17/10/2025
| flowers in the valley
there are lands where the darkness lingers the longest
some too steep that sunlights are low, and flowers can't flourish
i have walked nights that seemed too far gone amid these valleys
it's at these depths where my heart was slowly learning
what strength is found in both the ache and hope of waiting
ache for the longing of sunrises I breathlessly chase after
hope despite shadows cast by the towering mountains too insurmountable
but who said this place is lonely?
the valley may feel endlessly vast but I have company
for I have found fellow yearners and dreamers here
hopefuls of the abyss, they too are waiting
one moment my palms were gripping so much cynicism
the next they are steadily scattering tomorrow's seeds
in what seemed to be an eternal drought, I learned that waiting for the rain
can be a shared comfort where strength blooms through the ache
there are nights the weight of yesterday is deep and unforgiving
when tomorrow seems another walk in the land of the dead more than the living
and today is another battle neither lost or won, but left me scarred and torn
yet as my feet touches the ground like a thousand others, barely surviving
for some reason I find it warm and tender, the soil seems rich and promising
and despite darkness so bleak, the grass is moist and green
for in this place where our dreams are somewhere among hundreds or thousands of tomorrows
the seeds we've been planting may end up hollow stones
there is no promise of dreams granted merely by having hope, however strong
but somewhere in there it exists, my dreams are real and it sings a song:
in the waiting, and in the going
I'll wake up to a tomorrow and see
that flowers do thrive and bloom— in the valley
-
Words by Micah Anggaco
Artwork by Jeff Lee Yan Jose
