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Two wild tales to tell — there are two stray dogs chasing
pedestrians again. That’s the story they’re telling the authorities.
Meanwhile, on a sunnier day, a ledger’s pages yellow daily —
all outlasting the smoke of all the fires you swore were for your
own good. Cigarette-stained fingers; noir pages of a crime scene
unnoticed — that’s what it feels like, loving someone who’s
stopped seeing you as their focus. Funny, isn’t it? They stole
your heart but make you feel like a thief, for stealing all of their
time. They claimed they needed space, but weren’t they the ones
who first called you, their star?

The mirror in your bathroom is cracked; you can’t wash
it with your tears. But hasn’t the bathwater been quietly
counting them all?
____________

Now, there’s finance to be contemplated — those complicated
relationships, where compromise is contemplated, but then
quietly makes things complicated. But let someone hand me
a sans discussion —they’ll only subtract the font of my love
language, erasing the letters of my love before I’ve spelt them
out. To say we don’t talk like we used to. But truthfully?
We never spoke that deeply at all. As a lot of people still
drown in their shallow thoughts.
The wind caressed the flower, swaying its petals, and danced with it.
It whispered the tale of mountains, valleys, and plains, making the flower smell sweeter and shine brighter .

But suddenly one day, it struck the flower harder and caused it to wither off.
A beautiful story laid with harmony, but ended with agony.

The wind can cause the flower to flutter or fall off; it chose the latter, why?
Again, the wind blew a thousand times, but there was no flower to flutter or fall off.

This void sounded louder than any bulbul's song.
Has it stopped the wind from blowing?
Is the flower not worthy to exist?
A gentle tale of love and loss — where the same wind that once nurtured the flower, later broke it. It questions absence, worth, and the silent pain left behind.
Ricardo Diaz Jul 14
The rose I threw into the wind blossomed into a field full of them.
The ghost of you still drapes itself over my hear.
Seeing you today fed not only my eyes, but ensnared my soul.
The sight of you was verily breathtaking, as if air itself conspired to remind me of your awe.
Time...

Tell me — how much does it cost? ****, I don’t know.
I’m just trying to keep watch on the blessings I’ve got —
but more and more, they seem to stretch thin... like needle
and thread, barely holding the seams of me together.

I’m fading in connection. A rock flips — and I’m ******,
yet still trying to show decent manners. A “decent citizen”
in the dirtiest world — where the canopy of utopia is just
the Tree of Life man’s always itching to cut down…to sell
its fruits, to chop its wood, just to make pencils — so we
can write stories about it in our edited history books.

Love…

Tell me — what’s a dropout lover, anyway? Not one
who failed love — but one who stopped trying to graduate
from failed attempts. A degree in hopeless romanticism,
and a Master's in being a bachelor — but if time is really
worth it all, then tell me… what all do you really have?

Just a handful of yourself and a whole lot of doubt.
Now... what’s that about?
abyss Jul 11
It’s a curse —
or maybe it’s a blessing.
It’s not my place to judge —
I’d only be biased,
so I let you judge for me.
A cup filled with water,
add a little more and
it will overflow,
spill every which way.
I’m a cup, overflowing with love,
spilling in every direction,
sometimes landing in harsh hands,
promising eternity,
but those hands leave
once their thirst is quenched.
So I wait,
a full cup left untouched
in an empty castle,
hoping for a king.
Is it a curse,
believing in a throne
no one wants to sit on?
Going through phony princes,
pretending to be kings!
Is it a blessing,
to still hold this much love
and not let it rot —
or is it a curse?
Overflowing with feelings again.
This one came from that slow ache kind of love
where you give and give, and still wait for someone to see the throne you’ve built for them.
AK Traveler Jul 9
Oh life,
Are you listening?
Let me answer—
Please, let me answer.

Answer my last because,
Not as a hero,
But—
As a puppet with broken strings,
Hanging with wings in a void,
Filled with joy
Of lost flings.

Are you listening?

I feel you every night,
With you in me—
But nowhere near.
Without you, I vanish,
A shadow faded here.

Let the ages of ages get angry,
That’s not what matters.
Only what matters…
Is you.
Only and only you.

Oh life,
You are listening, na?

A storm hit me—
Changed me,
Made me,
Broke me,
Gave me everything…
So it could take everything from me.

But still,
Every night I pray to be with you—
Live with you,
Laugh with you,
Cry with you,
Grow with you,
And live one dream with you.

This is because…
It’s hard to hold the one you crave,
The one your heart would
Die to save.

Oh life—
Am I right?
This piece isn’t just about heartbreak—
it’s about holding on when letting go felt impossible.
It’s not a poem.
It’s a quiet answer to life,
from a boy who never stopped loving,
even when he had every reason to.

– AK Traveler
(Part 2 of the Oh Life series)
My thoughts stagger, trying to carry hopes heavy as heartbeats.
Two lovers, chest to chest, whispering, “let’s talk soul to soul,”
trying to make sense of a love story that hasn’t been written yet
a heart-to-heart moment, I keep dreaming of.

I tell myself: stay focused. But I’ve been tiptoeing through
daydreams, because chasing love too fast leaves you breathless
when it runs the other way. Cos everyone wants the highs of love,
but no one talks about the problems on the down low — the quiet
exits, the silent tears, the way loneliness can sneak in even when
someone’s lying right beside you.

Maybe it’s a late-night phone call — a sleepy “goodnight, baby
before the line cuts out. Or a “good morning” text just to fold into
my memory like a note tucked beneath my pillow. Maybe it’s
wanting to tell you everything — not just the good, but the messy
middle parts too. Like you’re both my friend and my fire. Like you’re
the one who fits the empty spaces between the soft notes of this wild
birdsong my thoughts keep singing.

I want that kind of love. But I know relationships get complicated.
And honestly, I don’t miss perfect — I miss partnership. I miss
the “we got this” when life gets heavy, the “I’m here,” even when
we don’t have the answers. It’s not a complicated thing — just
someone to solve life with me. To laugh when things crack. To stay
when the flaws start showing.

I want skin I can breathe in — not just touch. Someone who sees
my silence as depth, not distance. Who holds my flaws like fragile
truths, not defects to be fixed.

But maybe that’s too much to ask. Maybe that kind of love only exists
somewhere between sleep and memory. I’m awake now — and I
don’t want to fall too deep just to find the woman of my dreams.
There’s a prayer with a sigh—
a breath let out like scripture,
written in stone, signed by a former lover.

Would you ignore every sign,
just to chase the shape of a feeling?
In over your head, thinking you’re
heading in the right direction—
when even the stars have stopped pointing.

A little too forceful, a little too often,
repeating the same mistake like it’s part
of the ritual— a pattern etched in skin,
but called love, to make it sting less.

But maybe… it’s the measure that matters most—
how the repetition finally taught you to become
your own ruler. Not of someone else’s heart,
but of your own.
Missing names in my letterbox— but mostly yours.
And I have no right to claim it, no reason to expect
your name to arrive again.

I try to write it out— all that it was between us.
A love so bizarre, so hard to define, yet somehow…
energizing. But I want to cut the ties my eyes have
to their tiredness— but I’m still oddly entangled
in the thought of falling asleep to the memory of you.

Tired! Tired!

But no rest compares to you, or the rest I see.
And maybe—
just maybe— the measure I hold love to now
is too tight, too closed, to give anything new
even a chance.
Arna Jun 21
"Nothing lasts forever, even the people you love."
"Nothing — not even the people we love — stays forever.
But the way they made us feel, that stays a little longer."
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