If I could only
Do it all over again
I'd choose a world without 
'I told you so'
And the cycle of violence. 
I'd choose a world that has no feuds
No wars no hate no despair
In this chosen world, 
Parents send their kids to school
And no gunman awaits them
No news story again
That breaks our hearts.
In this chosen world,
No child goes unloved
No child goes wounded 
Just to wound others like him
In this chosen world,
There'd be no weapons
And most importantly: 
NO NEED for weapons.
In this chosen world,
​The words 'Active Shooter'
Wouldn't mean a thing.

If I could only
Do it all over again.

Do butterflies know how beautiful they are? 
When they flaunt their colors up in the air
When they dance, float, fly
Do they know -
How us mere humans see them?
How envious we are of their freedom?
How curious we are of their lightness?
Nothing weighs on those fairies 
It seems 
Nothing sticks 
And hurts
And troubles
Their little fragile hearts.

To be a human
is to wonder 
What it is like to be 
a butterfly.
***

I wish I knew 
How to love backwards.
To start from full trust 
And end on curiosity. 
Because a flower that lost its smell
Is like love gone 
Faded into memory 
​Into the dream that never happened.
They say not to fall in love with potential
But potential is all we ever fall for 
On the ground, we cannot fall nowhere
So we run towards cliffs 
And let our hearts break open
And break apart.
Oh, how I wish love would be backwards
After all, even to the tallest cliff -
One must climb first.  
And for the biggest love
One must stand tall,
And never fall, and never fall. 

The changing of the tides.
How swift. How gentle. How lonely that is. 
A life passed in an instant.
A moment and it all changes, and life's gone. 
Borrowed time is the only time we exist in.
So fickle. So fleeting. So sparse. 
And us - the living ones?
We watch as the tides change.
We cry with the coming waves.
We whisper our goodbyes to our loved ones.
From now on, they will be nothing but memories, stored in the fleeting corners of our minds. They'll visit in our dreams, they'll haunt us in our thoughts, and mostly - they'll take shelter in our hearts; always pressing on, reminding us to keep on beating on. Despite the sorrow. Despite the loneliness. Despite the loss.

Death is nothing but a mirror.
A mirror that starts off clear and resonating.
With time - it fogs up.
And when it doesn't hold the weight of the fog any longer - it breaks. 

When the tides change, let them go. You will go with them one day.
​And you also will be nothing but a memory. 

When I die
Please bury me in nostalgia:
The 80s in all their charm
And the idiocy of the 90s
Give me some never ending stories
And controversial Madonna concerts
Feed me pesticides 
And fast food 
And leave trolls at my gravesite
Dress me in leather
The kind that vegans hate
But hey - it is the past
And vegans have their future anyways 
Let me have nostalgia 
Of days before the world vanished 
Before the nothing took over 
And killed our hopes and dreams 
Before the world war
And astronomical gas prices
And one little virus 
That united us all 
And divided us all
Before the death of rock and roll
And the radio 
And romcoms in the movie theatre
Let me have the world before superheroes
And villains 
Just Wall Street 
And nasty racism
And cold wars
Before climate change 
Made them all meaningless
Made us all meaningless
When I die
Please bury me in nostalgia 
And keep me there 
So old men can sexually harass me
Call me sweetie, honey, sugar
And no me too to cancel them yet 
And keep me there
At the age of innocence
Before it all fell apart
Or some would say 
Before we all came together 
To mend the pieces of our broken hearts 
And build a global world 
Where pain has to hurt before it can heal.
​

Poets are the fools among us.
They're the fools dressed up in some fancy attire, oozing with complexity, melancholy and barren of punctuation. They're the musicians of the art of speaking, they are the melody in the no-melody, they are the sad clowns, the melancholic introverts, the lovers of the language of the soul.
But really - they are the fools among us.
And being a true fool is a rebellious act of bravery.
Why brave? Because other than bearing their souls in the punctuation-less, raw, exposed art of language, poets have to face judgments from the emotion guards of the world; the ones who roll their eyes on anything too 'sappy', the ones who are sarcastic, cynical, dry, too good for poetry. The ones who simply don't get it. And don't we all rather guard our feelings and not 'get it' every once in a while? Yes, yes we all do sometimes.
But other times, when we are alone after a break up, or dealing with a tragic loss of a loved one, or experiencing life at its most fragile or most epic: we seek the words to express the times. We seek the language of the soul. We seek poetry. And poets are always there, in the shadows, waiting for the spot light to shine on them.
That's is the true gift of the fool: to be there for the moments when they are needed the most. The real moments. The private moments. The moments that brings us closer to our souls. To be there despite the laughs. To be there knowing that behind the laugh, the judgment, the eye roll - there is a soul longing to be heard. There is a human being aching to feel. There is connection waiting to happen. 

Love
Isn't some mystery
Set on a cloud
Told in a fairy tale 
Or written about in a poem
Love
Is as human as the body 
When it curves
And touches
And hurts
And seeks pleasure
Love 
Isn't just a word
It's not
Just a feeling
Or an action
It's all of it
Love
Needs no language 
Because it's prior to language
Don't be fooled
By the four letters adorning
Love
Like an armor.
She doesn't need any
She is peaceful with what she is
She is grounded
She is... love.
Love 
Is something I can't explain
And sometimes I don't feel
But when I do
When I do
It is something 
I very much
Very much
LOVE.