Showing posts with label goodbye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodbye. Show all posts

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Handle with Care

by E. Wong
for Plam-Plam, freshly-dumped.
(Peace!)



Handle with care this box I wrapped in fancy paper
for inside is my heart—Take it, please, it’s for you,
I had plucked it off my chest, like precious
oyster shucked—

                                   Or do you want oyster instead?
Let’s call the waiter then so he could read to us the French
on the menu. (Perhaps he could read you too?) My head
is splitting, I can’t find the meaning of this film-like scene,
oh, that’s right—(is tonight’s the night?)—there’s nothing
in my head—for I had lost my mind, five seconds ago—
Or five years has it been? And yet we have not—Still,
we are not. Now I smell coffee—

                                                               Let me save you
from this dire indecisiveness in choosing what to order
by having caffeine—yes—and with milk, not cream.
And mister waiter, please, no sugar for this lovely lady,
for I have provided her all the sweetness in the world.
So, my beloved, did you like the movie?—(Did you even
like me?)—Here comes waiter with our coffee. Mine’s
Espresso, sugar-free—(for I have given you all)—Look
at my drink—so black and so pure. And yours,
Cappuccino it is—classic and tasty, yet so frothy
that everyone here could drink from your cup
and still has froth left to line your lips—(oh, baby,
I so want to kiss you now)—but first, I have to go
down on one knee and give you this box—

(And the candlelight burns
                                                      burns
                                                                       burns out.)

The lobster on the next table is no longer lobster,
and the champagne bottles—they’re just bottles now...

Oh, baby, are you refusing this box? Or what’s inside it?
Won’t you at least take a peek?—
                  
                See how perfectly red it is!—

                             How tirelessly it bleeds for you!—

I have loved you longer than all my patience would endure,
yet you, my sweet goddess, won’t accept the greatest
thing a man could ever give?—

                                                 And so, won't you please
handle with care this box I wrapped in fancy paper,
for inside is my heart—(Perhaps it’s best for us,
perhaps we’re done)—But take it, I beg you, take it,
for you don't have one.

_________________________________________________
Read also:
Prayer, Time, The Village II, or Irony.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Feel in the blanks

by E. Wong Martin



Dear _________,

Tonight, on this first night right after Valentine's day, I’d like to tell you that my _______ soars even higher despite not having any memory of being with you yesterday. I hope you had a good one; did someone special give you ________ or chocolates, perhaps?

Well, I have nothing to give you but my _______ which are smooth and eternal. You cannot touch them but you can feel them on and under your ________. You may post them on your _________ or copy them on paper, and you may even memorise them. My words are your words, so please own them like the pillow in your pillowcase.

My beloved ________, forgive me that I could only offer you my stories. You may even call them lies, but I would make them beautiful ones. Who needs truth in this world, anyway, when you are all I think of and talk about? You, my dear ________, are both my sweetest lie and greatest truth.

Please do not believe those movies and soap operas which impose that for love to be “great” it must be measured by time and _______ and tragedies. For though I only met you ________ ago, I know you like I know the taste of water. I know you so well, yet there’s a whole lifetime ahead waiting for us to learn more ________. Won’t you teach me the ways of your people, you pretty ________ from that enchanted island of lovers?

Do you still remember the first time we kissed? It was like—pardon the cliché—fireworks! I hope you can still taste the memory. A kiss is as _______ as our fingerprints. I kissed you, and you kissed me, as if God’s most fascinating creations were not men and women but our lips and tongues. Please do not ______ our kiss, for it is as sacred as the moon, as shining as the midnight stars.

Love is not ______ without the lovers. And love is not blind--we are. So please do not resist this wonderful blindness. Do not betray your heart, my sweet ________. What is the point of all life, if we would not face unexpected deaths such as falling in love?

But if I had to cut this tree down before the seed even germinates, then so be it. Please, my gentle _________, always, always keep safe. And take utmost care of your sunshiny smile and your camellian eyelashes and your ____________ on your left shoulder which I loved to caress.

Reach for those big dreams of yours which endeared you to me even more, but which I cannot be a part of. Someday, when you have climbed the highest of mountains, look far deep onto the valley. Somewhere I’d be there, a tiny speck in the distance looking up to you with immeasurable happiness. For you.

My dear ________, I love you like I love the rain pouring on a summer day. And it hurts so much not that you don’t, or can’t, love me back, but that you don’t, and won’t, know how much I am in love with you.

Though you’re not mine, I’m yours,

______________
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Saturday, January 15, 2011

No such thing as bad bye

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This particular stream of words and thoughts will not use the word love (well, just this once) for I am definitely not in love with you (okay, make that twice). I want you to know, however, that you are special to me even though it could never have been obvious—well, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t meant to be, not that I would have wanted anything to mean something. Now, let me tell you that when I use indefinite pronouns at least twice in a single sentence, such as what I just did, that means something special. Oh, I already said you are special to me. Well, you are special, just as you are, without any reference to me. And you know you are. And I told you that. Not per se, but you know what I mean. I’m glad I did, at least at the very last time which is, in fact, an irony for a first moment. Some things begin last. Well, isn’t that a swell oxymoron! Or was I a moron for not having taken chances?

My thoughts are as mixed up and muddied and confusing like that 13th zodiac sign brouhaha, but I want you to know that if things worked out differently, if I had behaved better (not that I had misbehaved or anything), I would have really wanted you. I am listening to P_____ N______’s albums right now without looking at the titles of songs. I love the rustic tunes, but I never get to know their titles, really. Maybe his music could work as a metaphor for you: I don’t look, I just listen. Sometimes I would shut my eyes and just listen. To you. And I would feel your soul, one that’s so gentle I would think it was mine to bathe in forever. Well, that f word’s an exaggeration. Just like, er, love. So I would just swim in your reverie, without you knowing it. Sometimes hear, but always listen. To you. Even if you were not there. As you are now.

If P___ N____ doesn't work for you, let me just sing in the similar laidback fashion of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová: I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that...

Hey, do you ever think of me? Even ill thoughts would be fine, haha. Now I think of what could have been. Poets of the world, why does “hi” rhyme with “bye”? I’ve said good bye, haven’t I? And yes, it’s a good one.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Farewell to the Lounge

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Goodbye, ABS-CBN Drama Lounge (2005-2010), our sweet second home and faithful keeper of our corporate angsts, personal dark (oftentimes lustful) secrets, and of course, the storylines of our writerly lives.
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Monologue at the terminal

by Ewong

Maybe it's best this way.
I'm letting go,
and I'm going.
Now you are a painting,
and I need some distance--
some perspective--
to observe your whole being,
to contemplate you
without seeing you.
And only from afar
can I relish and realize
how beautiful you really are.

"I Can Dream" (oil on canvas) by Ivan Chan.