on aliens and cream borders: a haibun

Piet Mondrian, ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43, moma.org More than a year I have been living inside this box with no divisions. Cream borders keep me company without judging my daily dancing alone and my full-hearted concerts on my own. Identical squared-rooms from my right and left stood the same size as mine.  The closest left

if only my blanket can speak

rarely do i dream, or perhaps remember my private drama series playing under the consciousness i can not deliberately reach, though when i was able to grasp some bits of pieces of an already fading mid- night memory it will always involve a plane crash- ing (with full hollywood exaggerated effects of giant smoke and

love in the time of coronavirus

Our love in the time of coronavirus is thousands of miles away, my tourist visa got cancelled before it sees the light of another Indian day, his feet are planted, prohibited to fly to Malaysia’s sky, because it is safer that way, in the end, perhaps, nation gates are needed to be locked to keep

variations of the word uprooting

as a toddler these chubby set of tiny toes were buried in brown cake of forest’s earth, as the plump fingers reach out for blood-red wild berries, as a student these leather-covered soles wandered through cemented schools, universities, as the mind gulps data after data, oh so, committedly, as a two-decade lady these desperate feet

counting poems before and after him

thousand poems have i written ‘fore fate allowed me to meet him, oh, how in hush heart- beats, low key hums, dearness draws near me towards him, oh, how my shy muse sings hymns, so sweetly since i knew him, oh, how rhymes roll off in rivulets, thousands and more poems now for him. —

of bushes and spilt seeds

and so we thought we are just writing a silly tale of the blue bloom and the honey-hungry bee and so we I mean I wrote with sprinkled dusts of jealousy while you vowed to love me the flower only and so we let the days fall like leaves of autumn so bloody until December

before you

But you arrived with the blushing sunset, you clothed me with shared bravery. As we heal, hand in hand with the balm of every tomorrow’s morning dew,  let me tell you, I didn’t know this heart, this heart could carry this much love before you. r. c. gonzales – roy | page 31 of Poems

excerpt 4: the vow

I love how you made me brave. Like a spineless caterpillar you turned me into this brave but still soft butterfly, flying from one milestone to another because I know you always got my back.  And I love you for choosing to break out of your shell to choose me. For your bravery to choose

for you: a zejel*

To you, who will hold my dear heart with its hidden, broken sharp parts, for you, dear, I write this word art. Love’s a known sea I did explore. Yes, I have loved some hims before. Yet I know for us it’ll be much more. Let’s wait until our story starts. For now, let me

Crossing (Her) Bridge

Sweaty, cold hands grip the cold rails, agonized eyes stare at her almost fading trails– footprints of all she has done, mud piles of all her missed fun, holed-patches of all she has lost, unturned stones of her dreams still at frost. Waiting lungs heave one deep, deep breath, shaky foot finally decided to take its