I do come back
in dreams, lies
and broken down deja vu,
only I can't
find my way back to you.

I can't sneak out the old window,
I can't wait for the bus.
I can't write you letters.
I can't keep thinking of us.

How are you doing today?
I miss hearing your stories.
I miss hearing your laugh.
I miss being Eleanor.

I let down my walls for you—
a complete stranger with sad eyes,
hunched figure, face down,
back plastered in dimly lit corners.

We held hands as we toured through galleries,
artificial sceneries, and slopes overlooking the city.
I let you sit beside me in craters other people dug up
just to see if you could fill in the spaces they left.

But you dug your own,
left me wondering how you could
claim love, promise me new planets
and then leave
just as they did.

I let down my walls for you—
even when I knew I'd risk drowning
for people whose words slowly turned into lies
once they decide to abandon ship.

I let down myself,
in hopes that maybe you wouldn't.
But you did,
the worst part was all of you did.

Now my walls aren't the only ones left crumbling
but my deteriorating furnished interiors
barely holding up the framework
of what the people I love keep tearing down.

You found me
stuck staring
at rearview mirror reflections
of wintry, dusk intersections
of everything leaving me
all at once.
A forced exhale
of asphyxia caged
in collapsing lungs;
my mouth,
a fountain spring,
that coughed out
pools of blood.

I wish I saw myself
the way you saw me;
not a red traffic light
wounding speeding cars
on winding streets,
but an antique heirloom
priceless enough
you'd only wish
you could keep
in a heart-shaped box
you saw in dreams.

But, I'd cut my tongue,
paint my lips cherry shades
to blend with cells that'd stain
handkerchiefs you'd offer.
Make you believe
this isn't going to foster
because you are indecision,
unfinished watercolor landscapes
of summer forest fire skies,
a sun-kissed Pacific wanderer.
And I am true crime
untouched evidence of break-ins,
remains of faulty locks and lights.
I am mosaics misaligned;
static, seabed cracks
from forgotten fault lines.
Gaping fissures of sand,
and salt that won't let me stitch
frayed skin-deep fibres
barely holding me in.

Oceans would have to empty themselves
into whirring cyclones and high tides
for our selfish sense of touch to collide.
Ice caps would have to sink
deep enough to even bruise my skin.
And I wouldn't want to watch
more Shakespeare end
before it begins.

See, I am the one
with sharp edges,
but why
did you have to be the one
to clip my wings?

There is only an abyss
without a trampoline,
a safety net,
a bed of waterlilies,
I could fall in.
And I am so tired
of paradoxes
and ironies;
of always being wanted
by someone who doesn't even
want to be kept,
of always being mended
and then left
with more dislocations,
and fractures,
one after another
each taking longer to fix.

Now, in shapeless parcels,
without return addresses
sent out into the void
these words will echo
of love
I never intended to borrow,
and shadows
of false hope
you never thought yourself
capable of
giving away.

But our eyes can't unmeet,
and you can't unwound my heart,
the strings you tugged at.
I'm not the kind of person you keep 
when you let everything just
fall apart.

You were always the first one
to bolt out the door
when the curtains caught fire,
when the faucet spewed dirt
instead of water.

What little light I thought you saw
in my fluorescent eyes,
couldn't get past your opacity
and you just watched them
burn out.

It was always going to end
exactly like
this.

As midnight strikes, I wage wars
with invisible enemies
that will never breach
your side of the snow globe.
And you'll wake like my nightmares
are your dream catchers.
You'll wake and catch sunlight,
dew drops and morning air.
You are in the bubble of where
good things still happen.
You are where
I am not.

And sometimes I still wonder
how you get the better
end of the bargain,
while I only get nostalgia,
unhealthy coping mechanisms
and nuclear explosion
barren spaces in my heart.

I can't see past old horizons
and what's stuck ticking restlessly
on blank canvas walls
has always been a marker
dividing my present
from yours.

what was once a galaxy
has become a minefield
of massive black holes,
and all our rocket ships
have crash landed
without taking us home.

lost dreams of flying,
mechanical wings,
intergalactic suffocation,
stars in glass jars
as souvenirs
just in case we got close
to the moon.

we took off as one,
our faulty parts disintegrating
upon reaching the exosphere.
turbulence, then nothingness,
a lack of closure,
and gravity
working in reverse.

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.