11:30 pm

i. this is about a boy i’ve met in a bar. he was a little bit older than me, and at first, i thought he was just another guy with drunken eyes and smokey cigarette breath, looking for a young girl to hook up with, but i didn’t mind. i was sad and i needed someone.

ii. we started talking and then, i realized that he wasn’t looking for a call girl or a quick fix. instead, he was looking for someone to make him feel a little less lonely.

iii. we didn’t stay in touch, i didn’t ask for his name, nor his phone number. all i know is his face and what lies underneath his mask, but then, we started having our own tradition, it was kinda like our thing. we’d go to that bar every friday night at exactly 11:30, and we’d see each other there. we’d head to the bar’s rooftop, and he’d always get his phone in his pocket to play some indie music, then we’d stay there, looking up at the night sky, admiring its endless beauty as the faint wind touches our skin.

iv. we’d lay there for ages, watching the twilight fades into the darkness, as we talk about the monsters inside our head, the things that keeps us awake at night, our previous lovers, the people who have hurt us and how we’re still mending our hearts over people and things that were not meant for us, and how we’re still trying to forgive ourselves for all the people we did not become.

v. we got naked with each other, and somehow, i fell in love with his soul, but he didn’t feel the same way. i don’t even think he knew that i fell in love with him.

vi. in the end, he stopped coming to our place, never to be seen again.

vii. he left my heart shattered into pieces, and yet, i’d still choose to lay uncomfortably on a cold cement floor while drinking a cheap can of beer, and deprived myself of sleep just to talk to him than choose the comfort of my own bed because during those late friday nights that i’ve spent with him, those were the few moments in my life where i truly felt alive; it was as if i had the power to reach out and grasp the stars, or maybe, that was just the alcohol doing its work to my body.

viii. it’s been months since we stopped seeing each other, but i still find myself going to that bar every friday night, even if that place is a ghost of him and the things that we used to talk about because no matter how much it hurts, i still have a little bit of hope left in me, that maybe, if i go there as often as i can, i’d get the chance to see him again. 

ix. we met again at the same bar. i thought he’d finally stay this time. he didn’t.

x. now, whenever i’m awake at 11:30 and it’s a friday night, i think of him and i let him go.

–a.r, 10 short phrases about the stranger who have seen my naked soul.