I met you the day that I was set free.
I traveled miles to be as far away from home as possible,
And here I was, in the city with people that I barely knew,
With memories that I have yet to make.

I knew your name after a week.
I knew your routine after a month.
I knew your anatomy after the 3rd month.
I knew your past on the 5th.
And I knew all about you by the time we reached the 9th.

I have no idea how I lost my love for rock music
and Marlboro reds.
One afternoon, I found myself next to you
and that’s when I lost my past.
Maybe, I said.
maybe we should’ve been together.

Believe me when I say that I want to take the eight years back.
And I will take them back with a kiss on your forehead and
Coffee sips on our favorite coffee shop.
I will take them back with photographs of our first gig,
And fights that we didn’t think we’ll get through together.

Today, my mother bought me a shirt and it smells just like you.

I went straight to the past, back on our first date.
You told me you’re taking me somewhere.
You told me you will apologize to my mom.
You told me I was beautiful,
And it was so honest it hurts.

I learned that two years is not enough to know a person.
It’s not enough to have the assurance
that they will not put one foot out the door.

It’s been two years since I last saw you.
And I have a message from the girl who is not good enough.
She said she hopes you’re happy.

And she hopes that you die old and sad.

I'm trying to find the right metaphor for the storm
but I ended up mumbling your name.
I can hear your bones break like thunder.
I can hear your cries against my windowpane,
thousands of miles from where you are.

You never thought I would stop running but I did.
I still remember the day when you beg my heart to settle down.
I still remember our little dance in the terrace,
two young people in the night,
experiencing forever in twelve hours.

You were the reason why I feel sad over the sound
of singing cicadas and heartbeats.
You were the reason why I stop leaving things unfinished.

Last night, a friend called and told me how you're doing.
I wonder if your scars still hurt when it's six degrees outside.
I want to cover your shoulder with words and moonlight until it softens.
Until you stop putting your hand on your chest at 2AM to keep it from howling.

I don't remember what type of storm you are anymore,
But I still remember you when it rains.

You told me I'm your little sky in Spanish
You told me I'm a demon made woman in English
How many language barrier do we have to cross to understand each other?

It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.

When you call my name in every language,
I will answer.
When I lost you in every country,
I will find you.

I know that the only world we've ever known
is of lonely travelers and worn out backpacks.
But while we we're miles away from what is comfortable,
The universe already made its move.

I'm never good at gambling,
but maybe we can give this a chance.

Some people asked me why I need to leave my mother’s house.
She was a fragile woman.
Alone and old.
I should have taken care of her while I can.

The truth is, sometimes I love her.
But most of the times…
all I remember is how she kicked me in the shin
that left a wound for months.
How she, while I’m sick from tuberculosis,
dragged me outside the house
because I don’t have the appetite to eat.
The neighbors had to beg for me.
The neighbors gave me sympathy that my mother refused to give out of anger.

I was only a child.

The truth is, she is an amazing woman for a few days.
But she is a whole different monster if you overstayed.

Is it bad to hold grudges?
For 25 years, I was the emotional punching bag of a sad woman.
And now people asks me why I need to leave my mother alone.

If I don’t leave,
If by the grace of gods I stayed with her,
everyday will be a constant reliving of memories I have tried so hard to bury.
Everyday,
my hate will grow larger than what I can contain.

Everyday I will wish she was dead.

People don’t like it when I tell them this.
They say something along the lines of they hope my kid won’t do this to me.
Or that I didn’t have any gratitude for my own mother.
For raising me alone.
For sacrificing her happiness.

Is it okay to be thankful but not want to be around that person?
Why do I need to be punished for my mother’s small jabs of abuse?
Isn’t healing my inner child
and trying to get the courage to leave
enough of a punishment?

I am pregnant now.
I will try my best to not be like my mother.
To not be full of rage.
My kids will not have to tiptoe around my emotions.
I will create a home that’s

forgiving,
welcoming,
kind.

“It’s okay.”

“I love you.”

“I’m sorry.”

I will shield them from the shadows that haunted me for 30 years.

The abuse ends with me.

The abuse ends with me.

This city has a bad habit of making time flies.
But now that you're not here,
days feel like weeks and weeks feel like months.
I tried to be busy.
I buried myself at work,
I begged my mind to not be idle.
I've changed the ceramics in my apartment.
I went to my mother's place for a week.
I've thrown every last bit of your cigarette butts in my ashtray.
But your memories still knocks on my door.

I found myself running after you in the middle of the night,
holding my heart together and shoving it in your rib cage.
I didn't noticed the contrast of your bruises.
You declared a war when it hurts way too much.
And I remember seeing the depth of hazel in your iris.

I've decided to build a great wall for the wars to come.
I let my anger smolder.

But my wall crumbled right after I built it.
It was the brightest time of the day.
I tried to hold it up with both of my hands,
but bricks became sands and sands became sea,
and I drowned.

The pain I felt was my own doing.
love is something that can't be forced.
I dropped my double edged sword in the ruins of my wall.
Vines are growing on my fingernails.
Wildflowers are sprouting from the back of my ears.

I am not looking for answers anymore but I heard it.
It says, "this is how you grow."

I met a man yesterday.
He said something about eagles in Thailand.
and how your first love has a 90% chance of betraying you.

"tell me something I don't know"
"you're weird."
"tell me something I don't know"
"what happened to your eyes?"
"what happened to my eyes?"
"they don't have depth"

"tell me something I don't know"

he told me again that there's a 90% chance your first love will betray you.
I looked at this bright-eyed man and thought he doesn't know anything about me.
And I was struck by the colors of his eyes.
It's amber.
four or maybe six different shades of amber.

It's the color of autumn in New England,
It's the color of fire that's not too hot nor too bland.
It's the color of sunset in the Grand Canyon.
It's the color of the words, "Welcome home."

"There's a 90% chance that your first love will betray you."

My eyes are burning.

"But there's a 100% chance that it will get better."

My hands are shaking.

"All you have to do is let him go."

seven years.
*******.

"Put an end to everything that hurts."

I called my mom to tell her I'm doing okay.
I did my laundry. I had my weekly groceries in check.
I bought plants and hung them over my balcony.
I told her it keeps me from jumping over.

Yesterday, I removed all the men I've loved from my contact list.
I took the wine glasses out of the cupboard.
It doesn't feel incredibly lonely anymore.
The knives are not hidden from the kitchen counter.
The pills are not calling my name.

Love has many different forms, I realized that.
as I look at the night sky,
with my fancy wine,
and plants hanging over my balcony,

I'm glad I'm alive.

We're almost touching.
we were walking side by side,
you're talking about cabs in your hometown.
I can feel the gravity of your hand, calling my fingers
whispering "it's alright."

We're touching but not quite.
you held my shoulder to protect me from the passing cars.
and for the first time in a long while, I felt so fragile.
In this world where I find it hard even to breathe,
you believed me.

I almost said it.
All I need is one ounce of strength to tell you every single thing that I have ever felt about you.

I want to find home in your collarbones.
Would you be kind enough to let a stranger in?
I want to seep in your being because I'm cold.
The world is harsh and my cracks are aching.

Almost.

I think I'm in love with you.
So, so bad.

        - and I hate it.

Nothing good ever comes up with something so beautiful.

I heard they found a fossil on Mars,
impossible things are beginning to happen.
Soon enough, we will gloriously collapse and crumble
and the ashes will turn into gold,
and the only thing I'll remember
is the sound of your heartbeat
and the flashing pair of cinnamon eyes,
over the bar's blinking lights.

You are the epitome of every single thing I'm afraid of.
You break things because you don't know how to take care of them.
And I said I've been broken for too long,
I won't be the window anymore,
I will be the stone.

But you we're smiling when you kissed me.
We break each other until we're happy
we hurt each other and call it love.
Our love smolders and it was so beautiful.

And when everything quiets down,
when the dirt settled at the bottom of the jar,
you start to crawl your way inside my mind.
the familiar temperature.
the warm feeling of yellow.

And the pain continues.

Remember that afternoon?
You were smoking your Winston and you told me that I have this weird type of charm.

And we're kinda sad because we have to hide our hands again the next day. We have to hide our photos,
we have to hide our words.

I remember you saying you'll commit when you're ready,
you just need time to figure things out.

I didn't question your reasons.
I didn't asked you why or how is that even possible if you love someone.

And the moment you left three years later, you said the exact same thing.

This town never changed since that afternoon.

But we did.

I am a lot of sensations in one,
a lot of taste, of storms.
of colors you've never seen before.

I am the myth you've never heard,
and the ode you never wrote.
I am the song that you don't know the lyrics of,
but you keep on singing anyway.

I was born to be the impossible,
out of the millions of possibilities.

And no,
I won't change for you.