here’s something strangely beautiful
about almost-connections — 
people who arrive like fate
but leave like unfinished sentences.

He found my Instagram
before he ever truly knew me,
asked about me after a handshake
that lasted shorter than the curiosity in his eyes.

A year passed
and maybe he found someone already.

But then suddenly,
there he was again.
Spontaneous.

We spent hours in that coffee shop,
Fresh out of the gym,
talking about little things
that somehow made time dissolve quietly between us.
easy and unforced.

But what I remember most
was his eyes.

God, his eyes.

They kept trembling when they met mine,
not wandering around the room,
not distracted
just shaking softly
like nervous hands holding fragile glass.

I thought it was adorable.

Oh, then we know something about the 7 AM.
but he slowly turned into silence.
Shit, he’s a total dick!

He got a pretty heart,
But he got a pretty empty head,
or maybe not both.

Now sometimes,
I still leave little traces of my days behind,
and for a brief second,
I wonder if he still notices them in silence.

And somewhere between confusion and acceptance,
I realized:

some people come into your life
not to love you,
not to keep you,
but simply to remind you
how deeply uncertainty can linger
inside the human heart.

-Imaya-

(Best read with “The Breakup” by LANY playing softly in the background)

I am the girl who loved in fragments,
the girl who mistook leaving
for freedom.

My mother always said
real love takes time.
It grows quietly,
without needing to be chased.
But no one tells you
how fast loneliness can arrive
like thunder through an open window.

There are nights
I think I wanted freedom,
until the room gets too quiet
and I hear my own thoughts
like footsteps in the dark.

There are mornings
when I stand under the shower
and let the water hide
what I cannot explain
in a language no one else can hear.

I have sat across from beautiful people
with nothing in their eyes.
Stayed at dinners
where the plates had more warmth
than the conversation.
Smiled when I was bored.
Stayed when I already knew
I was leaving inside.

Maybe that is the saddest part
not heartbreak,
but how often we stay
after love has already ended.

Still, I am learning.

That being alone
is not the same as being empty.
That endings are painful,
but sometimes kind.
That once something true is broken,
it cannot be rebuilt
with apologies and habit.

I want to be known gradually
like sunrise through curtains,
like a song that gets better
the more you listen.

And if love comes again,
I hope this time
it feels less like falling
and more like arriving.

-Imaya-

That Friday night we met at the restaurant,
You wore that denim jacket I’ve always liked.
I could still feel your warm hands
shakin’ in mine,
And it was fine
Yet nothing felt right after you asked my name.

It’s been months since we were friends,
And nothin’ happened,
Not as you promised.
I won’t let you know
Even at my lowest point,
I won’t ever let it show.

I keep foolin’ myself,
Pretending that day will come.
I save my favorite new perfume, never wear it,
Make sure my closet’s ready for that day — 
But somehow,
I fall apart later.

Is there any part of you still incomplete?
I keep overseeing your account
And when I posted “Make Me Forget” by LANY,
It was only to let you know
You made me fall in love again.

Still, I keep foolin’ myself,
Thinking you replied to my thoughts
Through captivating songs.
I thought I had the best feelin’

I know I’m just wasting my time,
So why the hell do I keep waitin’?
I keep foolin’ myself,
Believing I’ve got the best feeling.

I never saw it comin’
So why do I keep writing?
I’m sorry,
I got insanely jealous.
Yesterday, I found out you were with someone else,
And it hit me hard
like a truck.

Am I still foolin’ myself
By writing this poem
Thinking I once had
The best feeling?

-Imaya-

I pass through the dark the way a blade passes through its sheath — 
not fighting it, not fearing it,
only knowing it was made for this moment.

The corridor narrows,
as if the world is asking what I am willing to leave behind.
I keep what sharpens me.
The rest falls quiet.

The light ahead does not call my name.
It doesn’t need to.
It waits, the way destinations do
when they are already certain of you.

I adjust myself as I walk,
the way travelers do before crossing borders — 
nothing dramatic,
just a final check of what belongs.

I don’t hurry.
Rivers don’t rush to the sea.
They arrive carrying entire landscapes
without asking permission.

If this is a passage,
then I am not escaping — 
I am being shaped.

And when I step into the glow,
it won’t feel like arrival.
It will feel like recognition.

-Imaya-

Breathe.
This shaking does not mean you are broken.
It means your body recognized a story
it once lived inside.

You are not hungry because you are not in danger,
even if your heart insists otherwise.
That racing is only memory
trying to protect you too loudly.

You did not imagine the weight in the room.
You did not fail by feeling it.
You are allowed to be surprised
by something that once mattered.

Do not ask the universe for explanations tonight.
Coincidence does not require meaning.
Sometimes the past walks by
just to prove it no longer owns you.

You do not need to know
what they said,
what they saw,
or whether you crossed their mind.
Your life is not a question mark
waiting for someone else’s answer.

Sit with the confusion.
It will soften.
Sit with the anxiety.
It will pass.

You have already survived the hardest part — 
loving, losing,
and choosing yourself anyway.

This moment is not a step backward.
It is your nervous system
learning a new ending.

Be gentle.
Go home.
Eat when you’re ready.
Rest.

You are safe now.

-Imaya, and her unexpected surprise meeting-

Your friend told me
you may not read Stephen King like I do,
but you read macroeconomics instead — 
the kind of thing not everyone would ever love,
yet somehow
It softened something cold in me.

Your friend said you are quiet.
You don’t smoke.
You hold your mother with reverence,
and speak of your father
with a careful honesty.
Perhaps you seem selfish at times,
or perhaps
you simply know where to draw the line.

In fact, the only word
I truly know from your own mouth
is your name.
And somehow,
it keeps looping in my head
when the night gets quiet.

Your friend told me
Your days are counted in short runways and light planes.
Meanwhile, I mostly spend my days in hotels
We exist in borrowed moments.
I leave with care, not distance
like John Denver wrote in Leaving on a Jet Plane.

I met you only once.
we lock eyes,
and I’m drawn in
Briefly.

Later, you asked to meet again,
but time kept slipping,
I wish I could tell you more,
but I won’t rush you

So, I learned about you
through borrowed stories,
through someone else’s voice.
Your friend said we should run together.
It sounded easy
like something that would surely happen.

You said, together.
Time said, no.

-Imaya-

Do you remember summer ‘24?
Got me in the palm of your hand
That might fit, like this
like it’s made just for me
My heart is racing
Kind of love even gods don’t understand
we’ll keep doing what we do
Just pretending that we’re cool and we know it too

Your smile is on every face now
There’s no music on
Don’t look at me that way!
Got your voice in my head
And I know just what he’ll say
I’m trying to be okay,
I’m trying to feel alright
I can’t stand dumb love songs

Our eyes kept locking in front of the restaurant when we didn’t mean to
A little over six-feet tall
A Sweetheart from a small town that never runs out of rain
My midnight muse in faded denim and white t-shirt
Pick up the pieces of my heart, fall in love again

Feels like I’m constantly playing
A game that I’m destined to lose
Not a part of my heart that I wouldn’t share
And all those conversations are the secrets that I keep
Pray to god you’re not a liar
I’m not sure

And every night, it takes me way too long to fall asleep
Stay up all night and watch the stars fade at 6 a.m.
Under the same moonlight as we stared at the sea
I thought things were going alright

Whenever I close my eyes, I picture you there
Running over thoughts that made my feet hurt
Every step I take
Wanna be the first to take it all the way like this

Lately I found myself thinking
Lying on the beach as the sun blew out
We could go out any day, any night
with the windows down we can smell the ocean
Lean in when you laugh
Make it all makes sense to me

-These words are inspired by my favourite bands, One Direction and LANY-

In the highlands where the air thins,
the world grows honest.
Every step peels away a noise,
until only breath remains — 
raw, steady, human.

Water waits below cliffs,
teaching surrender without fear.
Forests whisper of patience,
mountains of endurance,
coffee cups of calm between storms.

Nothing here demands attention,
yet everything asks to be felt.
No decoration, no pretense — 
just the clean simplicity of being.

Adventure is not rebellion,
but conversation — 
between courage and quiet,
between motion and meaning.

And when the path ends,
there is no applause,
only the soft knowing
that freedom has never been elsewhere — 
it was the stillness
carried all along.

-Imaya-

Beneath a sky stitched with faint, uncertain stars,
Lampung sea waters,
I sailed into the mouth of forgiveness.
The sea was vast — it spoke in silence,
and I let my sorrow drift with the tide.

Once, he was the compass I mistook for the north,
I set the anchor in the deep,
where ancient, silent currents sleep.
I offered all my old disquiet,
and the sea received it, calm and quiet.

The pain’s a part of me, I see — 
not a chain, but a memory.
A hollow space, now softly lined,
with the peace I’ve finally designed.

He was the glint of fool’s gold, bright,
a brilliant, temporary light.
I mistook his shimmer for a true, new sun,
a treasure that could never be won
Every wave that hurt me
has also carried me closer to shore.

No thunder rolls, no need to blame.
Just the quiet whisper of his name.
My forgiveness, like the tide, is wide,
with nothing left to prove or hide.

One hour more, and I will see land — 
soft, golden, waiting — 
where pain becomes distance,
and peace feels like home.

-Imaya-

On Ciremai’s roof of West Java
I stood where the wind folds the sky,
where Majalengka’s valleys open wide,
terraces shining in the morning light,
clouds drift slow, like prayers on air
and the land stretches far,
an ocean of green and stone.
Reaching that height felt quiet,
a summit earned not only by feet
but by every small step of becoming.

On my way down I met a tree — 
Pohon Jomblo,
alone in a meadow of edelweiss.
Its roots clung to earth,
its branches lifted toward light,
a sentinel of stillness.
I saw my own story there:
how even in solitude
a heart can stand firm,
can keep leaning toward sun.

But the mountain also spoke of storms.
Even a sky this clear
remembers the weight of rain.
I, too, carry weather inside me.
Once, not so long ago,
a gentle shadow crossed my path — 
whose words were sweet as summer
yet hid a winter underneath.
Hypocrisy wore a gentle face,
and I, unguarded, let him in.
He left carrying pieces
I never meant to give away.

Still, standing there,
I learned what the tree already knew:
life holds storms and quiet,
both carving us into shape.
The wrong people, the sudden squalls,
they do not erase the horizon.
They teach the weight of choice,
the sweetness of shelter,
the clarity that comes
when the sky finally clears.

Around me spread gentleness:
edelweiss soft as whispered prayers,
cotton clouds spilling over ridges,
a hush of mountains holding space.
Even after storms,
beauty remains — 
and so does strength.

Aloneness is not a wound;
it is the patient soil
where resilience grows.
I walk on,
rooted like that tree,
lifting my face to light,
knowing peace is a path,
and I am already on it.