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He sits, quietly, listening to the rest of them ramble. Talking, catching each other up on their individual lives, laughing and telling jokes, perhaps too private for him to appreciate. But he sits.

He waits for the drinking glass to make its round-trip back to him. He anticipates his shot and a half of cheap vodka: his simple joy in these moments of solitude in this crowded room.


If only he spoke their language.

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Of Love and Chance and everything in between (In honor of happy hearts day)

I have often been characterized

as being faint of heart

not because of my spindly stature

and measly weight

but more for not leaving much to chance

I stocked up on the essentials early on:

went to a good school, got good grades,

furthered my education to ensure a good life.

I provided for the needs of the ones I loved and cared for

but wasn't really too big on the L word.

I didn't believe in its profundity then.

All I saw was a predisposition for pain,

for disappointment, for incalculable risks.

I relied more on rationality than anything else,

thinking through every possible thing in my head

leading to some lost opportunities,

some wounded pride and more essential

small parts of me lost to chance.

But love, as I have learned,

should not be a shackle that binds you.

It does not overcome all the troubles

the world most frequently has to offer.

It is not an emulsifying agent that will make us

better able to go against the world.

It helps us become better than what we are now.

It's paradoxical nature has escaped the tenets

of logical thinking for as long as I can remember,

but I understand it now. At least I think I do.

For all the craziness in this mortal world,

I feel safest in love's sweet embrace.

The more you love me, the more I am able

to fully comprehend what love is and isn't --

at the same time--it's about boundaries

and chance and adversity and letting go.

'Cause its when you leave things to chance

that life comes right back

and surprises you with something better.

Words fail me often,

but I'll try to say it the best way I know how:

I love you, babe.

There was an execution tonight
On the hood of a jeepney.
It was of a crazy woman.

There was no blood, just eyeballs
and entrails wound around two wheels.
Maybe a fingernail embedded in rubber.

That was all. No one cried
though there was plenty of water
Under the bridge.

The executioner didn't even blink when the scyth fell.
Maybe it was just as well.
The screech of reprieve didn't come.

Tomorrow the platform will be
shining stainless again. The doors
keep revolving. The wheels keep turning.

The road goes on for the riders
and the damned sitting on wooden benches,
patient for their turn at getting home.


Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

If only

if only i'd met you sooner

i wouldn't be as jaded as i am today

i wish i could turn back the hands of time

to a time and place

when i had half the experiences i have now

and met you then,

my innocence would have been your glory

my childlike curiosity would have been

more easily sated and subdued than it is now

this thirst for adventure would not have been so curbed

nor skewed to irrational extremes

if only i'd known you sooner

my life would have been less complicated

by the savage twists and turns,

it would have been less riddled

with ruts and scars strewn here and about

i would have been more perfect

more suited for your kind of living,

your kind of loving

but things are irrevocably what they are

i am the product of things

that have come to pass,

made all the more complex

by what i've been through

yet everything that has happened

has brought me infinitely closer

to where i am now,

to where you are,

to where we now rest

and i wouldn't have had it any other way.

jessamine you bow
even as you break.
I could pick you now
or later,
depending on the sun.

your arms creep over the fence
of our neighbour's home.
I could see where your smiles
had taken root.

jessamine you promise
sleep without dreams
a small dose for large sighs
a handful for thoughts.

how will I touch you:
test with two fingers
or by tugging at a fistful
of your hair?

how will I taste you:
full on my tongue
or by nibbles at the edges
of your feet?

my fruit of knowledge
in a garden of thorns
I should like to take you
into the kitchen
and bake you whole
into my lunch.

all parts of you are potent;
so it is said.
you are more ravenous
than the curse of a full moon
although
you aren't nearly as wild.

jessamine my salvation
rests on whether you bloom
where I've sown. or will you,
curse your sweet name,
spoil like dreams in the sun?

Note: Yellow Jessamine is a poisonous shrub. NOTHING else :P Yuck to kimp for even suggesting *gasp* pedophilia!


Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

I fear not the least
but the lukewarm
and the whole.
Bread on the counter,
a full moon, a stop, a kiss,
three sighs in the span of
five minutes. I fear not
your smile but the joy
I will find lacking, or not.

We see three children in the street,
unclothed, unabashed, unclean
and you take my hand, saying,
"That will never be us,"
I nod to myself, knowing you mean
those words with pride. I mean
to make them a ward. I fear,
you see: that will never be us,
us like children's laughter.

My mouth runs away from me in horror.
My legs keep me still.
Here is a wreck of a body
trembling in an aftermath.
There is so much to fear.
You are so much to fear.
I wish three times for succor;
puddles are steel sheets on the ground.

When we are old we will shout
to each other across the strait
and love each other through
binoculars.

Is this
this
this
life, lukewarm and whole?


Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng