are memories
of fading hurried love notes
old photographs, slow songs

and three full stops...

i'm sorry i played with words
not knowing those words were you

i'm sorry i played with question mark
not knowing it was us

i'm sorry i played with period
not knowing it will end us

i'm sorry  for the all the poems i sent
not knowing you don't read them

i'm sorry, i'm just a comma
not knowing i too need a rest

i'm sorry if i need to find me, I, an ellipsis.

There are days when I see the sun peeking at me.
There are nights when I hear his footfalls.
There are months when eagles follow the oxen following the lions into my den following the missing One.
There are years when I just follow them following the sunny days catching the wintry nights inside the sun.
There are blank pages where my eyes have written blank answers to the questioning of footfalls.

Follow me, He said, and I followed the sun.

~~A poem for a friend trapped inside a box~~

I’m a bird, said the woman.
And so I grew my feathers,
Then Wings, then blue eyes,
Then flew so high and kissed the sky.

I’m a fish, said the woman.
And so I grew scales,
Then gills, then long blue tail.
Then swam so deep and caressed the sea.

I’m a rainbow, said the woman.
And so I leapt and reached the clouds
Then gathered colors for my clothes
From feathers, from wings, from eyes,
From skies
From gills, from tails
From oceans

Then came the man
I’m a man, said the man
A man like me
Move like a man
Like me

I’m a seed, I said
And I shrank instantly
Withered, dried
Returning to my box
Boxed the box inside a sack
Then tied the knot
Then tied to a ceiling

I’m a hope, said the seed
Waiting for the woman
To open the box inside the sack
Inside the knot inside the ceiling

Bury me, said the seed,
In silver dust, inside your palm
And in your heart I will grow.

I'm a moon.

I do not ask why
babies grow old
blooming of flowers
butterflies, metamorphosis
precipitation of rain
drying of clothes
earth's rotation
revolution around the sun

Time teaches wisdom.
Wisdom is time.
Time and Wisdom will answer
And I will not ask why.

Irony.
Rain brings certain warmth to me.
Warmth, rain.
Sitting by the window,
looking at droplets descending
from the skies,
I count their tapping, one...
their rhythm, two...
their breaths, cool, three...
seeping my blanket, four...
then my skin.

How the wind aids their journey, waving its hands
how the wind bids me to join,
there, my dear, come here,
we'll go south,
then north.

Mother,
absorbed on what she reads,
oblivious to what was happening around her.

I wrap myself in a cocoon of warmth
dressed in rain, drenched in irony.

(Enchanted things,
visible only to me.)

I didn't know you have asked mother
when will my return be
I just heard it whispered by the cold wind
this morning when
I opened the door
I see the plants were wilting
I could have come if you've told me earlier
I could have let myself slip from the typing of these keys
for I know you'll be there in your favorite spot, sitting on that flat of an upturned stone, not moving, not waving,
just seeing me get on the bus
I will visit you stealthily like you did when you hand me that 5-peso coin and telling me not to show it to my siblings, my cousins, with that
smiling smile, hiding your eyes, hiding me from their eyes.
I can tell that I'm not your favorite. You don't play favorites, you said
I believed you.

I will visit you I promised the cold wind
But it told me that you already hid yourself
Sleeping below that flat of an upturned stone
I opened the door the cold wind was still there
I watered the plants they were wilting still
I, moving, waving but you already got on the bus
I saw the 5-peso coin in my palm earlier, now it was gone
I told my siblings, my cousins, about it, but they didn't believe me
Just a figment of the mind, they said, they smiled the smiling smile
I hid in your eyes while you in mine
I wanted to tell the cold wind:
The game had ended years ago
But you're still hiding, sleeping below
The upturned stone.