I lied. You have to read Bleeding Blue to understand this.

Ice-Cream

The first poem I heard that moved me to tears was at our university’s poetry club when someone performed spoken poetry written by a certain BBH, the favorite poet of our small club.

I believe the title of the poem had been ‘Ice-cream’. Such a mundane title, such a simple poem, and yet it gripped my heart and bought me to tears.

Funnily, the second time I cried because of a poem was only some weeks later when I was at a university’s park reading the same poem. I was by the roadside, too immersed in it that I had not heard a shout behind me. When I had registered it, it was too late because I was knocked down into the bed of wildflowers before me.

Now that I think about it, I was not crying while reading the poem, I had only cried when I saw the person who knocked me down. It was not like I knew him or anything but as soon as our eyes made contact, my eyes watered, my lips wobbled and my nose stung and I began to cry – out loud if I must add.

It was embarrassing and the guy panicked but I just couldn’t stop crying.

“I am so sorry… I-I… You must be hurt. Oh god. Why am I so clumsy? I am sorry. I will take you to the hospital, please… Come,” His eyes were wide and he kept his lips probably out of nervousness. He had knocked down someone with his bike who wouldn’t stop crying, so naturally, if I was in his place, I would be panicking too.

My knees were scrapped and they were bleeding slightly and my hands which went down to cushion my fall also received some scabbing but for some strange reasons, what hurt the most was my heart.

I was probably reading too much poetry to have become that cheesy but as I watched the boy who knocked me down, my heart clenched and unclenched uneasily as though he reminded me of something beautiful yet painful.

He was a beautiful man. His lips were cherry red, his skin like honey and milk but his eyes… his eyes struck out the most. At first, it seemed nothing out of the ordinary hidden behind his gold-rimmed glasses and yet the more I look at it, the more I saw how much they twinkled. They reminded me of nights where stars just bedazzled the night sky as though they wanted to impress the admirers down below.

It reminded me of roaring oceans although they were brown… they just reminded me of the blue, blue ocean.

I don’t know how long he panicked, trying to stop me crying or at least let me stand up from that bed of flowers because he was afraid to touch me until Minseok came running over to me.

“YAH! What is going on?” His shout bought me out of whatever stupor I was in and I blinked at the state I was in, hurrying to actually stand up while wincing at the pain on my knees.

The bicycle boy was wearing a sky blue dress shirt but he was wearing an oversized one as a flannel rather than a proper shirt. It made him look smaller than he actually was.

Minseok had come over to me, standing in front of me flexing himself hard to seem dominating. I obviously roll my eyes at him.

“I hit her with my bike.” The boy begins as he nervously glanced at Minseok, “I am deeply sorry for my carelessness.”

He bows down low enough for his overgrown hair to flop to the front making me wonder how it would feel to run my hands through that hair. That was most certainly creepy.

“It’s okay…” I said but it came out in a whisper. For many reasons, my heart rate was spiking up seeing his guilty countenance and I just knew I had to forgive him. “I’m alright. Let’s go, Min.”

Minseok turns around at that and studies me carefully before gently rubbing off a tear from my cheek. “Are you sure you’re alright? You are even crying.”

I cringe a little though and rubbed the place where his thumb just swiped. That was incredulously weird.

“I-I’ll pay for the damage.” A nervous voice sounds and I froze in my spot. My heart involuntarily flutters and my eyes searched for his.

Our eyes meet and for a moment a sudden roar of the ocean, laughter of children, and the cries of seagull suddenly flood to me… but I blinked and it’s gone, making me wonder if it were the poems I had been reading.

My mind, however, did not process much as Minseok dragged me somewhere. The only things that kept ringing in my ears were the constant roar of the ocean and the cries of the sea-gull.

Should I get my ears checked? Why am I hearing things now?

“OW!” A scream left my lips and I pulled my legs closer to me to put as much distance as I could between me and the searing pain that had suddenly shot up from my knees.

I looked around in surprise marveling at the fact that I was seated in the infirmary with a nurse holding a cotton pad soaked in some liquid.

When did I come here? Wasn’t I just on an island? Gee. Could I be any more imaginative? What is suddenly wrong with me?

Minseok who had been standing there with his arms folded came to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. He gives me a small smile then, making me wonder what on earth was wrong with him before he began to shake me so hard, I was seeing stars.

"Are you mad? Why would you do that?” I cried out giving him the stink eye while holding my head to suppress the incoming headache.

“Wake the up.” He hisses at me with an annoyed face. “I have classes and don’t have all the time in the world to babysit you.”

I swat his hands away feeling all dizzy. “Just go away. Nobody asked you to be here.”

He scoffs and gestures to the nurse to continue. “So that you can lie crying on the ground? No thanks. My reputation cannot be tarnished because you decided to be a cry baby and howl on the ground.”

“OW!” I winced again but gritted my teeth as the nurse continued to swap my injuries. As if like it wasn’t embarrassing to cry like that in front of people… he just had to poke on it. “Just go away.”

The nurse does whatever she can to stop the bleeding and banded me up nicely with some large bandaids before exiting the room.

“Mom says don’t stay out and come home directly,” Minseok tells me as soon as the nurse goes out of sight making me sigh a little.

“Why do you have to tell her? You know how she’s always super worried. It’s not even a big deal.”

Minseok simply