nine, eight… zero
There you are, again
squashed to a corner,
counting hairs, pressing your head.
There you are, again
slipped right into...
outlasting fall.
But where is bottom?
Slipped right into
Not that bottom ever hit you.
It will take longer,
more dreadful this time.
Not that bottom ever hit you.
It’s good to think,
that a sun dies too, or
maybe it just explodes.
It’s good to think,
that you’ll not see a dying sun,
maybe there is no bottom.
nine, eight… zero
And yet tonight
I want to be with you. Not to fight and curse. No reasons. Not a word, as though to hear you say. Just to see you, sit next right to you, and probably, I know it’s too much to ask, hold hands with you.
I am over you. I am. This is just one of those hell moments (excuse me, H, capital Hell) that I want to be with someone like you— and there’s no one. Hell is like that, you look so hard, and there’s no one. Your memories, they’re like rain, certain to come back to catch me surprised to make me weak to turn me cold. I don’t need your memories and rain sucks sometimes.
It’s unlikely that I’ll see you at the end of all these; there is no us only, only because there is no us. For a while, for some while, there was. For a while we were smart, good, enough. And it got too depressing. Stop. For a while there were good times. A good time is like arguing over an army of ants, where they lead, which leads us laughing, then silenced because, in the end, where the ants lead we’re both wrong. We try the bees the next time. And people around felt awkward, alone might be a better term, because they don’t have us. And we felt undoubtedly free— us only.
What made you different? You’ve always been different that’s why I liked you. You became difficult, different. And I became a ghost, scarred and scary in your presence. Remember when you said I'm pissing you off, well hello angel, here comes your worst nightmare. But only because you dare not see my love, hell, do you hear me? Hell is like that, when someone you love loathes your love.
Who conjured your disappearance? Shall I love and wait? Or love and go? I am going from now and then, and vice versa. I’m exhausted and still you can’t find me looking for you. And I settle for getting over you, gotten over you, hell! Hell is like that, you look for the right words, and nothing works. I remember and I lie when I say I don’t know that was a long time ago. What do you call that, self-preservation is it? And no one told me that moving on is saying I will to my lies— I hate you, die.
and yet, see, tonight. I want to be with you, to be us only, again. And Hell is like that, Mad.
****
the supposed itutuloy... separta ya lang, para tene new post, baliw!
There, in some nights of falling asleep
a recurrent voice calls.
My own wailing becomes small;
my tears less.
I need to go back to
what I can't remember,
to things I almost traded
My Life with
to forget.
I retrace a thousand steps
back just so in my return
Move On means
I have.
***
itutuloy
I have not tasted moonlight lately. I missed.
many nights of expanding crescent. I miss.
the white whole in my eyes. I feel.
the burden of longing. Cold. Stinging. Nothing.
Encounters are short-lived. Lost.
in many ways, irretrievable.
I like the part when. Where.
I am happy. Things happen so fast.
The clouds are swell. I have to go.
Before it rains.
They are all gone. They left
(as though) they are leaving me with
Footsteps that hurt me further
as they move farther. Then gone. Left
(as though) they are leaving me with
Memories that are (not necessarily lost but)
scattered. Then gone. I leave, too,
(as though) to live.
When you find love you don't take a millisecond as nothing; a thousand lifetimes are still not enough.
And you breathe as though to steal the rarity of moments (too soon, too quick, too long to take, you keep waiting- always waiting), forever is hard to grasp: it is happening but it is just as fleeting. Strangely, you fall short by countless hours for other things, important too, they are, but how you get past them not a bit absorbed, you dismiss other lives (blurring how and why they exist), even your own, you forget who you are when love walks in.
And you assume a different person, you like what you see (hate sometimes but like most of the times), you feel, you are filled, you are scared an ounce at a time.
And you risk tossing an affair, unsure if it's caught, if it's dropped, if it bounces back, you throw harder at each refusal, you stand, sit, cross your arms, walk back and forth, your fingers interlocked, you pray, your breath, fingerprints, shadow mark window panes, you are anticipation pieced together.
And you risk, and you risk, and you risk.
And you're miserable, you're hopeful, your tears rise to where the moon kisses them dry, your laughter, a far stroke of echo.
And you're tired, still, enduring all that love allows, you represent every thing it's not, you try hard to sort out things, woe to you because you can't.
And you borrow the language of poets, of characters which maneuver your passion, until you are your own poet, until your own characters surface, you write if only to make a budding truth, truer, a multitude of imaginings, real.
And you wake up 2:00 in the morning to write some more, as if to hear love fan the curtains up and down, up and down, as if to see love move closer, your eyes flutter, your skin swells as if pricked by a thousand needles.
And as if love is as near as your own lost soul as though it is whispering Sleep Now, I am Here.
diminishing euphoria the wind dictates.
i want to stay afloat, God i want to stay in love with him. why did you send him? why is he moving away?
i see him like it's my first encounter with love. no past to compare him with- no other. the wind mocks, no future with him either. my heart beats in protest, what if there is? there are ways neither of us wants to take heed.
i miss his sweet smile, the sound of his laughter (befitting when my soul seems utterly gloomy). i miss him. this love, stifled, growing nonetheless, me, shattered, falling, in place somehow, like coming home: safe but uncertain.
diminishing euphoria and then gone too soon.
***
(for sure man react ya tamen te si jojo- affected, hahaha)
I am looking at your photo-
from where you are
that's about the shortest
distance I can map-
and from what I see
your eyes do not meet
the camera's focus
they're fixed somewhere
on the side.
your inadvertent gestures,
they make me guess all the time.
and while I'm not good at
guessing I wind up
painfully adoring you.
There you are, motionless, and,
mute as I smother silence with
words and sighs and songs
I keep only to my ear.
And what about those lips arched
to half a smile. A smile that
is almost not there;
if it meant to stupefy me,
then It always does.
To see your face any hour
of the day is too easy for me
because in my palm you settle,
and my fingers run
where your outlines fall.
And then I am next to wherever you are.
It hurts.
How you disallow my kindness.
How I disallow my tears to tell you
I don't mind and
I am not asking for anything.
How I hate lies
but how much I chase them to tell you
I don't mind and
I am doing just fine.
Occasionally, I still, look for your traces.
I don't know how long or
how much of this lifetime I shall muddle with,
and then run from, your memories.
I ask myself to be brave, again,
braver than the last time. Is there?
a burden heavier than knowing I am strong.
I have to carry half of myself at each sunrise.
Honestly, I am losing my grip.
It hurts.
That I allow you to go now.
And I am not going to stop you.
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