Thirteen Hours

for thirteen hours, i understood exactly what all break-up songs really meant.

for thirteen hours, i could swear i became the muse that pushed poets to write about a lost love.

for thirteen hours, i became juliet who saw romeo bleed his life away, became sylvia whose last memory of ted would be his back, and became virginia with the stones in her pocket as heavy as the weight atlas endured.

it was tempting to be selfish at the moment, to beg for his patience, to ask him to stay and to try--- if only a bit more. but i understood that tying him down would not do any of us good. it would just leave us both miserable and frustrated.

i let go of the rope as he did too.

i imagined us in separate boats in the middle of a vast ocean, held together by a rope that we clung on to. and then, as we let go, i couldn't help but want to grab the rope as it slowly went down deeper and deeper. and, along with it, my heart sank.

there would be no need to say that i cried. the feeling that everything, including those moments that you have not had with someone yet, has been lost is perhaps most painful. the future that you wanted to spend with someone would remain a distant dream that you would wish to slip under the bed, never to be unearthed again.

the night dragged on, and dragged along memories that would have otherwise made me smile. the most poignant thing is that, you start to think that you actually started to live as you started to love. all else, at that moment, remained insignificant and futile.

space is not what you get when you lose something--- its emptiness.

i was empty for thirteen hours.

sandwriting

i "wrote" your initials on the white sand. i "wrote" the letters carefully and legibly. our teacher in elementary would have been very proud of the perfect curliques. you would have been proud, too, i guess.

the sea was perfect, the sun was glowing mildy, and there i was, wanting the whole world to know that i was obssessed with a man who did not even know that i exist. there i was "writng" his initials while my friends were releshing the perfection of nature. haha, talk about stupidity.

the sea was perfect, the sun was still glowing mildly. i erased your initials. erased it with half-baked hesitation. it felt as if the only thing worth doing was to get the sand back to its pristine state, as if your name was the only blemish it had, and that it had to be erased.

i "re-wrote" your name in the white sand. i "re-wrote" the letters carefully and legibly. our teacher in elementary would have been very proud of the perfect curliques. you would have been proud, too, i guess.

dali couldn't be more correct. there is a "persistence of memory".

you're real, after all

that afternoon was perfect. you were there, standing beside one of your friends, smiling... you looked so real... your smile that time was very sincere... you're plain white shirt, your hair, your hands all told me that you were real; real enough to be held, real enough to be talked to, real enough to be with.

it's very refreshing to see you as someone who's real. i guess i daydream too much... too much that sometimes, i mistake you as someone unreal...

heck. you're being real still doesn't change a thing. it doesn't make you in, nor near my league. it still doesn't change the fact that you're not with me, and will never be with me.

it's just weird when a certain moment of beauty becomes the next big nightmare that haunts you. it's like getting into a party and having your ass kicked by the same person who invited you.

i wish i wasn't there that perfect afternoon. i wish i did not see you smile. i wish your plain white shirt, your hair, your hands did not tell me that you were real; real enough to be held, real enough to be talked to, real enough to be with. i wish i went on believing that you're the same unreal person i adored.

but yes, you're real. and yes, you're not mine.