Sleepy Town

This sleepy town exhales as its hot springs' steam

Its mountains sleep with all of the blankets it has pulled

Its waves snore as it cradles our lunch in its dream

This sleepy town inhales the distant sirens, hums & chatters lulled

They lay side by side though too far to caress

Its mountains lost in the mist that clings endlessly hugging his forests

Its waves reflecting, waves to the sky as they meet in between

Lights up & blushes in each kiss, like what a first love does to a teen

In a breakdown, its sky anxiously stains the town in cries within hues of gray

Its mountains, a stand still, always fearing what he can't seem to see

Its waves taking it all in, turns it into a song that's frequently chanted by the bay

This sleepy town takes scolding baths after a long day best left be

When a rare dawn's wind pushes you out to see its actual glisten
     You're greeted by confetti whether from the trees,
                  the snow's harsh blow,
                             and the nods given
               By sleepy eyes and wrinkled smiles,
        as they cross streets,
  as one fixes a grandchild's mitten
 or sweeps the remaining of the midnight's laughter

       plug off your earphones and listen

To a routine of a child's crisp uniform,
                of wars between the season's bugs and the birds that ravenously swarm,
                           amidst the hiss of bus queues that snakes around to huddle in its worst storm
                    -- a girlfriend whines so that he'd give her his jacket or fetch her something warm.

This sleepy town karaokes questioning hearts out in its 11pm to 5am free flows for cheap thrills,
             As some wipes its cigarette butts, dishes, & tables for yet another turn to pay for their bills
                       The dark creeps in but the conbini gleams to guide
                             - bored hungry souls & drunken testosterones out of every party,
                                                                                                               out of every bar fight.

It would rather sleep

    and not be like the rest of its nagging neighbors despite it all  

- or at least try to pretend,

Since most nights sweet hormones are exchanged -

biting ears instead of candies by an alley's bend.

It would rather be with constellations,
witnessing each syllables    

that has been exchanged by the beach,

There lay cans and bottles of the two

repetitively counting the stars
that they would later realize
are too far to reach.

Instead like all else,
          they reach for the missing parts
                                  within one another
                                         - the gaps after each finger.

Like how

Its mountains have shouldered echoes
      of all those stranded and alone like he,
           come and whisper your sin.
                  Its waves, a light house of morse codes
         that he can never seem to get
 - washes feet that would never come as clean.

 This sleepy town, becomes a ground
       for those whose heads are hidden in clouds -
               whether of sugary fluffs or the cumulonimbus that would always linger.

It is a place for aching joints and bones to boil and rest,

A place where lemonades are spiked with youth to zest.

Stay if you may, or go ahead and run away anyway - 

This sleepy town's too silent and boring they'd always say.

But it shares a pillow with you, 

hands you a cup of tea with a view.

Of both mountains and waves frequently seen as one,

but the minute they touch 

alarms will sound

Sleepy town finally wakes up 

-- and by then

you'll be

 gone.

(別府)