PavementGardenersAndConcreteRoses

She is a rose growing in the concrete.
Eyelashes like petals burdened by morning dew
And she inhales her family’s indifference
And negligence like smog.
But you can see the suffering buried in her smile
Her sadness playing hide and seek in her dimples
And the tension in her roots.

She is a jigsaw puzzle love song
Searching for pieces in all the wrong places
To a melody of falling teardrops
And a heart breaking one too many times
For the exact same reasons when you gave him everything.
To the whispers of broken butterflies left in her stomach
With a muted chorus of her private reassurances
And a bass line of her footsteps
When she learned to move on.

But there’s something inside of her
That knows all of it is worth fighting for.

She survives on sunshine
Knowing it doesn’t come too often.
And the grey skies always find ways
To intrude on her happiness.

And when everything is dry
She lifts up her eyes to embrace the rain
So no one can tell she was crying.
Too often, her closest friend is a cold shoulder
So she packs tears and regrets in the bags underneath her eyes
Already saturated to the brim with mistakes
And leaves for a vacation she’s taken too many times.
But I never had the luxury of not caring…

On my good days
She unpacks her thoughts onto my lap like she knows
I’m the only one that will handle them with gentle fingers.

But sometimes a new day is the best she can hope for.
So she unzips her eyelids to greet the sun
And I do my best to make her laugh.
Until destiny and fate crawl into the conversation
With words that are too heavy for our tongues to say
Because we realize that they’re just not good enough
.
She treats compliments like a foreign language
And her self-esteem wilts
While her confidence
Falls faster than her respect for her father
When she thought it couldn’t get any lower.

Her thorns are turning dull
From being called to action too many times
When they act like “No.” is not an option.
The stems of her legs are getting weaker
From the weight of their judgments on her fragile frame
And she looks at me like it’s been way too long
That someone has looked at her with nothing
But sincerity and acceptance from the start.

But if everything turned dry
And the sun refused to leave its covers
I would cry just so you could drink the tears from my eyes.
And survive to see the blue skies again.
Wishing I could put you on display
So everyone can realize what you really are.

A rose…growing in the concrete

IWantToBeAPoet

Hi. I’m Marcus and I…want to be a poet.
And I know what some of you are thinking.
“But Marcus! You’re a great poet.”…Really?
You telling me I’m a good poet is like me telling you, you’re beautiful.
You wouldn’t believe me either.
And that’s one of the reasons I want to be a poet.
I want to be able to tell you you’re beautiful in a way that would make you believe it yourself. But I don’t want to be your typical Romeo. I want to be that insensitive asshole that will tell you everything you don’t want to hear but still convince you that you’re pretty.

I want to tell you when the hair on your legs is getting spiky and out of hand. That when that happens, it reminds me of a hedgehog or a porcupine. The cutest little thing protecting itself from all the assholes out there that would complain, or make fun of you about it. Or like the thorns on the stem of a rose…

I want to tell you that all the make up you have on your face makes you look like a complete whore. Or a mime. Because I would think you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever met in just sweats and a ponytail. That I like your face on its own…like a biscuit from Popeyes…or just through a conversation on the phone without your voice being weighed down by Sephora products. I don’t even think that’s possible, unless they made a breathmint.

That your clumsiness, is the most adorable thing. And every single thing you’ve broken because of that…well, I didn’t like them anyway.
That you…are flat-chested. And I couldn’t care less. That way, nothing distracts me from looking your face. With the tiniest little nose, I’m surprised you can even smell anything.

Glasses on your face so you're scared of being called 'four eyes'. But look here four eyes, it's just more of your eyes to look into.

Because I want to tell you that you don’t have the most amazing blue…or hazel eyes behind those frames. And I’m fine with that. That I can spend hours lost in the darkness of your pupils and I swear to God that the night sky retreats into your eyes every time the sun is out.

I want to tell you. That you…are fat. But I like it because holding you keeps me warm in the wintertime. Or that you...are a midget and all the high heels in the world won't lift you higher than my chin. But they say the best things can come in the smallest packages and you are living proof that they can.

And I don't care if you tell the corniest and lamest jokes, because I still laugh knowing that you being funny doesn't matter because I'd try to be funny enough for the both of us.

I want to learn every single language in the world and tell you that you are beautiful in a different way every chance I got. But I would never tell you what it actually meant. So you would always wonder if I was saying something bad about you. Which I wouldn’t be, I promise.

I want to be a poet, just to tell you that it’s your imperfections that make you imperfectly perfect to me. Because I like your clumsiness, I like your flat chest and your little nose. I like your glasses, and I love your love-handles...well...eh. I like your dark eyes. I like every single one of those things because they make you...you. And I wouldn't have you any other way.

WhyDoYouBelieveCosmeticsCompainesAndNotMe?

Okay, I get it.

You put on layers of make up to make up for the fact that you can’t get your mind made up on who you really want to be. So you put on that mask made of mascara and foundation on your face, meaning that the foundation of your confidence is built on water and oil.

But we all know oil and water don’t mix, so it’s BP’s job to start cleaning off the fish.

‘Cos there’s something fishy going on here…

You treat every outing with your girlfriends as a photo-op, knowing damn well you won’t post one of yourself without a little Photoshop. Not knowing if people like you for what your momma gave you, or maybe it’s Maybelline.

Because the entire cosmetics industry is built on telling girls they’re ugly. Either they’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not curvy enough or that your eyelashes need to be 120% longer or else you’re not as pretty as you could be.
That if you eat, you eat too much. That your body don’t look right without silicone tits, a flat stomach and Kim Kardhashian’s badonkadonk.

So you conceal your insecurities with concealers, fighting signs of aging because you relate wrinkles to looser skin. Afraid your mask will fall off, while wishing you could just lose your skin and just be seen for what’s inside, as the strings on your mask begin to loosen and we see you more for who you really are.

A girl. Just like any other, hoping she could stand out. So she wears lipstick the same shade as bright rose petals to frame the words that escape from her lips. An attempt to hook a gentleman that wouldn’t mind getting intimate as he pays attention to her intellect, so she feigns confidence in her high heels. Hoping to turn finding a mate into a game of inches granted by the stiletto at her heels. Because everyday she walks on daggers and egg shells, afraid to lose the façade because she doesn’t fit the mold.

But I don’t care if you don’t look like a movie star.

Because they are not real women. They are fictitious creations molded by a man behind a desk with pen and paper with his own idea of what somebody should look like. So girls everywhere believe the lies…because they see it on their TV screens

That they’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not curvy enough…not plastic enough. That it’s wrong to be real…

That Jersey Shore is better to look at than, that girl sitting in the corner of the room reading a book. That tanned orange skin somehow makes you think less Willy Wonka oompa loompas and more of a lifestyle spent in gyms. That reality shows are what’s good and that reality shows our real flaws and it’s not acceptable.

Because we have to look perfect…the way nobody really is.
So you continue hiding behind your mask, so perfectly crafted by manufacturers to convince you that you…don’t want to be you anymore.
Because you take compliments with a grain of salt but take anything negative to heart like it was fact.

So miss, you’re ugly because you let them convince you are.

It’s not the shape you’re in, or how your genes dictated way your face is arranged that make you beautiful. It’s cliché to state the fact but it’s what lies behind the cover of the book that keeps a reader interested.

So if you never believe a compliment…you’re hideous for not letting your beautiful soul shine through.

Ms.Interpretation

Love. The one and only weakness of a Disney made Hercules. And this narcissistic juggernaut with too much certainty. At first I had no fear, till I ran into my dear, like the bumper of a van. Studied all that I could glean, from what little I could see like a lover of exams. But damn…

Compared to these girls that I’ve come across lately…she has me thinking maybe. Because never did she make me, pledge my allegiance to a singular. Just proud to be there like the parents of a winner. Yet me, I’m nothing but a sinner. Dowsing propane on the fires of hell, and crafting analogies and stories for these liars to tell. But the truth is still amongst them. And quickly it becomes them.

See, I love her…with all my heart. Every muscle, every beat. Every vessel, every ventricle. It doesn’t add up, but for her…I’d learn pi to a thousand some decimals, just to impress her. ‘Cos my life would seem lesser, if my life had less her.
And in her very own words, she designed. The prettiest of pictures. Like popular verses out of scripture, she had my attention.

She said…

That if I took her hand, she would lead me on the path to success. Closer to an angel, but a temptress no less. She’d protect me from the pain that would live inside my chest, if another human being ever put me to the test. And this sudden lack of rest, has me flirting with the most attractive relative of death. Though I fear if I let her hand go, then I’d Van Gogh myself.

So she whispered in my ear…
That I would be her man and that she could be my muse. She’d quote nothing but the truth, so I wouldn’t be a mute. With my voice and my words, she advised that I let myself be heard, and to never let another person estimate my worth. I looked her in her eyes and I asked her.

“Who are you?”
She said “I’m in your heart and your mind.”
“Are you God?”
She said “I don’t know…just reflect and determine what’s inside your soul.”

So I looked up above me to an image of her face with her name underneath it…Miss Interpretation. The partner I’ve been blessed with so I can study what’s around me…so I take her hand in mine and I thank her that she found me.

NowTHISIsALovePoem

Now THIS, is a love poem.
Every person is born into a world of sin. But she rescued me from it.
Because if I ever learned to ask for an angel, she would be the one sent to me.
But in a way I was the one sent to her. Because there is no way I could have met anyone worth mentioning in the same breath as her on my own. Regardless of how fate controls my life, or how God wants events to unfold, or how the wheel spins and my karma earns me a single wish that would come true…she would still have been beyond all of that.
E-Harmony can’t come up with enough questions or commercials to manage something like what we have…because this was a match made in a made up place beyond God’s own version of heaven…because even our heaven has to end.

To anyone else walking down the street, she’s nothing but another Asian.
I can’t even manage to make this sound poetic or complicated because I think pure truth is better than that.
Simply put, she is everything I could ever want in a girl. And that is far from an embellishment.
Each quality that one would deem suitable in a soulmate…she has it.
She is not a supermodel…because in my mind, supermodels model themselves after her.
Hoping to be beautiful…but all they manage is an imitation of everything that makes her…her.
Except that what they find is only on the outside, so they’re only the chocolate coating.

During all the times my dad gave me the silent treatment…she was the one that kept me sane.
School suspensions? No guilt trip included, because she knew me enough to know that nothing could make a difference more than what she still thought of me.
No matter how horrible I did in school, she still thought I was smart. I think she still does, even though the only thing I do now is write poetry and sit around in film and drama all day. I guess you could say I’m an artsy type…but I say that’s because she rubbed off on me. No, she’s not a visual artist…she’s just a work of art unsurpassed by any man-made character on television meant to be perfect…I’m surprised even God was able to make her.
So every Sunday as I’m praying in church…I close my eyes and there she is next to me.
Not knowing that in a way, I’m praying for someone just like her.

In a few more years when I’m finished with school and I’m working for a living…
I promise that I will buy you a house. Take you to the spa just because it’s a Thursday.
Send you to the Philippines for however long you want.
Get you a maid and a cook so you wouldn’t even have to lift a finger.
Be your maid and cook so I can show you I’m willing to do the dirty work to make you happy.
Anything you want, because no matter how hard I try…
I will never be able to repay you for everything you have done for me.
It’s been a few years since I’ve even thought about you this much and I’m sorry.
Because everyday, you only get closer and closer to being a saint in my eyes.
And I’m here…trapped between a monster and a person far too deep in darkness.

Because when all else fails, I will love you until there’s no more hurt and you couldn’t handle anymore love. If I ever saw you cry I would be the first person to punch the reason for it, in the face…I don’t care if it’s an inanimate object or a person…if it’s an event, then I’ll just punch the air or something.
See, if life has taught me anything…it’s not to overlook what’s right in front of you. Appreciate everything for what it is because nothing will stay the same forever. Though you and forever coincide in my eyes, because even when I have a wife and all 4 kids I asked for named like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you will always come first. When you leave me, I will dedicate the rest of my life to making you happy.
So I thought I’d make sure I didn’t let you slip through my fingers and just tell you the same thing I tell you everyday.

I love you mama.

MyFirstLove

Looking out the window at rainbows and raindrops, I find myself reminiscing about my first love. See…

She came into my life like lightning, but stayed way longer than light flings. She’s left a lasting impression, working my way towards years of progression in several sessions consisting of nothing but simple conversation. The sight of her has my palms sweating…
I’m tongue tied…staring dumbstruck at curves like question marks, trying to think of something clever to say past a “Hi” and a wave. But the farther I reach in fathoms of her soul, the higher the waves. I’m a cast away, but I cast away fears of rejection and embrace her like my life depended on it. But without words my voice is left muted, attempting to remember my favourite lines hoping she would believe the depth of this fatal attraction through quotes of famous poets like Shihan and John Donne. In due time, she grows to accept the fact, I’m infatuated. And through the years I’ve known her, I’ve counted how many times she passes through my mind at any time of the day and the number is eight. Just turn it sideways.
Now she has me up in sleepless nights, fists clenched tight on ballpoint pens on the surface of paper. Writing love letters addressed to her in hopes that I get closer to undressing her…personality. Trying to understand every aspect of her to get into her good graces so she would allow me a means to find my way into her…mind so I can take away her various layers of…mystery to uncover the annals of her history.

You see, her words hit me similarly to punches from Pacquiao but the effect they have on me is beyond description. She makes me feel like…she makes me feel like...Okay, check this. She makes me feel like I can stand on top of Mount Everest and take one physical step towards enlightenment. She makes me feel like everything and every word in the world makes perfect sense when I am in contact with her, the clouds slow down; reaching towards us to envelop our souls in what I hope is marshmallowy flavoured goodness. She makes me feel like nothing can hurt me as I confide in her my deepest regrets and emotions regarding the life I live. She makes me feel like simple letters can’t combine into enough adjectives and superlative words in essays to describe how I actually feel about her.
But in the end she became my first love plus my closest friend. To you, this might seem like a fantasy, but I’m descriptive enough so that my make believe fans can see that she was there for me through everything. Through heartbreaks and pains, and she handed me the wisdom I’ve always wanted but never knew enough to find myself. She helped me find myself, to better comprehend why I do what I do, and after all that she and I have been through, I’m close enough to becoming bulletproof.

As a couple, she and I were like blue and sky, like green and grass, like tits and ass, like cookies and cream, like hide and seek as I began searching for the complicated facts that she hid from me. We were like Bonnie and Clyde, like Homer and Marge, like Batman and Robin, like Salt’nPepper but through the seasons, we both seasoned an adequate amount of words as they rolled off tongues to become melodies in the air. We were like Jack and Jill, like love and hate, like yes and no, like peace and quiet, like Bert and Ernie, like lock and key when she unlocked my heart as our deepest traits began fitting together like puzzle pieces, similar to chocolate and peanut butter in Reese’s Pieces now I hold part of her inside of me. We were like Adam and Eve and she was my Adam’s rib…God’s gift to me so I could refine my thoughts like fine wine in the hopes of standing before you and declaring myself poetically correct.

And if you don’t know, my first love is standing right next to me. And her name…is poetry.

LoveLetters

I spend all day writing love letters.
I spend all day reading poems, stories and even watching sappy sitcoms…I even write essays for her.
Everything I do is with her in my mind. I…I just can’t help it.

But the thing is…I don’t even think she likes me back.
Since she’s always avoiding me and all…she even runs away from me sometimes.
I can’t hold onto her and she always disappears and escapes.
But that’s all on me.

Everybody always tells me to pay attention. But I was too busy with my tunnel vision

that I missed the bigger picture…and she’s quite the fickle mistress.

And with little warning on her behalf, she would test the reaches of my devotion...
Just a little mistake and she starts going off on a tangent.
One wrong answer and she’d have me taking ten steps back.
She’s so multi faceted and complex, I can never fully understand what she whispers to me.
But I keep listening…I keep trying to understand every little thing she presents to me.
I want to get to know her…but knowing her is a crash course in knowing everything.
And nothing is ever concrete when she’s involved…walking alongside her is like holding hands with air and walking on Jell-O. Nice…orange…flavored Jell-O.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with commitment, but too many times…
I’ve been tempted to give up on her, telling myself it’s all not worth it.
So I look for the easy way out. Looking for something much less difficult, trying to take a shortcut.
I’ll admit *sigh* I’ve been tempted to cheat once or twice…three times…so many times I’ve lost count.
But I’d never do that to her. I love her too much. And that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

The thing is, I need her in my life…because without her, my life would be so empty and useless. My future would just be one monotone scene from a long forgotten movie whose ending didn’t really matter.

So I spend all day writing my own version of love letters because I’m a love drunk fool.
See, our relationship can’t even be defined as your everyday boyfriend/girlfriend couple.
It’s a lifetime commitment…but we’re not married.
So if it’s not called marriage and we’re more than just a couple, what are we?

I’ll tell you just that. Me and my girlfriend go by the name EPISTEMOLOGY.
Because I’m in love with wisdom. And she has been there my whole life…I just needed to open my eyes.