I.

It helps to tell your stories 

To strangers like me

When this  ends,

I would lift what you’ve unloaded 

While you carry on 

Don’t you find it beautiful

To be in transition?

To be in between of things?

All those possibilities

You could search for that lighthouse

Where the world ends

And there you could shout 

All your worries, 

Hurts, 

Fears,

And they would go away,

You could also accept

The tomb closing,

Serve your dead master

Even without 

Forgiving him

II.

I long for those times

You allowed me 

To open what is not acceptable,

Because who would be interested in the smell of my feet?

The zit growing in my chin?

Who would accept that they too could be poetic?

You were there to lie to me 

So I could understand truth better,

So I could see my pain bare,

To know it has form 

I long for you to be here

So we could finally untangle these threads

And burn bridges we didn’t expect to be built

III.

The poet said,

“You do not unbox kept letters 

They are evidence of ruined roads

Filled with promises

Of robbing angels their wings

And miracles of filling nets 

With thousands of fishes

You do not look back

Not even a glimpse

To see burnt houses

Slain bodies,

Broken bones,

Walk faster and farther,

There is nothing there

You cannot stop to tell me,

“We can look back.

  We need to look back”

Walk faster and farther,

There is nothing there

We are left with no choice

But to do it all over again

IV.

You sat there holding an umbrella

I thought anybody who brings an umbrella

Could be trusted

Because they expect the changing weather

Many years from now, 

On your way to work,

You will hear my voice telling you,

“Teach yourself to be happy,”

But you will not recognize whose is it

You will not remember

The following day, you will open the newspaper

And read about a ship that sunk near the coast,

With hundreds of people drowned,

And you will fold it,

Continue with your day

Not bothered

V.

He now marks the passage of time

By  the number of bottles

Of dandruff shampoo he used,

By how long his anti-fungal soap lasted

By the sudden lack of  facial wash

That did not live up to its promise

Nothing matters anymore

But his paycheck after paycheck,

The time to pass by a grocery shop,

And zits that could not be stopped from growing

He works 8 to 5 without any floating thoughts,

He is just there,

As cold as a corpse

Waiting for a thousand earthworms,

Printing, 

Photocopying, 

Typing

He goes home, 

Eat dinner of cheap canned tuna 

And left-over rice 

From the other day

Or the day before that

He goes to bed 

And forces his way to sleep

There’s only the following day---

The same things all over again,

This way, he do not exist,

No longer expecting

VI.

I want to become a brick

Hardened by the sun,

Feel nothing,

I am elsewhere,

Where I mattered,

Where I am remembered, 

He left

Without at least saying a prayer

The way hunters do

To boars or deer after the kill

How could this world exist

Without rituals and oaths?

You once asked me,

“Where does it begin?”

I answered,

“Compassion,

That will keep us alive”