rainbow-colored lollipop

I'm too old for crushes. at my age, i should have outgrown the silent staring from a distance, longing for the beautiful fucked up person tragically not mine to take. but every saturday afternoon, i find myself gushing over a professor at my grad school. it is hard to miss him in the halls when he is about almost 6 feet tall and his gait has that casual, boyish character. he is twice my age and holds a respectable position in government yet, something in the way he pouts his mouth when waiting for a student to answer his question or when poring over a reference tells me a boy is still in there somewhere. not that i'm looking for a boy. a man is what i need. but something in him makes me wonder what if i hold his gaze when we meet in the hall?

i stand just outside his classroom, looking at him through the sliver of glass on the door. i must have been smiling or my eyes might have reflected too much naughtiness that my most practical friend exclaimed, "but you have a boyfriend!" i looked at her and told her to glance at him and see if he's not sexy at all. she looked at him and then at me, smiled like a kid given a rainbow-colored gigantic lollipop. just as i thought.

the class was boring so i wrote a stupid poem about him. it was fun though, thinking i could fashion it after neruda's tonight i write the saddest lines. nah! what i have are plain nasty thoughts. but for kicks, she told me to post it. so here it is, my 2-minute pancake of a poem. this is the end of me. : ) but do not judge, this is just me gushing.

within four inches of space
your face confined
at an oblique angle
your eyes glisten
your lips pout-
an old joke revived in your head.

a hand in your pocket
the other offered up-
inviting validation
you stare, silently begging
for the right answer to come.

she catches your glance
and holds it transfixed,
presenting possibilities
and then like the protracted
late afternoon sun ray,
they change hues
before he understands.

ruins of the day

pretty girl sat alone on the table adjacent to ours. i said, he can have her. he can have any girl. he turned to his cappucino. his eyes smiling though he said he's not interested. i laughed and so did our poet friend, exhaling nicotine-laced smoke. and then he, as all guys perhaps are bound to do, looked at the pretty stranger at the corner of his eye. the pretty girl asked for a light. i almost whacked him in the head for not standing up and lighting the ziggy for her. oh well.

we laughed it off and huddled once again, the three of us. friends forever inside our own bubble. the burden of the day quickly went away. our laughter, my very own joy joy pill- better than any pot.

the poet and i talked about how it is that the most important love cannot be counted as more than an unclassified, non-categorized memory. a hazy thought that we agreed on. and he, recipient of unsolicited fussing-over by a harem of the most gorgeous women he'd ever have around, looked at us- contemplative one minute and then commanded us to kiss- the poet and i, in one breath.

he is always like that. you pour out your heart to him and end up finding the ridiculous grit in your pain.

but if love can be tasted, it would be for us, the heightened flavor of the biting caffeine and the nicotine rush that night. only with them can a paper cup hold so much comfort and a stick can unlock the universe. living without them would be like living half a life.

hands

he stroked the palm of my hand like it was the most natural thing to do. and i, reveling at the heightened facts of the little truths that have escaped change, felt it was the most natural thing for him to do. under the table, away from the teasing looks of our common friends who secretly wish we were still together, we rediscovered the contours, the landscapes of our hands. perhaps we were both thinking of the first day we held hands. how, in our youth it was the bravest thing to do. he, driving his pick-up and pushing past 40, held my hand even as he changed gears. he was the love of my youth.

he would send me poetic lines and i would finish the stanza for him. the poems would end with a hanging thought. like everything between us. for him, everything has a profound meaning. a tricylce driver's remark about the full moon is not just a rambling of a suspect lunatic but a revelation of a patch of truth. from across seas, he still holds me captive with his words. he taught me love has to have passion.

the best date i had was with an ex boyfriend. there must be something about teasing each other with subtle hints that there still might be a little left of that devastating attraction before. we talked more than we did before because we were more honest this time. and retrospection builds a friendship better than fumbling through ecstacy, i discovered. he was my first kiss.

we looked at each other from across the room. a perpetual sadness in his eyes. for a fleeting moment, our gaze would say, we'll be ok. that love sometimes is tragic. but this time, i held out my hand to him and caught him by surprise. i smiled but did not look into his eyes. not this close. and though i believe he has always been mine from the beginning of time when fates were forged, i cannot for the life of me stake what is mine. he has chosen duty over me. and everyday hope fades, though love i find, refuses to lose its sting.

she held my hand and at times when the needle bit too painfully, she dug her soft nails into my palms. the tattoo artist gently blew on the spot on my back. she said pain can make another pain go away. the whimsical dragon fly shall remind me that.