Teenage prose is raw, filled with emotion, parental problems, pure angst, or perhaps unadultered innocent love in every single beat and strand. These aren’t proofread, written in the spur of the moment and unedited (unless to add more lines) they are the pinnacle of raw feelings, in the loose form of words. Here is a dump of poetry made from about last Christmas day to the seventh of February.
“you say it too often”
1.31.2015
“you say it too often”
and i replied with confusion, with curiosity and with gleam
“i love you, i think you say it too much”
and i just looked at you with the same face i did when i wearily said those words for the first time
“i’m not against it, i just think you’re making it lose its meaning.”
and i smiled at you – while you looked away. i did not promise to stop, i did not promise to lessen those words.
if only you knew.
i bid you i love you because i am afraid
that in the morning i will wake up and not feel the same
that in the waking hours i will stare at my mirror and feel comfort when you are not there
that i will make one cup of tea instead of two
that i wont be inclined to tug on your sleeve when we see a passing bird; competition to name it ensuing
that i wont be rolling over to your size, to huddle a little closer and beg for a bit more time
that in the sleepy six am rush i wont fix your tie or prim your collar
that in our car rides id rather stare out the window than at my side
that in our favorite coffee shop id change my order from our ‘regulars’
that in the daze of our saturday walks i’ll tuck my hands into my pockets, preferring its warmth over yours
that i’ll look at your face and no longer see the stars; only the lightning, the emptiness afar
that i’ll watch the sunset with you on the third of every month, without your hand held, without feeling your touch
that i’ll seek to find the world on my own two feet, not restricted by your words
that i’d delight in the comfort in loneliness without anyone to talk to
that i won’t eagerly check my phone to see an empty lock screen
that i won’t bring you to that showing of the movie that we were seeing
that one day i’ll wake up and no longer feel the same
that one day i’ll tell you ‘i love you’ when i no longer do
so with the sunset i gathered i poured out a smile
i touched your hand and cupped your face and begged for a moment more
and indeed did i leave, with the whole world to see
“i’ll love you forever”
“and forevermore.”
beyond
2.7.2016
i find it meaningless to believe that we will love each other for the rest
of our lives. the universe does not wait for us, the grass will continue
to oversweep humanity, and when we kiss time will continue to further
progress, the hands of the clock will continue to tick in its continual
unending motion, as much as we believe our hearts would be enough
to change the course of the universe, to unwind the strands of the
grandfather clock of the stars, as still as it feels – it will continue going
on. which is why when i tell you i love you – i find it meaningless. i will
love you beyond our lifetime, until the nations sink and the world
erupts into radiant eruptions, the stars will burst into countless shards
and wander like vagrants in the iridescence of the atmosphere, the
sun will die and the universe will collide, and all will cease to exist.
the universe was born in pieces, and made itself whole, and will turn
into nothingness once more – but the beating of my heart will always
thrive, beyond time and space, beyond what we can believe and
imagine, beyond every whispered i love you with our fingers
intertwined, beyond the moments we stare – with astral beauty and all
of time itself in each other, my love for you will be heard in the
emptiness of existence, my love for you will be beyond.[/columns_right][/columns]
in between
1.24.2015
they would compare you to the universe
the galaxies we dream of touching,
the oceans and the seams of the world’s plates,
the mountains the breeze the sun above,
the moon in its beauty, everlasting but alone,
the torrents of clouds, the army of the sky,
but to i
you are the empty space in an infinite abyss,
uncountable, inordinate, unconscionable,
you are the grains of sand washed in the current,
stepped on and treaded, but still clinging to the sea
you are the crumbling rocks, flowers that grow in places you’d never know,
that builds up to the peak that seeks eternity
you are the faded glow in an afternoon’s spring,
the familiar skyward hearth even in pellucid beyonds
you are everything in between,
from the atoms that build up our beings
to the expanses of universes that even we cannot dream of
you are the dream that i continue seeking,
in the waking seconds of the world
that i am blessed to lock fingers with
to promise forever and beyond
you are the universe, the emptiness, and all that there is
you are mine, and i am yours
we are eternity’s
in between
hollow
2.6.2016
how funny was it for me to believe that somehow, i was significant – that somehow i had more meaning than a passing figure in the grand scheme of your life. my mind would wander to yours – envisioning yours at the very moment, we’d look at the same sky and see the same stars – we would tread on the same ground with our shadows overlapping each other. and never for a second, no matter how distant, no matter how apart they said we were, my mind never left you. it was a constant repeat – of thinking about you, wondering about how you felt, and perhaps, wondering if you felt the same about me. is there love in emptiness, or in the empty, airy gaps of my fingers which have yearned to interlock with yours? is there love in the silence, the hesitance and the words taken back?
normally, i’d begin to question your place in my heart, your consuming, overwhelming takeover of what was once empty. but it’s impossible, for every strenous beat reaps of your memory, each vein i trace back reminds me of the speckles on your skin, the lines running across your body that you call imperfect. the pumping, beating melodic rhapsody is reminescent of the unendingly unnerving spiral i’ve fallen into.
you are love in every beat, you are the unnerving pinnacle of my mind. and always and forever – like what we used to say – will you hear the whispers of my love.
soulmates
2.6.2016
i’d laugh at the concept of soulmates, how ridiculous would it be for my pale, unwinding fingers to fit perfectly with yours – not because there are billions of others, but because they always preferred to be clinging onto emptiness. as if being stained with the marks of your fingerprints would be better than my own paint, that my mind would prefer to be wandering over to the memory of emptiness. and when you walked into my life, i started to question the concept of soulmates – i did not yearn to kiss your lips, nor did i even know of your face or wish to trace it with my fingertips. you were foreign – a concept to me, that was concrete and real. you were a million voices that i never even heard, the words that i wanted to be next to with no end. and then i realized that perhaps, ‘soulmate’ is not just romantic love, not the brisking arrival of flowers and the awkward timing of the first ‘i love you.’ it is not the interlocking hands in the sunset, the kiss under the morning rain or the endless touches. it is endlessly talking and never running out of words, it is saying i love you over and over – never in fear, it is the constant need to be next to you, to be with you, to be in your life. it is completing each other in ways that no one ever could, it is the meeting of our souls after they’ve been searching for so long, and the unending embrace as they promptly promise to never leave again.
lachisism
1.31.2016; based on a dream
For years, the possibility of an earthquake was always feared. “The big one,” they would say; yet everyone failed to take it with a dash of severity. Schools held seminar after seminar, taking up class hours and calling on parents (who thankfully, did not take it lightly) who always reminded their children of this aching possibility. Though it was predicted to happen anytime within the generation’s lifespan, no one had expected it to come as early as it did.
It started with light tremors, the panic of global scientists, massive hoards of people wishing to fly out – if only they hadn’t closed the airports. Though a few thousand did escape anyway, the richest bunch perhaps, and of the school, we were only made aware of two families that were part of the lucky few. A sister and brother pair, separated a level apart, both heirs to a massive company – and the other a lonely rich boy who well-known entrepreneurs as parents.
Of course, I never expected to be part of the few – I was average at best. I used to claim myself as upper-middle class, and I was gifted in a few ways but I started to question whether I could really classify myself as that. I knew that he wouldn’t be part of that either, his parents worked humble professions – and he had sisters as well. Quite a lot of them. We were just ordinary, average people with modest dreams. Neither of us have imagined ourselves making it far in the future, we didn’t expect fame or fortune, it was our lives, meddled with one another, with fingers intertwining in bumpy alleys and dark-lit backways, it was sitting down together, right beside each other while we stared at folds of bills. It was to the very moments that we had yet experienced – our hopes of attending prom together that was cancelled, going to each other’s houses, etching our names on trees – even though I’m unaware of anyone who still does that practice. It was going on marathons of shows and playfully arguing on when to go to sleep, it was the simple type of love that I never thought my heart would even feel.
I never expected a lot of things. I never expected this to happen in our lifetime. I thought… we would have moved away by then, we could’ve jumpstarted our lives and moved into a modest abode, away from the sinkhole, away from the ruins of our corrupted land – the scenarios and imagery that played out were picturesque, and there was nothing more that I wanted than to cling on and hope that it would turn out like that. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Days before it struck, a torrent of lachesism overtook me. The promises – exchanged words, fingers clinging into each other in desperate desire for the “it’s going to be okay” that would never come.
I pictured it already. We would be in our own homes, it would be in separate abodes, we wouldn’t be near each other, but for those last moments – we would be clinging on to each other, in the form of words, in the form of material gifts, in the form of memories. It was the promises that echoed into our minds, and we were going to go. Smiling, and maybe not at the same time – but what matters is that we pictured ourselves by each other’s sides. It’s funny how much love blinds you, when I could no longer picture any other facet of my life. My siblings that consistently ignored me and were favored more, the parents that reminded me daily of how I was nothing – with you having to pick me up and remind me that I was a world to you, they were crying and rushing and exchanging words with other people they cared about. I was able to hide, and spend the final moments with you.
Everything happened much more differently than I imagined, our school had called students, claiming that the architecture was safer and they had more goods to work as a rehabilitation center. With initial hesitance and resistance, they finally agreed to let us go – of course mine didn’t know that you would be there, and yours did. It was surreal when they agreed, what was the turning point? Was it knowing that I perhaps meant a deal to you – we’ve known each other for just two years. You never agreed to tell me, you said you would when it was all over – if we got the chance, and you smiled. Normally, I wouldn’t take that for an answer and I would push you to tell me, but this time I just let it be. There were a lot of things that we had to come to terms with, a lot of things that we had to let be.
Then we were gathered, there in solidarity. Class by class, organized with the teachers and volunteers panicking, there were some parents that offered to assist – with what means they were convinced to leave their families and help us did not come to me, but perhaps it was for the greater good. I took a silent note to admire them and thank them for their efforts, although I would be a restless case. “Stay calm,” they would always remind us. I was silent, nodding to them with the blank eyes and tired façade that they were used to in class. They didn’t see it out of the ordinary, thankfully, that was just my character. I looked around and a lot of us were missing, perhaps opting to stay in the comfort of their homes, they were probably far more prepared than my family and I were. Did my family even drift my mind? Not once had I stared at the ground or sky and wondered how they were doing – there was no fear on my part of them, as if I’ve come to terms with the fact that I was going to lose them already. I’ve lost them before anyway, and this time it would only be physically – which I’ve learned, hurts a lot less than the emotional loss of them.
And it was sunny that day, I remember. The sun was scorching our skin – and normally there would be a chorus of complaints, but that was an exception. If I were to listen more clearly, I’ve heard that there would be notes of people breaking down, having to be attended to and making the atmosphere more uncomfortable for everyone. I was standing, in line – just as they told us to be, looking at the gaps of people who were no longer there, who stepped out of line, who were overtaken by fear, though their names were something that I hadn’t bothered to remember. And the bell struck, and it was as if the world had begun shaking. I heard cries and screams, and even some figures of authority failed to keep their composition. The light around me had crumbled and every face that I had grown to be familiar with was met with despair. It was akin to a horror scene that I had never experienced before; except this time the screams were real and reverberated into the corners of your very skin. Even the ones who had promised not to feign any sadness were crumbling, as the announcers reminded us to perform the safety procedures. We were quite a lot, and the older ones had been instructed to stay further top, as the younger ones had their safety prioritized.
Then I ran.
Upstairs, as if for some reason they didn’t believe in their own words that it was exceedingly dangerous. That only heightened my fears, and heightened my senses and how alive I felt. As if it was experiencing the sensations of our first kiss, the skin and fingertips meeting each other while our lips touched – it was like all those emotions at once, except my feet were running and it felt like my legs would fail and I would end up spraining myself – but I never did. The ground was out of place, and for the first time I heard their shouts. The appropriate response was to grab me and keep hold of me until I calmed down, like how I’ve observed it multiple times already. Though they never did that. Some did, I pushed away their arms and dodged, things that I never had the capability or reflexes to do in the past. There was nothing that was going to stop me from approaching your point, you told me, we would always be together, right?
Then I pushed from the crowd, I talked – something that I was uncomfortable with doing, something that you knew that I would barely do, moreso in front of your own class. I looked around and speaking to no one in particular, repeated your name. They knew me, they knew what I was looking for, but their faces were sparked with tears and some of them were on the ground, shivering and holding themselves, bracing for whatever would go. They knew this was unjust, and so did I. They knew that I loved him, and so did I. But never did they expect this to go this far, after all – we were just ordinary, why would we go as far as to die for each other?
A few spoke back, but I knew. I looked over the ledge, and it took me a while to get up but someone had helped me. Spoke a few words of thanks but never got to glance, I knew where I had to be. And this is when they screamed and objected, when they told me to stop and move and get off.
I looked back, and I saw you running towards where I was. How had we not crossed? Weren’t our fates always crossed? But I screamed your name, with all I could – and as if it were a dream, my voice wouldn’t make any sound no matter how loud. Then I felt the gashes as I moved closer towards you, though my legs were resisting at this point, there was a memory of me tripping, but no pain did phase me. It was kind of exhilarating, running across a boundary just below the railings that only workers have done before. From the start, it wasn’t much of a challenge at all, but you could imagine that the scenario added an aura of difficulty to what may have been a simple task.
My mind was dazed, in paranoia, and it was clouded with the thought of you. I relived all our promises, and the very one that we had to complete, to make up for all the ones that we wouldn’t be able to. To die by your side, no matter what it would take. Then I screamed more, but no matter what I did, there would be no sound.
Then in that instant, you turned around, and you smiled. So did I.
And for the final time, the world felt alright and I felt alive, like every moment of truth and pain was worth it for this very still moment in time. I reached for you – and so did you.
We made up for it. And I’m sorry that you would have to do the rest on your own.
I didn’t get to live through forever, but you will.