I'm 19 and have never loved
Have been loved? I can't be too sure
Sometimes, I like to look around
Watch closely the people around me
And just really wonder if I have met
Someone who can go the opposite way as I
Someone I will forget at one point
But whose end of the cords will still be up
For rekindling, for reliving
Because there is still much to kindle and live on
Even after a long while of thinking
(Probably amounting to 30 years)
"There's not much in here for the both of us anymore"

You have a garden in your bones and the universe on your skin
The spots on your face and scars on your knees aren't flaws
They are stars being born and stars that are slowly dying
You are not pretty, you are interesting
Mankind has made an entire subject about what you carry

And don't worry about hurting
The roses that are blooming inside you are just growing thorns
There are also vines that needed pruning
So on nights you don't feel spectacular, here's a vision:
A meadow teeming with life inside you

Nakakapaso
Sementong kalsada
Sa tanghaling tapat
Bilad sa sikat ng araw

Unang buhos ng ulan
Pagkatapos ng tag-init
Sisingaw ang init
Makakahinga ang lupa

so much so that
when you involve yourself
in relationships,
they cannot would not could not
force their own persons
in you
because you are very much filled
with your own.

I don't mind being sheltered
If you are both my walls and my roof
Just don't come crashing down on me
Else,

My problem is that I do not share
I keep too much of myself in
I never say enough
Just the right amount to get through
Never enough to clear me from your diagnosis

Doctor, I am trying
But my mouth has eyes
It shuts at people it hasn't chosen
Thing is- it's never chosen anybody
I need to choose at least a somebody

Haven't you met anyone yet?
They like to ask

I've met a lot of somebodies
But I am a difficult person
Even I wonder how I live with myself
I  complicate things when I don't  overthink them

Why would you ask that?
Haven't you met me?

Because I look at you
And my memory fails me
I forgot other people's silhouettes
Just to give space inside my brain
For the stubble on your chin
The lines around your intense eyes
Where your cheek bones incline and decline
The dews on your lips I like kissing
And how everything adds up
To the face I always miss seeing

I look at old friends
And in idle moments when my head is free
I stare at them and it's like seeing them for the first time
I realize I have not been looking hard enough
Get too caught up with the mundane
The casual talks and dates
Inductive, I go beyond the entirety of the face
And start with the features then zoom out
I am taken aback at how foreign they seem to me suddenly

How many lifetimes do I need to remember everyone else's faces?
I just spent a night memorizing yours

I hide a river inside my heart
And I bury that heart in the woods
River flows to a waterfall
The waterfall drops into the seas
All the seas make up the great ocean
The great oceans make up the whole world
So no matter where my heart would rest
Waters will flood all the continents
Because my heart couldn't contain them

I hide a river inside my heart
And darling, you will be drowning

Everyone swears I'm a tough girl but you don't know that. You've never seen it. I lose all the fight in me in your company and just crash into you easy. Muscles cease to tense up, relaxing. Alcohol tolerance, dropping. I am flirty. I am clingy. I am cheesy. I am jealous. In the safety of you, I allow myself to be comfortable and vulnerable. I find no need to watch myself. They say falling in love is a matter of chance. But I knew I decided on this. In your company, I am safe. In your safety, I chose you. And so I let myself.

Your sadness makes other people uncomfortable,
and so you learn to hide it.
You learn to cope
with humor and ***** and a busy sched.

Your body learns to smile
even when you're crumbling down inside,
to keep walking
even when you wanna fall to the ground in the middle of the road.

You've conditioned yourself to do all this
so well that even when the right people come around
who are willing to take in all your losses
and watch every single tear fall from your eyes,
you don't.

You smile.
You drink.
You keep walking.
But you can only do so for so long... how long

It's crazy to be this close to you
And still be angry at the space in between.
Maybe this is why people marry--
To be so close, there's only one of the two of us.

sick of hiding in myself
shutting up
holding things in
i wanna cry in an open field
i wanna cry out, not cry in
i wanna not mind the watching eyes
let me be
let me be, self

i like to believe the condition of our soul and body has a lot to do with our attitude towards sleeping.

children hate it because their souls are too alive that their bodies neglect to feel the need for sleep.

adults love it because no matter how strong their body has become, it still couldn't contain the exhaustion of their soul.

tonight, i am the intersection of a kid and someone who has grown. i am growing.

i am in a constant struggle between exhaustion and liveliness. of weakness and strength.

tonight is one of those nights i wish i didn't need sleep. live soul, tired body.

i'm giving all the warning signs
screaming all the wrong things
crying out all the bad tears
but no one's paying attention
no one's listening
"maybe it's just hormones"
"you're overreacting"

it has been a dry year
with occasional thunderstorms and rainfalls
it's tiring enduring all the dry
until i could get to the short rainfall
then it's dry again

dismiss my feelings
they're erupting
got nowhere to go

take it lightly
i'll fade out with them

The problem is you assumed I was okay
I kept saying I wasn't
I couldn't do it
I need to drop them
But you insisted I was okay

Now I'm showing doing saying
Things you don't approve
Finally you're convinced I really wasn't
I couldn't do it
I needed to drop them
Because I'm still not okay

And you go crazy
With your feisty marching band
No grasp of reality, my reality
Pretending to be a friend
Treating me like a glass about to break
But I don't believe any of it
You only do the things you do
Because you don't approve of mine

And I'm done
I'm done done done

Remember me this way
When I have just woken up
Uncombed hair tied into a careless bun
Face still fresh from rest
Blurry

Remember me the way
I continue the week from a bad day
With my mundane thoughts
And everyday things
Incremental

Remember me this way
When I'm looking behind, smiling
As I don't always do
"It does something to your face--
Umaaliwalas"

Remember me this way
If you think of me at all

When was the consensus made
That I was to be every man's safety net
For when they gamble on somebody
Somebody else that isn't me

He was an acrobat who felt his best midair
She wasn't a safety net ready to catch, she is also falling
She is a house of cards tumbling down for a game not worth all the rupees
But a card game needing a gambler all the same

You seem like the type of guy who would accept me while my face is breaking out because you're that lonely yourself.

That's all.

Everything our feet step into
We try to turn into homes
If it never quite feels like one
We leave it earlier than
The ones that do turn familiar
Call it homesickness
But we also leave new familiar shelters
Seats warm, feet cold
Sheets messy, faces comfortably ugly
Call it growth and adventure
TL;DR We always leave

everything we've ever done
everything we're doing
everything we're left to do
set us up for
rest, eventually

we work
to rest