JOAQUIN, Nick


Strangers at First Sight

How could you possibly start from nothing?

And then end up as everything?

I never thought I’d feel this way again…

More like I pushed myself to never fall victim again

To this arresting feeling

How ironic is it, That what I wanted to lose the most,

Is what most people long for their whole life

I don’t know what to do,

Guess I’ll just ignore everything again,

Time to shut my senses to all the assaults that the world has to offer…

After all, I’ve suppressed everything so far

What’s one more to add?


Happy never after

How could I possibly stay awake

despite knowing what horrors await me

in this life full of lies and despair

where the only hope that remains

is having you near me.

And yet,

however I I push myself towards you,

the more I feel like we’re never meant to be,

the more we try to reach each other,
the more I feel so alone.

How could I possibly live life happily ever after

without you by my side

where even the fairy tales pale in comparison for how much I feel for you

when will He finish this chapter
does it even end ?
Surely, any end is better than a one left hanging

for a simple No, might simply be the best answer

rather than to face the agony of waiting and fear of the unknown.


The Martyr

Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry

After all, at some point in your life

That love was the most important thing to you,

That love might be the one that you hoped would last forever,

That love made you believe that destiny does exist,

And that love made you question,

Why you were afraid to fall in love in the first place.

At that time in your life,

Everything just seemed so perfect,

Everything seemed so beautiful,

Everything seemed to glow for you,

And you were my everything.

I wouldn't even think twice about sacrificing my own happiness for yours,

I was even willing to bare up this walled but crumpled heart of mine,

Just so I could be with you.

All I ever did was care for you.

All I ever did was to make you happy.

And all I ever did was love you.

Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry

But I needed to ask forgiveness from the one who was hurt the most…

Myself.

Bury me

How can you stop yourself from feeling?

When you gradually feel yourself betraying you?

How can you understand yourself?

When you always keep parts of you hidden?

How can things remain hidden?

When all you ever do is push things down,

And keep them locked up in your own abyss?

How can you stay true to others?

When you can’t even stay true to yourself?

How can you live?

When a part of you is already dead?

The Innocence of Solomon

Sheba, Sheba, open your eyes!

The apes defile the ivory temple,

the peacocks chant dark blasphemies:

but I take your body for mine to trample,

I laugh where once I bent the knees.

Yea, I take your mouth for mine to crumple,

drunk with the wisdom of your flesh.

But wisdom never was content

and flesh when ripened falls at las:

what will I have when the seasons mint

your golden breasts into golden dust?

Let me arise and follow the river

back to its source: I would bathe my bones

among the chaste rivulets that quiver

out of the clean primeval stones.

Yea, bathe me again in the early vision

my soul tongued forth before your mouth

made of a kiss a fierce contrition

salting the waters of my youth…

Sheba, Sheba, close my eyes!

The apes have ravished the inner temple,

the peacocks rend the sacred veil

and on the manna feast their fill-

but chaliced drowsily in your ample

arms, with each brief bliss that dies

my own deep sepulcher I seal.


From Bye Bye Blackbird

A death in the family. Relatives
you haven’t seen since the last
death in the family reappear
like furniture from your past
reassembled for a movie about it;
reassembling now only as props:
footlight (as it were) and backdrops,
to celebrate not a death but the family
here having one of its final stops,
here it continues where it stops.

No one is here as a person,
only as the correct representative
of his branch of the line. Only
the man that’s dead is here as himself,
is discussed as such. “Rather lonely,
his last days.” “Well, he was on the shelf
all of these years.” “He was renting
that crummy apartment?” “No, just a part
of it, the upstairs.” “Collapsed, alone
with his cats—whom someone should be representing.
They were so dear to him.” “From the start
of the stroke, unconscious.” “Four o’clock dawn.”
“Died like his father, cerebral hemorrhage.”
The crowd wake was a lively tone.


Derailed

There comes a time in each of our lives

wherein we lose track of ourselves, and lose sight of our rails.

Where the illuminated road that always seemed to be there, suddenly lost its light, and with it, our senses that come to a halt.

The senses that gave us our How's and Why's, the force that drives us to get back up every time we fall down, the feeling that makes us see the light in a pitch black void.

The eventual flame that was so overwhelming at one point,now seems nothing but a scant flickerdrowning in a sea of gloom.

An everlasting ember that will continue to burndespite all the pouring setbacks,‘till we pave our way to a new set of tracks.