her mother embraces her,
even if out of ten,
she could only score nine.
my eyes begin to burn,
for desiring what's not mine.

you don't care
but
it is you i love
i know you can tell
from my gaze alone
now i feel like a fool because
i am nothing to you
i am just a passing thought and
i refuse to believe
that i was good enough to be loved
thinking i deserved such happiness
i detached myself from reality
all along
it is her you love

[now read from the bottom to the top.]

“i want to be the air you breath”
  “it's suffocating”

“i want to be the clothes you wear”
  “i'd feel constrained”

“i want to spend more time with you”
  “not everything is about you”

“i want to feel more secure about us”
  “sounds like a personal problem”

“i want to be loved”
  “you're asking for too much”

the fuzz on my face,
the rolls in my waist,
i'm sure you'll find ways,
to capitalize these distastes.

two strangers
sat in two different rows
watching The Avengers
but this is how their story goes

today, they will cross paths
and catch a glimpse of each other
the girl rushing to finish her drafts
the boy breaking up with his ex lover

two unacquainted lives intersect
waiting for the right place, right time
like a highly anticipated project
to make two random words rhyme

a few years from now, two strangers
will find their lives intertwined by fate
two strangers to friends to lovers
that will become each other's soulmate

right now, they may not be aware
of the resilient red string
that they both share
like a binding, invisible ring

all the stories they create now
they will share to each other later
exchanging "seriously?" and "wow!"
as they take turns to be the narrator

for now, two strangers
sat across from each other in a tearoom
the boy vowing to have no more lovers
the girl creating drafts for her next volume

i think about ending it often.

ending the friendship that burns me out.
ending the relationship i am falling out of.
ending the pain of it all.

but ending it would mean the end of something else.

the end of us laughing in your mother’s car.
the end of you pressing your lips into the palm of my hand.
the end of all my undiscovered tomorrows.

i find myself wishing for an end that wouldn’t quite end at all.

i do well with criteria, i must confess,
it acts as a guideline to avoid a mess,
i always fulfill criteria with dedication,
to earn your love, my aspiration.

but anxiety takes hold within my heart,
when love is shown without a chart,
without standards to guide your affection,
i question if it's really a genuine connection.

if you were to leave, i'd blame my own strife,
my inadequacy would be the result of this life,
for without criteria to prove my worth,
then i am nothing but a piece of dirt.

I never liked how you
abbreviate certain terms,
omit your punctuations,
lowercase your ‘I’s.

I was raised to be scrupulous,
to spell the word as they are,
to add periods at the end of sentences,
to capitalize my pronouns.

Correcting you became a habit of mine,
I rather liked the red flush in your face,
the downward tug of your lips,
how you'd avoid my gaze.

Still, you managed to find a way,
to gain the upper hand,
with a smirk on your lips,
your careless fingers sent:

“ i luv ya ”

With the tables now turned,
a scorching heat spread on my face,
I frowned as I stared at the text,
deliberately avoiding your gaze.

You never had a way with words,
you abbreviate certain terms,
you omit your punctuations,
you lowercase your ‘I’s.

However, i rather liked how it's so very you.

Perhaps, that is why...

“ I love you too. ”

no revenge,
because how could i put you through anything,
when you were once everything?

i wish to melt into you,
like ice does in a cool beverage.
slow burning into you one droplet at a time.

but to dissolve into someone would mean losing the form i once was.

what will be of me when i am no longer solid?
when i give you everything that i am and have nothing more left to give?
what happens when the drink that we are becomes diluted?

what happens when we are no longer as sweet?

will you love me less when we turn bland?

when the thought of us becomes far too hard to swallow?

it's never going to work between
the girl whose love language is poems
and the boy whose love language is
peeling off her prawn shells

she wants him to immortalize her
through words on paper
but he's too busy folding her
1000 origami paper cranes

he wants her to bring him
breakfast in bed for his birthday
but she's too busy quoting love songs
that reminds her of him

there was a language barrier between them

it made them doubt each other

"does he really love me?"
she asks herself as he braids her hair
while she talks about the deeper meaning behind her poems

"does she really love me?"
he asked himself as she romanticized every little thing he does for her
and writes about it

perhaps, she will never know just how much he loves her when he's building her a library for all the books she owns

perhaps, he will never know just how much she loves him when she writes about how days without him felt like an eternity

“i wish i can be as happy as you 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲”

“be happy 𝐧𝐨𝐰”

sometimes, when we speak,
it feels like i am writing a story
that you will never read.

have you grown bored of my content?

have you grown bored of me?

unconditional desperation:
like icarus reaching for the sun,
believing his own silly deception
that the both of them could ever be one.

and i hate you but
alcohol impairs judgement
now i cannot lie

and me?
i was the dust accumulating on a book he once loved.

unobtrusive in nature, but ubiquitous all at once.
a small presence that often goes unnoticed.

when he reaches for the book, i will linger on the tips of his fingers for just a moment, filled with a fleeting and embarassing sense of hope.

the hope that he was actually reaching for me.

i broke one of my vases the other day.
it was rather simple in design, modest.
its shape unassuming, its colours muted.
but it broke me just the same
to watch it shatter into a million tiny pieces.

as i knelt beside the scattered fragments,
my hands trembling to gather them,
i realize how alike i was to the vase;
how little i must have mattered to you.

when you broke me into pieces,
a nonchalant sigh escaped your lips,
hardly fazed by the accident.
you hummed a tune under your breath,
your mind already drifting to other matters.

why would you dwell about something easily replaced and forgotten?

why would you dwell about me?

unfortunately, i have always cared.
you will never see me spreading the secrets you have shared.
though you went and broke my trust,
i simply told myself: "if you really must..."

i was never one to start a fight,
but i admit that i have said some things out of spite.
when you cursed and said you wished for my death,
i felt myself holding my breath.

your hands shot out when my tears fell.
i wanted to tell you to go to hell.
right then, i really wished i did not care,
but intentionally hurting you is something i would never dare.

you held me as i silently shook,
for a moment, i forgot that you were the crook.
am i under some dastardly charm?
why am i crying in the arms of the one who caused me harm?

dampness spread on your shirt from the tears i shed,
your fingers threaded through my hair as you whispered: "i didn't mean what i said".
it didn't stop my bleeding heart,
i find myself wishing i could restart.

if we never met, where would i be?
perhaps, in the arms of someone who truly loved me.
but leaving you is something i'm not prepared.
because unfortunately, i have always cared.

i know two girls shouldn't
but
we held hands
when i walked ahead of you
in a crowded room
as i pulled my gaze away from you
you squeezed my hand and
i believed we could be possible
for a moment

i worked so hard
just to be an 'almost' version of you.
i strive to be as wholesome,
but i can't fix something so broken.
i strive to be as lovely,
but i am filled to the brim with hatred.
you're everything i desire,
and everything i loathe about myself.

my hair has always been unruly.

i was no stranger to things that are hard to maintain.

so, when you ran your fingers through my head, i become very aware of you.

the twitch of your lips, the way your breath slowed.

is the coarse texture off putting? does it bother you that it's blooming from my scalp?

as your fingers come past my shoulders and to the end of their journey, you stare at your hand, realizing you had tugged a few stray strands that coiled in different patterns.

i held my breath, waiting for the familiar look of disgust on your face.

“your natural hair is lovely.”

my world stilled.

you had my heart in your hand, but did not choose to crush it.

in fact, you even planted warmth as you watered the roots of my rapidly beating *****.

i was no stranger to things that are hard to maintain.

but, oh, how i wish you wouldn't be.

i was far too old
to ask my mother for an embrace,
to be cradled in her arms,
as she moves a strand of hair from my face.

i was far too young
to know how to love someone older,
the thought of commitment scares me,
i cannot fathom the promise of forever.

and everytime they hurt me,
i try to put myself in their shoes so much that my toes began to throb, and the scabs that haven't had the chance to heal began to bleed once more.

i tried to walk it off, i really did try.

it made me wonder how they found the strength to walk away from everything and how their feet didn't burn from the friction of it all.

but grief is not just unexpressed love
that the living never got to share.
it is a feeling that is never lost,
a love that will always be there.

how can something so profound
be reduced to words left unsaid?
it was real and it was experienced,
it doesn't end with the dead.

i am a little stray cat,
far too small for you to see.

food is always uncertain,
even when i'm full, i think about hunger.

here lives a million humans,
but i found a lovely one who notices me.

and if i could be hers,
i am finally seen.

i may not be bold enough
to claim that i'd **** for you,
but if you seek proof of my heart,
i'll slice and peel you a purple dragonfruit.

in the end,
my hands will be stained—
not with blood, but purple,
and it would mean all the same.

i am but a monster of hate.
the thought of myself makes me deflate.
the quieter it is, the more i think.
in the silence is when i begin to shrink.

nobody fears a monster so small,
a monster too scared to take part in a brawl.
one day, i was greeted by a friend.
i start to wonder what will impend.

my friend really wanted me to come.
come and join his other friends to watch him play drum.
the thought of their attention on me makes me quickly say "no".
deep down, i just know how it was going to go.

at my response, my friend got upset.
i didn't realize then how much he hated me yet.
he told me bluntly: "i didn't want you there anyway".
and the truth of it all destroyed the rest of my day.

i am not very expressive: when it rained, i hovered my hand above your head as we ran for our ride back home; that was the closest thing i could come to a confession.

when i see how wide the ocean is,
how many things left that hasn't been explored,
how shallow my feelings are in comparison,
how i wish to detach from my empty shell of a body.
i want to walk forward until it consumes me,
until no air can reach my lungs,
and when i feel the pressure pulling me under,
i will not thrash or wave my arms up in the air,
for i want to be one with the blue waves,
i want it to drown out my thoughts.
i want everything to end.

sometimes when we're together in bed
and your eyes begin to flutter shut,
i think: how could i possibly have lived a life without you?

now as i put you to rest,
and gently close your wrinkled eyelids,
i think: how could i possibly live a life without you?

Guilt held me by the throat,
narrowed eyes filled with unshed tears,
as i clawed at the fingers blocking my airway.

Spectators say i should turn to faith,
for how could i not believe in the graceful intervention of a higher power,
in a crime that claimed the lives of so many,
in a crime that left just one.

I do not wish to be involved in His plan,
this miracle they speak of is far too unforgiving.

The fingers around my neck unclenched,
and my arms fall to my sides in resignation.

"You will live with me forever,"
Guilt whispers into my ear.

I shook my head and opened my mouth,
begging for forgiveness, for justice,
but no words escaped my throat.

Grief gives me a long stare,
unsure about approaching me.

“How can i apologize for the crime that claimed the lives of so many?”
I asked in desperation.
“How can i apologize for being the only one?”