You rode an airplane horse
Like Joan of Arc and her hope
With Princess Julia and Prince Justin,
Flew away from our bleak archipelago,
Across this continent of the smooth-skinned
To meet the King, your love,
For a quest to raise again our royal family,
And brought rain to Dubai.
You have rained on Dubai;
Brought the ocean to their deserts,
Watered their artificial plants,
Glistened their rough highways,
Bathed the Arabs,
Moisturized their dry skin,
And taught them to dance in the puddles.
You have rained on Dubai,
And took with you my Philippine sun.
Now I sit here in my desk;
A withered bud in the Land of the Orient Pearl,
Staring at this snow globe you left
With glitter orbiting the Burj Al Arab,
Watching over you from this crystal ball,
Waiting for you to leave the Gulf States,
And bring the rain back here.

You cannot die on me,
Let us dive right into your fears.

You cannot die on me,
I cannot save who does not cry for help.

You cannot die on me,
I have not even touched you yet.

You cannot die on me,
It is the good part you will miss.

You cannot die on me,
My fins and tail cannot be with no owner.

You cannot die on me,
This is my sea, I will let us both breathe.

You cannot die on me,
I have turned into your life vest.

You cannot die on me,
I will follow you eitherway.

You cannot die on me,
I will not give up this daydream.

You cannot die on me,
I have stayed alive for you.

Bleed before I eat,
I must make the carvings deep,
Then cram 'til they fade.

Do crickets scream
Like a trapped firefly
Inside a glass jar,
Blinded by her own light,
Deaf to her own sound,
Needing the darkness for she might
Cave in with only herself around,
Or is it just Jiminy Cricket
I hear losing his singing voice
From the plant outside my room,
Telling me I must stay in this jar
Until I learn how not to
Love the light too much?

Unlike constellations,
There are no dots for me to connect
This figure that I trace
To make a silver lining out of you.

I never trusted that warmth in your tank.
I've always smelled something fishy
About the hot moisture on the glass
And how the water is close to boiling,
Since it's coming from this hell
Where monsters share the night
And leave you waiting til the sun
Rises to scare them to their hideouts.
And I almost caught it red-handed,
'Cause now that warmth is gone
And suddenly you're so cold,
Not the kind of cold
That drips on my palms
When I take you right from the water
To let you play in my hands
And you would find a hole to creep out of
And try to fly
As if this whole world
Is your own ocean.
Now it's the kind of cold
That no longer crawls and squirms
To escape from me,
'Cause you've already found the way out.
And you even left the doors open
As your empty eyes stare at me.
You won't look around now,
Just when you've decided to open your eyes more.
I can no longer see you,
Just when you've decided not to hide in your shell anymore.
But it wasn't that warmth after all.
It was the warmth that wasn't there
When you needed it the most.
And it's such a shame the turtle sticks came too late
And they were no longer enough
To keep you wanting to be home with me.
But they still were no later than my sorry
And bathroom-borne sobs
Which you won't be able to hear anymore,
Or even understand.
And the green in the portrait I made of you,
The pixels of your images,
And your shy face on my desktop,
Can never be as alive as you once were.
But you just can't
Let me place you in this jar
I labeled 'good days,'
Pour over some sand,
And keep you there and wait
Until there finally is a place that we can call ours,
Where our remains won't be called tenants.
Darling, why now?
You will still need a bigger tank,
You will still grow up with me,
You will still marry Shelly,
If ever she makes it.
God, let her make it.
You can't be gone now,
You just can't.
I haven't even finished our song yet.
Will you really leave me here,
Writing songs about valuables I lost,
People I sent away,
And every living that died at my feet?
I guess you will
But I just can't get used to it,
Nor do I want to get used to this;
To have to get up
But not want to wake up
And attend every tragedy
As if I were death's representative.

Shelves, guarding me.
Books, keeping me company.
As I look through the window,
I long to have the wind brush me away
Like how the malunggay plants sway the day,
How the pine tree tricks me when it bends down,
And how the white butterflies gravitate like autumn leaves.
I wish to go outside
And make new friends
And waste whatever's left of me.
But this empty part of the library,
The only place that knows me,
Is where I meet with my best friend time,
And she is the only one to understand my rhymes.