i have all these poems for you
but they are lost to the darkness of tonight
i sit here
trying to remember, at least,
so this story doesn’t become lost
like the words that fail so miserably
in the face of our human condition
behind every light there is a shadow
behind every hope a despair
behind every love….
not hatred…
but apathy…
trying so hard to capture anything
so that the void is not what is left
we all hurt sometimes
things break, sometimes shatter
from explosion of forces too much to take
we all fall from bridges
things splash, sometimes drown
from silence so heavy one loses breath
long before
the stopping of heartbeats
or the will to love, to hope
to love is to hope
we lose hope when we lose love
and
i am only holding on to this hope
because you see,
i am made out of love
i don’t know any way else to be
i am filled to the brim, overspilling
and i don’t know any way else to be
as a woman on this earth,
in this yin and yang world.
i went to the jewelers today with
thirteen watches in a bag
and one on my wrist
two at home sitting in their compartments
one at Rangoon time
the other at Pacific time
one needed to strap more tightly
and become mine
twelve needed resurrections
with change of batteries
they all run out of charge at some point
they all run out of time, until
i remember the stories behind each one of them
and bring them back to life
it is the end of a horrid year
the end of an abyss
the new year begs for new times
i beg for a new heartbeat, kept
in synchrony to quantum time
i give my hand to the memories kept
and the moments that will become
in time
with them…
this heart needs a bypass
blockages in so many arteries
that lead me home to you
we can only make sure
to listen through the stethoscope
and hope, our hearts still beat
it is a long operation
to keep the heart alive
we are all healers
with our own medicine
and we promise the Hippocratic Oath
to never let go of love and life
they say grief is love
with no place to go
there is plenty of grief
there is lack of landing
the ship cannot dock
the pit is bottomless
and the distance between us widens
within this abyss
there is plenty of love
We are swimming in it…
we may drown in it…
night and day
green and red
and the color purple
and the breath during twilight
the spikes that connect us all
from death to life
we are neither.
we are both.
because we come together
across the divide
our hearts meet
it is love that will win in this revolution.
i am preparing
for a PhD dissertation
on love
i am afraid I may never graduate
lost in my thesis stage
never finding enough evidence
for my oral defense
how could I
when my words have been
consumed by the breaths love has taken away
then came rain... 