i have tiny jars that are shelved
perfectly inside my brain
from category a to z,
sorted by themes,
and from one to a hundred
—a scale of how painful
life is in my repetitive experience.

i keep all my memories sealed
like a handful of fireflies shoved in a jar
that only live for three days;
i may forget every scenario with ease
but never the dying flicker—the feeling
that grow dim in each canister.

god, how fragile am i that it only takes
a trigger for each glass to combust tragically,
good thing i'm the only one
who knows how to pull it.
     i wonder which repressed emotions
     are going to choke me violently tonight.

the clippers buzz a drone against my skull
the hair falls like dead flies
into the sink and onto the floor
loose curls crawl down my shoulders and back
tickling my neck

afterwards i stare hard into the mirror
searching my own face
for someone i  could love
or at the very least live with

please, look at me.
look at me in every way that love feels,
then peer into me as if you are meeting
a candle light to blow its heat.
     i promise i won't speak unless you need me to,
so look at me in every possible way
if it helps you see me better.

deep in your gaze,
mesh me in every memory that makes you cry
     for i am a home for dark things too.
your every spill cannot flood
the vast space of my nothingness.
     i have all the room in the world
     to take in every version of you.

my mother shoved words into my mouth
she fed me whenever i cried
and as the obedient kid that i was,
i learned to nibble on every word
and swallowed them as i should.
now that i'm older,
my stomach has ran acid
ーit burns my chest and i would still feel them
foam inside my mouth as if
every word were told just yesterday.
how can i truly love my mother
if she couldn't feed me
when i was hungry for something else?
i cried again with my heart wide open
as my knees wobble in fear
of how exposed i was in front of her.
but this time,
i guess she couldn't hear me enough.
it was silentーshe couldn't feed me anything,
for not a single word left her mouth.
she watched me intently
as i detach the cord from both of our bodies.
     i wasn't the daughter she loved anymore,
     but she was still the mother i loved.

There were times that I had wished for you and I to be close

For our arms to lock into a warm embrace

But sooner or later the demons would get to you

They would use you as a stepping stone

To try and get to me

I would and could never permit that to happen

So in order to keep you safe

I have to keep my distance

At the cost of my own happiness

I have learned to love you from afar

as i walk with nothing but the feeling of my heart
grasped achingly by my ribcages,
i grieve for my future self;
this is a habit i cannot break.
like a sacred ritual
i commence a solemn ceremony
to mourn for the unknown half and
to mourn for myself, a loveless poet.
     will i spare someone all the love
     that i tend in my backyard?
     the garden of all my poems,
     the garden of all my words.
but, what kind of poet am i
if all the love i write is mused by utter loneliness,
soiled underneath the pretty field?
resting in peace in a worm casted ground.
oh, i cannot wait to see
how my garden will bloom
once you enter it.
how your presence will soften the soil
and i will welcome you fondly as you earthen close.
     but please know that rain
     did not water every thing here,
     this love grew because my heart has yearned
     a lifetime to be understood.to be known.
     you were once a figment of all my hurt,
     a muse shaped like a blur that i begged to seek me.
i guess our hearts naturally just ache to be loved
that we yearn for beautiful things
right after killing them with our very own hands.
still, i remain as gentle as i am now
because i mourned,
    and mourned,
      and mourned...
       for someone like you.
a flicker that was absent for god knows
how many lightyears away we were to each other,
that we couldn't hold hands no matter how
interlocked our hearts were at recognizing everything we feel.
so forgive me if i mourn for you by and by
—your beauty is closest to the moon after all,
tell me, how can i not long for you forever?

i crave for loneliness to brush my hair,
mother me tenderly to sleep
as you did when i had carvings
on my left wrist at twelve years old
—a braille i fondled with every day,
                   i. don't want. to be. here.

somehow, my nightly hiccups
never drove me to my end.
i am still gentle because
you follow me wherever i go;
visiting me at the right moments
especially when i am accompanied
by my own ***** and the cold bathroom floor—
          and then you stay quiet the whole hour
          to give me some time to grieve.

i wear you like a protective charm now,
for you are the only love i've ever known.

in your absence
i immersed myself in sadness,
for there was nothing left to love
in the remaining pieces of you
that was too blurry for me
to comprehend in the first place.
    was it really you?
because i felt too many heartaches
trying to filter your name in my palms
—you made me figure out
so many things on my own
as if this kind of mystery
will compel me to draw closer to you.

but i, too, am human
i grow weary of repetitive things
that remain obscure,
just like how your name
sounded sweet every time—
     only for it to mean nothing to me.

like ***** laundry, my sadness
pile on top of one another,
and now i am grieving
because your name sounds like a metal
being dragged on the ground
—a heaviness that keeps
tugging my heart wide open.

there is no more room for you here,
my love for you has finally died.

i think i exist only to love
but never experience,
a pretentious bag of bones like me
will only stir your feelings
     —you will wallow in it for some time
     and then you will forget about me
like a cup of coffee that has gone cold.

but if i must admit,
it's because i do stunt my own growth:
in life, in love, but strangely enough,
                                           not in death.
an odd number of reasons
aid my tendencies;
they get glued together to form
a paper-maché of well-composed farewells
—a craft i have mastered in my years of longing.

i think i exist only to love,
but never experience—
yet here i am, still longing
until i get a hand to hold.