11:27

The strangeness of silence
aligns where No One begins
a rhapsody of unrelenting, redolent
rapture, I call it and keep it
captured to entrance a friend
into cleaving and leaving
an impossible hymn,
this strangeness of silence
I'm impossibly in.

No wonder? No, wander
Wayward soldier and spy
Eye the fair wanderer, eke out her eye.
It is stranger and silence and possible still
To burrow in blossoms of vainglorious hills.

The strangeness of silence
rests a weary, burdened soul
or the window-side bus seat
cold against goose-fleshed skin
thin and impossibly veined
in the strangeness of silence.

Nonsense

I do what I detest,
smack lips on unrest, chest heaving
without repreive,
this sin I'm in.

Good is so tiresome,
why so,
toothsome
this grin of sinning,
thinning bone
                   China hair
raising tin
                   roof regalia.

If you were the best of times
I'm mesmerized by the worst
ticking of clocks
                         tocked and talked
out of rhyme.

Mind over matter,
yet what does it matter
when matte pages gloss over
shining smiles...

the isles and aisles of lost integrity
sigh and heave
without reprieve
just grin and whisper

this sin I'm in.

Brevity

October bought colorless contacts
unto eyes hypnotized by travesty,
tripping into tip-toed silences
and mindless droning
of bees.

No mental escape
just the unwinding tape
of a mind
uneased.

Please to purchase
plates dripping in turpentine and plastic
caustic, classic remedy
plead and purchase
enmity.

When all you see is falsehood and
fault lines,
rhymes and rhythms fall short
to retort and remember,
serve only to dismember
the empty agony
lining stomach
with the tick and tinge
of unhinged
sickness.

Where illness beats screams
into deadened waters,
bolted into wayward, side-splitting walls,
madness born
grief.

through a glass darkly.

You picked
spectacles
to speculate the nature of us.

Thrust half rims
to skim a nose,
nudge past preconceived notions,
a motion
to see
me.

Did you see me
through those glasses darkly,
partly, half-heartedly?

Did we part
when, dear heart,
the sea leapt up to see me,
leaning, beaming, seemingly
soul syndicate
I?

I cram glasses up,
hide behind
spectacles
to speculate everything but
the wishful idea of us.

Thrust bold rims,
bars to brow bone,
break ties to break my heart
charting dangerous waters

to peer through glasses darkly.

(sadness)

Do not grieve the reprieve
                      of skinned knees
or slipped pleas
                      pleasant at 8 in the evening,

dipped in dewdrops
propped open with

                       penulimate promises,

a listing, lilting,

missing, melting,

near faulty, ne'er simple, nearer still.

Still.

Untitled 1

Broken China doll, left on the shelf.
Torn between leaving and staying,
Saving herself.
                                                     Torn between two, torn into two.
Between straying and staying,
Pouring out when there is only...
                                                     Silence.

Where do you go when the wind no longer sings
sweet melodies, but screams
                                                  in vanity, in vain?

Broken dolls, set on the shelf,
Victims of vicious, vicarious play,
Too young to fight the frantic fray.
Invisible, silent soldiers,                   Taught with tension, wrought with anger.

"I break everything I touch."
China doll, stuck on the shelf,
Allusions of grandeur
Warping herself.

Where do I go when the fields no longer chime
in tandem to their own sweet rhymes, but chatter
                                                                    in calloused candor?

Go back to the tinker,
you soldier, you spy;
Return with purpose from immortal eyes,
Maybe then the fields with chime again,
                                                           the wind beckon in song.

But not long on this earth will we hear the reprieve,
of forlorn fields and wayward wind
as they welcome the sinner, then spit on the saint.

About a Ghost.

This is not about you.
It is what was about to happen, that happenstance.
I wonder if you ever cared the way I did, found heartbeats where there were only half-lilting soft smiles.
I always wanted to stay awhile....but maybe now I'm just haunting.
Pining after hollow whispers, caress the carcasses of what I thought was alive.
A dead love. A forgotten thing. No longer will I wait.

Why won't you just leave? Ghost of my past....
Casper unwelcome and waiting, watching...whispering that someday, I'll disappear.
You haunt me...but am I haunting?
You see less than me, a whisper. A dapple of sunlight, the corner of the room.
You render me invisible.
Peer into my soul, sole survivor.

I am barred, blatantly banished to regions unsung,
Undone by the apathy in your eyes.
You left tear streaks at 2am, in different countries.
The map to my mind runs trails and treaties to yours, but there was never an answer.
You never knew because I never told you.
Yet...I never wanted to,
to tell how much pain bears,
grins like a lantern in my heart.
Because of you.

I gave, don't you remember, don't you see?
I gave and I wanted nothing.
                                           Instead, you give to her,
and I fade into shadows.

I am the wraith of the past, no present to you.
No presence.

No ghost ever wanted so much to be human.

Make-believe, blank canvas meshed into mess.

Not worth a second glance.
Just....happenstance.

Bitten

I was once smitten
                            with young                                  
love                                                         {infatuation}
so done with my "childish ways,"                                          
                             thought I could                                      
dove-tail                                                   {swan-dive}
                              into my own
pulse                                                         {demise}.


I will weep in veins of scarlet ink
and parchment paper skin,
but the tears I've shed for you
in the past                                             {even now}
are like dust                                          {and ashes}

because in the morning of our meeting,
there was only beginnings....                  {, but I'm always left with the endings.}


Once bitten.                                           {You smile, I smile.}
Twice cautious.                                      {Too close, too far.}
Thrice warned.                                       {The sin is in the secret.}


Suck out the poison.                              {I thought you were the cure.}


So long...                                               {For longing hurts too much.}

The Art of Not Caring

The art of not caring
                               is a simple affair
to toss hair over shoulder,
                               not any worse for wear...
tear eyes away from those times that seemed simpler
                                and dimple time, instead, with kinder, colder whispers
           of soothing ice pops, the pinnacle of silence.
You were mine.

                    I feel cold shoulders nudging mine,
when once they asked me to lean on them,
the hem of my dress brushing knees, knocking...that kind of nervousness
                                                                         wasted in
caring.
Caress the attack of redress, these abscesses of a recessed infatuation.

I miss you. I hate you. I care...don't care.

Don't.

The art of not caring
is a simple affair
                       a hair's breath away
from staying engaged in
staying in prolonged

caring.

Broken.

Can you mend & upend what is
broken,
this bruised mantra of soldered sanity?
Can you tend it well & remind me how telling
love can be?
For I fell for a broken boy once,
three little words that cracked open rib cage,
unstaged, enraged romance to break ages and eons,
cling-on saran wrap love.
I thought I was
a wreath upon your door
but maybe just a
                         door mat, flattened and stepped on,
prepped for proper burial...

Where do I begin?

I loved a broken boy once,
his ribs hid a lonely, misbegotten heart,
                                                        his veins bled art,
a tart taste of tainted desire and fire
parted with pleasure...
left me mesmerized, tantalized...

but fire burns and churns,
breaking me into bits of
charcoal, stolen remnants of a lost flame,
dying fame, forgetting my own name because
I saw only you,

tried and untrue, perhaps I
flew over the cuckoo's nest
bent and blue
from lack of air
my hair once a spectrum of light
droops and lacks luster,
mustered some dregs of strength,

lacking the length and height and depth of true love.

I forgot of things above.

The broken boy met a broken girl once,
she was shattered and battered of
manipulated, manhandled mechanisms,

chasms and calloused candor,

sarcasm galore, she wanted more
than he could give,

that broken girl, twirling death between
fingertips and lips, chipped teeth
telling bitter deeds to meet mayhem
manifested.

What is broken...can be fixed.

Where He stood,
Only a battered Cross to His name,
but no other deserves the title
Healer
quite like he does,
moving like the morning dove,
gravitating towards things above,
He is love, love, love.

He fell in love with broken people once.
Chances are, He still does...

Winding Back.

The Lover of my soul
fills a God-shaped hole,
in the immortal hours of hurting
            & skirting issues of eternity;
He loves me, the sin within falls away,
peeled like sunburnt skin on a summer eve,
He leaves me spotless and pure,
sure of His love and promise,
I am the sickness, He the cure.

Remember, my soul, your true Lover,
He waits upon waves of Grace and clear pools of mercy,
Frozen willow branches still in the morning,
Soaring birds await his call,
the Lover of my Soul,
with His Beauty.

Risen and lovely,
He remains,
stains removed from loneliness,
adrift on the shore,
no strings to before,
only love for
Him.

In Flagrante Delicto

Scales flake off like scabs of rusting paint

from New York City cabs,

I hate the speckled lies you spit

   beneath the whisper of hisses and friendly misses,

                 you tell everyone but me

of how you can't stand me,

when really it's all so beneath me,

         the deceit and malice under oath,

when your throat boils with the spoils of your own bile,

you vile snake, worthless fake of a friend.

I'm sorry, was my back too brittle

for your dull knife you tried to settle in there?

Personality processed, like your decaying hair,

    why don't you stay awhile

& listen to me spit rhymes

about this time

                     I slayed a beast of a gossip,

                                    the fiend buried, seething atop
                                                              a dollop of her own remains,
Not golden, but

Folded arms like jagged pieces of metal,

   unsettling me with your too acidic stares

                                                            & too basic glares,

your pH of absolute resistance, a zero in every litmus test,

this putrid pest of humanity.

Yet, I digress,

let me

leave some room,

for it to loom...

the wrath of God

                          upon your mortal soul,

if you so have one.

For you are undone,

you slimy parasite of pickled porcupine piss,

I hint at your hypocritical, hyped up hisses 

                     behind my back

                                             barely sore from the attack

of your run-of-the-mill, lame remarks, embark on a real bender

& listen to me 

run ragged words warped with wickedness to unravel your soul and char your chatter,

it doesn't matter

where you run or where you hide

because the deep dark monster,

so hideous and insipid,

remains inside

the recesses of your mind, 

my so-called friend.

The end was near & I was glad of it,

take and bury the hatchet,
I'm done with it.

Defend what you will and what you can,

but remember where your reasons land,

& can you say you always defend dignity, honor the truth?
Pass the Vermouth, because I need to sober up from your lies.

You weave them interlaced with the poison of disgrace...

you disgust me with intimate traces

of a once-begotten friendship, frayed and burned at the edges,

I'm left looking behind hedges

           while you try to erase me, deface me.

Let me perform a vital operation,

a character assassination

                                      necessary for the benefit of the State

for I do state

you are left crownless and empty beside the hide of your own skin,

teeth pulled back in the grimace you call a grin,

for the monster inside you lashes and gnashes

with the pride and the swallow of lust,

you disgust me,

my so-called friend.

The end did not come soon enough,

for me to call your bluff

                                    for only fools fall for your frantic failures in fiction.

Your diction and dictatorship lacks finesse,

my fearsome, fake friend;

lend me a hand

in digging your grave,

for your once depraved soul

                                          that remains empty now, save a black hole.

Run away, run away,

for the monster inside is there to stay,

& you will remain 

stained with the remnants of a would-be friendship,

murdered and curdled with time,

the mime of sisterhood, muted by your foulness.

Devour your hunger for gossip

& drown in your own disapproving frown

for I no longer want to see the smirk of arrogant pride,

smeared on your too smug face,

the scarlet letter of your crime,

my so-called friend.

It matters not the when & where,

but your betrayal waits & watches & stares...

the smell of something vile

buried in deceit,

the rotting of my so-called friend.

This is the end of anything left to mend,

I commend you on your most excellent tricks,

you flickering flame of shameful, sick habits,

watch me take life and grab it

while you flounder and flail

                                        no use to set sail

because you are the kraken beneath the waves

               whom no one wants to save,

you monster.

Her writing smells of too settled beer,

not easy to stomach & a voice worse to hear,

the meager offerings of a too tainted soul,

whether in part or whole,

adrift in the mess of her own festering attempts,

you fancy yourself a writer.

It's not that I hate you or curse your name,

it is the too quiet way

you tried to impart shame...

How easy it is to say, "I can't stand you"

                                                            to someone else,

acting calm and cool, calloused to candor...

and yet

you fear muttering it to my face, you coward;

cannibalise the demise of your insecurities,

the impurities of your so-called friendship.

Say it louder, scream it to me,

only then can you convince me

               of any semblance to humanness,

you abscess of rancid horse meat

      seething with the flies of conceit

you maggot of wretchedness.

Here we part,

never to start,

                    or stir the ashes of a so-called friendship,

unless you wish to awaken

the fire of my pen,

eager to stab into you

again & again,

tearing into the crumbling cardboard cut-out

that is my so-called friend.

Lost Cause

Did you
Forsake the husband & forget the ring?
Turn your eyes to a summer fling?
The impossible bling of glitter, not gold,
flung into the eyes of stories untold?

It is you, was you, who lost the sound
of mysteries untold & treasure unfound,
did you
hear me whisper on the cusp of the universe?

No rehearsal on this stage,
all empty, one filled with rage and sad songs,
Longing for commitment
but staying only for the intermittent company,
so fake and fragile,
that agile thing
who turns the eyes to a summer fling,
forsaking the husband & forgetting the ring...

that agile thing
of infidelity.

Waxing Poetic

*derived from an online conversation*

waning pain

sunglasses in my window pane

the only thing keeping me sane

the inane drip drop

of rain

it was so often

and yet so few

the times of the morning dew

to seep under

dream seams

and warm summer reams of film

overwhelm arms and charms of

schoolboy fascination

indication of lust won and love forlorn

we were adorned

Dream Seams

Summer dreams
torn through, it seems
so long ago, those honeysuckle stained memories
of sun-drenched, Banana Boat smelling moments
                                                                          shared with friends high on life and too much ice cream,
it seems so long ago, this dream.

Before Heineken & Carlsberg,
and the tang of Asahi,
We had only Sprite floats & imaginary butter beer,
and the smear of too flourescent cherry popsicles on our lips,
this I miss, the kiss of childhood.

I miss you too, dear friend,
before boyfriends & ambiguous guy friends,
you were the sister I never had, so close we melded
and welded together,
hair braiding and card trading the only activities we loved,
that gift from above,
childhood.

Summer dreams,
gone now it seems,
I want to relive those mosquito-bitten, Drumstick ice cream screams,
midnight frisbee, tree-climbing nonsense,
watching stars embark on midnight rendevouz,
while we lie side-by-side, best friends on summer vacation,
no boys, no drinking, no sinking in self-pity or regret,
and yet

Summer dreams
are so close now it seems,
to see us again, renewed by Him,
dipped in deep blue cyan and violet gray,
His voice that calls me to the day,
My May bringing, still small voice,
                                                   whispering, "I love you. You are loved. I love you."

Over & over & over again,
I cannot hope to wallow or swallow pain,
when I hear such sweet music
that crickets sing in the dusk and swallows in the morning,
the sound of soaring,
and pouring rain,
Your voice in my ear, cheering me, searing me with Your love.

I love you. You love me, Creator of all those sun-drenched, mosquito-bitten, smitten memories,
white linen sheets draped in lemon scent, a hint of cinnamon in morning pancakes,
that ache of running too fast and too hard,
the shard of broken shell that fell from the ocean,
you are the motion in my veins,
and the spring in my shoelaces...

but most of all, You are my God,
the lover of my soul,
wholly, Holy of holies,
You are the swing in my step,
the sinew of my bone,
You knit me together in my mother's womb,

All consuming fire and the desire of my heart,
renew the passion of my soul for only you again,
for I am too weak and weary,
only a child, dreaming of summer long gone,
but You are a God, long sung and dreamt of,
the morning, mourning dove.

Your word breathes life into my bones,
your well-honed words swords that bury into bones,
I long for the song that you sing to me, over me, that you rejoice in me,
I miss You, I long for You, I call to You

My God
who melts these popsicle summer loves for something far higher above,
My God, the sparrow and the dove,
whose wings welcome the morning.

On the Same Page

I want an artist love,

Dipped in ceylon green

and aquamarine,

to swim in your arms in a forget-me-not blue

                                                                  sky of robin's egg,

Dappled in creme chiffon yellow

                                                  running fingers through vast vermilion  fields of flowers,

lovers devouring each other

in shades of absinthe green,

                                           so serene,

                                                          that sort of artist love.

Covered in sheets of lavender-lilac, holding locks of burgundy brown hair,

I dare you to say

a world of color exists

beyond this room of our own....

The skin of your arms

is peach fuzz and veined in faintest turquoise,

                                                                  pastel parted pink lips

turn to kiss red valerian of your cheek...so faint and lovely.

Our love is a painting,

immortalized and waiting,

                                     I draw near to you, my artist love.

First Loves & Such

That hopeless feeling
of romancing the spirit
and wanting to hear
those three small words
that make your stomach churn & heart thump like a hollow gourd
thirsty for his love.

That too tight feeling
of a consuming heart
to start anew, far too few experiences
of true, beautiful moments
and too many of bitterness like 90% chocolate
without the sugar of his love.

That hollow feeling
of remembering the ending
and threading together the pieces
of a shattered spirit & too tight heart,
the slight, simple season
of young love,
so far above your reach & reason
and you seek out
his love,
but realize

what a fool is the lover
                                 to hover
                                              in the season of her youth.

Countdown

It's 4 in the morning,
                            we're 3 fingers-widths apart,
                                                                    and 2 tired for whispered goodbyes
                                                                                                                        to any 1.
4, 3, 2, 1 . . . and I'm falling.

This rooftop is too small for us.

Underneath a non-azure, nameless sky,
        surried by cloud clusters,
                         I muster only enough to gaze.
Falling, onto concrete that consumes a white lace skirt,
jaws of pavement that grip me, convince me of their solidness.

This rooftop is too real for us.

It's like remembering the lyrics to a long-forgotten song,
                                                                                    my unsung rooftop boy.

Dangled legs loom,
     tempting vertigo in indigo jeans,
it seems so easy
                       to lie here, calm on the cool concrete,
death and debauchery a thousand feet beneath us,
talking about Hemingway
and the future of nostalgia.

This rooftop transcends us.

A place where stale cigarettes
    smell like coffee in hazelnut hair
and empty beer bottle dreams
become fine wine
tossed in the air above

the rooftop that greets us.

We curl together like parantheses
(and I know this is not the end of me.)

It pours

It was the stretch of dreams & in-seams
that gleamed & glimmered in dusk;
the husk of a far gone morning turned,
churned to butter and biscuits.

Theirs was a popsicle love,
full and fleshy at first lick - a summer of promises to keep
but seeping and sickly, wilting come August day.
Stuck like rice glutened hands, palms coated,
Fingers greedily devour,
                                     but come the final hour,
                                                                         washed clean of their undoing.

Theirs was an umbrella love,
hushed by showers & pools of sweet nothings, dewdrops of
tenderness
until
      the rain
                  pours
                           no longer...
and the heart fails to grow fonder,
my sun-dried tomato love.

copyright 2012 Yue Yuan

Restart.

I feel it again,
                     the rush of sometime, maybe, possibly, here...
a tear in the weave of my would-be reality,
                      you, dear heart.
Press restart, no longer replay,
                                             heartaches forgotten,
I want to lie in your arms,
warm and so far, but so worth the stretch,

I want to hold your face,
                                    trace outlines of lips, eyelashes, and contours,
of you.

To remember, every crevice and curve....

I could love you.

Half of a Broken Heart

Almost lovers in a bygone world,
half-sewn sorrow, half-wanting,
with nowhere to go.

Funny how things work out
in half a glass of rum,
the other part bitters
                               of bitterness yet to come.

This half-wanting, half-waiting
                                             game we play.
One part luck,
                      another part...fate?

When intentions don't agree
                           & deceit stirs mulled thoughts,
I wonder where you stored
my half-thawed heart.

Before I know it, this half-life of
short-lived bliss missed me,

& misery kisses me.

2 halves don't make 1 whole, they make a </3.