we could’ve been everything

hi… haha.

yes, this is for you: for all our regrets and our missed opportunities; our flustering and fluttering of hearts; our taboo situations and prohibited jealousies; and maybe for the feelings i could’ve, would’ve, possibly have, felt for you. 

don’t hate me for this, please. it’s two in the morning and i’m thinking of what we’ve fallen into.

---

we could’ve been
as beautiful as the rain on your cheeks
when yellows faded into the blues
and collided into a wonderful kaleidoscope of green
of green (lime forest emerald)–my favorite color

we could’ve been
easy; like tickling lashes and tasting lasagna,
like teasing comments and lasting hugs
just like the fluidity of breathing–
oh, wait, breathing was never easy around you

we could’ve been
ethereal brilliance in its corporal form
a magnificent dance between
the yeses and nos
the “should i”s or “shouldn’t”s
between love and insecurity
which grow like weeds in our hearts

but we’re not perfect

you lucked out and i’m fucked up
and all i have
is the memory of your face

i’ll cherish you forever, sweet

for noelle, my dear friend; i hope you know how sorry i am.

also, i’m glad you’re over her.

please read this in your perspective because i am definitely not in love with you.

---

There are only a few things we cherish in life: time, tea, Mcdonald’s. Love.

Some are heard to find; others always at our fingertips. For instance, the tick tick tock of the clock reminds me to submit my requirements before I run out of time. Another, the delivery man already knows my address by heart, my number by heart, because Mcdonald’s’ hotline is ingrained in my mind and they come at my will.

Love, however, is a more complicated matter. I’ve found it, yes, in the sweetest of smiles and the most beautiful of voices. It lies within the crevices of her eyes when they squint and in the bumps and dips of her body when she dances. It’s amazing, this love; how I can hold it in the palms of my hands–so delicate, so fragile–, how it’s bigger than my being–so strong, so safe. I’ve found it, you know? But at the same time, I haven’t.

Hide and Seek she plays with me and I always hate being “it”. Although my hatred for that particular position doesn’t change how things are. It’s unfair (so fucking unfair), the way she hides from me, counting on me to pull her out of her self-induced black hole. Life has always been unfair, however, and always will be. And so why try to change my course when my only choice is to go after her? I want to go after her.

People… people are harsh. They think that this won’t work out in the end; they say I’m just going to get hurt; they say “get over it”. But how can I get over the one person who makes me feel alive–hell, who keeps me alive? They might as well be telling me to die.

I don’t care whether love is complicated, or whether she wants to play Hide and Seek for all eternity. Nor do I care what people say to me, no matter how desperate they are to keep me from the pain that I already know will ensue.

Fuck the whole universe; I love her. And nobody can do shit about it.

paper plane

Paper planes
Are miles and days
Away from where they’ve been flown
Away from what they’ve always known

Young and free, it flies
Far into the windy skies
Wisps of fingertips, impressions of pressure
These steel the way of the paper plane

A starting point, an ending line
The brief flight in between time
Are the moments this paper plane lives for
Are the minutes this paper plane can live on

Before the maker takes it
Before the taker breaks it
Before the lord of salvage and ruin
Carries its wilted frame into the sun

So enjoy, little paper plane,
What little air you have left
Soar, beautiful
Soar, veins
Soar, blood

f-i-f-t-e-e-n

How does it feel like
To be fifteen?

Would I be embarrassed
When people would ask me,
How old are you?
Not because of my aging self-conscious
But because I’d stutter, saying
Fo-fo-fif-fifteen

How different would I—
Look at the world (look back at me)
Would they see someone
A year older
A year wiser
A year better
Than who I was before?

Would my perception change?
Left

Right

Centered (scattered)

F-i-f-t-e-e-n
This week, I turn
And I can’t wait to answer all my queries

thank you (for seeing me)

She would only allow him a fleeting glance of herself—just a wisp of skin and a whiff of her shampoo and a whisper of promise saying maybe next time, babe. Never had he seen her long enough to grasp permanency. Her facial features were vague at best and her hair and body type were the only identifiers he could place.

And yet, he was completely and hopelessly in love with her.

Until two weeks ago, he perfectly recalled, he got close enough to touch her hair. As she ran towards the looming hospital, he called out her name–Gabrielle! She paid him no attention, as always. However, as one not easily deterred, he stretched his arm out to…do something, anything, really, and his fingers felt the velvet textures of the ends of her hair.

She has really thick hair, he thought. And it’s wonderfully soft. And she’s wonderfully beautiful. And I’m more wonderfully in love with her.

That was the first time he felt a physical jolt of surprise, its electricity racing out to all nerves and sending insanely repetitive messages to each other—I touched her I touched her I touched her I touched her I—as if competing as to who keeps her memory.

But that wasn’t the last time he felt it.

Just a few days ago as he was leaving his quarters to rest before his next shift, she strolled past him again. She was as beautiful as ever, striding with an air of—not confidence, he realized lately—complacency, as if everything was under her power and the world was controlled by her strings.

One of her strings fell to the pavement; an elegant Parker fountain pen lying on the ground, one she used to manipulate the world’s movements—or at least, her world’s movements. And maybe his. (He’s read what she’s written and it’s safe to say she controls him, too. Unknowingly.) He hastily picked it up and called out her name with an over-practiced roll of the tongue—Gabrielle! She paid him no attention.

He tried again—Gabrielle! You dropped your pen. And in that moment, he swore that he could die right there as her feet stopped abruptly and her body swiveled to his and her eyes, oh, her majestic eyes, met his for the first time.

Green and blue. Her eyes are green and blue. He was amazed, flipping those simple words around his head, over and over again, and finding that its unique combination made him love her more. She walked over to him slowly, tentatively, as if feeling for the cracks in the pavement that might have tripped her, tricked her, into diving headfirst into a trap. But he was no trap; she was.

Then there she stood, head not even reaching his shoulders, only inches between them charged with all things anxious yet all things hopeful. He looked at her, really looked at her, finding big eyes and a cute nose and full lips, yet realizing that none of it would have mattered because he loved her.

And she snapped him out of his trance and warmed his toes and touched his soul and made him infinitely more than just happy with the most heartfelt words:

Thank you.