how is a life with a father?

i will never know
though i have always wondered
if he would have lent me his honda
a sage with pearl words
to a woman’s soul

what does it mean to be a father?*

a young boy shares my blood and face
precocious and brooding as when i was sixteen
it is not enough, i do not know what will:
he knows and chooses not to know me
in our silence blossoms a lifetime
of living and not knowing
if there is a presence in the absence
of words silver, diamonds, or coal
not just to woman’s
but in each of our souls.

almost always
in the aftermath of found love
blown and lost to the winds
everything suffocates:
even the sunlight of noon pales
the surface of things laced in grey
ashes gather in my pockets
films and coats my eyes
like a monocle
to reveal the ghosts
rising from memory.

but not now, not
with my memories of you

instead the light is a sharp blade
revealing surface and edges
your feminine form
touched and infused
with a certain clarity
vibrant even in your absence

the wind is not silent nor howls
between its folds a certain fragrance
like from a flower with petals unfolding
rises to claim and roam
every inch and pore
naked and empty, waiting

then it comes to me:
no ghost rise even in your absence
because you are out there, somewhere
where wind, light, and sound touch you
the same wind, light, and sound
who claims earth, sea, and sky

as they touch me.

in the ruins of our disagreement,
digging the rubble for pieces
that we might still patch together,
she tells me
that the reason why
all those women of yesterday left me
is contained inside the shape of my flesh

and having heard this,
and this was last night
and still hearing the echoes of it now
like church bells tolling
for a funeral, i ask myself
why is she still with me?
why does she still stay?
perhaps, the answer is that
like all those women
of my yesterdays she too will,
one day, one night, or one afternoon
or perhaps even without a sigh,
abandon me.

and that is why
immersed as i am in this sea
of silence and loneliness where i hear
the sobs in my head,
i fold my clothes and tidy up my things,
pack them into my travel bag
and with my pen i chart
the roads and highways of my map
where i would soon be walking
with my shadow
the only one following me.

i bear witness
to the birth of your smile

for each new day
i will bleed my eyes, sever
my soul as humble offerings
on the altar of hope
to see your smile
like a butterfly whose wings
carry away the pain and anguish
of wounds and the wounded,
as it is your passion.

soft and gentle
aflame and intimate
like our last kiss.

i confess it takes
one word from you
to touch me still
while the world grows silence
until there is only you
and your word

blood surges like lava once more
to my dormant volcanic heart

still, i am wise and realize
your word from the recipe for surprise:
the season of silence and absence
ripened time and choice words
in the garden of our distance
into this fruit, plucked harvest

i am not a magus, only an alchemist
as i decipher the chemicals and elements
trace parts and exact measures
as i draw symbols and mental lines
for the ritual to transform your surprise
to reveal the face and name that it hides

because your words are not you
nor am i the words i reply
laced with a chameleon’s skin
for the end that has happened,
for the new season that reins
this naked earth and sky

with my discarded faith
faithful friends, will you confess
to which you would tear your shadow:
to know there never was a god
or to know your prayers transmit as white noise*

faithful i know they will remain
as for friends, well, i do not really know
so i never asked, nor ever will  

still, it awes me of the human condition
to worship and seek portents of blessings
whose arrival the faithful rationalize
as happening on some holy time table and line
instead of the chance and probabilities
like let’s say of winning the lotto mega jackpot  

i have read persons proclaim
after having missed the bus or plane
that afterwards fell to a ravine or mountain
of how divine was the intervention  

i wanted to shake their hands
they must have been so special
to be saved, blessed and loved
while hundreds were ******.

synapse and nerves, signals  
fire fingertips to claim
the points of a star
to burn with friction
between pen and paper  

but since desire craves
no longer nor again
for warmth and affection,
slender fingers transform  
into a fist trapping
black holes and deaths of suns
for the rhythm of wrist.

without a muse i stand
staring below my well
with the coin in my hand
a gathering gravity of sweat

with parched throat and sun bitten skin
the waters stir a delicate invite:
to wash away the gathered dust and ashes,
dilute even minute traces of yesterdays
from soiling each new day,
immerse out the cold of last night
where, in her deep dark
i stripped and whipped passion
free of my longing and desires

and though it aches
with a certain sweetness i indulge
when a flame has lost its glow and warmth
of what is stolen, or replaced,
i do not know-
i cannot find the shape for words
nor the proper name for the silence
for the fate of friendship
forged from strangeness
when time comes for the harvest
of what was found that has been bound
in this lifetime to be lost

i remind myself of what i know:
of the fate of things,
the price that must be paid
in the barter and trade
for the joys and sorrows of living
yet even as the pieces fit and shape
the balance struck between the scales
i could not find aything as i go on
not knowing if regret was born
with a different voice and face

even now, the memories of yesterday  
cold and grey emerge from cracks and walls  
like ghosts who seek for no final soft places.  

there are words, and there are none
as you go back to the coffin house:  

where among warm corpses you have to endure  
the long and slow dance of night and day  

while breathing the air filled with words and voices
blooming from tongues soaked in poison and ash,  

may you return like a flower  
with the memory and hunger
for the firelight of stars and comets.

when your eyes gaze at me
i am reminded of stars ablaze
ancient fires fueled by desires,
or perhaps by fate,
charting the distance and darkness
to glimmer like distant fireflies,
faint light for the faint of heart.

i would have told you this,
but always i am drawn
to your eyes
as flowers are for the butterflies,
devoured by the mystery
of what you see in me.

for this reason i become
your most favorite
unschooled astronomer
fingers tracing for you
the fated constellations and erratic
orbits of my soul.

there, in the stars.

she does not speak his name
for the syllables do not match
the rhythm in her heart

her tongue still to savour its shape
could not trace its outlines
even as a sacrifice into silence

unlike mares violently stomping
in the night while she sleeps
the memory of his name contain

no trace, promise, or fragment
for what she desires to possess
even if only in secret dreams

you rarely spoke my name
because there was always your smile
who took the place of your voice

born after so much waiting
after crossing ***** streets
to soothe the hunger of silent mornings
with the sweet and warm memories
of caramel and cinnamon afternoons

when you spoke my name
it was full of longing
laced with a certain sadness
as if i was going away, or dying
your tongue and lips traced
each syllable like an incantation
to bind me to your desire
to be with you

bound i am now to you
even in these fresh hours of dawn
when even sleep has taken her bed
my far away eyes set
to where you are
without me

as i am without
your smile, without your voice
with only the syllables of your name
to match the twin wet trails
born from my eyes

you could have chosen
exile or as a lone passenger
in the transport of time
across vast waters to an isle
uncharted in any map;
kept as a secret, like the poetry
you wrote and i read without
knowing it kissed and caressed
more than just my name and face.  

naked as we were even before  
the dark where we peeled  
from each other’s skin and touch
the cold and dust of yesterdays,
it must have been terrifying to dare
against a fate lonely and beautiful,
still, with an elemental force that raced
to bind wind and sky from north to south
you declared that i, a prisoner of wonder
to how it must be to be loved by you
be set free.  

for this reason, and perhaps only this  

my eyes will always seek and trap the light
for the harvest offered when to you again i gaze,
a pilgrim to the province of memory
where everything that persists: streets,
gardens, houses under the stars
breathes and whispers of you and only you,
as lips will move while my tongue trace  
each syllable of your known and secret name
until for last breathe this mortal heart.

i have been having longer
conversations
with Silence

not lovers but we
will share the same bed
she will slip under the blanket
claims in the darkness her own pace
will talk while the moon outside
walks naked waiting for her lover
while stars burn their strange fires
the nocturnals with their nocturnes

even now, she is
a downward spiral vine
over my shoulder slithering
to my naked chest
that wears the cold like a cloak
until her kisses traces
the murmurs of my heart

she tells me i am alive
and so i smile before
she reminds me of what it means
to die.

even with the faithful sun now
sparing with her dawn strokes and kisses,
the naked earth breathing and pulsing
with underground seas and rivers of fire
now flat, still, and cold against my naked feet-
even with those throats i once savoured deep
the dance of snake tongues to music wet and sweet
seems to have forgotten the shape and taste of my name,  

i have not lost myself,  
still i know my place:  

*i do not belong here.

while most prefer art on walls
of quiet houses, solemn museums,
along lonely hospital corridors,
i decided to be a walking gallery
with my canvass skin bare to be strummed
by needles with the stories of my dying

i vowed for no words or names
for they can be a reminder of a tender voice
growing into an acacia of silence and forgetfulness

my mother asked me why, of all images
twisted horns and roaring with flame
i trapped a demon (ah, it speaks with my name)
i would have chosen a butterfly, i said
if only life was gentle like wings on summer winds
and so it was outlined and shaded
in and with the memory of ****** skin howling,
like my innocence once lost, never to be reclaimed

perhaps i will never discover
the name of the woman who holds my pen
faithful friends keep faith that i will
though i do not really know how, where, or when

feasted by time, poisons in my heart and veins
my face has remained a mask
for my smile who has almost forgotten daylight,
from my eyes the ****** in my every gaze
sleigh of the mind for what i hide behind:
of mysteries and deceptions born
in the loving state of trust and rejections
into demons i seek to keep in chains

inked, so i could go on dying and writing

my gaze could no longer trace
the shape and space i claimed for my own
in the wide shifting canvass along with the stars
when and where as a child i vowed to become a man.

midnight strolls under the mango trees
where spiders inspired my fingers to weave
about how and when and where to touch a woman-
where my lips charted my chosen path and press
about how to flow soft and gentle as do butterflies and bees-
i know i stand but i could not find my feet
buried among leaves brittle, brown, and quiet

and there, in the space where once resided my hunger
after all these suns and rains now stands immaculate
empty and desolate, my roots shrivelled into dust
perhaps transformed into these breaking cracks
gaping as it consumes my reason to go on being
with a smile i now find myself pore by pore forgetting

ahh, even those of my blood
my friends true and few
would blind themselves
twist their tongues to speak
of how i deserve and that i will
find again my reason and my smile

but how can i not sentence myself
to what remains of my days into shadows,
of my nights into secluded and distant isles
for though i have only hoped to sow
seeds to bear sweet fruit for smiles,
i only have the harvest of tears
from all the names i claimed to love!

for even if each of my lovers proclaim
that there is no regret nor to blame
for how our story came to its end,
the distance between us is a wasteland:

*where even silence fear to sleep, with eyes
bled out of their tears and could not weep.

is it madness to confess
i crave for the sadness
i have known, named, and matched
to follow the rhythm of my heart?

like old flames with their burned out fate
of my sadness i have not felt of late
have my tears lost its salt for her thirst
do my sighs no longer suffice as cries
for all that remains in me, and dies?

where could you be, mi tristesa?

after everything,
this is why i still love you,
how you now fall:

*gentle, as if like lips imitating fingers
tracing a calligraphy of desire
or the contact of soft fingers
like ripe lips whose kisses call forth
more than just warmth as blood surges
to answer every delicate and naked pore
awakened by your slow seduction
into an incessant rhythmic foreplay
between your ice and my fire.

eyes will seek for each blade of light
as it peels the darkness that may reveal
as feet will bind contract of contact with this earth
to span a bridge over flood, wasteland, or volcanoes
ears will decipher the language of silence and sound
a hunter’s sense born to trap scent in stillness and wind

because tomorrow is a promise written in salt
each day is Pandora’s box i dare open and endure

for you.

after the hours of supper,
the heavy night tight
with the silence of human
bodies packed like sardines
in the can of a jeepney.

stopping somewhere in Bularan
a man and his little boy, or grandchild
asked forgiveness from the passengers
as if it was a sin to share the ride.

the passengers began to move;
squirming as if earthworms
crawling, or crawled on their skin,
even the pretty lady in front of me
suddenly shrivelled into ugly.

i could not know or sense it then:
from the kitchen furnace of the sun,
the aroma of salt and sweat
sautéed and stewed in their bodies,
the recipe of their daily fish
until it snaked itself into my nose
i confess i nearly choked.

and at that moment
i am reminded, like a fool
with a smile on my face,
grateful for the price they paid
so i may savour my favourite
feast of dried fish.

thrice the moon has claimed the sky
away from the comets and stars
yet even her full naked light
could not brush away the shadows
gathering from not seeing you
nor hearing from you

even the photographs where you bared
more than just your smiling eyes for me
burns into my own like snowcrash static

until all that remains is this ache:
a ****** song born
with the rhythm of my heart;
the sound of your name laces
each of my breath, as if a prayer,
as i lay my soul into sleep.

between the syllables
of your every word, the sound of your voice
there is enough silence
in the words we speak and those
we never allow to be born from our lips

just as when our fingers
brush by chance or sharing a seat
on a tricycle, there is enough
distance in our nearness
to rival those among the stars

there is more than enough silence and distance
in the coming and goings of things
in the transport of time and chance
this may be my madness,

so let me be mad than to be
distant and silent from you.

you have touched me woman
with more than just your delicate hands
my form you traced with not just your fingers
nor felt as faint lines and shapes on my skin
nor you kisses were mere contact with my lips

even after the last of my tears
fling themselves, sacrifices for what must be
falling to the earth where they will die
even after the last word of our goodbye
cast into the wind where silence is a hound
with sharp teeth and an appetite for each syllable
there is a reason why human love has
always been chained to a mortal heart

i could not really explain but you are in me
the blood that flows from and into my heart
carries scents, sights, and sounds of you
to each and every province of memory
in the republic of my mortal body

as long as i live
i am yours
and you i love

i do not love the way the crown of your hair gather the blossoms of summer, nor do i love the canvass of your face where artisans such as i can find color, shape and lines to sculpt, paint or write as poetry into the pages of memories. i do not love the slim trunk of your neck that connects to the branches of your arms capable of lowering themselves so i may taste your fruits.

i do not love the twin peaks of your breast in whose valley i could burrow myself and find rest, nor do i hunger to trace the path that leads to the center of you where the half of you could meet half of mine and become whole. i do not love the two poles of your legs where my tongue can become a vine twirling downwards to discover the roots of your feet holding you upright from the earth, thrusting you into the open sky to declare your place, of who and what you are to the senses, to the seasons.

i do not love the notes of your voice who echo what may have been the songs from the first day of the world, nor do i adore the twin suns of your eyes who could hold me into the warm season of your gaze and then plunge me into the winter darkness of seeing you not seeing me, ignoring me.

i do not love your soul, i do not know what a soul is, that metaphor for the one flame that burns inside of you, or so they say. you are not a metaphor. you are more than that.

i do not love you. i do not love you because i do not know what love is.

love fails. what is love  if not a mere word, four letters who attempt to become fingers holding in its palm the colors, taste, shape, and seasons of what you are to me: the naked sun, the dying stars, the dance of day and night.... the word "love" is not enough, and so i cannot say that i love you, and so i do not love you.

though i would like you to know that because of you i seek for the roots of my memories, the moment of my birth. because of you i become aware of a tomorrow where i will never be. i do not love you woman, but because of you i would like to hold both roots of my memories and the tomorrow i do not know and stretch it and throw it far behind the light of stars that my eyes could see.

my eyelids kiss, seeking refuge
from the memories of you.

but you are the sun,
your light always cut me;
in the blanket of night
naked are my desires
under your moon and stars.

there is no denying
the passions rediscovered
unrequited and true

with you.

when four feet and four eyes,
each halved into pairs
so they may face each other
with eyes set on separate skies,
how many suns and full moons
does it take to bleed and leech
the colors from each shape,
blur each stroke and line
from the canvass portrait
of a friendship once born on that night,
as if like the first star in the first sky
until it finds death for its dying?

the flame shivers
dims and suffocates
as it burns the oxygen
in the silence of prison

and then came the words

*laced with your madness and joys
your voice a stray wind  
with a perfume i could not name
whiffed by the fire, my fire
stroked with a new born desire
from the first house of delight

like waves
from a faraway sea
your voice
comes to me
kisses and licks
the shores of my ears
tickles and trickles
little by little
like sand
into within
before leaving
for silence

in the silence
with eyes closed
for I cannot see you
i feel you
as certain things
can only be
in the dark and silence
like your words
twigs kindled
by your voice
into a warmth
without a name

your voice is enough
while I keep my silence.

perhaps i only truly see
my own eyes in the bountiful harvest  
under sun, star, and moonlight:
more than the garden of earthly delights
all these passion volcanoes exploding-
the flow of conversations from rivers
subterranean, human, and thus divine.  

and after everything  
i see you.  

seeing you ignites a spark of desire
to burn colors and form in my eyes
that until the last fading light and breath
as long as you allow my gaze
i wish i would not be blind.

i do not love you*

only that when thought strays,
transforms into a hound
bound to trace the path to you
it could not seem to forget,
you remind me of sun’s
first fingers i indulged before
to stroke and kiss my eyes.

we would have remained as we were
with our shoes and our clothes
our words without voice, without witness
to our hunts for metaphors,
these sweet fruits we harvest under the season
fraught with rain, whirlwinds of dust and ashes

and then this world was forged

just as wordsmiths seek
for rhyme and first line
a thousand dreams birth to unveil
this cyberscape, the endless pages
for the human story

no more shall concrete cities and highways
bind us apart with walls or lost in the maze
under separate and distant skies
night and day paused their dance
into an embrace holding us together
so that you and i could touch
should we brave and dare
just like how we do now
i with my words and you with your eyes
where our souls little by little
we bare

woman of the south
daughter of the full moon
with your tongue and its grace
to give words their colors and shape
i find myself hunting for you
in the jungle where i know nothing
without my traps and arrows
naked for your distant gaze
to touch my shade.

like a forgotten lighthouse
sending signals across silent skies
will they ever find brief refuge in your eyes,
these poor words i kindle
from what remains of my fire?

naked is her fire,  
from deep heart and with chaste eyes  
she gathers moonlight  
into spoken words reside  
to soothe sad souls such as mine.

because there is no forgetting,
there are certain days, like a roll
from a seven-sided dice
when i think of you
they happen less and less as you
became more fluent with silence

but today i woke up
from a fading dream where you
were as you were, and since then
under the eye of the sun and the stars
i have become as if prey
hounded by my thoughts
always straying to find you

i miss you and i have been thinking of you
until now at the very least
with the constancy as mortals
need to breathe and heart to beat

i wonder where and how you are, now
while i listen to this silent night sky
once the bridge we built together
to bind even our closed eyes

with the tired and aching memory of you

they used to be rooms
grand and wide as hotel suites
but it was you, and i wanted life
and it just so happened
i had this cabin, out in the woods
where the night sky horizon was free
from the glare of artificial lights
i knew you love the moon and stars
though they were always pale
compared to your eyes and your smiles

we had everything we needed: us.
for the things we wanted
no trek was too long or boring,
everything and everywhere
the mundane shed their old clothes
to reveal their secret selves
between our senses
dancing waltz, house, rave, tango,
our fingers like vines,
with your head on my shoulder
i discovered the true gift of time

but one day i came to an empty room
i waited, perhaps you were out
on your solitary musings
just like i at times crave for my own
it was facebook who told me
you were alive and well
by your distant self
happy even without me

knowing about not knowing
without you, i wondered
should i raze the cabin to the ground?
defile every memory for the surgery
i could not find nor afford?
i sought for familiar pattern and routines
should i sweep the floor laced
with soil and minerals collected by our four feet?
should i straighten the sofa, the fallen lamp,
prop the pillows and unravel smooth
the tangle of sheets and blankets
shaped by our last night’s passions?
these and all others, preparations
for when you would come back

somewhere, somehow
from all the waiting and musings
it came to me in the silence
of the end that was never happening

there is no reason for housekeeping
for this is no longer our home

after i stepped out and closed the door
the faint memory of the purpose of keys
the dirge of the open faucet
they did not matter you

you. who is…
where are you?
who is you?
ah, there is only me

feet on the earth, i felt myself rooted
veins charting out paths to subterranean passages
through rocks and buried things
while my eyes saw again the stars and moon

and so before the ashes from dead stars
could find themselves and gather in my pockets
i tilt my fedora to my right
eyes rimmed and clear as lenses
walking out of that place
the faint memory of a cabin
of someplace with someone
carved out from the woods and bushes
reclaimed once more by wild roots and cold fires.

you do not wear new clothes.

you do not attempt
to erase the aftertaste
by savoring other lips,
nor do you let new hands
trace and discover the valley
below your hips

you do not
even say
goodbye:

because it would be too late
because it would be too soon.

how can i not crave
for crumbs, a thin slice
or a delicate bite
when in you and with you
i discover a garden of gentle hungers
in full bloom and fruit,
like when daylight comes to wash away
the dust and regret of lost chances,
give every shape and color a fresh coat
of promise so that starlight and moonlight
may find refuge for one more day?

a hunter for words yet i cannot
find the metaphors to trace and keep you,
you move, you smile, you glance
always forward forging to greet the sun,
the light on your skin tracing and caressing
your feminine form burns away
the desire and despair to be blind
from these tired and dying eyes

distant as you are from the kisses
of my eyes and my touch
i could not forget you, nor wish to
and so i will stalk the wind for scents
follow the stars and touch the earth
until the last blade of light
to savor the words, color, and shape
always emerging when i speak your name.

it was morning
the light glowed in your skin
soft and mapped from a night
of love, desire
was a fire in your eyes

coffee never tasted as good
as when pressed between
my lips with your own
your tongue was a teaspoon
stirring my own desire

if one day you would wonder
why i kept on breathing, proclaiming
more than just your name and memory
french kissed until the moment i could no longer
may you remember the reason
why i loved you

in a lifetime struggling in the dark and my own lies
with you i wanted love to be simple: truth
so with more than just open eyes
i sought to see your darkness and your light
and it happened, the taste and textures of you
the colors and shapes unfolding in the wild
orbits of your lust for life matched
the empty pockets and spaces within me.
in you, with you, because of you
i learned to measure, mix, knead, and let rise
the recipe for a life of love for you.

on this day
if you remember my love for you
please, do not let tremors of regrets
ride with the beating of your heart
to break the outlines and shape of your face
i once held soft and gentle in my now absent hands;
please, do not let lost time brew poison and flood
the twin delicate shores of your eyes,
and please, not even a sigh for sadness
for not loving me like i have loved you:
for though i may have loved you first
loved you long after your own had died
in between, you did love me
with a love that was all your own,
born from your choice, in its own time

just as i have done for you with mine.

in everything that i see*

you are so much like the air
wrapping me around your fingers, invading
filling every empty pocket of my dry body

from old faded photographs
worn and eaten by the eternal mouths of time
leaps forth the winds
that strokes the embers of our memories

i find you in places that we have been
and i see you two, us
like ghosts who haunt final soft places
i find you, us, even in dark corners
where away from prying eyes
we bathed in each other’s nakedness
two flames lapping each other

perhaps, it’s only memories,
of what were once promises of forever
forever that is only as long
as one cares to remember, or forget

i find you in what my eyes see
i find you even in the darkness
where i seek for no company
insistent, persistent, you are like the ocean with her waves
from far away you rise and fall to touch my shore

i am a sailor overboard immersed in your sea

and yet, i cannot find you in me.

you would be
an apple

you are both red and green
the hot blood passions and emotions
contained in your feminine form
dawns and springs from in me
these mint desires for touch fires,
your hand locked with mine under the rain,
the surging floods of our joined
subterranean volcanoes exploding

i do not remember your voice
and thus i can
not describe them with words.

but do not despair my maiden of silence,
though you have never spoken to me.
i feel your voice.

i feel your voice
as certain things are to be felt:
in the silence of one’s awe,
in the darkness when the windows
of the eyes are closed,
invisible, unpalpable
yet warm and certain
as blood flowing through
the tunnels and highways
beneath one’s skin;
earthly and aromatic
as the whiff of dawn’s winds
filled with the new memories
of fresh flowers and morning dew.

in the false half darkness,
your delicate fingers
trembled and transformed
into a fist

your face was just a shape
against the soft white pillow
my eyes were blind, I do not
know the colors or the forms
yet my flesh grazed
by teeth and claws of the jackals
in your sleep

i wanted to be a predator
in the grey sky of your cold memories
so your petal fingers could bloom
fingertips seek, trace, and claim
the five points of my own
waiting so we can ignite,
in between,
a star.

when you snuggled through cold distance
for the memories of fire in my arms*

to wake into this morning
where you greet me with your goodbye
the wind became still with their feet

my chest the steel cage for hope
who with every breath exhales into exile
the memory of how to fly

to let my tongue remember  
french lessons with every syllable  

slow as a gaze, harvest each color under light
gentle as fingers tracing desire on your naked skin  

but, to speak your name would invite madness:  

for it would stir a lifetime of hunger  
in my eyes to always feed on you
my fingers afflicted by incessant shivers
with only your touch to soothe and calm  

hearing your name, my ears would ache
to hear my own in your voice each day  

*and you do. not know. my name.

only in this naked sky
is where I can touch you

even if by chance together we gaze
you may have already forgotten me:

the memories they call warm and sweet
most favorite by time’s tongue and teeth.

but just as the sun rises
so it can fall to the sea

so will soon like stone be still
the rhythm of this heart for you:

*for now it will take a knife.