Imperfection will never do—
My eagle eyes understand all of you
And the indigestible fact that you could be
Better, beautiful, sacred, perfect—
My skies now rain your flaws, it's true.

But I have to accept my own faults too.

Everywhere
There is poison:
In the drunken ******
That purr at his heels,
In the boy-turned-badass
Smoking and drinking away innocence,
In the woman who's down to die
For any way up,
In the alpha male too friendly
To reveal the toxin within.

Every bone inside me breathes fire
(A gentle flame but barely tame),
My aching words singing volumes
Over the rooftops of a restless Berkeley,
My voice resounding like the great Campanile
Who shakes the world every hour,
And today (and everyday) I hold power
In the little poems I etch
Upon notebooks
              Across ears
                            Through hearts
                                         Against fears
Because anything is possible
When passion ignites action
And sets a whole mind into
Vicious conflagration—
The ashes will behold
Divine inspiration.

A slow-melting lump in my mouth
So sweet my teeth perspire,
(Coated succulent like sin)
The layer viscous like desire,
The crowns rotting from within.

Sometimes I feel so lonely my soul
Quivers, my entire being shakes and
Shivers until my plump heart becomes
Hollow like the last hopes I
Swallow in nervousness, praying, praying...
I've fully rejected that love will find me
Alive so I might as well die
Early so that Death will
Surely love me all the way to the
Grave.

Your sweet, silky words
Glaze my desperate lips:
A stream of smooth water
Wetting the roses in my eyes
Into blossoming like spring.

If hating the both of you is a sin,
I’m already in hell.
Been living in hell since the day
you came with Kit in your stomach
and me in the backs of your ***** Vietnamese minds.

First, you think gay people are
nasty, *****—wrong.
Second, you saw that Facebook photo of me
at the pride parade and now you think
that I’m gay,
that I’m nasty, *****, wrong.

And third, you showed him that picture
and now he doesn’t even want to call me his son.

I’m not sure of what I am, but I am sure of one thing—
that I don’t want to be your son if it means
living up to your standards, beliefs, misconceptions and predispositions
that are as ugly and low as the Communist oppression
you think you left behind.

                                                               ­      I only live up to America.

Toss my number on the stovetop and burn it—
Burn it like a ******.
Burn it like Chinese incense.
Burn it like your millionth cigarette bud.

**I’ll burn like the Fourth of July.