it's after 2 am...well, almost

try to pen verse.

then prose.

and then backspace

on the digital spaces

that thoughts

poetry

dreams

all the noise

that this life 

is, will be -

have come to 

become

numbly

but blaring

voices of truth

try dispensing

what they think

is life-altering

advice, or maybe

it's just nostalgia.

maybe

the five-lettered name

that I call myself

has now come 

to stand on

the outside.

maybe his fingers

can trace

fogged bathroom mirrors

or windshields

without remembering

the bends of those syllables.

come on.

it's just a couple of them

anyway.

and here you are -

beating yourself

with your demons

and cheap liquor

at least sit

with seasoned wine

and have a glass

seated across

the devil.

it's only done.

I hunt around

for inspiration

in words that 

are being penned

every now and then

across the Atlantic.

speaking of the Atlantic

do you ever think 

of stories

that could have been?

of hands that

were too close

and then too far away

all at once.

cry freedom

cry freedom

he would say

with the corner 

of his lips

and his fingertips

when silences around

you both

would strain to engulf 

the otherwise merry songs

bursting forth in your

hearts.

oh how I long

to tell those crooked

eyebrows

that I miss the stupid gaze

underneath

and the way those eyes

would crinkle

everytime I made them

laugh.

one two three million

maybe we're all

on our own journey.

maybe my street is

never going to be yours

and my fruit vendor

who fancies 

people call him

"Two Brothers"

will never make you chuckle.

or maybe there is

a grand plan

or a cosmos

that we're all a part of.

who's to say - 

our stories are our own.

are we canvas.

or the brush?

I'd like to think

of myself 

as both. 

the painter and

the paintee.

however - what if 

I was intent on painting

your hairline

onto my story.

the tense seems

to have changed

and I will have to evoke

whirlwinds

to really know.

backpacking

to be a 

nomad.

have a soul

which has its bags

packed at all times

how many

skylines

has my poetry

twisted into its

own words,

flown along with

the Thames

and Seine

in equal measure

using wilderness

as an excuse for

the lack of

punctuation

and intertwined fingers

as a canvas for

syntax.

the number of 

dreams

lost between sheets

and pillows

of hotels

whose names

I find hard

to remember

the heart used to have a home.

flung across oceans

and distanced

by barbed wires

of warring communities.

wars are no longer

external.

I could use

my fingertips

to count

the words

traced along

my waist

after love felt

sleepy.

and the heart felt

full.

this -

before the vagaries

of time and space

hollowed it out

left it thinking

of better times

and if they were even

real.

Uppercase

I heard a friend
complain
complain about work
and the pitfalls
of too much exercise

And I think
how running too much
and then stopping
to catch your breath
can be anything
other than a cause for poetry
juxtaposed with
a pink sky
which is soon going to transcend
into an inky one
one where fireflies
call out
to one another
hoping far across the globe
and the atlantic
a mate would hear
their longing

This planet is spinning
too fast for us
to be on our feet
and stand too
and human emotions
caught in time's hair
to be free
free from fear
and explode out
like his voice
when he laughs

Laughter
that is becoming
a little too intermittent
and laugh lines
a little too faded
against rain and sun

Here,
all I see
are clouds.

names that can't be pronounced

i believe you need to be in love to write poetry.
you need to be in love to appreciate poetry
and to think about it later on
even if your computer shows new IMs
or your phone new messages

i believe you need your dog to fall asleep
to look at him with your heart full
and a-gush
(i believe you need your dog to fall asleep
to coin words such as a-gush)

i believe distance breaks
as it is breaking right now

i believe age should never come between people
and neither should circumstances
it makes me want to tip the world
upside down
and send the water of rivers
flowing from deltas to
the highest tip of melting glaciers

i believe people need to feel so alone
that they finally feel complete

i believe it is important sometimes
to believe in the power of divinity
external to oneself

i believe late nights
cause melancholy

WC1E 6BT

there will be

letters and alphabets

in my post code

instead of a usual

106

and a dark passion

post 3 pm

no longer a norm

in this moment

all the wanderlust

fairy dust

globe trotting

an attempt to keep things

safe and warm

inside myself

is flashing itself

shot by shot

one reel 

after another

another 80's film

everybody i know

is tucking their

favourite picture

from some forgotten

and very drunk party

and a phone call

doesn't seem enough

there won't be

unending hours

on swings

or digging into

layered mousse

that mousse 

will be found again

by children

who will grow up

and leave too

and the ajc flyover

will once again

lay dusty and unused

we just crossed the threshold

dark bitter chocolate
hazy moments
through hazy eyes

roots
uprooted
and the earth
scattered
into abysses of
transatlantism

conversations
and laughs
emanating like smoke
now lost into
anonymity

when we leave
globetrotting our ways
into life
attempts to backtrack
and trace back home
will get feeble

in a bullet proof vest
with the windows all closed
i'll be doing my best
and i'll see you soon

The last eight weeks

The last time I hugged a building's walls and cried took me fourteen years of childhood and attachment to get there.

This time it's taken me three.

Walls have gone from yellow to blue, uniforms disappeared and laughs become louder.

Hugs are more generous. And you'd find happiness and despair in abundance.

Right now for instance, I dunno what emotion I'm, well, emoting.

A whirlwind in three years, from people to alcohol stories to heartbreak. I've spent three years in the same corridors, with the same people, gone from eighteen to twenty one, yet I'm getting out of this place three years younger. With a hundred less judgements and a million less rigidities.

So for all the friends you've given me, the countless good lunch breaks, the gazillion odd lunches here and there, and the way you've shown me this city - thank you Jabier's. For the passive smoking and the good conversations, kudos to you, Back Gate. I'll forever be indebted to you.

I leave, forever to return to you. Nothing beyond.

fireflies

fireflies

is where I started this journey

it was in a jar that

lights began twinkling

and it is now

almost an age later

that I drive through

under fireflies

which mark the moment

as the best part of the evening

one spent with friends

and deafening beats

but distance is what

creeps in

when you're not there

despite being there

distance creeps in

when your love hasn't

been yours

in as long as you remember

distance creeps in

when you haven't had a moment to

pause

to ponder

or just to do nothing

nothing at all