We are just
ordinary poets in
an extraordinary world.
We have no fancy words nor meter-
what sets us all apart are our stories
and no one can take that
away from you.

Just because they have
a heart, does not mean they are
capable of love

6:51 AM
6/8/24

Silence comes in
many shades,
for good or for worse.
Sometimes the soul can take
solace in silence and
sometimes it can drown in it.
Other times we cannot tell the difference,
and we are left to decipher our soul
and what shade of silence
it chose today.

Now that you have seen
how I need my solitude
to escape bustle and burden
of everyday life and
how I need my silence
to escape these deafening crowds,
how I take refuge behind this
impenetrable heart of stone,
am I still easy to love?

We all have different
ways of healing.
For me, I need solitude,
so much solitude and silence.
To just be with myself and
my thoughts is how I
recharge that battery that
never had much spark
to begin with.

I am terrified
when I am not
feeling numb.

I am worrying
that I am worrying my
worrisome life away

4:51 PM
24/7/24

Some of us
favor our solitude
over the company of others.
We seek out silence like
the moon seeks out the night
because there are days when
our stars burn out and
running from the sun is
the only way to protect
their glorious glow.

Learning to look  at you from afar,
to not reach you with these hands,
to get used to the silence,
to become strangers
once again
is one of the
most difficult
lessons I have endured
and am still learning.

Maybe there
was no struggle.
Maybe it was me,
myself and my thoughts
all along.

I worry about the day
my tank will deplete
and I won't be able
to give you my
all for I will be
running on
empty.

One common misconception
about night owls is that it
isn't about staying up late,
not to party or to relax,
but the feeling the silence
and the darkness brings.
In this solitude we find peace of mind,
we find the atmosphere to create,
to work and to unwind.
The world is asleep and I
have never felt more alive.

What if everything
was as scary as my mind
made it out to be?

10:56 PM
4/7/24

It is true that
I have never been
an excitable person.
Even when it comes to
celebrations, birthdays,
and even my own, I find it
hard to muster up the joy.
Perhaps I wasn't given the
social battery required to spark
enough excitement for those
day-to-day activities and achievements
but that is fine by me.

"You don't seem quite yourself."
you used to say to me.
You never really did understand
that there is more than one
who inhabit this body
and that you only
loved one of them.

If only I
didn't have to
fade from your view.
I could be a continuous memory
with no end in sight.
It would be a dream that
never had to end.

All memories
leave a mark.
They can manifest
from scratches to scars
or the most
beautiful tattoos.

I love you during rain or shine,
and everything in between.
I love you in my solitude
no matter how distant I seem.
I love you in my absence
even across the land and sea.
I love you when I'm anxious
even when it's taken my autonomy.
I love you in every country
from Vietnam to Turkey.
I love you now and forever
and for all of eternity.

I have learnt not to
talk too much in case
my glass lungs may shatter.
I am sick of plucking the
shards from inside myself
so I have learnt how to
whisper instead.

Nobody talks about
the side effects of trauma.
The ones that make you
way too forgiving,
way too empathetic
to the point of putting
another's needs above your own.
Or maybe you'll do anything
to please people in hopes
they do not repeat the
trauma you so desperately
try to avoid.

I have always
wondered if angels exist,
and since meeting you,
I no longer have
my doubts.

Do you ever
lose so much that
you become all too aware
just how temporary it can all be?
Like the ticking time bomb of love,
with each word inching closer
to detonation.

I miss you
so much that
your smile has become the
sun in my sky and your voice-
the wind that gently flows
through each and every
one of my days.

Depressed and
spiraling into
darkness.
I am calling out
for help but I
am in far too
deep now.

My heart sank to
the bottom of your sea
and now I wait for
it to float back
up to me.

You redact moments
you wish to ignore but
my memory remains the same.
Indeed, we are living records
of time and trauma and
they do not stay dead
for very long.

There is no such thing
as a perfect person-
only those with less
flaws than others.

I try not to let my
shadows consume me
but some nights
are too dark for
my light.

Why do we write?
Is it to fill the bottomless hole
in our hearts
dug by those who
come and go,
who defile and destroy,
and those who do
not understand
your heart?

You are the water that
grows the seeds in my heart
and the sun that gives
life to the love that sprouts.

For too many reasons,
this month feels like
a memory
already.

Some leave,
and when they do,
they take a piece of
your soul with them.
How many more have to leave
until I am nothing
but a shell?

Some love is only
meant for dreams and nothing more-
oh, what a nightmare

7:09 AM
20/5/24

Spiderman would have
been in awe of your wit,
Just as superman for
the way you never quit.
The hulk would have
been in awe of your might,
just as Thor for the
way you shone so bright.

I saved our photographs
for days like this when the
nights are cold and solitary.
Hard to believe that I
was loved by some,
and above all,
by you.

Nostalgia can be
like your favorite jacket:
it'll keep you warm in times of cold
but can become unbearable
when life starts to burn.

What is so sad
about nostalgia is
how it leaves one frozen
in time.

You may be living
without me but you are not
without all my love

3:38 PM
4/5/24

Are you hoping they will
come back or say they miss you?
Are you hoping they will
wipe away all those tears and scars
they left upon you?
Are you sure you are not wishful thinking?
That they have not thought about you since
and have gone the farthest
they could from you?

Stay in my life
with purpose or
leave and take your
dubiety with you.
Life is too short for games,
and half-assed attempts and platitudes.
I want meaning, I want passion,
I want the one.

What if we are not
the writers of our story?
A writer knows the next page
where as we are prisoners
of the past and present.
Hell, some of us barely live a story,
but merely characters in another's story,
or worse, nothing but a tragedy.

If my time were to end
tomorrow,
I would hope not to upset you.
Just know that I lived life to
the best of my ability.
Know that I remained loyal,
bold and sometimes bizarre.
So if I meet my end
tomorrow,
think of it more as a
mere inconvenience
rather than a tragedy.
I have lived a hundred lives,
been on a thousand journeys,
so just be sure to wish me a
safe and thrilling journey
for whatever comes next.

I would erase all the poetry
I had ever written for you if
it would free me from
your grasp.

Our time was brief-
so brief that you left
without really arriving.
I did not even have the time
to say goodbye to you.
Our time flashed before my eyes,
and just like that,
we were strangers
again.

There are so many
people who have entered my life
and have left behind a piece of them
in my heart.
What an honor it has been,
to cross paths with all the beautiful people
who still reside in this heart
and these memories.
Thank you for for the memories,
the growth, the lessons and the joy
and I hope we can
cross paths again.

I found you
in the dead of night-
a lost and lonely wanderer.
So I took you in,
cleaned up this house and
made space for you to stay.
You stayed for a while and
we felt lonely no more.
This house became our house,
and when it was your time to leave,
this place was never the same
no matter how many times I
tried to fill your absence.

They are
dreams and
nothing more.
Impossible ones-
simply illusions
that have worn
out over time.

I have reached
a crossroad once again.
Will you lead me down the road
I need to follow,
The one of dreams and delectations?
Or will you take me down the
road I would rather forget?
The one that leaves me
lost every time.

There,
you will forever stay,
my favorite place of all:
our memories.

I wish people were
more like shooting stars
that would disappear in
a flash of an eye,
leaving no trace but
the memories of something
that was once beautiful
rather than the sun-
an unforgiving and inescapable
giant that leave us burnt
and burdened.