Once upon a time, on a blank page, out of pure wide-eyed wonder,
I began to etch everything I know and have yet to realize
on it.

One thing is for certain,
the end is
*far,
far,
away.

You shuddering with the deepest sighs,
the kinds that string the seconds within
                                                                         minutes,

snuggled within time itself

into this wisp of infinity.

I can feel my own soul cracking,
mirroring yours with blurry eyes
as your lips
say
"my very smile is a fissure of weakness."

Her mind
flickers
at
all these empty spaces,
the ones on
her
fingertips,  
her heart
&
the
edges of her mind.

could you, maybe, possibly?

Something little & wispy falters her thoughts.
Bitten lips
seamed
by
unspoken wishes.

Fill it with
your
sighs,
little smirks,
laughter,  
pearls of wisdom,
the rogue blush on your cheek bones
on
a
winter's day.

I used to think foolishly think 11 was late.

Now, I close my eyelids at 12 when the skies are dotted with
stars and little dreams.
Letting the day's memories, melded with the rhapsodic dust motes of the past,
gently sewing them.

In the backwards of time, I used to think love had a limit.

A misconstrued and misunderstood thing.

Silly me,
now I have
*you.

Weak & numb
fingertips and wrists, I know how my back curls inwards when I cry.

Tense muscles knotted terribly, nearly as terrible as the words I wish to whisper into the cupid's bow of your mouth.

I am not breaking like glass or porcelain dinner plates, that I am well aware of.
We are all soft curves of muscle, skin, fat, blood, salt & rust. With fine wrinkles and lines mapping everywhere.

I wonder with all my heart,
how does the land of all things forgotten look like?

We would never,
ever know.

Would
we?
Would
you?

For, once you fall in,
you are gone and above all
hopelessly lost.

Your very being
will be
kissed away and yellowed
into
*a dusty wisp of the past.

Could you perhaps kiss the snippets of pain

Here,                        
                          here,
There
Bye, please?

My soul cannot bear to let more pieces of itself to be lost.

So, let them get hopelessly tangled in the dips & cracks of your voice
saying
Go
                    od Bye.

"For sale, baby shoes never worn."
For sale, eyes that never quite met the irises of hers again.
Sold, my heart & soul.

I write to breathe a l i t t le easier.

Black ink adorns the nook and cranny of my fingertips, hugging even harder upon once-blank pages.

I try to exhale out the thoughts of meaness, madness and spice from this warm body.

To keep a smidgin, a flutter of innocence from a different time & place.

Most importantly, those 10:51pm, 3:22am thoughts written onto paper is a nudge of a reminder: Sleep. Sleep better.

One day,
I'll whisper all my secrets;
all those unspoken wishes etched on the creased edges of my heart,
those lost in the depths of my skin
& and &
those little daydreams that blurs my vision

into
a
glass jar.

Oh, he thinks
I am silly.

The whole starry universe can say
I am silly.
That I am a fool.

But that's
fine,
sweet-hearts.  

I'll lock it away, write a note on the side.
Let it be slightly yellowed and creased with time.
Just a ***** of a reminder
of
what
tick-tocks
can do.

Here lies something so very powerful in your hands.
An alchemy of messy hope entangled with rhapsodic notes of my soul.

Now, what you do next is to be

reckless.
Daring.

I want you to b r e a k this glass.
Let happy sighs escapes those parted lips.

Make another laugh line; one that creases your cheek and eyes.

Fill your lungs with the sweet, sweet balmy air.

Let what you promised with half-drawn infinity signs be filled,
now what dances on infinity will never lose its way.

Speak the words you have been wishing to say.

In between the cracking of glass shards, let the sweetness of the daydream meld *wildly.

Sleepy eyes,
a truthful tongue.

Slow breathing,
a curious heartbeat.

Eyelashes and hair;
a messy scrawl.
Reminiscent of careless ink sketches.

{you're a kind of beautiful.}

We have to wither and die a little.

Prune, snip off all the bad, no-good things.

Even the parts that grew another home in your veins and bloomed roses around your ribcage.

Thing is, it is a place you need not visit anymore.

Burn down all the empty houses
with
light-bulbs still on & unlocked doors.

You need not wait.

From the ashes and bones,

there, you're *blooming.

I only ever wanted you to taste the sweetness of a white lie.
I guess,
my mind hopelessly wanted it to become the truth.

As he slowly pressed his lips onto my eyelids,
forehead,
then lingeringly onto my nose,
cheek and
finally,
my lips.

I then only realised how the seconds and minutes stretch out curving, meandering into  ∞.
Half-moons of barely whispered promises but heard all too well.

As I ruefully reminisce, ribbons of myself lay on dusty floors.
For you are never meant to live in the past.

Not again.

Then why do I feel the ghost of your lips dancing on mine?

And with just one little word, or was it a few?

Warmth and balminess became ice & wisps of cold.
Laughs became little sobs; gasping for air for all the wrong reasons.

A
home
does
not
seem
quite
like
it.

It feels like unravelled ribbons.

Painted grey & blue hearts.

Tears on dinner plates.

Cold tea staining raw, chapped lips.

Your breaths merely touching your bare ribcage.

Empty, emptiness simply seep into your veins,
the spaces in your skin, then the ones in your heart
and
in the
very words
you
speak.

I cannot close
my
tired, tired
lids
over
it.

He said he liked her hair long.

She just had a pixie cut.

So, she put down the kitchen scissors.
Letting spring and summer warm her bones.

And then he dared to say
"I miss your high cheekbones and the nape of your neck."

"Hold my hand
Her quiet eyes widened,

and a little question mark
peek-a-boos
at
the edges of her lashes.

?"

His fingertips laced into hers.
Nail against nail.
Wrist to wrist.

There, I can almost feel your heart beat.

It is the surest thing
next to
gravity
in this
s t a r r y
universe,
sweet-heart.

"Hm.. Is this how happy looks like?"
I voice out absentmindedly.

My eyes stare at the wood grain adorning the table.
  Wordlessly, it speaks of the age.

He slowly wrote each letter on this scrap of paper.

Happy.

And drew an straight arrow at the very bottom,
towards

me.

"Yes, that's how it looks like.
Beautiful, yes?"

You know that discomfiting feeling where there is something at the very back of your throat?
Softly silencing all your words.
It doesn't quite go away for a while.

But there certainly isn't any silence between my eyes and his.

"Yeah, me too."

Inaudible to this messy, starry universe.

But enough for
*m i ne.

Footsteps chasing after overly-small ones.
Little gaps of space between their lips & hearts;
flitting in between are voices like little notations on crumpled maps.

Carelessly inked shortcuts to a
dainty dabble of
yellow on
ones soul.

You know the beat of songs slows and matches your very heart-beat.
Its notes speaks all your unspoken wishes and words.

Sweet-heart, that's what your voice does to me.

Each word is like this little letter of emotion,
a little piece of you that melds into my mind.
They inexplicable etch themselves without my permission of 'yes!' across the edges of
my
heart.

Slowly and surely,
you became a lot of my favourite things.

Uh-oh?

So, a crooked smile led to one shy hello.

The
Hello met Hi.

Scuffed shoes nudges patented heels;
whilst fingertips whisper their balmy warmness into one another.

Witty, sweet nothings filled the little empty spaces from his lips to hers.
Which may have led to coffee with a raised eyebrow and crimson cheeks.

Two plates of risotto
&
4 forks
eventually
replaced
by
1 plate of strawberry cheesecake
&
2 dessert forks.

Then,

I fell met *in love.

Her eyes were like the mirror reflections of all the cities he
wished
to
see.

He want to travel to all of them.
Every single street-light or star light
for that matter,
to
kiss
his skin.

Her lips & little smile creases held
the lines and angles
that
were
co-ordinates to
those
unspoken
wishes.

Those crimson cheeks were colours that reminded him of those days of balmy summer.
Rhapsodic notes of laughter finishing the hum of warmth.

Her words were undoubtedly the ones he traces on his wrists when skies are grey and black.

Her fingertips and hands gently reminded him
of

*g                    
                     r                            
                                             a                                      
                   v
                                     i      
                                      t
                                                  y.

You fill my chest

with

little
hiccups
of
happiness.

I hope you know that.

Messy fishtail braids tickling your collar bones
as we both lie on this secret place; only our hearts know.

No stranger; no-one will ever whisk it away from our lips.

For, this map, atlas, bearing
is etched and inked
on the edge of
our bruised and loved hearts.

as
I am being  
b r      o     k   e n  
for
someone-else.

My words fall out

bolder {bigger and bubbled as if bee-stung},

then I meant.

Perhaps, that is why promises get broken.

Pinky finger bones crinkle and crumble like egg tarts and raw sugar.

The words, the lies, the truth are all bigger than my hands, heart can give you.

We cry, in hope and in vain, that
all the inky blues, fiery reds, deep bruises of purples will weep out.

In the crook of their necks,
the two thieves fell in love.
♡

I drew specimens carrying XY chromosomes as sharp, angular.

But really you're this
gorgeous, warm, breathing breadth of muscle,
tendons & bones.

I was happy yesterday, but I am happier today.
The -ier abbreviates for porterhouse steak, red wine, damp suede shoes, red lips, witty banter, petrichor and most of all, *her.

Don’t say sorry.

I reach down to the grass and snap off the stem of a daisy.

The sweet tang of it seeps into the air.

I give it to him.

“See, can you understand now? I cannot sew this.. daisy back. I simply can’t. I cannot put it back together or let it wander into its niche; its sun dappled world.”

Unforgiving silence fills in the blanks of all the words we wish to say.

I step closer to him.

“But you know what, when Spring comes in 365 days, after 525600 minutes of rain, grey skies, ice, hail, sun, blue skies and clouds, it will come back alive."

One* day, I hope you know, sweet heart.
That words spoken from your lips to mine were tied by that smile
&
ribboned by wispy threads of memories,

the way you stared at me in off-handed moments;
your eyes
playing peek-a-boo with mine
across a place filled with beating hearts.

Mine was the fastest, that I do know.

That you pulled pieces of my heart apart
slow & soft
like a promise,

then jigsawed it back together.

But surely, it splintered into indecipherable pieces that escapes my hopeful fingertips.

The irony is I don't wish that upon you either.
I hope you do know,
I
really
*do.

"You are inane,
sweet-heart.
   That's why I love you."

"Are you calling me all things, unintelligent, nonsensical and lacking sense?"

Her eyebrows knit together; the corner of her red lips twitch upwards slightly.

A soft line brackets her mouth.

Parentheses to all the words she has ever voiced and will say.

"Well, clearly not then. I was just checking."

His eye winks; curving into a
tipsy,
upside down moon crescent.

Truth is, I have this tiny vestige of a daydream.

Where, I postulate and wistfully theorise that the heart's volume is infinite.

Its depths are unknown.

For its an empty oblivion; patiently waiting to be
filled, filled and filled.

And, you prove that.
*Every. Single. Day.

The fact that
this b l a n k page
can be the next great love story

or

the gibberish
that
knots and unknots
your mind
scribbled and flicked
in ink.

Frankly,
the
infinite
∞
possibilities
are
*terrifying & wonderful.

Don't be scared to write in ink.
Bleed your thoughts,
let it carelessly infuse between the spaces of blank paper.

You see, sweet-heart,
at least one sliver of your soul will not feel so

*e mp ty

Show me a way,
I'll give you a will.

Till then, let's continue lighting
maps
&
burning
compasses.

People tell me with hushed lips and pained irises,
(pain really only flickers and quietly sinks deep within the absolute oblivions of you.)
that it will get better.
"You grieve, I have done it. Every person has."

Not for this one.

Not for him or her that is.

She had the sort of wittiness that would cut right though that
buttery feeling of warmth
wisped from
one hell of
a
smile.
Guess whose?

He had one of the loveliest voices, one that lulls your tired eyelids to much needed sleep.
A voice that will inexplicably grasp your fingertips when you feel utterly lost and breathless with pain.

And, I could go
   on,  
on
&
on.

Just that my very voice will be cracked
by
the
sweet, bitter
goodbye
whispered by
the yellowing memories
of    

*them.

And if, oh, god forbid that you are going to draw your last breath.

I’ll say “Tell the stars and sun hello for me.”

I won’t cry. I swear. I promise.

But I’ll cry now, if you leave because you are still alive but you are ignoring the screams of your heart.

Please, just stay.

Love, laugh, cry, scream, smile with me till your heart finally stops.

That's why I can truly whisper to myself "I'll let you go now."

Now, its my heart that is crying.

Splintering into fragments.

Forgotten pieces.

Irreplaceable remnants.

Into dust.

And then beyond any doubt,
into
*nothing.

Sadness; this heavy thing begins to silt through my body.

Threatening to weigh me down.

Till my very heart is on the stone-cold ground.
Till *time itself sews itself into this space in my chest.

Pathetic, vulnerable fetal position twists my everywhere.

You can scoff, call me weak.

I dare you.

However,
say it when you feel the death of something so acutely.
- I refer to it as something as you don't lose someone.
They are very much alive in the memories.-    

The moments dusty and blurry at the edges.
The same ones that gently seam your eyelids every single night.

Compelling you to live in the dusty, yellowed past.
The choice becomes nothing but
yours.

But it isn't mine either.      

My stubborn heart still beats with something that is defined as life
but
doesn't
quite
feel like
                                                             i   t.

innocence

blooms

at dawn.

Goodness, how many are there in my very heart & soul?

Even I am not entirely sure myself.

What makes me gasp with undiluted surprise and widened eyes is that
you,
sweet-heart,
manage to find each and every single one of them.
You say a shy 'Hello' and nudge the not-so-good softly.

You see me bare & human.