This is A story of a Boy

I got this poem from Ricardo F. Lo (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com) who posted this poem in Yahoo Philippines. The poem is so good, I even wondered If I have done those things. The poem was made by a boy dying in cancer in New York.

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down,

Don’t dance too fast.

Time is short,

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day

Or do you fly?

When you ask, “How are you?”

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down,

Don’t dance too fast.

Time is short,

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,

“We’ll do it tomorrow?”

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch

Let a good friendship die

‘Cause you never had time

To call and say, “Hi?”

You’d better show down,

Don’t dance too fast.

Time is short,

The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through

your day,

It is like an unopened gift...

Thrown away.

Life is not a race,

Do take it slower.

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

When I was a little kid, my mom told me the power of wishing. We would sit together beside our window at night and wait for a shooting star to fall from the dark blue sky. She told me that once I saw a falling star, I will then make a wish and that wish will come true. Being a child at heart, I still believed in it after 18 years after growing up in a old fashioned way. I would stare blankly in the sky at night, waiting for that lucky star in the sky to fall down, wishing of something to end. I hold my hands tight and put them near my heart, feeling every beat of it and grasping every single hope instilled on it.

Wishing also gives us the feeling that there is still hope beyond loneliness out there. My mom only taught me the power of wishing, but she never told me that life could be cruel sometimes. And love is the most sublime thing a man could ever felt, but it is also the painful feeling a boy wouldn’t even wished for. She just let me go out into the world, and the rest is up for me to learn. I understand why she did it, because she, even herself cannot describe love on her own meaning. Love depends on the person who feels it. Day by day, I gently realized how painful it is to wish for someone you knew that can never be yours. However, I still believed deep in my heart that there is still hope for my wishing heart.

I met someone who made me fall head over heels. She was all I could ever need and the best gift a falling star could ever give me. My heart burns every time we talk to each other one summer breeze and my heart grew fonder all seasons. But the angel that I thought would care for my heart is the angel who chooses to break my heart. I wished she could love me the way I loved her, but she also wishes for someone to love…more than the love I am giving her. We are both hopeless wishers looking up on that starless sky, but she didn’t know that when she wishes, my heart bleeds. Not for my failed hopes, but for the reason that my love is not enough for her.

One day her wishes came true. The stars gave her the missing puzzle of her heart, so perfectly fitted for her, while I am still there sitting on a bench, waiting for my wishes to come true. I held my hands so tight, put them near my heart and wished for something new. As I ended my wish, tears fell down my cheeks, still feeling my heart beat with my clasped hands. I wished I can let her go, and I wished I never loved her for the pain is killing me.

“Mom, I have loved someone, but she chooses to break my heart. You only taught me about wishing and about hope. But you never taught me about love and letting go”. I asked mom as she sits beside me on our old window sill.

“My child, love is not something that someone can teach to you. It is you who can learn about it, and it is you who can feel it. I’m sorry, but life and love is like that. The moment you feel love, it is also the moment you will learn how to let go. By any means, loving is also letting go. Your heart will heal the moment you let her go, just what I did when God took your father away from me. I love him so much, but we have to accept truth and have to let go”. My mom replied to me as she watched me looking at the same sky we used to stare.

I love her still, looking at her from far away. She’s now happy as what I can see in her eyes. Today, I am happy too since for the first time my wish came true. Want to know what did I wish for her? I wished her to be happy all her life through.

Love is wishing. And life is moving on.