The Hiatus

In danger, the holothurian splits itself in two:
it offers one self to be devoured by the world
and, in its second self, escapes.

Violently it divides itself into a doom and a salvation,
into a penalty and a recompense,
into what was and what will be.

In the middle of the holothurian’s body a chasm opens
and its edges immediately become alien to each other.

On the one edge, death, on the other, life.
Here despair, there hope.

If there is a balance, the scales do not move.
If there is justice, here it is.

To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.
To grow again from a salvaged remnant.

We, too, know how to split ourselves
but only into the flesh and a broken whisper.
Into the flesh and poetry.

On one side the throat, on the other, laughter,
slight, quickly dying down.

Here a heavy heart, there non omnis moriar,
Three little words, like three little plumes of light.

We are not cut in two by a chasm.
A chasm surrounds us.

- Wislawa Szymborska

We while away
The days apart
Into lives
Of flowers
And stones.
Yet we somehow die
Sooner than
When we realize
That life
Is nothing
More than
Flowers and stones.

Poetry is a shelter;
A sanctuary.
Where mesmerizing
Reflections
Of the Sun dwell –
Dancing
With caustics
To put life
To the darkness
Of the soul.

How do you find meaning?
Alone, walking the night;
Smiling, laughing, suffering,
Seeing none but moonlight:
Amidst this lonesome grave
Where all them, powerless, lie,
You run and wish to save
Your birth, before you die.

Hence, you stop breathing;
So that you do not smell
Those hearts that are rotting,
Encased by your hated shell.

Hence, you halt hearing;
And scream until you bleed
And all the same cursing,
Cursing this pain’s seed.

Hence, you pretend to not see
And look past their shallow eyes.
Talking with the casuals that be,
While deep inside it cries.

I thought I was innocent,
But I’m being punished.
I didn’t start this,
But I have to finish it somehow.
I can’t say I didn’t know about it,
But I don’t remember taking part in it.
I get the feeling my freedom cost me dearly,
But I don’t remember selling my soul cheaply.

Hey, hey!
Until I die and say goodbye…
Hey, hey!
…no one will ever catch me.

You probably don’t know the eternal outlaws
Who wander the distant night.

I disdain you like the rain disdains the earth.
    Thus, when I fall, you almost feel that I am hate
  That holds your feet and pulls you towards darkness.
    For thoughts of you, I suffer, as death is fate.

The coldness that I bare since my unwanted birth
    Are like trickles, in time, they come and go.
  But as I fall towards your absent embrace,
    Try might I to shut them tight, still they flow.

They flow and leak towards their hearts and yours
    That freeze memoirs of me for your inspection.
  ’tis there that you might see that I am cold.
    And death, and hate, and forget are my redemption.

So, I now sleep in this bed that I prepared,
    To famish myself of your dances in front of me.
  That I may someday walk your path as I awake.
    And say nothing more than an apology.

If I cut my wrist
And remove my hand,
Will I die from bleeding?
As I celebrate the pain
Of slowly losing sanity
Amidst the continuous
Draining of blood
From my head?

If I turn this light off
And lurk in darkness,
For all eternity,
Will your hand touch
My cold forehead?
And pray that my soul
May wander
Inside the recesses
Of your ever
Withering heart?

For this specter
That I call self
Is trapped at the center
Of my universe.
While everything else
Is rotating,
Living, loving,
Realizing.
And throwing scattered words
Of age and wisdom.
While I glutton over
Feelings of hate and love,
Over
And over
Again.

The only escape I see
Is to disappear…

Into the placid breeze
Like a speck of cremated dust.
And fly from your nose
To your lungs.
To smell your sentience,
Feel your heart,

And see the world
Through eyes
Of non-existence.

Forever…

There’s nothing for me but broken glass;
That spreads on this floor like a carpet;
Welcoming visitors with red grandeur,
Only to bring them pain later.

And rightly, they complain.
Usually with hurting gazes or killing apathy.
Not often do they shout.
But when they do,
’tis with voices of such disdain and scorn;
That I sulk to myself and curse my blood.
For it is this blood that made the carpet red.

So, I walk everyday with floor like this.
Sleeping and waking with nothing but this.
Trudging, even crawling through pieces of glass,
I increase the amount of blood on the floor.
Like petals of red roses, they shine with the moon.

Until once upon a time,
You came floating, an empty soul.
Never seeing the floor down below.
Never hurting with pain of glass cuts.
You came to refill your soul.
Only that I need most of them for myself.

Tell me, how do I enjoy my eyes,
More than when I look at you?
Weeping with your thin lips.
Pleasing the perverted air around,
With your gentle breath of numbing smell.
With your skin of candied sweat.

I hide within myself.
And kneel against my wish.
To pray to whoever there is;
That you be the one to clean this mess.
And turn my world around,
Then turn it off.
And wait till it dies,
Sans this red carpet of broken glass.

There is no end for my hate.
For it started even before I was born.
And there is no other reason for this hate,
Other than hate itself.

So, now that you know that I hate you.
And all the drops of blood in your vast ocean.
Even that which is my own.
Leave me be.
For, even before I have known this hate.
I know that I have no escape:
This hate also hates the hater.

What is painful is the revelation
That even those who have not caused this hate;
Those who merely shared the same blood,
Are scorn by this hate.
So that I may as well deny my face.

"It’s sad
That your hate,
I could only reciprocate
With hate."

But I worry not.
For sooner or later.
Both you and I
And this hate will rot!

We leave.
Into eternal sleep.
Going down.
Ever down.
Until we reach eternity.

We all leave.
For we all sleep.

Yet there are some of us
That live before they leave.
And breathe the breaths
Of the air that other people exhale.

They, too, need to sleep.
So, they leave.
Yet when they leave
They really leave.

Unlike some of us
That die each day
Before we leave
And never live.
And so when we die
We don’t really die.
For you can’t die
When you’re already dead.

Being one of them
I tried to live.
And breathe the air
That your chest breathes.
Yet you close your mouth
And then your nose.
Like as if wanting
To not want me to live.

You could’ve saved me
From this eternal cycle
Of wanting and needing
But dying and leaving.
For you could’ve held my hand.
And I could’ve held yours.
We could’ve died together.
Never leaving each other.