1. "Dear Sylvia" - an ode to Sylvia Plath and a reflection of the similarities that she and I share.

Dear Sylvia,
I know how it felt
To drown in your own skin,
To have your own heart throw a coup
Against the rationales of the mind.

I know what it is like
To feel nothing
And everything.

I know how it feels
To want to look into the mouth of hell
And to kiss it,
Inhale all its horrors
If that meant to quiet the chaos within.

Dear Sylvia
Dear Sylvia
I know your heart
Because it is mine.

Dear Sylvia
Dear Sylvia
I taste your tears
I kiss your wounds
They taste of familiarity
For they are my own.

- Dear Sylvia, I am sorry the world failed you.

2. "Some Days It's Hard to Write" - a piece I wrote during a particular terrible writer's block period

Some days it is hard to write,
Hard to let my heart take control
And spit fire onto a blank page
Because I am afraid
Afraid of all that I will see
In the aftermath
When the flame fades away
And the blood is left to read
I am afraid
Afraid of what it will tell me
Of what it says about you
And all other lovers who
Carelessly wandered through
The vast ocean that is my heart
Some days, it is hard to write
For I am afraid
That my heart is still pained by you

3. "Memory is a Sadistic Fiend" - a piece about overcoming the pains of memories of a loved one, particularly a significant other, gone.

my bones sting at the memory of your caress,
my heart aches at the memory of your kiss.
memory is a sadistic fiend,
one minute, you seem lost in time
and in another, it’s like you are beside me again, but you are a ghost,
the ghost of who we were, who you were
and who I was…

memory sticks her knife in me and rips the flesh,
stretches the veins, and sees how much she could make me bleed,
make me cry
and for a long time, she succeeded;
my agony was too much to bear,
I felt as if she would never let me go.

but from the bloody mess of her grip
I rise, I rise,
like a phoenix I shed the ashes of the past
and fly,
memory can’t harm me anymore,
my heart is too strong,
and you are no more.

-Memory is a sadistic fiend, but I will rise above.

4. "The Sacraments" - about a couple years old; I wrote this for a biblical/mythology tumblr

we read sacraments about a sacrifice that transcends all our earthly pleasures; we bow our heads in shame towards a god who sits on a throne so far away, listening idly to our anguish.

we walk down a serpentine path carved by Adam and Eve and all that they have done to us; we swim a bloody ocean that Christ wept for us; we waltz through an icy hell in which Lucifer laments eternally.

is this where our love comes to die? Does it, too, like Christ, become a martyr for a heavenly revolution that will only end in destruction, shame and worthlessness? Is this where our love becomes a weapon to a god who doesn’t give a damn? Is this the crossroad that Dante once stumbled upon many scores ago?

I feel the devils, and I hear the angels— I see God and his eternal indifference and I feel my heart burst into flames; for how can you walk through an oblivious dream and not once look into the eyes of a soul longing to be saved?

The church never felt so cold; my heart so empty. I walk away, crushing the rose with my hands and not caring for the blood left in the wake; for my blood is a reminder of all that I have lost.

- the sacraments have lied to us

5. "History Bleeds" - another oldie, written around the same time as "The Sacraments"

history bleeds
there is no doubt in that
it is a river
that keeps on moving
with or without you.

history bleeds
it is continuous
no story is ever
truly done; only lives
but legacies live eternally

history bleeds
it is a heartbeat
we hear it in our own
an echo we hear
in the abandoned shrines
and skeletons
of empires old.

- HISTORY BLEEDS