instant noodles

suddenly finding, in a bowl of instant noodles, happiness

cheap and debased

oh, look at it swell!

nerves unsettled,

those that wake up in the dark of night, ravenous,

are a nest of vipers in heat

taken hostage by nightmares that break off without rhyme or reason

flicking their forked tongues

into a bowl of instant noodles, abolishing desire

survival is always the easiest excuse

and the most appropriate

happiness—easy, instant, it comes instantly

more instant than a spell

more instant than a dream

more instant than cosmetic surgery

more instant than the release from an executioner’s sword

just add water, and heat

and leave it be

it will come instantly

imaginary dust

i touch the skin that has adorned this world for many years

is love only apprehensible, past the age of twenty

i fall for far-fetched fairytales spun by others

the woman he loves, is farther away from my grasp than he is

the woman he loves fetches water by the well

and i, in my thirst, walk past the well; i did not anticipate that this woman shares my skin

an eternity after, i suddenly realize, the skin that i have caressed for so many years was but a speck of dust

it is three in the afternoon

the delicate little beauty drifts away with the wind

“i have been dead for a long time,” he writes to me in an e-mail

oblivion is near

i burrow my head in my flesh; besides him, i wonder who else in this world wishes to reach me

it’s cold; that is, the self-pity of a speck of dust

i die in the vast expanse of viscera

dusk darts across the hip of dreams, the heart races, quick as a breeze, stopping melancholy in its tracks

that day at three in the afternoon, I am looking down and not at you, scared of falling into you, your woman, your woman’s well, my thirst next to your woman’s well, scared of falling alongside your woman, drifting away with the wind, the vast expanse of possibilities after the wind settles

and the final bout of fantasies I have of you

beneath the stars, his eyes are daggers, already cutting open my haphazard self

a speck of dust

in the end, i couldn’t hold onto you after all

a speck of dust