Let me stifled by your scent
And drown in your sweet bitterness;
I'll let my heavy lids lay flat
As you take away my spirit
To where you call tranquil and calm.

As my tired shoulders fall gently,
I am filled with your warm caress
Along with nostalgic portraits
Frame by frame running in my head -
Ever vivid and enthralling.

The consoling embrace you give
Alleviates grief and its pang
Even just for a little while.

As I savor your poignant sting,
I can hear my heart as it sings,
"Sorry, but I just can't grow wings."

You have sunk deeply in my heart and more deeply still each day like sinking in a bottomless quicksand.

And I think I'll fall endlessly to your love like an airplane descending but never lands.

Hail, dreamcatcher, hear now my thoughts
Free my soul of fond hopes of naught;
Of brokenness these dreams had taught;
Of ceaseless pain this life has brought.

This heart is weary of shouting;
Of being empty yet drowning
In insipid words befuddling;
In ashed promises succumbing.

**** this anguish feasting inside
That this shiv may be put aside;
These damp sheets be given a rest,
And that may bliss in this room nest.

Hail, dreamcatcher, hear now my sigh,
The words I'll mutter as lie
Below the grass, hear my cry;
My soliloquies ere I die.

The dreams that I wove with your strings
Are dreams that 'til I slumber clings;
Dreams that on stars I'll be wishing
That I with the stars be dreaming.

Farewell to you, dear moon, I say
Awake I can no longer stay
In peace on this bed I shall lay,
Never again shall I rise, I pray.

So dreamcatcher croon me to sleep
And let me drown in thoughts so deep
Don't wake me up, I had enough
Last wish: I be gone in a puff.

I wish my love is your first breath
   of crisp, fresh air;
the first glimmer of sunlight,
   lining the horizons of dawn,
      as the lights of the Ferris wheel burn out;
your lips stained with nostalgia,
   kissed with the cherry tint of candy floss;
the smell of clean fabric against your skin--
   I wish I am--
      fragranced with the scent of popcorn--
after the carnival.

Your eyes are what spoke to me the loudest, as it did when I first caught your stare. And I still fall for your wink and your lids' sweet fluttering, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I crave for the sound of your voice - gentle and affirming. I remember how each time we talk on the phone your words would slide its way down my throat right through my heart, melting it smooth. I still fall for your laugh, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I ache for every word you've spoken, smitten with tender affection, to again escape your lips. I think I've never told you before how your good-nights are more comforting than the softness of my bed. I still fall for your puns, even right now, at 5:22, looking at your photograph.

I sit here two thousand miles from you, sharing the same sunset view. I whisper to the winds to carry these words to you, and bask the air that you breathe with my kisses too. Then maybe it wouldn't be that far of a gap, even right now, at 5:22, falling in love with your photograph.

I tried to make the best pudding I could
     out of the crumbs of time you give me.

It tasted like half-baked smiles and salty tears.

My heart fell and sank deeply at the sight of you,
     like an anchor hurled into the sea.

And then you spoke and I'm reminded of the waves;

You're the sea and I'm a fish,
     the salty waters I long and crave.

I am he
   who blistered and
   purpled his aching
   fingers, upon playing
   the saddest, dissonant
   melodies out of
   his old, untuned
   guitar, whose strings
   of somber used-to-be's
   he ceaselessly strummed
   and plucked under
   the dullest starless
   night sky; and
   sing of his
   weeping heart the
   poetry of melancholy
   notes half-composed.

It is me--
   the lone guitarist
   on broken avenue
   who never stopped
   playing his love
   song of rue
   since you left--
   whose only lyrics
   is your name
   and your words
   he dearly kept.

A day with you is saying good morning to the sun with cups of coffee. Long walks, but longer talks, and feeling tingly. Pillow fights on white sheets in underwear with yellow smileys; bacon and eggs and pancakes and sausage, and peanuts with no grease.

A day with you is seeing the dusk with rainbows. Chocolate ice creams and cones and mangoes; KitKats and Cadburys and Oreos, with Lego House and marshmallows. Or maybe cookies and cola and not milk, while I hold your hand of silk. Or maybe some singing or dancing or playing the guitar. Or painting a portrait of the moon and stars.

A day with you is a night in July and rainy. And kissing you with some hugging too and three spoonfuls of honey. Then I'll cradle you, with lights out, as you doze sweetly beside me. I'll hum you to sleep with tender pattings on the hips, and watch your eyelids fall gently.

I like whites - clean and crisp. White shirts and white sheets. White mugs and warm milk and white winter rains. But if you were coffee, I'd spill you over every white and love every stain.

I like organized - neat and nice. Made bed and matching blankets. Tidy shelves and closet. But if in my room you're the clutter, I don't think I'd ever fix it.

I like stories and poems, novels that get me hooked. I like plots with twisted endings, and my heart being took. But if you were a word in a chapter, I'd rather read you forever - over and over - than finish the book.

No matter how painful the words I write,
     or how perfectly beautiful they rhyme,
     no phrase, no line, no verse, no time
     or poetry in the world could bring you back.

And I'll miss you forever, like how the shore
     unspeakably misses the kisses of the tides
     as they recede;
     and like the corals on the ocean beds,
     you are all I need.

it'd cut through my sour, orange moments, as my blue sheets remind me of you. My pastel mug wouldn't remind me of tea, but your confectionary lips in lieu.

Contrarily, I'd destroy my like for maroon and I'd never have my eyes red. I'd hate every crimson flower, and disdain every green. And I'll stay away from cherries and tangerine.

But loving you is not a condition, but an overwhelming actuality. Loving you is blue. Like the subtle and unchanging hue of the skies, the tint of the ocean and its tides, I will forever love you.

I tried to stop it once, but I failed.
I tried to dry them once, but I failed.
Because of you, I greatly failed.
And no worse a failure can be than I.

I have failed to stop my pen from
       continually bleeding your name.
*And I failed to dry these pages,
       soaked in thoughts of you.

My tears have made puddles, which then turned into oceans, until there's no more land. I didn't make a boat. I thought it would subside, but now I'm drowning in the rising tides.

Watch how the white birds float
On fjords, eternally reposed—
The rustles will whisper
        how they keep pristine composure:
                 "Follow the glassy estuary streams,
                  where swans sleep quiescent darlings
                  of their ivory shrouds."

The golden burn of dusk
   kisses my window panes and walls;
On table tops it rests,
   the moon and stars it calls.

Far above the horizon,
   the honey sun waves good-bye
With sighs of blues and purples,
   its glory's end is nigh.

The birds sing their last songs
   atop the birches' bough
And the sunset leave us thinking,
   "What do we really know?"
In another world it is rising,
   but right here it hides from view,
burying its face, so when morrow comes
   we can marvel its glory anew.

When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. I told myself, "I want to see the stars and the planets up-close." I think probably we all had that stage in childhood where we all wished to be space walkers like Armstrong.

But eight years later, now I don't wish to be an astronaut anymore. I wish to be a writer. Because I have already seen all of the stars and the nebulae in your eyes. I wonder how they all got condensed in those two small circles like the moon. I whisper to myself, "It's so lustrous."

I already felt the weightlessness of space in your kisses, and your hugs are like oxygen tanks -- I need them to breathe. And when I see you-- just looking at your gait and smelling your perfume is even more enthralling than being in a launching rocket ship that pierces through the clouds and breaks the invisible mantle that separates the Earthly skies from the cosmic tapestry called "the rest of the universe". And I float away from reality and just revolve around the idea of you and nothing more like how the satellites of Jupiter revolve around it almost eternally.

I don't need to see the constellations anymore nor the planets or the meteors because I have seen them all in your skin-- I painted them on your skin. Others might call it bruises, but they do not understand that your body-- your neck, your arms, your chest are empty spaces and it'd feel like a sin not to embellish them with love marks -- the bruises that do not scream pain but* I love you's. *And I love you.

More than all the splendor of space, I still find your hair and the arch of your back and the gaps between your fingers and your clavicles so much more beautiful. Even this galaxy we live in seem to be unfit for its name: Milky Way. I think that name suits better your complexion alone. And when you smile-- oh, your smile! -- it is more radiant than the brightest comet and more warm than the hottest blue star; even the sun in the most arid summer-- it just gives me sunburns, but your smile, only yours, renders my heart melted.

When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut because I wanted to see the space. But now I don't anymore. Because I learned that astronauts are just spectators and I want to write about the universe. I want to write about you.

The worst way to lose somebody is to be, in his heart, ordinary; to be his luxury turned duty.

And the things he do, he does them to keep up with you, but not anymore to keep you.

This is when you'll know you've lost him. This is when it will hurt. But only until this you'll know you've loved deeply.

Your lips would blister with prayers for his return, but no poetry in the world could touch his soul and guide him back to your arms--

none unless the words are yours.*



P.S. *You'll only truly lose him when you start to think that maybe after all, you've never truly loved him. And that is also when you'll lose yourself-- to your own make-believe.

She walks on velvet, swaying hips
Flashes a grin, the poise she keeps
And for her query:
     What makes you happy?
She waves her hand ever gently.

She walks in skin and bones collapsing
Flashes a grin, but near to fainting
With this she answers:
     Loose clothes and shivers
She eats her dinner in reverse.

Blood is her carpet, blades are her sash
She keeps on walking - feline
Fits the crown of purging - rash
'Til she gets to be the beauty queen.

Once there was a maiden who has a gardener as her wooer. And the maiden love him too.

The maiden is affluent in money called Memories. And the gardener has flower bounties called Feelings he gives daily to the maiden. Every morning the gardener would knock on the maiden's door and hand her the most beautiful picks of Feelings his garden has. Some days it's a posy of 'I love you's'; or a nosegay of 'I miss you's'. Other days it's a wreath of 'kisses' and 'hugs'. But he knew what she likes best - it's the bouquet of the four. And every time, the maiden would insist to pay him with a Memory, but sweetly he would shake his head no.

Until one morning, she heard no knock on the door nor there were flowers on her porch. She waited and waited, but nothing came and he never arrived.

Days became weeks, there were no signs of the gardener still. The Feelings he gave her started to wilt, but many remain abloom.

"I wish the next time he knocks, he would hand me a bouquet of 'I love you's' with a coupling of 'I miss you's'," *she whispered between sighs. "It's not my favorite arrangement, but those I favor among all."

And the skies seem to hear her wish. There were three gentle knocks on the door. She smiled and stood in front of it, wishing that it's really him. And it was.

But he had no bouquets in hand. No posies nor nosegays nor wreaths.

"There is a new damsel in town, and to her I chose to give the Feelings, but she don't seem to care," he explained. "My Feelings piled up on her lawn but she never opened the door."

He paused.

Then earnestly, "My garden is bare of flowers, and I ran out of Feelings to give you," he continued. "But if you would allow, could you hand me a little Memory so I can restore my garden and offer you bouquets of Feelings again?"

*Then she gave him every Memory she has.

read my body like a bible,
let your tongue be the bookmark
that browses my pages,
and embeds between my spine
right where it shouldn't;
say my name like a prayer,
and i'll worship the shrine
under your stomach
like a god— my god!
let me lick the statuette

I never thought it's possible, to have such
       deep fondness for somebody that you
       cannot spell the word 'love' without her
       name; that the word 'love' has become her.

Your words of tender, mellow slur
are furls and wisps of thin, streaming clouds;
       dancing ecstatic,
       swaying hypnotic,
       sailing on the somber oceans of the wind--
then nestling as mist
   at the doors of these still lake lips of mine,
   hankering to swallow and wallow the low-resting, quiet, ambrosial fog.

Lily Willie, I am hungry
Do you have a cup of coffee--
A glass of milk, a butter cookie
Or a chocolate-dipped strawberry?

Lily Willie, I feel queasy,
But burgers are too greasy,
And pizzas are too cheesy
How about macaroni?

*Lily Willie, are you silly?
It's just a bite, a little candy
A slice of cake, nothing fancy
My head is numb, vision's hazy

I feel cold, but it's not snowy
My lips are purple, fingers chilly
My eyes are empty, so is my tummy
Lily Willie, I feel hungry.

his touch is boiling metal,
sweltering to delirium
that wherever his hands of red
take grazing, is swallowed
by the hell fire of his fingers

so once
he caught his lover
in his arms

so that the flames
frenzied upon all him
to hysteria
and incinerated
all
love
like wildfire.

.              You do not know my name, or maybe you do. Either way, I do not know yours, too. I may have met you already. Maybe our shadows have already crossed. Maybe I know you so well, yet I have not a hint that it is you. You may be the person that sat beside me on the long, long 'couch' of a jeepney or that girl that dropped her hanky inside the bus on its aisle. You may be my classmate; my neighbor, perhaps. My friend. My friend's friend. Or the cousin of my friend's friend that once set my heart a galloping horse but I then realized - laughed at myself, even - that I was such a foolish dolt to feel that way and utterly air-headed to believe  it, so I 'ended everything between us'.

               I may have seen you already, taken a good look at your face - your eyes having no sparkles and the fireflies in my stomach asleep being the only difference. You may have liked me or even 'fell' for my stupid smile and I had no idea at all.  So I apologize if my apathy made your heart numb or my blindness shattered you.

               Away from these hundreds or maybe even thousands of possibilities and ineluctabilities;  the chances of me already meeting you and not knowing that it was you; all I ask is your love abided by the love from the skies. Love, not affection nor attraction, nor any of the temporal abstracts. A four-letter piece-of-cake-to-spell word, yet too involuted to be brought to living definition. Love, my dear, and fidelity is what I ask.

               I long to see you, know you. To be stifled by the fragrance of your hair, know the color of your eyes; to be deafened by your voice in its saccharinity, watch how those delicate eyelashes of yours lay gently on your cheeks as you close your eyes upon sleeping.

               Life is a book wherein the plot depends on how the protagonist writes it. Tell me how many more pages would it take for me to get to our chapter 'cause darling, I swear I would skip even a hundred or two. If only I can, and if only you can. But apparently, I'm stuck in this chapter called 'present'.



**Sincerely,
Your present Future

I have a sweet tooth
   for chocolate
   chip cookies
   tonight.

And you told me--
   you have not
   even a
   bite.

But I say,
   darling,
   your lips
   are just as right.

I promise you the next time I write,
   I would write your name in place with mine.

So that people would look for you and not me,
   and they would see, my love, the reason why I write.

As they gaze at your face, they would understand.
As they hear your voice, they would know
   that many a next time I would write,
   but only of one they are sowed;
   and even without you,
   I wouldn't for another.

I'd just retell our story. Your stories. How my heart has been taken. The joys. The frowns. Our very endeared moments. The tragedies.

I would retell it in a hudred different ways, but I don't think I could write for another because only you and your kisses give my pen its ink and my words the power.

I would retell it.

But I wish I never should.

I shouldn't have thought of it
Shouldn't have picked up my phone
Nor have told you I'm alone
But I did.

I shouldn't have said hello
Shouldn't have let you know
Shouldn't have said it
But I did.

I should not have told you
How I long to hear your voice--
     And heard it above the noise
How my being so craves hue.

But I did, yes, I did
Because I miss you
But what you did-- that's what you did--
Didn't say you miss me too

As wreath of daisies wilt and dry
So do my heart shrivel and die
Drunken with rue-- spirit downcast
Tainted by blues painted by past.

I shouldn't have said it again--
Your cold reply a stab to I--
Rot this soul that's already sunken
But I risked-- a languid sigh.

I shouldn't have done it
Shouldn't have bid
My last 'I miss you'
But I did.

"You know what makes every story pretty?" he asked.

"What?"

"Unpredictability. One day, I don't even know how your hands feel; the next, they are all I ever want to hold."

"You know what makes unpredictability pretty?"

"What?" he asked.

*"That your every syncopated heartbeat is my love story."

I want to hold your hand and feel its creases, the same that wrap around your pen. I want the immensity of your palm mantled on mine, its warmth that bruises my knuckles. I want to feel your fingers, and kiss the cold away its tips.

And if in every entanglement my touch could whisper, it would reassure,* "I love you. I'll forever hold your hand. I'll forever adore the solace I find in the tightness of your grip. I love you - and I am not letting go. So please don't."

You are the grass of Spring, and loving you is like Fall. My heart is the leaves in golden blush, the hue of sunkissed skin in Summer; wrinkling, as if shy of the breeze, and softly toppling from boughs, avid to kiss the ground; and upon falling - shivering, as if caressed by the white dust of Winter.

Last night, before I close my eyes, my heart whispered me something. It told me to love you endlessly.

My lids finally shut as I lull myself to the thought,
           *"I will. And I always will."

Your breath is my nicotine,
your perfume, my smoke;
it warms my within--
a little nudge, a gentle poke

sends my sober mind ecstatic
and my drunken soul awake,
my thumping heart, erratic
and my rickety bones break

to the sound of your voice--
is my alcohol and wine
topples me out of poise,
stumbling never felt so fine

is your stare; i'm defenseless
as i stand before you
are my vice and addiction,
my downfall and destruction.

To love is to invite tragedies in your soul, disclosing your heart vulnerable to every pain.

But if love is this beautiful, I think I would smile to even the worst tragedies and say, "Welcome! If you are love, though you bring pain, I wish you never go away."

When love is the spine of the universe,
   you are its heart, and I its body.
  
I contain you
   in me.

But without you, my own,
   I shall not live nor shall the universe
   know about love,
   for there will not be your words
   that is the blood, slowing through my veins.

On the claw of daybreak is a bridge, they say
     that extends to an everlasting sunrise foray,

     where every morning glory is at the cliff—
     whether they're climbing or descending is a riff—

     of muddied quagmires where a slew
     of sunflowers that on the talons of radiance either died or grew.

I think I'll forever long for your kiss like how the desert longs for rain.
And crave for your touch like how a wound demands pain.

I'll forever ache for your "I miss you", with the tumid wish for things to stay the same;
     like how, from then, each and every "I
            love you" would ache for your name.