You're Deleted

I deleted you from my to-do list
I'm not gonna answer those one-word texts
solely containing my name ever again
I deleted you from my laughing stock
You could no longer make me smile from ear to ear
I deleted you from my wish list
I don't want to feel my insulin levels skyrocket
everytime you make me feel good

I deleted you
And I didn't even sigh.

But funny, after I actually did that,
To my amazement,
I began to like the city you live in.
I learned to love it, to be exact.
Guess I then channeled my enormous loving ability to your city
By the time I realized you'd always denied me
that particular talent of mine.

Think of those windy nights
we could've been in each other's arms
But it's too late
Cause you're deleted.

Is The Water Fine

He: Tears are welling up in my eyes now - I am not kidding - because I am so damn thankful I am blessed to have met you.

I: Medic!!! Call the ambulance, I urgently need a CPR now! And maybe heart pumping devices as well!
(throws a cheap joke to mask insecurities)

He: The very thought of meeting up with you gives me the shivers, the thought of looking at you humbles me, the thought of touching you makes me break into sweat, the thought of kissing you will send me to heaven, the thought of tasting you makes me faint. Let alone the thought of being one with you. I dont think I can get that far being conscious. Baby, I am deeply in love with you.

I: So how's that out of town trip last weekend?
(voice trembles, lips shake)

He: I am sorry for the hurt you have been through. That it has made me hurt too. I wish I could turn back time for you sou you never got hurt.

I: You stayed over for the whole weekend, right?
(forces a nervous smile)

He: Just give me your hand and I will lead.

I: I'm shit scared.
(gets frustrated)

He: Just give me your hand.

I: What would you do with it?
(reluctanly offers a hand)

He: I have your hands, baby, and it's going to be gently stroked and looked after.

I: ...

Seriously, is the water fine now? No barbaric piranhas, no giant vicious anacondas, no brutal jaws, no poisonous sea snakes, no scary creatures beneath waiting for a big feast on my flesh?

Stay Away

You said you just wanted to love the whole package of me.

I said nothing, but God knew how bad I wanted to yell at you.

Didn't your mother ever tell you to be careful with what you wish for? Well, I warn you, Mister, the package is absolutely not a child's long-yearned Christmas gift wrapped with a colorful paper and a piece of pretty bow. In fact, it's just an ugly broken box wrapped with a used, dirty newspaper, which dogs will gladly pee on it and anyone would like to kick it with all their might. No, don't even think of getting near it, as I hereby humbly warn you, Sir, how foul it smells, that you may need to hold your breath.

Run for your life! Run while you can! The package is best left untouched at a corner of a dark room.

You'll thank me later for this. But I don't want any reward, though, for I do this simply out of my faint sense of humanity. Now just go. You'll get your bigger, prettier package on your next birthday. Just wait. Don't they all say there'll be good things for those who wait?

Tell Me On A Sunday

Don't write a letter when you want to leave
Don't call me at 3 AM from a friend's apartment
I'd like to choose how I hear the news
Take me to a park that's covered with trees
Tell me on a Sunday please

Let me down easy
No big song and dance
No long faces, no long looks
No deep conversation
I know the way we should spend that day
Take me to a zoo that's got chimpanzees
Tell me on a Sunday please

Don't want to know who's to blame
It won't help knowing
Don't want to fight day and night
Bad enough you're going

Don't leave in silence with no word at all
Don't get drunk and slam the door
That's no way to end this
I know how I want you to say goodbye
Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze
Tell me on a Sunday please

Don't run off in the pouring rain
Don't call me as they call your plane
Take the hurt out of all the pain
Take me to a park that's covered with trees
Tell me on a Sunday please

(From "Song & Dance", music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Don Black)

I first listened to the song during my teenage years when goodbyes were limitedly uttered to given away puppies, moving out friends, leaving grandparents, or school holidays. I completely forgot this beautiful song had long offered me a less hurtful way to hear the word 'goodbye': on a Sunday where everyone tends to be relax, in a park where the trees console the watery eyes while the blowing winds will quickly dry any teardrops, at a zoo or a circus to laugh away the pains.

But I didn't listen well to the song, as for a teenager, little did I know that when the trembling lips declared 'goodbye', the throbbing pain pronounced 'welcome' and it promised not to say goodbye.

Some Things Do Stay

I'm never a keeper, for I've realized a long time ago how caring only leaves me nothing but hurt. So I simply keep distance with everything I own, including friends.

I don't want to get too up close and personal with them knowing sooner or later they would move somewhere geographically or socially. I train myself so hard not to miss talking to them or exchanging greetings with them when they disappear from my sights, as well as from my cellphone, and then completely out of my life. I don't want to get through another breakup night in front of my so-much-in-love girlfriends holding hands under a table with their new boyfriends. Yes, I'm downright selfish and coldblooded.

So far I could move on to one close friend to another without making such a big fuss. I would only sigh the minute I realized we stopped talking like before.

All but one.

She's a teen years friend of mine. After being my partner in crime for 3 years during high school, she had her mind made up to get schooling in a far off land. A restless teenager that I was, to me friendship was all about seeing each other on a daily basis, talking all the nonsense, and doing things together. I cried myself to sleep from reading a long goodbye note she wrote and as hugging her so hard at the airport, I somehow doubted we would still hear from each other by the time she reached her new home.

But I was wrong. She kept writing me long letters, if not calling me for hours from her faraway land. She never missed my birthdays, graduation day, Christmas, and even Easter. In fact, she's the one who writes and calls me more than I do to her.

It's been 9 years since I saw her off at the airport and yet I still talk to her, though it's always her who initiates asking me how I've been holding on, which then I would hesitate to reply, for I don't know where to start. It's been 9 years since those long goodbye notes and I still didn't miss crying on her wedding, upon knowing her pregnancy, premature labor, and seeing the baby boy.

In the middle of savoring a miso soup at my birthday lunch with girlfriends from high school last weekend, never in my wildest hope I would see her waving at me from the other side of glass window. I couldn't believe my eyes when they captured her big eyes and smile, waving at me with one hand and pushing a baby cart with another.

It was really her. On my birthday lunch!

I couldn't hold back my tears when seeing her and the baby, who I thought I would only see him by the time he's going to college. Seeing them, I saw a reflection of my own life journey. The women we turned out to be. She, who I used to screamed at on the phone when telling her I got somebody popped my cherry. She, who chose to call me of all people near her, when she had bad fights with her boyfriend turned now husband. She, who I still miss pouring my heart out when men leave severe scars in my heart.

Ah, some things do stay.

One Big Joke

A text sent at 10:50:39 PM when I was eating a wonton noodle at a glorious place hidden in the old part of the city says:

"Baby I miss you when I am not in view of you. I miss you when I put the phone down. I miss you when I stop texting you. I miss you when I can't picture you in my mind. It is not the constant communication that has led me to feel the way I do for you. It is the woman I have got to know. The sweet, thoughtful, funny, well-read, articulate, motherly, sexy, and attractive that you are that has led me to develop these feelings of love for you."

Life is one big joke. I choked on my wonton. My borrowed-heaven wonton. I wish I was still that 18 year old girl, who could perceive the term 'love' without any hints of phobias. And yet I'd like to believe it.

The Night I Fell All Over Again

You're just lethal to me, don't you know that?

You didn't have to wear that smile.
You didn't have to look that gorgeous.
You didn't have to dine and wine me at the place where your parents used to go on a date.
You didn't have to tell me those jokes.
You didn't have to offer me to exorcist my own demons.
You didn't have to look at me in the eye under that dim candle light.
You didn't have to sing "No more I love you's, the language is leaving me in silence..." along with me.
You didn't have to leave a kiss on the text you sent after that eating-my-heart-out dinner.
You didn't have to send a text in the middle of the night 2 days after containing only my name spelled backward.

You didn't have to do anything.
At all.
And I still could easily fall for you.

Don't you know that everything Cole Porter wrote in Everytime We Say Goodbye turned so blutantly true that night when you dropped me back to my hotel? I went to sleep realizing how strange the change from major to minor without having you around.

I was relieved, though, you didn't touch me that night. Supposed you did, my skin would instantly remember your touch that it would ache for you so much every second of every waking hour.