Photo by Lance Cortez

I always find the most interesting things whenever I clean my room. I've cleaned it a few times yet somehow, something I haven't seen in years shows up. This time, what I found was this old poem circa 2012-2013.

I found this poem in between a notebook--not this cool black papered one on the photo, FYI(this was used for aesthetic purposes lol). It was a ratty, yarn bounded notebook that ironically has neat, white pages. If you look closely, the paper shows some translucency due to age. I believed this poem was made either in 2012 because the notebook I found it in was from my third year high school or 2013 because there is a poem at the back of it that was an early version of another poem of mine. If you also look closely, you can see some of the ink from the back poem sorta spread out already(the second line especially, where one can barely read the word "transitions").

It's funny how I had an idea about love when back then, I never had a boyfriend and only had around two flings my whole high school life. I also had petty crushes that I refuse to remember without disgust because I'd have this thing where I over-romanticize them through poems I'll write behind my notebooks so no one would see. Even before the word "hugot" had its current meaning in society, I was the very embodiment of it before! 😂

Anyways, I find this poem some nearly 4-5 years later(STILL NOT SURE ON THE DATE) and realize how I found it in the most appropriate period in my life. I'm in college now and already had experienced falling in and out of love recently. I don't know how some girl from a few years back gets to perfectly explain through a poem what I might be going through now but it's damn cool in a way.

To be honest, there are so many things I wished I told myself when I was younger(from cutting my own layers to my questionable choices in crushes) but I guess my younger self also knew what to say to me now that I'm an adult.

Edited the poem today though I didn't change it too much(I just put the right punctuation marks and the spelling erratum on "hapiness" lol):


Fun thing I learned in one of my literature classes before: the smallest unit of a poem is actually the punctuation mark--or lack of it. Such a small thing actually makes a difference in meaning and how the reader will analyze it. 😀