How the Journey Ends

Transitive. We have always been
caught between how it was to love and be loved.
Overcast the overtones of these things
that compromise us, we remain one, whole, loving.
Because there is something more to this parting,
I'd like you to keep me as a photograph tucked under your pillow.
"Lest we forget," I'd tell you. But we won't forget.
Our memory crisp as paper, clear as light.
We pronounce ourselves beyond the memories of your memento.
Every once in a while, I ponder what wonder
holding your hand brings, and the phone rings,
you're on the other side. Reach for me from where you stand,
dig down deep the depths of my foreign longing,
speak to me in the clarity that you are.
On days like this, I wish I could be the cloud
by which you sit and drift by
as you watch the earth expand beneath you.
Absconding reality, you say, you fly away
to this cold and faraway place where I am.
Every time the journey ends like this:
the homeless romantic in me
finds his way home to your heart.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, April 2011)