Why Why?

I'm not writing to change the world,
not even to change your mind or my mind;
I'm writing because the world changes me,
And maybe you are changing me, my mind.

I'm writing to be a drop of pigment
That you name a color and apply
Or not, to be a keyhole you look through,
I look through, or maybe even forget.

I'm not writing for you or for me,
I'm writing to you, sometimes to me.

Response to Rumi

I ask you to identify me,
To stabilize my existence in this shaky world,
The wave that carries me as I lose myself in the ocean.
You must know.

You are here.
What are you seeking?
We should look for that beyond what we once were,
Faceless, a pure light,
Like a free bird.
We fly now straight to nowhere.

The body imprisons us, a cage.
Come now,
Before you are seduced by love.

Med School Application (I)

Shall I say that I have climbed Mt. Everest and found a drug to end all drugs?

No, but lies are not a physician's trade. I want to master that which is known unwavering, the anatomy, the physiology, blood, bile.

Then, shall I say I am a leader of leaders, shaping houses with my bare hands, wiping tears away with my smile and tests with my concentration?

No, but the truth should not be twisted. I want to ask the perfect question, contemplate the right dose, the saline line, diamond-tipped needle.

I must say I am but a boy in a world of beasts, just a pair of eyes with a gleam, perhaps fingers that are nimble; I cannot say I am scared of the future.

I am scared of the future.

Totem Song

Will you leave me, you, the one?
You who tore down my faces and found
The totem, deep inside- The many-headed snake?
In India, he bound the heaven and earth,
And built the fire upon the sea,
For his master, his love,
Like your love that brought my high brow down
To your sweet woody earth, and I drank
The sweet waters of those rivers.
You the one, who I turned to when I feared,
When I love, when I saw the crimson fire lash out
To lay me down, out of my past to haunt me deep into the waters
We had bridges; but together, we swam like two dolphins under the ocean,
Fearing no sharks, all laid bare to our senses,
Each other to our sensitivities.
And I breathed into you as you breathed into me,
All the breath we shared was all the breath,
Finite in molecules. Us.

For Her

Your hand enfolds mine,
Heat transfers quickly between us,
Melts away my fears and our boundaries,
Back and forth.
We are one, no different.
We are the confluence of heaven and earth,
Red twilight setting over an endless ocean.

I press your face to my chest,
My heart beats after yours desperately,
Longingly. Inevitable like starlight
Twinkling that night we stood outside,
And nature was ours.
Dew collected on blades of grass,
Your eyes shone like the moon.

You kiss my lips slowly and surely,
Time speeds up, slows down, and stops.
I have no breath and no words.
You smell like the freedom of open sky,
Remind me of innocence spent climbing trees,
Reaching for the ripest fruit, the best of all.
I’ve found you.