Curiosity lingered the atmosphere when I saw you the first time －through gathering of all faces, you were there, sitting in the comfort of your own, gazing too. There was a sign of a ******* in you, and I had this distinct impression that you make out with several girls you met in PNR since you’re a hot looking guy and outgoing who found solace in drinking and that I won’t be your conquest, simply we won’t vibe. But you’re a typical college student-athlete summoned by workouts every mid-afternoon at the field and college demands at night, yet a happy go lucky who never puts exertion pretty sure in class. Our first conversation just revolved around math and how much of a fool I was to flunk my first term exam, I was worrying if I could still be a college scholar but you believed in me that I could still make it. You believed even at the most times I’m in doubt.

You stared at me oftentimes, a smug taming look peeking on your face (probably your way of getting someone’s heart) and me being timid, I could not stand a second of it that I had to look away or hastily whip my rosy face from your sight. It became my habit giving you a gently squeeze to your hand, which honestly my favorite thing to do. And even though you wanted it intertwined from mine, you still let me do it because you also loving it. I could almost see your soul, guaranteed to pique my interest every time we express what our hearts yearn, and with that, it filled me with wonder. We both knew that we were temporaries and that our eyes we got lost into connects us to the moment so, we make the most out of it.

You are terrible in singing, you embraced the fact that you are only good at it when you are drunk, and your voicemail had honestly scrunched up my eyebrows right after the dilemma of hearing it. The taste of cigarette haunts you, it became your five-minute escape but I never see you hold a paper stick filled with tobacco leaves around me, perhaps you didn't let me to, but your mama would certainly scold you if she finds out your ***** little secret. And have  I ever told you that your smile reminds me of Ryan Gosling?

We had the same standpoint to some, but also differ in many ways. It appears we won’t like something just because everybody else does; we had the same antipathy over the things that the majority of the population seems to be fond of. We despised immaturity and entitlement－ to us it is shallow and toxic (that we frankly knew it was the past relationships we were referring to). we were overwrought in hanging out idly, it brought us refuge and my space had always been our rendezvous. I was thrown into fear of opining because somehow, I don't think this world is worth hearing them yet, on the contrary, you are confident to speak up and use your voice since you got plenty of words in your pocket. You found pleasure in sports and numbers whereas linguistics and arts is my cup of tea, yet it never ceases to marvel one's wit ( I have been a mania of minstrelsy and I remember you were astounded through my montage that was written 2 years ago before I had my writer's block) When my tongue loves the taste of coffee, yours is in the tang of alcohol (you never heard me ask you to quit your vices because those are part of you.) and while you have the habit of tearing someone into pieces, I let people take my pieces to let them whole.

We were both lost, wandering through the crowded people and only happen to be two strangers caged in one's abyss. We were trapped by a gaping orb and convenience but perhaps we are something ephemeral; it all happened so fast, it doesn't last. That was early summer and it was vivid, I never heard anything about you since then.

𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑎𝑙𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡,

can I spend tonight with you?
where we free the pain
we kept for years
and let our hearts feel

where we don’t fear the time
that's going to be taken away from us
where every word & promise
can't **** us

so for the last time
can I spend tonight with you?

he met her at a very strange time in his life. no, scratch that. that was basically a quote from fight club.

i.
but frankly, he did meet her at his lowest lows
when he wanted the vortex to **** him in so he could vanish and rest and maybe find peace-
for his girl was gone and left him to fend for himself in this chaotic world, scattering the past, present and future they’ve dreamt of in a hurricane before she did, one that ****** the life out of him
his girl, the girl of his dreams, the girl he dreamt with, the girl he dreamt for, the girl who shattered his dreams gone

ii.
he slowly opens up to her
and she slowly gets to know him
well mostly, his love story left to die with its tragic ending, another tale of an unrequited- now one sided- love
she doesn’t really mind for she’s known pain and misery,
known them enough to last almost half of her lifetime
she knows how having them as company turns living into the art of merely breathing
and so she refuses to take flight from this almost stranger who, because of the way circumstances have rolled she’s stuck with
misery loves company doesn’t it?

iii.
he has turned her into his shoulder to cry on
changes taking toll with time’s passing,
yet their connection remains constant,
their unexpected friendship unfazed
two people with the same wavelength, gliding with the same frequency,
relatively similar to soulmates
and they could end up together in the snap of a finger, voila
as easy as how random they picked up
but nothing easy is ever worth having

and try as they, she might,
it seems like it can’t be


iv.
she’s always there for him
she’s seen him cry, beat himself up enough times
she’s aware that he could be quite a handful
perhaps ignoring his constant “i need you’s”
and “please don’t give up on me’s”
and evaporating one day into the air and blocking his number would be the best option;
letting go could be her salvation
before she chooses drowning over keeping her head up for one particular boy-
she’s the one consistently found on his side
she’s the one with the 2am jokes when the world decides to act as his shadow
and the one with the random spur of the moment topics that never fail to amuse him

v.
sometimes he’s left wanting to lose the remaining sliver of hope he has for humans
so he makes her out to be just like everybody else
on those occasions when he wants nothing more than bottles of ice cold whiskey and packs of cigarettes from dawn to the late night hours, to cease existence
he expects her to appear and announce her leaving
and he’s left with this internal satisfaction all the time when she lets down his morbid expectation that she’s given up on him
she remains on her place in his life

vi.
but maybe she’ll never be the girl

even if she’s always with him,
always nagging him to get out of bed
and live this ******* up thing disguised as life
even when she becomes this bright light trying so hardly to outshine her darkness and his darkness
even when she manages to see the good in him
even after she lets out her “i’m here for you’s”
and “i won’t leave you’s”
and “i got you’s”

she’s still not the girl
there’ll always be this wall,
barricading the distance
no matter how little between them
all the while the lines get blurrier

vii.
she confuses him enough for him to get a grip
and even feel in the state of denial he’s locked in,
really looking through her remains his failure
even after it all, majority of her is still invisible
somehow she’s still a stranger,
just strangers who because of their own messed up loneliness,
bared their souls out to each other
and their needs and attachment
get in the way too soon blinding them,
thinking it could be something more,
something it’s not

viii.
strangers.
maybe that’s all they’re meant for

Almost
Such a terrible word
Shatters you into a million pieces
Takes every ounce of you
before being uttered
Takes you within a hair's breadth of the target
And then kicks you miles away
Makes you question the stars
Even when it was your fault all along
Creeps up in your mind
at the middle of the night
Like a robber
Leaving you behind to search
your hallways for answers
I was almost there
I was almost there and yet not.

The saddest word
In the whole world
Is the word “almost”
By which the hearts curled.

He almost made it
She almost had forever
They almost survived
I was almost enough clever

He was almost loved
She almost didn’t lie
They almost won
I almost didn’t cry.

Sometimes I lay awake
Wishing for the world to burn
Sadly I don’t make the rules
But it’s going to be my turn

My turn to change the rules
My chance to not quit
Time to improve my destiny
And, I “almost” made it.

when the goodbyes are for good,
after months of caving into yourself,
sadness spilling out of yourself,
you begin to let go of the things that only ever almost existed -
but died before they could live outside of your mind:
the weekend getaway to new york city you almost booked,
the christmas lights on the roof we almost put up,
the 'i love you' that you almost meant.

you learn to let go of the potential happy endings:
throwing our caps up at the graduation we almost made it to,
the hidden trail we almost hiked,
the new year's eve kisses we exchanged for almost 4 years in a row.
but there are things that still swell beneath the surface -
every exhale threatening to spill the words i almost said,
every memory embedded in a cinematic masterpiece so beautiful that it can only be viewed through rose-coloured glasses.

so i lay them down here:
a graveyard for every almost,
a cemetery for every possibility,
a sanctuary for every end of the line disguised as a new beginning.
and i let them rest in peace.
i bring them flowers once a year,
daisies because they remind me of your smile.

i pay my respects and mourn the love that could have been.
i thank you for almost being the best thing that ever happened to me.
i thank you for the laughter that almost lasted forever.
i thank you for almost loving me without end.

for her.

<>

“you will laugh with surprise, as the anointing oil of relief
crowns your head, slicking down to caving cavities,
river running in crevices, that feed the buried places, replenishing the almost forgotten secret of letting go”^

                                                         ~

the mind caches certain skills, once learned, never to return,
but tucked away, just in case, maybe, in the nightstand junk drawer of: “don’t need it now but, ****, you never know”

kept around in the lost and hopefully, not to be searched for & found,
a skill set painfully gained, a muscle memory, flabby from no use
but quick taut tightly, snapping back when ****, here we go again

I loved you in ways theoretical impossible till you enabled the possible

lost you for no good reason, in an act history labels beyond belief,
refuses to record, lest by memorializing it became/becomes re-realized,
this intolerable, would be past the ****** eroding barrier reef

the difference between junk and treasures is in which drawer placed,
the steps to letting go once learned, cannot be forgot, the cost,
way way too high, kept around, in a damnable place beyond grief

not to close, handy, findable but easily, avoided, but strange, when
living in the epicenter of the virus, you do some cataloguing, ridiculous,
this touchy-feely escapade, nothing ****-it to be gained, all-too-brief

head shake, took a pandemic to make you go back, rustling among
the ancient, old hand-writ poems, another keepsake kept for reasons
known and unknown, to be **** sure you once owned it, survival skills

In the Pandemic Days of Almost,
somethings will die, some go forgotten,
but the almost-forgetting-skill will survive,
a necessity of the how-to’s:

how to grieve,
how to believe,
how to leave
but live on,
hoarding
all the **** necessaries
ready to be retrieved


<>
Tuesday Mars 24 Twenty Twenty noon

In the Epicenter, New York City