I still dream of you

If everything that can happen does happen in this quantum universe, I hope that things played out differently at at least one point in time, at one point in space. We'd meet under the lights at an event we both got dragged to; it'd be on a basketball court, of course - the way we met. You'd be wearing my favourite suit of yours, and I'd catch your eye the way you caught mine years and years ago, and we wouldn't see anything else. The noise would muffle out, everything would fade away, and that would be it. You wouldn't break my heart and I would never have let you go, and we wouldn't have had to rebuild the world around us, piece by piece. 

This time, in this space, the noise would muffle out, everything would fade away, and that would be it.

I've heard that when someone's very important 
and you haven't seen them for a long time, 
as soon as you do, it's easier to breathe. 
I wonder, if and when we meet, 
if you'll take my breath away or if it'll get easier to breathe. 
-
I hope it gets easier to breathe.

everything in life is just for awhile

this is a reminder to myself

that all the lovers who have once set my lungs on fire

and left me heaving silently from a broken heart,

barely cross my mind anymore 

that there will be others to come

just as the ones before have left. 

the waves will keep crashing into the shores 

just as loud and just as hard,

until someday it stops

and when that last wave comes 

and eventually goes,

i'd recall all the people who had once been most important to me

i'd recite them chronologically, 

like a list in my mind

i'd write about the people we were back then

and i'd write even more about who we could have been.

i'd etch them -

pen to paper,

songs to playlists,

an ending to a forever. 

this way, i'd remember our story for the both of us

and by then, i would have learnt that 

sometimes when you're too careful,

it turns into a different kind of carelessness 

but nonetheless, 

we cross our bridges when we come to them

and leave them behind - patiently and intricately, 

in hopes that it'll finally set us free 

i hope all the love i've given to the wrong people 

will eventually find its way back to me

when will you be back?

i miss you 

i don't know what i'm doing

jane austen once wrote 

"if i loved you less, i might be able to talk about it more"

- 

i don't think you'd understand how i feel about you

i don't understand it either 

it probably would never work out anyways,

that's what i tell myself at least.

that we're both too scared,

and the timing is all wrong.

that we don't know each other well at all,

and once we see each other for who we are,

the curtains would draw and the show would stop.

but if i were to be completely honest

despite all that, 

i still wanted to call you today 

and tell you

i miss you 

i dont know what i'm doing 

i haven't stopped thinking about you -

instead i just stared at your contact on my screen for abit 

i don't believe in falling in love quickly 

i.. don't remember falling in love with you

i just remembered holding your hand 

and realising how much it was going to hurt 

when i would have to let go

that's not love, is it? 

i dont know what that means 

the rest of our lives, you said 

-

perhaps.

whether it's by sheer dumb luck 

or a one in a million chance that 

even if we end up moving on,

we still stay a little bit in love with all the ways we were,

and find our way back to each other when it matters most. 

perhaps. 

i miss you 

i don't know what i'm doing 

my first trip to boston

last year i told myself i'd stop playing with fire
because the thing is
the brightest flames burn out the fastest.
so i played with sparks and swam in fireworks -
brilliant, fast & painless.

and then i met you

it was static
pure electricity that held us together
i couldn't tire of you
i couldn't stay away from you
it didn't matter if we were lying next to each other
or if you were ten thousand miles away,
i wanted to feel your back against mine
and i wanted to wake up to your voice

i was almost certain there were parts of me that were buried,
parts that would only surface when i could feel again.
when it happened you were there,
you saw the great void in my soul
and you did what nobody else had ever done,
you glanced and never took another look.
it was that easy. but it was all i needed.

i used to believe that everything is uglier up close -
not you

everything we used to know, crashed into the great unknown

when we unanimously said one of our favourite parts of Paris was the Champs Élysées, i brushed it off as sheer coincidence - told myself it was as insignificant as the odds of, say, people having apple as their favorite fruit or black as their favourite color. now, i don't think i could ever go back to Paris, stand in front of it and not think of you.

i found comfort in knowing you were smart, in a conventional (rather than unconventional) way. partly because i didn't have to exhaust myself with unravelling unconventional intelligence (a good change for once) and mostly because you could always understand the way i play with my words, especially when i used them to edge on sarcasm or dark humor.

in hindsight i guess maybe this was inevitable. despite the way we cohesively agreed on my favourite songs & your favourite tv shows, despite the comfort i felt sitting next to you, almost like i've known you for a long time. despite having nights when i wanted to go back out in the rain just to kiss you goodbye, despite the way you said i made you feel when i first caught your eye.

truth is, it was a lot, maybe too much. some things get too much, it becomes not enough. it was almost enough. but it never is, it's never enough.

now we've resorted to half-hearted conversations & talking about the weather & not being able to say a simple "i'm not feeling well" because we're not sure what either of us would, or could, say. if we could avoid being where we've ended up now by giving up the summer we had, would you? when you first asked me if we were platonic, should i have said yes? would i ever hear you say "for you, always" to me again?

why i fell out of love with all four of you

the way you swirled me around and slow danced with me
will never make up for the way you treated me
you watched my heart break
and you never really bothered to pick up the pieces
so the broken shards made my feet bleed
each time i walked back to you
we loved immensely, fiercely
i know you loved me
but some days i could have swore
you were more in love with yourself than me

it was pure, simple love
we were at the (so called) best part of dating for months on end
you loved my wit and i adored your heart
i could have stayed in that state with you for a long, long time
i know i could
but as all sunrises eventually set,
your beliefs were ones i could never uphold
you wanted to settle, be grounded
and mundane scares the living hell out of me

you said i wasn't much of a mystery
but god did i wish i knew that it was only because
you didn't know me at all
& i did not
and now i see it
every time i wanted you, you suddenly didn't want me anymore
so i decided for myself that some things will always be better remembered than experienced again
when i left you didn't even stop me

and you
you were there for me every step of the way,
between your enthusiasm to settle down
and my desire for the fascinating rather than the lacklustre,
there was a distance that couldn't be filled with however many sweet nothings you whispered in my ear
your insecurity and constant need for assurance tired me out
i can't and i won't mend things that are broken
you wanted me to need you but there isn't anything i need that i can't give myself
you would have given me the world
but i had my own