A life’s early twenties are the years of great freedom, joy, and turmoil. Through the first steps into adulthood, one walk into one's first real heartaches, first real tragedies, and first real crises. The worst of all, however, is not the liberty that feels both like a jailbreak and stark nakedness. The worst of all is the loneliness. This is the age when everyone seems to be figuring their lives out; their first jobs, starting a family, starting their first substantial ventures. This is when one's high school relationship either blossoms or withers and dies. This is also the age where most first come home to empty apartments. This is the age when one feels the most powerful and the most powerless. Too old to be shielded, too young to know how to fight. At 23 is a collection of poems delving into the three biggest things in one's life at this age; love and the loss of it, friends and the value of them, and growth and the pain of growing.

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AT 23

Ramayana Roxas

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Ukiyoto Publishing

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Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2022

Content Copyright © Ramayana Roxas

ISBN 9789357701556

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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To those who feel the same.

On Heartache

Neowise

You came like a comet

Slashing though my darkest sky

A hope, a rope, a love, a light

So quick to say goodbye

You came like a comet

And a tearfall from my eye

A wall, a fall, a noose, a night

Leaving me to ask why

In The Sea

You grabbed on two life rafts

Under a crescent moon

You didn't even need one

And goodbye came so soon

Can't blame her for saving you

But I thought I already did

I didn't know, I couldn't know

Because all of it, you hid

I was complicit with my silence

And trusted you with my truth

But you were a sham, a. liar

A complete waste of my youth

I let myself drown for you

I was sinking in your place

I didn't want to be a witness

Of how quickly I was replaced

Every crossroad reminds me

Of why we shouldn't be

But even so I can't believe

You'd ever do that to me

"But I didn't" you argue

As you swim down to my depth

I stare at you with yearning

But I speak with a steal threat

You've already done enough

I'm swimming in your debris

If you are happy with her

You can't be happy with me