Seven years later, Driving Home by Justine Camacho

It is impossible to fall in love again

for the first time.

The first blush, the heart quickening,

racing madly with a secret:

these things happen only once.

Yester, in the car,

only half-listening to a song,

I remembered.

And in my mind, I turned around.

If I had known that i would never see you again.

If I had known that afternoon in August,

I would have stayed rooted there.

Watching you.

Nineteen yet and dreamy,

I felt the years deaden me, one by one.

And all the headlamps around me

blurred.

It was so sweet,

even to feel

that wound again.

(Source: One Hundred Love Poems by Gemino Abad and Alfred Yuson)