it's been so long,
by any chance do you remember me?*
your streets are still the same,
alive regardless the time of day
like everyone wants to keep the sun and moon company.
the avenues are still a grid—
i've memorized you like the lines on my palm
and understood you as a mystic would.
callcenter employees still line the uneven sidewalks,
you're still littered with their cigarettes and bottles.
construction workers still stand at the edge
of the industrial temples they build
as if they're kings of the city,
and your streetlights still stand tall
to guide every human being
as they find refuge in your little coffee shops and apartments.
no, nothing about you at all has changed,
at least through my eyes.
but my heart tells me otherwise.
something's missing—
it's the school girls i once knew
who went about these roads
searching for any kind of refuge
from the woes of growing up,
who trudged the streets in leather shoes
making you a home.
they're gone now,
off to farther places and newer cities,
but here i am as i return to you
and somehow i still feel them,
alive and well:
their beautiful voices and roaring laughter,
the dreams they built in you,
the moments that made our hearts leap as great as the heights
we are yet to reach,
it all echoes through your alleyways.
and i'll never forget them—these distant friends and pretty souls—
the way i love your streets filled with our memories.
i love you, ortigas.