i.

I intentionally failed to wish you
a happy birthday this year,
though I know significant dates,
hours, moments, people,
by heart.
I still search for you in boys
I mistake for bandages,
the ones with eyes almost
the same shade of your hazels,
lips resounding your laughter,
resembling a wisp of your smile,
But they aren't you.

ii.

Sometimes I pretend you're dead,
because it's less painful
to stop reaching out into voids.

iii.

My mom still blames you
for everything that preceded that year.
Though you probably had no idea what happened
when we stopped talking altogether.
Can you believe it's almost been three years?

iv.

My dad wonders who was my 'one that got away'
Though, I'm pretty sure he knows
it's you.

v.

Remember how I mentioned Sylvia Plath?
How most everything she wrote
brimmed with melancholy?
How I loved every single word?
Especially that piece
where she talked about expectations
and disappointments.
You'll never know that
up to this day I still think
people are selfish enough to
always, eventually turn into the latter.
Even you.

vi.

It's sad I never got the chance
to tell you about Ted.
How she loved him so much,
she just had to dive headfirst
into the flames-- burning herself,
what was left of her--
after she found out
he never really loved her
the same way
she loved him
in the first place.

vii.

truth is,
some of us
never learn to accept
the love we think we deserve.

viii.

I don't know if you still read my poems
or if you still think about me,
about us, sometimes.
Every time you fall asleep past eleven,
a part of me hopes you do.
because I always remember you--
in birthday candles, red ribbons,
off-tune voice records, golden arches,
concrete sidewalks, pedestrian lanes,
the last flickers of city lights
softly fading out of the blue.
I remember you
in everything, in everywhere,
in everyone.
It's useless, no matter how much I try to forget.
No matter how much I just want to forget.
I want to forget.

But, how could I?

When forgetting means forsaking
the very memory of you.

I knew I loved you
since the fourth feather light forehead kiss.
In your presence
I am isolated in utopian bliss.

An island overlooking
glowing hydrogen masses
of what looks like Pacific fires,
or Polaris,
or just you.

Small suns floating in nautical blue,
showered in Pearl Harbor reds
and paper kamikaze sunset hues.

My high sandcastle walls fall
a million grains all over the beach
and I am defenseless against the tide
that is about to swallow me.

I melt away,
let my demons burn,
open the gates,
and let the little girl escape.

I look at you
and everything
is made out of light.

You make every day
worth waking up to.

i.

i used to only write sad poems.

ii.

you see,
i am a cynic,
a cemetery,
a holocaust,
a chaotic, distant, lost girl
buried in her own
self-destruction.

but with you
i am different.

i want to wake up,
keep my promises,
make up for lost time,
spill blood and ink,
try again,
live

for you.

iii.

you walk me home
and the skies blush
pink cloud summers
mid-December.

we part and i marvel
at the sepia tint
of backyard roses
blurring my lenses.

you came in
like the missing palette color
i never knew
i needed
my skies painted with.

iv.

now, you are all the love poems
i didn't know i could write.

and every metaphor i create
is just a lengthier version of
'i love you'

i really do.

i fell in a sea of crystal clear honey,
sank to the deepest abyss
floating, swimming
through candy-coated dreams.

i get a kid's licorice kind of high
everytime you look at me
with liquid warmth, laughter, summer—
those beautiful amber eyes.

i'm caught in a strawberry avalanche
caramel popsicle knees melting in milliseconds
i don't know how you trigger
my hidden sugar rush obsession.

can i comb my fingers through the maze
of your curly cotton candy hair?
can i taste the chocolate peppermint fragrance
surrounding your atmosphere?

i'd give up my innocence,
to live in your confectionary world.
rot my teeth, stay sweet
be your blueberry cheese cake, vanilla ice cream girl.

The last time I loved
I knew exactly
what I wanted,
I was so sure--
it had to be
you.

It had to be
awkward laughs, soft music,
coffee brown eyes
half-asleep,
a house full of dogs,
vinyls,
chamomile tea.
I just knew,
believed,
it had to be
you and me.

I am always running,
looking for fire exits,
secret passages,
ways to escape,
always wanting
to be somewhere else--
anywhere else

but with you
I stopped running--
started wanting
wooden floorboards,
walls and a person
I could finally call

home.

I know her by name.
I know her by face.
Only, I don't even
know her at all.
I think I've seen her
once,
and for once
I wasn't disappointed.

We are so much alike
only she has brighter eyes.
We are so much alike;
So, I figured
from black and white
I could be pastel--
faded bright.

We are so much alike
only she drinks psalms
like the preacher's wine.
Before I abandoned religion
I used to kneel
and break bread every Sunday, too.
So, I figured
I could still be as holy
if I clapped my hands together
and whispered litanies
on candles burning outside chapels—
faded light.

We are so much alike
in the way we love
books and music,
anything aesthetic.
But, I am wrapped in tin foil
and she dons silk and laces.
Same filling,
different faces.

And kid, I wouldn't blame you
for craving
the same flavor
in different packaging.

We are so much alike
only, compared to her
porcelain China doll skin,
I am a witch's voodoo,
covered in pins and needles
piercing rough skin,
a cheap imitation—
a fake.

We are so much alike
only I'm lying
when I say we are
because she is pastel
paint in coffee shops
and I am crayola
vandals on the sidewalk.

And let's admit pretty
isn't anything I would
ever be.

It makes me sick.
Because I'm not like her.
I'm never going to be just

pretty;

Pity, that's all they ever want us to be.

I've learned my ABCs at one,
learned to read by four,
constructed my paragraphs at six,
a know-it-all reciting parts of speech by seven.

Letters assembled themselves ready for scrabble.
Rocks, paper, scissors,
I never learned to let go of the paper.
And grew up with dry fingers caressing books.
Breathing in language and literature.

They say you can only love something so much
until it leaves you empty.
But I've only ever truly loved a few things about life,
and first was how words strung empathy.

The way I wrote about tying yellow ribbons on trees for a hero at eleven,
wrote about anything that won me passports to a passion I had to sacrifice a few years later after fourteen,
wrote about the boy who broke my heart at seventeen,
wrote about the monsters in my head at nineteen.

I don't know how words always found me
whenever I tried to run away from the world;
how they kept my sanity along with melodies for as long as I can remember,
and made countless others feel less alone.

What I love is a weapon
that has sparked revolutions, waged wars.
What I love is art that built acropolises from embers
and most the world's wonders.

It rushes euphoriant through my veins as much as it does through yours,
yet it is neither blood nor oxygen.
It is all the words burning as we keep them hidden,
dying for us to give them meaning.