Sometimes

at twilight

I dream of you

And of your effervescent presence

How we once were,

How we are now

Separated by distance, space

And time. Always time.

Life, it seems, takes joy

In playing cruel jokes at us

I loved you when we were together then

But you could hardly conceive the words

You love me in my absence

But I now belong to another

When will the games end?

I often wonder

So that life may spring anew

For both of us

That infinitely, we may both find

Solace in the arms of life

For you are but a dream now,

Lovely to behold, far beyond my grasp

If I try to reach for you,

Your essence dissipates into thin air

And like clockwork,

I awake and it is dawn.

My life is small
a tender thing
with teeth.

Sometimes it dances
with other tender things.
Sometimes it bites.

Its hands are mittens
buried in snow.
Its feet are hollow.

I'd say it is a dwarf
wandering in fields
of mud and clay.

I wish my life
were grander and kinder,
would cuddle.

It hasn't been tamed,
caged and afraid.
It's not hard to catch

though hell will be paid
if one attempted to keep.
It flies up to dreams.

It's larger than the world
itself and it snarls.
My life, in my hands.

Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

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He sits, quietly, listening to the rest of them ramble. Talking, catching each other up on their individual lives, laughing and telling jokes, perhaps too private for him to appreciate. But he sits.

He waits for the drinking glass to make its round-trip back to him. He anticipates his shot and a half of cheap vodka: his simple joy in these moments of solitude in this crowded room.


If only he spoke their language.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

Of Love and Chance and everything in between (In honor of happy hearts day)

I have often been characterized

as being faint of heart

not because of my spindly stature

and measly weight

but more for not leaving much to chance

I stocked up on the essentials early on:

went to a good school, got good grades,

furthered my education to ensure a good life.

I provided for the needs of the ones I loved and cared for

but wasn't really too big on the L word.

I didn't believe in its profundity then.

All I saw was a predisposition for pain,

for disappointment, for incalculable risks.

I relied more on rationality than anything else,

thinking through every possible thing in my head

leading to some lost opportunities,

some wounded pride and more essential

small parts of me lost to chance.

But love, as I have learned,

should not be a shackle that binds you.

It does not overcome all the troubles

the world most frequently has to offer.

It is not an emulsifying agent that will make us

better able to go against the world.

It helps us become better than what we are now.

It's paradoxical nature has escaped the tenets

of logical thinking for as long as I can remember,

but I understand it now. At least I think I do.

For all the craziness in this mortal world,

I feel safest in love's sweet embrace.

The more you love me, the more I am able

to fully comprehend what love is and isn't --

at the same time--it's about boundaries

and chance and adversity and letting go.

'Cause its when you leave things to chance

that life comes right back

and surprises you with something better.

Words fail me often,

but I'll try to say it the best way I know how:

I love you, babe.

There was an execution tonight
On the hood of a jeepney.
It was of a crazy woman.

There was no blood, just eyeballs
and entrails wound around two wheels.
Maybe a fingernail embedded in rubber.

That was all. No one cried
though there was plenty of water
Under the bridge.

The executioner didn't even blink when the scyth fell.
Maybe it was just as well.
The screech of reprieve didn't come.

Tomorrow the platform will be
shining stainless again. The doors
keep revolving. The wheels keep turning.

The road goes on for the riders
and the damned sitting on wooden benches,
patient for their turn at getting home.


Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng

If only

if only i'd met you sooner

i wouldn't be as jaded as i am today

i wish i could turn back the hands of time

to a time and place

when i had half the experiences i have now

and met you then,

my innocence would have been your glory

my childlike curiosity would have been

more easily sated and subdued than it is now

this thirst for adventure would not have been so curbed

nor skewed to irrational extremes

if only i'd known you sooner

my life would have been less complicated

by the savage twists and turns,

it would have been less riddled

with ruts and scars strewn here and about

i would have been more perfect

more suited for your kind of living,

your kind of loving

but things are irrevocably what they are

i am the product of things

that have come to pass,

made all the more complex

by what i've been through

yet everything that has happened

has brought me infinitely closer

to where i am now,

to where you are,

to where we now rest

and i wouldn't have had it any other way.