IT’S BEEN TEN DAYS SINCE I LAST WROTE SOMETHING

Your existence may have been cut short by your selfish alveoli that popped whenever you tried to breathe, but you’ll never really stop living; you’ll be alive in words spoken by acidic lips again and again and falling to ears connected to more acidic lips. We can keep you alive, and even if the time that our alveoli become selfish too comes, you won’t be buried with us—and hopefully we won’t be buried too—but instead spoken and kept alive by more acidic lips that will soon be crystalline as the stories (and our legacies) becomes thinner until it’s spread so evenly it tears. And eyes will, too.


  In the eyes of the third person, we were nothing special—just another grandfather-granddaughter pair, but what we looked/seemed like isn’t the point. It’s what one feels like when they’re in a relationship fueled with selflessness. It’s like watching your favorite band on TV (I have no other metaphor)—everyone else think it’s just another clip of another batch of pretty faces, but to you, it’s different—it’s more beautiful to you, more special to you.

Our liaison was more beautiful to me, more special to me.
















You weren’t the kind of grandfather who told amazing stories about the war or climbing trees; we played with your dog, and sometimes, I’d see you plant.
And then there came a time when you didn’t join me anymore, and just stood there watching me.
Then you just sat there.
Then you just lied there.
Sometimes you’d sit up when we came.
Then you just lied there.
Then you just lied there.
Then you just lied there.
Then you just lied there.
Then you just lied there.
Then you just lied there.
And I cried here, because I’m so happy for you; finally sitting on a cloud and at peace.
And I cried here; because I pity the world.

It already feels alien without you.
I don’t know who this girl with messy hair is who’s staring at me at two a.m.
It feels weird that the only time I’ve ever seen you groomed is when your eyes aren’t even open, and your hands are too cold to go against it.
I wish you put the killing thing between your teeth, but didn’t give it the power to kill you.
I wish I knew that you shouldn’t even have the killing thing between your teeth whenever I saw you at the backyard.
I wish I stopped you, I wish I knew that you were doing it secretly, away from everyone who’ll just hide your killing things.
I wish the sky weren’t as dark as your lungs, or the circles on everyone’s eyes.
I wish you weren’t lying there.

***
Exam week is finally over and it’s not a secret that a few gallons of tears were shed, with reasons varying from the crappiness of an aerobic routine to a new technique in multiple choice exams wherein the right answer is the letter that your teardrop falls on (it’s not effective). Sometimes I think I even resemble the jar of beads I impulsively bought before the deterioration of everyone’s world also known as hell week—I’m filled with so much beads and thingamajigs that doesn’t make sense alone or together and they are so much more that I cannot contain that the lady at the counter can’t even seal it with a lid and the supposed artsy ingredient spilled everywhere and all its pieces were treated as inconveniences. My English teacher is scolding me from afar for using a run-on sentence.

I guess I’m at the verge of having the upper half of my body burning in hell and the other lower half submerged in cool, soothing water and anything that will contribute to the water/fire cam completely kill the flame/evaporate the entire pool.

What I’m afraid of is the possibility of the fire and water killing each other and there’ll be nothing again.

I’ll be left with emptiness and just myself again.