Leaving (Poem)

Opposites
That's what they are.

When they first meet, she's on one side of the train platform
He's on the other.

She catches his eye with her odd habits
Like praying before boarding the train,
Skipping from one end of the platform to the other,
Or standing only at certain areas where the sunlight fell
Onto her pale, white skin.

He catches hers with his unwavering stare
And the serious expression he always wears
Like his dusty old T-shirt and worn out sneakers.

Over time, unspoken hellos are exchanged
And shy glances traded

He wants to know her more than guesses and mind games
She wants to teach him how to smile.

Yet, they are opposites
Him and her,
The trains always arrive at the same time
But they always leave in different directions

He doesn't dare to cross the line,
She doesn't know if she should follow her heart

Then one day,
She folds her courage into a plane of paper
And writes her hopes in ink.

'What's your name?'

He is about to reply,
When he catches her heart
Hidden in a fragile paper plane

But the train for the girl arrives first.
She stands inside and stares at the boy sadly,
Separated only by a train door
And a neverending track line.

Suddenly, a dark foreboding surges through.

Before she can turn to run out, the doors slide shut
Frustrated, she bangs her clenched fists against the glass window,
A desperate form of praying,
Her eyes darken in a silent plea.

No.

The boy waves at her
Then, for the first time,

He smiles

and she forgets
how
to
breathe.

All that's left
Is an imprint of his smile
Before she is swept away forever
By time and change.

Opposites,
That's what they are,
And always will be.

Numbers (Poem)

I used to think
We were a simple math equation
Like one plus two equals three.
No questions asked, the logic's there
For everyone to see.

I only figured out at the end that,
You subtracted meaning from your 'I love you's,
They valued zero nothing from the start
And I was too dumb to do the math,
I was too blinded by my heart.

Our conversation lasted five seconds, six words and
One sixtieth of an hour of silence
‘Did you ever truly love me?’
You were more interested in counting the time that went by
I spent the next fifty-nine minutes,
Trying my best not to ask why.

Numbers were never my strong forte,
Neither is love.

You used to say,
'I love you more than anything else in the world.'
Now, I can only wonder,
If I'm even anything else in your world.

Outer Beauty, Inner Emptiness (Poem)

When the flowers bloomed,
Their beauty captivated me.
My heart was a reflection of their vibrant colours,
As they bowed their heads gracefully.

For a moment in time,
I imagined we were flowers,
Fragile beauty surviving
The harsh reality of the world.

I imagined love did not need roots to grow in the soil,
That love could sustain on the clouds of castles in the air.

But then they withered and died,
Leaving behind nothing except
The tiny grains of shrivelled up petals,
And the cold, lifeless earth.

In a way, I guess, we were like those flowers
Unbelievably beautiful while they lasted,
But horribly
achingly
empty
...

(when we ended.)

Maybe (Poem)

Yes or no, two simple words
Yet your mind is torn into two
When I asked you, "So what now?"
You say, "I don't know what to do,

Maybe we should wait and see
We cannot predict the future
Maybe you'll find someone better,
Maybe we were never really meant to be."

And just like that, I became a tentative consideration, a likely possibility
Reduced to a wavering suggestion, an uncertain probability.

And I can only wonder,
What happened to 'Yes, I still love you so',
What happened to 'No, I want to let go'?

So don't say maybe, perhaps, we'll see
I don't need your doubts or fifty-fifty
'Cause maybe isn't what I wanna hear,
Maybe just isn't good enough for me

Maybe you were right and I was wrong,
Maybe you and I were really never meant to be.

Where? (Poem)

Where do sighs go to when they escape from our lips?

My daddy smiled at my strange curiosity,
He claimed my first words since young came in the form of a question
Yet he always had a story for every question asked,
He always had an answer for everything.

'My dear child,
They travel on the wind to remind someone else of sad memories and grey skies
From there, they escape once more through the person's lips
They slip back out into the breeze,
Becoming part of a never ending cycle.'

Then, where do tears disappear to when they fall from our eyes?

'My dear child,
They splatter into small wet puddles
Pooling on the concrete ground,
The air steals them away, weaving them into clouds,
But they long to return to the ground.
So they fall back down in sheets of silver needles,
Pricking your skin but leaving no mark.

That is why people say the sky is crying every time it rains
Because somewhere in that single raindrop,
Therein lies a part of your tears.'

And I remembered
Once, when I was crying,
He gently took a tear from me and balanced it on his fingertip
'Look,' he whispered
'This tear will turn into clouds and fall down as rain. I think the sky has cried more than its fair share ...
Don't you?'

So ... where do people go to after they die?

At this question, my daddy fell silent.
It was strange.
He always had a story for every question asked,
He always had an answer for everything.

Slowly, he looked up at the sky,
Pressed his palm against his heart,
Then he lowered it to rest over my fingers and looked at me.

He didn't say a word,
Still, I understood.



Some emotions don't need explanations,
Just like how some questions don't have answers.