Tell-alls of a telltale heartache

Word by Philip Robert Alaban

Artwork by Georvin Delotavo

i – salutations facing how i felt about you left me gasping for air because falling into your brown eyes meant falling out of his and that was something i never braced myself for

ii – earthbound, heavensent there is excitement in blinking only to have an entirely new life laid out before you

euphoria in sleeping with only darkness above, sheets below, and nightlight unplugged

and wonder in falling head over heels for astronauts in space when you’re bound to earth by your feet

iii – midpoint i hope you feel the magnitude of what i feel for the one person who matters to me the most

- you. iv – entranced in transience faces creep through the pages of your narrative. introduced fleetingly, and just as quick to take their leave

when will you ever realize that true love is merely all of you and none of everyone else.

v – ebb and flow time will pass and i may love many faces other than yours but as i hold them close and they whisper, “will you remember me?’’ in a heartbeat, i’ll say, “yes” but the only one i will never forget is the one who never asked me to.

vi – musings i’ve long been convinced that love isn’t the only thing we needed to make it work

but as we laughed as if we were the only people in the world, stayed awake until midnight as if, dawn would never come talked endlessly as if keeping quiet was a foreign concept, and wished for good things as if we’ve never been through the bad, i hoped.

and that spark, that flicker, that flame led me to believe

that maybe you were hoping too.

vii – life’s lessons learn to soak in your loneliness like how you bathe under starlight until solitude is sewn into your soul and i promise you that the absence of

another will never reap the same sorrow again.

viii – changes change us you grew out your hair since the last time we met even the way your lips curl to smile seem the slightest bit different

forgetting should be easy now that you’ve gone again but your eyes of brown, are just as I remember them

ix – nevermore love, my undying love, how long do i wait for the road is hard, winding, and long so please come home before it’s too late.

x – not goodbye, never goodbye. i’ve loved you even before i even knew, but life told us – keeps telling us –to just sit tight and wait.

and so we shall.