I missed you all day Sunday.

I went out, looking for stars at past three in the morning, beneath a light drizzle slowly changing to a soft rain. I went looking in between the dark gaps showing through the orangey clouds of Manila. I went looking for stars and grew desperate finding none. I stood for a long time under the quiet growing rain intently staring upward, in my boxers and white undershirt, getting cold but not minding the slow drench. I was saying your name over and over, a silent chant, a hushed mantra of a soundless plea for stars.

As I implored the skies for even just a brief sight of a single star, I thought about you sleeping in the cold, in the dark and I wanted to run my fingers across your face without ever waking you, I wanted to look at you, and wonder if you were dreaming, I wanted to watch you breathing in, breathing out, in and out, in and out and lose myself in the subtle rise and fall of your chest. I wanted to hold your hand as you lay there resting, and remember all the silent almost secret movements you make when you sleep. I wanted to watch the sublime reason for how I am now, sleep.

Then in a fleeting gesture of consideration, a single star shone brightly for a few seconds and then winked out again, covered by the clouds, gone as fast as it came into view, for the few seconds that it was allowed. Feeling the cold, I smiled and said a silent thank you, knowing I have said goodnight and the other whispered endearments you will now also hear in your dream.

Before going in and thinking about sleep, I looked at the clouds and the dark sky of morning and imagined the stars that were there and knew that were there and heard myself tunelessly singing the few lines from the chorus of a 311 song, that Robert Smith first sang years ago.

Yes, dear, always. Always.

see you later near the golden arches.

I saw something in your eyes as you brushed your hair back, something that lit up along with the reflection from the streetlight a few feet away from us but I couldn't bring it to life when I tried to speak and so I just looked at you. Then you smiled and it broke the silence with that silence, and you asked without looking at me if I was going to work overtime tonight. I said no, but didn't return the smile back and I just continued to look at you and you brushed your hair back again leaving a few stray strands that contrasted with your face and made you just look more beautiful against the backdrop of this evening and the subdued yellow gleam from the McDonald's across the street from us.

We sat down on the few short steps of the corridor leading to the side of the building and you finally lit the cigarette you were holding like it was the last Marlboro in the world. When you took that first long drag, you almost closed your eyes and kept that breath in for some time then let it out like a long withdrawn sigh and smiled uncomfortably at me, your eyes sparkling in the nicotine high. I got the cigarette from your fingers, savoring that instance of touch and took a drag myself, letting all my little highs mix with that puff. We passed the Marlboro to each other a few times, dragging our entire attention to its passage from your fingers to mine and back to you again, like an old forgotten ceremony.

You flicked the cigarette away and it hit the asphalt, scattering a few orange sparks and you let your hand freeze in the follow through for a few moments, and as I stared I wanted to hold it, just hold it and keep it warm as your hands were always cold. After a few seconds you moved your hand in that silent movement you always made like you were pushing something away then you placed your hands on your lap and looked at me, with a look that wanted to hold and be held.

I looked away instead and eyed a taxi coming round the bend, the name of the taxi read "The 28th of September" and it struck me as something lovely out of the ordinary. I also wondered what we were doing on that date but it was a time out of mind already and I gave up remembering and just returned to looking at you, the silence creeping in again, like the shadows around us when the traffic slowed down.

I asked if it was your day off tomorrow, even if I knew that it was; even if I had memorized thursdays and fridays as the new saturdays and sundays. You only smiled and looked at your shoes with a nonchalance that was almost perfect except that your eyes gave you away again and you sidled closer to me; close and just enough for our clothes to barely touch each other but enough for me to feel your body heat that made your presence more real and physical. I had to contain myself not to embrace you as I would be crossing a threshold and I would forever change once I stepped over and had to content myself with your warm scent, the scent of your shampoo that I couldn't place but familiar.

Another taxi came driving slowly and saw us looking at our dark reflections on its side window for a few seconds and I froze it in my memory; us, together for just a little while again, then you opened the door and went inside the taxi. You placed your right hand flat against the window and waited for my hand on the other side of the window to place it there, palm against palm; the unseen boundary just becoming real, and I looked at you, taking you all in as I held your hand in my mind. The window glass was cold and I remembered your hands again and me wanting to keep them warm, always. The taxi moved and I saw your eyes again, that same look and knew the words wouldn't matter now.

See you.

I told you I was going to write again.

untitled.*

for a long time,
violet raindrops fell
and we kissed
until
only a blue haze remained
that it drew tears
and the embrace
turned epoxy

then we were gone
so gone

in the summer fumes
we inhaled and exhaled

and called ourselves
angels in our own heaven.



* found scribbled somewhere in my 2001 organizer

mga tanong sa loob ng elevator na ako lang ang sakay.

kung nasa baba tayo ng building, sa fifteen minutes nating break,
para mag yosi o magkwentuhan, habang nagkakape tayo
gamit ang giveaway mugs natin,
puedeng kayang ibang bagay naman pag usapan natin
maliban sa trabaho,
maliban sa kung magkano
at kung meron mang christmas bonus o wala,
o di kaya magtanong ka na lang kung may bagyo
dahil umuulan at maginaw ngayong gabi
o kung uulan ngayong pasko
kaso sa tingin ko, okay lang naman
na pag usapan natin yung nabitin na turnaround time
dahil nakangiti ka ngayong gabi at alam ko mayamaya lang tatatawa ka pa
na hindi mo iisipin kung may makarinig na iba
na wala kang pakialam
na wala ibang tao kundi ako
dahil masaya ka sa mga ilang sandaling iyon
na pinaguusapan natin ang ating trabaho at ang putik na sahod natin
at hindi itong ulan na to sa labas ng building natin
na malamig at patuloy lang sa pagpatak;
na sa ngayon ito lang pinagmamasdan kong mag isa dito sa ground floor
dito sa dating smoking area,
na nag-iisip at nagtatanong sa sarili.

i remember the sound you make when you sneeze.

Being here, up in this height has only the effect of making me see the reality of distance, that even vision is not enough to take it all in. I have to close my eyes in that moment when sight fails and in that space where I am blind I see the vastness of that distance; cloudless, clear and laserburned with your image.

Then, everywhere, daisies and there's a haze in the horizon where the clouds don't quite reach, like a sort of boundary between the clouds and the pureness of the grey sky at the moment.

I am closest to the sky in this place right now, where the very air is thinnest and where clouds are only cold breaths and moisture, and like this cloud crawling along this mountain, I also seek your warmth. I am also now farthest from you in this lifetime.

An irony in itself as we are closer than before, oh far away so close and when after this time we'll never be alone again; only lonely and divvying up the pain between us.

I breathe again and see it turn to a miniature cloud dissipating faster than cigarette smoke.

But as you said, believe. So then I will believe and also dream at the same time, for that time we believe will come.

and everytime she sneezes, I believe it's love. - A. Duritz

I need.

a break, when I am broken
a little time, when I have ran out of it

and Adam Duritz, sings inside my head "if you wrap yourself in daffodils, I'll wrap myself in pain."

I miss Rain, I miss being embraced by her small arms, all innocence and curiousity. I am waiting for Saturday morning to see her smile again and I won't mind if the tears come, I miss her, and I guess, she'll ask and I know I'm just happy to see her again. I'll watch her sleep on our way to somewhere cold and somewhere far from the familiarity of the places I have lived in and far from the strangeness of the places I have been. All 13 kilos of her will be real on our way there, it'll be as real as gravity will permit and it'll take the weight off my thoughts even if for just the short time I will get to hold her. For a few hours I will get to embrace something part of me. I will also be whole again, even if just for the duration of a bus ride and she'll continue to sleep; and my emotions will wonder about a possibility, a probability and a necessity. Then I'll look outside the bus window and see only the actuality of distance; real and slowly being overcome by time.

bus out of Pili.

Stepping inside the bus going to Naga, he felt a certain sense of dislocation at four o'clock in the morning. He wanted to put the blame on the bus, not with how he felt at that point. There was this pervading scent of jackfruit inside the bus suddenly; swift and everywhere. He sat near a window, to breathe the early morning air and his face numbed in the cold biting wind of the dark infant morning. He gazed up and stared at the black, thinking how the vacuum of outer space would feel like right now. This was strangeness staring back in black and straight at him.

The almost empty bus rattled along; metal groaning for want of passengers and human noise. The fluorescent light inside flickering imperceptibly made the sense of motion just more pronounced and more otherwordly like he wasn't supposed to be there and he knew he wasn't; he was supposed to be somewhere warm and familiar.

So he tried to think of other things but the memory of a recent hurried lovemaking clung to him like a second skin, like peeling sunburned skin and he smiled instead, feeling warm despite the chill. He could feel and smell it off him like some aura of warmth and intimacy and he smiled, contented, that it wasn't just bodies colliding.

It was still uncomfortable seeing all that black and strangeness, and as he spaced out in the asphalt of Maharlika Highway in a bus that smelled of ripe jackfruit, he could only think of her and familiarity and of the few hours left before he would have to leave for strangeness and permanent dislocation.

It has been a long time since he missed anybody this way. He missed her smile and the way she closed her eyes.

eight arms to hold you.

When rain falls after you have just opened your eyes in the morning, to hear it fall like a soft remembrance and clothe you in yesterdays and everything around you is in soft focus, covered in a haze when you gaze at the face beside you asleep and you almost cry, enfolded in the taste of that memory and the rainscent rising along the warmth of your bodies stirring and then you touch the face and it fades into a mirage and only the soft falling rain outside remains; and you; warm and alone and longing.

-o0o-

of all the five senses, scent is the fastest and hardest ride to remembering.

-o0o-

and in the meantime I'll write for myself again, an audience of one.

-o0o-

veruca salt.

ateneo ta.

tadom sa paggiromdom, na mayo munang paghorophorop, ang pagsakit, ang kaogmahan, ang paghiling sa harayo, ang paghanap sa kamot na makapot ta ngonyan uya na ngani ang pagmati na inisip lang, dai man minati na maray kundi pighinimbang lang sa maarabot na aldaw, taon o buhay o kung ano talaga ang rason kang mga pagmati na ni, na pighinghing mo sa sadiri mo na totoo, na mayong kaputikan arog kang mga urulay ta kang mga hapon na maharopohop ang duros sa Ateneo, naghihilingan lang sa mata, naghahalat sa saldang na magsulnop sa kung sain man na dai ta nahihiling, nagmamati lang, na may dikit na pangadyi na maghaloy ang mga arog kaning pagmati, sa arog kaning panahon igdi sa batibot, igdi sa mga sementong tukawan na ini, sa irarom kang mga ulpok na kahoy kang niyog igdi, kaya mga halipot na paggiromdomon lang mientras na yaon kita igdi sa ngonyan, na namamati na ang edad, na aram na ang mga boot sabihon kang pagkawara, kang nawara, kang puedeng mawara asin ang habong mawara, mga pangapudan sa sadiring tang pigerokan na sato lang, na magakbay na, na magkapot na ning kamot, na mangkagat na sa kaogmahan ta kataid ta ka na, naghahalat sa banggi, sa diklom para magsulo giraray ning marlboro lights na gold, ta bistado ta man si guard, dai man kita sisitahon, makatabang lang sa pag alaw ning namok, asin makatabang sa pag agi kang oras.
gusto ta ka kutang kuguson sa pagiromdom na ni, 'yan lang ta nainot ka na palan, iniisip ko pa lang ngani.
sabi ninda dai na daa puedeng magkidkid pabalik sa nakaagi na. mala, sala baga sinda.

file system consistency checking life.

A few days ago, from a few storeys up, I was watching the rain turn everything grey and knew that down there in that offcolor downpour I could see more clearly than up here in this cubicle. It would be warmer there for my mind than up here in this global connectivity indifference. The truth was, I wanted to be cold in that rain in order to be warm again.

(After I found the reason why I had missed myself for so long, the resulting truth was a kind of a letdown by itself. No, I take that back, letdown is too inadequate a word. That truth was a tragedy but perhaps there is just no mot juste or mots justes for this truth. The recent catharsis although it brought me back - to my own internal truths and eventually back to myself - also brought me closer to see my own tragic flaw face to face. A conspiracy of fate, of tragic fools bound by the mylar ropes of time and written promises; yes, I have known even as a child that God has a dry and wry humor. )

I continued to stare outside to lose myself in the rain as they wove against each other on the windows of this building, and the want to just go and disappear was there for a moment; true and bleeding.

(And the feeling of being apart from everything else is back; I am looking at the world again with a sort of detachedness that I had years ago, of not really being part of anything or anyone's emotion one except this time I don't feel alone, just that pervading sense of loss and longing that will never really go away as long as I breathe. There is no other choice but to continue and like a long time ago, I will just let my tears come.)

Tonight, a cold wind blows and I feel no promise of rain, just a kind of a chill to the bone. The yellow lampposts and almost empty streets are taking me to a time and place far removed from here and now, years and miles away. I realized this is a rather bad time for reading Haruki Murakami.

160 characters.

There was a certain challenge before in the limitations of a mobile phone's capacity to send text messages, just 160 characters and that was it. You had to create another message to continue your thought but, now, you can write a sonnet and you'll still have space leftover for a few haikus. So back then, I took those limitations further and tried electronic poetry. I even wondered back then who else was doing this; thinking it'd be good to share a few hundred digital characters with that person about poetry in 160 characters or less.

These are just a few I have salvaged from my old journals, organizers whenever I had the time to copy what I wrote before I sent them to whoever, because we didn't even have a sent item folder back then in our mobiles and texting with the knowledge that you were only going to see your poem once -- as you had to delete it after it had been sent contained a sort of lyrical loneliness for me, of brilliance and the abrupt loss of that shine. I think I can even say with some degree of certainty that of all those 160 characters I sent, only these few are left.

in the space between dream and waking we held hands and watched each other breathe in silence and quiet desire; dreaming only for the world to stay this way.

you run like warm cappuccino in my mouth when we are afternoons forever, together we look like the perfect coffeetable book, dog-eared and missing pages.

the lost routine and vanished certainties.the faded sidewalks and silent restaurant doors.the dark early morns and wasted twilights. us, the ghosts in between.

i wish for rain and i know every time i wish it may not always rain but i wish anyway, beyond belief, for each time it rains, it is you that rains in me.

i miss you like life after death and even if i may not live beyond the love collective i'll still miss you forever like fishball sauce and summer sunsets.

i want to create another word for love,for no standard definition fits or exists.i have another word unknown by Webster or the World Wide Web,that word is you.

19 other odd things we did, 40 other even things we wanted and 30 other things to miss since you're not here and 10 more things to do when you come back.

love song lyrics are running through me and i have holes in me the size of Ateneo, i am not okay. i am not level. i am romeo with an acid flashback of you.

A film we should have watched together.

(On a balcony, overlooking a lower part of the city. Jesse is sitting on the stone rail, Céline is leaning against it.)

Jesse: I feel like this is uh, some dream world we're in, you know.

Céline: Yeah, it's so weird. It‘s like our time together is just ours. It‘s our own creation. It must be like I'm in your dream, and you in mine, or something.

Jesse: And what's so cool is that this whole evening, all our time together, shouldn't officially be happening.

Céline: Yeah, I know. Maybe that's why this feels so otherworldly. But then the morning comes, and we turn into pumpkins, right?

Jesse: Ahhh...

Céline: Yeah, I know. But at this time, I think you're supposed to produce the glass slipper, and see if it fits.

Jesse: Yeah?

Céline: Yeah.

Jesse: It'll fit.

basta.

It has been so long but always you'd be the right person to walk with during afternoons along the Avenue, along the dusty streets of Naga, along the empty corridors and covered walks of Ateneo in summer. It has been so long but you are the one person I'd always ask out, not for a date, but to eat Biggs dinners or Greenwich lunches, and the usual kinalas. It has been so long but you'd be the first person I would come and look for to tell any small significant thing that made me see the world in another way. It has been so long but you're the only one who'd let me cry first before asking questions of why tears are there on her shoulders. It has been so long but there would be no other I'd want to be with, to listen to lazy rainy afternoons and let the comfortable silence tell all our stories for us. It has been so long but only you would jump right into the fantasy of our text messages without any cue, or inhibition. It has been so long but you still fall in love with my letters and turn of phrases and mean it when you say so. It has been so long but I still worry like a mother when I can't say exactly where you are. It has been so long but you still derail my thoughts and I wander along the wreckage, smiling; my favorite distraction. It has been so long but your eyes are the only pair I'd want to see squinting in the golden afternoon sun. It has been so long and I know I can only say so much.

It has been so long but the words come easy the way our hands easily fit into each other, and this is the way we have gotten too close our pores have become bestfriends.

tell Sara I got my angst back.

The storms are just perfect. I would have smiled if I could, but futile and plastic if I force it and so no, no smile just a thank you for the weather. As of late, there has been a sense of urgency, a resolute need to walk, to just walk and hold my life in my thoughts for that space. Except that I'm in Manila, where I am strange, dislocated and disconnected.

In Naga, most probably I would already be shivering in this rain and walking and seeing only green fields and myself. and you. This is not a wish for melodrama but it would be so good to walk in this rain, in this storm and in this cold and that either there won't be anybody around except me or that you'd be there and walk with me.

But it would be another year before I have the chance to be there and to see all the things I have been and to let me know that I am myself again. The story of my life.

So I wrote somewhere.

'I will see you when I look out of the bus window, I will see you when I see the stars shine outside the bus. And I will see my reflection looking at all this and see me thinking about you.

I am destiny's fool.'

sa paghuna.

ta paghuna ta kasubago mauran.
madaradagom,
malipot si duros,
kaya naghalat kita
sagkod nagrewind ning dikit
kang mga pirang bulan
duman sa tukawan.
na naka-abot kung sain man
puedeng uranan.
tapos kapot, hadok.
sabay halat giraray.
nag-alok ka na mapauran kita.
na garo mga aki, na
garo ngonyan pa lang
makakamati ning lipot.
sabi ko iyo,
pero habo ko muna maghali duman
sa kaimbungan kang paghalat ta.

Iyo, sige, niako.
ulay na muna kita,
ta mayo pa man ang lipot kang uran.

dai nadagos si uran kang hapon na ito.
banggi na,
kang nasa taas kita.
nagdadangog sa ribok kang atop.
sagkod kita, imbong na lang gabos
asin kugos.

we'll slowdance in the rain.

I'll watch rain fall all over you like a hundred thousand kisses made real
then let our hands slip together over each other, sliding over the wetness
if we shiver at first, then we'll embrace and we'll be our own warmth for just that little while.
and after the coldness passes, we stare at each other's eyes again like this is the first
or perhaps the last.

we'll taste the rain as the music in our minds start to play
and it will be warm rain gathering on our skin, collecting in million little reflections of us
we'll move slowly like this afternoon rain, languid and unhurried
emotions rising like black and white photos, old and familiar and lovely.

for a little while we will have our time in this afternoon rain,
and dancing to the music we played a long time ago
a certain song that our drenched bodies move along now
to dream of forever in this world and the falling rain.

we'll keep on smiling for as long as the heavens break down above
and close our eyes to keep in a memory, in remembrance
of one rainy afternoon we slowdanced along with the falling rain.

you autocomplete me.

There are some odd times I google your name, usually during early early mornings, and I make a silent secret request that a single correct hit would come up and hyperlink me a little electronic story about you, one that I haven't heard before and one that would make missing you a bit more reasonable; something that I can explain by myself; why I pushed the back button again in my mind, instead of just a repetitive F5. Just a little something to make me get over this pining away, until the next time your memories come phishing my current memory banks; that I flicker to safe mode in order not to crash again. Then I make the request again and get the usual 404 code and I try all the search engines for just a ghost of a whisper of your name, any electronic trace of you with a recent timestamp, anything, anything but the residual images and data crashes of years ago.

The 404 codes defragments me just by reading it, because the lines make you hope when you'd rather not, when you'd rather want a dead link and not continue believing the line that it is just "temporary unavailable". Then a 410 loads up sometimes and I depress the power button for the longest time until everything blanks out and the LEDs turn from green to orange then fade out entirely, and I start to envy the instant purging of its memory banks. To turn myself off without saving, just blank out, out of the grid.

But eventually I turn it on and myself; and I am again looking at my static user interface, knowing that if I go deeper in the interface, all user rights and all the defaults are in your name, even if I am the administrator. And I go to google your name again, ready for the results and the letdown.

Then suddenly a 302; you, streaming and live.

gusto mo kwento.

One late evening with my three-year old daughter, Rain, both of us staring at the ceiling.

Gusto mo ng kwento?

A couple of nods

Gusto ko.

Okay, may kwento ako...tungkol sa...angel, alam mo yun?*

Angel.

Nods.

Isang araw may isang angel, lumilipad ang angel, parang bird...at may pakpak ang angel, alam mo yun?

Silent stare.

Alam mo ba ang angel? Teka, hahanap ako ng picture.

Nods then holds my arm

Angel.

Okay, sige. Yung angel lipad lang ng lipad dahil may hinahanap siya.

Hahanap?

May hinahanap yung angel, hinahanap niya yung love niya kaya lipad lang ng lipad yung angel.

A smile.

At lumipad yung angel papuntang e-...

E-mall!

at lumipad din papuntang LC...

LCC!

pero hindi pa rin talaga mahanap ng angel ang love niya. Lumipad din ang angel papuntang San Felipe.

Slipe.

at lumipad din siya papuntang Canaman dun sa sa...

Sala!

pero wala talaga yung love niya dun.

Wala?

Sabi ng angel pupunta siya ng Cathedral, dun kay Jesus, magppray siya.

Ingay si Jesus?

Oo, di puede mag ingay dun sa church. Gusto mong pumunta dun?

Gusto.

Smiles, nods.

Tapos yung angel nagpray kay Jesus, at may sinabi si Jesus kay angel, "Lipad ka lang, angel." kaya lumipad ulit si angel palabas ng church at pumunta sa siya sa school ni papa, dahil baka nandun yung love niya pero wala dun, kaya lipad siya ulit papunta ng Tar...

Tarlac.

pero hindi naman kasama ni Mommy yung love na hinahanap ni angel.

Mommy.

Kaya lumipad ulit siya papuntang Baguio, dun sa bun...

Dok!

Lumipad siya papuntang bundok, nag jogging si angel, pero wala talaga yung love niya, asan kaya yung love ni angel?

Asan, papa?

Lumipad si angel papunta ulit ng e-...

Emall.

Dahil baka nandun, baka nandun sa mga books, nagbabasa yung love ni angel.

Smile again.

Pero wala talaga dun, kaya sabi ng angel punta na lang siya ng dagat dahil hapon na. Alam mo kung ano ang dagat?

Just a stare.

Ang dagat, swimming dun di ba? Dun sa maraming tubig.

Dagat.

Nods.

Pumunta si angel sa dagat tapos color yellow na lahat dahil hapon na, alam mo kung ano color ang yellow?

Nods.

Tapos may nakita yung angel sa dagat, may nagsswim dun.

Smiles and I hear a bit of a laugh.

Lumapit ang angel dun sa dagat sa may tubig at tiningan niya kung sino nagsswim. Nakita ni angel ang isang sirena, alam mo yun?

Just looks at me smiling.Yung sirena, walang paa, may buntot kagaya ni...

Fishda!

Oo, parang si dyesebel. Okay, ng makita ni angel yung sirena lumapit pa siya tapos nabasa na si angel sa dagat, at lumapit din yung sirena kay angel at sabi ni angel siya, siya ang love ko. Nahanap na ni angel ang love niya, love ni angel yung sirena.

I hear her laugh.

Lumipat si angel kay sirena tapos nag embrace sila, at hug din ni sirena si angel.

As if on cue she hugs my left arm to and continues to smile.

Hug sila?

Oo, hug sila tapos umilaw, may liwanag na parang light...

(I point at the lampshade).

Ganun sila...a ilaw sila.

Nods.

Tapos habang may liwanag sa gitna nila, lumipad silang dalawa pataas, papunta dun sa clouds, dun sa mga birds, hanggang naging stars silang dalawa dun, dun sa taas. Nagi ng stars si angel saka si sire...

Sirena.

Hugs my arm again, then laughs a bit.

Tapos na yung kwento. Bukas naman ulit. Okay?

Okay.

O, maganda ba yung kwento?

Ganda.

She smiled at me and then with her small arms, tried to reach for the ceiling.

Gusto mo bang yung kwento?

'yoko, nahihila ako e.

Huh? Nahihila ka?

Oo.

Ano yung hila?

Hila...Hila! Hihila ako.

And all the while as she was saying this, she was smiling and hugging my arm.

Pero maganda yung kwento?

Oo.

Ahhh.

(realization dawning upon me) Nahihiya ka?

Hihila ako e.

E, ba't ka naman mahihila?

Hila ako.

Dahil ba nagembrace sila?

Nods, smiles then hugs me now.

Teka, hindi ka naman nahihiya, kinikilig ka, ano?

A nod and she laughed and tried to sit up to go to her sleeping mom in the other room.

Okay, kaya pala ang hila. Higa ka ulit dito.

She does and I embraced her, like a mermaid.

Now, I miss the cold rain and I miss the warm embraces. hugs. hands. exhaled breaths and the curl of your lips.

* the story was partly inspired by this.

"Sino love ni papa?"
"Si Dyesebel!"

Rain being the mythological character at this point.

sana umulan.

dahil sabi niya maraming nangyayari pag umaga, pag madaling araw
at kulay asul pa ang nasa labas ng bintana
at dito sa kaharian ng ating mga kumot at dalawang unan
naglalaban ang lamig ng nobyembre at init ng ating katawan.
at alam naman natin kung sino magwawagi ngayong umaga.

at maguusap muna tayo,
tayong dalawang pinasingkit ng pagtulog; nangungusap na parang ayaw ipakita ang bibig.
at sa maraming dahilan kung bakit dumadampi pa rin ang ating mga katawan sa isa’t isa;
sa mga lugar na dapat mapunta

sa atin na muna ang umaga. dahil ito lang ang kayamanan sa mundo,
ito lang ang puede munang isipin. at gawin.
dahil mayamaya lang puputi na ang asul sa bintana.

at alam ko puede rin nating isiping gabi pa at madilim, madilim pa ang lahat.
at tayo lang ang nakakakita, at tayo lang gumagalaw, at tayo lang ang humihinga.
dahil ito na lang ang oras na natitira sa atin.

At lahat ay puede.