Moon (Inktober Day 18)

Darling you were the moon,

I have seen you hiding behind the clouds—

Shy crescent smile, dimmed and innocent.

When you showed your other half, I swore the town lighted up in delight.

And I swore the stars looked better with you around.

But, God, when you were whole—in all your glory, all bright and beautiful,

You conquered the whole town—all eyes on you.

And the wolves, they all howled for you.

The stars and the planets were outshone,

They got nothing on you.

Darling, the night sky was made for you to shine;

in all kind of forms you saw fit.

And I have loved you,

Through every form and phase of you.

I have loved you,

Even when you were nowhere to be seen.

Even when the sun took you away from me.

I have loved you,

In the silence of nights.

I have loved you,

In my loneliness and sorrow.

I have loved you,

In past tense.

Collide (Inktober Day 17)

We shone the brightest when we collided, creating a beautiful explosion—like the fireworks on new year’s eve but prettier.

But like all things that collide and explode, we were only pretty for a split second. What left after is nothing but a mess of ashes.  

Compass (Inktober Day 16)

 The compass is always within us all. The pointer of our direction, its us. Sometimes it gets broken or maybe you thought you lost it somewhere along your journey, but believe me, its still inside you; if broken, its nothing unfixable. You got you.

Helmet (Inktober Day 15)

He took off his helmet and his armor, putting his arms up in defense. He gave up. Nothing is worth fighting for anymore.

Tick (Inktober Day 14)

Tick tock tick tock

For once the ticking of the clock does not tick me off anymore

It sounds like a song now

Like a nice melody you’d waltz to

And as minutes tick by,

My heart thumps harder and louder

And the stars are twinkling, moon hanging low

Maybe tonight the universe conspires to make it perfect for me.

Tonight, the everything is beautifully tailor-made for me.

Tick tock tick tock

For once my mind has stopped working like a clock—it is not ticking anymore.

For once I am sure that I won’t be going cuckoo like the clock.

Tick tock tick tock

Everything has stopped ticking. Time means nothing for me now.

Possibilities are stretched out before me, dreams cannot wait.

Heart and mind are finally on the same boat and I am the sole captain of it.

No storm will break me this time,

No wave will be big enough to drown me and I need no life vest.

The destination is clear and my compass is set.

Time is no longer my enemy. 

I have tamed it and now it bends on my will.

Roof (Inktober Day 13)

One day I promised myself to not easily hit the roof. To stay calm and collected even during the storm. 

I have lived in peace since then.

Stuck (Inktober Day 12)

my mind is a crossroad during rush hour;

cars honking non-stop;

radio blaring loudly;

baby crying on the car-seat;

people swearing out loud;

and I am stuck in an unmoving cab. 

Sour (Inktober Day 11)

 She knows what sour feels like. It was when she failed exams or didn’t make it to the girls volleyball’s national team. It was when she drifted apart with her best friend she had known since she was 7. It was when her grandparents died within the same month. It was when she experienced heartbreak for the first time. It was one-sided love, untold love, hidden admiration, unsaid goodbyes, and unfinished business. It was unspoken regret and apologize. It was never-ending grief and sorrow.

She knows it all too well—she was familiar with life’s sourness. 

Now she’s discovering things she never thought she would; that life can be a sweet treat sometimes. That life is like eating a sour candy but with a surprise chocolate-filled center. That all she needs to do is to hang in there, to experience all the sourness of life, to feel it all until her taste buds grow numb.

Now she’s tasting sweetness. Love and a peace of mind and joy and comfort and tranquility and happiness. The past, and all it sourness, is staying behind. The future looks sweet and for once, she doesn’t dread the future—for she knows it too well that it will be sweet.

Pick (Inktober Day 10)

I think in my life I have picked a lot of wrong decisions. Sometimes I wonder what the outcomes will be had I picked that instead of this? Would it be better? 

But then again, life is a series of bad decisions. I mean, when you read a good novel, the main character never picked the right paths or choices because if they did, the novel wouldn’t be so good. You know what I mean, right? Plots are interesting. What’s not interesting is when you have to struggle in those plots. And you don’t know when it’ll end. Maybe you’re still on page 60/540 or 500/540. No one knows. I wish I could get a sneak-peek though like what’s my ending like?? Like every time I read a good novel and the main character is struggling so hard, I would read the ending first so that I’d know whether they’ll make it or not. Oh I wish I could do that. I wish I could see whether picking this instead of that or those will get me to a happy ending or not. 

Pressure (Inktober Day 9)

I don’t really get peer-pressure. I always do things my way and if I don’t want to do it, no matter how much everyone else is doing it, I won’t do it. 

What pressures me though, is myself. And sometimes it gets too much, too unbearable and I just want me to stop doing it, to stop pressuring myself too much.

Watch (Inktober Day 8)

 I have watched you fail.

I have watched you lose hope.

I have watched you cry your heart out.

I have watched you struggle.

And I will be there for you, in every step you take, in every step you decide not to take. I will be watching on the sideline, cheering you on, believing in you. 

I will watch you as you reach the finish line. 

I will watch you as you get a hold of your dream.

I will watch you as you prove them wrong.

I will watch you succeed.

My dear, I will watch you conquer the world and I will say to you: I told you so.

Fan (Inktober Day 7)

We are having a sleepover at Hannah’s and I think everyone has drunk too much booze to actually be awake until 2 am. I think everyone is too tired from laughing and chatting and dancing and singing. I, too, am tired but somehow I couldn’t sleep.

It’s so quiet now, the only sound I can hear is the rattling sound of the ceiling fan in Hannah’s room. My mind wonders to our catch-up session earlier. It seems like everybody got some amazing tale to tell but me. Megan is getting married. Hannah got a job she always wanted. Anna is planning to open her own bakery next year. And me? Nothing. 

What I am doing in life never really bothers me. But when its time to story-tell my life to a crowd of best friends you haven’t seen for so long—not to mention they have great progress in their lives, I feel so small, like my progress is super slow. It shouldn’t bother me, should it?

I think earlier when I had enough alcohol in my system, I blurted out my thoughts to everyone in the room. They asked me whether I am happy. I said yes, yes I am happy. 

“Then what makes you feel sad like this?” Anna said. 

“Because everyone’s making good progress and I feel like I am left behind”, I answered. “I feel stuck”.

“Maybe because you had made a big progress two years ago when all of us felt stuck. Maybe you need to look back and remember how I struggle with my first job or my second or my third. You always make it about yourself”Hannah snapped. Well between us four, Hannah is the most likely to start a fight. She doesn’t filter her mouth and she just doesn’t give a damn about anything else when she’s mad. One time, after a boy stood me up on a date during our sophomore year, Hannah literally hunted him down and once she found him at the school’s cafetaria, she gave him a lecture with a very interesting words’ choices (re: cursing and swearing). You don’t mess with Hannah. And even after many many years of knowing her, her words still get to me. 

What she said earlier was right, though. I have the habit of making it all about me. Hannah is not the first person to point it out. 

But still I couldn’t shake off the feeling of being left behind and making no progress. The ceiling fan becomes more interesting to be stared at. Maybe my life now would be like that: moving in the same old motion and rotation. Moving but not going forward.

“Ouch! Why did you kick me?!” I whispered to Hannah who just kicked my left leg, breaking me from my own thoughts.

“Stop overthinking and go to sleep! Also, turn off the fan please its cold”

Spirit (Inktober Day 6)

 She is a wild and wicked creature. A free spirit everyone longs to befriend. She lets no one but herself tell her how to live her life. She never ties her hair when swims naked in the ocean under the moonlight. During the nights where the sky is clear, she names the stars after her ex-lovers and sometimes she races against the shooting star.

She was born to soar the sky, to let the wind play with her hair and whisper secrets as she dances among the clouds. She paints her world orange and yellow and green and never black and white. She runs with deers in the meadow and climbs the trees afterward to rest and catch her breath. 

She tamed the monsters inside her long ago and ever since then, a free wild spirit has been released. The world is her playground and she walks in it barefoot with a secretive smile no one can decipher. 

Crystal (Inktober Day 1)

“Hey, look, I got you this from the thrift store”, Emma said, giving me something that looks like a bracelet with a small yellow stone attached on it.

“What’s this?” 

“It’s a yellow jasper, your birthstone. And something to remember me by when I’m off to college” replied Emma, grinning.

Sometimes I wonder why I am friends with her. She’s the kind of person who believes in things that I would never believe in, not in a million years. She reads astrology daily, her room is arranged according to the feng shui, and she wears healing crystal and gemstones. Her clothes are always colorful and she likes to dye her hair pastel. She is a bright, always-see-the-positive-sides-of-everything kinda girl.

One day she randomly said to me that Cancer (me) and Aries (her) are not compatible. I told her maybe its true because we are so poles apart but then here we are. She just shrugged and said “who knows?”.

I put the the bracelet on my hand because it honestly looks pretty. “Thanks”, I said, “I want to ask you what it means, but I know you’ll ramble for hours and I need to go now”. It’s not a lie, tho. I really need to go because I have a part time job now and I need to pick up my laundry. 

“Fine, I’ll tell you later what it means!” Emma yelled.

—

She never told me what it means. The next day after she gave me the bracelet, she died on a car accident. 

I googled what it means, the bracelet. Yellow Jasper. The stone is supposed to give you a sense of protection, mental clarity, strength, and tranquility. All the things she had that I don’t. 

The weight of the bracelet on my left hand has been a source of comfort to me. I’ve grown accustomed to it that it feels weird when I take it off. I guess when someone you love died, you started to grow yourself into them. It makes you believe all the things they used to believe in.

Now I’m starting to believe that Cancer and Aries are not compatible. 

Raven (Inktober Day 5)

 I always suspect that Raven’s parents named him Raven because of the color of his hair: raven black. 

I always suspect I’d be taller than Raven. When we were in elementary school, Raven was short and small. Sometimes, when I was mad at him, I would make fun of his height and pulled his hair. Until he magically grew so much taller in one night. After that, he liked to pull my hair.

I always suspect by the time Raven started high school, he would be a player. During high school, he had all the supporting features of a player:  piercing blue eyes, dimples, beautiful raven black hair, and money. One time I jokingly told him that he could be a player had he been less nice and less caring. But Raven was, or is, too nice. He didn’t play hearts, even if it was an ace. 

I always suspect Raven had a thing on a girl named Emily during college. He drove her home and took her to dinner. He looked at her like she hung the moon and the stars. He looked at her like I looked at him: eyes full of admiration. Only recently I learned that admiration does not mean love or romance.

I always suspect Raven would get married before 30. In my head, he would marry a nice, pretty girl. In my head, Raven’s wife is a brunette and she has blue eyes similar to his eyes. She would have a nice smile with a set of white straight teeth. They would have two kids, because Raven told me when we were in high school that he wanted to have a family of four.

I always suspect that Raven would live a white-picket-fence life.

I never suspect, not once in my entire life, that he would tell me he has been in love with me all this time.

I never suspect I would say to him that I was sorry. 

I never suspect I would tell him that I didn’t feel the same way. I told him I always admired him and there was a time I thought that I loved him as more than a best friend but that feeling died quickly because I realized whatever I was feeling back then was not love but it was pure admiration like how I would look at my sister every time she won at spelling-bee. 

I never suspect our friendship would end. Now every time the night is void of all the stars and the moon—when the sky is raven black, I am reminded of him and how I lost a friend.

Raven doesn’t break hearts. Was it a bad thing that I broke his?

Knot (Inktober Day 4)

You can’t unknot dead knotted rope unless you cut the rope. Or keep trying and you’ll hurt and bleed your hand.

Cut them off.

Vessel (Inktober Day 3)

My momma used to say that body is just a vessel. You are the owner of your vessel, you are the one who decides what to put inside: happiness, joyfulness, love, sadness, anger, grief, regrets, and other emotions. You control it. You choose it.

“Be careful of what you put inside” my mom said, “it will be reflected on the outside”.

Suit (Inktober Day 2)

I walked away because I know happiness suits us better than this. 

He gave up, because even though he likes to win, he knows victory suits me better than it does to him.

We know we are too similar to be suitable. 

We, too, know that we tried, God, did we try, to be well-suited to one another.