until we are naked and pure.

There was a time I said goodbye to the stars, it was the same time I also said I will forget writing, and I decided to elect myself to grow up every chance I got. I was hurting and hurting bad; and I think it was showing, even as I tried to cover it up. I stuck with old friends but it hurt more, and every part of Naga that was familiar was rubbing me raw. Ateneo was the worst with its wooden chairs, lovely golden afternoons, the sometimes empty classrooms and students looking for a Crispin Maslog. I never wore my uniform again and listened to songs of the late nineties in my room and drank rarely as alcohol pureed the hurt to pinpoint accuracy.

I found new friends, souls who made music and I also played the guitar again, and this time I heard music coursing through amps and more amps. I wrote sparingly and without soul but knew that I didn't know if this what I wanted. I started dancing along with the music, along with my friends, rockers all. We danced, hearing the bass drum thump on our chest and mirrorball reflections crawling along our bodies, I remember sweat trickling down my back and tried to remember in order to forget. I remember the citrus cologne of one of the backup singers of the showband playing as she danced along with me on the rickety stage of Planet B. I was there sometimes screaming for an encore in the smoky haze of the club and the name of showband escapes me if I try to remember. But I guess, there was just really no escape from you, as I went looking for a ride home later in the dark hours before morning. The stillness of the night always got to me first before I managed to enter the house.

After some time the alcohol treated me differently and at times allowed me drunken stupors of numbness, but still I mouthed your name silently in the dark before I drifted off to sleep, seeing you in the dark and alcohol daze. Later that year, numbness took up permanent residency and I could see myself in the mirror again instead of the blurs and hurried glimpses. I discovered exhaustion was a better avenue for a dreamless sleep but I couldnt do it everyday so turned to playing my music loud to drown out the silence. You were a perpetual ache by then and still my mind thought about you in the present tense.

Before I graduated I realized that I had learned to laugh again, but had forgotten writing for the most part. I saw my old friends again and there it was, I remembered that this was the life I used to live, and it was good to immerse myself in it again but it was not coming home, not really. Home was somewhere, home was somewhen, home was past tense. I guess I knew I had grown old by then. I became something I didn't consider myself, I had become normal. Even if you still struck like lightning sometimes. But I was conscious that I started to give a damn again. And I loved and cared the best that I could. By this time I had a daughter who loved me even if I only saw her a little more than 60 days a year. There was a reason to live again, something worth dying for.

Sometime ago, I read Journey to Ixtlan again, and there were things that scratched and moved in my mind ever so faintly and when Solitude came for a visit sometimes, she always talked about how I saw things differently back then, how I even played the guitar and sang offkey, and how I loved to dream; then recently, just before she faded away, she would put her hand on my chest and point heavenwards which always left me wondering. I picked up the pen again and wrote, trying to look for the meaning of what Solitude did, to no avail. Then it will rain again and I will find myself alone and she'd be there and do the same thing before going. At times, I will find myself staring upwards and see only the orange nightglow and searchlights that were not searching for anything.

Then I heard a voice again and my mind moved like a child waking up, not really sure of where it is at first but as familiarity comes crashing down like breaker waves, smiles and picks itself up and looks for its mother. I stared up and saw the stars again and I said hello for the first time in years. Some days later Solitude passed by and looked at me wistfully, went away without saying anything and left me smiling alone in the dark.

I had forgotten myself. I had forgotten my heart most of all.

I have to remember and then I will wait for the rain to wash me away, wash away the skin that I have led myself to live in, to believe in for so long; I will have my time in the rain, and drink in everything again until naked and pure.