images.

I still felt warm and dry as I went out of the house and braved the rain, and cherished the little jabs of cold on my face, raindrops that also blurred my glasses. I stopped near the gate and out from the rain for a moment then watched it fall, it had been falling intermittently since yesterday. I saw it running around my shoes, falling from the faded tarpaulin eaves of the carinderia across the street and I saw it hitting the canvas covers of the tricycles, yearning for passengers in this cold and at this time, and I saw rain dripping down and slowly disintegrated some dog shit into dark brown pieces, and mixed in with the rainbow colors that the leaking diesel made as it went from tricycle to street. I stepped out and into that rain, hitting me fully as it gained strength and added chill, but I felt warm. It was okay again to remember because it was cold and there was you inside me again. There was no sky, only grayness and falling cold.

This was how the rain fell, as I made my way through the wet street going to EDSA, littered with discarded pieces of vegetable and uncollected trash, and the morning reluctantly and ever so slowly woke up.

The golden arches of the McDonald's across the street turned a dull yellow as its lights were turned off, and I looked up beside me and saw the green and orange colors of 7-11 still brightly lit up. Everything outside the taxi was gray, drained of color and desolate that I lost myself as I looked over the haze and horizon of Guadalupe Bridge and Pasig River. I lost myself, in the colors of memory and of summer from ages ago. Then I was looking at the LEDs of our building's elevator changing and I stepped off into the dimness of our floor, punctuated only by the bright green blink of the sensor near the door. I waved my proximity card and heard the sharp ping of the sensor and involuntary took a deep breath entered into another gray world, where cyberspace is the most often the only source of color. It was still raining outside but the sound wasn't there as I sat on my chair, and the gray outside had hues and shades more varied than the whole floor of my workplace. Then I got lost again, staring at the rain.

I miss our colors. I miss the rainbows that were there when were together. I miss our own
psychedelic world. I miss you.