Do you come with a warning label?
What does it read?

Hope went to a broken man. Hope went to a broken man's heart. Made a home out of his broken dreams, feasted over his broken spirit, sat on his trembling broken patience. Hope went to broken man's mind and asked it to worship her. Hope is a greedy goddess. An unyeilding mistresses. Love was never enough. She needed his faith, praise, to have him grovel at her feet to see his dwindling pride kneel. Hope would always have him praying
Hope goes to a broken man's heart and asks for his last strength. Hope always asks a broken man to protect her with his dying breath. Hope always chose beggars and bankrupt drunkards. Those who were always in debt. hope loves the heat of a death bed. She would slip in it during  fever dream. Seduce the soul into believing. And on the next day there was always life in her belly that they were expecting.
Hope always goes to broken man heart to be revered, because hope is only god for those in need.

Telltale heart
Do you see the humility of my heritage screaming at you from behind my eyes?
Can you see the family hand me down pain beneath my luxurious guise?
Can you smell the stench of desperation my perfume's trying to hide?
Does the way i dance speak of how my feet only learned to stand their ground?
Do my lips and the way i kiss ever speak to you?
And if they do,
Do they confide that my heart is still in the lost and found?
Does my voice ever confess? Do my words ever lie?
Can you read my story from a simple smile?
Tell me,
Does my laughter sound like the songs of an empty can?
Does my cheer and step paint a late bloomed dawn?
Does it move your heart towards a half lived life,  a broken child?
Does it show?
Does the way i spend my love ever show off what i've lacked?

Loneliness met me at a friend's wedding, when i was dressed at my best and drunk on laughter. He wrapped his arms around my waist, whispered in my ears, "Come, it's much more lovely to dance at the back of the room."
Loneliness loved long slow walks by river banks and cherry blossom lined paths. He would point out couples in love and friends living life. He would try to paint their vivid smiles on my broken timid one.
Loneliness was a poet, a hopeless romantic. He had a thing for subtle silence and bitter sweet sadness. Loneliness liked wallflowers.  Loneliness loved me above all else.

It takes a revolution to love me.
When you first meet my eyes, i will be clad in death; drenched in the fragrance of my decaying flesh. I will be gasping through my blood for one last breath.
My life is a forfeit in light of my past. To love me, you would have to stage a coup de tat.
It takes ages to love me.
When you first find me,  I will be betrothed to my captor. My heart already fallen for my bindings. I will have made a home out of my holding. My freedom will leave me a shattered clay, practically dust. To shape me whole will take tears and blood stained sweat.
It takes a war to love me.
When you first make me yours, i will already have been the enemy. Each day with my spirit is a battlefield. My kind fights everything. To give me peace, you would need a whole army

And yes, it takes a lot to love me.
It takes a scandal and to go against your pride.
It takes patience. It takes a life.
It takes grace and light.
It takes eternity to love my kind.
It takes God.

My mother gave birth to me in a garden of roses surrounded with paper walls that shook with the weather. Our home had a roof as tough as the ground we laid on. It hid the stars and sky with it wings; veiled the sun with its shade. It was reliable when it rained. Our roof was thing of ultimatum it put protection against love and traded comfort for strength.
I had always met our roof at the extremes: on the cusps of love and hate. I loved that i was safe but hated that i was sheltered. On sunny days i hated the shade and missed the light but i also dreaded the winter. I hated how the rain made him roar, how the walls trembled to his sounds, how with each movement in our home there was a risk of being torn. I hated that this bed of roses was our home, hated the lull of the petal and the slap of the thorns.
I hated that despite our roof that our home was a mean. A Mediocre middle ground. That it wasn't so bad. I hated our roof on most days. How it felt ungrateful to miss the golden rays, to want both love and care - that i wanted to keep both  happiness and being safe. I hated that our roof came with fear for a price, that both me and my mom have tears for a scar. Most of all i hate that for all his love i have received, i have to look at a receipt

Ode to the fingers that knew to play me

I knew,
Before your hands reached for my skin,
Before i could ever feel your calloused tips.
Long before you whispered my name along lost and pretty,
I knew, 
While rooted among the garden of unsound things,
That even with my loose broken strings,
You could summon a melody
Out of me.

From a gratified ukulele

Isn't that what we do:
Make constellations out of glistening moments from the distance of time?
Aren't we all creators? Aren't we all guilty?
Don't we all favour order over entropy?
Haven't we ever hemmed memories until life fit the story?

Sometimes I fear I will slip through the cracks of your still open wounds.
Love is enough, but is pain?

Somehow you keep seeing through each layer of my excuses. As if every fiber of your being is aware of every creases of my existence that you would know when I try to smooth them out.
I wonder when your eyes had learned to peak beyond my cloud of lies.

"It's not that we love what's beautiful," the photographer said. His eyes still focused on his muse.
"It's just beauty flees in the direction of a lense tinted with love."

I have always been jealous of how natural it was for her to slip her hands into his, how easily her head fell on his broad shoulder.
I have always begrudged her burdens, how light they looked, that she could simply swing them from her own back onto his, and how simple it was for her to not only win but take his favour.
I have always envied how empty her heart looked next to his emmence love, how ready it was to receive all of it.
I have always hated her, her arms and how they always met his hugs.

How long will you run, little one,
from alien perfection?
How long will you weigh your smiles on a scale you'd borrowed?
Have you become an immigrant to your own home-
bartering for peace on foreign currency,
begging an imported idol for clemency?

How long will you flee from this alien perfection, a strangness you deemed prestine?
How long will condemn your life
when your eyes are tainted green?

You, the wind, the soft whispers of your lips always fleeting.
I, a mere tree, the hugs of my open arms always lingering.
You were too inquisitive to stay and i was too proud to ask.

War is a family of mine. I grew up hearing his name. Our home was littered with trinkets he sent. He was a relative, a close family friend.
War was a traveler, a tourist. We would get souvenir of his visits, conquests for his stories. War was a thief never left a place how he found it.
War is a wretched in law, my mother hated him. He had a claim over her husband in way she couldn't. War just like my dad only loved the sons she had birthed. War never made room for her.
War was sexist, his favourite past time was a walk on my mother's skin. He had jokes with punchines that poked my sister's thighs. War always gazed me with a tiger's eye.
Yet, war was a family friend, always close. War rarely got my father's 'no's.