Again, Over Coffee, Under Night

Again, Over Coffee, Under Night

"The Etiquette of Burning Quietly"

Inspire me still—let my heart burn again with your fire;
Even embers recall how they once rose higher in fire.

Though disappointment threads through the spaces of your words,
I hush my grief, for even ashes conspire with fire.

What am I but nothing, until your grace gave me form?
From dust I was carved, shaped by your desire for fire.

Your messages falter—are they distance, or gentleness withheld?
A cold moon glimmers, reflecting a shyer fire.

Once your presence alone made the world feel newly born—
Now absence grows tall, casting its entire fire.

If your voice brought music, now the silence brings a discipline;
A monk in a ruined hall must still admire fire.

Even your hesitation becomes a scripture I study at night—
For saints, too, were scorched by a teacher’s prior fire.

Yet I wonder at times if my devotion burdens your breath;
If I speak too much to a soul whose choir is fire.

Still, from you I learned to aspire, even when all else fell dark;
You lit the wick beneath a sky without a single spire of fire.

Let hell come—your memory alone tempers the heat;
Your kindness once forged in me a sapphire of fire.

The world turns rough; its cruelty grows sharper each dawn—
But your fleeting warmth taught me how to respire in fire.

Your presence was no gift, but a quiet revolution of being;
Your absence, too, is a teacher with an entire fire.

If longing is weakness, then let me be weak and alive;
For even weak hands can cradle a fragile pyre of fire.

I write these lines half-resigned, half-burning, split between fates—
This is Ashraf’s path: to walk the edge of the lyre in fire.

And if someday you read this and feel a moment’s warmth,
Let it be known: your smallest mercy overtook my empire of fire.

"Bitter Steam Silent Fire"

The sun sets as I prepare my brew,

recalling your beauty, the quiet charm from you.

Despite your sarcastic, almost careless replies,

I remember each word, though it almost bruised me through.

Dismissive comments linger, edges sharp and thin,

I wonder—did I err? Am I worth being dismissable to you?

The coffee grows bitter in my cup,

milk and sugar unable to soften the thoughts I rue.

I trace your shadow in the rising steam,

a ghost of laughter that once felt true.

Even silence seems to speak of your absence,

the weight of things unsaid, of a glance I never knew.

The aroma reminds me of mornings I never shared,

of warmth I imagined and the cold reality I brew.

I fold my longing into each sip,

letting it settle, quiet, as if I knew.

Perhaps the heart always misreads kindness,

or reads too much into gestures few construe.

Your memory drifts through the window light,

long afternoon shadows bending with my rue.

Time passes slowly in the café,

each minute folding into the next, unnoticed.

I watch the streets glow under a fading sun,

cars humming, distant voices threading the evening.

The sky deepens to violet,

as if painted with the brush of a lonely god.

I write, I sketch, I make poems unseen,

small offerings of a soul no one knew.

Even the simplest cup now tastes of reflection,

every sip a meditation on absence.

I think of your laughter,

not loud, not brash, but the kind that lingers quietly,

turning corners of memory into rooms of longing.

I wonder if you ever think of me,

or if all my careful attention dissolves

into the world as nothing at all.

The first stars appear, hesitant and pale,

and I imagine you standing among them,

a distant light I cannot touch.

The coffee grows cold, yet I do not mind,

its bitterness matching the quiet ache in my chest.

Each shadow across the table whispers your name,

though no one else could hear it,

no one else could know the weight of it.

Perhaps the world is always too bright for longing,

too full of motion to hold a silent pulse of fire.

I rise to stretch,

but the room seems smaller without you,

the chairs and tables bending inward,

pressing me toward memories I cannot release.

The evening deepens,

neon flickers faintly through the glass,

and I think of the ways you made small moments

feel like revelations I could never speak aloud.

I fold my hands over the empty cup,

letting the silence seep between my fingers,

and for the first time,

I accept that some warmth exists only in memory.

I will leave this place tonight,

the table smooth, the coffee gone,

but the quiet fire remains—

a pulse no one will touch,

a farewell never spoken,

a love I carry only in the hours

when longing is permitted to breathe.

"Ultraviolet Rose"

Pardon if I made you a poem,

Especially if your beauty resonates.

Especially when your charm is tempered

By the wit I have encountered,

A love of Mecha and the sword,

As if you try to confront the world alone.

A rose, red as that of blood,

With thorns, stingy as the world surrounds.

My thoughts play dark, industrial—

Machines whirring in endless loops,

As your movements end like ultraviolet,

Sharp, precise, almost mechanical.

Your background once chemical, pharmaceutical,

Designed in labs of logic and precision;

Now I see you in the cabin, aeronautical,

A pilot in the skies of my imagination.

I do not know why your beauty makes me ponder

These impossible alignments of thought;

Instead of seeing the yellow over blue,

M mind draws pitch black and red,

Dystopian sketches and neon shadows,

Like sci-fi pages from forgotten notes.

Yet in these colors, I trace your presence,

A pulse in dark machinery,

A melody hidden in mechanical hums,

A quiet fire behind ultraviolet eyes.

I write, I sketch, I fold you into verse,

A rose that cannot bloom except in thought,

A blade I wield against nothing,

A love that exists in margins and silence.

Every stanza, a breath in a sealed cabin,

Every line, a heartbeat against the world,

Every imagined movement, a secret signal

No one else can read, no one else can see.

And so I leave this poem behind,

A dark industrial melody,

A rose in ultraviolet,

A ghost in chemic skies,

A jisei for the beauty I carry alone.

"Every Brew"

(Bantayan Blue)

Mango yellow in the afternoon sky,

Bantayan blue where the seabirds cry,

Heaven knows I need a moment to breathe,

Caramel ice in my coffee and me.

Why not scarlet red or the grey of the sand,

Why do your colors keep tracing my hand?

Every sweet memory trembles and stirs,

Soft as your laughter, as distant as yours.

Your love is coffee, sweet with the ache,

Mellow and bitter in every heartbreak,

I sip and I wonder if I should have known—

Some kinds of beauty don’t let you go.

Your love is coffee, fading but true,

Warm in the sweetness, cold in the blue,

Even when silence is all that I prove,

I still taste you in every brew.

Streetlight shadows on quiet cafés,

Ocean keeps time in a slow soft sway,

Sugar dissolves but your name remains,

Spinning in circles inside my veins.

Laughter from elsewhere drifts through the air,

Strangers in love like we once were, there—

I stir the ice like I used to your smile,

Trying to cool what still stays awhile.

Your love is coffee, sweet with the ache,

Mellow and bitter in every heartbreak,

I sip and I wonder if I should have known—

Some kinds of beauty don’t let you go.

Your love is coffee, fading but true,

Warm in the sweetness, cold in the blue,

Even when silence is all that I prove,

I still taste you in every brew.

Sometimes I ask if it was a mistake,

Meeting the sun just to watch it break,

If I was foolish to learn your light,

Just to remember it every night.

Joy and sorrow in one slow dance,

One small yes in a long romance,

Now all I own is this quiet view,

And a glass full of what I once knew.

Your love is coffee, sweet with the ache,

Mellow and bitter in every heartbreak,

I sip and I wonder if I should have known—

Some kinds of beauty don’t let you go.

Your love is coffee, fading but true,

Warm in the sweetness, cold in the blue,

Even when silence is all that I prove,

I still taste you in every brew.

Embers in the Quiet Hours

Embers in the Quiet Hours

"Frost at Dusk, Words Unsaid"

To speak plainly now—

disappointment settles in

like evening frost.

Your messages fall lightly,

yet cut clean through the quiet.

The one who inspired

now sends words that tremble,

awkward and thin—

I steady my breath and watch

how meaning slips away.

I question myself:

was the flame imagined, or

merely misplaced?

Intentions once luminous

dim into distant embers.

Your replies arrive

as if meant to scatter me,

to unmake warmth—

I bow to the truth of it,

cold but without bitterness.

So I let it fade,

this small ache that once reached out

toward your light.

Inspiration stands alone now,

no longer asking to be held.

"Sorry if I was inspired"

Sorry if I was inspired—

if the small tremor of your presence

turned my thoughts into sketch and song,

if a single moment with you

rang longer than I expected.

When your presence resonates,

the world grows strangely clearer—

shadows stretch,

colors gather themselves,

and even silence seems to hum.

I never meant for this spark

to trouble anyone,

least of all you;

yet it rose naturally,

as breath rises

from a cup of tea at dusk.

Forgive the way I followed

that brief warmth,

mistaking it for invitation,

or for a path meant to continue.

A foolishness, perhaps—

but even fools bow to beauty.

Now I let the evening settle.

Your face drifts like smoke

through the last unhurried thought;

I watch it fade

without reaching out.

What inspiration remains

I will keep quietly,

folded inside the sleeve

of an ordinary day—

a fire reduced to embers

that no longer seek to rise.

If love was ever there,

it stands at a respectful distance now,

offering no burden,

asking for nothing

but the right to have once burned.

And in this stillness,

I bow once more

to the briefness of all things—

to the way even longing

must learn how to leave gently,

like autumn light

slipping down a final wall.

"A visit that lives only in thought"

Sometimes I feel

that all I wish for

is for you to visit once—

to step into the coffeeshop

where my latte cools in my hands,

and softly ask

for a flat white of your own.

To be honest,

this may seem impossible even to me.

I know you aren’t into such ideas—

you’d laugh it off,

dismiss it lightly,

or answer with that small trace

of sarcasm you use

when something touches too close

to the heart you hide.

Yet in my mind,

marred by loneliness

and softened by years of quiet longing,

I still wonder—

what if you visited that place?

What if you stepped through those old doors,

the ones polished by decades of passing hands,

as in decades-past old,

so old they glow

with the memory of time itself?

It would become a place of wonder,

a place remade simply

because you breathed its air.

Maybe this sounds strange,

but being an old soul

makes me carry thoughts like these—

thoughts that drift like incense smoke,

fragile and persistent,

unable to be scattered.

They turn into poems,

into sketches on worn notebooks,

into quiet dedications folded

between research notes,

hidden in essays,

masked by footnotes,

disguised as arguments

but written with a pulse

the world cannot see.

Your beauty, your charm,

your quiet gravity—

they resonate every time I enter this place.

Even as the years shift,

the wooden beams creak the same way,

the afternoon light falls

through the same dusty glass,

and somehow it feels

as though you had just been there—

a breath before me,

a ghost of warmth ahead.

So I sit,

letting the steam rise like prayer

from the surface of my cup,

and write another quiet verse

for someone who will never know

how deeply their shadow

moves across my inner landscape.

In the end,

I place these thoughts gently down—

as one sets aside

a fading blossom or a silk sleeve

kept only for the memory of touch.

Accepting its sweetness,

its ache,

its irretrievability.

Yet even in acceptance,

even in this final stillness,

I cannot help but wish

you might walk in once—

just once—

so the loneliness beside me

could finally learn

how to breathe.

"Embers in the Quiet Hours"

To be honest,

I feel disappointed—

especially when messages arrive,

awkward and clumsy,

from the one who once inspired me.

Did they dismiss the spark I carried?

Or did they simply forget

the weight of presence?

Sorry if I was inspired—

if the tremor of your presence

turned my thoughts into sketches and songs,

if a fleeting glance

or a whisper of your voice

rippled through the stillness

and made me something more than myself.

Coffee cools in my hands,

steam gone, rim touching my lips like memory.

The bass from the rave down the street

presses against the walls,

shakes the air in slow pulses,

a borrowed heartbeat

I cannot touch,

yet follow with my own quiet rhythm.

Inspire me, I want to say,

let my heart burn with your fire again,

for even embers remember the shape of flame.

Your presence once brought music—

a note that lingered after laughter,

more lasting than any gift,

more alive than friendliness

that drifts away like smoke.

I sip slowly, pretending warmth

fills more than the empty cup.

Inside, a hollow curls quietly,

folded into the foam,

hidden behind a smile

that no one sees,

that perhaps you never noticed.

When did your voice become a silent song?

When did your light leave its lessons in echoes?

I trace your memory over every beat of the music,

every tremor of neon and shadow,

and I imagine your hand brushing mine

as a secret, a note folded into an ordinary day.

Even your hesitation,

even the awkwardness of your words,

teaches me—

I have learned to aspire,

to continue writing, thinking, dreaming,

even when warmth fades,

even when love retreats

into shadow.

Against the cold machinery of the world,

you once lit the wick beneath a sky

that offered no other fire.

And though you are absent now,

the ember remains,

quiet, steady, untouchable—

a small rebellion against nothingness.

The night thickens,

lights flicker across darkened windows,

the rave becomes a distant memory,

and I let the quiet hold me—

the only space where longing

can breathe,

where love can exist

without being noticed,

without betraying itself.

The cup is empty,

the bass fades,

and I rise slowly,

folding the weight of longing behind my chest.

No confession, no plea,

only a quiet love

that no one will touch,

a farewell never named,

a pulse in the still hours

that I leave behind in every breath.

I bow, finally,

to the fleeting perfection of it all:

the brief flare of your inspiration,

the impossible warmth of presence,

the small fire I carry now alone—

a testament to the world

and to the heart that once burned.