Can I take a pleasure to tell you that you feel like a classic Ricky Lee novel? Like a book in the middle of the bookshelf, a contemporary cover with soft edges and pleasant scent. How I'd love to reread certain pages and write the awkward phrases. You feel like a contradiction of genres written in a parched paper. Like an invitation I wasn't allowed to partake, like a victory I wasn't allowed to celebrate.

It was a futile attempt to be brave for what seems to be dangerous. As the revered Chinese General, Sun Tzu says, "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare." And thus here I was in the midst of joy and despair, of serotonin-filled crib around books and morning coffees.

I was a morning person and you were on the other side of horizon, dreamy and hopeful: a free-spirit composed of philosophical inquiries and fear all happening at the same time behind the wee hours of what seems to be our different timezones.

You were the most unpredictable poem I've ever written, smitten by what-nots and could have been and a pretty idea that cannot be grasp or taken a hold of. I was vanquished, not from the laid back smile or performative gestures; but from the moment I felt your soul, and like how an abyss stares back at the illusion of two lost pain-stricken entities ******* their fears of death by lacking.

The deities saw how you admired the position of the stars and blessed your heart with love so much that it turned to curse of overflowing mana. And everything served too much is always intoxicating: it would always feel good at the beginning, and that was where the chills are coming and from there where the warmth was consuming all of a sudden burning like forest fires; blazing like burned down public libraries of chapped and dog-eared pages turned and smearned and spite upon: and the question of how does a memory turn into ashes and hatred.

It was like trying to push a half-empty door which creaks and awaken everyone outside, alarming the house owner of an impending doom; of snatching a precious dime shining through the window, reflecting the harsh heat of the sun. I was the thief who was unmasked and decorated with bright and colorful façade, but I prayed, oh how I prayed for you. Exactly the same you, who wasn't too much and wasn't too less.

A lighthouse in the middle of the dessert, if that made sense, and though you were the guide, I cannot pass through you and while you were the light, I couldn't grasp through your rays to save me. The quicksand was like an ocean on my feet, grabbing my toes and tickling my knees until it comes to an abrupt stop unto my nose where I ******* breathe you in.

All I wished were the fireflies replacing the butterflies inside my chest; coming home to a familiar scent; all I wished was your embrace when I finally open my arms to the idea of love—and not fantasize every beginning and romanticize about the end. I wanted to lay my baggage down slowly and have someone look at me in my lips, clawing my longing with an abrupt kiss. I wish there was you, who would understand every fear I had: "I understand." Who wouldn't argue with how I see the constellations and what hue joy must be or which temperature I freeze to death. "How was your day?" A question never of monotony and despair but rather a whole new different perspective. It will always be as the same day I saw you, it will always be the same as I first talked to you, it will always be beautiful as long as you were near, as long as you were there.

However in the long run, I couldn't really tell of the things I might spoil and ruin. With that, I would always wonder about what it could have been.

That's what it is, if i could aptly describe it: Push and pulls.