The Ground

The ground was shaky, and you couldn't tell how long the solidness would stay as you walk on its twisted, crooked, uneven path. Sometimes it lasted for several days at its best, and it'd trick you into thinking that it might suffice your little jogs, but as soon as you started running, the surface would vibrate and crumble, down, down, down, until the depth of mud below catches your weight. Your head would still be in the surface, providing just enough air to breathe, but it too, never lasted long. Once you were under, where no light managed to penetrate, nothing could submerge you back up, no amount of kicking would do, and you'd just go deeper, down, down, down, until what once suffocates you become the new normal, and the tight cocoon provides you this faux comfort, taking you further away from the world. Time works funny underwater, it passes slowly, and soon enough you were left behind by the ever moving world above. But it felt enough, and just when you started to think that this could be the start of your forever, the ground shook again, and the pool threw you out like last night's dinner, consumed and wasted and unevenly chewed, in chunks surprising to be alive. The world would look at you with question marks plastered on their faces, full of judgements, and what slipped out of their mouths would be the cliché 'you're not the only one suffering', which makes you wonder, 'such cruel place to live, how do you people cope?' You were left with no choice but to try and catch up, legs heavy and lids half shut, you crawled on your arms and knees, dragging yourself inches by inches to the limitless runway, which finish line has not yet to be seen. Hours turn to days and you finally manage to get on your feet once more, heels in pain against the sharp pebbles. One. Two. Three. Four steps. But hear me out, the ground is fucking shaky, and you couldn't tell how long the solidness would stay as you walk on its twisted, crooked, uneven path.

Oh, to live, waiting for a day to die.

A Dead Star

Hey 🪐

It has been five years since the last time I saw you within my orbit, you were in one of your lowest, we sort of joked about the Earthlings kicking you out from the planet list because they just mistaken you as a giant moon who's too far from the sun you can no longer reflect its light, because it felt dark. But for me back then, you were glowing, an illuminance so beautiful mankind might have to list you as a sun instead. You shrugged it off, of course, and you used your giant ring as a shield. I regretted not telling you that more often, because I was afraid it has something to do with me, and the fact that we only talked in my nights and your dawns — maybe I'm the moon who eclipsed the sun from you, who knows?

I know now, though. And it hit me hard. Because you're shining now, brighter than ever, standing tall and so proud that someone has managed to land on your surface and make a permanent stay. And I should be happy for you, celebrate the flag which pole has now plucked between your pores. Instead, I mourn. Because I failed to do just that, because somewhere between those pillow talks, I think I somehow made you think that my visit would be an invasion of your space instead. And just like that, the engine of my rocket died before it could even launch. 

I kept on revisiting the memories, trying to pin-point where I got it wrong, and which turn that caused you to stir away from me. Because for me it felt right — the firework explosions, the calmness that followed, the gentle whispers that spread the fire embers, warming the nights. I still sought for the exact feelings, you know? Every other planet I passed, I waited, for them to give me something that is close to how you made me feel. One managed to pull me in with their gravity, but the landscape isn't as pretty, and there are too many oceans that I ended up staying in one of their small islands with no one in contact for miles, hidden away from the world. I feel eclipsed. Dark. Cold. Too far from the sun.

Did you feel this way toward me too? That's why you shut the doors so tight that my voice could not get through? Was it that obvious for you that I was the reason for the lasting darkness? Is this how I am supposed to tell myself that, "Yeah, I better move on now, it's time to leave"?

People said that with every broken heart, you got one more stranger to live in this universe carrying your secrets. I have so many heart-breaking cases, but I don't think anyone carries more of my secrets than you do. Perhaps that's why it hurts more? Because, what? You know my favorite colors, and my favorite drinks, and how my alarms don't ring in times I should wake up that you had to chime in?

I want to know your story, you once said. I want to know what you felt when you wrote these beautiful pieces. Well, I'm telling you now, I feel lonely as I write this, and hurtful because times tick for some people and I'm left in this island, hidden and frozen. Because everyone finds their source of warmth but me. I feel you, now a blinking dot in my sky, who'd not fall again, erasing the opportunity for me to make yet another wish.

But I'll pray, the way you made me do in one of those quarters of nights we spent together, for you to shine through, and for maybe, one day, the same kind of light to hit me too, so I could be one of the many dots in your sky, so you'd get to remember me, as the second star to left, a Neverland you once got stuck in but managed to escape. 

The Withdrawal

Another night fell, and entailing it, another dawn broke down, then came with it, another cup was filled, of coffee freshly brewed. The vivid black was stirred, and stirred, though bitter it stayed. The more bitter, the stronger the effect, they said, but the only thing that stuck with the bitterness was its scent, failing to claim its ability to heal the aftermath of the weeks long insomnia. The holding only grew weaker the further the steps were taken to revisit the memory that came with the first sip — of how it all started with the forbidden stolen glances.

Of the pair, which were planets of their own, their forest thick and green, the truest embodiment of spring, frozen in time, putting a weight of shame to the emeralds bejeweled in any king's crown, incomparable to its beauty, dimming slightly only when the lids squinted closed before a curve formed on the lips — crafting that one smile, that seemingly had more capacity to warm the lasting winter than any cup of coffee could, keeping everything steady. The temperature dropped now with the absence of the curve being the center of the gravity to hold it, low, low, low, even as Spring arrived. 

One step forward, three steps back — a solo waltz with no one but the worst of luck. While the mind walked in and out of the nostalgia, the body was kept locked inside the tiny shell still, too ashame from its nakedness to present itself for a public view as a broken product of fate's wrong-doing, with an opened wound the size of a fist becoming both the hole in the chest and lump in the throat. But with the passing moments, the walls moved closer, eating the space out until there was no tile left to dance, tightening the suffocation and trapping the soul within, away from anyone's grip, and it wanted out.

By God, it wanted out.