Shards

.

“You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough.”

There’s a mirror that cracks, shard by shard as it glows its last light, and it forms to ashes and green fields and wind and water and it morphs and glides to grayish blue glows and becomes life all over again.

Such was the allure of her eyes, her pretty, pretty eyes.

In a room secluded, only bathed by shadows and dark light, he reflects with a smile he could only dream to unlearn. Bound with a tightness that is never painful enough (always never painful enough), covered in gaps that could never be cinched by time, he remembers, always remembers, with quaint clarity, how eyes like hers could once haunt him in weeks.

And in a snap, he silently growls how he could never have that kind of glow, that kind of life, that kind of fire. Her passion. Her love.

For he rarely gave and always took, and takes what he always wants he did, would, always will. The fox crawls and silently creeps in a woman’s heart, grabs it by the pulsing heat and shreds it like panels screeching to dust. And always, he smiles, because he gets what he wants and has gotten away with it.

Until now. Until she came along.

Yet, he could not (could never) leave her.

Smile wider now, my dear. 

He had left another one behind, even for days on end, only that he could catch more of that life, of that fire in her. He had thought then, that it was that orb's doing, but as he continually looked at her with focused intent, he began to see with alarming quality that it was her soul that had captured it, and not the other way around.

And so he began to follow her, observe her, like an unwilling fox transfixed with such innocent prey.

Still, he never had (never never never) her. Could never. Should never. 

(He never knew the difference.)

So beneath it all, over and beyond the stars, the shards, the pain, the agony, the loneliness, he smiles the only smile he learns. It had been the only smile he has polished to perfection ever since he was born in a time worth forgetting.

If he had been any other man, he could’ve gotten anything he wanted, could’ve taken anything he needed. At certain times in his life, he believed in such a lie it filled him with greed to have more.

But he is a fox who continues to fly, and glide he does among grains borne of regret and listlessness and dreams he should have followed instead. But he instantly forgets everything because he lives for a day, never forever, never that long.

And so he left her behind, not once looking back.

This is the story of his heart, and what’s left of it.




(an incomplete piece that I could not get to finish. blame my muse for leaving me.)
.

Iris

.


The iris will never look as lovely as when it knows that one is grieving.

When I have long given up on the fact that I might still find the one I've been looking for all this time, I somewhat knew that the irises were blooming lovingly at a very surprising rate, milking my grief for what it's worth. (It wasn't worth a lot).

The same happens to a tragic love story that happened way back in the post-medieval times, when a samurai, in his blinded rage to protect the one he has learned to love, unintentionally shot his sword through his lover's chest, killing her instantly.

It was a rain of blood, so much blood, they say.

And the irises had been the prettiest for the next seasons after that, which still left a lot of people marveling why.

The wounds that I keep inside are feeding the irises alive, more alive than I have ever been. And though I know that someone out there is happily wondering at such beauty of nature, I can't help but be selfish, thinking who would ever sacrifice his or her own happiness to make mine real.

We are all irises in our own right—we all should know that.

But first, I have to find a way that would make me believe that loving you from afar will already be enough, or the irises will continue to strive.


.

Mansanitas

.


I once pondered on the beauty of a profession, probably because someone dear to me has asked it for so many times in so many ways for the past years.

And for so many times and in so many ways, I've tried to answer her. Most of my answers were half-baked, though, probably because I was also not too happy with the way things have progressed in my profession.

(At that time, I blandly called profession a 'job sans happiness'.)

The breakthrough came today, at 5:02 PM, as I looked beyond my office window with my office mate, marveling at a mansanitas tree.

Do you know that a mansanitas does not grow that easily? my office mate shares. I tilted my head towards her direction, silently telling her I was listening.

A mansanitas tree does not grow from its seeds. Neither does it grow from its fruit. And it simply cannot grow from its cuttings, although its wood is of fine quality.

The mansanitas fruit has to be eaten by a specific bat species first, and only from this bat's 'poo-poo' can a mansanitas land on the earth and multiply.

This is why you should always protect any mansanitas tree that you see; after all, the bats are getting hunted because people always mistake them for the dark arts simply because they are nocturnal, she adds, as we both looked wistfully at the tree, which I now stare with different eyes.

Things are usually taken at face value, especially in this day and age where life passes you by in a snap that it leaves you less time to appreciate it.

So try to pause, and try to look at the things around you, discover it once more. Relearn it. Explore it. Until it becomes an entirely different thing altogether because you tried to understand it in a way that only your heart and mind combined can.




That is why I believe I am blessed when I can experience learning and exploring new things out of something so common in every day of my life.

This is the beauty of my profession. What is yours?


.