サクラ

The first time I saw you it was a glimmer of sunshine through branches of Sakura trees; it's too bright and I shield my eyes from them. What I saw was only a glimpse of your hazy silhouette and I rearranged my thoughts as if composing a song of rain. And it became clear to me as the chill and winter fog cleared up with dew drops of summer. But the feeling of Spring was not yet ready to leave.

Hasty footsteps beating against grey pavement and pulling the thin straps of my bag tighter against my shoulders, I make my way to school, just like every other day.

You were so meek and lithe I took you for a fleeting chance to see a fairy. Yet you were brimming with life and the joy of little things. Like the odd collection of candy wrappers you never failed to brag about.

It was the peak of spring. I remember the cherry blossoms were in full bloom when I met you- Figuratively, I imagine it was how it'd go but that was the spring of my first 'unrequited' love and perhaps the only one I would ever have and to hold.

It's almost as if peering into the past- sometimes when I close my eyes. Akin to a forlorn forgotten dream freshly imprinted on my mind- I open my eyes to a sunny sky barely visible across Sakura tree branches. And your eyes blinking at me in short lived concern. Because the moment I take to sit up, I have to blink back my focus. I find you laughing and all my nervousness disappears and settles anew like dispensed particles in a cavern of dusty emotions.

I am lost, yet, I feel relieved somehow.

Meeting you was something that just happened. I know this because I wouldn't have had the guts to do it even if I tried. To confront you and tell you how I feel. At that time, I barely even knew how I felt. My love for you was clasped within the petals of a flower bud that would blossom in time but too late for the season. Regardless, you gave me a hand and we laughed about how tough the world was for clumsy kids; you & me.

And I followed you like a firebug captured and led astray on summer twilights. You, with your floating wisps of hair across the auburn skies of dreary sunsets we watched together. Along the same riverside with dewy grass beneath our feet; while I glance at you and you gaze at the sky. I pick a flower and I offer it to you.

I do so much, little by little but it hardly amounts to anything I can really hold in my hands. Or give less than two thoughts about at night when I still think of you with each emblazoned memory on the blank slate of my mind.

You told me one day that that guy asked you out. You know, the one who had recently been eyeing you, just before the dance. The one who made the shine in your eyes halt for a millisecond - for better or for worse. I remember you said it to me with the nearly breaking dam of tears in your eyes that, you, had said no.

No; you told me u weren't going to the spring dance and I asked you why but you wouldn't tell me why. You wouldn't tell me anything so the flower of new promise held behind my back wilted within the pages of the book I still own.

The book reminds me of you. It talks of carefree love, not just for one person but for everyone. But how did you know the value of that love? There must've been a sad smile that you stretched and drew upon each time you saw me. If I meet you will you tell me if it was effortless? Did I make you smile? If I did, it would give my heart some ease.

Now I found out why you shed tears that evening against the purple sky and beside the riverbed was because I wasn't the one who had asked you. That you had to tell me you rejected him but you couldn't tell me you did it for me. Because you didn't want to hurt me and yet, yes, you waited for me.

Where are you now?

I still search across this concrete jungle with your pretty pink ribbon in my hand. I made it into an accessory but don't get me wrong it's precious alright. I wind it across my hand the same way your memory still binds my heart.

So I'll wait, with late nights at my desk, with letters that Remain Unposted and I watch them pile up against my closet with weary tired eyes on sleepless nights; When I look outside my window, but I don't see any flickering lights.

So one day, I throw my coffee in the waste basket and head out with an umbrella to the clear skies outside. I don't know when it might rain. But I try to be prepared.

I head to the library- it's been a long time since my last proper distraction away from the chaos and madness since you moved out of town and we didn't even exchange any words or letters.

I move across shelves, looking for the book I want with my journal in my hand. I glimpse wisps of flowing dark hair like the ones that could enchant me in their spell and suddenly I'm staring back into jade eyes. They gaze at me and offer me a hand and I realise I'm on the floor again. You--I mean she bends down and picks up the flower I never gave you that fell from my journal and it brings forth a well of unexplainable emotions from her eyes. She's looking, staring at me and tugs me further inside the library and shares these coffee bites with me. Says it's her nicotine patch versions to help with her caffeine addiction. I wrinkle my brows and almost hold back a chuckle and she's smiling helplessly with moisture in her eyes. Tears that probably christen a new beginning, so I unwind the ribbon and I quietly braid it into the ends of your hair.

You call a whisper of my name but I already knew it was you. I don't have that umbrella anymore but we can get drenched together cause if it's a song of rain you need to feel it to compose it better.

I see. Buds of Sakura on trees as we run back home and I'm reminded of the seasons I saw bare trees with no blossoms of joy and hope but here it is again. I just needed to let time flow.