Proclamation

I realize now that I am a dreamer, and my dreams I will never abandon.

There will always be skies to look at, and stars to wish upon;

and love will touch souls, maybe not mine but that does not matter.

For as long as the birds sing and the sky remains blue,

as long as there is rain and sunshine, and silver-cast moonlight,

I will write and dream of things beyond my grasp,

believe in the morrow and the wonder of these idealistic things.

Meeting

At three o’clock we were supposed to meet

by the fountain at the center of the park,

in a place full of strangers that wouldn’t care,

but will give us our privacy anyway.

It’s easy to find it; look for the angels perched

on top, the dragons slain below them.

You were never one to run late,

you valued your time way too much.

So at 3:15, is it any wonder why I’ll start

to worry and wonder where you are?

But when you never came, it was expected,

it had always been your decision to go or not.

I could not have gone, either. Then again,

I could make the same decision altogether.

Maybe I shouldn’t have waited, or hoped,

maybe I shouldn’t have agreed in the first place.

It seems, though, that wanting to see you

supersedes any rational thought I have had.

See I’m stuck here, wanting what I’ll never have

and hesitating to take another chance.

I’ve forgotten what certainty feels like, yet

it doesn’t seem to matter that much anymore.

I wonder if we’ll have another meeting, but

more than that, I wonder if you’ll ditch me again.

I waited until 4 o’clock, and saw the kids pour in,

excitedly running to the playground,

dragging their parents and nursemaids around.

No phone call, no text message, not one from you

to even ask for a raincheck, for a ‘maybe next time?’

This silence sounds so you, and I’m used to it.

Unhealthy Practices

You remember his hand to have touched

your shoulder as a sign of comfort,

and remember that he wished you the best.

He said, “Take care” and bade goodbye;

that was the last train you’d ride together.

But goodbyes are never permanent.

You promised to call two days later.

It starts when you alight the train

with a bounce in your steps

and a smile on your face.

The world looks nice, wrapped in

a cloud of light and melodies;

nothing out of place, nothing broken,

life had never looked so good.

When you get home, the light dies

like the flame blown out from a candle,

and everything’s darker, as it’s always been.

How short your happiness lasted.

See, it wasn’t his presence shielding you

from the bitter truth. Nor was it hope.

It was you pretending that he was the world.

It was you associating him with safety,

and all the good things in life.

He can never do you wrong,

will never hurt you, will never leave.

So you trust and ignore the lesson laid out.

Two days later, and every week, for months

you call and hide from your troubles.

It’s not healthy, this dependency,

where only he can make you laugh,

where only he can make you smile and

keep hoping that things will get better.

It’s not safe, this patronization

because you never learn and

you never do things on your own.

The Loss of Idealism

No more looking at the sky

and seeing shapes in the clouds,

or imagining peaceful meadows

and relishing its perpetual silence.

Enough of reading penned scrawls

on the pristine back of scratch paper,

encoding from them words

that try to convey messages unheard.

I wished on bright shooting stars

often when I was little, naively hopeful;

I thought Santa Claus existed for

every Christmas, I had presents.

I believed in hugs and roses,

in romantic night skies and walks,

hands held together, foreheads touched,

I should have realized it sooner.

Your smile is just a smile lest

I put meaning in it, and your eyes

shine because I believe them to,

your words are sincere because

that is your primordial nature,

and not because of some connection

I thought we actually had.

Ridiculous has this pattern become,

of falling for your random gestures,

but I’m going to quit you (I have to)

and you’re not going to matter anymore

Fire

I know a five-letter word that shouldn’t
warrant forgiveness, or second chances;
where it cannot make things right and
claim a statement forgotten.

It is difficult to picture the look on your face,
or imagine the emotions your eyes express;
and then decide what needs to be done
about a choice unwittingly forced from you.

You give me what I don’t deserve,
reprieve on a silver platter; no strings
attached, competely free, mistake dismissed.
How can I tell you that I don’t need it?

A fire in the cinema cannot convince me
to leave my seat in the best scene of a film,
even with the exit right beside me; but
maybe I’m stubborn that way.

Maybe I’m not ready to go and decide
if I value my life more than I value the film,
and the stupidity is astounding as believing in
fictional characters that save the day.

So don’t let the fire die out with your water;
don’t pull me from my seat to save me,
I don’t need it and I don’t want it.
Open the door, leave, don’t look back.

New Year

Every small explosion echoes within you,

like bass resonating in a small room;

the lights flash before your eyes,

vivid greens and reds and oranges.

Under the canopy of the sunless sky,

everyone looks up in wonder.

Coos in amazement, points with awe

like they’ve never seen the display before.

It’s a cold January night, and you wait,

watching for twenty and a half minutes,

waiting for a phonecall that never comes

since you pretend you just didn’t hear it ring.

Ridiculous enough, someone catches your eyes,

catches you staring and walks towayrds you,

asks if he knows you, you say no,

then you walk back; leaving him behind.

The new year’s all about a fresh start;

an empty slate; moving on.

But you’re stuck in the past, grappling

for things that are out of grasp. And

it’s difficult to pinpoint from the awed crowd

who’s going to help you there,

be that new variable to your faulty equation

and make you live again.

Because it’s the new year, things change.

The old trodden path to your cabin

is now cemented, made of imported bricks;

in the beginning was the last time you saw

your friends and it’s in the end for that to happen again.

They wonder where you’ve been; what happened,

why you’ve changed, and you told them

that “this happens every day, goodbye”.

But the fireworks display never change,

it’s the same pattern that you ignore;

it’s always going to be about the greens,

the blues and the reds, the same flowers

and dragons and colorful fountains.

When the display ends, still no call,

still no familiar voice and conversation.

See, the things that matter don’t change.

Moving…

There’s something to be said about final words, how you think you’ve said everything but when you start to walk away, your eyes will widen and you’ll realize either you made a big mistake or you haven’t said everything.

Stuck

The furniture has been rearranged,

old books thrown out, music shuffled;

the study is newly organized

and even the drapes have been changed.

But there’s still a box under the table

full of things I cannot throw away –

letters, journals, silly little things

that all remind me of you.

Maybe I should get a haircut,

maybe a new wardrobe too;

maybe when I do things differently,

I can get acquainted with this strange room

and not wonder about why things changed.

Then maybe I can finally begin

that long pending task of moving on;

and follow through with my goodbye.

Because how do you end a connection

when you simply turn around and walk away,

never uttering what needs to be said,

and secretly clinging to your fleeting memories?

How do you say it’s over and that it’s gone,

but forget about how a break up is done?

I find that there is no other way to quit you

than by accepting you won’t be here anymore.

Yet the box still stays under the table

to gather dust and dirt; be the nuisance

that no matter how it gets annoying

I can’t have the heart to put away.

Rooms change but it cannot erase you.

Every time it tries to, it feels like

a part of me is wretched away, too.

I realize I can’t quit you after all.

Finality

I’m tired of wondering when we’ll ever be

as calm as the afternoon breeze

and clear as an underground river,

I can never deny that without trying

you can smile yourself past previously

tower-tall brick walls that defended me

and we can talk after months of absence

then realize it’s like we’ve never been away.

But up to when will we have to test

the safety of these waters, and know how to handle

the risks that we know will come?

Because I’m tired of listening to songs

and wishing you were here beside me,

and tired of writing these sad little poems

when you’ll never really ever hear

the messages behind them.

I want to say goodbye and wish to put

every troublesome thing behind me,

but it’s painful to do so; I think I can’t.

So I guess let’s just end with a brief goodbye

and restrict ourselves to hundreds of phone calls;

let’s be friends who aren’t friends

and lovers who aren’t lovers

because that’s who we’re supposed to be.

Lost

With sagging shoulders and a heavy bag,

the traveler walks and anticipates his rest

then finds a slab of rock in the middle of nowhere,

rushes to it with all the strength he can muster.

His body screams of exhaustion,

with drooping eyes and tired feet

of blisters and small cuts, supposedly hidden

by worn-down faded leather slippers.

He sits down on the slab of rock and sighs with relief,

thanks the heavens for this small blessing,

but immediately curses an stands right up

glaring and cursing at his burned butt.

So he continues to walk and finds two paths,

one headed east, one leading west;

and wonders which road to take,

so he waits anew till the answer comes.

The one to the left, he gathers, is

full of unnecessary troubles, littered with thorns

and peppered with sharp rocks that in an accident

can easily, readily kill him.

The one to the right is full of bushes

that he never really gets to know what’s there

but decides that compared to the other, it’s

relatively safer, so he starts to walk right in.

It’s been a decade and the weary traveler is still

looking for an exit as he is supposed to find,

but realizes he’s just walking in unending circles

so he gives up, falls down and sleeps instead.