On a Wednesday

by Ryan Jensen P. Parani

“A poem that proves I am THAT poet and no person can ever steal my poems from me because I remember
everything that happened. If someone tries to steal these words from me and I'm making myself known to them.”

I met you on a Wednesday celebrating Formator’s Day

The greatest lessons are learned through experiences and you're no exception
All this time you've been my inexplicable explanation
You taught me love, grief, and redemption, some things I didn't know yesterday

The greatest love stories were over after the published tabloids in 1948
When I rode with you in the jeepney on the tenth of October,
I quite couldn't tell if it was my karma or was brought by fate
So I spent the last five months loving you while sober

On that same fated day, I came back from my wars

From self-sabotaging melodrama, I saw your figure not from afar
So I got lost in your pretty eyes as they held me together
I thought it was heaven's pity on me and gave me forever

I spent the last 100 days before Christmas wondering if you'll be my present
I got a hundred speeches out at my unspoken words I unsent
From all the people I couldn't find myself in before you became my present
Thought you'd be the one after many failures but I have this poem I must present

You were my past — my present

I spent lots of my days finding where my love went
I held your numbers as if they were mine,
I told you my name but you tread through it like a landmine

So I spent the last five months, learning to unlove your presence, but you were yesterday in time
I know my past, and I knew when love wouldn't last
But even through all the failed attempts of my misery pages that turned to dust
You know even I couldn't answer the question
“Until when would I love you, until when would it last?”

I wrote a hundred stanzas and a couple dozen poems finding the right words
For the right poem, for the right time
I never had someone fight for me but my words are my swords
And if it's fated it's meant to be, here's a poem of you that rhymes

I can never learn how I'd teach you to give me a piece of your mind
Nor could I ever teach you how to read my lines
And so, I sent you a messenger of my poetry on a Wednesday
It was all about the way I love and grieved into my brokenness that lingers today

I wrote you poems that once lived with me

Yet it died when it came to you,
And it died with me as I realized what my words meant to you
I retired as your poet when you can't understand what my words meant to you

I broke myself three times for you and all you do is break yourself for your own ghost
You had your got-away, but I wonder if I just lost the love of my life,
So here's a champagne toast, for all the love that turned into ghosts
Us losers are the one that loves the most,

And even if my memory of what happened fades away, we'll always remember
I am a poet and have no muse in my love fever
You were once my muse yet you lost your only poet
I lost my only muse but I will always be a poet

We'd meet past one another where no one would know how we yearn for love in these days
In steep stairways, newly painted courts, and caved hallways
We broke ourselves for the wrong people here in Wonderland
And you'd know my poems you'll never understand

Take me back to the 26th of October

Back on that Wednesday, before I asked when this heartbreak was over
In your gray month of ghosts,
You were not exempt from my cynical roasts

You were once my favorite ghost in this town

And our favorite pastime is breaking down
The only thing we share in this town
When we break ourselves for those no longer in our narratives, for the people not around

And on this Wednesday, we go round and round

We get to finish the chapter this Wednesday, I finally stood my ground
As I tell these people around when I once believed we were duty-bound
And that ends today when my love was finally found

My heart to you is no longer bound

And my poetry will always be mine