What is holding me back?  

Am I  

        cursed? Condemned to feel an ocean but express one 

               droplet?  

I listened to Charles Bukowski. He said:  

“If it doesn’t come bursting out of you 

        in spite of everything  

               don’t do it.”  

But I have never been bothered to 

        tolerate my pen devouring my gleamed brain and spit it all out into muddled black shapes of  

                 roundness and straightness and strangeness called  

                        words.   

Thoughts surging…  

Going somewhere…  

Facing something…  

Holding on to the magical hand of chance  

         has never passed me by, for all I think  

                   is the doom of fame and love—soaring 

                              into nothingness.   

My words yawn themselves to sleep upon me, with me,  

         staring, searching for what has never been mine—chance.  

I yearn for another chance, loathe to find one. I scour for one and pitch one away.  

One string away, the fire within has long been gone. The flames have already turned into  

         ash, and the hopes, already despised. What did I lose when I 

                    looked at nothing but your reflection in  

                            my own eyes?  

  

  

The loudness of my delusions never ceases to crack the frame and  

         let the stranger in me escape.  

Strings away, in the minefield of  

                    bursting tears and loving in fear, in the heart of love amid  

war, the destruction is real. The suffocation exists. The fear exists. Existence exists. “To be, or not to be” is no longer “the question.” There, the rising bitter smoke does its job well;  

                                  it strangles. The screams are simple: honest and natural. The numbness 

                                                 is the horror one is afraid to survive. What comes after numbness? 

                                                             Nothing–ness. 

                                                                         A void, a glance, fleeting thoughts, stupor  

                                                                                      dreams, a dying wish, a foolish hope, and  

                                                                                                   one last thing—a dangerous smile. 

  

The last droplet of the rain creeps gently down the hollow shaft of a feather and  

disappears right before falling down. Though the  

Dry seed keeps waiting.  

What to do?  

One is too late to cleanse the stains of history and too early  

       to hope for anything more. Anything beyond the present.  

Reaching out tires the arms. Squinting to find a crack of light hurts the eyes. Calling for another chance kills the already-dead voice. What comes after  

      death? The award of not having to die again.  

This defines one. This, alone, raises one up.  

This brought in the torch to burn the weeds off one’s roots. I saw This; reflected in my eyes, called me 

      dead, yet I escaped.  

I embraced it to scare the mist away; it ran farther in the fog to seek coverage. Was death  

      more alluring than what I offered?  

What of the fool’s hope? It shall not hold anyone back.  

What is more in here to yearn for?  

You are gone.