if so,

i hear your music.

melodious and sweet and messy yet harmonious.

i hear it, like none other.

it tastes sweet on my tongue,

feels like silk against my fingertips,

and smells like the knowing after love returns—

tender;

sweet and messy

yet harmonious.

and run away.

you will never see me again.

you will sit on the floor,

holding the pieces i left behind—

wondering,

what if you had not thought,

'it will pass this time also'?

i’m here, trying to shine gently again,

trying to wear my spark back like i never even lost it.

dear stars,

could you assure me that all this pain will end with me in a happy place such as yours?

dear stars,

tell me, did you catch him crying?

or do i even want to know?

dear stars,

have my mom’s burdens gotten heavier?

and could you tell me if i am any close to making her happier?

this is a second part to the the first poem, which i unironically did write about two years ago. i would love to hear y’all’s comparisons. thank you so much to for inspiring me to bring this second part to life <3.

if there is any place in the world i must belong,

it must be in a pair of arms.

not a destination,

but a cocoon of safety—

somewhere i can let my eyes

be closed and not tremble

when the day is over.

somewhere that must feel like,

"oh, of course. this is it."

with my depth because they think

they might drown in it.

i think i scare people off

with the things i have to say.

i think

i scare them off

with how if they got too close,

i might turn them into words, too.

(hallowed ones, nevertheless.)

i wish i could rip off my fangs.

to laugh along,

i always end up

sleeping in with myself.

the wind brushes my face

like it's telling me something

i was never built to translate. like it's holding my hand—

our little secret.

i laugh, because i still can't do it:

the effortless fitting in.

even after rebuilding

every damn bone in my body,

i still can't do it.

and once again—

once again—

i end up

the bird

still learning how to swim.

tenderly

timidly

like the world never

did

the absence of return

is not there

because the love i give

is always inside of me

i am love itself

one with no feelings,

never understood,

one damaged and broken

but still used

because it's the only thing

you can hurt

when you are.

only ever a punching bag,

one with no emotions,

never good enough

to be anything

but a punching bag.

the soil holds the clouds

when it falls apart

someone to kiss me like i'm gold

someone to touch me like i'm silk

like i was made from earth and heaven

both

please lord, someone to

kiss my tears away

before i wither away

and

fall beneath the ground

i like you

but it's okay

i'm not angry

not at you

never at you

just let me see you again

let me watch your eyes

i'm not asking for an hour

or even 16 minutes

i'm asking for a minute

a minute in your eyes

let me swim in them

just this once

before you stop happening

dusting off the icy flakes from your lashes.

you smiled at me, once and then gone.

windy ice storms as i looked around,

you're my cosmos of everything that could have been.

smile for me once more,

and then say goodbye to me.

i may not cry,

but i will say your name one last time

and love you like how a martyr loves his country.

to the biggest labyrinth i've ever come across,

you were the warm sun in my winter-cold early mornings,

the star i tried so long to find.

the selfish one,

yet didn't let me love selflessly.

silent as i draped the blanket around you,

but you were already used to the cold.

you turned and searched my eyes,

but never handed it back to me.

but you could have it.

you could have it if it meant your winters may get colder again, and you couldn't find me when you wanted to.

it stings me like a plague,

it spreads all over inside me

rotten inside out.

like deep navy blue ocean water that leaks into a ship

rendering it over-bearably heavy, swaying it, swaying it…

i welcome sadness like a childhood friend.

sadness resides in me

safe and comforted

then cries tears and tears of tears.

it curls in on itself in my ribs like a broken child

and falls asleep.

a home that is warm;

a home that is loud only in the good ways,

and quiet only in the good ways.

i want a home

that is sweet and cozy and never cold.

It will just be there in front of me, staring.

Mocking, "Look, you can't throw me out of here even if you want to, can you?"

Even before I've opened the door—

In fact, there is no door to this room of yours, which is why I can never seem to close it shut.

And I bet if I were to show you this room, you'd look around,

And you'd ask, "What's all this? These aren't mine."

Because I am always the one carrying the burden of memory.

This room of yours that's left abandoned, but still smells like fresh lilies and tulips.

It's still there and I can't seem to close it.

hold a look you hate the most in the world?

How could the hands you trusted so deeply

draw blood from your skin?

How could the softness you loved to listen to the most in the world

turn ragged and filled with hate?

How could the very lips you kissed

reveal words you wish you never heard?

Because tell me, love,

was I a fool, or was I delirious?

When I once did see those eyes smile,

Did feel those hands soothe,

Did hear that voice of love,

And did feel those kisses back?

Was I a fool, or was that never once love?

could I, one day, shine as gently as you?

Dear stars,

did it take too much pain to reach where you are?

Dear stars,

do you ever see him think of me like I do?

If I were to go, will you be the one who catch him cry?

Dear stars,

are my mom's burdens too heavy?

In a year or two, can I make her happier?

I hated sad movies so to the extent that it was traumatic—

Not knowing I’d always felt things a little too deeply.

And I hated it.

How I felt it all so much

That it couldn't be right that it could all fit in my body.

How it felt like being run over by a truck, hearing they thought I never felt.

But are feelings something you see?

How could they assume that there was nothing inside of me, when all I ever felt, all i even was, was what was inside of me?

I would have screamed back—

But then again

I was just a child, and children don't scream back.

like it was only to be thrown in me,

and never to be kept.

and could they see?

how i'm still holding these pieces of paper,

with my hands full like a pond,

still able to recognise whose writing was whose;

while they hid their ink-stained hands behind their backs.

my dearest exception.

for you i would swim the seven oceans if you wanted a flower that wasn't in our garden.

tell me how dumb i look when you catch me staring again

because i'll come back my love, drenched and sick;

my lips will tremble into a smile as i tell you that you were that flower all along.

so we will lounge around the garden for the rest of the day

and when night comes, i will kiss your eyes.

i will wait until you fall sleep

and count the number of your eyelashes and moles again.

and i will wake up with you, again, and realise with a light heart

that i did not wake up from a dream which was too good to be true.