Where do I even begin? How do I start this without leading myself on with feelings of sanguine but not also not ending it on the finality of a goodbye? These days I find both my head and heart in constant war about the logic of these questions I even have the audacity to ask when you’re probably never going to read or hear any of my words. So this is how it feels like to be a prisoner of wistful thinking. Huh.
I suppose I should just be as honest as I can? As honest as my heart could handle, as exact as my words can describe, as true as my mind could spare. Even though none of this feels conceivable in this version of reality-- the reality that I have to come to terms with.
Here it is:
I love you. I can feel what little confidence I have in my sanity slipping silently into the dawn as I try to process what I just wrote. Yes, I do love you.  As ridiculous as it may sound, I do love you--- at least in the way that I can, in the way that both time and fate permits me to. I love you  during sleepless 4 AM scribbles much like this when my head feels like a bomb going off every three minutes. I love you the second I open my eyes early in weekday mornings, I love you during rainy mornings, during good mornings, during late mornings, and even during bad mornings. And I probably will love you for all of the mornings of my life. I love you during midday chores, during lazy afternoons spent tracing I love you during the afternoon hours of long commutes when my feet feel like iron weight and my eyes are heavy with sleep and your smile is the only image my consciousness is able to perceive to jolt me back into a functioning state.And I am afraid, so afraid that regardless where the world will take me, continents away, in airplane rides, in bullet trains, in taxi cabs, in lonesome city buses, it will be there--this feeling, this false sense of comfort of you woven into my seat, etched into my heart, clouding my vision. I am so afraid because it feels like coming home, it’s an incomparable rush, a crippling kind of bliss that reduces me into a body longing for a pair of arms that have never even known my grasp and will never do.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I'm hoping that if I say it repeatedly,if I let each syllable just glide through my tongue,if I don't let the words linger on my lips, it will not hold enough value. Maybe it could just be letters on a piece of paper that looked good beside each other. Maybe it just sounded right,just felt poetic enough to spare me a fleeting warmth I was yearning for in between months of cold solace. Perhaps it might even equate to a mantra, as the words "I'll be okay,I'll be okay" had been etched in my mind long enough to convince me that indeed,in time, I will be okay. Only,these three words I wanted to whisper to you in the volatile silence only meant for two people whose souls have been tangled in time , my feeble heart requires them to work in the opposite way. Regardless whether I say it in a sea of people or in a  tete-a-tete  that feels like a cul-de-sac in my heart, the words need to bear no meaning---nothing that could be mistaken for tenderness,nothing that could make you see the vulnerability that consumes my soul every time I hear your name. Call it cowardice, call it insane, call it every name in the book---everything else will hurt less than the truth of what I feel. To love you is a privilege that is only intended for someone who has never known pain and cruelty the way I had,to love you is a sacred promise that only the purest of hearts will be able to keep, to love you is to be fluent in kindness and forgiveness---two things that the weariness in my bones had never known.

Loving you will not be easy, loving you is not all Sunday brunches, late night drives, cozy sleepovers, or quaint dog walking Saturdays in the park. Loving you is not all I-love-you's or You-are-the-greatest-thing-that-ever-happened-to-me. Loving you goes beyond the idealized version of you they have. I know this because I had known love in it's most fragile damaged state. I had known love the same way my human vessel has grown accustomed to gravity. And love,as I had memorized it is not always pretty, love does not come in easy to swallow bite-sized truths. In fact, love will often require the art of lying through gritted teeth for the sake of the person you love. Love does not come in conveniently packaged people who will meet all of the desires of your heart. Loving you will mean sick days for two, untangling darkness that has never made its way to the surface, breaking through barriers that are holding you down. Loving you will sometimes mean lonesome days that stretch out for months, it will often mean unwarranted judgement, missed calls, and bitter insecurities. Loving you will sometimes mean accepting the ugliest parts of humanity that reside within me.Loving you is a continuous arduous task, loving you is a not a promise to you alone but to everyone else that has loved you from the people who know what you look like in PJ's  to the people who constantly look at and cheer for you through rose-colored glasses. Loving you will start becoming a burden to some people after the spotlight fades and they look at you, seeing a human person instead of an idealized fictional man of their dreams. Loving you in the harsh light of reality might terrify them. See? To a certain extent,I do understand the complexity of loving a person like you, to a certain degree,I am already accustomed to it, deep down in my heart, loving you seems like the only thing in this word that is worth all the pain it might cost. I understand how hard it is to love, especially someone like you who deserves so much more than the world could spare for you, I understand that even though I could endure through the hardest parts, there is a certain kind of bliss someone soft and ethereal can only give you.
Know this,my sparrow, I have loved you even before I knew what love was, I had loved you through warm summers in my childhood home, I have loved you despite the oceans that the world never fails to put between us, I have weathered the storm of loving you despite of myself and who I am, I will love you even after I would have forgotten what love is and for these reasons, I will have to convince myself that I don't.  So please forgive me, forgive me for being damaged and only human,forgive me if I must say I don't and that I can't when I already do so much,when it's the closest thing to nirvana that I will ever be. I love you. I love you. I love you. One day, even just for a glitch in time,I might not mean it and my heart will know peace.

forever yours, winona

Isa,dalawa,tatlo.Binibilang ni Renren ang bawat segundong lumilipas habang siya ay tumatakbo.Kung papaanong binibilang niya ang oras noong kabataan nila habang naglalaro ng taya-tayaan.Ngunit iba na ngayon.Hindi na mga maiingay na paslit ang humahabol sa kaniya.Bagkus,hinahabol siya ng mga nagsisigawang naka-itim.Nakaitim sila ngayon ngunit alam niyang sila ay talagang dapat naka-asul.Ngayong gabi,sila ay nakaitim at walang mga plakang ginto o pilak ang nagniningning sa kanilang mga dibdib.
     Isa,dalawa,tatlo.Sunod-sunod silang nagsusulputan mula sa likod ni Renren.Nariyan na sila.Pagod na siya.Kapos na siya sa hininga at manhid na ang kaniyang mga paa.Ngunit hindi siya maaring tumigil dahil paparating na ang mga anino ng baluktot na hustisya.Alam ni Renren na wala siyang ibang magagawa kung hindi tumakbo.
     Isa,dalawa,tatlo.Ilang iskinita na ba ang sinuot ni Renren upang magtago?Pilit niyang sinisiksik ang sarili sa bawat sulok upang matakasan ang kapahamakang dulot ng mga aninong dapat naka-asul,mga aninong dapat sa kaniya ay naniniwala’t nagtatanggol at hindi humahabol nang hindi nagtatanong o nakikinig.Nagtatago siya dahil alam niyang wala siyang iba pang mapaparoonan o mahihingian ng saklolo.Tulog ang batas ngayong gabi,wala siyang mapupuntahan.Kaya’t heto si Renren,hindi mapakali sa sulok at basa ng malamig na pawis.Nanginginig ang kaniyang laman sa takot at awa sa sarili.Sana bata na lamang siya uli at ito ay isang normal na laro lamang ng tagu-taguan ngunit hindi.Nagulantang siya nang may isang malakas na sipa ang sumira sa pinto ng kaniyang pinatataguan.Nanigas siya sa kaniyang puwesto.Ayaw pa niyang mataya.
    Isa,dalawa,tatlo.Ilang mura ang binitawan ng isa sa mga anino.Ngayon ay papalapit na sila kay Renren.Agad nilang hinila ang mga braso nito sabay sabunot sa ulo ng lalaki upang patingalain at ipamalas ang panggagalaiti’t pakiramdam ng kapangyarihang mababakas sa kanilang mga mukha dahil ngayon sila ang mga hari,sila ang batas.Bagama’t napapalibutan,nagpupumiglas pa rin si Renren.Sana larong bata na lamang ito.Sana pwede siyang magsabing,“Saglit!Taympers.Pagod na ako.“Ngunit hindi maari dahil iba na ang laro na ito.Ang larong ito ay walang ibang pinapanigan o pinapakinggan kung hindi ang mga nakauniporme’t ang matandang lalaki sa upuan.Umiiyak na si Renren.Ayaw pa niyang mataya."Wag po!Wag po!Hindi po ako.Sir,maawa po kayo.Inosente po ako—”
     Isa,dalawa,tatlo.Tatlong magkakasunod na putok ng baril ang umalingawngaw sa parte ng lungsod na iyon.Taya na si Renren.At sa mga huling segundo ng kaniyang buhay inisip niya na sana tulad nung bata siya,kapag pagod o nasasaktan sa siya sa paglalaro ay iuuwi siya sa kanilang bahay,siya ay tutulungan.Subalit sa larong ito,palaging ang mga tulad ni Renren ang talo.
      Sa pagsapit ng umaga,uuwi ang mga anino at magsusuot muli ng asul,hahalik sa kanilang mga naglalarong batang anak o kapatid,nangangakong ipagtatanggol nila ang mga inosenteng inaalipusta’t inuusig—isang pangakong hindi natutupad. At walang Renren na uuwi sa tahanan nila,bagkus ay may bagong malamig na bangkay ang ipapakita sa telebisyon,tatanungin ang matanda sa upuan kung bakit ganoon ang sinapit ni Renren.Ngunit wala siyang ibibigay na tama at maayos na sagot dahil sa larong ito,siya ang Diyos,ang mga aninong dapat naka-asul ang instrumento,ang bansa ang palaruan at mga buhay nila Renren ang isinusugal.

Alam ko,ikaw sa kaniya ay unos, sinimulan ng mga munting patak na nagsalba mula sa pagkauhaw ng puso,niluklok ang kaluluwa sa sukdulan, panandalian **** nilunod ang mga pighati’t galit sa dibdib ay umaapaw. Ngunit ako,ako ang katapusang gugunaw ng mundo–mundong puro pait ang pinadadampi sa pusong nagpapakatatag anumang paggiba sa bintana’t pinto nito ang gawin ni realidad . Ako ang susunog sa bawat ala-alang nilason : mga litrato’t tula na iyong kuha’t akda. Ako ang tatapos at ito ang aking simula.

Grey ashes stain the skin of my thighs. I mutter a curse word at Caleb’s direction before dusting it off. He takes another long drag. It reeks of menthol and dead leaves. I ******* hate cigarettes. And most people I knew who smoked were as toxic and temporary as the object of their vice. It seemed everyone I love fancied smoking their lungs out and I had always been treated like another stick burning too close to the filter. Over time I had mastered the art of secretly holding my breath whenever they were all trying to burn their anguish. Now I feel like I’d asphyxiate to death if I try to avoid breathing in his exhaust. Sixteen year old me would have already pushed him to his demise just for the mere act of lighting a cigarette in front of me but three years had passed, and though it might not have happened in a rather drastic way as we retained our nihilism and self-righteousness, we had changed. I have my tamed my repulsion towards what I like to deem as a foible of a majority of people, and he went from being a quiet, well-behaved, clean-cut charmer to this womanizing edgelord ******. We were sitting on the same ledge we often sat on as high schoolers, contemplating whether jumping off would guarantee our death more compared to downing a dozen pads of Panadol but quickly realizing we didn’t want to die in this economy, with this **** administration slowly extinguishing half of our population as how those corrupt fascist rulers from that book he liked basically created the plague that caused mass genocide in third world countries. These days, we rarely talk about dying or fighting the oppressive beliefs we’ve been taught to perpetuate since birth. I find myself mentally counting all the times I’ve said to my father that I loved him as Caleb drones on about the girl I saw leaving his apartment this morning when I came to return a book I borrowed. This punk claims she was cute but kept on contradicting herself, says he met her when he reluctantly went with his guy friend to their church.

      “ She kept on preaching me about hell and mortal sins just last week but I figure that after last night the big guy upstairs wouldn’t be too sure about her salvation either,noh?”I rolled my eyes at him. I miss nice, good-mannered, geeky and gentlemanly Caleb. The emotional barricades and sarcastic comebacks had always been part of his package but he’s always been wary about hurting people unintentionally whether it was direct or passive. I don’t know how someone who still orders the same fruit drink whenever he eats out, who still likes the same bands, who still reads the same genre of manga and weird Russian novels, who still watches the same crime shows and anime could have changed in a way I can’t fully grasp. I comfort myself with the thought that he is just a boy after all, a boy with a tendency to be a ****** *******. “ Cut the bull, Caleb, I know you could care less about the religious ramblings of the poor *****. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? She got you off so let her have the same benefit through preaching . For someone who ****** around, you’re **** at people who are doing your libido a favor.”
       It’s a weak argument. With a face like his, he doesn’t even need to ask anyone to be with him. Girls have always been flocking to him. Weird thing is that women seem to like this downgraded version of him more. Ugh. When you’re as pretty and as interesting as him, life can be **** at times but at least you can pretend to be a lead in an indie coming-of-age movie as The Smiths play in the background.

“Wow. I never took you for a defender of their faith. Are you a believer too? Chill. You know that I was just kidding.”

“I’m just saying, even if we don’t share the same beliefs as them or if we have none, that’s no reason to say mean things about them.”

“ I didn’t mean it like that naman, eh. Lighten up. You know I am a good old Catholic boy, why, I even got my forehead drawn on during Ash Wednesday.”

“ Yeah, right and I’ve been singing in choir for a decade and collecting alms from the pews. You are a disgrace to your Church.”, I scoffed in reply. He just laughs and gets up to throw his cigarette **** in the silver trash bin he always had in his car. After lifting himself up, he motions for me to join him on the roof. I stand up from the rock I was sitting on and follow him.

“ I think we’re going to hell”, he jokes as he took my left foot to remove my sneaker. He snatches the other pair from my hands and crouches down to reach inside the driver’s seat where he puts both of our shoes.

“ Isn’t it unfair how we could be thrown into the pits of a burning void when there’s not even someone up there to judge us?”

“ Maybe there is but we’re just ******* who’d rather rely on the theories of our favorite philosophers for meaning because it’s terrifying to accept the futility of our existence as it was given to us by the big Guy upstairs.”

“ That’s just you. I don’t know if I believe in Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, nor God Himself. It’s all just bleh.”

“ Well, if you don’t believe in science or nihilism or God, then there must be something you believe in.”

       I almost laughed —not at him, but how pathetic my answer would be. I almost told him that the last thing I believed in threw me away like trash and shattered what little love I had left for myself. I almost answered him, half-crying, half-laughing that even if I didn’t have any of it to keep me on my feet, I used to believe that love could somehow hold all of us together; that a dysfunctional family is still a family as long as a parent loves their child enough, that even a bully can be a friend if you keep forgiving and trying for their sake, that it’s okay to tread through eggshells and landmines as long as the person who’s led you there is holding your hand. And I thought I stopped believing in fairy tales at nine years old. I knew I wouldn’t be able to crawl out of this rabbit hole for months to end if I let myself slip again this time with my emotions. So I keep my pathetic thoughts to myself and avoid his gaze.

       It’s late and I’m pretty sure back in the city, the person I used to believe in, the person who made the thought of smoking more unbearable to I, the person who’s the reason why I’m on this ledge again is probably either sleeping or talking to another girl.  A pretty China doll with delicate features, a shy demeanor, and an eloquence for the things he likes. Maybe he’s kissing her and for the first time, he wouldn’t taste like the last girl he loved. Maybe he’s fumbling for her zipper while I’m here trying to grasp how cold and unbearable was the truth he gave me about my worth as a person. Maybe he’s stalking that girl he always had a crush on since high school. Maybe tonight he’d die. Suddenly. Horribly. Maybe he’d disappear and everything would disappear with him. Maybe I would try smoking too just to spite him or I could stop pricking my throat with my index finger every time I feel I’ve consumed an amount intended for a human when I know I have to be a porcelain toy. Maybe I could stop measuring my wrists because like my thighs, like my stomach, like my heart, it takes too ******* long for them to finally shrink into the size that’s most convenient for everyone to love. I should probably stop cutting too— even if it is only in places they cannot see— no one likes a scarred ****** up excuse of  a girl after all. Maybe I could stop thinking that there is something horribly wrong with myself and I could pray for forgiveness for it to a being I don’t fully believe in. If I could just try, if I could try harder, if I could try to force my worn out spirit to try again, a lot of these possibilities might be achieved instead of just being another list in my head. I tell myself that maybe tomorrow, when I’m not twenty feet above ground and when dying isn’t the only thing on my mind, I could try but for now I’ll do my best not to jump.

        The night sky is so stretched out and I’ve never seen it as bright as it is tonight, because I’ve stopped looking at it for a long time and I’ve forgotten how all- consuming the feeling of so is, I finally concede and cry. I think about God and the universe and all those dead men that tried to explain the void that’s been within all of us ever since we were born. How Kierkegaard died slumped at an alley, probably drunk out of his mind. How Cobain refused to go on. Maybe I don’t entirely believe in the existence of Almighty beings and maybe I also refuse to accept that life is pointless but at the very least, I want to believe that this reality is never still meaning that even if I quit my existence, the world will go on without me. In that context, none of us truly matter all on our own in this world. It helps to know that we’re all part of something so much bigger than our feeble emotions, that the Universe is one big organism that contains us yet at the same time is inside us, that we are nothing but systems that modulate and emulate themselves for themselves. It’s comforting to be small and insignificant as a speck of dust in this world as it suggests this pain that’s been tearing at your soul for what seemed like centuries now is a force that can’t survive in the slow descent of mankind into oblivion. It is a mere pulse in the system. It is fleeting and will one day no longer hold this power over you. Or so I believe.

       It dawns unto me I still haven’t answered his question but I figured he already took my silence for an indefinite answer as he turned his gaze to look ahead instead of at me. I do the same and soldier on.

-W.

delicate little flower,
i don't know how to speak the language of the perfect– i can only try not to let violence seep off of my anger
as how these words stain the pages,
so there's no other way to tell you this

i've been told you cannot claim what you cannot touch,
so do know this love will never meet your grasp
for
i will break your wrists,
those outstretched hands of yours, little bird, i will tear them from your limbs
i will pour gasoline in your rosebud mouth and light a match against your soft,naked cheek
after the flames,there would be nothing left to fear in the ruins

chained in strings of unsaid words that have strangled me in my sleep a hundred days ago,
you will subsist on crumbs and leftovers of my love, as how i had waited on the scraps of your heart long before
i will make you bleed until you strain your lungs screaming,pleading to be spared
but my dear,
your tears cannot move me, that anguish will rain,feeding the earth as
your agony fuels my desire to feel

all of hell will never compare to the fiery pits of rage where i shall leave you to rot,tangled with the remains of the boy whose love you had
love will save you after all,will it not?

the heavens might pity you, attempt to end your suffering before i slit open that pretty little throat, so be rest assured that your corpse will meet my blade soon enough
and your measly flesh will weigh the same way i did while you had me beneath you–when i carried so much of you yet still felt less inside–
i will bury you beneath my sanctuary where i'll live out my days,
where i do not have to starve to be beautiful like you,
where i do not have to be used and destroyed to be loved like you,
where i do not have to be someone who can't be you
and there
i will not wait for anyone to bring me flowers that i know have graced your heart first,
i will grow a garden above your grave as the worms have their way with you down in the dirt where you belong ,
and you can take my heart with you
–W.