This poem by Criselda Cayetano featured in The Chance Issue of Popshot Quarterly. Illustration by Wendy Denissen.

Most Terrifying Thought

the possibilities of the lives that we can live are endless

the people we can meet in a lifetime, uncountable

the consequences of every choice we make, unfathomable

the dreams that we may dream for ourselves, limitless

except, for those who have set their hearts on a single entity:

a person, an idea, a purpose, or a dream – there is no other

your heart has stubbornly set itself on the idea of marrying him,

a love so irreplaceable and unforgettable

that you would forego the excitement of a life

full of adventure, a life ought to be reimagined constantly

that your happiness lies on one out of a billion

that if it fails, you may never get it back

this is the most terrifying thought, a danger to one’s sanity

to devote your entire existence to that which you may lose forever

__________
Criselda Cayetano, 26, grew up in the Philippines but moved to Tokyo in 2015 to work for a Japanese IT company. “Although I use Japanese at work, I am most fluent in English, and poetry is a way for me to express myself in a country where my inner thoughts and feelings are often lost in translation,” she says.

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