you taught me something new,
something simple but true;
something important but only realized by a few.

you taught me that weary hearts can feel again,
and even scarred hearts can be freed from strain.
you made me forget my fear of feeling pain.
you, yes you, keep me sane.

She puts the cigarette between her lips
and I imagine myself in it's place.
She smiles and I see
the sparkle in her eyes that I live for.

My mind becomes cloudy
as she blows smoke from her mouth.
"Smoking is bad for you."
I say, looking over her.

"So am I."
I say, before she turns away.

I'm the kind of person
who loves to
look at the stars at night.
I feel comfortable
as I'm staring at the beautiful dark,
not knowing if there's anything
gazing at me too.

I guess that's why
I fell in love with you.
I always see the beauty
in everything you do,
even if I didn't know
about the darkness inside of you.
I love you even in the dark,
not knowing what's hidden within.

And I'm embracing everything,
even your pitch-black darkness.
Because the moon and the stars
won't shine as bright in daylight.
I want to waltz with your darkness,
even if I'm afraid of the dark.
Tell me, darling, will you do this for me too?

i do not desire to love you
as if you were a bright sunflower or a radiant moon,
or anything that is easy to adore.

i desire to love you
as how certain imperfections are to be loved,
cherishing even your withered petals and massive craters.

i want to love you
when you're happy
while your eyes glisten of euphoria,
and your mouth flashes a mirthful laugh.

i want to love you
when you're messed up,
while your tears rush across your face,
and your hands tremble as you yearn for an embrace.

this is how i desire to love you.
i want to give more radiance to your smile
and bring order to your chaos.
i want your lights and shadows,
even the in-betweens.

i desire to love you
both in your highest of highs
and lowest of lows.
so light up your cold heart
and rest your heart on me.

maybe.
maybe if we kept wishing on
ordinary, tiny stars every night
instead of waiting for
majestic, shooting stars,
our wishes could've come true by now.

maybe.
maybe if we just looked closer
and paid more attention
to the people around us,
we wouldn't have fallen for
the wrong one.

perhaps, maybe,
maybe, just maybe.
maybe, we could've been
if we wished on ordinary, tiny stars
and if we looked closer from the start.
maybe.

Perhaps no one knows
how tough life has been for me lately,
and how close I am from giving up.

But when I hear you laugh,
life goes from tough to the easiest thing
and you keep me going somehow.

watch what she photographs.
not in digital, but in film.
where the shots are limited,
where the photographs are quite unexpected,
where she takes the picture carefully,
because she's worried that it would be blurry.

thirty-six decisions, thirty-six shutters.
watch what she spends her film for.
preserving conversations,
preserving memories,
preserving sensations,
all shared with you.

perhaps she wants to keep,
not just photographs but fragments of you.
through capturing photographs,
between flares and grains,
or even negatives and shadows,
she has thirty-six memories all kept in a roll.

she gave you a wave,
but you're worth
all the oceans in the world.

she gave you a seed,
but youre worth
gardens and gardens of flowers.

imagine how
you were deeply happy with portions.
well i am here, willing to give you completion.

perhaps the worst thing to realize,
is that you still prefer parts of her,
than the entirety of me.

You and I are
the written words on a book's back cover,
the two-minute movie trailer,
the first sip from a cup of earl grey.

We’re a beginning,

a preview of what might happen,

of what could possibly occur
if the stars ever align for us.


But for now, I’m satisfied with

coincidental blurs of sojourns,
occasional tastes of your lips,
with hopes that perchance we shall meet again.

you are
the cold December breeze
on a warm April summer.

you are
the random, surprise present
on an ordinary, uneventful day.

you are
the risen moon even if the sun
is still there, in broad daylight.

what i'm trying to say is that
you are unexpected, unforeseen.
you caught me off guard,
but you make me happy anyway.

someday,
my eyes will forget
how to search for you.
my ears will forget
how to listen to you.
my lips will quit
craving for yours.
and my hands
will no longer reach for you.

Don't fall in love with a writer.
She can make you realize
how bare and naked your soul is,
stripped into words,
inked on pages,
read by everyone,
but only appreciated by a few.

Don't fall in love with a writer.
You'll see how she holds hurricane
and tranquility
in the same pair of eyes,
but never learned
to find beauty within herself.

Don't fall in love with a writer.
She can make you realize
how calm chaos can be.
You will see how
she has constellations
streaming down her mind
and somehow, she has created
a space for you among those
cosmic clusters,
being a part of the galaxy
she held within her.

Don't fall in love with a writer.
Because even after
everything is over,
once things did not work out
between the two of you,
she'll still write about you
and your legacy will always
live through words and pages.

you came into my life
and struck me like lightning;
sudden, spontaneous, and gone
in the blink of an eye.
all you left behind was
the destruction of the storm.
i want to come home.

if you are looking
for constellations and cosmos
in her eyes,
you are
at the wrong door.
she's half a hurricane
and half a rainstorm.
she isn't beauty.
she's captured
vividness
in human skin.

looking down
from the top of the world's tallest building
doesn't seem so scary
when you aren't afraid to fall.

I have all of these
unspoken words in my heart.
I wish I could blurt them out.

I write letters and messages,
scripts and speeches,
of the things I want to tell you.

But at the end of the day,
they are tucked away in my heart,
for they remain unspoken.

And yet a huge part of me says,
somehow, somewhere,
I'll let you know how much you meant to me;
perhaps how much you still mean.

everyday, a little piece of the broken me,
somehow puts itself back together when i write.
but when the silence of the night comes,  
all my emotions scatter around,
i find you once again
with all the sublime memories we had.
i fall apart all over again.

the truth hurts,
i knew.

but i was wrong,
for her truth did not just hurt,
it destroyed.
yet somehow, she expected me
to smile through the destruction.

i demanded for the truth,
until the truth destroyed me.

"You don't care about me anymore," she said.
That hit me hard, because I still cared about you.
- in my own convoluted, messy way.
But I cared about myself more,
that's why I made you think,
that I couldn’t care less about you.

She told me she loves me,
like how the sea remains,
even if the shore shoves it away.
On the day she left,
I thought of the words she said.
I shouldn't have felt secured then,
for she compared her love for me,
to the shallowest part of the sea.
She did not love me deeply.

I was still young when my dad told me that my grandmother had Alzeihmer's Disease. I could not fathom how it was possible to forget everything - the people you dearly love, the most breathtaking place in the world where you seek refuge, everything you've learned, and memories you've made along the way.

I could not understand how she could not remember. I wondered how she was feeling. How does it feel like to forget? I wondered if it scared the hell out of her or if she felt a sense of relief in unremembering.

We came to see her. As expected, she did not know who I was - not even my father, his own son, her favorite one among eight. It was painful because after everything, she had forgetten me. I just stood there - unrecognized. I looked at her, agonized. That was the day I learned how heartbreaking it was - to look at the eyes of someone you love and realize that you're just a mere stranger to them.

My grandmother looked away. Her eyes caught my grandfather's eyes. She stared at him. It took her a long time, but she was able to utter his name. She smiled. That was also the day I learned that perhaps your mind can forget, but your heart cannot. Your heart can and will always remember.

"throw that cigarette away," she said.
i continued to inhale
the nicotine into my lungs.

"you're ****** fixated," she said.
i exhaled the smoke, alongside with my pains.
little did she know, i'm fixated on her.

and the scariest thing about having
all these late night thoughts
is the possibility of them all being true.

the most impactful sentences ever written,
which captured and touched your life
are rotting away on a bookcase;
waiting for the next time,
you'll be needing to flip through the pages,
to find comfort in those familiar words.

"Don't touch that. You'll get hurt" my mom exclaimed as I was playing with candles on the first of November.

As a child, I was always fascinated with fire. Who wouldn't? A fire starts with just a flicker, just a tiny hot spark which ignites a flame. It shifts its colors from oranges and reds to blues and purples. I could spend hours watching how it dances, how it moves - always so gentle and soothing. It gave me comfort and warmth.

I never understood why I was forbidden to touch it, but it never scared me. I was told that it could cause pain, but I still continued to touch even the warmest, flaming fires. I got hurt in the process.

When I turned fifteen, I fell in love with a girl. I felt a spark. We ignited, unexpectedly blazed. Just like the fire, she gave me comfort and warmth. Just like the fire, she lights up and glistens even in the dark. "Be very careful" I was told. "You wouldn't want to get hurt again."

But even the warmest fires can turn cool down. Even the brightest fires can be extinguished. Even the blazing flames can turn into smoldering embers. Maybe that's why I was told not to touch anything on fire. It was a lot like love. Even if it brings warmth, too much of it can burn you. Even if it brings comfort, too much if it can hurt you.

Fire can die out.
Love can die out.

Maybe I should have listened. Maybe forbidding me from fire is my mother's way of teaching me about how love burns.

I made a home out of you
but little did I know,
I was just your temporary shelter.

Now that the hurricane has passed
  - the hurricane of us
the strong winds departed
and so did you.

You left.
Now, I am homeless.


— apbq

I remember sitting with my legs crossed
at an empty parking lot with you.
Burning our lungs,
sharing our deepest secrets at 3am
while I rest my head
on your shoulder that cold summer night.
I sang along our favorite songs
and you wished that time stopped
so we could still be together.

But alas,

You are still too damaged.
You think too much.
You are too practical.
You are not yet ready for anything.

And I’m left confused
and angry
and frustrated
and a little bit hurt, I guess.

So here we are again,
so here we go again.

Who would have thought
that we would actually
burn even faster
than our cigarettes?

                                                    ­                        
 — apbq

she has a long list
of words
of feelings
of thoughts
that she wishes to tell you

and so she opened a book
and let those words
speak the words
that she was not brave enough
to utter

                                                          ­                  
—  apbq

i’ve spent countless nights with you,
getting to know you —  even the messiest parts of you,
over a cup of coffee or a bottle of beer.
amidst having a list of maybe’s,
perhaps i should give this a try, i whispered.

when i realized how i wanted you,
you decided to run away.
only you have taught me how silence,
deafening silence,
can seem so loud.

you left and came back
and then left again.
while you were away, i began to understand
why we can never be together,
even if we like(d) each other.

either it was your indecisive mind,
or maybe it was how loneliness,
absolute loneliness,
can make us run into arms of people
we know we should not choose to be with.

i was not the right one for you.
perhaps, i was not enough for you.
but you were right and enough for me.
i chose you but you weren't strong enough,
to choose me — that's why we ended.

                                                       ­                       
— apbq