i know you so well somewhere.
i know you like the back of my hand
and i know you in every breath,
in every gentle stroke,
in every trinket on the table from a rundown store
near the mountains.

i remember you so well somewhere,
like a loved, well-preserved memory of a kind face,
a wilted flower in between the pages
of my twelve-year-old shabby journal,
a bookmark in a dying age,
a letter with its faded blue ink pen,
stolen from my mother’s purse.

and i long for you somewhere.
in the middle of the night,
in every good meal,
in every story i get to tell,
in every child i will not bear,
in the marriage that i will neither have nor lose,
in the gray hairs i will never witness,
and in the life that i will never live with you.

i adore you so well somewhere,
in your process of becoming,
in my process of holding this
ugly,
fragile,
and desperate yearning.

there is love in here somewhere.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in the Banaag Diwa 2025: Nasaag Literary Folio of Atenews.