It has been so long since I last heard my name out of your mouth that this time, it takes me by shock. I’m standing in the shadows, mouth agape, and you’re illuminated by the sun rays, blinding smile on your face. It’s funny, I note as a passing thought; we’ve been the light and dark of each other for as long as I can remember. You pull me out of my stupor, eyes finding mine and as always it feels like returning home.

"Are you coming?"

I shake my head, the weather is searing and my health is frail. The sun has never been a sanctuary for me like it has been for you, hair a faded brown and skin tanned from overexposure to the day. I pale in comparison, thriving in the moonlight and the shadows, at night and in the cold.

To my surprise, you don’t push any further. The briefest shock in your expression lingers before realisation sets in, and the corners of your lips turn up. It then occurs to me that you remember all that I have told you before, years ago when I thought you weren’t listening. I suppose you have been, all this while. A small spark of hope ignites somewhere deep inside my lungs.

"Tsk."

You truly smile by this time, fondness embedded in your gaze and the hints of affection in the tilt of your head. I return the gesture, a nervous, happy laugh escaping even before I can stop it. The moment is a giddy whirlwind of emotions; I have never been able to control myself around you.

-

I never notice until much later, but I spend the rest of the day away from the shade and under the sunlight; transfixed by your stare.

In these moments I can only think of how much I love you.

(A.H.Z)

The night is your bed, the moon a blanket for your thoughts and the stars your pillow. You are immobile, paralysed by feelings and memories that only grow stronger as the light dims. There are so many things left to say that remains unsaid, and songs to sing that go unsung.

Worlds awake without slumber now, the physical realm paling in comparison to the galaxies that you can reach in your mind. There are planets and solar systems of hurt that you can reach with a simple call for the past - and you, the lost traveler floating in the vacant space.

A gaping hole where your heart once was echos the empty in your soul, but tears are the makeshift poultice that keep you going. A similar blank smile graces your face; but the cracks in your frame seep only love and a sadness that speaks volumes of how deep the hurt runs in your blood, bleeding black and wilting crimson.

Memories, memories.

For I remember everything, even as you forget -

- even as you have forgotten.

(A.H.Z)

Dear You,

I am writing because I have written so much about you that one more word or sentence or paragraph won’t make a difference to the mountains of text I have dedicated to you. I have gone through verse after rhyme after phrase to find you in betwixt and between the 26 alphabets that make up this language that we speak. There are never-ending metaphors and similes and fantasy worlds in which you live as the sea and I am the anchor that is sinking, or you are the sun and I am the moon that timidly lives in the shadow and reflection of your light.

However you will never know that any of these exist. You will never know how you saved me from myself and showed me love in ways I never knew existed. You will be unaware of the girl who has thousands of letters and poetry and prose dedicated to your mere existence - from the hairs on your head to the way you move seamlessly along the ground. You will not recall the promises you broke that I still remember, and you will never read any of the emotions or feelings I have confessed and penned down over and over again. You will not, even though subconsciously I will tell myself you have, because I would like to stay in the memories where you understood me with just one look; in those moments where I truly believed we were the lock and key of each other.

And even though things are like this at this very moment, I still believe you are mine as I will always be yours. I have imprinted the sound of your voice and the echo of your laughter on my heart; engraved the words you used to sing and say onto my skin. I have made a thousand paper cranes to match up to the thousands of excuses I have made for our drifting apart. I have formed bridges of prayers and tears to hopefully find my way back into you, staying up night after night to watch the sunrise illuminate my room; hoping that somehow the rays will penetrate the dark of my soul and I will finally become as bright as you are to me.

I love you. Maybe this was meant to be the most important thing to tell you first, but I believe love can only be said in so many words. Don’t worry about me. I will continue writing prose and stories of how we were and what we lost while you move on with the same vitality in your step. I will stay in the past afraid of the present and keep our memories in my core of my heart so that wherever and whatever happens, you will be there with me.

Regardless of everything, I love you first, last and always. No matter how far we go, where we are or when we depart from this life there will forever be a part of you that lingers inside my heart. I will always want the best for you, and I will always want you to be happy, safe and well.

Yours always,

Me.

(A.H.Z)

He will whisper words
and you will hear them.
He will promise things
and you will believe them.
He will be perfection
and you will let go of yourself to mirror him.

He will play with your feelings
and you will fall for him.
He will pull you in
and you will be dragged along.
He will make you happy
and you will love him.

He will anger you
and you will forgive him.
He will hurt you
and you will forgive him.
He will break you
and you will forgive him.
He will destroy you
and you will forgive him.

He will push you away
and you will still return.
He will leave you
and you will still wait.
He will forget you
and you will still remember.

He will stop loving you
and you will never stop loving him.

(A.H.Z)

I am tempted to let you enter this room which is my being and soul, but you see - the last person in here trampled over the grass, uprooted the flowers and tore down the lights. He brought storms with him in place of the windy spring air and poisoned everything he touched with his fingerprints; permanent stains on a fragile heart. This is why everything smells cloyingly of rain, grass and roses here, overbearingly so.

He has stayed for years, coming and going as he pleases, so often so that the hinges of the door of the entrance are rusty and breaking apart. The gates used to be white and intricately laced with wildflowers that screamed freedom and naivety, but now they are wilted fragments on the remnants of charred wood from the lightning and thunder.

When he returns and lingers for a long long while, I take pity on him; placing a candle on the table and fixing a lamp above his head. I give him water and food and nourishment, emotions taking over any rational thought. I give him comfort and attention and answer any whim, demand or request. I give him all and everything I am simply because he is who he is, and I am who I am. During these moments he is sometimes pacified, and destroys less of me than does in times of anger and desolation.

But if he becomes too tame, too kind, too gentle - without warning, he will disappear. He will disappear into the dark but come back in radiant light. He will leave with an apology in his eyes and a smile on his lips, but return with fire in his soul and anger on his tongue. The storms he creates are violent and threaten to collapse the walls of this room, but never do.

During his disappearance, other people like yourself try to enter this place, but he takes the key with him and locks the broken door. I have an extra key to escape, but it is dangerous in here - glass shards, broken smiles and plaster masks that litter the wall and floor - so I never let anyone in. Only he knows how to tip toe around the chaos and ruin to find his way back, and allowing visitors in here would hurt them, so I stay alone till he returns. It is safer this way.

-

You will ask why she does not run if he is destructive and as deadly as she says. You will wonder why this girl refuses to escape from the storms she is terrified of and return to the spring. You will relentlessly beg her to stop watering the roses whose thorns ***** her so, but it will all be futile.

Because regardless of what you ask, she will answer out of the same conscience that makes her care for him endlessly; love, love, love.

(A.H.Z)

I tell you of the time I almost drowned in the sea, because I wanted to know the taste of salt and ocean freedom. I was young, foolish and curious; a combination that invited disaster merely by existing in the same spheres of thought. The ocean was warm that day, although I thought it would be icy cold. I swam out against the tide and current, closed my eyes and let the murky turquoise waves wash over me; then darkness. Even in the midst of my suffocation, the loosening grip of this world never scared me, only calmed me. I wondered how it would be like to sink to the bottom and find serenity, peace and tranquility, away from the glaring rays of the sun and the fears that remained on the surface.

I lived to tell the tale of course,
but I never forgot how the sea gave me death and life all at once.

You laugh, and say you're very glad I'm still alive.
I smile in return, because I am too; to be able to meet you.

-

I never tell you how you are now the ocean for me.

(A.H.Z)

Falling in love with you
was thunder
loud & sudden

Lightning strikes
quick & bright

Here I stand
afraid of storms
yet in love with one

For you smell like warmth;
sunshine after the rain
and ringing laughter

You pose all my
danger in the dark;
yet bring healing
after the pain

(A.H.Z)