August 24, 2016

Sitting across each other
on the jeepney,
I saw your tired eyes glow,
they were hopeful, forlorn, and beautiful.

Your wrist watch
glimmered in repose --
illuminated, moonlit, quite nostalgic,
reminded me of the songs
I have come to adore because of you.

And I was afraid
I'd forget about these things later --

but they were poetry, carved in my heart,
flourishing, the very soul of my thoughts.

I looked away to the places
we were passing by in a blur...
How many times have we been to them
yet none of them ever knew
you were the world to me.

You cupped your face with your hand
like it was the last thing to do.

You were the greatest thing
in this world to me.

--

I walked you home --
backpack was heavy,
the very same lonesome street
I'd never skinned my knees at,
roadsides missing the rain,
butterflies hovering in my stomach
(how cliche that was, but true),

and silence...

Maybe we still hadn't found
the greatest paradox,

and it pained me.

I tried to catch a song in my head,
but disrupted by the palpitations of my heart
urging me to merely decipher
these unknown writings in my grieving walls.

You never looked back to me,
your turned back still smelled like roses.

--

I walked home alone,
tired of the sound of my footsteps,
tired of school works and foolish dreams,

wanting to always be with you

until this life runs out of me.