sa aking pagkalumbay sa gitna
ng isang madla
naglantad ang mga katotohanang
sa aking pag-iisa
walang pangungulila
kundi
kawalan lamang
isang guwang
sa sansinukob
umaalingawngaw
na kawalan

In science we learned that you can never gain cold, you can only have an absence of heat; and it made me think that maybe hatred doesn’t exist, and there’s only an absence of love.

Home calls you.
It says it’s always been there
and it’ll always be there for you.
It says you can always come
whenever you’re ready
whether you’re happy or sad
or just need a place to just be.
That you don’t have to do anything
or be anything other than yourself.
It says it’s been working on itself
to better protect you
and provide you
with all the love and safety
you have always wanted and needed.
It says it has some doors that kept locked
and there are some with your name on it
but you can open them and sort out
what to keep
and what to let go.
It says it wants to hold you
as if to keep you from falling apart
but also says it’s okay if you do.
It says it wants to take care of you
the way you’ve always taken care of everyone
and everything and more.
That it wants to love you the way you love.
That it’s an abandoned place
that wants to love you
the way you love abandoned things
and everything all at once.
It says you don’t have to look for a home
wherever you go
and that it’s with you
wherever you roam.
You say you just need time
and it says it got it all
and it’s not going anywhere.
You never had a home
so you don’t know what it’s like
yet you know what it should be
so you make your way home
only to realise you always have been
and that you just had to open your eyes,
that you’ve been welcomed
by ashes all this time.

It’s always the gods they fear but these waters don’t belong to deities. This depth? Ours. This cold? Ours. The treasures and the corpses and the chains and the flesh-eating creatures? Ours. They believe the gods but not the other myths. We were made human enough to think and feel but inhuman enough not to be capable of it. Tell me, how do you stand on fins? So we pull dwellers to us, and use our cursed songs to sink each other. Many fall prey to their own desires after all. The gods made us crave air and then gave us saltwater, and so we are giving them back the salt. We only wanted to see the world above, and if we can’t have that, then we’re bringing it to us.

May You lead me far from shore,
where I can find You in the deepest depths,
where the unknown and sacred mystery are at home,
in the soft-rippling waves,
into midnight’s ocean where midnight’s light plays upon the dark,
and where Your living water, smooth and soft, becomes my new skin,
where sinking isn’t drowning,
but an immersion into Your undeniable presence.

The wind stands fair,
The woods are still.
Not a crease in space,
Not a ruffle in time.
A strange stillness,
A bellowing quiet.
A hollowed out corner
In the face of the universe.
Oh, my love
We are here.
And we are running.
To where?
We challenge the odds.
There is always a choice
And there is always a chance
We must make it;
We must take it.
We are at a standstill
At the brink of morrow.
We are possibilities.

She’s a sunny day.
You meet her and her laugh makes your heart curl into your chest. You asked her out and she glow with happiness. You think that your heart was made to feel like this, or maybe it was made to complement hers.

She becomes a lightning storm.
You think she’s a masterpiece hiding in storm clouds, but you forget about the thunder. You don’t tell her how it feels to hold her hand, so she lets go. She moves on before you realize it’s raining, but when you do find out it feels like drowning. You spend the next six months trying to breathe.

She becomes the chill in the air.
You can breathe until she sneaks in beside the fall leaves. She comes back so quietly that you don’t realize until your heart starts to pound. You pause, but six months of overheating and a hurting heart make the decision. You choose to repeat, you choose the changing weather. Now you laugh together over a cup of coffee, and you think you know what happiness is.

She becomes a snow storm.
She’s slow and steady and if you hold her she’ll melt. When you tell you need her she’s already gone. The next time you see her it will freeze your heart over.

She becomes a soft summer rain.
You spend the summer months forgetting that girl with galactic eyes. One day you realize she pales in comparison to the summer sunset, another day you realize the ocean pales in comparison to her.

Beware of them who change like the weather; they live in cycles you’ll always fall out of. It’s better to admire seasons than people who embody them.

Beware of me.

Someone stole your color
And threw it to the wind
Scattered like ashes
You don’t know if you’ll ever find it

Someone stole your color
From the face you know so well
You saw it in the cotton candy clouds
And the teal ocean swell

Someone stole your color
You think that’s where it went
The world looks so much brighter
Like something heaven-sent

Someone stole your color
And that’s what no one knows
Depression isn’t black
It’s the color of a rose

It’s the light orange in a sunset
And the yellow of a peach
Light blue, that majestic color
So simply out of reach

Someone stole your color
Now everything’s too bright
Sometimes darkness
isn’t the opposite of light

Someone stole your color
So you’ll wear grey and black
As if in mourning
Until you get it back

When you and I parted we left such a mess, feelings scattered in hallways and shoes left on dance floors. I hope you always know; it broke my heart to break yours, and there are still time of the day my heart has dedicated to you, like the pages of a book—like my heart is the author and the title page bears your name. At twelve o'clock it's time to miss you, at 8am it's time to doubt it all, at sunset it's time to regret letting you go, at 5:21 when the sun rises it's time to realize we couldn't have worked. Each hour bears a different message, an off-center agenda, a new way to feel—but each hour always has you somehow, lurking in the memories, dancing across the room, drawing my heart to you. I know that's why we couldn't have worked: one minute I'd be in love with you and the next I'd want to throw it all away, but the mess we left still clutters up my life, and my heart still breaks at twelve o'clock.