Segments
The last time we spoke, you asked me if I knew the story relayed by the wings of a certain butterfly. Having inadequate notion of things in orange-and-black flutter, I stopped at the thought of giving an answer, instead marveled on other things that quivered unnoticed in the summer air. As you retold me a scientific tale of poison and deceit, a question on love cocooned at the tip of my tongue. Somewhere I felt you retreat to a memory of us under the moonlit shade of a tree, a desolate flower enamored with the scene’s very dimness, our uncertainties with the kiss we stole. Nothing much to say: Breaking out the secrets I’ve told you years ago seemed a luxury rather than a need.
The other night you pointed at the stars and wished for their concurrent death. You hold on to its promise of romance. I cringe to probe what depth of a dream then resided in your eyes—stars themselves blinking once in the indecision of now, twice for the decisiveness of tomorrow—but hush me this moment when the heart beats unrestricted: To whose hands do stars really fall?
In my room, I attempt to seek the answers to my bewilderment of you in transitory verses. Do I break a metaphor here? Do I imagine you right beside the loneliness of this song? What comes after the line where your point meets mine? Writing today seems useless as the words we said before acquainting each other of our slants: you the ideal, me the absurd. But I’ll be pushing this poem still even if it gets lost in the labyrinth of your palm.
