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1.6k · Jul 2014
The Traveler
Camz Kho Jul 2014
You wander around my thoughts
Like the avid traveler you are.
You’ve traversed these well-worn heart lines,
You’ve climbed the mountains of verses,
Swam the oceans of feelings,
Jumped off the cliffs of unfinished stories,
Walked the cobblestone streets of my inner cities.
You’ve hidden in the alleyways,
And, on occasion, you’ve ruled my kingdoms.
But now, you come out of hiding more often,
More often than I would like to care about.
Sometimes, you’re a speeding motorbike that passes,
Short, fleeting, exhilarating, terrifying.
Sometimes, you’re a fog rolling into a field,
Soft, imminent, stealthy and confusing.
Sometimes, you steal my trains of thought,
One minute I’m engulfed in something,
And the next, you’ve taken over.
The ways you show yourself to me varies,
But one thing is constant:
All the times I see you in my head,
I wish you were with me instead.
But no, you’re off, wandering the world,
Like the avid traveler you are.
Climbing real mountains,
Surfing real oceans,
Walking through little villages in city outskirts.
Capturing smiles and sunsets in photographs,
Not knowing you captured my heart
With a smile and a wave…
A lifetime ago.
Now I often throw wishes to the stars,
And hope you see them wherever you are,
That you’d give my heart, and my thoughts,
Back to me.
so this one is inspired by some guy i met around 3 or 4 years ago. we didn't talk, i just stole glances at him when i could and when he would look at me i would look away. definitely me being cowardly. but, hey, i was 18.  and i regret not talking to him. i haven't seen him since. and the WHAT IF is there hanging in front of me everyday. so, yeah, that's this.
1.5k · May 2014
To want the contradiction
Camz Kho May 2014
I need the sunsets,
purple and orange
and angry for having to leave.
I need the ocean,
blue and aqua
and enraged by a storm.
I need the wind,
swift and cool
and tearing trees from their roots.
I need the fire,
warm and comforting
and turning everything to ashes.
I need the land,
strong and sure,
and temperamental with its shaking.
I need the feeling,
of love and contentment
and lust and heat
and pain and strength.
Oh to want
both the anger
and the happiness,
the love
and the hate,
the softness
and the pain.
And to wish to want
naught more
than what you give me
But to always want more
than what i have.
The greif there is
in contradiction, and
the hurt there is
in not being enough.
But to want more
is to be human, and
it is in being human
that we love.
So i will take
what it is you give, and
hope and pray
i will want
naught more than you.
i was inspired by the saying "there are two sides to every coin". and it's true. you cannot love, which is a perfect thing, without being human and imperfect. and you cannot say you have loved if you do not love both the dark and the light in a person.
1.3k · Dec 2014
Unrequited
Camz Kho Dec 2014
I fell in love with you too easily.
Too easily, I hoped and prayed
and placed too much faith in something I knew,
in the back of my mind, was not there.
I placed you on a pedestal
so high and above the clouds
it was unreachable, and I loved you
from the ground on which I stood
to the stars that hung above your head.
You never looked down, you never noticed.
And I planted beanstalk upon beanstalk
to try and get to you, but they all withered and died.
I tried and tried, and still you never glanced at me.
But I loved you all the same.
I loved from a distance, the same way I loved before.
It was easy to love you, it was easy to try.
And it was easy to get hurt, and have my selfish hopes ruined.
It was also easy to stop caring,
To stop sitting at the base of the pedestal that I built.
Oh it was so easy to dismantle that pedestal.
Too easy.
It was hard, though,
seeing you on the same plane as I.
Seeing you for who you were and not what I wanted you to be.
It was hard to walk away, because I did love you,
I just didn't love you enough to stay and hope anymore.
So I did.
I walked away, and left you there,
bewildered at my antics, and still not seeing
the ruins of the pedestal, the dimming of the stars,
or the withered beanstalks that littered the ground around you.
I walked away.
But I left a piece of me with you,
and you still haven't noticed.
this poem is about the age-old premise of unrequited love. you know when you love someone so much it doesn't  matter if they love you back or not? or at least you tell yourself it doesn't matter,  but it does. and it eats you up. that's this poem.
1.1k · Feb 2014
THE UNTITLED
Camz Kho Feb 2014
Read me like an open book

Run your fingers through my pages like an avid reader would.

Gaze upon the story laid before you,

As if all your inquiries can be answered,

Like the end of a mystery novel.

Ask me questions about the dog-eared pages,

the missing chapters, the folds that others have made and left behind.

Read between my lines,

Piece through the story within my story,

Unlock my secrets as you turn page after page after page.

Where I am marked,

Graze your fingers across that chapter, feel the scar,

And maybe, if you ask nicely,

I will open that chapter to you and you can read it aloud to me.

Read me like you would your favorite novel,

Lose yourself in the ink and the words, and the plot twists.

Decipher my hidden messages,

Find the meanings behind my poems, the truth behind my sighs.

Then, with your permission,

I may lose myself in the multitude of letters and thoughts

That make up your story.

I will read you so thoroughly, that I will lose my breath within your pages.

I will feel your pages turning, turning,

Your story will unravel before me like mine before you.

I will read you like an open book, and caress your dog-eared, worn pages,

Hold you close to my heart like the only story that helps me get through the days.

Then we will be two books,

So differently bound,

So differently written,

But so lost and entwined in each other’s covers

That no one will be able to tell

Where your pages end,

And mine begin.
this poem was inspired by my being a bookworm, and how the thought of falling in love with a bookworm who would understand this would be nice.
807 · Jan 2014
On Loop
Camz Kho Jan 2014
There goes that light again,
It’s a sparkle in your eyes again.
Fleeting and flashing, and attention-seeking.
There goes that light again,
It fades from your eyes again.
It makes me toss and turn, and wonder if it was there at all.
There goes that smile again,
It’s a ball of sunshine in the gloom again.
Bright and warm and full of mischief.
There goes that smile again,
It disappears so fast, the gloom quickly recovers.
Then you’re dark and sad and dangerous.
There are those hands again,
In my hair, on my waist, around my shoulders,
Giving me shivers, and butterflies, and making me hold on for dear life.
There are those hands again,
Clenched into fists, motioning for me to stay away.
Your moods swing back and forth so swiftly,
It’s wearying to keep up with the pendulum swing.
But I race to catch up nonetheless.
I have become the wave that clings to the shore.
So quickly pushed away then pulled back in.
There go those arms again,
They’re uncrossed this time.
Opening and welcoming and feeling like home.
And once again I am pulled back in to you.
You wrap yourself around me,
But I feel the doubt sink in.
It’s the calm before the storm again,
Soft and peaceful and reassuring.
But I stay guarded, prepared,
Because when you let go of me again,
Like you always do…
It will be the same story again,
And again… and again..
593 · Jan 2014
The Poem That was You
Camz Kho Jan 2014
I wrote you a poem,
I wrote you into a poem,
I wrapped your name around every letter,
And engraved my heart upon the title.
I inked your eyes into the bark of a pine,
And your hair I turned into raven’s wings.
Your laugh was the rain cloud-spattered blue sky,
Then I molded your touch into the petals of a rose.
On the points of the brambles that adorned the meadow floor,
I hung your wittiness,
And your mind I carved into the antlers of a stag.
Then when I made night fall upon the pages
Where I wrote the poem that was you,
I made the mystery of the dark your presence,
And let the moonbeams become your smile.
Every star in the sky was made to be a sparkle in your eyes.
I wrote the weather to be as unpredictable as you,
And I rhymed your heart into the deepest recesses of the darkest cave,
Out of sight, out of reach.
I wrote you into a poem,
Where I buried all my unsaid feelings
Below the roots of the largest pine tree,
Beneath the earth that held the verses.
581 · May 2014
Random Thought
Camz Kho May 2014
I was the sea
You were the sun;
And you’d leave me
Every night,
But I always took you back.
Because you would leave me
With the most beautiful sunsets,
Always.
565 · Apr 2014
There Was No Song
Camz Kho Apr 2014
It was the dead of winter,
Or as close to winter as we could get.
It was January,
The wind would bite,
And my heart was weary.
It was a new year, but the past year's beating
Had taken its toll.
My lion's heart had diminished,
It had fled along with the cold.
There were gray clouds in the sky,
Rain pounding on the windows,
Along with sleep-dreary conversations with friends,
And a fog in my heart.
There were no birds,
There was no music, no orchestra,
There was no sunbeam, no moonray,
But there you were all the same.
And i looked, i stared, i memorized.
The intense hooded eyes,
The ponytailed black hair,
The almost there biker's beard,
The unsure gait,
The intimidating presence.
Committed them to memory,
So i could write about it later, much later.
You intimidated me, made me unsure,
And i was intrigued.
Here i was in a world of gray,
And a ball of darkness passes my peripheral vision.
Of course i had to know your name,
Of course i had to talk to you.
And i thought i'd be done after that.
I was awakened.
And my courage returned, albeit reluctantly.
Then we talked, and talked about fate,
About the present, the future, never the past.
I liked it that way.
How impersonal, yet intimate it was.
It was the most fun i'd had in a while,
You were the sun, the moon, the stars or
The deep darkness of space
Beneath the fading gray clouds,
I Never did find out.
After the weary heartwrenching wars,
You were the decision.
Whether i won or lost,
I barely cared, all i knew,
Was that you were the end.
And it was all that mattered.
I ended.
I ended with the thought of you,
Two conversations with you,
A smile, a wave, a "goodbye, and good luck, friend".
It was all i ever wanted, and all i ever feared.
And it was glorious.
545 · Feb 2014
ONE LAST MIRACLE
Camz Kho Feb 2014
Sometimes, in the mornings, when I see the light,

I think of you, as a lover often might.

But I get up and realize you absence,

Not just your missing presence,

And the lonesomeness I feel is deep-rooted,

Always reminding me, that whatever love I feel is one-sided.

The miles between us, not only physical,

But the miles between our emotions keep me feeling cynical.

Our hearts as far apart as Paris and South Africa,

Your treatment of my adoration as cold as Antarctica.

But I still harbor a hope of change,

Maybe one last miracle, one last conversation.

But I grow weary and you grow farther away,

And I lose hope for that one fateful day

When you might comeback, see me again,

Miracles might happen, and my heart will mend.

*Camz
496 · Jan 2014
UNCHANGEABLE
Camz Kho Jan 2014
You close the blinds on your window,
You turn away and watch, as the shadow of the day
Engulfs what was left of what you threw away.
Last chances, given and wasted,
Lie tattered and worn upon the floor.
You suffocate as the pain makes you forget
Whatever was left worth fighting for.
Your thoughts break the spirit of your soul
As you recall the sweetest goodbye ever given,
And the silence in the emptiness you once called a heart
Deafens and threatens to defeat your pretenses.
You look for solace in the ashes of a flame,
You look for warmth in the house of a home.
The dogs are barking at a new moon,
The cats are whistling a new tune,
Then you say, “Goodbye was the only way”,
And tell yourself all good things come to an end.
You say it would be good to go away,
But if nothing is left to make things change,
If there is nothing left to do but stay the same,
If promises made are made to be broken
Then it’s the same for you,
So you’ll just stay.

*Camz

— The End —