Resolution

I'm not really going to hell after all. Somewhere between heaven and hell is a place for those of us who wander in a steady flow of illusion, wrong directions and uncertainty. That place is called life.

How wonderful it would be to carry out life on a reservation. Rather than a government issued plot of disparaged land rationed out of pity by the ignorant ancestors of those who stole it in the first place, I'm speaking metaphorically of course and of something far more grand. This reservation is purely a mental state, one that toes the line between reality and psychosis, guaranteeing an imaginary yet safe haven for the ill-fated acute consciousness of my existence. To pine away for the truly impossible is more logical to me than holding out for an unlikely probability. At least in the impossibility, there is no disappointment. There is only a constant hum of a never ending melody and a dream never awoken from.

You may brand me a rationalist, where knowledge is based upon pure reason alone, without any empirical evidence or experience needed for verification. Yet I am not claiming these mental sanctuaries offer any source of truth. They simply provide me with the ability to persist within the real world. Yet what is this "real world" I am speaking so nonchalantly of? I could pontificate tediously about theories of the empiricists and their theories of reality, attempting to reconcile Berkeley from Locke and Kant from Hume, yet I will spare my typical, intellectually elitist sermon as it serves no purpose to the current situation at hand. That situation being an intense realization that I feel more contentment inside my mind, my thoughts and my dreams than I do in the arms of another or in the presence of others. Should fate give me the brief exhilaration of experience, I would be a fool not to accept it. Yet such a gift is not enduring, as it is usually incompatible with the world if it should be fancied by my conscious. Soon enough, it fades back into the monotonous humdrum, visible only on some nights, yet always kept at arms length. Somehow I keep allowing it to visit and in my insanity, I keep expecting different results.

How much spite is necessary to abolish this madness before I wither into complete disgrace? An ounce, I suppose would give a stubborn being like myself enough will power to carry through with such resolution. And how comfortable it will be to find solidarity in the fictional creations of my mind, rather than allow real people to ruin my soul.

MoMA

We pondered the clocks in the Persistence of Memory
between walls satisfied with paintings.
Among sculptures suspended from ceilings
fountains sprayed drops of sunshine
splattering rainbows on silhouettes.

We were more inspired by each other.
Alone and invisible in a sea of strangers,
we were lost in a sculpture garden of secrets
where the sun still shone promise on our love,
reflecting our imaginary iridescence.

Bathed in a room of glowing yellow light
Eliasson turned us into monochrome
blending our various skin shades to one.
Ascending the crowded escalator your kiss
conceived more than God could on any Sistine ceiling.

There were a thousand faces to witness us
though their judgment, scorn and misunderstanding
were reserved for the paintings while
we blended into the Garden of Earthly Delights.

Between this gallery and the tallest buildings,
in a city of insomnia, we would have lost ourselves
and abandoned our old life to become
remembered as the incarnation of beauty,
invisible in the refuge of the museum.

The harmony of our lips,
the symmetry of our souls,
the enigma of our embrace,
the elegance of our portrait all
were painted on eternity’s canvas.

They will preserve us in a sculpture
and our juxtaposition will bewilder.
The post-modernists will bow and pray
to the paradox of our existence.

My masterpiece, I’ll discover you again,
amongst the Water Lilies and Starry Night,
waiting for my return to the museum,
waiting for our chance to be more
than just a simple work of art.

Jasmine Green Tea

We’re sitting alone
In the coffee shop
Sipping on jasmine green tea
Where we came to be together
So no one would see us
And no one ever did.

I am sitting alone
In the coffee shop
A thousand strangers swarm around me
You walk in from the snow outside
I look twice to make sure it’s you
And it is you.

We’re sitting alone
In the Italian Bistro
Sharing laughs and a canoli
Where we came to read Pessoa
On our first of many nervous lunches
On that cool promising April afternoon

I am sitting alone
In the coffee shop
Sipping on jasmine green tea
As soon as I walk out of the door
You appear unexpectedly
We collide, smile and keep walking

We're sitting alone
on that park bench
underneath the street lamp
You tell me for the first time
you're falling in love with me
and I am alive again.

I am sitting alone
in front of the airport
trying to stop the tears
from falling as I watch
you walk away having told you
I would love you always.

We’re sitting alone
At our computer desks
Ten miles away from each other
You send me a message
Reminding me:
“Yo siempre tendria tiempo para ti”

I am sitting alone
In the coffee shop
Sipping on jasmine green tea
Tinged with the mild hope
That fate would bring you to meet me
But you never came.

August

There is an empty house
In the middle of nowhere
The only place we can belong.

There is a summer we never had
And another chance to be who
We are truly meant to be.

There is a warm night of silence
While the walls of the room
Witness the revival of beauty.

There is the faint light from
A candle illuminating our
Two shadows becoming one.

There is a silent devotion reserved
For our bodies as they speak the words
We can never say out loud to each other.

There is a sonnet on my lips
You read with yours and drink
The words that go unspoken.

There is a meadow of fireflies
Where nature smiles upon
The reunion of our souls.

There is a consistent aching
Infecting my lungs from breathing
in the air of your absence.

There is a certainty our love
Will always exist at least
In the paradox of oblivion.

There is the August we never had
And ten thousand years lived
Together in only these few nights.

There is an empty house
In the middle of nowhere
Waiting for us in August.

The Paradigm of Love

Plato’s forms capture the essence
Of an universal definition to
The concepts we want to believe
Have some consistency
Or at least exist.

Though dangerous to define what we believe
Through our individual experiences
When the world is constantly revolving
There’s an urgent sense of relativity
I cannot ignore when defining

Love.

Since you’ve left I’ve roamed
This land and a handful of men
And met many philosophies
To grace my speculative intellect
And keep me up at night.

Yet In every line of poetry,
Love story summarized in verse or film
One reoccurring redundancy
Captures my imagination each time
Your face appears in perfect

Paradigm.

There’s a paradox alive in this passion
How can there be such
Consistency in my relativity
And persistence of your memory
When deciphering the paradigm of

Love.

Myth

I leave the door unlocked
You silently enter, I pretend
Not to notice
Not to be surprised
But inside
I’m singing.

Our minutes are few
Usually dark with
Only a candle light
When the sun once
Shone everyday
Alive on our
Love.

We’re both uncertain
As we can never leave
This room together
What’s left of our time
Is exhibited once or twice
A month in the most
Innate ways.

And we settle
And accept futility
Lay down together
Where our minutes
Are filled with more
Life than 100 years
Of the commoner.

There is a rapture
Between our bodies
the antithesis of
The world outside
Yet our vernacular
Is spoken through
Our bodies’ embrace.

The night deepens
Our tides crest
A moment of deep breathing
To interrupt the still
Of our silence I desire
To tell you how I have
Loved you all along.

Our minute has passed
As the seasons change
I feel your arms around me
Once more before I lock
The door and wonder maybe
If our myth will last
Forever.