At Least This Planet Has You
by Maria Cathrina Aquino
Ever since you became my universe,
I don’t mind even if it rains forever;
Because I know that the flowers will grow after,
Through these cracks in my heart;
They will only remind me that everything does go
And there’s a certain relief in that,
Knowing that this melancholy will pass too.
“Where’s my light?” I ask myself in the midst of the darkness,
But my moonchild, after the clock strikes on the end of eternity,
You have stayed with me during the darkest of nights.
I, too, wish there was a better word than “love”, but there isn’t.
Still, I hope you know that when all of me begins rotting,
It was you, who entered like light,
And brought me back to life.
These people have a certain version of me created in their mind,
I don’t know how to tell them that a long time ago, it had died.
That I had failed to take care of myself,
All of me simply has faded away, like a plant never watered on a shelf.
These repeats over and over again in my head,
Like a never-ending record, I dread.
My heart is heavy and everything seems to be weighing me down,
Making me think that I might just crumble,
Falling, when this solid ground splits open and I drown.
But all of these emotions of trepidation,
Don’t come close to the way you make me feel.
Because you have told me in whispers of affirmation,
That loving myself is the only way I can love and heal.
You sing about love eroding all your edges,
And I say, your love is what sharpened mine;
I’ll keep my promise like a pledge,
Living in this cruel and barbarous world with you, my divine.
When you said that you would like to be a pebble,
I can’t guarantee the size of the smile on my face;
For I wish to be the waves forever crashing against the shore with treble,
As I will still have you even from the battles I lost, and your embrace.
You wanted me to find my name and my voice,
And now that I have, I hope you never leave me with no choice,
I hope you never take away the name only you know,
The reason to you that I owe;
Because at least this planet has you.
