This Is Why I Wrote Poems About You

We first met when I was sixteen. I was cruising the life I thought I wanted, without being tangled with the mess you were. I couldn’t remember exactly how your eyes looked, or the way you clothed yourself and combed your hair. I couldn’t remember how I felt when I heard you talk, or sing, or whisper. I didn’t know anything about you beyond your name.

I didn’t know what colors you like; what kind of girl turns you on; what keeps you up at night; and what worries you by day. I know nothing about you, until one day I woke up and found out that our worlds collided. As cliché as it may sound, there is no better way to say it, because suddenly everywhere I look, I see you.

We were both having monsters to battle with on our own, but we were used to building walls and breaking bridges because we didn’t want the world to see that we are damsels in distress. We both wore red capes on our backs, saving strangers from their monsters, but we couldn’t save ourselves.

Until, I realized I needed you. I wanted you. I was a shipwreck and my mind is a ranging ocean. You were my safe harbor. So one day, I decided to hang my red cape in one of the corners of the room, and gave myself the favor of breaking my walls for you.

You turn from nobody to somebody to my everything. We had countless nights for ourselves to talk about things that we don’t usually talk to with anybody else. We walked under the rain, stars, moon and sunshine, sometimes with our shoulders brushing or fingers intertwining with each other. We go on trips on strange and poetic places; beaches with angry waves crashing its shores, meadows wet from the summer rain, and empty rooms that echoed our voices. We shared about who we liked and why we liked them. I told you about my first love and you told me about the girl you’re crazy in love with. If I recalled properly, we also talked about loving each other, or probably I just had a little too much drink that night.

You probably loved me at one point, or at least liked me, or perhaps was just good at pretending that you did. While I was loving you, you made the best poet out of me. I spent my days and nights crafting pieces about you. I gave you the best gift a poet can give to the man she loves; immortality. I concealed you in words and phrases with rhymes and rhythms. Strangers actually loved my pieces and I knew they had fallen in love with you as much as I did. Your memory will live on in strangers’ hearts and they will know of you as a beautiful story.

I have poems about the first time my heart skipped a beat for you; about the spaces between our lips; about the phone calls and text messages; about the random times we were together; about how you laughed and smiled; about how you kept your secrets that intrigued me; about your lies; about the days when you pretended you loved me; about the times you called on me and I was there for you.

About the times I called on you and you were there for me; about the times there was just silence between us; about our secrets we dared not to share; about who are our lovers were; about how your eyes sparkled when you talked about a girl you like; about flirting because we got nothing else to do; about telling me I was special to you; about me being in love you; and about you being in love with one girl after another.

I thought you hanged your red cape too, but in the end, I knew you never planned in breaking your walls for me. As for me, I realized you were more of the damsel in distress than I was, because it takes courage and strength to be naked in front of somebody you love. It’s a kind of nakedness where you have your clothes on, but they see your fears, worries, joys, weaknesses, strengths and all else that made you up. You know that they have the power to love you, hate you, break you or make you, but you were unafraid to have that nakedness because you love them.

Also, I am sorry because I felt that I had loved you more as a poet than as a person, because I craved for moments with you, so that I’d have pieces to fill my notebooks. I may go on through nights in despair when you’re not speaking to me, but all of a sudden, I’ll just wake up and forget about it, until the next time you’ll say hello to me. That’s why you don’t have to feel sorry for leaving me and forgetting about me.

You have to know that I won’t write poems for you forever. Perhaps one day, maybe tomorrow, without our consent, I’ll meet another man and love him as I had loved you, and I will write poems for him as I did for you. I’ll do it over and over again, until I will find that one man who will give me the difficulty of finding the right words to tell him I love him.