my beautiful friend and coworker Hend got married this past weekend. after a whirlwind of music (both latin and arabic) and words and dancing, i see the meaning of happiness left there standing with brilliance in the end.

we have come such a long way. 3 years ago we were writing our hopes and dreams on napkins and restaurants. and look at us now, just look how far we've come.

i did find your bed of anger
i slept it it with my face down against the pillows, rank with the smell of your fear
i made the bed of your anger, carefully sliding my hands across the sheets
and you were lying there, prostrate
and i find tears leftover where there should be none,
i drink water when we are no longer thirsty and when i am thirsty i find no drink

but today i see sunlight, and sunlight wipes this bed
clean with its fingers
reaching further than i could ever hope
and hoping deeper than i could ever reach

i am cradled
in the heat of the night time
your body emits air
and i breathe it in
i'm not sure where my heart wanders during our dreams
of floating and bathtubs and travels across couches
but in the morning it follows the hollow of your throat
back to your arms again.

i really like food way too much

sometimes i'm in yoga class, coming out of final savasana, and i'm turned on my right side towards the evening light streaming from the windows, and i just smile. it's like the molecules in the universe come in and you can't do anything but smile. and then you know how powerful you are, everything you are, just the way you are.

I suppose I could become a wave in the night. They come in, rocks and tide, ripping the sand and following the wind.

I suppose I could become like my Chinese name. It means "joy", but who knows what that really is anyways?

I suppose I could become like Carl Sandburg's fog. sitting on my silent haunches. Coming in on little cat feet.


"And I became fierce like a lion
Then tender like the evening star."
- Rumi


by the way, I updated www.rosekuo.org.

the day the world ended

the day the world ended,
i collapsed
my body was leaving itself
i couldn't see or hear
but heart found me through, hers and mine

i've been putting volcanoes in my poetry my whole life, and i finally walked passionately along the the base of one

you will know when i have arisen
you will hear the absence of my tears.

also
he said he liked my poem
the one i recited
or made up
at the time
about hiking across his chest
my fingers that is