Lord
I
Want to know
Where
You are
So
Let me sleep
Underneath
These stars

you're seventeen years old
it begins with confusion and ends with thinking
you're too old yet too young
you want to be set free
yet you want to hide at the same time

you're seventeen years old
and you feel the gravity
of the sleeplessness
tug on your eyelids gently,
saying "go to sleep" during the wrong times

you're seventeen years old
and you think you've found solace
in the noise and silence
but you somehow hear the heartbeat
of cities far away
and you feel small in your own bedroom

you're seventeen years old
and by now you thought
you would have learned to love,
and you have learned to love
in the right ways but for the wrong people
and still you haven't learned to love yourself

you're seventeen years old
you've done the worst and best
and you need to be reminded of this:
you are still growing
and you will be okay.

i suppose nature has not yet kissed
the moon rocks and space dust
on the surface of your home,
so if i flung some flowers to where you are,
would you notice this earth girl calling?
and would you, in return,
send me some space dust in a jar
so we could defy the laws of gravity
and let our love go beyond the stars?

deep in the forests,
in dead-silent houses,
in deep blue seabeds,
in dusty shelves
and empty streets,
you shall be light
you will rebuild yourself
among silence
you will do all the things you want to
and be all the things you wish you could
you will be fire
blazing brighter than you
ever thought you would.

i only knew i loved the stars
on that night in Batangas—
my sisters and i rested our tired bones
on the dewy grass of a cliff,
we rested where the sea met the sky.

we looked at the stars.
"look, you can see the milky way right there,"
my oldest sisters said
as they traced the sky for me,
i saw it for the first time, in the dark
and i felt so big yet so small,
i learned to read the skies
from two people who knew how to
watch the world.

and i only knew i loved the stars
when i came to learn to see them
as i watched them
with the people i loved
beside me.

i'll leave
                        pieces of
                                                           my
love                                                                               everywhere
                                                                ­                                                    like
                                                            peta­ls
            in                                                  ­                the                 wind
                            and                    i        ­                                                         hope
you              find                                        the­m                        and                
                  kn­ow                                   i                   wait                        
                                                    for you.

why should i have to carry the weight of the world
when i break under the weight
of my own being?