Chasing Your Hand

I often asked you why

between us, I am the one 

to chase your hand, hold it

firmly and not let go.

I never did get a simple note

to help me peer into your mind.

You were enjoying your silence

and my confusion.

It is easier now to catch

your hand as the years piled up,

your steps and gait slowing down.

I just wait for your hand

to hold onto my love, my arm.

Clean As You Go

 

How can I disconnect from a network

of memories stretching across a cubicle,

enclosing time like a fossil buried in one's brain?

In the age of cable-less or wireless,

is it by tapping a smartphone's screen

to cut the signal off, as if cutting an umbilical cord?

On my own now, disconnected,

access-less, after unloading what is left

from the task list on the digital note pad.

I transferred all the remnants and pieces

of thoughts stored in the secure drawer

of my mind to my long-term memory.

I believe in compliance, in integrity,

in office decorum, just like the sign 

'clean as you go' as I exit the glass door

into the world of ‘them’ and ‘me’.

What is Death?

Death is meeting your mama's or papa's eyes
but they do not stare back. They are looking elsewhere.

Death is holding your brother's or sister's hand
after the warmth has left, as if winter season has come.

Death is hiding inside the ICU, news does not flip the door,
and your pulse rate goes faster until death exits the room.

Death is your friend seeing it in the doorway
and he is at a lost whether to choose to cry or say good-bye.

Death is grieving for the lost while everyone else
is merry, and in the mirror, there is only you.

Death is hating good-byes, but the old memories
pour out like a downpour and the loneliness bites you.

This Far

 I am grateful to have the strength

to reach out to your hand and hold it,

to power my legs and knees

while walking leisurely on the beach, sunset-lit.

 

I am thankful to have the clarity

of vision to still witness your smiles,

and with ears sensitive to your laughter

while the sea keeps coming back to our feet.

 

How I love our memory that goes a long way

back from where we began, and every now

and then ask if you still recall the feeling,

the thrill of confession!

 

Oh how we have come this far,

like a precious Chinese bowl with gold

in all its cracks.