i miss your late night text messages on the phone
saying sweet nothings
that time when you got all drunk and you said
what you never would have otherwise said, if you were sober..
you said you loved me..
i miss the dawns that find us together sitting on the sand
waiting for sunrise after a whole night
spent crusing the city on your friend’s car,
listening to broken up songs and waiting
for the liquor to settle on our being.
i miss that time when i was drinking kamikaze
and my cheeks were all red
and you said “i wish i could take you home..”, and you did,
if i was dreaming then, i wish you never woke me up. but you did
i miss the heavy rains on late evenings
while i walked you to the car,
you would hold my hand on those times
and be all quiet and serious
like it was the end of the world,
and indeed it was..

i miss missing you,
like right now,
when i force this verse out of my fingertips
i feel nothing,
there is no sadness, no pain, no hatred,

you have become
just another exercise
with words that have lost their meaning

06.03.2004.1.09.p.m.

i watch as those blades snip away
the strands that use to fall
over my shoulders
now they fall on the floor
like old pieces of history
that fell from the pages of my book
as i studied them back in high school
— a past where i pulled you out of
such a long time ago to remember
tonight, of all nights
as i sit on this chair watching my hair
on the mirror that reflects my face
its odd though,
there are no traces of you
on the lines of my hand,
in between the spaces of my skin
or on the mirror that reflects my eyes
especially tonight, of all nights
when i had my hair cut
because of you

05.25.2004.7.28.p.m.

i am the darkness
i am the velvet shadow that hides your dreams
i infect you with my gaze
and leave you restless, sleepless, and in total agony
at nights, i visit you in your slumber
i turn off the light from the stars
and hide the moon in thick dark clouds
i put my hand over your eyes and you become blind
but in your blindness you see me
towering over you like a deep dark fortress

i am the cold dark night
the one that leaves you shivering
and powerless and lonesome and grieving
i wrap my cape around you like a thick fog
and in the silence you question your existence
you toss yourself into the abyss
only to find yourself still here
trapped inside my web like an insect
wings torn, and tired and fallen

i am the merciless storm
that tears everything and everyone in sight
i trample upon your heart over and over
and yet you come back for more tormenting
you hide your tears in my icy rain but you fool noone,
you are defeated, conquered, forsaken
in the end there is only me
holding you like a puppet on my string
drinking the life from your veins until you are no more
at last, we become one and the curtains fall

5.12.2004.1.21.p.m.

“i feel no pain, i feel no sadness. i am hollow and i will live forever” – Count Vladislaus Dracula (Van Helsing)

someday you’ll run out of things to say
and you’ll sit by my side
and watch me watch the sunset in silence
someday you’ll finally find time to listen
without the need to pass judgements
and debate about world views and highest truths
and other things that matter only to people
who have so much time to think
someday i will pass by your world
and color your sky with bright red
but you will never notice
you will be blind and deaf and unfeeling
you will be lost in books and words and meanings
someday the wind will hold your feet
but you will keep on walking
because you’ve spent too many years
sitting, reading, listening
someday you will feel the rain
brush against your cheek like a tired friend
and you will walk each other home
and once again you shall find yourself
Alone.

04.11.2004.10.51.p.m.

i left while you were sleeping
i couldnt bear to see you sad
i kissed your cheek, one last time
and wiped the mist from my eyes

i bid you goodbye so silently
so as not to wake you up
and as the moonbeams lighted my path
i closed the door and never turned back

i walked gently between the drops of rain
the curtains never saw me weep
there was no last look, last touch, last word..
this is how, my dear, i leave.

03.30.2004.12.12.p.m.

another drunken soul splitting moment
in the heart of heartless libis and makati
fascinated by the lights of rockwell
and the architecture of eastwood city
we sit and wait for the evening’s plan
to materialize like some epiphany.

eleventeen shots pouring at 3am
BLISS was quiet except for six souls
trying to stop the dawn from coming

tequila, sprite and gin pom flooded
as st. madz endlessly repeated:
“there’s the cr and that’s the sink”
amidst zet’s complaints and hollow smoke rings
john and darrix alternated with the electric guitar
arjay counted snores in the background
while i stayed and refilled the glasses

its moments like these that take the gray
out of mindless meanings or create more fogs
on what’s already obscure. i sat and listened
detached from the blind who wanted to see,
and the undeaf who refused to hear..

riding a cab back to the hotel at 6am
calling in sick, and just lying in bed,
staring at the ceiling, with my head pounding..
everything was moving, and everything was still…

last night, i was a spectator,
a faceless being in the crowd
who mostly listened, and never talked much

how lucky i am,
that i was never more than that

03.08.2004.06.55.p.m.

i used to sit and wait for the night
to fill the sky with stars
as i ask the lingering shadows
where the world has gone

i used to wonder if i could count
the thousand shades of sunset
and store them one by one in a bottle
that i could open on cold dark midnights

i used to think about other people
who stare silently at the moon
weaving dreams of forever
and tales of love lost and found again
or myths of love lost and gone for always

i used to believe in things i cannot touch
in things i could only feel
through words stuck inside my chest
i used to believe..

.
.
.

last night i stood and watched
as makati’s towers light up
against the dying sun

last night
pieces of my old self died.

03.03.2004.12.38.p.m.

sometimes you have to
jump over the bridge
without strings
to bind your feet
if only to know
how falling feels like
after standing too long
and how water tastes like
after experiencing a drought

sometimes you have to
leave your comfort zone
and take big risks
with no sure wins
just so you’d remember
how to rise up again
after every great fall
or how to appreciate what’s left
after a very big loss.

sometimes you have to
get up, move on
grab you pack
and wander off
into worlds unknown
or get lost
in anonymity
if only to find
your home,
your life,
your self,
once more

sometimes you just have to..

let go.

02.09.2004.06.42.2004

i have no words to ease my hapless fate
nor shadowed corners to hide myself in
the songs of hope they sang were sang too late
while rhymes they wrote were all so broken in

had cupid landed on someone else’s heart
then mine own eyes would have escaped despair
but luck decided for love to depart
and leave my broken self beyond repair

i know someday there’ll be more dreams to make
more stars, more skies, more places to behold
till then i know this grief i have to take
perhaps to make my heart more strong, more cold

till then, i pray, your name will never bring
as much sadness as one forgotten thing

01.12.2004.03.59.p.m.

i saw you last night, your eyes were filled with stars
bright stars i could not see
lonely stars that have lost their meaning for me

i walked towards you but away from you
watching my madness fall
in between the places we dare not go

i love you still..
but with a heart that does not skip a beat when i hear your name
i love you still…
but with a love that has no more substance, no point, no purpose.

last night, you looked back at me
with a faint smile
nodding a greeting in the distilled silence

we blinked, at the exact same time,
and for a moment,

we are,
you and i

but you walked away under the hazy moonlight

and yes,
even in dreams,

you leave me.

01.05.2004.5.05.p.m.