Samasya Tapasya

Cold Feb night

Cold February night, there’s nothing to do but to sit here by an empty downtown and smell the scent of China and amber. Ambrosia, amnesia. It’s all quiet on the hood ’till one drunk screams to the unknown and the train scathes on by. The chill is colder when there’s a couple walking together without a purpose. It’d be better if they were alone and admitting to the fact that they want more. It’d be better if those walking alone could be normalized. It’d be better if the man that looks at a girl wants to take her home for the night. It’d be better if nothing was planned out in this town. If everyone could accept eachother’s extremes and chaos in real life, outside of the internet. If you could show how truly alone you are, we all are, by just being out there. Out of your room and not in some bar somewhere where no one knows your name. Out in happy town, funny town, nice town, where no one is really that annoying and everyone just wants to have fun. Why can’t we build candyland, why can’t we grow paradise. Spend all your money on a patch of desert land instead of for out there in space. Let’s just call it tinsel town without meat, dairy and murder. Let’s be simple and consistent from day one. Find your nightly lover in the only ugly man that walks by. Grab all your childhood merry friends and form a tinsel paradise. No need to go to lame couple dates with strangers when you have a community of cool grown kids. Make this quiet night a party town but ten times more nice, sweet, and funny. Not broken free from some restraint. None of that sadness, constraint, and push back. Just open, fun, and nice. Because that is who we are; nice. Because we are bound by simply and only love.

Sometimes it etches

Sometimes it etches
it can only come through certain means
a word that’s embedded in nonsense
in lines that aren’t continuous
in languages unspoken
body parts unseen

In flickers of candle lights at night
when one’s alone in the dark
in blistering pain, hunger
frustration, exhaustion, boredom
in the pain of a headache
when one wants to dance but one can’t in the right place and time
when one wants to dance but one can’t in the wrong place and time
when one wants to do a billion things
but one’s too small

I just feel you

L is not for the way you look at me
o is for everything that’s not me
woe is me
b is for everything beautiful outside of my realm
no need to search for it deep in my eyes
it takes a million years to get there, and to see it
hiding behind all this is beauty
behind the barricade of lips
that shut in silence
your measure from me is unmeasurable
a cacophony of nonsense that doesn’t take us anywhere
but to think of you
you exist
I feel you

Him: Perfection in a glass globe

She flung her foot on the table and peeled up her black mesh stockings. She looked at him under the misty lights with moist red lips, and casted her eyes down at him. He wished he could run his fingers through her soft blonde hair strands, but he was sitting down on the chair and she was too far up. He looked at her helplessly and thirstily as she prepped herself. His heart was beating out of his thin buttoned shirt. His crotch was pounding. All she had to do was exist. With one look at him, he was flying. With one touch, he would die. He reached his hand to try to touch her, but she was just too far away. He tried to sit up from slouching on his chair, but the gravity was too strong. He tried to whisper her a word, but his voice couldn’t come. He was helpless; helplessly bound, glaring, dreaming, and wondering at the existence of her. Wondering how he could intersect it with his. How he would have a family with her, grow with her, never look at anyone else,
and all the other impossible things. How it’d be possible; he’d promise her.
He closed his eyes and slid down a circular slide in his thoughts, sinking deeper and deeper into the unknown.
He panicked when he was all the way down and he tried to hold her, grab her, reach her.

That’s when he jolted from the chair that he was sitting on. He was in his living room and had been watching the window. It had been raining nonstop for days, and yet again that evening.

Him: Another night

Another night and yet again he thought about the wretched stripper that he loved who didn’t love him back. Her luscious hair, her sparkling eyes, the way she spun on the pole and walked with stride. The way she lifted her skirt and teased with her smile. The way she held his hand, to take money once in a while.

The way she hugged that teddy bear that she always wanted, when he had gifted it to her. Her childish dreams still in existence. Her flawless laughter when she laughed. Her deepest thoughts about her future plans when she had to think. When she tantalized men when she didn’t.

Series of rain at nights, in a row. When it poured it blocked her further from him. Stuck in his box of an apartment, looking out the window. ‘This massive block of glass, and an ocean of rain between us’ he thought.

‘It’s too good to be true they say’ he thought, ‘… to be with the one you want to be with. You settle with one that’s settled, but you never settle with the one you sore with.’ She flew with him in his mind, like Phoenix rising in the skies. Again and again her eyes cut through, separating the clouds among sunrises. Her hair lifted with the winds. She was big as the mountain. She was semitransparent with the vast skies. She existed in all the world around him, but never by his side. He cursed at whatever it was that was playing a game with his heart. He cursed at the moon and the stars; whatever they were that brought in loneliness at nights.

He remined listless on the sofa thinking about all the unfair things that he had to cope with. It was unfair that the concept of time, those sneaky stars, and that moon messed with his heart. It was unfair that the world was drenched in rain outside while he sunk without a good reason to hold onto something. ‘Her,’ she was that one reason, somehow. So subtle, and so inconsistent. she, hiding in and out of his life. Him, being pulled by a thin string that no one else could see. ‘It must be madness, or a curse, or a drug. Yet if not this, then what else is there to live for?’ he thought.

He shook his head and his vision refocused to watch the rain hit his window. He could call the sex hotline, get it finished for the night, and wake up the next morning. Instead, a random thought of him doing it with a girl for the first time in middle school came to his mind. It was under the bleachers, and it was an experiment for both the girl and him. He was so nervous yet so excited at the same time. He didn’t think of anything else but doing it. And when he did it, he didn’t think of anything else but it. When he was done, he was done. They awkwardly pulled their pants up and went home separately. He barely spoke to her the next day at school. She barely seemed to care a year down the road. ‘Why couldn’t that be it? Isn’t that it, ultimately?’ he thought.

Him: He thought and thought

He couldn’t go to sleep the next night either. It was two consecutive days of feeling frantic. He looked outside his cage-like apartment window, and he couldn’t figure out why he was feeling that way. Was it because he was existing, yet no one was aware of it?
Dying each day, yet no one was documenting it?
Whether he lived or died, who else cared but himself? Would she care? She was the stripper that he loved whom others probably loved as well.
‘Probably for a short time,’ he thought. He sat down on his sofa in dismay. He essentially had nothing to feel excited about. His thoughts were sporadic. He knew he was wasting his time just sitting down on the sofa, but there was nothing else to do. He couldn’t sleep, he didn’t want to exercise, he didn’t want to eat. ‘Just sporadic thoughts is what it is’ he thought to himself.

Among one was a memory of a time he had made out with a girl on a sofa. It was old, ugly, and dirty; the couch was. It was brown and it had patterned fabric linings. He even remembered the carpet in front of him. The television set was old and clunky, like back in the day. It was daylight, and the curtains were drawn. The television was playing sports. He could remember every detail about the place, but not the girl. ‘Maybe she wasn’t important’ he thought to himself. ‘Wait, I actually despised her’ he remembered. She was the one who initiated the first kiss. He was taken aback by that, and her. It was a short-term affair that didn’t go anywhere. One, among countless affairs he has had. It would have been hard to remember all of that.

He went to the bathroom and brushed and flossed his teeth. He then looked at himself in the mirror. He wondered how he managed to do all that. He saw a man with stubble on his face and few grey hairs. He also had bags underneath his eyes. He turned off the light and walked out. He planned to lay on the bed in the dark until he fell asleep. He tried thinking about her, the stripper whom who loved, but it just made things more frustrating. The real solution was ‘complexity.’ ‘To think and to over think, until one became tried and able to drift to sleep without knowledge’ he thought. So he thought and thought, and thought.

Him: Moonlights and touch

‘How can I live without you’ he thought while envisioning the stripper that he loved.
He replayed the conversation they had a couple of nights ago and the many conversations before that. It was all a blur. What stuck to him was how they made him feel, and what he felt was that he needed her.
Like water.
He went to the kitchen sink and poured himself a glass of water. He drank it all at once, then placed it down on the counter. He glanced at the glass and marveled at its intricate structure. He wondered who decided that such a fragile beautiful thing would be functional.

Like her; she was meant to be marveled at. He closed his eyes and imagined her walking down the stage in glassy high heels. His body thumped in different places.

He looked out the window and the rain was drizzling down the glass. ‘Pouring around the world is it’ he spoke nonsense to himself. Now that he was living alone without a useless roommate, he noticed that he was talking to himself more. It was much better talking to her. Sometimes they would sit near the stage where she performed and just talk. Mostly she talked, and mostly he was hooked on her.

Hooked by her every word. No matter how nonsense they were. Or mundane. Hooked by even those silences where she hesitated to speak. He could read through that.

She didn’t want to be close.

But it was too late, because she liked to talk and he liked to listen to her. Now they were hooked. She was hooked, and he was hooked. For their own benefit, or for misery.

Misery surely for him; for he wanted her. He was the one waiting for her, not the other way around. One word of ‘yes’ from her, and everything in his life would make sense. ‘But when?’ he wondered. ‘Oh that’s right, never’ he thought again. He walked to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, ‘Where is she, and where am I…” he thought. He looked at the spider in the corner who’s made it it’s home. ‘Even a spider is more content,’ he thought.

He decided to not do much that night. While everybody was in deep sleep, he was still up. He thought about quitting his nightly sandwich job so that he could see sunrises in the mornings. He slept through most and felt bad about it.

He thought about writing a song or playing an instrument, but the television was easier to turn on. He flipped through a few channels and stopped on one where gorgeous women posed for money in dating advertisements. Then he switched again and landed on a channel that showed a city at night. The actors were walking around trying to solve a case, and he could see the moon above the city sky scraper. He looked outside his own window and saw the partial moon covered by heavy clouds. It was so beautiful. He imaged standing in front of a gorgeous sunrise that flooded with warm colors. It would have been so gorgeous; he would have played with himself. Instead, it and the moon outside his window. He called her name, gazed at the weak beauty of the moonlight from his couch, and jacked himself off.
‘Fuck!’ he screamed to himself afterwards. He imagined the sound reverberate outside the glass window of his living room.

Rooftop lovin

You took me there again

we fell in love on the rooftop, again

I rediscovered you
again

I let it out again

overflow

the look in your eyes

overflow

our hearts speak of love

overflow
flowering
captivating
energizing
loving
seducing
tantalizing
aching
breaking
fucking
for what it’s all worth

fking with you for days long gone
asking for more again
for a long long time

Hug you, adore you

Adore you
hug you; nothing more, nothing less
feel me feel you
warmth and doubt
love and loss
wounds and healing
hurt and feelings

In a dream I had
hug you
adore you

I wouldn’t dream about you

I wouldn’t dream about you
had you not come
euphoria about you
there in your lines
words entwine
they give in so much about who you are
I couldn’t deny them
believe me (my love)
when I don’t say much
I say a whole lot
please excuse this complex…
matter of where things are

If you weren’t there
I wouldn’t dream about you

Both of us lost

Words come
when the winds come
and trace their fingertips
up and down your skin

when the spell of dry
gets quenched by the gulp of your tap water
when words form and dont say a thing
but those feelings spun by the heart etch themselves in writing

amid the desolate desert of life
where no flowers thrive
where there’s no rain
but the sun and the night, and then the sun
in this cycle, you come in and make a phone call
reload the gun
unleash the cascade of flooded waters
pierce the skin with thorns

and then the night comes
and then the next day
traveling through this unknown; time
both of us lost

Thanks for teaching me a thing or two about love

Discovered at a young age
for whatever it may
for your real words
and your presence
for me being me
for all being all

Him: Arm’s length

He and the stripper were sitting across from each other at the table next week.
“Can we be close to each other without being lovers”? she asked him.
“Well, is there something to talk about?” He asked her.
“Some things specifically” she said.
“Like…?”
“Like the theory of relativity.”
“I don’t know about that” he said as he looked away.
“It’s how everything’s relative, and it impacts us in every aspect of life” she said.
“Where’d you learn that?” he asked.
“I didn’t. I just assumed it” she said.
“Are we getting any more close right now? he asked her.
“Further, because you’re not sticking to the topic” she said.
“You standing there dancing on your pole, your mass is relatively distant from me. But relative to my emotions, that distance brings you closer to me” he said.
“Good, we’re getting closer now” she smiled.
“How much closer?” he stared into her eyes.
“An arm’s length” she said from across the table.

Caress you

I want to caress you
is that fine?
Trace my fingers across your warm skin
lift your shirt
trace some more
looking at your eyes
letting my heart talk and pour out

I wanna heal you
is that all right?

Lost in the sea of your warm eyes
a slow sweet demise
fit
complete

I wanna hold you
is that ok?
And look nowhere else but in you
smile, ever so subtly, please
speak, ever so softly, please
pout, ever so rawly, please

Do you want to make love?
oh, so, deeply
promise me yes…
yes, yes

International bright lights

International bright lights
opportunities fly
unknown wishes coming true
unknown where I’m at

‘I love you too’

‘I love you too’
the somebody said to thin air

I gotta save all the animals

It’s desperate, no one’s doing it. There’s calves in Switzerland with spikes on their noses so that they don’t drink their mother’s milk.
There’s people who pet and hug cows yet order their limbs for meal every night. Traitors.
There’s cows in Switzerland walking in beautiful hills, forming a normal life, but any day any one of them could be picked for murder.
The unruly muscular bull probably gets picked to die. Maybe the butchers hate his attitude. The unruly ones are easier to kill because you feel less guilty.
Are we humans or are we evil…

There’s pigs spilling off transport trucks that crash while taking them to slaughter factories. Wild ducks being caged.

Spiders being squashed out of someone’s amusement.

Street dogs being poisoned.

Wild animals being burned alive in agricultural fires and wildfires in the Americas.

There’s people who love animals eating and abusing them.

Foxes whose habits are being destroyed due to new constuctions.

Animals have nobody! The situation is dire and no one’s doing anything. I can’t sit here and be helpless all night. I’m gonna be their superhero, I gotta save them now.

They don’t have anyone that truly cares.

I gotta save them.

An American dream

Picture this:
lights underneath the night sky
from the airplane;
they dim and light to the sound of guitar riffs
there’s men, so far away
who knew it’d be you
curly dark hair
eyes that glare and don’t speak
the smile that lights up streets

Love for everyone

You sitting, surrounding yourself by the fireworks
the love in his embrace
the bighorn’s silent thoughts
that is all I need
the look in Twinked eyes
Jet inquisitiveness

Becomes human

Wanting to be close to you
and to be afraid of being close
the gates to your castle
wide open for the waves to come in
you’re too intelligent, too complex,
too boring
yet too social
to not to hear you;
like thirst
give me too much
to the point I just want it
these are the concerns you have
when a study subject
becomes human

Tainted beach

The places where we swam,
submerged and destroyed in water
the smell of unsettling drown

sunscreens gone rancid

music no longer gives feeling

you’re back to being a stranger

our dreams
incoherence

Him: With her

“Your story’s good” she said while blowing her cigarette up in air at the table with him.

Across the table, he dipped his fries into the ketchup then ate it. She wouldn’t have believed that the only story that ever mattered to him was the one with her in it.

‘Hell, I don’t even need to be in it’ he thought as he gazed at her. She wasn’t just the stripper whom he loved who didn’t love him back; she was the last ever love of his life.

“It’s whatever” he said disinterested as he dipped a fry in the ketchup.

“Oh I’d die for a story like that” she smiled with her eyes closed as she faced the ceiling. Seeing her smile almost made his heart skip. “Being picked up at my childhood home…” she said, “The guy asking my father if he could let me go on a date. Falling in love underneath the stars after the dance. You had such a typical, classic, sweet experience” she said with a pause, “That I never had…” she continued.

“It’s not that exciting” he dipped another fry into the ketchup.

“Oh it’s grand” she said as her eyes lit up, “How lucky you were to go on a date with her. I would have taken hours to get ready. I would have worn the most perfect gown. I would have laughed and danced with my date at the school dance and then we’d kiss underneath the stars afterwards. I would have gone to sleep that night smiling at the thought of falling in love. I’d go on more dates, get to know him better, he’d propose to me in a year or two, we’d have a lavish wedding blessed by our respective families, we’d grow old and happy together.”

His face turned red as he chewed his fry. He looked up at her and saw her smiling with her eyes closed as she talked gibberish.

“It’s not too late, you know” he told her, “Those things are possible.”

“But it’s not possible” she tried to convince him, “I don’t know my father. I didn’t grow up in a house. I’m old. I never finished high school. I never went to a dance. No parent would ever give their child a blessing to be with me. I have too many conditions to grow happy and old.”

“We could have it our own way” he said to himself.

“But there’s got to be no other way” she responded upon hearing him.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I want it that way” she said with a broken heart. She got up and left the table to go back to work. He watched her glittery skirt move while she stepped up the stairs to get to the stage. He would have given her everything she wanted. He would have given up on all his memories of love, first love or whatever it may have been, if he could have the last with her.

The strange place that you’re from

I don’t know what you’re made of
it’s so far away, strange, and foreign
I don’t know if you’re a friend or a foe
but maybe we’re friends
at least it appears that way
but within this facade
is there anything more?
are you a mirage
time untracked
a place never known
the people in it, strange

I could go there with you
take me there
to this mirage
this place where I’ve never been

Him: She wanted a teddy bear

She wanted a teddy bear. She drove him wild. She was the stripper whom he loved, who didn’t love him back. He recalled a story she told him about a time when she really wished for a new teddy bear, but her single mother couldn’t afford one. Now that he was making money selling sandwiches, he thought about how he could be her knight in shining armor. He’d do everything he could to get her the teddy bear she always wanted. He’d get her the biggest softest one there is. He’d go to the end of the world for it. He went to various shops to find the one for her.

He got her the biggest softest teddy bear there was. She was dancing on the pole that night when he walked in and told her that he had a gift for her in his car. She told him she’d meet him during her break. He waited and watched her do her job. He was in love.

He asked her to close her eyes as they stood before his old car. He then told her to open her eyes while he held the teddy bear.

“Surprise!” he said, “Who’s cuter, me or the teddy bear?” he asked as he smiled.

She smiled back, “You ARE a teddy bear” she said. She then ruffled his hair like that of a kid’s before taking it from him. She hugged it tightly, “You’re so sweet” she said, “So random and so sweet.”

“Anything for you” he said. Along with the gift, he also gave her a little romantic card that contained his contact information. He wanted to make sure that she could contact him anytime; and he hoped that one day she would.

“Thank you, sweetheart” she said as she smiled and touched his cheek. She told him she was going to put it in her car now and go back to work. Inside, she’d do some more pole working on her scantily dressed body for money.

“Don’t work too hard” he told her.

“Why, teddy’s got me?”

“Teddy’s got you all day and all night long” he said.

“Can’t do that with a teddy” She chuckled and walked inside. He smiled in the dark for a moment in his own delusion before he headed out.

Him: I just needed to talk

He dialed the hot girl hotline. He fumbled through the steps for payment. “Hello…” a seductive voice answered.
“Hi” he said, “I just needed to talk” and he broke down and cried.

Typically, he would have gone to the familiar strip club and attempt to talk to the girl he loved. However, she only made herself available when she wanted. The rest of the girls there hardly ever wanted to talk either.

“Can I talk to you for a long time?” he asked in desperation.
“As long as you want honey” the deep womanly voice responded.
“My dog died” he blurted out with a cracked voice. That was a lie. He was actually alone, sad, and pathetic.
“Oh I’m sorry honey” the deep womanly voice said with an even gentle tone, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Be there for me” he whimpered. He looked at himself in the mirror. He had dark hair and his facial hairs was graying and needed trimming. His shirt was unkempt. He looked darker than normal in low light. Through the reflection from the window on the side of his face, he could see a tear mark below his eye.
“I’m there for you honey” she said.
“Thanks” he sobbed. He kept sobbing as she kept silent. When his sobbing subsided, there was more silence. “What’s your name?” he finally managed to ask.
“Selena” she answered.
“What are you wearing?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Can I touch you everywhere?”
“You can touch me anywhere honey.”
He then asked if he could touch her in her sensitive areas, to which she willingly responded ‘yes.’
“Can I make love to you front ways and back ways?”
“Oh yes honey yes” She responded.
He then asked her if he could make love to her in many other ways, to which she responded with a ‘yes oh yes.’
They made heavy sounds. They made petting sounds. They giggled. He cried.
“Selena I think I love you. Would you live with me forever for as long as I like?”
“Oh yes honey” she responded.
“Selena I love you” he confirmed.
“I love you too” she validated.
“Selena, let me give you my address and you come down here. I’ll take you around, we’ll go places. My room’s closet-sized and tiny, but I also have a living room with a window, and it’ll be my own once my roommate leaves. He’s leaving soon because I’m kicking him out since he only does drugs and doesn’t pay rent. I can manage the payment because I have a sandwich job, but just barely. I know that’s confusing, but I manage sandwiches. I got promoted. I used to distribute but that almost killed me. Long story, will tell you all about it…”
“Hello…? Hello?” She responded on the other line.
“Hello? Selena can you hear me?” he asked eagerly.
“Hello? I can’t hear you…” her voice trailed off and then he heard even silence.
“Hello? Selena are you there? Selena?” he asked again. He heard no response. “Selena?” he asked again but still got no response.

After the call dropped, he went through the hassle of paying for the service again and called one more time. When it was received, he immediately asked “Hello, Selena?”
“Hi honey” the woman responded.
“Selena! My Selena?” he asked laughingly.
“It’s Tulip” the woman responded.
“Where’s Selena?” he inquired.
“I don’t know, but I’m ready for you honey” the deep womanly voice said.

It felt like the loneliness of a bar in broad daylight, the imperfections of a club room when the lights turned on, and the emptiness of bass beats when there were no one dancing. He felt just as empty and unmotivated; just as quiet and unfulfilled. He hung up.