As I was walking in a hall, wide and bright, I stumbled upon a mounted spyglass.

Right on the mount, it said that it could let me look at the past. I thought that something that allowed me to look through to the opposite would be much more convenient.

Nevertheless, I looked in.

There I saw 2009 when I worried about when I will get laid.

The songs I listened to were old and good, but never mine.

These memories are blurry, small, and insignificant. But one could never forget what that felt like.

On the other side was 2013, when my mind was somewhere else as I sat near the university pathway when I should be in a class.

The songs I listened to took me as one of their own, at least for the time being.

These memories looked like miniature figurines. Problematic, yet quite small.

Tilting the spyglass, I saw the end of 2016. I was near a superhighway waiting for a bus that might never come. Things were still quite problematic, but clearer. None of those miniatures blurs on the side that just focused on me.

These memories looked bigger, much more vivid. It felt closer. So I looked away.

There I stood inches away from the spyglass. I walked to the other side and it allowed me to see the future.

Everything looked small and unclear. It was as if everything you can see didn't even know where to go.

But they all felt like mine.  Like things I never had but always have known that belonged to me forever.

They are Sunday afternoon naps, cups of coffee that are either good or bad (who can tell?), and a lot of hugging.

Again I stepped back. This time because I felt afraid.

There's always uncertainty ahead.

But I was certain about uncertainty then.

The future can come in any way, shape, or form but one thing will never change.

It will always be mine.

I still long for a lot of things from you.
Like the smell of your room when you're peacefully dreaming.
Like the heavy beats in my chest when I'm about to kiss your neck while I'm spooning you.
Like the debate in my mind whether you'd like it or you'll like it a lot.

Oh pray that the summer could be more forgiving.
So we could run up to the hills
Lie under trees, tired from carving our names on their helpless barks
Watch the gaps between leaves and the sunlight piercing through
Draw scriptures on your skin.
Your blank page of a skin.
Always ready for a masterpiece.
Already, in itself, (if I may correct myself) a masterpiece.

I still long for the moment
After your sweating forehead gives way to your radiance.
After your legs stop working from hiking grounds of brown and green.
Icky damp, cracking dry.

I still long to see you
Playing on the river
Skipping stones
Soaking your heels.

Shaking off sand
Stuck in your Birkenstock.
Collecting stones you find fancy.
Writing our names on the sand.

Lean your head against my shoulder
Tired from all your adventure
Selfishly keeping each monumental seconds
Safely in our private album.

I still long to long for you.
Through summers,
Through seasons.

Nostalgia is a comfortable mattress.

Roll onto one corner and you'll smell
Every verse that struck you
From old songs that
You hummed so tirelessly to.

Tuck yourself in to a blanket
Of traditions now long gone,
Of patterns in each other's skin
You knew oh so well.

Hold onto edges of that heavenly pillow.
A fondness nobody thought would die.
A contentment that used to help you sleep.
Now is the very nightmare,
Every bed bug who gave you the rash.

That gave you the reason to get up,
Pound the call of now.
The ascending ring.
Quaking the side table.

This poem requires more of the now to be finished.

We all want the truth
But we're all liars.
Trapped before forks
Of the bed rock of love
And of momentary fires.

We all want to fly,
But we're born without wings.
Whenever we're down,
We re-evaluate our needs.
Whenever we're down,
We see several versions
Of getting down on our knees.

To a dying girl, we were betrothed.
But we held different backs
Segregated former lovers
And cheap lunch packs.
Those letters you wrote
Under your breath read
Rightly deserved curses,
O finely written verses.

Let's join our little drunken hands
In inexpensive Hong Kong sidewalks
The ***-infused sweat in our cheeks
Hasten not in hazy sweetie talks

The heat in the night
Can make the ice caps melt
But in two different poles our
Intentions got up and went.
Your eyes never looked like what it seem.
Your night felt like a lie, mine transpired a dream.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.