She sat there,
On the same spot I first saw her
With her cap,
Round shades
And a cup of coffee
Just that.
Without a phone or anything.
I saw her a quite a number of times
With a book
Just the same amount of times
I saw her with tears rolling
On her cheeks
Without a sound, non sobs
Sometimes, no, consistently
She would order another cup
And threw up at the restroom
I do know all of these things
Of course
She stares at nothing, deeply
I never saw her talk to anyone but
I could remember her lips move
And utter words after releasing
Smoke from her lungs
She wears old people’s clothes
A flower inked on her legs
And she turn her head
took off her sunglasses
She looked at me in the eye
For a moment,
My brain forgot to send messages
To my veins and ask my muscles
to move
And she smiled.
That was day one.
Every day, we meet at the same spot
I first saw her
Down near Katipunan
Drinking coffee,smoking
And staring at nothing
She speaks,
not with her mouth
But routinely
with her soul in her tongue
She is akin to art
Or is she art herself?
We were in her apartment
I noticed every edge
every piece of her is here
The collection of books
sitting on her coffee table,
the paintings on the wall.
The old cassette she said her gramma
gave her. The bottles of beer that drowns
her every night.
The book she has been trying to finish
for the past 2 years.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night..
take these broken wings and learn to fly.”
And the song that has been in her head
since day one.
They say, the stranger the better.
It was day 23rd when
She first told me her name,
I bet she never knew mine but
she calls me in different titles
Labels me like something she owns.
Like a boy,
I sit in front of her every day
And we are just like that,
It has been years.
I am just a stranger she met at Katipunan Ave
the one she said who found her soul
I found her soul in the streets
along with the paces we took
And the words she has been trying to say
in the music that she plays
Even the emotions that she lost
inside the book she has been trying to finish for the past two years.
And the things that she does she cant
remember doing.
The habits that she can’t quit.
Monsters inside her head that
interupts her speaking
The things she promised
Herself she will quit
The memories of her childhood
that crushed and crushed her to sleep
Everybody wonder
What got inside my head;
Why am I so into her
Perhaps, they can't see.
They will never see the beauty
I saw in those scars
And even her will never understand
that she became my definition of beauty
The enigma that even myself can’t discover
Then one day,
She asked for tea.
“Don’t ask why.” she said.
And then she let go a smile.
And that was the last time
I saw her on the same spot…
I first saw her.
It has been years and I am still holding on to the poems she wrote for me.
The if’s that she left me with.
Everyday I sit here, steadily, waiting;
Although she never promised a
come back.
I will get myself a cup of coffee,
Utter words I should have said to her.
And let go of the violent smoke from my lungs.
And I turn my head…
Then smiled.
May 6, 2018 4:39PM