everyday, a little piece of the broken me,
somehow puts itself back together when i write.
but when the silence of the night comes,  
all my emotions scatter around,
i find you once again
with all the sublime memories we had.
i fall apart all over again.

the truth hurts,
i knew.

but i was wrong,
for her truth did not just hurt,
it destroyed.
yet somehow, she expected me
to smile through the destruction.

i demanded for the truth,
until the truth destroyed me.

"You don't care about me anymore," she said.
That hit me hard, because I still cared about you.
- in my own convoluted, messy way.
But I cared about myself more,
that's why I made you think,
that I couldn’t care less about you.

She told me she loves me,
like how the sea remains,
even if the shore shoves it away.
On the day she left,
I thought of the words she said.
I shouldn't have felt secured then,
for she compared her love for me,
to the shallowest part of the sea.
She did not love me deeply.

I was still young when my dad told me that my grandmother had Alzeihmer's Disease. I could not fathom how it was possible to forget everything - the people you dearly love, the most breathtaking place in the world where you seek refuge, everything you've learned, and memories you've made along the way.

I could not understand how she could not remember. I wondered how she was feeling. How does it feel like to forget? I wondered if it scared the hell out of her or if she felt a sense of relief in unremembering.

We came to see her. As expected, she did not know who I was - not even my father, his own son, her favorite one among eight. It was painful because after everything, she had forgetten me. I just stood there - unrecognized. I looked at her, agonized. That was the day I learned how heartbreaking it was - to look at the eyes of someone you love and realize that you're just a mere stranger to them.

My grandmother looked away. Her eyes caught my grandfather's eyes. She stared at him. It took her a long time, but she was able to utter his name. She smiled. That was also the day I learned that perhaps your mind can forget, but your heart cannot. Your heart can and will always remember.

"throw that cigarette away," she said.
i continued to inhale
the nicotine into my lungs.

"you're ****** fixated," she said.
i exhaled the smoke, alongside with my pains.
little did she know, i'm fixated on her.

and the scariest thing about having
all these late night thoughts
is the possibility of them all being true.