can you miss a place you've never seen? is it possible to have walked a street i've only seen in pictures? every night, i dream of this. i wish i was there.

today, i made up my mind. i wanna fly to the place where the lights twinkle until the sun rises low above the horizon. i long for that hot urban scent. river and cement. through hell and high water, i'll make my pipe dreams come true.

see you soon, love. don't wait up for me. just know i will be there even if the stars don't align. i will move them for me.

i hope one day you learn to look into the corners and see that the webs were not cobwebs brought about by the lengthy days we had. they are strings painstakingly spun through the tough yet beautiful years that we have, all of those keeping me tethered to you. i hope you learn to read between the letters and the lines, that each one was made as a puzzle for you. i hope that one day you will learn that i cared about you as much as you cared about me. now that it's all over, i hope that you learn that my love does not lie in the open. you know how secretive i am. i would not leave the thing i value the most out in the open, just for people to try and take it from me. no, this is why you thought i never cared. i hope you bothered looking under your pillow or in the books i lent to you. it is in the ruffled sheets of our nights and mornings together. i slipped my smile for you in every single one of the pages i dog-eared for you. i hope you found it at 2 am, in the mornings with me. it was in my sleepy kisses and the way i huddled close against you. i hope you felt it in the way i ran back to you, every single time, when my rain poured only for you. i hope you hear it in all of my playlists about you that i never told you about. i hope you heard it in my giggling to the silliest things you said, and i hope you unraveled it in the way every single night i hugged you good-bye. i hope you felt it in our goofy dancing under the stars, eighteen kilometers apart. not far, but not close enough. i hope you realized it was in my tears, till the very last time i tried to fight for us. i hope you felt it in the way i gripped your hand as we walked a moon-lit street, and i hope you remember it in the way i asked for your embrace for the last time. to be perfectly candid, i was so nervous that night, but the way you held me, as it always did, calmed me down. i will always remember how you smelled that night, like sunshine, and you walked like it too. you brought me home that day, and i asked you one last time if you still loved me. i hope you heard it in my silence, anxious yet relieved, when only nothingness filled the car on the way to my front porch. i wondered why the silence was deafening even when there were no words uttered, even though my world was crumbling down under the tires of your car.

every night i wonder why it is so hard for me to forget you. i think its because there are pieces of me i only revealed to you. i bared my soul to you the most, probably more than i lead myself to believe. these are not pieces i can simple ask you to unsee, and i cannot deny that there are also pieces of you in me. however, now, i think i have learned to smash the pieces of myself small enough so it doesn't matter whether i give one to another and eventually lose it. the trouble with you is that i think i gave you pieces several sizes too big that when it was all over, i had trouble retrieving the pieces of myself that were still lodged in your flesh, the ones that crawl their way under your skin, always trying to find their way back to your warm embrace.

ikaw pa rin pala
ang pinagdadasal kay bathala
kapag gising na ang mga tala

sa dilim ng gabi
sa sulok na tahimik
bawat hibik
ngalan mo ang sabi

hindi ko hinihiling
na muling mabalik
tanging nais
tagumpay mo't mga ngiti

kaya't ngayong gabi
nakatingin sa buwang gising
na nag-iisang saksi
isang munting dalangin
para sa minamahal pa rin

Leaving you was like the first time I got my glasses — I hated it. I hated it with every fiber of my being. I felt that it was stupid, and I was so ashamed to wear it. I never told anyone, and I only used it when I was all by myself. I walk around everywhere pretending my eyes were in perfect functioning condition. It got me thinking why I did not care about my eyes in the first place, so it didn't have to come to this. It didn't feel right because I was so used to trusting my own eyes that I never thought it would fail me. Most times, my glasses gave me pain because I was never used to it.  I took it off, once, twice, thrice, and I guess now, more than I can count with my fingers. I tested whether or not I'd still function without it. However, taking it off that many times just caused more complications for me. Objects got even more unclear, and it got to the point where I just couldn't stand being without it anymore.

I hated my glasses, but I realized I'm not the first person who got glasses. Some people do, and some people don't. Some got contacts, some got spectacles, and some have these things, and simply choose not to wear it.  Eventually, I realized that I do need it. With it, I can see objects in the distance much more clearer, and I could see how far things are from the rear view mirror. Somehow, I understand why there are so many dents in the trunk of the car. I use it often now. Sometimes, I take it off, and things get blurry, and the lines get blurry, and I decide, maybe it's time I put it back on. I enjoy the momentary lapse of blur where I am in 2015 again, sitting in the warm plastic seats of a white box, waiting for the next click of the shutter, and I see your face, and I know for sure.  But this momentary lapse of blur is nothing, standing next to refreshing clarity.

Some days, I believe in what my glasses bring, but I still am surprised when things in the distance are never as they appear - and I think that is what I'm waiting for. I think maybe, I wait for the day, that my eyes will function as they used to, and just maybe, I could come back to the old days when I could trust what I see with my own eyes, when I don't have to wear my glasses anymore. I'm never sure if that day would come, but I'll leave it up to time, chance, and consequence: the very same things that led me to my own demise. However, until then, I'll put my glasses on, and I'll try to wear them with my head up.

Most days
It's longing for your presence
Like flowers need water
Just a looming presence
A cloud over my head
Thoughts of you swim in my head
Your eyes that light up with happiness
The way my name sounds
so different when you say it
Your nose you think too huge
But I think is beautiful either way
The way I feel beside you like
It's where I'm meant to be
Your gorgeous smile that always, always, always
Takes my breath away
All of you, just all of your perfection
But sometimes
It's not a mere cloud looming
Sometimes it's slams the memories back in my mind
The little things you do
Your easy gracefulness
Your kindness
Your happy disposition
Sometimes it feels more like walking down the street
And seeing car coming to slam you
Till you're on your knees
With no controls or no breaks to hit
This is the way I miss you
Painful, merciless, and unforgiving
But the moment
I see you once again
I realize the wait was worth the pain

25th june
i didn't know what i was up for
did i know that 4 months later
i'd end up in a state
where sleep was my only escape

you invade my every thought
my every moment
my every second
and yet i barely even
cross your mind

and though i know
what i am up for
i am always taken
by surprise
by these unwanted feelings

your fourth conquest
and you barely know two
and here i am
holding my heart out to you
i told you about yourself
and you said
"these are the kinds of love you need to avoid"
and i told you otherwise
but i guess no one knows one much more than himself

What was there in you that made me want you to stay?
The way that I'm blue
But you made it okay
The way that you gaze
The way I forget
Youre invading my space
But I don't really care

What was there in you that made me need you to stay?
Your laughter
Your warmth
Your smile
that disarms
The way youve turned
My black and white world
to something in technicolor
Now I can feel so much more

What was there in you that made me think you would stay?
The way that you care
The way that you don't
The way I know everything about you
And then nothing at all
The way I'm surprised
Like were meeting for the first time
And when you take my hand
I know I could fly
The way that im losing
My grip on reality
Because you're the first
I've have ever
learned to love fully
And all this thinking has led me this way

What was there in me that made me think you would stay?

It's been 2 years
since we've stopped speaking
to each other
like it's all that's left to do

104 weeks
since I knew how I felt about you

730 days
since I thought about
never telling you how I felt

1051200 minutes
that were spent
on dwelling for what was
than acting for what could have been

63072000 seconds have passed
realizing nights are never long enough
to make myself realize that --
yes, I am through with you
because in the morning
when I wake up,
I'm hoping again

Two years -- and a glance my way
and I've figured that the only reason for the hollow in my chest
is because two brave years ago, I've decided to give you my heart
in the hopes of you doing the same, but what you did was take it in your hand and break it as she held your other

I see a different person when I walk past you,
and I notice how much you've changed.
You've stripped yourself of your vulnerability,
and you're no longer readable unlike before.

What I also notice
is the way your eyes twinkle when you look at her,
the way you trail after her in class,
the way her name rolls off your tongue perfectly, as if you practiced it,
the way you designed a special smile just for her,
the way you hug her jokingly but the look on your face says you could stay that way forever
the way you fool around and pretend you're just friends.

But I'm also good at pretending.
Looking away and pretending I didn't see that.
That my heart doesn't hurt whenever you're both near,
that my heart doesn't get stabbed a million times
whenever i see how much you care for her,
how much you love her,
I'm sorry I didn't notice when you loved me,
but it hurts so much,
because it's so different
the ways you love her and loved me
and yet you still have my heart on a choke hold.

I'm tired of a lot of things
like saying hello and then waiting for a few moments
then it's already time to say goodbye.
I never really leave a mark on anything
but everyone else, not ever noticing,
leaves a mark on me,
mostly a tattoo of what was once
our happy nights and days.
It's like a pain-flavored treat
sprinkled with a few memories
in different shades
that I am too selfish to ever share with
any of you.

I know if I fall one more time,
It's gonna be the fall that would break me.
We should get tired
because they don't deserve what they think they do.
It's hard when no one understands you
and no one has the patience for you.
You're all alone
to sob for yourself
and hate yourself one more tomorrow.
I'm writing this down
because I know that the paper would listen to,
though not understanding, all my reasons.
The ones you wouldn't listen to.
The ones you called hell of an excuse.
You think you're the only one.
Haven't you noticed,
I'm too tired to understand myself, too.