Seaside bride

 Dear M

At last this day has come
To pen our friendship in a wish made of words is beyond me
Like the spiritual power you’ve recently discovered
These emotions are overwhelmingly inexplicable 

You’ve been there when I cry 
From laughing too hard and 
when the tears continue to fall
Without falter, I am left in wondrous awe
Of how far we’ve wandered and reached

Your voice is a tour de force 
Your vision a force untainted 
From skipping PE in school, river boat rides, teenage trials and tribulations 
To building a business, to making music, to endless talks
There’s no one else I’d rather trust 
every single piece of my soul with
We’ve seen each other broken
yet spending time together feels peacefully wholesome 

All I know is
My heart always feels so full 
When I am with you
All I know is 
I find myself verklempt 
reminiscing the moments that make us 
All I know is
You’re my best friend like no other
and I thank all the stars in the sky for granting me this forever
You’ll always be AMomentOfGratitude to me

MoH

Dear S
Freshman year they said Environ100 was going to be an easy class. 
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. 
Plot twist: it ended up being the best 
part of college because you were there where we bonded 
over our highs, our lows, uni ave froyos, and all the flavors of life in between
In every dimension and every moment, we were there for each other 
even when not physically there with each other. Beyond distance and time, you have always been my cheerleader, keeper of my sanity, the constant constellation of light I can depend on 
Throughout the decade, I’ve witnessed you grow, I’m in wonderment to see you glow
in multitudes academically, professionally, personally. 
A caring nurse, the cutest cat mom, a compassionate soul, you shine brighter than a hundred candles, that you literally own. 
My pride for you is deeper than the Grand Canyon, stronger than the Phoenix sun, and larger than all the Costcos in America 
Through thick through thin, all we’ve been through together
Du bist meine beste Freundin, fur immer

Dear K
You were a sudden shooting star, transforming S’s long-lived wish into a lifelong partner come true
When you smile at each other it is magic in a minute
The sincere love, the affectionate care you show in each thoughtful action 
in each tender word you say, the way you uplift, the way you listen 
The way you sync and bring out the sunshine in her
The way you love P (dare you admit it)
You’re a Phenomenal Associate (aka PA) to S
Thank you, it means the world 

Dear both
So as I stand here today, my heart is full and so are my eyes, brimming with tears of joy
I wish you a loving home in your hearts for the memories you’ve built and the many more you’ll build
A lifetime of love and a lovefilled life
The kind I’m grateful for, by being your MOH, your honorary sister, your friend

Dear everyone- all you amazing people gathered here today
Please join me in toasting to this beautiful couple and their eternal love

Fall

For this moment, I’ve fallen for Fall
Where the trees twinkle like an umbrella of stars
A multitude of apple colored leaves 
The sky is bright, the ground is alight
Simultaneously soft like cinnamon cider and 
crunchy like caramel crisp
fresh from within
Vibrant and warm and wise in the wind 
Against the sun it is dazzlingly magical
Like a cozy coat
like chili on a chilly day

I will cherish this always

In golden hues of hope and heart 

It feels safe, it feels alive, it feels like home away from home

For’ all that you’ve shaped, shared, and changed me into

I’ll hold this moment Fallever

Thank you for being Fall in the season of my life

London bride

To: M

When we looked through housing options in London and found our budget was only worth a parking lot space, 

I laughed and laughed.

Broken heaters, crappy rooms, tatty Primark sweaters

they didn't matter.

Life in London was less lifeless with you. With you, life in London

was a lot lively. Because of you, I'm thank you. I'm thankful,

for you.

For the lazy afternoons, Chipotle bowls and froyo spoons

Begin-ing walks along regents canal, you're an Angel buddy I 

look forward to every week- end

For your ear and your empathy, the ease of every moment, I'm 

ever grateful.

Though I hate I couldn't be there today, I'm there in spirit always.

You're an inspiration, your determination, I'm proud of the doctor 

you'll become, the bride you are now

I wish you a lifetime of love and laughter, the kind I'm blessed 

by being your honorary sister and friend

Dardanelles dreams

Ask me what color I see the world

Peel the hollow stones, strip these heavy bones

and listen to the space between my tomorrows.

Scratch the wind

shake up the sun

send waves rolling off my citrus skin.

Swallow the sky

sink this scream

paint cotton castles in the corners of my mind.

When you pour the horizon with stillness, I am moved.

For the moment your silence silences the noise.

We're swimming above the hills, chasing burnt clouds.

Fill this hour with a night so bright, I'm left imprinted

with traces of tinted hues washed by a lingering light.

There are stories I long to dive 

into your black breathless eyes.  But

these mirrors they stretch slow into low soundless lies.

Salted rain dripping down my haze

Slipping away as water holds its breath

waiting for the slightest flutter

knowing forever's lost in betrayals beneath the sea.

Ask me what color I see the world

Would I show you the world through the canvases of my dreams.

Reflections in the Himalayan Melodies

I dream of death in the dust of your valleys
strung by the stillness that plagues this vastness
On higher heights you kiss my breath away
My skin tingles, my hands numb as you
whisper me awake.  But your taste
warms and burns my cold cold heart.
Climbing up and down your curves,
exploring each crevices, searching for shadows of your unshaven surfaces
speeding in sanctimonious serenity
there is solace in this temptation
Sometimes smooth as snow slivers on ice
Sometimes rough like the grasp of ten men
And at the peak of your altitude, here I succumb.
Delving to a consummation of teal and turquoise
the colors of sunlit night.
falling for the flow of fabrics that fabricates
reality.
Blinded by your unforgiving lights, my eyes are open
to a life beyond ashes; I'm afraid
"I might be sentimental"
So Ladakh, as abruptly as the absence of this picturesque scene
I will leave you, as I do with all others
lest the mystique that mesmerizes this memory is
lost

counting cuts

Warm from the tinge of her skin

Colored with cracks of my scar

Tickles me cool

You can't hear the hurt

When it caws she slits

ghost tears

masked in sleepless desperation

Stale steady whisper

every scream ever so

Still

In the night of swallowed suffocation

The death inside her head

Is not dread

The fear you find is naught

her

haunting hands

Heavy grasp lay suspended

Vivid but numb

Kissed blades cry her away

Wonder why I

betray the living to live

In shattered feathers

Abandoned by faith

I trust

her no more. Trust

her silence

She is vapor I am smoke

Breathing burns, bleeding

hollow ashes

Unstable you say?

It's all in her head

Today she dies a little

Do you see tomorrow in my eyes?

Hold me a little longer

I might pretend I'm a little stronger

than her disguise

Inhale.  Hell.

help her.

white rose

I picked out a bundle of white roses today.  I usually have no particular sentiments towards flowers but somehow these were a kind that captures and mesmerizes you; I couldn't help my instantaneous affinity.  They are beautiful.  The petals are fragile, barely holding, but the way they glisten through the droplets, it succumbs you entirely.  The way they bend, sighing as if closing their eyes.   I held each stem, and felt a surge of sorrow swallow me.  I knew the roses were going to die very soon.  And I was afraid of their impending, inevitable death.  Afraid of losing, oddly losing something so trivial, something that isn't even mine to begin with.  Like the ten baht helium balloon I accidentally let go when I was a little less than ten, or the first car my mother owned, or the stray black cat waiting at my doorstep.  I shed tears for them as if they were my own kin.  As if I lost someone I dearly loved.  I grieve, mourn, and move on.  And I have no more emotional attachments thereafter.  None.  I still remember each memory vividly when I look back at my fondness and stupidity.  But you know what they say, life goes on.  Mortality is only ever so kind.  So you see my problem with these roses.  I want them to cling to life, I want to prolong their purity but they are already starting to stain from the suffocating grasp of the air.  They are tainted brown.  Their heads hang low, drooping down to the ground.  They dare not look me in the eye for they know very well how softly but suddenly forever can fall.

post Rome syndrome

Dear Caprece

I thought of you today as I passed the canal on my way home. 

It was early evening but  the sun had still managed to suffuse its rays pass the massive weight of humidity which hung suspended in the air, depressing down on me. I felt like I had an elephant on my back and I was ready to jump into the canal.

I was walking across the bridge when the skies suddenly turned dark.  Mind you, this was no Ponte Sisto.  Just a loose alignment of crisscrossed wooden planks.   I closed my eyes as a speck of rain fell on my forehead.  Soon the droplets turned heavy and huge, dampening into my t-shirt.  Thunder roared menacingly at me.  But I felt strangely nostalgic and took shelter under a tamarind tree, climbed up to pick out its fruit as I did when I was younger.  The ants from the tamarind tickled my arms so I flicked them off, let them scurry away from the rain.  They look just like the street vendors folding their fake merchandise as they packed and pulled plastic bags over their heads.  A vendor rolls his goods into one bundle and ties it across his chest.  He scampers into his tiny motor scooter and chugs off.  If only he had a Vespa.  A beggar is sitting on top of a sewage line across from me.  He watches the chaotic scene, laughs, showing his blackened gums and teeth from betel nut chewing, but the smile reaches his wrinkled rheumy eyes.

I sat on the wet grass, peeling the tamarind, watching the muddy waters of the canal move as fast as the Tiber, waiting for the rain to die down. 

Soon the clouds calmed, stopped leaking, leaving only a putrid odor of rain soaked garbage; the trailing stink of ‘tuk tuk’ exhausts, combined with cigarette fumes and a thin gossamer aroma of noodles.

The rain in Rome smells strangely like the rain here.  Oh how I miss you so. 

last day in Rome

Today I wake up

to the squeals of little children

counting beats in Italian,

singing rhymes that I do not know the meaning of

Outside the window.

The construction below my bed, drilling holes underneath me.

I used to stomp and jump in anger

But today I lie listening to the familiar buzz

My roommate's alarm squawking for an hour

And she is still asleep.

The constant repetition is somehow soothing today.

The tiles are cool against the morning heat

Cold feet beneath my sweaty head

Running water fluctuates in bursts

from copper metal faucet

Its smooth stillness slipping through my fingers.

Breeze blowing in through the open windows

Dust and leaves scamper in

Covering the footsteps of my trail

Toast in a pan from leftover bread

Crisp crunch on one side

Burnt black on the other

Flakes like ashes falling off the plate

Crumbling down in capitulation

Stale coarse breakfast made edible

By a packet of nutella

Smoked meat on the stairways

Why are you smoking meat at 9am?

The rotten shrimp, cheese, strawberries, pesto

Diffusing my apartment-mates from inside the fridge.

But the fridge is empty today.

piazza massimo

War is only man's invention

Carrots, sticks and spears are but strength

Broken noses, hollow eyes, headless bodies

Amputated arms, cloaked in carved clay

The rest lies under the stone sarcophagus

Selfishly suffocating in its own silent glory

Thousands of years past, why are we still trapped?

Strength is not power, in the end it stands alone

Power is the art to persuade

To create peace, to appreciate simplicity

Like:

A baby's plum cheeks, juicy and round

A peach colored petal, fragile but free

An orange tree, fruitful with possibilities

A balance of bodies, in imperfect harmony

A family, a country, builds itself up

by the continuation of its generation

Not necessarily by feats or by fame

For those leave empty legacies

That unless lost, are learned, relearned, but unlived

hadrian's villa/ villa d'este

The late morning sun calls out to crickets that answer back in constant beats.  We run down paths and pavements kicking dusty rocks behind our trails.  A white butterfly flutters away from surprise.  The pool glistens, shimmering like liquid crystals.  Of all his jewels, this is my favorite.  We are not allowed in but the water is refreshing and cool for our thirsty eyes.  Not like the hot baths guarded by rows of cold columns and stone statue soldiers.  He is coming soon and my mother shoos us away.  We stumble down the stairs of grass as fast as water falls off fountains.  Our high pitched laughter lost among the giggles and gurgles of the baby streams while the bottom ditch rumbles and bubbles on as old uncles do.  We are little invisible children, hiding behind the murky reflections of each dripping droplets, never wanting to be found.

vatican museum

Muse how it all began

Head high: I was in awe of gold frames that adorn the spectrum of colors, glassy and bright beneath the angel's feet above my head.  Encircled rings touch the hanging arms of short babies too high for me to reach.  But they do not care that I am there.  Ocean blue skies curve in patterns that weave in green and yellow hues. 

Head steady: The painting of half a pope, his body fading off as he drips down an invisible chair.  A striped shirt man fumbles his earpiece frantically finding familiar faces.  Red tapestries blocked by heads, cameras, and outstretched hands.  A sculpture in the corner, serene and calm.  Hands son her heart, armored by her white robe she sees me seeing her. 

Head low: Mosaic floor of moons and crescents.  A blue warrior tangled in vines as a cracked feet in sandals steps on his chest.

Can such rage inflame the immortal's hearts?

basilica de agosto

starry days below the sun spot skies

flower gilded ceilings reflect the glinted gold

its ribbons wrap arches that spread artificial suns

Mary shields her face from the fiery light that spears the paintings

soft stars tickle baby Jesus in waves of pale pastel

surfing the creases of his clothes

embracing both mother and child

a ghostly nun, her bewildered face a dirty white

and the rest of her blends into the shadows of her dark habit

frail and empty like broken flower petals and stain-washed waters

ludovica albertoni

i walk across waters, carrying a heavy heat
determined to find a calm sanctuary, a quiet refuge
tucked at the end of the street, grapefruit marbles lead the hallway
to a family of angels, a skull at their feet
but to the left corner, i found her
peacefully suffering
head tilted back, and slight lips parting
lying with crouched knees
her fingers searching for her heart
soft candlelight illuminates a flowery glow
where the golden sky shines gently on her neck
and curly hair angels observe her distant pain
bodiless, their heads float
in murmurs far away

villa giulla

the glass screen seems invisible as i walk in. next to the tomb is a chair attached, becoming part of it.  i wonder who sits here, guarding the dead and breathing in the last remnants of its former lie.  the chair is rigid, heavy and unmoving, locked in with no escape.  he leans back, blends in, earthen skin against the cracks of the clay like water on wrinkles.  there is nothing but the silence of his heartbeat echoing across the hollow walls, barely missing its owner upon its return.  eyes straight, he stares into the blankness, not daring to turn to the great noble beside him.  yet the courage of the body beneath the tomb reeks room within and maybe its the dead guarding the living.

little pieces aligned like a puzzle

illusions assembled

tangled and intertwined together

interlocking the footsteps of eras gone by

squares yellow, lines white, 

red cubes, black crosses, crosses

the dimensions of sight and time

sometimes the unexpected just shits on you, and you have a panic moment. and then there are other times where you don't think anything can surprise you anymore, and you're wrong. but you're too numb to emotionally breakdown again.
even though people and events can sometimes make you lose faith in humanity, and you don't really understand how or why, there is always another side that hides behind the self-created shadows that haze your eyes. one that isn't a pure white light.  clad in an array of colors, it can easily be missed among the grays your traumatized emotions only seek. but it is there all the same. and sometimes knowing that is enough to reinvest your faith in.

i know fundamentally who i am and where my core stands.  i was confident that this won't change.  i still am.
but there are moments of unfeeling where it doesn't matter.  the world is open. as long as i don't cross the line, i will be fine. its more of a trial just to try. to liberate yourself from the ground that holds you down. to go to further heights just for awhile. it was great to be lost, to be whatever you wanted to be but knew you couldn't. with no constraints, no filter, the possibilities are endless.
and then there's reality.  it hits hard. you are among hundreds and thousands of people, but internally you're alone.  simply me, a floating soul. searching for a landing that's right because you obviously can't be in the clouds forever. not if you want to hold on to who you were.

you don't know it; but because you matter so much, you can also hurt me so much.