dream stem from? was it birthed by the past you so desperately wanted to erase? then what is there to be proud of? how do you tell people that you want to _____________ when you can't bring yourself to talk about the origin of it anyway? what are you trying to do? are you trying to cover up what happened by piling atop it hopes and wants that you don't even deserve?

how can you ask me why you feel so empty? don't you know better than me? isn't it because you've masked that part of you that you are so ashamed of and have pushed away until a large ear-ringing blankness took up most of your consciousness? you think you're compressing that past into something small and forgettable, don't you? well, you can squeeze it into a single point that could be washed away by a long sob or deep sigh but that makes its existence all the more poignant and intense, did you know that? you can't just cram something like that into a .1x.1x.1 ml^3 bit of space and expect it to disappear. isn't that why every time you cry you can't breathe and you panic and you can't move and you can't form a single string of thoughts and you feel like you don't exist at all? and what you've been all along is a single molecule in a distal time, pressurized, vibrating, a dull point amongst a skyline of burning and burnt-out stars.

the song crescendoes to its last chorus as she nears the top of the hill, grassy plains opening wide to a sky dotted with whispers of rainclouds. rolling cymbals release, steady ascending scale reaching the tonic note, a pretense of placid permanence leading into a cinching minor chord.

melody dims to a repeated verse again. 5 o' clock sun is still only past its highest point of passage, but that's relative, isn't it, because the sun is ever-revolving in an unshapely oval, route calculated, preordained.

the last time she was here, yellow wildflowers dotted the 90 acres of green hills, bracing against ocean breezes and seeking warmth, turning heads toward the golden gate bridge as the sun set between its two arches.

she wonders how many feet stepped upon the overgrown grass, the wedges of second-hand shoes that stifled stubborn wildflowers of their spring bloom; not even the frequent february showers could breathe in the life those steps smothered out.

not yet out of winter's grasp, but too close to spring's embrace to deny its forthcoming. those wildflowers' times fell just short of the warm welcome that spring so readily gives out.

playlist on repeat. they're instrumentals, but the genres range to broadly for her to settle on a certain mood. are her emotions in the shallow tides challenging the tangle of stacked rocks at the shore? amongst the flattened, limp grass that people tread upon? within the corpses of wildflower, inches below newly laid soil? only the bass drum earnestly beats on, tying together the empty spell from the end of one song to another's beginning.

ease

(this is a poem i wrote on 10 november 2015. i'm not sure if i already posted it, but i just came across it while cleaning my folders out.)

there's a girl in my dreams

she prances around in a field 

of marigolds and hyacinths

she dances and laughs

as butterflies say hello and tickle her nose

her bare feet tread upon soft grass

the susurrus of trees swaying in the gentle breeze

accompanies her dulcet humming of lullabies

there's a dark place between the shadows of trees

and the hazy edge of my dream

a place the sun hasn't seen in all of its days

from there I see her glowing face

her soft smile and her white summer dress

her song fills my ears and leaves me in a daze

I reach out a pale hand 

take a step toward the clearing

a splintering noise of a branch 

breaking beneath my heavy feet

punctures the peaceful bubble

a cloud passes over the golden sun

as she turns slowly toward the shadows

bright eyes find me in the darkness

her dress flows in the wind

for a breathless moment we stay

still in the restless forest

her rose lips and her tender smile

welcome my dim silhouette

there's a girl in my dreams

who sings with the wind and dances with trees

bluebells and chamomiles adorn her hair 

even on nights that I cry to sleep

she's in my dreams with her soft touch
and her gentle songs to put me at ease

I always thought I would be there when my mom died. I imagined that she would be on a hospital bed, her body giving into age but with a smile still on her gaunt face. I pictured her whispering in my ear how she was secretly afraid of death even though she had accepted its coming a long time ago. She would close her eyes and I would close mine, too, but she wouldn't open hers again and I would, only emphasizing the permanence of her departure.

So it was a surprise when I got a call from the city hospital.

Death is sudden. I didn't realize this until I stumbled out of the bus, which was on the verge of breaking down just as I was. I was greeted by the sight of a wailing ambulance zipping past the entrance, its flashing siren all the more prominent against the black sky.

She had been dead for two hours when the hospital called me. She had been dead before they could even begin to operate on her.

I didn't know she was going to die of heart failure. I didn't know that the last time I would ever see her alive was her leaving in the morning and smiling at me, telling me she was going grocery shopping and promising to bring home rice cakes. I didn't know that while she was dying, I would be home watching TV eating dry cereal. If I had known, I would have told her not to go, to stay home, even though she would have died anyway because heart failure doesn't just not happen because you decide to stay home instead of go grocery shopping.

But I wasn't there. The point is, I always thought I would be.

(This is a work of fiction. My mother is not dead. But if you thought this was about me, I guess, April Fools'?)

"I wish I could just run away," she whispers, her hair hiding her face. Her hand shakes almost imperceptibly on the table.

I lean against the cool refrigerator door, glancing out the kitchen window at the fading dusk. I can't say anything to her, because I know my voice will break the moment a word leaves my mouth. Only the hum of the fridge fills the silence.

She looks up, eyes glistening under the fluorescent light.

"You're not going to ask me why?" At her words, my dry throat tightens.

"Why?" I squeeze out.

She's silent for a few moments. Her lips part and close several times.

"I'm just fucking scared," she utters at last.

Don't Tell

The lilac sky leaves us in the darkest time.

You stagger across the dim corridor floor
And again the things that escape your throat
Are nothing but a cluster of nonsense words.
It's moments like this that make me miss
The days of cherry flowers and bent trees.

You ask me with honey-dripping words,

"Do you recall that hopeless time

When you sank onto the living room floor

As the policeman said he all but missed

Your father's limp corpse hung amidst the trees?"

And your honey is poison searing my throat.

I want to tell you that I wouldn't miss

Your careless touches and indifferent words

If you were gone tomorrow by the time

I plunge into the lake behind the trees

And let the water set fire to my throat,

But I can't take my sunken eyes off the floor. 

If only your gaze didn't clench shut my throat,

I'd say, "I remember when you made me miss

His funeral of gray skies and dead trees

And when you sat on the cold kitchen floor

Making black ashes of his last words."

I'd tell you, "I know all those desperate times."

But still, I stare at the frayed carpet floor

And your scoff sings along with the trees

Rustling their leaves, and you speak without words.

Your eyes are rusted daggers at my throat

And I can't tell, after all this time,

What it was that I had so badly missed.

As the moon peeks out from behind the trees

Thoughts yearn for courage to leave my throat

But I know they will never be spoken words.

(Sestinas are too hard to write. I almost killed myself while writing this.)

Sing For Me, Elise

You hide under

A guise
Of half-steps
And shy stutters
But within you,
There are blushing words
Waiting to be heard.

Singing your song isn't easy,
Elise,
So let me hear your voice
Or I might drive myself crazy
Trying to figure you out.

Elise, the least 

You could do
For me
Is let me hear
your love aloud.

So tonight,
With hands intertwined,
Tangled in winter sheets,
Won't you please
Sing for me, Elise?

(Objective of this poem: use near rhymes and end rhymes. I am not that well acquainted with rhyming.)

But We're Not Bubbles

“Let’s go until we hit the rocks,”

you said with much confidence.

And like the talk

of a politician and the mock

of a lovesick boy

your words never meant much.

We ran too fast and we fell too deep

till we were bubbles that seeped

from ocean rifts but we

keep charging toward the cliff, as though

we know

we’re clouds full of breath and silver, as if

the Big

Dipper would swoop down to scoop us

up into the sky

the ocean above our heads

and we’d be bubbles,

floating still up,

to where we were sure we

belonged.

(I'm turning this in tomorrow. I may be very proud of how this turned out.)

She lacked passion for everything she ever came across, ever had the opportunity to do.

Sometimes it was sad to see. She at times looked as if she had momentarily forgotten exactly what the objective of her life was. She then regained that monotonous look that she wore far too much, far too regularly. 

Most of the time, it made me mad; I'd come home one day and tell her something about someone I met some place, and she'd be so uninterested. 

It'd actually be okay if she was just uninterested, but she liked to undermine these people. It'd usually go something like this:

"So Rebecca won the state championship for figure roller skating."

"Really?"

"Yeah, she was first in the state. Isn't that cool?"

Scoff. "It don't understand why. It's not like everybody thinks that roller skating is important or anything. It's pretty useless."

And then I'd get upset (why exactly, I don't know; maybe because she not only undermines the passions of these people, but mine as well) and just change the subject.

I guess it's because she doesn't fully understand that to these people (and to me) their passions are what is most important to them; other people don't exactly have to think that it's cool or amazing or important because, hey, if I like it, that's all that matters, right? It doesn't matter if somebody thinks it's ridiculous that you'd dedicate all your time and money to this one thing, because it's something you enjoy. Right?

Maybe she's right in some sense that, yeah, it's hard for other people to see why such a thing as figure roller skating could ever be of any importance because, like, is it ever going to get you money? A house? A stable job with a family and three cars? Probably not. But that's also probably not what matters most to Rebecca. And Rebecca probably doesn't even care that she just called Rebecca's hard earned achievements useless. 

So I guess Rebecca would agree with me that, yeah, all it really does is give you bragging rights or something to talk about at lame tea parties or dinner dates. But she'd also, like me, say that she doesn't care what people like her say about her hobbies or life's dedications. Because she knows that it doesn't really change the way she feels about her passion.

And it's a sad thing to live without a passion, really (objective? monotonous look. too regularly).

His fingers wrap around the mug, steam fogging up his glasses. He doesn't even like coffee; he has no idea why he ordered it. The pads of his fingers sting from the heat, but he doesn't let go. He likes the feeling of having something solid to hold on to.

He stares at the door. He doesn't want to miss the moment she walks in. He wants to greet her and act like he's completely fine- totally not nervous, what- and have the upper hand in the meeting today because, damn it, it's always been like that.

And she does walk in, and he does greet her. He's not sure if he appears as completely nerve-free as he wants to, but that's okay, because she's always been oblivious.

Her voice is the same as it was four years ago, when she said goodbye before hopping into her car to go off to a fancy university or something. She's the same height, and her hair is the same length, and she still moves her hands in those same frantic motions when she talks. 

But she's different somehow. It's weird. He can't place a finger on it. 

She thanks the waitress for her soup (she always orders soup; she claims that she's way too lazy to chew food and, plus, it's cheap) and she drinks water first, as she always did before eating. 

She talks in the same sarcastic way, and her laugh is the same ringing of bells and chimes. He can hear her tapping her foot. 

Fingers playing with the hems of her sleeves. Eyes rolling at the ridiculous things he says. Head nodding and shaking at just the right moments. She is the same, ordinary, insignificant (in the best way possible) girl that she was four years ago. It's extremely peculiar that everything about her has changed. 

Her hands trace the patterns of the wood on top of the table while his trace the hems on the sides of his jeans. 

So much for having the upper hand.

"Those? Those are weeds."

"What?"

"Yeah, those are weeds. My neighbors are always getting rid of them and throwing them out, but I thought they were so pretty. Now they just give them to me."

The first time I come to her house, her garden is green. There are bunches of small, white flowers and grass and vines growing over the wooden fences.

It smells of fresh grass.

There are patches of overgrown plants here and there, with occasional flowers decorating the stems.

"You're really weird."

She laughs. I imagine that if I could hear the twinkling of stars,  it'd be that.

"But they're pretty, aren't they?"

There's a breeze that only comes with the warm light of the sun and the ambiguity of summer. The weed by my foot grazes the tip of my shoe.

"I guess so."

The lunch line is too long, snaking along the walls and corners of the room. The children run toward the cafeteria after the bell rings just so they don't have to wait an extra five minutes, and the unfortunate ones that reach the line a little to late always grumble and complain.

Most of the kids are holding little cardboard tubes from toilet and kitchen paper rolls, taped together with adolescent clumsiness. When the kids hold them up to their eyes, the wrinkled, colored plastic wrap on the opening of the tube is visible. 

"It's too bad you couldn't make one."

"Yeah, I can't believe you forgot to bring the tubes!"

"It's okay. I didn't want to make one, anyway."

The girl's hands are empty unlike her friends'. The apparent lie flows from her mouth, but anyone over the age of nine (which there was none in the vicinity) would have seen the envy in her eyes as she stared at the poorly-made toys.

They're petty things, really, just simple contraptions that, when you look through one, you see everything in the room in tinted color. Just a toy to keep the children occupied during a free class period.

A cold breeze blows through the open windows, way above their heads, but none of the children notices it, too busy playing with their tubes.

The little girl is bored, and her eyes trail through the other kids in the line, up the walls, and across the wide windows. She's glad that she listened to her mom and brought her winter jacket. The November weather surely is bipolar. 

She doesn't see the sun, hidden behind thick, gray clouds. Maybe it'll rain today, she thinks. She grimaces, because that would mean she would have to walk home in the rain without an umbrella. 

The line's only moved forward a few inches but she doesn't mind. She doesn't feel that hungry.

If her friends notice that she isn't paying attention to what they're saying, they don't mention it. They just go on playing with their new toys. 

She likes the color of the sky even though it's her mom's least favorite weather. It isn't intrusive like the sun or indecisive like the clouds; it is just solidly gray. 

No one else notices the small, white flecks come through the open windows except the little girl. The first snowfall of the year, and the children don't even bother to look up from their trinkets. The proctor doesn't even bother to close the windows.  

The line moves up again, but the little girl doesn't take her eyes off of the open windows. 

She has never felt so awkward in her life.

With only the table separating the two of them, she was sure that the pressure on her knee was his own. There were only four inches separating their hands. She felt so self conscious about the little scratch on her face.

A close acquaintance of hers might have been able to see her foot tapping underneath the table- a nervous habit, her mom says, that was probably inherited from her- or her breaths coming in and out unevenly.

Waiting for the food to come out was a nightmare; she always hated having to eat in front of other people, but especially loathed eating in front of him. She regretted saying the words, hey, why don't we go eat?

It had just been a spontaneous suggestion, one to fill a moment of silence, and she had not expected him to agree. She was surprised when he replied, sure, where?

"-and maybe we'll get to work together in the future."

She liked the sound of that. 

"But, I guess, I would make fun of you all the time, so that might not work out," he continued.

They both laugh, but her laugh is quieter, because she hates the sound of her own laughter but revels in the sound of his.

She wants nothing more, at that moment, to nudge his knee a little with hers, to reach over the short distance of four inches and grab his hand, to tell him, yes, I would like that, even if you continue making fun of me incessantly.

But she doesn't, because the fact that she wishes to be a little bit bolder doesn't mean she actually is.

Instead, she allows herself to ignore the strange tugging in her chest.

Hey, this really isn't the worst way to spend a Valentine's Day evening.

There were ducks outside the window.

She stared at them in fascination, eyes brimmed with child-like wonder that was only present in moments of vulnerability and openness. It was rare- so much so that I had forgotten that she, too, was capable of such a look- to see this expression come across her face, and I would have done anything to keep it there for a little longer.

As the ducks waddled back toward the lake, and as she went back to the stove to finish cooking the measly meal that she would later call 'dinner', I wondered how a pair of ducks could bring out such beauty in her  when I could not.