MARCH COMPILATION (14 / 03 / 26)

• Slow-burn Romance.
• A Day To Cherish You Twice. 
• World-lines and Other Reflections. 
• Overcoming Life.
• Stay Calm. 
• Letter to my Charming Love. 
• Grogginess, love, and the future I dream of. 
• Threadbare Heart. 
• To my in-laws to-be.
• Virtues and Relationships.
• Easter Day.
• Circumstances.

 

Slow-burn romance

I’ve always been naive in the ways of love and romance,

So it’s baffling to find myself learning from you, milady,

The way two people should fertilize the soil in advance

Before one is to sow the seeds of love in fervent ecstasy.

I’ve lived loves, ephemeral ones, where such thing was not,

Where love was forced to bloom amidst the cracks of the ground.

Yet one cannot love truly from thin air, for that’s asking a lot.

True love is a construction, not a treasure to be randomly found.

You’re taking me down a road of lessons that I appreciate,

For you don’t fight the heat of my overthinking tendencies;

You tame their flames by speaking words that alleviate.

There’s no denial, just understanding within your sentences.

Whatever echoes roam the gothic dungeons of my mind

Slowly fade away the moment you show your love to me.

I’m learning to take it slow, leave every single fear behind

So that I love openly, freely, letting things be as they gotta be.

Charm, muse and love, can you hear the beating of my heart?

Can you see your name signed within its refurbished walls?

Should you ever come take the throne within and do your art,

I’d do my best to please your every wish before the sun falls.

Our love might never turn sour, should I use my words’ power

To ensure reality bends just enough to realize our dreams together,

Competing not to outdo the big names but to nurture a flower

Which I deem to be the rose my little prince will love forever.

I wonder if you know I’m holding back from straight up asking—

Genuinely, fearless, one of these days—if you’d be my girlfriend?

I wait solely because the day we chose lies now out of clasping.

Else I’ve got no hesitation left in me; I want you till the very end.

A Day To Cherish You Twice

Women’s Day, I know what this day is about—what it means.

I’ve read of its origins in the fight for equality between both genders.

It’s a day that some people celebrate, and some don’t, it seems.

And that’s where this love poem to my beloved woman enters.

Knowing life is ephemeral, and death awaits at every doorstep,

I take this day to cherish her twice, grateful she’s safe and healthy,

Ready to keep walking her own road in life, footstep after footstep—

Said wishes being what I consider make one emotionally wealthy.

She’s not one to brag about the richness of her gentle soul

Nor one to take at heart whatever goods are attributed to her.

Her humbleness is one of the traits that got her a special role

In my heart’s lily-tangled throne, as she’s the one it’s made for.

Four months it’s been already, four of a thousand and more.

Four months that one day will be four years, and that, slowly,

Will become forty. Though we’re blind to what life has in store,

We’re confident this candle will last, for we love each other wholly.

Charm, muse and moon of mine, I wish you a fine Women’s Day.

I’m grateful you nurture me daily and keep me company in the dark,

Grateful that despite the storm of emotions we had you chose to stay.

My commitment and devotion are yours since in me you left your mark.

World-lines and Other Reflections

What if you and I met in an alternate world-line
Where every single thing played out differently?
Would I still be yours, would you still be mine?
Would we meet by fate’s design or deliberately?

You asked once, “would you have approached me?”
To which I replied, honestly, “I don’t think I’d have.”
For that’s something my shyness can’t guarantee,
Even if I fell in love, I’d act drier than the Mojave.

And that got me thinking: what are the odds of it?
I never pursued people I liked or found beautiful,
For I bore a horrid self-image to which I’d commit,
To the extent I made myself more than unsuitable.

If it weren’t for you, I’d have not learned to care for a flower,
For I believed that plucking them was to cut their lives short,
Till you taught me ways to either preserve them fresh forever,
Care for them in a pot, or dry them with a chemical of some sort.

The blindfold fell from my eyes the moment you said, loud and clear,
“There are more outcomes to this story of yours than doom and gloom.
You would do your best if said flower were someone you hold dear,
For good and consistent care would keep her happy even in your room.”

A mental comma later, I woke up in the garden of my soul,
And then saw an empty spot I wanted you to fill in and own.
Never before had I the fervent wish to try and feel whole
By loving someone that fed me more than fat and bone.

The love I knew was like a candle: once lit, it melted quickly.
The wax drowned the flame, and the flame set the forest on fire.
It was a feeling that, day by day, felt more and more prickly;
At some point I’d bleed and choose if to stay and die or retire.

I wonder if my other selves suffered the same fate over and over.
Did they have someone to rescue them like I had you rescue me?
Or maybe they’ll save your other selves and be their lucky clover?
So many possibilities, but how do we know in which are we?

Delving no more in what is and isn’t, could and couldn’t be,
I decide to declare that in the world-line we reside in today
I chase after your heart, brazen, to make sure there is a “we”,
And our love story ends not with a cold “and they walked away”.

Learning your language was the first step, then confessing;

Next up, when you’re ready, I’ll hold you in my arms, glad,

And aware when our lives converge, our souls too will merge,

Even before we can seal the deal with the moon seeing us clad.

 

Overcoming Life

I’m being pushed to the edge by the events in my life,
They fight amongst themselves, attack me as well,
Yet I believe that I won’t stay for long in this utter hell,
Determined to survive, refusing to fall by chaos’ knife.

“Kill yourself,” they threaten, “I’ll lock you up in a madhouse.”
But I stay poker-faced before their blabbering, sure I’ll bear it.
I got a woman to love, a future to build with my to-be spouse.
There’s not a single reason for which I should kneel and submit.

Life itself has put obstacles before me, traps and foes,
Ensuring my road to that paradise wasn’t easy to walk through,
Ignoring at the same time that I’d withstand all its blows
And keep getting up to make my every dream come true.

The hard times will pass, no storm is meant to last forever.

One day I’ll look back at the past, next to my beloved Charm,
And realize it was all worth surviving for us to be together.
For her, I know I’ll fight instead of succumbing to self-harm.

For myself, and for us, my oath stands in the sands of time,
Engraved onto stone for the turbulent times that’ll come,
Blessed by All-knowing Odin, who empowers my rhyme
To triumph here; I know the kind of man I must become.

 

Stay Calm

Something crawls from within me, screeching,

As the reflection on my mirror shifts violently,

Expressing the violence I have been leashing

To the bottom of my soul for it to live silently.

Their reactions—they awaken anger and sadness,

Evils that come out to get me when summoned.

Their repeated demeaning insults led to madness

And so led to learning to get myself pummeled…

Pummeled by my own hand, an extension of myself

That knows well the pain I’ve gone through, my grief,

And became a tool possessed by the shadows of the self,

Awakened by the voices born from finding no relief.

I stand poker-faced before my own doppelgänger

For if I give in, I’ll hurt the man my girlfriend loves,

And he’ll take over simply to drag me down under

Into a lake of darkness that’ll drown my lungs.

Self-harm stopped being an option since she’s in my life.

My lucky Charm wouldn’t want me to scratch my face,

Wouldn’t allow me to slit my throat with a kitchen knife.

Instead, she’d want me to find safety in her warm embrace.

Though we’re seas away, I’ve sworn to not become a Taken

For the purposes of my own horror story’s Dark Presence.

Such habits I am struggling to consciously get forsaken

By holding onto my dreams, goals, love and true essence.

Letter to My Charming Love

Dear Charm,

Muse and lover of mine, owner of my blazing heart,
I write to you this fine day to express my devotion,
The way you once said you liked it, through my art.

Yes, I remember how you said you wished to be courted,
With genuine feelings captured in a nice and heartfelt letter,
An idea I took for a worthy challenge and thus supported.

The subject of this letter, beyond the objective stated,
Is, as guessed, you, us, the future we’ll ensure comes true,
Starting from the present that together we’ve created.

I wonder, where will we live when we move together?
Will it be Argentina, Philippines, elsewhere altogether?
I honestly don’t mind as long as we become one forever.

What will our jobs be? That’s still unsure, I dare say.
Will we have kids or make life a paradise just for two?
Even if we ponder on it, we don’t need an answer today.

Imagine this, we wake up next to each other, I bring you breakfast,
And we spend the morning lost into each other’s natural perfume.
We can take things slow and enjoy them, without need to go too fast.

We can travel across the world, use our savings for our enjoyment,
Bathe together in the prettiest hotel we could afford, visit places,
Take pictures, fill albums, do things seen unfitting for an avoidant.

Frankly, the long-distance between us is almost invisible,
At least for me, maybe because we chat and call daily.
Things will be rough, I’m sure, but our bond is indivisible.

I’ll be here to comfort you in any way I can whenever you need,
Just as you’ve shown to be for me when I felt my world falling down.
We’ll both manage to graduate in the end as we aim to succeed.

Another thing to think about is… how will our wedding go down?
Be it by church or civil, my answer is yes, it’ll be our happiest day.
Canon in D could play as you dazzle us all with your white gown.

Can’t wait for the dates we’ll have, the picnics, movie nights,
The walks through the park and the sandy beach shores,
The cuddles in winter, and the kisses under dim lights.

I can imagine us shedding tears of sadness and joy,
Fighting against the tides of destiny hand-in-hand
So nobody steals from us the love story we came to enjoy.

Would we have pets, a garden, a big house, a shack?
WIll our families support us or be against us?
The future can’t be foretold, for it’s not white nor black…

So I think, murmur to myself, why worry for those things?
Why overthink when none of that has happened yet?
We can both stay grounded while giving our dreams some wings.

Patience and communication are vital virtues we must have both
To withstand the piercing sands of the all-consuming father of time,
Who’ll also grant us, if we come on top, a chance for growth.

I’m guessing that at some point this letter became redundant
And started paraphrasing itself in an attempt to make things clear,
Unaware that meaning must be austere to hit right, not abundant.

With all that said, I take my leave from this improvised letter,
Which I’ll send to you as soon as I’m done polishing it thoroughly.
I intend to send a more entertaining piece once I learn to do it better.

With love, to my langga,
Nick.

Grogginess, love,
and the future I dreamt of

Name me a better sound than her voice upon waking,
A better feeling than falling in love with the first morning call.
Sometimes so much affection for her gets my heart aching,
For, contrary to what I’d expect, it's nothing short of small.

We meet like the sun and moon, only once or twice a day,
So each moment we can spend together becomes valuable,
An opportunity to light the spark of the decade, in a way,
To claim this page of history as our own, make it palpable.

Soon I’ll be the one to run my hand across her face
As the sun lights up our room through the windows.
I’ll stroke her hair, kiss her, rejoice in her innate grace,
And whisper, “Tú, amor mío, tienes los ojos más lindos…”

I find myself unable to describe with exactitude how it is
To feel you’re melting for someone; it’s so pleasant, funny.
And this is when I call her up early to study for her quiz;
Be it a daily occurrence, I’d turn into the sweetest honey.

Those sheets that once were empty, too spacy for one,
Will feel just right when our arms wrap around each other.
She’s the reason I stood up when I felt I could no longer run.
One simple “I really like you” lit a fire that won’t ever smother.

Threadbare Heart

My love, I wonder how you feel, knowing I've been here before,

Playing these games, betting my threadbare heart for a dream.

If I were you, I'd feel disgusted, disappointed, and much more...

Yet you're still here, cheering me on as I try to swim upstream.

There's something I wish to let out of my chest today, my dear,

And it's that—I want to experience my first everything with you.

My first kiss, first slow-burn romance, and I'm being sincere

When I say you're my first girlfriend, for with you I started anew.

Y'see, the past can't be erased; my heart's threadbare, overused...

But I still am pure in body for the one I will love forevermore,

And my soul can still infuse into yours the love that I mused,

As I believe that none of us will suffer as we might've before.

The loves I had were harsh lessons a naive me had to learn, for

Giving away freely his heart for a drop of affection, attention—

Needs that my present self has come to understand more,

So that he could love someone without delusional pretention.

Back then, I used words I didn't know the true meaning of,

Words that today I tell you, knowing why I say them to you,

For I matured, and that's why I consider you to be my first love,

My first girlfriend too—the one I consciously chose to pursue.

There are two selves in me, divided by what I came to see:

The boy who chased a feeling, unsure of what love was,

And the man who learned, and chose to give himself wholly

To you—loving who you are, with reason and with cause.

So understand this clearly: you are not just anyone to me.

Even if you never doubted, I needed to make it clear—

You're the only one my soul wants, the only one I see,

The one I’ll cherish, protect, and forever hold near.

Until death does us part, Charm, I will give you my best,

Striving to grow as your partner, your companion through life;

Learning from every mistake I’ve made and every test—

I’m devoted to your happiness, and one day, to call you my wife.

To my in-laws to-be

 Greetings, parents of whom I hold dear,

I hope this prototype of a letter finds you well.

A thousand questions you may have, I can tell,

So I’ll answer them to make my intentions clear.

My name is Nick Quinn, I'm twenty one years old,

I study engineering though my passion lies in writing,

For a long time I've considered knowledge to be enticing.

Reason for which your daughter's mind I seem to behold.

Charm is a woman who fascinated me from the start

For her passion for unraveling the secrets of the human heart,

Which is followed by her past attempts to make her own art,

Though she'd not define herself as such, I think she's smart.

My intentions with her are as pure as they can be nowadays,

I intend to build a life by her side which we both can enjoy

With the respect and love that implies, for I see her as no toy,

I'm not one to lie nor make promises that vanish in the haze.

I come from a modest background, my manners are refined,

I'm not picky nor a carper, and authenticity is my first policy,

I'm caring, neat, adaptive and often intend to act with courtesy,

And I'd never harm, in any way, to your daughter whose heart is kind.

As son of a woman, and sister to one as well

I can understand if you feel jealous or distrustful

But I reassure you I'm neither violent nor lustful

I'm attentive, loyal, and I'd never neglect her if she's unwell.

That said, I'll add why I like Charmelin as much as I do,

On top of being intellectual she's quite sensitive and nice

She's empathetic, diligent, strong, gives good advice,

She's creative, and supportive also, even if she’s feeling blue.

I know she doesn't like to be praised, but she deserves it,

Your daughter to whom I've grown to love so devotedly

Is a meaningful mix of complexity, femininity, and potentiality,

And there's nobody else to whom I'd rather commit.

I've written this to ease your fears, to introduce myself to you,

To share with you both my Truth and hope that we get along

Someday into the future, maybe, to your family I'd hope to belong,

But for now my focus is in building the future we both pursue.

With warm regards,

 Nick Quinn.

Virtues and Relationships

Patience, one of the most important virtues to have,

It is said to help keep the inherent flow of

Important events, and I agree, for it can be useful

To keep a relationship healthy and full of love.

Similarly, Trust, though not a virtue as trustworthiness is,

Is needed to reap and enjoy the fruits of a relationship.

For it is a cooperative work to sow nutritious seeds

That’ll strengthen them both during life’s vast trip.

Forget not about Understanding, and Listening.

Everybody wants to be heard, but who listens?

Who is willing to patiently try and understand

The inner-workings of life’s complex systems?

In a loving bond, your partner’s thoughts matter,

Their words matter too, they’re individuals themselves,

But that’s an “obvious” statement that falls into deaf ears

Oftentimes, for many think solely about themselves.

One must be careful not to overdo things nearly always.

Overthinking leads to doubt, overtalk is annoying,

Overlistening leads to saying nothing, and so on,

A bond exposed to these often eventually decays.

I’m not saying there’s no turning back, just that

One must choose their actions thoughtfully,

For sometimes instinct alone or carelessness

May result in conversations ending awfully.

Many times I wish I knew so beforehand.

Mistakes were made where consciousness lacked.

If only I hadn’t let the voices speak through me,

Maybe many of my bonds would’ve been left intact.

 

Easter Day

Happy Easter to my beloved Charmelin from overseas,

The first of a thousand in our growing relationship.

As you know already, to my heart you hold the keys,

And to you alone I've chosen to love and worship.

But today came the day we celebrate our progress

In the way we know best: spending time together

Or merely exchanging our art, with such finesse,

That makes both of our hearts feel as light as feathers.

With conviction I say, I'm yours till death do us part.

May this Easter bless our bonds, paths, and oaths

So that life's ups and downs never get to tear us apart,

As if the Moirae themselves dressed us in strong clothes.

Let Baldr grant us strength, and unwavering determination,

So that the lilies of our garden survive the winters of life

And that if it ever came true, those dreams of reincarnation,

We return to each other in all lives as husband and wife.

I may not be able to pamper you with sweets today,

But I have this, and genuine love to gift you in return—

Both things that will last you more than a single day,

For once lit by your affection, they shall forever burn.

You charmed me with your way of carrying yourself,

With your way of expressing those feelings you hide.

One day what we wrote will rest in our home's bookshelf

And we'll grow old with the pride of staying side by side.

Circumstances

By circumstances out of our control, our differences
The tale we’ve sworn would last came to an abrupt end;
It couldn’t be, couldn’t stand the many deliverances—
Our bond that once burnt, from the ashes couldn’t transcend.

The undefined time of our separation killed what was left;
When the flame drowned, so did we on this barren wasteland.
I understand you may feel we were victims to some theft,
Though truth is, indifference is what dug it down Time’s sand.

The severance of our red string hurt—I know, we both do;
I don’t hate you, nor you me (hopefully), it’s just how it went.
Not all stories are meant to end well, and that we both knew;
Situational love doesn’t last long—it bleeds out in discontent.