whenever i try to sleep past midnight
i always get a call that would keep me up

it's from sadness

asking if i am okay
i'll tell how it went- the rest of my day
and sadness would listen,
sadness would stay

but i usually keep our conversation short
not any more than an hour or past two,
because if it kept going,
and the more time passes by
the more time for regret to arrive
and would want to talk to me too

i like to believe that i rarely think of you
but my dreams always prove me otherwise

underneath the borrowed light of borrowed time
wide awake in a sleeping town
of what used to be a garden of words;

from the silence we made sentences
of the things we promised to never forget

outstretched in the horizon,
an empty sight,
an empty site,
an empty skeleton we once considered our home–

not the ones we grew up in,

but the one we grew up in

filled with all the half-hearted dreams
we screamed silently to the top of our lungs,
so as to not disturb the sleeping sun
so as to not be heard by the eavesdropping wind,

because somehow we always knew-
by the moment the sun wakes up to reclaim its lent light and time
by the moment the wind blows all the secrets it couldn't keep,
from what used to be vibrant yellow petals-
turned to seeds of white and gray,
our dandelion dreams shall be carried away

and so do our forgotten promises

i long for the day i'd grasp on the idea that not being able to say your name nor think of you, doesn't mean that i've forgotten you- but learned to live with the thought that i haven't

sadness lurks on me in the shadows just like how a predator stalks its prey
waiting for an opportune moment- a momentary lapse of judgement
or the moment ignorance gives bliss, that everything is- and will be alright
but everything is not alright
it never was, it never is, and following that same logic- maybe it never will

because the moment a predator decides to stalk its prey
is the very same moment a gruesome fate has been decided on behalf of the latter-
and just like a helpless little prey,
when the predator comes- all i can do is run

but for how much longer can i run, before the sadness consumes me?

i keep dreading the night because i always wonder how long it will take me to shake off every thought of you- that's how long it usually takes before i can fall asleep

if you would ask me.
what is the meaning
of all the words that,
i have been offering

i would tell you,
they are everything

i write to find meaning
i write to give meaning
i write so i could mean something
at times when i feel like nothing

and the thing is,
i'll keep offering words to you
because you mean so much to me

and that is my meaning,
so, i would never stop writing