just bring me some rain because I'm dying.*

Now, she just stares at me and shakes her head if I ask if it's okay. It's getting harder everytime, and even if she smiles in the end, I know she's right that it is not okay. The sad truth that I have to leave every time I come home, is digging deeper and deeper, oftentimes catching and dragging across my figurative flesh like a barbed hook. When it's hours before I leave and we both know it, I shift my eyes somewhere when she looks at me. But I can only embrace her and feel her frame embrace me back with what love she can muster. Inwardly, I am screaming.

I cannot let her see me crying, I feel that perhaps it wouldn't do any good; just create more sadness in my absence.

Then days after, I know she'll be looking for me, asking where I am even if she knows where; like a heartbreaking sort of an exercise but not exactly to the point of futility, some kind of assurance that there are still answers to her questions and I don't want to think about the time when the answers can't contain that assurance anymore.

And I'll call her in a little while, perhaps after I wake up just to hear her say my name, just to hear her laugh and to hear her tell me about her day or about what happened to her yesterday; then there will be that silence again after she had told me all her little stories, and when she hesitates to ask me to tell my own little stories. I can hear her on the other end, even after she had stopped speaking. At this point, I will be wishing to the point of hallucination that I can embrace her; feel her embrace me even for just a minute of uninterrupted bliss. Then after the call, I will space out and float away, not wanting to feel anything for some spell then come back to this one thought:

I miss you.








* A. Duritz - title taken from a line of "Children in Bloom"

crime rate.

Since there is no escaping this cold, in the different places where we are, I will turn to our thoughts and the memory of your voice to keep warm and most importantly to keep sane. Although in an afterthought I know I should try to avoid the memory of your skin, the memory of the warmth escaping from it when we are close enough, when we are locked in an embrace, or when we are sharing a kiss or when you are there behind me, your face resting on my shoulder; because then I float away and lose all sense of time and space.

Perhaps there never was a more futile attempt as inevitably all memory will trail a path towards it, like silent tributaries joining a river before losing themselves in the ocean.

Still, even if there's some misery in trying, I try anyway, as the cold keeps on going and sometimes relentless but not unforgiving enough that I will not miss you in its chill. Then I smile, as I almost always desperately fail in trying.

As I continue to continue, there's an increasing sense of foreboding that this will only get stronger and even more desperate as time passes; so unlike this cold of mid-January which will fade away like earthly pain come March. And only that ache will remain, something forever stuck in my soul.

For I know the secret in that ache: I get to be with you;
afterwards, the cold can rage all it wants and freeze anything it wants, I will only get to be warm.

And then perhaps Friday, I will get to see you again.

not missing the sun.

you once spoke of hiding the sun ages ago and I fell in love
with the way you spoke those words,
hearing you say them through the phone and I
wanted to see your eyes just at that moment
as those words, those words went to live me with me
like a newly acquired mole on my body; marking it, branding it
and taking it out of the ordinary realm of my emotional skin,
as I fell, like you were gravity personified.
as always with your words,
with your soft exhalations and abrupt interjections,
or those turn of phrases that only you had the unique flair of speaking.
it would always be that and something more than that;
after that first instance you blocked my view of the sun that early June
and forever blended with my life, like dark chocolate melting in our tongues,
always finding the right places to nestle into, the right emotions to nuzzle with,
always the right moments to embrace and always
the right words for the epiphanies in our lives;
entwined, interlaced and forever linked.
and in this early January when rains are like our memories
sliding down from our secret archives
I can only miss you and not miss the sun at all, here with the rain.

new year rain.

the sunlight was coming in muted, and still overwhelmed by the leftover blueness of the last day of last year. It rained at the time the year changed, and I could hear your laughter, along with mine, and it has been too long since I heard us and outside the fireworks were vainly trying to reach glory in the rain.

As the the day struggled to break free of the vestiges of a new year's night, I wanted to hear our laughter again, but I guess, there were more things I wanted other than us being temporarily giddy with our laughter. More things -- a lot of things; the first of them all being you; and I also wanted this new year to be kinder and more surreal than the hard reality that was 2008. But you; really you, most of all.

In my mind, I can see you sleeping. I like watching you sleep, love. I like to look at you when you close eyes. I'm your blatant voyeur and always reckless in telling you that I love everything that you are and I am missing you to the point that I can feel my jaw hurt, along with a major part of my chest.

That rain falling on midnight meant well for us, that rain for a new year; of soft dreams falling and us waking in time for some little wishes to come true, love.