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."

I never thought it's possible, to have such
       deep fondness for somebody that you
       cannot spell the word 'love' without her
       name; that the word 'love' has become her.

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 promise you the next time I write,
   I would write your name in place with mine.

So that people would look for you and not me,
   and they would see, my love, the reason why I write.

As they gaze at your face, they would understand.
As they hear your voice, they would know
   that many a next time I would write,
   but only of one they are sowed;
   and even without you,
   I wouldn't for another.

I'd just retell our story. Your stories. How my heart has been taken. The joys. The frowns. Our very endeared moments. The tragedies.

I would retell it in a hudred different ways, but I don't think I could write for another because only you and your kisses give my pen its ink and my words the power.

I would retell it.

But I wish I never should.

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.

Your eyes are what spoke to me the loudest, as it did when I first caught your stare. And I still fall for your wink and your lids' sweet fluttering, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I crave for the sound of your voice - gentle and affirming. I remember how each time we talk on the phone your words would slide its way down my throat right through my heart, melting it smooth. I still fall for your laugh, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I ache for every word you've spoken, smitten with tender affection, to again escape your lips. I think I've never told you before how your good-nights are more comforting than the softness of my bed. I still fall for your puns, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I sit here two thousand miles from you, sharing the same sunset view. I whisper to the winds to carry these words to you, and bask the air that you breathe with my kisses too. Then maybe it wouldn't be that far of a gap, even right now, at 5:22, falling in love with your photograph.

A day with you is saying good morning to the sun with cups of coffee. Long walks, but longer talks, and feeling tingly. Pillow fights on white sheets in underwear with yellow smileys; bacon and eggs and pancakes and sausage, and peanuts with no grease.

A day with you is seeing the dusk with rainbows. Chocolate ice creams and cones and mangoes; KitKats and Cadburys and Oreos, with Lego House and marshmallows. Or maybe cookies and cola and not milk, while I hold your hand of silk. Or maybe some singing or dancing or playing the guitar. Or painting a portrait of the moon and stars.

A day with you is a night in July and rainy. And kissing you with some hugging too and three spoonfuls of honey. Then I'll cradle you, with lights out, as you doze sweetly beside me. I'll hum you to sleep with tender pattings on the hips, and watch your eyelids fall gently.

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.

I wish my love is your first breath
   of crisp, fresh air;
the first glimmer of sunlight,
   lining the horizons of dawn,
      as the lights of the Ferris wheel burn out;
your lips stained with nostalgia,
   kissed with the cherry tint of candy floss;
the smell of clean fabric against your skin--
   I wish I am--
      fragranced with the scent of popcorn--
after the carnival.

Eternal funeral for this beauty
       latently in a coffin sleeps,

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

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."

When love is the spine of the universe,
   you are its heart, and I its body.
  
I contain you
   in me.

But without you, my own,
   I shall not live nor shall the universe
   know about love,
   for there will not be your words
   that is the blood, slowing through my veins.

Tonight, my lover told me
Love

Is not enough
For us

To get married.

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.

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

When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. I told myself, "I want to see the stars and the planets up-close." I think probably we all had that stage in childhood where we all wished to be space walkers like Armstrong.

But eight years later, now I don't wish to be an astronaut anymore. I wish to be a writer. Because I have already seen all of the stars and the nebulae in your eyes. I wonder how they all got condensed in those two small circles like the moon. I whisper to myself, "It's so lustrous."

I already felt the weightlessness of space in your kisses, and your hugs are like oxygen tanks -- I need them to breathe. And when I see you-- just looking at your gait and smelling your perfume is even more enthralling than being in a launching rocket ship that pierces through the clouds and breaks the invisible mantle that separates the Earthly skies from the cosmic tapestry called "the rest of the universe". And I float away from reality and just revolve around the idea of you and nothing more like how the satellites of Jupiter revolve around it almost eternally.

I don't need to see the constellations anymore nor the planets or the meteors because I have seen them all in your skin-- I painted them on your skin. Others might call it bruises, but they do not understand that your body-- your neck, your arms, your chest are empty spaces and it'd feel like a sin not to embellish them with love marks -- the bruises that do not scream pain but* I love you's. *And I love you.

More than all the splendor of space, I still find your hair and the arch of your back and the gaps between your fingers and your clavicles so much more beautiful. Even this galaxy we live in seem to be unfit for its name: Milky Way. I think that name suits better your complexion alone. And when you smile-- oh, your smile! -- it is more radiant than the brightest comet and more warm than the hottest blue star; even the sun in the most arid summer-- it just gives me sunburns, but your smile, only yours, renders my heart melted.

When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut because I wanted to see the space. But now I don't anymore. Because I learned that astronauts are just spectators and I want to write about the universe. I want to write about you.

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.

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.

Last night, before I close my eyes, my heart whispered me something. It told me to love you endlessly.

My lids finally shut as I lull myself to the thought,
           *"I will. And I always will."

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

Let me stifled by your scent
And drown in your sweet bitterness;
I'll let my heavy lids lay flat
As you take away my spirit
To where you call tranquil and calm.

As my tired shoulders fall gently,
I am filled with your warm caress
Along with nostalgic portraits
Frame by frame running in my head -
Ever vivid and enthralling.

The consoling embrace you give
Alleviates grief and its pang
Even just for a little while.

As I savor your poignant sting,
I can hear my heart as it sings,
"Sorry, but I just can't grow wings."

I like whites - clean and crisp. White shirts and white sheets. White mugs and warm milk and white winter rains. But if you were coffee, I'd spill you over every white and love every stain.

I like organized - neat and nice. Made bed and matching blankets. Tidy shelves and closet. But if in my room you're the clutter, I don't think I'd ever fix it.

I like stories and poems, novels that get me hooked. I like plots with twisted endings, and my heart being took. But if you were a word in a chapter, I'd rather read you forever - over and over - than finish the book.

Your breath is my nicotine,
your perfume, my smoke;
it warms my within--
a little nudge, a gentle poke

sends my sober mind ecstatic
and my drunken soul awake,
my thumping heart, erratic
and my rickety bones break

to the sound of your voice--
is my alcohol and wine
topples me out of poise,
stumbling never felt so fine

is your stare; i'm defenseless
as i stand before you
are my vice and addiction,
my downfall and destruction.

I tried to make the best pudding I could
     out of the crumbs of time you give me.

It tasted like half-baked smiles and salty tears.

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.

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.

.              You do not know my name, or maybe you do. Either way, I do not know yours, too. I may have met you already. Maybe our shadows have already crossed. Maybe I know you so well, yet I have not a hint that it is you. You may be the person that sat beside me on the long, long 'couch' of a jeepney or that girl that dropped her hanky inside the bus on its aisle. You may be my classmate; my neighbor, perhaps. My friend. My friend's friend. Or the cousin of my friend's friend that once set my heart a galloping horse but I then realized - laughed at myself, even - that I was such a foolish dolt to feel that way and utterly air-headed to believe  it, so I 'ended everything between us'.

               I may have seen you already, taken a good look at your face - your eyes having no sparkles and the fireflies in my stomach asleep being the only difference. You may have liked me or even 'fell' for my stupid smile and I had no idea at all.  So I apologize if my apathy made your heart numb or my blindness shattered you.

               Away from these hundreds or maybe even thousands of possibilities and ineluctabilities;  the chances of me already meeting you and not knowing that it was you; all I ask is your love abided by the love from the skies. Love, not affection nor attraction, nor any of the temporal abstracts. A four-letter piece-of-cake-to-spell word, yet too involuted to be brought to living definition. Love, my dear, and fidelity is what I ask.

               I long to see you, know you. To be stifled by the fragrance of your hair, know the color of your eyes; to be deafened by your voice in its saccharinity, watch how those delicate eyelashes of yours lay gently on your cheeks as you close your eyes upon sleeping.

               Life is a book wherein the plot depends on how the protagonist writes it. Tell me how many more pages would it take for me to get to our chapter 'cause darling, I swear I would skip even a hundred or two. If only I can, and if only you can. But apparently, I'm stuck in this chapter called 'present'.



**Sincerely,
Your present Future

Hail, dreamcatcher, hear now my thoughts
Free my soul of fond hopes of naught;
Of brokenness these dreams had taught;
Of ceaseless pain this life has brought.

This heart is weary of shouting;
Of being empty yet drowning
In insipid words befuddling;
In ashed promises succumbing.

**** this anguish feasting inside
That this shiv may be put aside;
These damp sheets be given a rest,
And that may bliss in this room nest.

Hail, dreamcatcher, hear now my sigh,
The words I'll mutter as lie
Below the grass, hear my cry;
My soliloquies ere I die.

The dreams that I wove with your strings
Are dreams that 'til I slumber clings;
Dreams that on stars I'll be wishing
That I with the stars be dreaming.

Farewell to you, dear moon, I say
Awake I can no longer stay
In peace on this bed I shall lay,
Never again shall I rise, I pray.

So dreamcatcher croon me to sleep
And let me drown in thoughts so deep
Don't wake me up, I had enough
Last wish: I be gone in a puff.

I'm a little lonely
Just a little bit sad
A slit on my wrist
      won't be that bad.

Or maybe two--
       'Cause I am brave
Or three--
       Who's there to save?

Now, the fourth--
A bit too deep
Then the fifth--
Eternal sleep

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!

I tried to stop it once, but I failed.
I tried to dry them once, but I failed.
Because of you, I greatly failed.
And no worse a failure can be than I.

I have failed to stop my pen from
       continually bleeding your name.
*And I failed to dry these pages,
       soaked in thoughts of you.

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 think I'll forever long for your kiss like how the desert longs for rain.
And crave for your touch like how a wound demands pain.

I'll forever ache for your "I miss you", with the tumid wish for things to stay the same;
     like how, from then, each and every "I
            love you" would ache for your name.

The way I fell for you
'Twas fascinatingly hard
You let me in a free fall
Without nobody to guard.

The way I fell for you
'Twas fascinatingly sweet,
Not until you tore me--
When the ground and I meet.

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

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."