The Twig and the Boy (Ang Suwi at ang Binatilyo)
I can’t sing
And even if I can, I don’t have the right words
And if I have the right words
Would you hear it?
I can’t paint
And even if I can, I don’t have the right colors
And if I have the right colors
Would you see it?
If I can express this emotion
That the person inside me feel for you
Would the person inside you feel it?
How can one put into words
Or find the right melody
Or even draw on a paper
The intricacies
Of a bitter-sweet, one sided memory?
Using statements that only serve to misrepresent
Adjectives at best only approximate
Of undying emotions, flavored by the present
From a time long gone
Like a tree telling a story
Of pains, secrets and splendor of what once was
And a man who only remembers the twig
And the tree who only remembers the boy
You, are not who you were
I, am not who I was
Yet who we were, once was
Now, live in solitude, locked up inside us
And though desperately trying to reach out for one another
They will never meet again
And for their story, let this be my last entreaty
That though we remember separately
And only hear the echos of each other’s past
Together, the you and I of today
Let’s celebrate in friendship
The sublimity of all that once was
And when the time comes
With my last breath
I would have but one last prayer
That when we are both no more
That the universe remembers for us
And piece together, what we could not
The memory of the tree and the man
The twig and the boy
You and I, who were, once was
