"Right times, right places and right persons don't necessarily look perfect as long as they feel right," my dad once told me. I am a daddy's girl and so I believe whatever he says.

I thought a "right time" would include a tipsy 3 AM with conversations about smoking, alcohol, scars, tattoos, dead friends and far-away families.

I thought a "right place" would include a foreign busy street with indifferent strangers and hearing them speak with fancy and incomprehensible tongues. No one knew me except you and it was all that matters.

I thought a "right time" would include heavy drops of rain, flashes of lightning, booms of thunder, smell of native coffee, crumpled white sheets, and our tangled warm bodies.

I thought a "right place" would include two lonely souls kissing their hearts out inside a room full of fake smiles, deceiving laughter, and temporary booze of happiness. We kissed some more and honey, it felt like we live in this world alone.

I thought the "right time and right place" was when we stayed up all night and drunk the night away with beer, chips, French lips and pirate's hands. I thought staring at your big round eyes was the perfect time and feeling your warm embrace was the perfect place to fall in love.

I thought everything that happened between us was the start of something that would never end. Each moment felt so right and I was so sure you were the right person my dad was talking about.

It may all seemed imperfect and so wrong but who cares, anyway? All I ever wanted was for you to stay... but you didn't. I still lost you.

And then I remember what my mom said, "You will find and lose the right one at the wrong time and wrong place, but he will come back and stay when everything is finally right."

Now I wake up to wish-you-were-here days, foolishly trying hard to make each without-you moment right, just in case you'd come back and maybe, you'd finally stay.
—Myka M. Obinque

Photo: @hi_dongwon