heirlooms

I keep broken souls
in a locket
where memories dance with fire
to keep themselves warm

and I collected you
like a lost prophecy
because
you
drenched your soul in vinegar
to keep the flies away

express aisle

I still
sing your name
at night

but somewhere
in between screams of hysteria
and ecstasy
I discovered
they never have your eyes

because your eyes grew up
in a location
that couldn't afford
the luxury of things like remorse,
and they shoot
apologetic glances at me shyly
as if
the only exchangeable item
in the refund line were
emotions too expensive for your tastes

anachronism

I held your uncertainty like a first kiss
and we teetered on the brink of security
scrawled verses onto our lips while
you embedded rhymes in my poetry
spelled out sonnets in archaic alphabets and
told stories that danced on the tip of my tongue;
searched for words like I need a body
anybody

ubuntu

I will see your face
when I set my computer screen on fire
and the flames will dance like
fingertips on the keyboard

---

I will build pyres
in your name
and sing elegies
like memories
because
I have run out of
things to mourn

austin

my hometown
is
a love story

and I find a bit of God
in every snowflake
that I catch there

I don't need your good intentions
cause last time I checked they were empty gestures that
hid somewhere in the grosgrain of the social fabric where
you wove bitterness between the threads of memories;
embroidered resentment with needles that dyed
linen with blood-strained pinpricks

made promises of upgrading with improved hopes and dreams
but our lives are an installation piece that can't be erased as easily as
you destroyed our happiness