Poetry

Bread

She asked me if
she could take my bread
I was fond of her
so I said yes

Although it was
the last piece of bread
it left my hand
and went to hers

Then she ate
om nom nom
gave a smile
and I was full

—————

Ouch

I was quilled today
not by a wild porcupine
it was his prickly chin

my favorite chin

—————

Curvy Body Goals

gazing across the filled subway car
and all the chins are dropped
eyes averted
down on their phones
immersed in their pursuit of cervical scoliosis

and so I lift my book to my eye level
and gently cross my legs
because I am busy
in my own pursuit of lumbar scoliosis

—————

Life

we hold onto what we can
making sense of what we can
enjoying the passage of time

it’s not precise
but it’s precious

so we keep on loving
and we keep on living

—————

Astray

rejection is redirection
but I’m bad with directions

—————

Chocolate Milk

I said I would finish it
after nagging you to buy it
but as it turns out
I’m still enslaved to
the intolerant master of lactose 
and I must renege on my promise
I was wrong to say I would finish it
because I certainly cannot finish it

—————

Two Specks of Dust

look at you
beneath the sky
gazing at the stars
looking for everything

and look at me
besides you
gazing at you
looking for everything

—————

New Year

got up at 4
worked out
took a cold shower
applied lotion
drank celery juice
made an avocado toast
finished work
and it was only 9
I feel like I did way more
but that’s about it
I don’t remember
the rest of my dream

—————

2:38 A.M.

ding
ding
ding
ding
ding

you think you’re spamming
but little do you know
you’re my favorite notification

—————

Step Back

not all things need
a restart

maybe it needs
a rethink

—————

The Moon

little girl jolted awake, feeling a bit
discombobulated—
a lingering sense of awakening
from a rather unpleasant dream
confounds her, blurs her
understanding of reality

the fleeting
impressions of the dream
would persist for
some moments after
as on her disheveled bed
she lies with her eyes open,
peeking through the sheer
darkness looming over her head

and spots a beam of light
penetrating the darkness,
through the half-opened window,
onto the bottom of the bed

she leans and sees
a yellow circle not so far,
partly shrouded in long branches and
piles of snow from yesterday,
its craters rugged and distinct,

a round ball of beaming gold—
a celestial grandeur
holds the center of the stelliferous skies
and she has found the moon

—————

Stage Fright

I walked up to the stage and stood behind the podium for a speech I had prepared for a month, a speech that championed the principles embedded in a quote—“success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts”—but as soon as words left my mouth I shook, perspired and even twitched before the crowd, my hands glued to the podium, my eyes hooked on the ceiling, and when I managed to pry my hands off to make gesticulations, they moved in ways I had not planned, my eyes rolled with no sense of direction or fixation, my voice began to crack and stuttered sentences without respite, paralyzed, mute and blinded, and there I was at the center of attention becoming the symbol of disgrace, or better yet, a blob of failure plummeted to the abyss and far from the reach of success, never to recover.

—————

Beep Beep

My mom is an old computer. A limited edition that comes with a built-in firewall. Her hard drive affords no more space now, timeworn and deluged. In the morning I find her preparing food for me—a bowl of oatmeal with banana slices and sunflower seeds, three thick bacon strips with a poached egg and a glass of lactose-free chocolate milk. A full breakfast. She always puts the bacon and the egg on a dingy plate that she received through her wedding registry several years ago. It was my dad’s favorite plate because he was fond of its intricate floral patterns. Its once pristine state has however expired and the patterns that defined the plate are now indistinguishable. It has more cracks than the wrinkles that emerge on my forehead when I frown.

We eat our breakfast at an equally tattered gold-rimmed glass table. It has only two chairs, one for her and one for me. It used to have four but the other two are now out on the front porch, adorned with chunks of parched leaves and rust that reveal an onset of debility. There is a lingering malaise during our morning nibbles, too. The clatter of cutleries from her unsteady hands cuts the air. Her roving eyes then fill the crevice with mystery, unblinking, as though wanting to fathom what sort of world she was in. She stares into the distance pensively, lost in thought, perhaps imagining a time when the world was more familiar to her. When I return home from school in the evening with some groceries, a sliver of salted butter caramel cake awaits me. We finish the rest of the cake together by the fireplace and she asks me about my science project. Something that I know too well.

The evening passes by the fire and soon she saunters upstairs with a melodious song from my brother’s most cherished vinyl. She sustains the murmur on loop until she finishes her bath and dons her silky pajamas for bed. But a pang of nostalgia holds her back from heading to bed and she finds a frayed family album neatly placed on top of the dresser. She gently picks up the album and sits on the edge of her bed for a brief laze in a warm but dimly lit room. Hunched forward, she leafs through the memories and her rugged fingers often stop to embrace the laminated photos of her loved ones, her pining eyes lost in their smiles. Once she finishes the album, she finds me busy with chores and gives a kiss on my clammy forehead. She smiles, her emaciated face consumed in melancholy. I return the smile, a more natural one, and she lags her way to the attic where she polishes two engraved brass urns that contain the charred remnants of my dad and my older brother. She holds dear the past that is not so distant and wails quietly, and there is something solitary, even vagrant, in her yearning. Silence ensues for some moments after and eventually she hobbles back to her room from which she started the same ritual for today. There then she reboots for tomorrow. The same breakfast. The same project. The same murmur. A reset.