.  *I fell in love with a star, there suspended in the heavens. I fell in love with its light, its brights, its might. I gaze and catch glimpse of the galaxies. In its twinkle my heart sinks.

   I fell in love with a star; here I stare from afar. Can't barely touch it, can't barely feel it, can't barely cradle it. But as sure as the sun would rise at daybreak, I can see it. And each time -- oh, every single time! -- I am mesmerized.

   I fell in love with a star, who from above watches the earth. I know somehow it sees me, somehow it hears me, somehow it knows I exist. Somehow it guides me; to somewhere it leads me, and I cannot resist - to the sublime burning of its glory, I stand dazed.

   And I wish that would suffice my longing for it to once wrap me in its light and quench my craving for an embrace, even if it means burning myself upon seizing a fireball in the horizon, so be it. I wish it would, but it wouldn't.

   I fell in love with a star which I sometimes dread for its beauty that I cannot grasp. I want to feel it between my fingers and lingering on my lips. I'd invite it in my heart and open my chest. But all I can do is gape from afar -- the chastisement for loving a star.

When a mourning heart wanders, it leaves footprints to follow--
           On faint-lit streets and murky gutters I was led all along;
I saw my body last night, hung with barbed wires on a bough.
And as I dangle, bathing in moonlight, I was singing our song.

Tonight, my lover told me
Love

Is not enough
For us

To get married.

Lost souls wandering on the shores of love,
     looking over the shipwreck,
     wanting to cross the waters,
     not wanting to get their feet wet.
The ocean is too icy for their salty tears,
and their eyes of pond too warm for the sweet, inviting waves.

Lost souls wandering on the shores of love,
     dying for a sip to quench their arid hearts,
     wanting to drown,
     not wanting to dive.
The trenches too shallow for their collapsing lungs,
and their breaths too deep for such a shoal sea.

Lost souls wandering on the shores of love,
     wanting to get a taste of the crashing waters,
     choosing to eternal be walkers and gazers
     and lost and trapped on the coarse, sandy shores
     and chafe their soles;
     and remain unfound,
     meandering souls.

We hate good-byes, yet we say it too often. After a phone call. After a visit. When classes end. When we leave a restaurant. Perhaps these tiny good-byes are said too much to prepare us for the greater good-byes of the future.

But isn't it just strange how the things we hate are often what our mouths are full of? And with the same mouth we whisper the sincerest 'I love you's'.

We love. And the ones we love leave or the love we have leaves us as time passes by. Perhaps it is not good-byes we hate. Perhaps good-byes, themselves, aren't painful at all. 'Cause maybe it is the loving that we hate but we never truly admit it. 'Cause maybe all along we knew, with loving comes good-byes, and that idea is what's painful.

I think about you. All the time. Every second of a minute, every minute of an hour, every hour of a day, every day of a month.

Even right now in utter silence, with just the purr of the fan and the clicking of keyboard keys as I type are heard, you are in my mind. You are in my mind, and I wish - if it's only possible - that you'd fall from my head, just as how you are in my vision - angelic - to my arms so I can embrace you, place my head on your chest, and just drown all other noise as I eavesdrop to the thumps of your heart.

But I looked at my arms and what I saw is my pillow. My favorite pillow. The one I talk to when I very much miss you. The one I cry to when all I wanted is for your shoulders to catch my tears. The one that put me to sleep many a night as the idea of you float in my head. I close my eyes and think of you. And in my dreams you are smiling. In my dreams you said you do miss me too. In my dreams you never let me go until I stopped crying. In my dreams I am sleeping soundly beside you with your breath as my lullaby.

Then I'd awake. Open my eyes. And think of you again, almost involuntarily. 'Cause I cannot stop, and I think I never will.

I love you.

*I really do.

I woke up this day
   and searched for you by my bedside.

I didn't find you there.

I found you in my chest--
   beating.

They say I write for love for I am in love, and they love the works I wrote.

But I can't help but be a little peeved, though still I smile with the gratefulness it connotes.

I wonder when will they hear the reprimands my heart whispers. That I do not write for love because I am in love, but I write of love because of you.

When you feel like I'm starting to slip away, ask these unmade sheets how many times I've said I never want to see you go over eyes that flood tears. They'd tell you. Perhaps the warmth of my skin has lingered on its fibers. Wrap it around your body; feel my embrace.

When you feel like I'm getting cold, place your ears on these walls of white and eavesdrop to every remnant echo of burning, unsaid "I love you." They'd tell you. Find solace in the whispers of my love, in every heartbeat these walls would reverberate.

I wish you don't, but when you feel like I've never truly loved you, read every word I wrote to every inch of my red notebook. They'd tell you. I left my heart there... every single tiny crumb.

It never left my mind, how I have always wanted to write a poem about the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the day.

I seem to have always waited. For the right moment. For the feeling. For the very thing that would hold my heart captive. And that, I told myself, I will forever wish.

Quarter past twleve one rainy midnight, I smiled to myself. I have always wanted the poem to be wordy. But I have never thought brevity could be this lovely:

     *You.
     It has always been you.
     And it will always be.

I wake up in agony, somewhere today, where my hands fail to recognize the creases on your skin. It started abandoning the memory of what it's like to hold you. And as my fingers brush across your palms, its folds are some unfamiliar braille.

Then a streak of your scent pierces sheer through my conscious and reminds my heart. Suddenly, its beats are the rhythm that used to guide our feet to glide in synchrony in our waltz; it guides my steps, little by little, to when and where it all began: that once upon a yesterday, you held me close to your chest and made me listen to the orchestra of your breath-- until I awake and you're humming a different symphony.

It agonizes me, and my eyes that rummage for the love prints I impressed on your lips, that you hum it so merrily.

Guilt slits slowly my throat. As I gurgle anxiety, it watches.

"Just **** me!" I imploringly screech.

"I can't," it retorts coldly.

"What do you mean you can't?! End this agony! Stab my throat! Pierce my heart. Let me bleed and let me die!"

Guilt stared then, calmly, with a sigh,
"You're the one holding the knife."

look back on the rubble
excavate every jagged shard
and splinter on my heart;
ache with me your
wounded finger
and find me in the hurt.

see you here.

gently pluck fragile shrapnel
from the heap of debris;
i am below here in the rubble
of a you and me.

yet do not be so gentle
with these fragile shrapnel
because even to bits
i am enamored;
crush the fractals between
your curious fingers,
pain me once more again
until the pieces are dust
that weathers to the wind,
let the breeze know
of my mourning.

and then maybe you
are needless now
to dig me from the sand
i am interred deep;
after all, i found comfort here,
and sound sleep.

but one thing to remember, love,
when you shovel me out my grave
look me in the eye, burier,
you are forgave.

see you again.

Remember when your mom was all wrinkled brow and frowns as she kisses your scraped knee? And she tells you to be careful, don't get your skin scarred again. That's what we grow up to knowing: don't get ourselves hurt.

But then we fall in love. We give our hearts to somebody just to have it broken. Whether we count that as a privilege or not doesn't matter. 'Cause in the first place, we thought they would never crush it. But for some reason, he chooses another. For some reason, she gets tired. For some reason, people leave. But for some reason, we choose to stay. 'Cause in the first place, we never thought tears would come into play. Then we promise ourselves to never love once more. But like masochists craving for self-inflicted pain, we allow our hearts to again be taken away.

I have always loved rains. The drizzle. The storm. The chilly air

Tonight it's a drizzle. I smile at the forlorn skies. And I'm reminded of the cold nights and your warm hugs and your kiss that burnt my cheek. And how the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof has always lulled me to sleep. How I wake up to your good morning the next day, and how your I miss you was my cup of coffee.

But today was different. This morning it's a storm. It rained so much I woke up to a soaked pillow. It rained so much I can't look at the skies to smile. So it grinned to me with the cold air, that you are mine no more and you weren't mine at all. And then I realized, maybe I don't like rains afterall.

I have sought answers to the query what makes a person perfectly sightly, yet have not I found it.

Is it in the curl of his hair, or the warmth in her stare?
The touch of her skin as she lays bare?

Or is it in the hue of his eyes - deep sea blue? Or the beating of her heart, as if on cue?

Is it in the lines of his jaw, or that perfectly white teeth? The blush on her cheeks or the rise of her chest as she breathes?

I know not if it is in the grace of her gait, nor if it is her weight. Or his broad shoulders or the size of his feet.

Is it in the lobes of his ear? Or her view in rear? Is it in the curves of her waist, or his abdomenals like hills? The complexion of his arms? Or her hug that warms?

Is beauty in the arch of her back or the contour of her *******? Or his suit and tie and his Sunday's best?

Does it have anything to do with the fragrance he wears - warm and woody? Or is it in her pair of sneakers and a hoodie?

Can it be found in the protrusion of her clavicles or the density of his brows? Or in the depth of his voice? The color of her toes?

Is it in the ball that he plays or the gentleness of her face? Ah! How can someone be so angelic in demeanor?

     It isn't clear to me if splendor in countenance can really be found. Should not it rather be felt? Or should it be perceived through sight?

     One is beautiful because people say she is. But beauty could be forfeited at the thought of the beholder that she isn't.

     Does one tell himself that he is as Adonis in loveliness when he looks in the mirror? Or does he say he is like Hephaestus in visage?

     Is beauty defined in the standard: dark hair, appealing stare;
aligned teeth, sharp nose;
tan skin, shaved brows;
waxed legs, hefty breast;
mild touch, sweet caress;
cheeks sans freckles, six feet tall;
flamboyant voice, and foxy lips?
What about molls and vagrant rips?

     To say one is grotesque - is not it just in your perspective? And to say one is gorgeous - what is your basis?

Is it her beautiful locks? --but she is a ****--
Or the emerald windows of his soul? --but he is a criminal--
Does beauty still nest on them?

     I say the efficacy to arouse fascination is not found in the facade of a person, rather found somewhere more profound.

     To put beauty in the way that it is in the eyes of the beholder is quite narcissistic, but let people fancy you not for the sightliness of your face, but the goodness of your soul, though it is heir to sin; the mercy in your eyes, not its color; the care in your touch, not its balminess. Because the only thing that is undying and immortal is not your cast but the heart.

I want to be the cigarette
   between your lips,
   to when you would always decide
   whether to light me,
   take in my smoke,
   and let me singe scathingly your lungs,
   as you stare on my embers,
   entranced on my flicker,
   watching me dwindle
   with the haze growing
   more drunk of the evening dank;

Or keep me cold
   and suffer the grim hankering
   for my tepid nicotine
   to be your oxygen;
   for the comforting reek I leave on your collar;
   the bitter aftertaste, in your mouth.

And then rustle in sobs to the placid moon,
   "Let him **** me;
   He is all I want."

Eternal funeral for this beauty
       latently in a coffin sleeps,

With never a burial - she can't
             die even six-feet deep.

She was courtly,
Oh! Stately was she!

But woe to her! --
      the seller of love;
            seeker of empathy.

What more poorer than her a soul
         could be? --
                  A morsel of love for a penny.

What more colder
         than a night as hers--
                 To slumber in as if a hearse?

Oh, woe to her! --
      the seller of love;
           seeker of empathy.

And what more worse
       could a mishap be--
                Than feast in the banquet
                        of the ****** and the guilty?

How more cursed
        could a creature be--
                 Than thrive in another's lustful  
                          idolatry?

Oh, woe to her! --
      the seller of love;
            seeker of empathy.

She vends fondness
       she never can receive,
             forth with the saintdom
                      she ne'er can retrieve.

What other vying
         is greater than hers--
            To state the malison
                 of the welkin terse?

And she prays to the dimmest sky;
       to the starless horizon she cries,
           "Woe! -- woe is me! --
                     the seller of love;
                           seeker of empathy."

I die a death no one could resurrect me from
No dust could rot my body to dust
No grave stone could ever give me no honor
Nor flowers could perfume nor grass could embellish.

I die a death of all the dying and the decaying
Of all the woes of the living;
And when they excavate my bones of words
From my sepulcher of our forgotten histories
They'll only find two things:
Your words I etched on the underside of my nails,
   and your name chafed deep on the inside of my lips--
I will wail--
The soil of the Earth will first hear it,
Then the echoes would spiral up the roots of every tree
And they too will die of my misery,
That I have been dead yet dying still
Since the day you abandoned me lonely.

My own burial I visit
Days that come after that
Over and over and over and over ---
   and over and over and over

Dead and forever dying,
My heart and its yearning
   for our love--
Dead,
   and forever dying.

I wouldn't cringe
   if it's not you,
But it is.

It wouldn't sting
   if I feel no love,
But I do.

It won't last if it's not true,
But my heart brims with rue.

And it wouldn't hurt as much
   if you didn't say you loved me too.

This is how you know when love is true.

When your senses are numb and yet it pains you so much still, like your lungs are being wring out of blood; like your spine is a tower of stacked-up bones, collapsing; and your words fail and your every desperate action is scarce and all you feel inside well up on your eyes, condensed in an oceanic, salty drop. When you are no one but a void, deluging tears; until your lap is a swamp of one part sorrow and ninety-nine parts nostalgia.

My body is a canvass
Tinted are griefs
Of reminiscent past

My body is a wall--
A mural of every break, every fall

My body is a plate
Etched of anguish my mind berates

I am a paint--
Deep, dark burgundy--
The shade of my soul's ignominy

I am a brush--
Strokes of hate in the evening's hush

I am a clay--
Molded in disappointment and dismay

I am a charcoal--
Smudged by idiocy
And ideas that are shoal

My body is a sculpture--
Crafted with unsightliness and disgust

I am an edifice--
A construction of mars,
Founded by scars

I am the thread of my clothes--
I wear to cover my bones--
   I hide in the closet--
I deeply loathe

I am a masterpiece--
Of repugnance and self-grudge;
Of vexation, of lies--
Of hate! Of hate! Of hate!

I am an art--
A sophisticated tragedy,
An intricate catastrophe
Perfection in all grotesquerie

I felt my heart--
   it shriveled;
   my soul,
   it died
   at the thought
   that any time soon
   you might say,
   for good,
   *good night.

I choked on the crumpled paper
     where our love story we scribbled over.

The idea of your kiss is ambrosia and honey.

The idea of your embrace is tasting the galaxies.

The idea of your stare is nectar in my tongue.

The idea of your touch is a lullaby yet unsung.

But the reality that all are but an idea is the sinking of a captain-less boat; a thousand needles in my throat.

Maybe if I die I would be loved,
Or maybe if I die no one would sob

Maybe if I die I can have my life renewed,
Or maybe I can't, perhaps this is how it should

Why won't I just die that this may end?
I may not be broken, but I'm tired to bend.

Why didn't I just die when I was in my mother's womb;
Rather face reality and to society succumb?

Just let me engage in my demise,
I can't play this game, I have lost the dice.

Surely if I die there'd be no more oceans to dive,
And if and only of I die I would know that I was alive.

I can taste-- no, feel!--
The grease in my mouth
I've finished my meal
It didn't taste real.

I can feel-- no hear!--
The bellow of my arteries,
My gal bladder, my kidney--
Screaming in agony.

I can hear-- no, see!--
My stomach as it digest
The posion I've ingest'd
I say, it's killing me!

I can see-- no, smell!--
The nauseating smell of bane
It smells like oil, sugar, and salt--
Leaving stains in my vains.

I would've if I could've--
Stick a finger down my throat
If I could've I must've--
But I shouldn't!-- so I don't.

I am defiled not by smoke
Nor am I defiled with coke
But in every swallow-- a choke!
If I must die-- through stroke.

I want to gag,
Purge out every liter
I want to gag!--
Draw out melted butter.

Ew, I just ate fries
Ew, they're stomach lice
Ew, I hate my body--
Ew!-- magnificently.

Puke-- no! I feel disgusting
Puke-- no! I am disgusting
Grease, gah! Oh, please!
My lips want not your kiss.

We could easily find ourselves falling in love for things unfamiliar. We think it's beautiful, our hearts taken away. But like travelers journeying to a new city, after some time, we get used to what it's like - not as pretty as we first arrived.

And it is in the nature of man to crave something beautiful and extraordinary, yet we still come back to where we have all began. To our home. Very familiar. Even uninteresting. But the solace it gives, no other place could cater. We come home bleary after toil - partly because of the stories we are to tell, and partly because we know it will always promptly accept us. It's the only place that whispers to our hearts, ever so gingerly inviting us to return. Patiently, patiently it waits for us to come back. To come home. Back to its arms, back to its warmth. Moreover, you long for it just as how you long for a lover's embrace - its security and reassurance.

*I may not be your only love through out future's time, but I wish I am your home.

I can only trace the contour of your face
From this portrait of you I see
I counted the hundred thousand and one ways
But you just can't be one step closer to me.

I can only imagine the day-old perfume -
    Its scent lingering in my nose -
On your navy blue shirt you left in the room --
Quickly on the couch you slouched then shortly dozed.

I can only envisage you munching chips;
Your eyes as they squint when you smile;
When you sigh - the small partition on your lips --
    Why do you have to be away nineteen miles?

You listen to me with your eyes
And I hear you when you write
When I perpend on my demise --
    "Do not heed, they are all lies."

And at night when I gaze at the skies - starless;
When I see no rainbow after the rain;
I tell you I can't be any fearless
Even the blue skies can't take away the pain.

But you're a firefly inside the darkest cave
An oasis in a wasteland --
And in my solitude you'll say,
"Dude, I am just a text away."

My ever fairest dear, Lucille
Where shall I find you, dear?
Where have you gone,
   my love?

To the vast seas, I have inquired
Yet have not I heard you--
The waves voice not
   your name.

To lullabies I have listened
Yet not one word describes
   just how lovely
     you are.

Many a dish I have tasted
Yet none compares to the
  taste of your sweet,
      sweet lips.

The temporal joy of the fair--
Far greater still the joy
  I feel when you
     are near.

The scent of popcorn I feast on--
More fragrant still the smell
   of your velvet
      red hair.

My dear Lucille, where have you gone?
Come home to me dear love,
   before my pulse
      is none.

And when it has stopped - my breathing
I will remember you
   To my faint heart's
      beating.

I closed the door, sat on my bed
With closed fists I thump my head
Black-and-blue, my eyes are red
Count one or two, and I'll be dead.

I can't sense no love - only angst
The voices cause none but pang
I taste pain, savor its tang
A finger on the trigger - bang!

And it still hurts
when I am reminded
of how I treated you--
like my favorite pillow;
of how I sang
sad melodies at 2am,
and how you listened,
and how I thought
you really did.

You once told me,
"Good. Don't leave your lover. I'll get hurt."

And I promised I never would, for you are my.

But now it is I who say,
"Please. Come back to your lover. I am hurt."

It's hard to close your eyes and sleep
When I'm in trench-deep thoughts of you.

It's hard to dream,
   like, 'miss me too'
When you know it cannot come true.

I cannot breathe without your hello
I cannot talk, and I won't let go
I cannot focus, my dear, I love you so.

I cannot think, you cloud my head,
My heart can't pump,
It lies in your hand dead

And I better go to bed

But I can't sleep, darling your face,
When I close my eyes, I am dazed

And I can't cry, because I'm not sure if I should,
Or maybe I'm afraid - I don't know if I could

But I also can't smile
Because I breathe you;
I speak you
I think of you
I cry of you
'Cause you're not even mine,
But in case, my dear, I swear I won't mind.