when you start to walk away

this time of the year, i noticed, must be when flowers are eager to bloom. i also recently noticed how i subconsciously conditioned myself to anticipate the scent of sampaguita lining the narrow alleyway to home. you, i know, of all people, can appreciate this more.

you asked me a few times before if you can call me dear, love, or darling. i simply brushed aside the idea, as if i never heard or it should not matter. but it did and it still does. especially now that we have not heard from each other for a month or so and just recently, not seemingly out of hindsight or a lapse of intent, you referred to me as brother. i never heard, i never read, it should not matter, i thought, but somewhere deep inside stung. that i might have just taken that alleyway of forever losing the expectation and anticipation of perhaps a more committed walk with you. just like any flower to lose the fragrance and be forgotten. a solitary shadow dying by the onset of forever light.

the walk home

i walked home today. sort of out of myself, de-spirited in a way by perhaps the too many lager bottles over an extended lunch and intensive exchanges. i had to walk home. two kilometers, more or less, it seems. to breathe out. sweat out. the grogginess of my movement. the fogginess of my head.

descending kimche

machhapuchhre from tadapani

leaving ghorepani

gurja peak from poonhill one afternoon

post-trek

...buff momo, dal bhat, fried spicy buff, and tato raksi

a bottle of everest for christmas eve

ranong pier

finally, some holiday colors

andaman father and son fishing

singkorn pass, prachuap khiri kan