Okay,
it took a little time.

A handful ,
no!
Make it a teacup
full
of
tick-tocks.

With
a
dash of sugar.

Twice.

A twist of lemon.

One tap of the silver spoon.

It took a while
melded
with
patient waiting
for me
to
see
&
blushingly admit
precisely how much
I have
fallen
into
your *gravit
                              y.

Let us keep the vestige of the past,
Let the very dust settle on our cracked hearts,
Let the yellowing pages yellow.
Let time dissipate and gently kiss the flakes of us into
*nothing.

Instead of trying to find the galaxies in someone's irises,
look up.
Right into the sky.

So, then, when you do find a star;
that proverbial twinkle
between
one's eyelashes,
****,
wouldn't you be sure?

In
three
simple,
mundane
words.

- in the same way the most beautiful phrase ‘I love you’ is jigsawed together-

I can do the impossible;
coalesce and meld every little thing;
your little laugh and phenomenons beyond our outstretched fingertips .

That is life will
mercifully or regretfully go on.

To say 'I love you" to someone is never truly easy.
The 'I love you' to the right someone, that is.

Three little words is

A promise on the edges of their heart.

It is the little laugh line right beneath their cheek.

It's the feeling of home enveloping and dipping
into
the
empty      spaces
of
their   b r e a t h s.

-*11:15pm, 23rd January

Today, I found a silver of understanding.

It was hidden, blanketed and veiled
by
old,
o  d d
things.

My parted lips breathes the dust away.

Now, I know why they used to say,

Don't grow up too fast, you'll grow old anyway,

darling.

Why is the ocean blue?
The ocean is blue because water absorbs colors in the red part of the light spectrum. Like a filter, this leaves behind colors in the blue part of the light spectrum for us to see.

Why do people you love get angry, till their fragile veins bleed out?
They care, sometimes, too much.

Why do I feel like this?
Perhaps, your eyes said a shy hello to his.
And both of your lips refuse to say Goodbye.

She is an orphan of love.

But, you see, sweetheart,
that
didn't stop
her
from
loving.

I am so in love.

I draw love-hearts within love-hearts.

Now, let me just hide my crimson cheeks and the flickers of shyness behind those
white,
white covers.

You remind
me
of
sweet tea,

honey cornflakes on sleepy, sunday mornings.

That hell of a smile is like thick socks over cold ankles.

Your 'head back; don't give a ****'
laughter
is
like
little sunshines
saying
'Hello'
to
all
the dark, empty
s p a c e s
in me.

You remind me of artfully ruffled hair,
messy white sheets from pillow fights.

You, sweets,
have the loveliest soul.

I stand here with winter-bitten
fingers & bare ankles..

I never needed much
when you were aways just a quickened heartbeat away from my own.

Mirrors hold both truth and lies.

*Which one do you believe in?

You are the most wondrous dizzying
mess of cells,
deoxyribonucleic acid,
erythrocytes,
words,
sounds,
murmurs,
thoughts & b
                           r
                                                 e a t h s.

And his kisses on her skin felt like wisps of butterfly wings,
then to a slow inferno.

My face is scarred,
by the tears I weep.
Red welts bleed in the most visceral manner.

The lines that surround my lips are carved deep;
the dusty crevices of happiness.

It is the eyes of a man who saw a beautiful creature & the price of it was infinite blindness.

Lost in the bilious darkness of himself.
But, it is all metaphorical.

No-one else can quite see it.
No mirror can possibly reflect.

I am decaying from the inside.
I am a mess,
a wondrous tangle of the torn ribbons of love.

I am dying.
Slowly but surely
in these suffocating waters.

"You're a very selfish human being."
The mirror
did
not
utter
a
word or breath back.

Misspellings.

Coincidental; little mistakes
that make us
oh, so very
human.

A stroke or a little flick of ink that makes that dizzying difference
between what your lips wants to say
and
what is starkly conventional.

But trust me,
sweets,
when I write
I love you
at the
very end of
creased
coffee-stained and red lipped marked
napkins.

It isn't quite a mistake.

Hush those slightly alarmed eyes.

Perhaps, it's just my white heart painted red's
blissful
*fall.

We all write those sweet, sweet words about that
him or her.

Each letter; a soft smile plays on your lips.

Between the spaces are the living, breathing and crinkled memories of that person.

Flitting in and out; peek-a-boo with you.

I wonder with wide-eyed curiosity which
flickers and edges
my eyelashes,
how does your him or him look like?

How do their lips crack a smile?

Where do their footsteps lead to?
Back to your door, I hope?

I will never quite know.

But one thing I do know with certainty,
my god,
they
are
beautiful.

I am not sure who I am talking to anymore.

Your voice sounds like a stranger;
someone whose voice was never privy to the corners and edges of my heart.

Certainly, not the kind of voice that wisps the rhapsodic notes for my soul to ****** away with.

I don't even wish to know who I am to you now.

So,
hello
Mister Stranger.

"Surely there is more than this."
There is something that hinges on her last word.
Ah, its
hope.
Misplaced, misguided thing.

"The universe is beautiful, yes?"
    She nods slowly.

My hand cups the side of her face, my fingertips lightly brushing her cheekbone.

"You plucked the stars speckling these skies
then dotting it onto
my fingertips,
then my wrists
and
the deepest oblivions in me."

If there is anything more than that.

We
          are all too    selfish    for
our own good.

She wants to feel a warmth;
the stirrings of something far too good, too much for her heart.

I have precisely not one but two stalkers, two malaise menaces in my hands. Well, not quite literally.

Its all in my head, you see.

They pervade my robust, iron clad, sheer willpower.

Hmph, not really.

The two little rascals, attractive ones at that, present themselves during frenzied times of scattered notes, inked fingers with frustration crashing in the air.

Frustration grows ever-so-slightly when they efficaciously whisper to you, it will only be five minutes.

They leech time off my circadian clock, inevitably painting black under my eyes.

A pair of smooth-talking liars, the scourge of the Student Underworld.

Their flamboyant, beguiling gestures of distractions, alas, it is far too much even for
my  
mind.

Even doctors cannot prescribe a medical concoction to rid me of these pests!

Beware these criminals!

They need to be obliterated, removed, pruned away from us, young innocent seedlings.

I introduce you to... ughh...

*Mr & Mrs Procrastination.

Frankly, this feeling of vulnerability and weakness is so very consuming.

The undeniable fact that my heart is puppeted by those gossamer wisps of daydreams and
of course,
you
remains etched in my skin.

I cannot quite
let you go
because that would
simply
mean
I will let me go too.

let her staunter through twigs, broken leaves and buds of cigarettes.

{Nothing will bloom from them.}

Let her know the difference between the innocence of a white dress and white flowers.

Let her realise the uselessness of a lighter with damp, soggy cigarettes.

{You never needed the latter.}

Let her feel the nervousness of a stranger bandaging a wound,

& then the shyness of the fiftieth kiss.

There is a difference.

Let her know she never needed you, but

The big but is that

she loves him
&
he loves her.

There is an inexplicable magic
- sweet & short; the bitten back lips sort of pain-
something imbued with time.

For it survived through the silent deafening tick-rocks.
Little silvers and wisps of yellowed newspaper ink tailor itself in your cold coat pockets.

Oh yes,
dust-motes, blood & teardrops lay between its spaces.
But, it is still there.
Right between your seemingly fragile fingertips.

You're here now, make it count.

And I realized how far you could pull my heart in ∞ & a half ways,

you could break me like a pinky-promise.

Little delicate china pieces adorning worn-out shoes.

But goodness,
it has just occurred to me that

we are
stronger
than
we know
of.
And
we love more than we could ever imagine.

I am left with scraped knees,
fingertips that spent their days counting the ones they would be able to meet yours.

Raw, bruised, red lips from all those unspoken wishes that lulls those tired eyelids to sleep.

A heart full of love to kiss, dance, tickle you with.

Eyelashes with tears edging the corners.

Swallow that inexplicable sense of speechlessness.

Save those for undeniable sweet things on sunshine-kissed days.

I'll be okay.

Will be okay.

I love you & that is ok-ay.

Be careful*
when you hold my hand.
Please?
As much as my winter-bitten lips refuse to say

"I am fragile."

Don't worry, spring will kiss them.

Between my wrist and fingertips, bear a gossamer web of time's sewing, see that criss-cross there, yes, it's still mending.

Little threads of fine, fine alchemy.

Above all, be very careful & wide-eyed
with my heart.

The space between my ribs and my white heart painted red
bears
old, old scars
that never quite
closed
to
s l e e p.

Creased memories still peek-a-boo here & there
before
threads and thin lines of time seam them away.

It is scary, I know.

But, I promise,
I'll do the same for you, sweet-heart.

you tend to realise several things.

1.  Infatuation and love affairs with phones.

2. Everything and everyone is a variable.
The probability of being on this lonely carriage again as that stranger with 5'o clock stubble sitting across you is infinitesimal.

So, when you find a constant, that is when things get interesting.

Uninterrupted eye contact.
The same dated train tickets stuffed deep into pockets.

3. All these people. All these faces.
I think I am getting to know love.

"You can fall in love with some-

someone. The word him bubbles into my mind.

thing, more than once."

I say, cheeks crimson and with suddenly shy fingertips.

And with my hesitance bleeding into the air,
he raised his left eyebrow,
followed
by
the slightest flicker of a smile on his lips.

"Oh, we have a little time."

An immeasurable number of tick-tocks.

It's enough to kiss your forehead and then the tip of your nose.

Repeated
twice.

It is the little gap of patient waiting for tea to steep
&
wisps of warmth to kiss your fingertips.

Enough time for nervousness to flicker in irises and shyness to tip-toe into crimson cheeks.

Oh, and sweets?
There is always time to whisper 'I love you'
on
the
cupid's bow
of
your
lips.

Always.

I watch her meticulously strain the tea, patiently waiting for time to pass for it to "steep and infuse” which  I quote from her as those words escape her lips. And finally when its ready she announces it with such happiness, I cannot help but feel metaphorical little rays of sunshine kiss my skin.

And the irony is that the sky is painted black with the stars as a sprinkle of sparks. Its precisely one of the reasons I fell for her.  

I have said it before.

But I’ll say again, I can write it till the very ink bleeds across the yellowing pages.

"One, two... you?"
She pauses.

Eyes wide with meaning and unsaid thoughts.

"That's how in love I am with you."

I hope you know that.

"Oh I knew. I know."
From the first time, you uttered my name and held my hand.
I knew.
I know.
He whispered back.

B r ok
                                en  Hearts,
you try your very best

with those unspoken, silenced words etching into your rib-cage,
unconscious smiles with dazed eyes of sweet, sweet memories blanketing your vision,

to jigsaw them back into something like before.

Before, your eyes winked at mine.
Before, your fingertips said shy Hello's to mine.

But really, it is just
pale, pale imitations.

Just wait till someone colours it

red.

It will be lovely,
no
lovelier.

I promise.

In these writings, we lie.

A smidgen of red, black, navy-blue ink over truth.  

Cross outs over uglier words, dotted full stops to string the infinite memories.

To make broken glass and porcelein cups whole again.

The kind of facts we did not wish to know, the kind that numbed your veins even in the summer.
We paint them white.

We are liars.
But you were my first *truth.

Daydreaming of rain & dry spells.

I am not quite sure how to say goodbye.
A farewell.

How do you know how long to look in those eyes?
To know your heart is filled with enough 'them'.

How exactly do you crinkle a smile that says "I will come back."?

And most of all, how in the world do your lips utter those two words when there are tears at the back of your throat?

How do you wish the unspoken words you have yet to speak away?

Glancing at the clock, which sees the hour hand finally resting at 12.

I sigh, time will enduringly wisp every fibre of your being into the next day.
No matter how magical the time was, it will slip through your outstretched fingertips.

Even if you grasp, pull or tear, you are most likely to hurt yourself beyond recognition.

You will be blinded from the blurring & vague finger paintings of the past and now.
Bloodied, cracked hands that will always fumble with shards of the past.

And it will happen again.
Once, twice and then indefinitely.

In those infinite string of moments, you only then realise.

Your heart only beats alive in the dusty backward of time.

Inherently,
there are those memories that ****** away at our crinkled hearts.

Some pull & tug in the same way,
eyelids close  
slowly and sleepily on Sunday mornings.

A few and a half dust-motes on memories are like paper cuts.

Short, sweet, stinging.

A handful are incredibly blurry, is it for the best?

Whether, my fingertips are trying to paint a lie white,
even, my mind is not too sure.

I keep living and breathing past tense.

I  liked the way your lips turned downwards before that smile,
the roughness of your fingertips against mine.

Of course, it is all gone now.

You are gone now.

And I have not even forgiven myself
for
forgetting how it             *f e l t.

Whilst we had that pavlova frosting on our lips and noses,
I had a Pavlovian reaction that made me gasp.

I like you.
I fancy this gorgeous, wide-eyed, laughing boy
who has the kind of notes in his laugh that makes me fundamentally
agree
with the very fact,
it is okay to laugh at myself.

This utterly imperfect being looking like he does not give a ****
is
colouring
my soul
yellow.

And my lips could never say more Thank you s onto the Cupid's bow of his lips.

For, he taught me how to be happy by myself, with only my shadow in sunlight.

To colour in the blank edges of soul with something a little gorgeous and a pinch of something rather

*different.

These bare walls whose peeling paint once felt the tremors, dips, quivers in your voice.

As my numb eyes and tired eyelids stare at them, they look
awfully lonely.

And this lull of loneliness seeps into these what I thought were  impervious pieces of myself.

Who knew lonely itself
could have such a
presence
in
the
e m p t y spaces of my chest & mind.

You see, someone who can make you the happiest.

Can also make you the saddest.

Oh, the irony ****** even the places in my heart that I thought were impervious.