do you know what it feels like
to dream with such devotion
that it aches?
like a dull pang
paced by the clank
of your hope-clustered heart
racing faster than the train of thought
chewing through your mind
in a frenzy of unsalvageable sentimentality
it's a war-tainted weakness
that tends to never soothe nor satiate
it just twitches within you
like so many trembles of endless anticipation

i don't hope for things
rather, hope attacks me in hailstorms
it's something involuntary
like a spasm stretching your soul, refusing release
a bare burden that i am forced to bear
like glass that spirals cracks in the cold
these naked lines
inflamed with electricity
carved on my soul
that threaten to spill and spread
to the point where i'm ready to shed
into a million twisted ribbons
that will crinkle and scream:
almost, maybe, someday, perhaps

but those are the words that never dare
to shiver their way out of my mouth,
because my raspy reach
is too cowardly to extend
into reality
i can't say these things out loud
because that would make this burn
of a throbbing perhaps
scarring its way through my veins
just melt me into a plastered puddle
that plays dead to avoid having to feel alive
and craves every maybe that comes my way

so i fortify myself by letting myself forget
this thirst for flight,
for this something untamed and escaping.
and i hope i don't set my clutches
on that unsettled destination,
for i fear the spoil of uncertainty in me
is ready to surface and spread the second i scent
some decency ahead of me.
i've practiced my deer in the headlights look to perfection,
because the second some spotlight of silver-soaked joy
mistakes its mark on my figure,
i might as well prepare for the choke that will label me
death by almost,
or the freeze that will remind me i'm nothing
but glass cracking in cold,
that no matter how close i get,
the fragility within me that led me there
is much too hazardous a material to juggle with,
my splintered soul too densely dented
to use as a sparkling exposé

yet even if it seems most likely
that i'll always trip over my tiptoe trepidation,
my heart will still pine to the point of perish,
because that echoing maybe makes its mark on my memory,
swirling every sign of possibility
into fuel that sears my footprints on the paths i wander,
exhibited as a begging journey toward somewhere,
every step an alarm ringing someday…

but until then, my heart is nothing
but a pile of flesh-tattered wrinkling ribbons,
a glass traced with the nearing shatter of an endless wait,
searching for some dream to deem me whole,
all the while whispering a wishful lament:
almost, maybe, someday, perhaps.

Photo by Danielle Amorim.