When the time comes
When my heartbeats begin to fade
My eyes begin to flutter
I hope to see you there

Your floppy ears listen
Your crooked tail wags
Your smile grows wide
While you stand by my side
I hope to see you there

My best friend
My shadow
My furry soulmate
I hope to see you there

I look prettier in the dark

All my imperfections fade into the shadows and im left with what i want to see

I’m left with all that i am

A shadow

It's a clockwork — like the dances of phantoms in the hallways, in the glow of lights through the window at night. I stared like a burglar from afar, It's the fear and anger, that's keeping me restless — a reminder that I should sleep with one eye open, meager, furiously shame.

I understand how stubborn they are rewriting the history, as I try to recollect, catching trails like they were footsteps. Love is all they worship from the beginning of time, thus it crumbles them to dust.

Are they second - hand embarrassed? If I couldn't see the ghosts and shadows lingering everywhere, yet here I am nestled to all that fairy tale, for a momentary, and still plotting the sweetest lullaby. Did they haunt you too? as if it were a chunk to the armour or it counterfeits them?

Ako ay may anino at
Sinusundan niya ako
‘Gang sa tanghaling tapat
Dito’y ‘di makakibo.

I’m tired of being your shadow.
Wherever you are, I’m near.
I live at your dictation.
I’m chained by your sight here.

I used to live in silence.
To love, to suffer and no words at all.
If it hurts me, I bear without squirming.
If you only knew, how I want to bawl.

I’ve learned to be not certain,
Unheard, unnoted, noneself.
You see, I can be your shadow.
But I’m tired! I want to be myself!

I could've just laid down if
I wanted to

ignoring the bells that echoes
inside my head

Let the earth swallow me
among withered leaves that decay
beside me

Let the world dry out
as if all lamented things
belong to me

I could act as if
my heart is an icy winter water,
never to beat, never to warm at all

Granite skies would drift above me,
haunting me in my night and
summer days

But in the thunder that frightens me
A swift lightning would pass me by,
a crack of gold in my darkest night

The flood crashing through doors,
through all the breathe that I've lost
I would learn to hold every air that I touch

All the celestial mass throbbing in my chest
The distant rumble of supernovas
that tears me apart,
and black sunshine that shines on my face

Even if midnight splatters beneath my eyes,
with all the stars that glimmer
that badly wants to fall

Even if half of my shadow is blown to nether
I would suffer everyday, and in my pain
I knew I could feel

I would die everyday, with all lamented things
and in all my deaths

I have learned to live

In the shadow of water
I know your true face.
not in the shadow
but in the feeling of
being in it.

…do you understand?

there’s a coolness
that wraps around me
just right,
like when evening comes
and the southern sun
finally relents its strength of illumination
to the unknowing of night.

through the shade of a wave
opaque enough to dilute
the intensity of the light
but not enough
to stop it from reaching me,
I recognize you.  

who are you
that you should linger
in my inner sight
like a sunspot
staining my vision wherever I look,
changing colors
behind my closed eyes?

a stranger?

perhaps I’ve known you
in other lives.
maybe we were lovers.
maybe we were almost lovers.
maybe this is our dance.
we circle each other
like leaves in an eddy,
a brief swirl of proximity
before we’re shot back out
to the flow of the river
like children on a slide,
laughing in our innocence—
in our ignorance.

then comes the
inevitable separation,
the distance,
the peculiar ambiguity
we wear like a skin—
like a camouflage.

but I still see you,
from time to time,
behind the eyes of a stranger

and

I still feel you
whenever I am in
the shadow of water.

Shadow,
Show me who I am.

Who I can be,
But who, I will not.

Teach me the
Fullness of a circle.

Square my interests
True and level.

But Shadow,
Keep behind me.

Do not devour
The desires I crave.

Release from me
Those sirens who call.

Stand with me,
In the glory of the day,

Be always by my side Shadow,
And I shall call you Brother.