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. 

 

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.