three hundred sixty five

it has been exactly three hundred sixty five days today - since the last time, i and you.

it has been that long and i am still haunted by the memory of having to trace your shadow until it was swallowed by the darkness...that is, the airport. :)

but seriously...

it has been three hundred sixty five days and i remember how i struggled to comprehend how things will be, once you leave. i remember how my heart wanted to simply let things be because i know i can never offer you what you will gain from this experience. i also remember telling myself that if i will wait, that if i will allow you to leave, if i will risk all that i have come to love so she may find a piece of her life, then i would have to trust you, and the reality that nothing happens by chance, and that there is a reason for everything.

your journey has become my journey. when i started writing, all i could envision were roads and avenues and bridges and pavements - everything that is a metaphor to where you are going, where i am going to sit and wait and where you will find me.

a year later, i am still here. and i am still craving for you, i am still crazy about you. a year later, what i hold is still seething, it's still burning, all because of you. believe it or not.

i am in awe of how we have sustained each other, of how we dealt with the changes and how, after all the seemingly innumerable and insignificant seconds, i know we can tell each other that 'we' still matter.

and we do - we always have and we always will. no matter how scarring an argument becomes, no matter how frightening the distance is, no matter how long we both have to wait - we will get there, you and i. we will be together, we will be with each other, we will share that lifetime.

everything about this journey has been bittersweet. we have failed and stumbled and sometimes, have succumbed to our own incapacity to see what the other person sees but i am proud we have taken it this far, that we have chosen to take it this far. and i know even when things are hopeless (mostly because i resort to crying when i can no longer explain myself), we will never give up. i know because i can feel it. i know because i would wring my heart of all feelings if i have to just to show you and let you know how much i love you.

for now, i will offer you my words, my thoughts, my conviction - all the things that you have fueled and have given meaning to. for now, i will offer you three hundred sixty five sonnets - all created with the notion of you coming back, with the faith that you will, as you have promised.

every day, we will start. every day, we will attempt. every day, we will live so we never have to doubt if our sacrifices ever counted for anything, so we will never have to second guess whether all our tears were worth it. now that an entire year has passed and i no longer dread the hours or days or months i have to wait for you - i know we will always meet in the middle. or at least we'd always try to compromise and show each other our perspectives. this whole thing has given me a different view of you and of us, and i have to say i am grateful, that even when we are away from each other, you never cease to teach me something new.

i love you, as i always have. i love you, like it is the last thing i ever want to feel. i love you and i will be waiting.

sonnet two hundred ten

the weeping lyre of your
heady desire, taking the
space where raw and pure
thoughts once were,

the roof angered by the
rain as you interpret
your own dreams, as you
guard your own notions

as you sleep, white becomes
this pale, almost unrecognizable
arid wall where your fireworks

hang waiting to be ignited,
giving birth to unimagined
colors and noise and light.

sonnet two hundred nine

silence is not all about
listening, perhaps it is about
predicting a thought or
tasting a moment

such as now, when i
would sheepishly count
the number of times your
breasts heaved to the

rhythm of your heartbeat,
painting the meaning
of sleep and of restlessness,

i find my eyes tracing
the glory of your brows,
your aquiline nose, your cheeks.

sonnet two hundred eight

the night armless, like this
lonely chair in the corridor,
basked by pondered light
from fireflies, reminiscent

of my childhood, when
i did not know the needs
from wants, when i did
not stop to listen to the

name spoken by the scent
of a rose, when my youth
consisted of a word or two -

always a dream, of finding
one, of leaning and loving
and beginning in the end.

sonnet two hundred seven

still, the back of my hand,
a blank, seething space that
ache to be filled by exclamations
of you and this, of here

and now, summoning the
black ink like it appears
inside my head, taking the
place of lines and of contours,

humbling the heights and
defining what didn't have
shape or form, idled by

mornings awakened by the
siren, a clarion call, a need
to scream your name.

sonnet two hundred six

thoughts burn the halted, fleeting
escape of this book, aching
to be filled by you, yearning
to be taught the language

of languor and stares
to make you remember how
each day is sanctified,
how each step is offered

so we may begin, so we
may continue, so we may
defeat the loneliness

spilled by treacherous nights,
so we may endure hours
that seem empty and endless.

sonnet two hundred five

let me wring your loneliness
and devour the sand it
grows from, allow me to
take this one time and

hold you close, so close you
will feel the weight
of your love on me and
tell you, my beloved -

that though pain and
absence may plague the
days and nights ahead,

i shall think of only you
when i begin unfolding the
notion of happiness and of life.

sonnet two hundred four

staring at what could be
our life streaming before
our eyes, particles sifted
mercilessly though

mysteries hidden and
borne out of the light
and wind of your soul,
cascading, swirling, swimming

the opportune moments such
as this, through chances that
unraveled and which our

hands took, though a love
that is nameless but
spirals thriving, giving.

sonnet two hundred three

what if one day we will
be asked - have you been to
the only place worth living
in? what would we tell

ourselves? i would exhale
and take in all the wonders
i have seen, carefully mapping
tracks and coordinates,

moving in painful circles
to find you and end up
with you each and every

time, and hold your gaze
up to mine - you are the only
place worth going back to.

sonnet two hundred two

the minutes pass, the hours
clawing the distant dawn,
awaiting your gaze, and all
i could remember was how

we both have appeared
in this time - and how
nothing could be more exact
and everything that breathes

is finite, i trace the thousand
sunrises and sunsets with
my discerning eyes,

knowing ultimately that none
of the mornings or evenings
past would compare.

sonnet two hundred one

rushing to filter the light
pouring from your eyes,
i find an inescapable gorge
where your beauty dwells,

raw and pure and
tangible as any glorious truth
could get, i imagine holding
in my hands all the webs and

fiber that make you
astoundingly and astonishingly
who you are - after all

these days, after all that
has come and gone, after
what we have forged.

sonnet two hundred

my thoughts stumble until
it finds you in the corner,
sheathed with all that
i can recall of warmth,

the granulated red hues of
a burning afternoon sun
soon possess the carving
metaphor of that day you left,

as you walked away from me,
as i traced the steps you
took leading you to a place

without me, a night without
us, days and moments we would
be enveloped by faith and hope.

sonnet one hundred ninety nine

i took the chance and
ravaged in my own loneliness
in this long road, and when
i stopped, that was when

my feet started to ache,
perhaps because i have
been wishing i walk on
avenues with you instead,

ahold of my hand,
ahold of an immutable fire,
ahold of the promises,

allowing the sunlight to
disperse through a prism
until nothing remains but us.

sonnet one hundred ninety eight

the indelible shade of crimson
i now call you has touched
all corners and alleys of my
night, bleeding, fumbling,

conniving with the odd seconds
that brought us together,
hastening all the hours to
the vacant cities within your

gaze, dragging lines across
parchment, as if to remind
me i am soulless without

the scent of your and
how you know things, how
you reach for me here and there.

sonnet one hundred ninety seven

who would have thought that
distance will teach us the meaning
of nights spent alone, of gaping
silence, of windows flung open

letting in a shower of light,
who would have thought that
slumber will draw both of us
closer to the weight of wake,

to the elements that plague
our hours when we are apart,
to the fragrant delirium of

moments when we are
at war, or when we are faced
by the narrowing roads ahead.

sonnet one hundred ninety six

and we crush against waves
and thoughts and helplessness,
these hands ache to follow
the trail of words uttered by

this poet, wringing the
pain from midnights when
i held you, when i touched
your face,when i allowed

myself to be mesmerized,
now all so distant, now all
gone, now all that were

just seemed, like an apparition,
like a remembrance, like
the cold whisper of air at dawn.

sonnet one hundred ninety five

the winter trembling
at the sound of your voice,
necessary and haunting,
as if a reminder of one

who triumphs in this
desolation, in this desperation,
your eyes blanket the
dusk, halts it from

ever coming near, words
perennially lost to
the depth of your soul

and the meaning of these
bruises we hold out of
too much love, out of sadness.

sonnet one hundred ninety four

we fish mirrored hopes from
the stream that pass that
bend visions, the water that
seeps unto river beds,

holding the tears that
came between, the laughter
that managed somehow
to escape the silence running,

the last of lasts languishing
leaping memories of you and
i, my lost captive and

undeniable chain, a restless
fumbling within minutes and
void filled only by you.

sonnet one hundred ninety three

your happiness drowning
against the silhouette of
your sun and the shadow
of today, i ask myself,

can i at all make you happy?
can i be truthful to our
dreams, can i ever be enough
to keep you going?

shrouds of who we are
conflicting with the
brightness emanating from

clouds that once belonged
to someone else's wants,
how do we make it ours?

sonnet one hundred ninety two

tracing the lines of that
which embrace you with
my infinite eyes desiring
endlessly, perpetually

the degrees and decimal
points in which you exist,
fallen and deceptively
corroding against the time

you are running up against,
staring out the window that
bears the tomorrow

that has yet to unfold,
that we have yet to chase,
that we have yet to live.

sonnet one hundred ninety one

sometimes i am crushed by
my own selfish sadness
the lines and contours
of tears and frown

married to the incandescent
flight of morning,
chained to my own wonder
of whether we will make it

or not - but i know
that depends on us, that
it all boils down to how much

of this we want to see,
how much of you i can
keep, how much of us will remain.

sonnet one hundred ninety

this is just the prologue
to the inescapable light of
your soul and the prism
that extends to mine,

the beginning of a journey
you traced and have
effortlessly embraced,
this is the onset to more

days of seeking the towering
and haunting meaning of
poetry, or rather the heart

you have given it, this is
about your triumph
and my faithful desire.

sonnet one hundred eighty nine

crouched in the darkness
was the bud awaiting
the unbearable lightness,
breathing under the stark

tyranny of the dusk
consuming all that life held
before the aching midnight -
the flower that bore the

delight and promise of
things that are to be revealed,
for today there will be

no mention of hunger or pain,
no mention of tears or suffering,
just the hope of unraveling.

sonnet one hundred eighty eight

possibilities of disasters,
binaries in affirmations,
all lead to one truth - you -
a faithful, hazy sky

to a midnight soaked in
orange rush, a silent
reverie crushing
nightmares that make me

tremble, a hopeful shade
of being, destroying nothingness,
an unexpected delight amidst

loneliness and soul-searching,
you have become all these
beautiful things, and more.

sonnet one hundred eighty seven

tides surging back and forth,
drowning and revealing the
full and unquestionable
delight of knowing who

you truly are -
we chase timid mornings
and unforgiving nights
and utter the promise

of two who will never
break nor give up, of
two who will never stop -

the textual inspiration
from the wild and flowing
sun, intoxicating these words.

sonnet one hundred eighty six

always earthbound to the
splendor of your name or
the fragrance of the sound
it makes when it leaves

my mind and escapes my
lips, always drawn toward
the exactness of your
intimate flesh, of your

dreamy, imagined paradise -
we walk and embrace
and look at all that

once was real, and continue
to believe the same rocks
and stones make us an altar.

sonnet one hundred eighty five

among landscapes that reveal
the cold and pensive loneliness
of night, of prisms, of reveries,
we hail the excised blood

out of days that went
on without waiting,
and realized we are still
here and we have remained,

lips trembling, thoughts
spilling, words running after
the intended eloquence

of stares and beginnings,
even that of things fleeting
and ending.

sonnet one hundred eighty four

seeping into the night,
waiting for a dawn under
your glances, seeking the
whiteness of whispers and

the timid pleasure of
your laughter, hunting
shadows and statues that
begin to resemble you

there are no metaphors
this very moment, only
the reality of the fog

lifting, baring the
lonely door where i would
wait for you.

sonnet one hundred eighty three

imaginary gardens holding
the blossom of your gaze
and the leaves of your smile,
the radiant beginnings

of irises and magnolias
spiraling and crawling
under the listless sun,
tempted as ever to scream

for your rain, to dance
to the rhythm and sing
to the meaning of

these words finding their
soul in traces of
synonyms and awakenings.

sonnet one hundred eighty two

highways and pavements
stretch themselves to
no end, the city cluttered
by unfeeling metals that

move, we stop and we start,
closer and closer to an
evening with you, nearer
and nearer to the sight

of you - blinking signs
and head-spinning noise,
a twisted representation

of the haywire inside
my brain, haunted by
the wish i am holding you.

sonnet one hundred eighty one

finally, i have the dark
alleys to understand my
loneliness, lastly - i have
found the meaningful

stops between stations
to crave for my breath
the way you did, these hands
shaken by the gravity of

thought, the wish that i
was sharing this very moment
with you - but that is exactly

what i am doing right now -
summoning your image and
holding your gaze like always.

sonnet one hundred eighty

i write this as i am on
a train, hoping it carries
me to you fast enough
so you may forget

i was even gone for
a while, clutching to
the movements that held
our sacredness and

the seconds that kept
our desires, painfully,
faithfully, sweeping through

the lit side streets and
avenues, wanting to see
but one face, one smile.

sonnet one hundred seventy nine

what do you do on dissipating
fridays? do you lull yourself
to sleep because of languor,
or do you wait for the gods

to leave a window open so
you can, once more, glance
at all that belongs to you?
do you mark the last few

days because you want
to remember the good times
in case we argue?

or do you hold my faith
fervently in your hands
and seek nothing else?

sonnet one hundred seventy eight

and i caught myself
trapped in a scare, a doubt
that i would ever be able
to write without a muse,

or without the surprise
of randomness - this is one
such an exercise, when i pray
my passion would be enough

to make words fly without
wing or wind, where the fire
is sustained by gazes and

the need elevated by touch,
lifting your veil to finally
reveal all the beauty you are made of.

sonnet one hundred seventy seven

slithering across paper
a litmus to the truth,
the hot, orange furnace
of the sun, a brand, a

mark in the aching
parallels of today, we partake
in the feast of punctuations
and the ripples they cause

upon words and thoughts,
the halt, stop, pause
awaiting the next scream

awaiting the next few
moments my sanity will
be lost out of so much hunger.

sonnet one hundred seventy six

a shiver releasing a tremor,
an argument unveiling the
havoc, but what truly matters
is how not you put out the

fire but rather how you
face it and embrace it
and build a cloud
from it, until

it empties itself in one
languorous downpour, trapping
you and i under the

silken night sky, we look above
and see the infinite brightness
of ember and light.

sonnet one hundred seventy five

we hold our eyes out to
the shards and pieces of
glass and its mechanism -
how it mirrors and reflects

all the good things we know,
all that of which we have
been blessed with,
the prism touching one

lonely white, awaiting
a quiet demolition of the
pain that rooted itself

from our tears, i only hold
our gazes for you now,
my lifetime, following your path.

sonnet one hundred seventy four

sunsets breathing, glances
reigning, the light chasing
what could be memories,
and reveries, toward the

sanctified and perpetual,
re-tracing the shrines and
altars that once held
the end and the beginning

of us, of this, of you and
me - but clearly, i know
only of beginnings with you,

i know only of the fiery,
passionate onset that
has taken us this far.

sonnet one hundred seventy three

boundaries hold the
bone of our bones and
the shimmering cherry red
that which is our blood,

i cry silently against
the hollows of the gray
sky, hoping you would
soon remember the truths

said that morning before
all hurt and chaos dawned
on our half-made conversations,

on battles we wage without
seeing eye to eye, on crises
that spill crimson.

sonnet one hundred seventy two

not seemingly enough,
we stretch ourselves -
who we were, who we ought
to be, who we are as of now,

and then when our skin
breaks, the muscles tear
and the bones snap,
love and chemistry splatter

on the ground, look at what
we have turned into -
geeks of lore and myth,

of a journey we say we
will embrace, a phantom that
sneaks in, a light bursting out.

sonnet one hundred seventy one

carved painfully out of
quiet moonstones, we glare
like the middle of the night,
armored in nothingness

and cloaked by our own
spirited desires, jumping
back and forth to thoughtless
cautions, the darkness

flagging a warning sign -
of greens and reds, of
stops and gos, to and

from the pensive twilight
we both so yearn for,
chaotically hungry for more.

believe me

when i say there are still moments when i drown in my own silence and in my own tears.

and that there are still moments i wonder if we could actually make this work. if i am actually the one for you. if you have met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with in me. i wonder quietly if i have made the last two years worthy of remembrance.

and in the last two years i have often thought whether you have fully understood just how much i love you. whether you have actually seen how much of my own loneliness my heart stood to battle so i can continue being with you, so i can continue loving you, so i can continue. i have asked myself ceaselessly - have i done enough to make you realize how much you are loved? have i done enough to make you see how much you have taught me about patience and passion, how much we both have gained because we made the choice to be here?

this is one such moment i would like to offer you - i know i will never be empty of words or thoughts to name after you. and though i know this barely resembles the feel of my touch or the taste of my kiss, i want for you to believe that this is as real as everything about me could get, all because this would not exist without you. because you have triumphed in giving this meaning.

sonnet one hundred seventy

don't you think i already
know what it means to wait,
don't you think i already
have understood the gravity

of loneliness, our hearts so
effortlessly bruised and
cracked by stones of madness
we gathered on nights that

lost its solemnity because
of promises i could never keep,
because of words i failed

to utter when you needed to
hear them, because of my
own incapacities, my own frailties.

sonnet one hundred sixty nine

our ghosts pick up the
flesh we left on a sidewalk,
and call it its own sheathe,
its own armor, its own form,

then we escape into the night,
thoughtless and deep into
the dream of fiction and
caress, humbled by the

fumbling auroras created
by sunrises with you, dawns
that conjure the silence

of our own heartbeat,
the conundrum of our own
loud voices chained to a surrender.

sonnet one hundred sixty eight

water drowns in itself,
the foam roused by waves
that swing back and forth,
violently through listless sand

and your hands break
the consuming shell and fire
of things we keep to
allow for this a bright and

blessed sanctuary, a night
never to be abandoned
by your embrace, a time

we would continue to seek
the fervor and loneliness
only to be cured by your smile.

sonnet one hundred sixty seven

woven from the unfurling
thread of light, basking in
golden reveries, aching underneath
the twilight, underneath

the chimes that ring in my
head, bearing only the sound
of your name and how
i am lulled to sleep by

the sheltering dusk and
how it hovers on statues
that hold no resemblance

to your stillness or peace,
begging, breaking, beginning,
a journey of the endless.

sonnet one hundred sixty six

the words roused and taunted
by seldom, searching, seething
distance and differences
that bring us to the call,

the entwined phrases arching
itself to the shades
of gray that bend in the
breaking white darkness

that circle and filter the
perpetual desire we were
borne of, you and me,

clasping each other's hands, holding
the faint soul of summer
until the last leaf unfolds.

sonnet one hundred sixty five

tossed in arbitrary and
undefined depths, this soul
is earth bound, with the
happenstance reaching what

could be its meaning,
chained and calloused by
the recollection of this mindless
pace, too soaked or sudden

for lingering silence,
the haze and motion of
colors yet to be named,

overcoming resilience and
all that which stifle the
best of us both.

sonnet one hundred sixty four

here we fight the fleeting
memories with words and
hope, here we arrest the
blinding light that

snatch the sum of our
elegy until a sonnet is
named to recollect
seconds we both can hold on to,

so that stares will never
be broken and thoughts
thrown in air would suffice

to keep roses from moving
to different tangents,
following you and me.

sonnet one hundred sixty three

you pull your absence out
of my flesh like it is some
vein to be wrung or some
blood to be drawn, gazes

averted by the conundrum
of things we cannot undo,
still we walk upon beaten
paths and call to our hope

and faith to bind souls
and longing into a fortress
that never will deny the

measure and meaning of
this journey, a desire that
unravels and ascends.

sonnet one hundred sixty two

i catch words and signs
and pain in degrees, from
things that hold the
cold and fumbling silence

of a difference in time,
etched on the shoulder of
faith, a lasting lash of
leaves heaving as nocturnal

atoms find its way through
perennial shores aching for
translation, needing a sort of

conclusion or demise -
so what do you give it in
this merciless height?

sonnet one hundred sixty one

hidden in unmapped cities,
edges where i wait under
the naked sun, singing my
soul out of silence until

you become my own hands
and loneliness is nothing
but a white reverie that
dances its way through low

afternoons, shadows fall
behind, humming to the
flickering energy of

stars before they even
appear, before they blot
the satin night sky.

sonnet one hundred sixty

this shade of blue bends
and recollects the beginning,
wanting you from afar,
haunted by what it did not know

high and distracted by
the mere tremble of your
voice when you speak,
even fragments are elemental -

which were all it could take
that one moment and it
felt like an assassin waiting

for the faces to retreat
so it can be near you, so it can
draw life from what you give.

sonnet one hundred fifty nine

we morph into blades that
run to the deep, cornerless
abyss of night, i take with
me the gentle fragrance of

my name as you would say it,
as if to make me forget
the haze and the pandemonium,
as if to make out of me

a soldier moving on to battle
armored with only the thought
of you - and i know this is

something i can do, chained
to your kiss in the mist,
in the mysteries, in the morning.

sonnet one hundred fifty eight

i cut us a piece of this
night, a fragment of each
revolution and gather
all of them to create a

sheathe blocking out the
raging sun and obscuring
the heedless pain of being
without you, without the

hands that cradled the
sacred flowers of spring,
aching, rebelling, needing

only the whiskey soaked
laughter to resurface
and face the night again.

sonnet one hundred fifty seven

my lips utter the truth
of who i have become,
under your gaze, within
your embrace, beneath the

silken, crescent moon
the void swallowing what
once before made sense
as all things found their

meaning in the shadows
bound to the road where
we held hands and sought

a trail filled with hope,
drowning in kindness,
arrested by love.

sonnet one hundred fifty six

my heart burns in the solitude
of dawn, when everything is
pitch black until your voice
renders color and the light

breaks what could be a
photograph of languor,
stillness sharpen the movement
of your eyes, undressing

the unfathomable delight
of this soul, touched then
soon gone now, seconds beat

and moments are replaced
by a tender yearning
to be dissembled by your hands.