"Where do you see yourself in five years?"
"Hopefully done with college"
"Married with a couple of kids"
"Buying my own house and starting a business"
"No debt. Everything, student loans and car payments gone"
The typical answers to that question
Want to know mine?
I never saw my future as bright
Hell never thought I'll get this far
I can see the end of my path
Where do I see myself in five years?
Depressed if I'm not already
Homeless because of my pride
Jobless because my stupidity
No one to turn to because of my negativity
Love is no where near me
That's the last thing on my mind
After food
After drink
After a roof over my brainless head
There's too much going on
No one will help me
Why would they?
It's all my own fault
So the answer to your question
In a different world
Hopefully a better one
After this one is behind me

She doesn’t know it.
He doesn’t know that photos of him are the only thing on my phone’s gallery

From the moments we would walk home underneath the moonlight
To the sudden dates we take outside my hometown
Every minute I had with her,
I secretly have a photo of her feeling the moment

It was in those still shots of her
Either spinning around while she let her hair sway
Or looking down at her food
Or just staring blankly at the road filled with rushing cars
I had a photo from every moment.

You also don’t know about the way I look at you
It was like a kid flabbergasted over the thousands of stars underneath her
I was always fascinated by you

You don’t know them
Because I never wanted to let you know
And it was better off that way

It was better off not loving you

It was better off I didn’t have you in my embrace
Than to break you with it

You’ve told me about your scars
And god forbid for you to have another one

Because all you see right now
It’s that all you had was yourself
And I was just the diary to your pen

In fact, you never even let me call you by your name
It wasn’t that you hate your name
Because everything about you
From your name
Down to every thread of your identity
You only kept it to yourself

So, in every photo I took of you
I make sure it doesn’t show a glimmer of your face
Because I want you to keep who you are hidden from I at all cost
And god forbids that you let me break it.

Hihintayin pa ba natin
Na ang langit ay matakpan ng mga kulay abo na alapaap
Na pinaghalong mga usok ng bomba
At mga ulap na nagdadala ng mabigat na bagyo?

Hihitayin pa ba natin
Na mawala ang buhay ng isang inosenteng sibilyan
Sa ngalan ng isang lalake sa kataas-taasan ng kalawakan
Na hindi naman natin tiyak kung tayo ba’y binabantayan pa?

Hihintayin pa ba natin
Ang pag-hiyaw ng milyong-milyong mga mamayanan
Ang hiyaw na nagdadala ng kanilang takot
Na tila ba’y parang kampana ng simbahan
Pinipilit tayong tumayo at bumangon na

Hihitayin pa ba natin
Ang pagmamakaawa ng isang burgis na artista
Na ang tingin lang sa atin ay mga tseke at barya?

Hihintayin pa ba natin
Ang pag-tahimik sa atin ng mga lalakeng naka-itim
Sumisigaw at nananakot
Sa ngalan ng maitim na propaganda?

O hihintayin na lang natin
Na gawing tayong manhid
Sa bilang ng tatlo
Habang tayo’y tinututukan ng kailbre kwarenta y kwatro?

Like the switch button of a 90s television set, the echoes of a knock and a dead bolt’s lock pierces the static air of sharp breathing.

“Define stay, in your point of view, when you can’t even be here to explain its meaning directly to my face,” she pleads with glassy eyes on the verge of breaking down.

She silences a sob with the tearing of handwritten letters and the burning of old photographs.  She won’t need them; she already has every word bound and every pixel branded onto her memory, as much as she tried to annihilate it all.

Behind the closed door, his eyes mirror hers.  His tongue was dry, but careful enough to select the words that would quench their parched throats and hearts.

Will she open a new door? Will he face a new destiny? Are they even in the same corridor, the same floor, the same building?

They’ve been roaming separately, unsure of their directions if one is following the other’s path. Or are they just traveling in circles of pure coincidence?

He knocks again.

“Stay is when my hands or eyes are unable to hold you close, yet you know you’re home.  Because of the way you are anchored to my voice when I say your name, or the way my heart keeps you with me.  

Stay doesn’t always require physical presence.  

I know you are already decided on staying whenever I enter your mind, whenever you think about me. And you know I can never leave your mind, much more your heart.”

She stays put where she is.

The only thing she leaves is the door—open—for him.

She was everything I ever wanted.
Her euphoria as contagious as the common flu
Her warm and cozy feeling like a hug you give to your stuffed teddy bear
Her laughter as colorful as a Monet painting
Her tender hands just like a fawn
She was everything my brain desired to have

Immediately I wanted her all the time
Every Second
Every Minute
Every Hour
Every time the hand on the clock moves
She was all I ever desir—

Wait…
I forgot something
Let me start over.

I have ADHD
… at least I think I do
Look for me in the classroom staring off the window
Because I was either suddenly interested in the conversation between two passers-by about their finals
Or perhaps a baby bird flew by the window sill
Look for me at my own home frantically flipping off
Because for the one hundred and twenty-seventh time, I’ve lost my own phone
Sit beside me? Sure! Why not?
IMeanIt’sNotLikeI’mCompletelyQuietButI’mReallyAFunPersonToBe­WithBecauseIHaveSoMuchStori—
Sorry about that…
But… give me a task and I’ll be eager to do it
But in a count of three, I’ll magically fall asleep within the couch because…

What did you told me again?

Anyways...
Do you still remember that day?
The one at our science laboratory?
I met you.
You still had braces on
I saw it peeking when you smiled at me as I told a joke to you
You still had long straight hair back then
You were the typical school nerd
But I never told you that because I didn’t want that smiling face to fade

And to think… your face was one of the things I focused on
Our first meeting was something I somehow remembered
And to think you made me go silent for a while
Every day, I was a busy ocean
I would often have big and small waves dancing around my head
But the moment I saw your face
I was the quietest stream…

You were everything I ever wanted
You had everything I have always daydreamed about
You became the reason I give a great amount of eye contact when striking a conversation
You became the reason I spoke less words than I did back then
You made me not forget about the assignments we had because we’d do it together.
You made me not get distracted by the tick of the clo—

The clock.
The ticking clock.
The clock that dictates the time.
Time.
Time we have left together like this.
Suddenly, everything was about us for me.
I didn’t know how I can keep you to myself

I wrote you letters
I sang songs that reminded me of you
I followed you wherever you went
I tried to make up for the lost time we’ll have

And I’m sorry.
I got everything in my head.
Stupid impulses.

I wanted to change for you.
To stop my disorder for you
I stopped listening to my classes just thinking of you
I forgot about the pieces of paperwork
I get distracted by the clock.

And suddenly I went back to staring at clouds out the window again
Just like you.
You went away with them.

Our times spent.
The laughter we shared.
And the three words I wanted to tell you.

What were those again?
Sorry, I could be forgetful sometimes too.