they call me brutally honest
with words that spare not even the most fragile,
with jabs that tear through hearts and leave scars,
done in an arena where the weapons are dampened by rules, culture, and norms.
if this holds true,
then how harsh do they think the battle is fought in solitude,
where the only one who oversees what can and cannot be said and done is myself?

i don't know if i should direct my hatred to you.
for coming so recklessly into my world and bringing destruction with you,
for telling me i've crossed a line that you never drew,
for leaving without so much as  recognition of the disaster you brought.

i dont know if i should direct my hatred to myself.
for letting you break down my walls only to see you be the reasons why i had them up in the first place,
for giving you the key to a vault containing treasure i know you'd steal,
for being a warrior that turned into a distressed damsel when you came into my life.

i hate how traces of your shadow still appear in my dreams so far past the time when destiny pulled us apart as hard as it did when it pushed us together.

i hate how i unwillingly force myself to see you in everyone because no matter how bitter you taste in my mouth you were once my happiness and i want rediscover that in somebody else.

i hate how now i fear i might lose a person who likes the same things as i do, who fears the ocean like i do, who wonders about space like i do. i fear might lose them only because they didn't have the same way of running their hands through their hair like you do

i hate how i fear i might lose my soulmate simply because they weren't you.

i hate how you became my benchmark, my criteria for others who might actually even be better than you.

i hate how you keep the trophy for being the first person i gave my heart to.

you were a harsh reminder.

i learned it the hard way, but at least now i knew.

first impressions do last.

love, they said, makes terrible contradictions

they said love makes the heart wild and want to be free,
but it also makes you need a home to find solace in

they said love makes you want to think it through and secure a future
but it also wants you to feel and only feel

they said love gives you the best of happiness, joy, and glee
but it also gives you the worst pains, sorrows, and griefs

facts these may be, i believe fear makes worse contradictions

i'm afraid of living in this world any longer
but i'm also afraid to die

it's not surprising.
fear has always been one step ahead of love

the bruised neck and the dangling rope
felt less painful
than the expectations wrapped around her.

the silver blade and the crimson fluid
shone more distinctly
than the dull stack of golden medallions.

the doctor's prescriptions?
oh, she took them.
but she had no time for prolonged treatment for she had her 'obligations'.
so she ingested them all in one go.

and for once,
she had received what she had sought
the honors,
the love,
the concern,
although she had wished she had received those
on a place without the black clothes and the pretentious words of preachers.

her only regret
was that she could not say:

doctors will always find people who need their care
and lawyers will always find people who need defenders for a fare

but when painters go without making a single stroke,
and when musicians leave without composing a single note

only then do we wonder
if the lives of those who fostered fake aspirations
were ever worth their parents' expectations

he beckons to me,
donning a persona as dark as night
yet with it is the promise of light.
his embrace, i am aware, is supposed to feel cold,
yet i swear it's the only place left to find warmth.
his presence proves heavy,
and yet, consent to his touch promises relief.

he beckons to me,
right now he is the man i desire.
he will come for me when time deems it so.
i know because he approaches everyone.
and i wish to come to him now,
yet i cannot find the strength in me to court him.

should i?

these walls were made to be unbreachable
built on the heart that shattered countless times
no giant has ever ruptured this rubble
and no god had enough power to see inside

so when the fissures started appearing
and the stones slowly watered down
i ascend to see nothing but a weakling
with velvet words and eyes of brown

delicate and precious as the intruder may seem
his dance was probing and destructive
the words he spoke fractured the seams
and the walls could do little to disrupt him

panic kept rising as the questions insued:
was the intruder a blessing? or was he the scourge?
should the walls be torn down? or immediately renewed?
was this an act of good will? or just another purge?

from this perspective it was truly hard to say
what his intentions were and if his heart was true.
or maybe the wall had made me forget how to play?
i laughed and went down and pretended to know what to do

i think about the people in prison--how some of them find solace within cold metal bars and isolation.

one might say that they conditioned themselves to feel that way, or that it's not a façade and their happiness is genuine.

however, prison is still prison. every convict has their way of dealing with their sentence, and each one came from the same place the others did--outside. they grow up to be different, matured individuals while serving time, and they fulfill certain roles to maintain harmony.

those without life sentence are eventually set free, and they find the experience enlightening and fulfilling, or tasteless and dull. either way, being set free after years in cold cells makes for a feeling of bliss, as if a heavy burden has been lifted.

i long for that feeling of bliss. i long for this burden to be lifted. i've yet to find whether this experience is fulfilling, but i'm anxious to know what it's like to be free. i try to fulfill my roles, and inevitably i also mature. i know we all came from the same place, but i've yet to know how to properly deal with the experience. i'm conditioning myself to be happy, although it's becoming apparent that that's a façade.

all i feel is cold and isolation, and i cannot find my solace.

i stop to realize then: if this life is a sentence, then i dread to think of what i was charged with.

when we love someone,
we give our hearts away.
to those who aren't fortune's favored,
their hearts are taken permanently.
but the heart we can reform,
and reform,
and reform, again and again,
but after a while, we forget how the genuine one feels like,
and all we are left with is the shadow of what used to be.

i was drowning
but then came the pouring rain
and for the first time i could breathe

the glass on the table no longer tempting,
the voices in my head no longer speaking,
and the smoke that suffocated me have left for the night.

sober nights like this are what make me glad i didn't call you in the dark of night,
asking for a place in your heart that was never mine.
sober nights like this are what make me realize i was right,
right not to ask favors you were sure to decline.

they say doing nothing is an impossible thing to do, but sober nights like this are when i do impossible things for you.

shattered glass on the floor
but they were not mine nor were they yours
because we kept ours and so we dont bleed

i know tomorrow the wolves will howl again,
i know tomorrow i will miss the silent,
but while i can say this to myself, i'll ever be grateful for

sober nights like this take up my regrets,
regrets that i could have had if i crept on your blankets in the moonlight.
sober nights like this give ease to things i fret,
because here i get acknowledge the cost of fleeting delights.

the ghouls in my head make it hard for me to see, but sober nights like this let me know what's good for me.

the glass on the table no longer tempting,
the voices in my head no longer speaking,
and the smoke that suffocated me have left for the night.

i know tomorrow the wolves will howl again,
i know tomorrow i will miss the silent,
but while i have control over myself, i want to burn this to my head:

sober nights like this come and go,
and i know tomorrow i'll be drunk in my thoughts.
sober nights like this are hard to let go,
and even harder to remember after the return of the demons i fought.

i'm a slave to the darkness that broods inside, but at least in sober nights like this, for a while, to myself, i can lie.

"do you know why i'm always right?" he, nothing but a boy without reason to exist, asked in the depth of their conversation.

"because you're smart," she said, echoing the words of tens, dozens of others in the exact same assured tone.

"no," he replied, his draw of breath done so meticulously as if the words he'll utter were from an overused script, "because i'm a pessimist,"

"because i accept the fact that if anything can go wrong, it will. if even the slightest chance of misfortune exists, the universe will favor it. this is the truth, and people prefer to keep living in the lie because they think it indefinitely can protect them from the pain. but the truth? the truth always prevails."

They called me a storm,
Because I ravage and destroy while I grow

They called me a tsunami,
Because I swallow you whole before I go

They called me an earthquake,
Because I break and demolish

They called me a eruption,
Because you suffocate while I flourish

Yet when we touched,
It was I who got damaged

When you smiled at me I realized why

You were human,
And you could destroy so much more than a natural disaster can.

i closed my heart and hid the key.
for protection,
for deception,
for reservation.
but now far too much time has passed
and when i decided to unshackle the locks,
i've regretfully discovered
that the key has long since rusted,
and the vault will be forever closed.

if every day is just a struggle for another,
if every hope is only for a better tomorrow,

if every breath and every heartbeat rests only on the most breakable threads, on the false promise that the light is waiting at the far end rather than being just an illusion or a figment of imagination to ease our bearings

how can we say that being alive is still better than not?