Flow

I would have wanted to sing for you tonight
but I know that you wouldn't have wanted that.
There are lines that I will not cross
not only because I concern myself with
feelings that aren't for me
but I'm afraid that in uttering them in melody,
the lines will become streams on my face
for everyone to see.

Have I bathed in your light for so long
that I have forgotten what it means to sing songs
just from my throat and not from my heart
as I did when you listened just before Valentine's?
But I'm glad to forget because within some rhymes
are the breath of souls not to be wasted in show
and to sow sorrow where only joy is deserved.

I saw you look at me.
I saw the question at the back of your mind,
of what you are to do to dam this flow of words
because even if you do not see them, you know
that they flood timelines and other low spaces;
and that many who read them know
that they speak of you.

I saw you walk away, still afraid
of phantoms that were created for me and of me.
And behind your grey shirt, that must have been
meant to say that the Sun won't shine behind
this cloud of ghosts and unpleasant memories,
was an anticipation of how I would fail to deliver
any message that I wanted to send.

Will you pray that this wound you've inflicted
can still mend, if it means that I release my pen
and lay down my hands as if they were bricks
left in a rubble of pieces of myself?

Or will you pray that you will see
that you indeed make me happy
even when you do nothing?