Roofs

Stranger

Once,

I fell in love with a stranger. It was a fine morning that time and the sky was filled with clouds and grays. Everyday, I would see her walking down the street towards the avenue, looking lazy and lovely with her disheveled honey-colored summer hair, twitching lips, and tired eyes. She stood out among the sea of busy people, making her way at the end of the street to make it up for the first trip to Cavite. If people were fishes and sea creatures, she would be the mermaid - lost and fragile, fine and extravagant, beautiful and destructive. I would notice her every time. How she always looked down her shoes before taking the first step to the stairs. How she always combed her hair with long, pale fingers, decorated with colorful rings, tucking in the loose locks of May and revealing ears adorned with stones and greens. We would always walk pass each other, shortening and lengthening the distance between our arms. I almost wished she noticed me. I dearly hoped she noticed me. Everything changed that morning. Since then, I couldn't get her out of my head. She repeated like a broken film, playing all over again, taking a pause every now and then to the best parts and rewinding again and again. I haven't heard her voice but I would hear her calling me, seducing me from the distant. "Matt, Matt." I've had endless dreams of her almost every night. She entered them so often that I would wake up in complicated hours, gasping for air, gasping for her lovely presence of touch and existence. She would be everywhere but she was nowhere to be found. I would see her all around me but she's not really there. I've had her in me, reeling inside my internals, making cartwheels of different emotions and feelings I knew only was for her. One night, I saw her in a coffee shop, accompanied by a book and a mug of room-temperature coffee. I watched her held the mug exquisitely with her fine hands. She looked rather lovely in her white dress, exposing her collar bones and pale shoulders. She was perfect. It was the strangest thing. That night, I fell in love with her. I didn't know her. I never knew her name, where she lived, or how often she went to that quiet coffee shop. Stalking her never occurred in me. I didn't want to. It was stupid. I only knew the feelings she gave me. It was real. And I know that once in your life, you fell in love with a stranger too, didn't you?

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A/N: So this is my side project. I've been meaning to publish Roofs for such a long time and now, with enough courage and belief in myself, I did. This will a collection of prose and poetry, written works that I've done over the years. Hopefully you will pick something up from this because this means so much to me. I hope the words will comfort you the way books and coffee do. 

Chapter is dedicated to abandoned-waves.