I never liked how you
abbreviate certain terms,
omit your punctuations,
lowercase your ‘I’s.

I was raised to be scrupulous,
to spell the word as they are,
to add periods at the end of sentences,
to capitalize my pronouns.

Correcting you became a habit of mine,
I rather liked the red flush in your face,
the downward tug of your lips,
how you'd avoid my gaze.

Still, you managed to find a way,
to gain the upper hand,
with a smirk on your lips,
your careless fingers sent:

“ i luv ya ”

With the tables now turned,
a scorching heat spread on my face,
I frowned as I stared at the text,
deliberately avoiding your gaze.

You never had a way with words,
you abbreviate certain terms,
you omit your punctuations,
you lowercase your ‘I’s.

However, i rather liked how it's so very you.

Perhaps, that is why...

“ I love you too. ”

i do well with criteria, i must confess,
it acts as a guideline to avoid a mess,
i always fulfill criteria with dedication,
to earn your love, my aspiration.

but anxiety takes hold within my heart,
when love is shown without a chart,
without standards to guide your affection,
i question if it's really a genuine connection.

if you were to leave, i'd blame my own strife,
my inadequacy would be the result of this life,
for without criteria to prove my worth,
then i am nothing but a piece of dirt.

two strangers
sat in two different rows
watching The Avengers
but this is how their story goes

today, they will cross paths
and catch a glimpse of each other
the girl rushing to finish her drafts
the boy breaking up with his ex lover

two unacquainted lives intersect
waiting for the right place, right time
like a highly anticipated project
to make two random words rhyme

a few years from now, two strangers
will find their lives intertwined by fate
two strangers to friends to lovers
that will become each other's soulmate

right now, they may not be aware
of the resilient red string
that they both share
like a binding, invisible ring

all the stories they create now
they will share to each other later
exchanging "seriously?" and "wow!"
as they take turns to be the narrator

for now, two strangers
sat across from each other in a tearoom
the boy vowing to have no more lovers
the girl creating drafts for her next volume

it's never going to work between
the girl whose love language is poems
and the boy whose love language is
peeling off her prawn shells

she wants him to immortalize her
through words on paper
but he's too busy folding her
1000 origami paper cranes

he wants her to bring him
breakfast in bed for his birthday
but she's too busy quoting love songs
that reminds her of him

there was a language barrier between them

it made them doubt each other

"does he really love me?"
she asks herself as he braids her hair
while she talks about the deeper meaning behind her poems

"does she really love me?"
he asked himself as she romanticized every little thing he does for her
and writes about it

perhaps, she will never know just how much he loves her when he's building her a library for all the books she owns

perhaps, he will never know just how much she loves him when she writes about how days without him felt like an eternity

“i wish i can be as happy as you 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲”

“be happy 𝐧𝐨𝐰”

sometimes, when we speak,
it feels like i am writing a story
that you will never read.

have you grown bored of my content?

have you grown bored of me?

i broke one of my vases the other day.
it was rather simple in design, modest.
its shape unassuming, its colours muted.
but it broke me just the same
to watch it shatter into a million tiny pieces.

as i knelt beside the scattered fragments,
my hands trembling to gather them,
i realize how alike i was to the vase;
how little i must have mattered to you.

when you broke me into pieces,
a nonchalant sigh escaped your lips,
hardly fazed by the accident.
you hummed a tune under your breath,
your mind already drifting to other matters.

why would you dwell about something easily replaced and forgotten?

why would you dwell about me?

my hair has always been unruly.

i was no stranger to things that are hard to maintain.

so, when you ran your fingers through my head, i become very aware of you.

the twitch of your lips, the way your breath slowed.

is the coarse texture off putting? does it bother you that it's blooming from my scalp?

as your fingers come past my shoulders and to the end of their journey, you stare at your hand, realizing you had tugged a few stray strands that coiled in different patterns.

i held my breath, waiting for the familiar look of disgust on your face.

“your natural hair is lovely.”

my world stilled.

you had my heart in your hand, but did not choose to crush it.

in fact, you even planted warmth as you watered the roots of my rapidly beating *****.

i was no stranger to things that are hard to maintain.

but, oh, how i wish you wouldn't be.