i dot the sky with tears
that resemble faintly
shimmering stars

for you are the glass globe
and memory is the snow
that keeps me trapped within

(A.H.Z)

and even on days when i
don’t feel the sadness so strongly
you are still, still,
the base of my thoughts

in the midst of a storm
in the grass before the dawn
how the little things
remind me of you -
yet the memories i keep
can only quell the lonely
for so long

i dream and dance upon
the figments of fading scars,
tear old wounds open
find you in the chaos

for i cannot let you go
and i cannot let anyone in
i miss you far too much
and i love you all the same

(A.H.Z)

the moon graces my face,
in the form of a smile
bright and waning crescent
constellations dot the
back of my mind

you have the sun in your eyes
and the sparks of summer
that reflect into the sky
a smirk; the remains of dawn
are light freckles on your skin

it has been a year or two
since i last smiled at you
or you at me; how time passes
and yet doesn't at all

we are the star-crossed and luckless
the lightning and the thunder
if i was paper, you'd be fire
this love is always for
and against us

(A.H.Z)

they never tell you that people come with invisible labels that read 'i will hurt you at some point' and growing up, you eventually realise that everyone has this label, including yourself. because even though you cannot see it or consciously realise it, at some juncture of your life you have wounded another. you might not have meant it, or maybe you did, but the truth is that more often than not we end up hurting the people we care for and try to protect the most.

you will come to a point in your life where you discover that you cannot protect people from yourself, and from thereon you have two choices; give up on everyone and hide in the comfort of your dark, or take the risk and seek the light. of course, most people end up choosing the latter, simply because even though you will be hurt, at the end of everything love is always worth suffering for.

-

"after all this time and everything he's done to you, it's still him?"

"you can't decipher emotions, and you can't explain love."

(A.H.Z)

this is the problem, you see. i hate orange flavoured things, but don't mind the fruit or the colour itself. i despise chocolate flavoured items as well, but will never complain if a whole bar fell into my lap. i cannot decide if it is the simple idea of disliking the watered down version of the original thing that irks me the most, or if it is something more. perhaps it is the very thought of a half truth - an illusion, if you may - that disgusts me, because these things will never be as good as the real, original item to me. you are the same, i have realised; years of sporadic vanishing and reappearing have not wavered my feelings for you, and all the people i have tried to replace you with pale in comparison.

i might be capable of lying to everyone around me, but i cannot do it to myself or you. the funny thing is that you know this, as much as i know it too. for we are vulnerable as we are broken, and somehow deep down in the darkness where we sink we are guided by the same light, which always brings me back to you, and you to me.

-

"how have you been?"

i miss you in ways i cannot even begin to describe. i miss you the way sleep lingers in our eyes as the dawn breaks, and i miss you when our song comes on. i miss you the most when the storms arrive or when a joke is made and i turn around expecting to see your accompanying smile, but meet empty air.

the truth is, i'm lost. i miss you completely, terribly, unbelievably so, and it eats at me every single day.

"just fine."

i put on the biggest smile i can muster and walk away.

(A.H.Z)

yet again i find myself wide awake at midnight and beyond, lost in the labyrinth of my mind. the walls are dark and narrow, paths crumbling under every footstep and disintegrating with every tiptoe. the madness is overwhelming, echos of regret and misery dotting the darkness in broken frames and shattered glass. the end of the maze is identical to its start, empty and hollow and broken in ways that even i could not begin to fathom.

i am a ghost and a barren wasteland inside; a mannequin robot controlled by routine and forced smiles with no beating pulse or rhythmic heart. the silence is overwhelming, the sadness overbearing. there are tidal waves of emotions that wash over me in attempts to drown and flood me in this place, waters murky grey and suffocating. there is no shore here, only sea.

everything i am is mess, a chaos, a ruin, a tangled sphere of emotions and pent up feelings that run too deep past the surface of my heart and entwine themselves into my veins. it is here i am embedded with the shards of the past and memories that haunt me, gravity a weightless substance in the ocean of my tears. there are regrets and wishes and dreams, and as much as i try to escape i only sink further and further into manic depravity.

-

"i fell in love once."

"what happened?"

"i never stopped falling."

(A.H.Z)

"you cannot be sad all the time, don’t lie. you are smiling, that is a good thing."

it is a rebuttal from yet another friend of so-and-so says, related by this-and-that and somehow in the crossroads of here-and now we meet by chance and speak by fate. i silently contemplate the vast expanse of the universe in comparison to the shallowness of the waters in some people, simultaneously envying the happiness they bask in and the darkness they get to escape.

there are days when the hardest thing to do is to wake up, and there are days when the rooster crows while i am wide awake but exhausted and numb down to the veins of my very being. it is a rocky journey under faint light and overwhelming dark, a never ending battle between stubborn, suffocating will against the voices who whisper lies and truths all at once. yet here i stand, weak but not defeated, dying but still alive.

i keep this hope in the center of my hand, that someday everything will be okay, and i will love as i have learnt to miss those i have lost.

-

"i smile everyday, but that does not necessarily mean the smile reaches my heart."

(A.H.Z.)