Love & Cancer Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

In the idle seats of a room
Theatrical in appearance, with the windows facing you
But failed to open, depriving you of sunlight
She sat beside you, juxtaposed to the same façade
That you held on too long. She familiarized herself with it.

She sat next to you, thinking about
Religion, ballet, and songs of the new era
Never paying too much attention at how your eye
Glimmered everytime she decides to sit right next to you
You end up intensifying your eyes, gorged with passion

You go unnoticed until the people walk by
The classrooms, and then classes would resume,
She drops her handkerchief and you say, “This is yours, I presume.”
You could have touched her hand, but she quivered through
The interlocking hands of yours, you end up holding your own hand.

And then, she goes to the covered walks
Of alibis and biased prejudice, her friends talking to her
Incessantly, chirping like birds perched on a tree
You appear right in the picture, but she still quips
And talks about money, ballet, artists and hotshots.

When all you wanted to hear was,
That you’re there, that you existed
Right before the whirring of the clocks
And the thumping of the pendulums on empty frames
You walk her to the other side of the road with her arms connected to yours

And then quickly disengages once the passing cars
Are not on her sight, she then engages to another conversation
Without your name in it, you felt so sorry for the precious time lost
But you still do this everyday, though unnoticed, hidden behind
Her back, where her hair flails gracefully in the days that you curse mirrors.

You find yourself in her classroom,
With all people wearing white uniforms and cradling books
As thick as your skin, but not as thick as thieves
You were as thin as the recognition she gives towards you,
Then one day she felt lonely and held you close

“I like you.” Only in the moment, you heard it
But in a lifetime, you would remember, and carry it like a name
And you slowdance on the inside just to confirm that still,
Your heart works just the same, able to beat ten times
Its normal pace, then you fake a happy face

She tells you, she likes you again,
Only when rain poured when you brought with you
An umbrella, that would tower over her,
And the raindrops would crash on the floor,
The way you did, as drunk as a madman, when she closed her doors.

My soul is intact, my faith is severed,
She tells you, “I need space.” Then, you give it willingly
And then what content lies in the space will not be deciphered,
You end up telling her, Here is my heart, fragile and delicate
Touch it now, touch it later, and afterwards return it.

The seats are now tarnished because of the days,
And then you envisage yourself, lonely in the halls
Pacing the corridors, careening towards the walls
Searching for vestiges laid, but she never turned to stay
Nor never weaved to say, “I will never forget you.”

And so she did, for she insists that she is young
That life has too much to offer, her boat sets sail
And as for me, poetry happens when everything fails
Then she would still wear her hair, stiffening it with wax
And I would still adore her, even from the distance of the sea to the shore

Because one thing is for sure,
That the first cut, will always be the one that maims.
The limping man that I am, will be in search of my soul
Where it was cast away, far enough to a land with high gates
You have the key to it, this voyage of forgetting you is futile.

You come back to the classroom, where you first saw
What marvelous visage she was, cloying the rooms
Like smoke, and the truth that cannot be denied
That you have not forgotten her, though you tried
Hard enough to say, that I almost died.