How do I love thee?

I love you even without your love. Before I close my eyes before I sleep, before I open them before I wake. Without your knowledge that such a love exists, that such a love still exists, even when things have been said and done, even as we wear our battle scars, lines of anguish dried up on our wrists but internally bleeding upon our wretched veins.

I love you as I walk each polluted street, trudging along, dragging my clumsy feet and hastily blending with a crowd too immersed in its own thoughts. I think of you and inhale the terrible stench of the city, smelling only the flowers and sparkling wine that flowed when we walked these streets together. I forge ahead blindly, smiling blandly at the cursing jeepney driver as he curses me for taking my chances with the green light. I traipse along, skipping over dandelions of muddy puddles, humming the tune of our first kiss, back when the backdrops of acrid smoke and pungent canals blended together into the cacaphony that was your smile.

I squeeze your hand and assure myself that I am safe as I board a bus full of thug-looking men. I tell myself that the power of love can reach even the most criminal of hearts, for surely, even the most heartless of thugs will not harm such a harmless-looking, loving couple.

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

5. Through the smile I smile for you.

4 Through the musky hug I mimic.

3. Through your jokes I relive with relish.

2. Through the promise you made a thousand years ago, that I repeat to myself while I am -

1. Alone.

If one of these thug-looking men shall look at me, I shall truly say, Come, look at my purse, get it, get everything, if you can find anything.


For I have nothing more to lose.