Every emotion you feel is valid

As a cure for loneliness I started using a pen pal app a few months ago, it is called slowly. I was lucky enough to find genuinely kind people there. I’ve never personally met these people but to me I see them as true friends. One day I found myself just really breaking and sinking in depression and I felt as if I didn’t have the right to feel how I was feeling. Other people have bigger problems than the one I was going through, it really made me feel conflicted. Luckily, I was blessed to find a pen pal to say the above kind words to me. I really needed someone to say these things to me. We have not talked in weeks but I hope he is doing alright, I hope one day I can return the favor and give him the right words, the right kind of hope. Doesn’t really matter how far a person maybe in terms of distance, words can always find a way to give us comfort and help us heal. I hope these words reach the people who need it the most.

Taking comfort in butterflies

Today is the death anniversary of one of my friend´s father. A year may have passed but grief is still there. As much as I wanted to give him a comforting hug, or a gentle pat in the back, those were things I couldn´t do. He was in India, and I´m all the way in Manila. I only had my time and my words to offer as comfort. He told me how much his father meant to him, he was the one person he leaned on to when he was going through an episode of deep depression. Honestly, I did not know what to say, I have not in my life lost someone I cared about so deeply, so this is what I said

¨I´m not sure how it works in your religion, but here we believe the ones we´ve lost are never really gone. They are with us in spirit, especially in the moments we miss them the most. People here believe that when we see butterflies especially in places where flowers do not grow, it is the spirit of a loved one coming to visit. Looking on to the living, watching over those who´ve kept them in their hearts. ¨

It may be just a superstitious belief but somehow he found comfort in those words. He told me that on their side of the world, people believe that when you look upon the dark night sky, the stars that shine for you are the souls of the departed. I´ve somehow always believed in the same thing when I looked onto the night even though I never knew the reason why.

Some people may leave the earth, but we never lose them, not really, not entirely. We keep finding them in stars, or on the wings of a butterfly, because pieces of them will always be with us. Parts of them have already made a home in our hearts that even the heavens can never truly take them away from us.

Paper Airplanes

I forgot how to write poems
so I’m writing letters instead,
Throwing paper airplanes unto the universe
Hoping these pieces of me
Find a home in a stranger
Some fall off to nowhere, some come flying back
a tide of windows and snapshots of elsewhere.
Places where time and light move differently from where I am.
When my heart couldnt find the right words
they gave me a song.
When I needed to paint myself with love
they lent me their colors.
When I was treading shallow waters
they let me swim in their sea.
When the stars in my city refused to shine,
they let me borrow their skies.
Soon I found myself inhaling
somebody else’s breeze to breathe me back to life,
basking in another’s flame to keep me warm,
embracing their dreams to put me to bed,
and their hopes, their fights to wake my strength.
I kept borrowing from their worlds I failed to see,
they were unlocking the universe I have inside me.

Of Pocket Universes

Most people would say there is a universe living within us

For him and I, there was no one coherent universe

Rather a collection of pocket universes, all alien to one another

We’ve come to realize at this point, that some worlds, some people

No matter how close the proximity,

They do not seem to vibrate at the same frequency

Some people no matter how small the distance

Do not seem to act as if they exist on the same plane

And so we compartmentalize dreams, separate from responsibilities

Family separate from some friends, and love no matter how much

Love may wander, there is a special place it comes to stay.

 

I’ve pretty much stayed in one place all my life

But when I’m with him I travelled worlds, and crossed constellations

I’ve seen the universe he calls Fiction Nation and it is filled with about a hundred worlds

I’ve only been to around 8 of them, but I can tell from that they’re all searching

For a definite, unchanging ending and that they needed relief from anti-heroes.

And then there is Romance which looks like a fairy tale wasteland,

Which gravitates heavily toward the past, so unpopulated, deserted and unmoving

In this universe sentences like “You make me happy” do not translate well

And its atmosphere too hazy to tell the difference of a beautiful face from genuine affection

I’ve seen Dreams, Home, Friends, Music, Insecurities, and Childhood, all so very different,

But all the same the more I saw from them, the more distance I felt between him and I

The more I let myself be pulled into his gravity and his inner worlds, the more he became

A stranger to me, the more he took my hand the less he heard the beating of my heart.

I travelled his universes, not because I was hoping that with the passing of time

He will say  “I love you too” but because I hoped that if I loved his universes

He’d want to come and see my universes too.

And Then He Was Called Love

He wasn’t Love before, he wasn’t even Friend

Not even Random Beautiful Stranger, he was just a passerby

A frequent presence, a familiar face, you never really paid attention to

But somehow it seems that fate and time have conspired

To shower you with random moments that brought you closer

Close enough for you to see that he had the kind of warmth and sweetness

He often hid from the rest of the world, but somehow not to you

And he talked to you as if he’d known you all his life

Half an hour into your very first conversation, all honest, no pretenses

Just him, all bare, as if he only needed his dreams and humor to clothe him.

You became the best of friends, distance was not a word that could be put between

The two of you, maybe physically but emotionally never

You shared a very sincere and loyal bond, that gave you genuine happiness

The kind that made you light up when you spoke of him,

and people often mistook it for the romantic sort of love

It could’ve been, but at the time it was just the caring kind of love.

People started calling him Love around you ‘cos they believed in time he will be,

Because the moments that tightly wrapped themselves around the two of you

Made up for a really good love story,

Neither one of you wanted to be a good story, he’d rather write one

He liked to write the kind of stories that couldn’t find an ending

You on the other hand had always had your heart set on short prose and verses

Love couldn’t write a decent poem even if he tried, but he didn’t have to

Love became poetry when he was with you.

At Day’s End

I love  the end of the day, not because sunsets and stars come to greet me

but because i have someone to ask about my hours, my musings, my cup of coffee

Thursday had been kind to me today, no tears, just rapid beatings of the heart.

Today, I was happy, and nervous and ecstatic and scared, I don’t know what to feel first.

I’m overwhelmed, like my breathing does not know which rhythm to follow

and I wanna tell you about all these rhythms my heart and breath are dancing to,

but I don’t have the words. So I put them inside my arms and wrap them around you.

I realize I love this feeling like the world is coming at me all at once, worry creeps in

but for the most part I feel brave. But more than this feeling, I love you.

I love that I get to share my days with you  and that you share with me your days too.

The bad, the beautiful and mundane hours and stories of you.

And days they could pass so simply Monday to Sunday through,

but you fill them up, heart and color

because I know I’m coming home to your wonderful “how are you?”

Shooting Star

Young little Ellie was always alone,

And she wished every night for a friend of her own,

So the night knocked down from beside the moon,

A little boy who died too soon.

So one little star came falling out of the sky,

And Ellie chased that shooting light though she did not know why.

She then soon learned that a gift didn’t always mean a book, or a toy,

Sometimes, it is a friend, a kindhearted boy.

How he made Ellie happy, others couldn’t quite get

But to her, he was, her luminous little secret.

Only she knew then about the wonder of his light,

Only she believed that he could shine so bright.

But she didn’t know like most secrets, he couldn’t be kept, not for long,

And there is one more thing young Ellie couldn’t have known,

Is that once you use the words amazing and wonderful to describe somebody,

It becomes painted on their faces, and that the rest of the world would like to see.

So stranger after stranger came to marvel at her friend,

A sea of admirers leading their friendship to an end.

So the boy became a man, as the girl became a lady

And he learned by now that wearing beauty too often had made it ordinary

There was no point to admiration, if he couldn’t have sincerity

The one thing he found only in his little friend named Ellie

He thought of what might had been, if only they grew up together,

He thought about her, and wondered if time had made him a stranger,

If along the way he had lost, the things that made him loved by her

He couldn’t just stay and wonder, he needed to have an answer.

So he came back to her, and at first he seemed a foreigner

They both felt the weight of the years since they last saw each other,

But as they talked she saw it was him, just taller, older, and a little bit wiser,

And she changed so as well, tougher but at the same time kinder,

yet as  funny, as honest, as warm as he remembered.

Embracing her old friend, these were the words that she uttered:

“The rest of the world may have forgotten,

But to me, you are still my incandescent piece of heaven.”

Like a Child

When people keep screaming and beating me up to grow up too fast

You remind me that I’m brave, I’m strong and this is going to pass.

And although my childhood is filled with sadness, fear and discomfort compiled

You’ve convinced me that I can take comfort In being like a child.

I like the way you can make me feel

that all the world’s problems can be solved with hugs,

ice cream,and laughter and hot chocolate-filled mugs.

And with you I still believe love and friendship are magic

and reading fairy tales can remind me to dream

when life takes on a swing for the tragic.

And I’m not afraid to say I dream the impossible,

to cry out loud, to make mistakes and admit I’m still learning.

And yes I still do have teddy bears to comfort me when I’m sobbing.

And instead off letting my heart go calloused and numb

I’d believe your ‘Everything will be okay’ and let my hope rest there

at the tip of your thumb

When people get mean and days go bad,

When I am afraid, when I get sad,

it is easy for you to understand

I just need someone to hold my hand.

when we talked about “love”

For all you know she’d break your heart, and you’d regret doing all these things for her and you’d call her unworthy and undeserving of the sacrifices but would it hurt? Because the thing is she never really asked for all of this, you’re the one who willingly gave your heart out so easily.

I get it you have all this love inside you and you just want to give it away but seriously stop throwing it at every person who walks in your direction.

You loved him and he loved you, you passed on the chance just because you weren’t sure if this was your big forever. Not everyone gets a love that big, you had it and you let it scare you. Never mind if it lasts a lifetime, hardly anybody gets it right the first time anyway. If anyone ever wants to share so much of their life with you even just for a few years, even just for a few months you are already so damn lucky.

You don’t love her. You just wanted somebody to love and she came in at the right moment.

You didn’t fight for it, you let the temptation of new love sway you as you stood by watching the old one crumble. No it wasn’t the kisses that were so tempting, was it? It was the escape from something you couldn’t save and from the things you never wanted to say sorry for.

Why would anyone ever chase after someone who was unfaithful to them? I guess because the whole idea of being replaced by someone makes you think that you are so difficult to love. To give someone so much of you, your heart, your years, your secrets, your everything and they still decided to leave you, how could you ever think you could be loved when there is not much left of you to give.

You call it unfair when someone pretty couldn’t love an ugly fool like you when you are so unwilling to love someone who looks just as bad as you. Take a second look, it’s not your face he doesn’t love about you.

Platonic

There is something about the way we look at each other
And somehow we both feel we are going to last forever
But the thing is you and I we are not together
It’s okay, it is good. What we have is better.

They say it is a waste because we’d make such a good story
The way we met, the way we talk, all clad in romantic glory
We have a click, a spark that can’t be denied
But to each other, you and I, we’ve just never been starry-eyed

I won’t deny I have the best and most honest talks with you
And there is a certain smile I own that I only share with you
But I’m not in love with you, but always you can trust I’m rooting for you
Love songs need not be made just because we’re two
We both know passionate affection will be the ruin of me and you

So what if what we have between us isn’t romantic
We don’t need to lock lips to know the idea is idiotic
Our story, our chemistry it’s nothing less epic
Sometimes the best relationships are the ones that are platonic