You're still a mystery

Maybe I don’t need to understand

Why your love is such a mystery

-Bleachers

October

I have lost count of these tedious tasks

scraping the road of their sheen

food in a favorite hole-in-the-wall

lull of the jeepney taking you home.

But if I ask you, if we could leave these roads

unscraped by our shoes, 

a featureless carinderia, 

a vigorous ride elsewhere? 

Would I exchange them for  an event 

without the tenor of  your laugh? 

The abyss in your voice?

In every you 

I said

there is an imagined version

laughing, speaking to a stranger

elsewhere,

but oftentimes, you are just here. 

Simply. 

The step on the stairs,       in the dark

The probe in the pocket,       an object

The recall when already outside,       a forgotten household chore

The favorite song,      one no longer listens to

A cross 

to my heart,

the other end 

to a pinky promise. 

It is anybody’s guess, 

who we will see when we pass

this street, a year later.

Oh, how time always tells us things.