sansrival

it appears in aesthetics, in buccal fat removals, in unpaid credit card wages, in the ungroomed adorable pet, in the custom sticker name engraved tumbler, in the journal you’ve got all the designs for.

being interesting but never being fully known, I think somewhere in Pinterest that quote has been said before.

matters to me more now if my friends respond to when I ask them how they are, if my elder sister still asks me to play among us w her despite the faulty internet, if my younger one laughs at how weird I’ve adapted to the humors and the wiles of the common Manileña. I take pride that I start scraping the jar of peanut butter I bought on my first month here, that I finish up the rest of my peanut butter and cheese sandwich, that I get to tell Kirk or Joanna or Simone how it’s actually a good combination. I shared it once to kuya Maxsam and he said it was good. He was a kind senior I’d look past at when we had duty. It was probably a symptom I was exhibiting.

Today, I remain grateful. Today I remain something the lecturer in the review center said: Edward Jenner used cowpox to cross-immune patients. Immune to it.

the pandemic of desiring being liked but not being loved. thank you God for the eyes to see just how unmoving I’ve been in the middle of all of it.

4/16

On the way to Maginhawa street, my arm wrapped around in yours, we paced slow. My feet were killing me. I think I’d drop dead just looking at you. I, in my feeble attempt to keep this moment for myself, take out my phone. We talk. I hear myself performing for the camera. ‘Sir where are you taking me today?’ You point forward once we took a turn.

We cross the road. I needed not to worry about looking side to side. You were next to me. A bike neared us, from the south he did not stop at the pedestrian lane. You held your hand up. Led me out of the road through my shoulders as you complained and almost curse out the rider. I slide my hand in yours. Fearless attempt to fathom this reality. My mind cannot translate how a familiarity, the callouses in your thumb, could be true.

Where do you want to eat? You decide, my dear. Right there. I am in utter awe. Funny how firsts often feel like fiction, like something in novels I’d dog-ear. Then I ate that lugaw, I gave you a slice of the deep fried liempo, I overhear the other table’s conversation, the woman’s rules on dating, guy’s array of interests he clearly was projecting as ideal qualities. I yawn, I lean on your shoulder so that you wouldn’t see. I hold your hand with my other hand, fearless attempt to fathom this reality. You make life a lot like fiction. You make life a lot less like fiction.

I miss you.

it is a gut wrenching, mind scathing, heartsinking feeling to be the daughter of a single mother.

to resent someone for all the hurt they have caused but also be so guilty for thinking of someone like that. at times, I’d worry I become so arrogant and insensitive with all the bottled up needs, all the romanticized ‘independence’.

I grit my teeth in the morning wondering how to reconcile that I was raised to regulate someone else’s feelings before I would my own. That I was told early on, not to cry in front of her because I was too privileged to feel any pain. That I hadn’t known what it was like for her so I should be thankful. So I lived on resentful gratitude. I lived on privileged guilt. Whatever oxymoron is there for the taking I took it like the consumer I am.

- a vine circa 2010s

I had forgotten the vine we laughed about while washing dishes together. 3 years since, my childhood best friend.

once upon a time you’re reminded of someone’s existence. and then it dawns upon you that perhaps our most incompetent is when we forget. and it’s such a weird verb, to do something without actually doing something. to miss a flight, to forget an ingredient, to misplace an ID, to forsake a dead loved one.

To be seen, to make other people happy. He’d known how to make me laugh, and then he tried to do that all the time. At a young age, you see something an 8 year old should never see. And it marks you, in a twisted caving way, it does. But you try to be seen. You went to places with what I hoped was the zeal of the life ahead of you. But it was grief that took you there. Some days I feel like I’ll never live up to anything good because I couldn’t be a good ate to you. I didn’t. And you just wanted me to see you. You wanted people to see you.

You never said anything about your brother. You had each other through it but he left. And you couldn’t say, ‘how could you?’, how could you?

He was the golden boy. You were the one that played outside. You were used mightily, while you were here. Allen, the kid who invited 20 people to church. His friends in the community loved him.

As I grew older, almost 3 years after, you learn to make someone alive by going through the pain of remembering the memories with them. 5 years you went through unimaginable grief, and perhaps it wasn’t your grief alone but your parents’ too. So much was expected of you, and you were just a kid.

secrets made bare by hands touching each other. my thumb presses against your thumb, it says I’ve loved you for a long time now. blood rushes and vessels become fabric as it nears its seams. my heart rushes towards my throat, you’re the love of my life. I don’t say it. I struggle to do anything but pace towards Katipunan station. Araw ng Kalayaan got us free train tickets and I fear it may be my heroes causing all this euphoric day of emancipation. I am made of the glitter and gold beaming in the nectar of life and love. all of the boring things a girl could ever become, holding a guy’s hand. absolutely excruciatingly insufferable. we pass by so many people. I’ve learned not to mind them.

you offer up your hand to me, I take it. At a crosswalk, my fingers go in between yours, mine look a little smaller than yours. Albeit different, my strings are tied to yours. I don’t want you to let go. secrets made bare by hands touching each other. my thumb presses against your thumb, it says I’ve loved you for a long time now. I have my dear.

And the more I do, the more I feel like a corpse

And it’s gross and gory to think about

To just be still, to be consuming media while I sat on the empty chairs in our condo while my friends went on to their internships. I say that as if I’m not going having an internship myself. It’s supposedly my rest day. But I sat and watched reels.

Am I really not worthy of resting? I feel as if I’m wasting away when I should be reviewing somewhere. I think I should be. I should go now. There’s a room downstairs for reviewing I should go.

That I remember things better than they actually were

A lot of my captured photos are aged road signs and mountain sides

Barbecue stands that have lasted longer than big restaurants around our place

Everything that I freely, if not extremely cheaply afford in life

A bystander amidst beautiful things. I grieve what is not yet lost, I look past what’s in front of me. People and seasons change. Seasons change people. A famous Japanese belief: never the same person at the same place at the same time.

So now I go back to Manila. I’m an intern now, San Lazaro Hospital. Center for Infectious Diseases, and I get to work with different characters, different people. Within and amongst people to be understood. I get to live with friends who are excellent in their own areas, each with something to be proud of. I worry I might be nostalgic to a fault. But then again, it’s these precious memories that make the hard things worth doing again. Thank you God for all that was and is and is to come.

3/1/26

somewhere along our conversations I tell you

“I’m really grateful it’s you”

the soul, famished til it could spring forth those words

thus overflowing next to that poolside, under smog shrouded night skies

The whole day I ached just to tell you I want you next to me all the time

Despite having been with you all day, 10,000 steps we tell each other at the mall

I wish I could tell you how scared I am all the same

For the moment’s sake I stay silent. And then I break it.

“A fever dream”

I might’ve thought that out loud

“A dream come true”, you say.

“Yeah”

I bought a Coke Zero to drink to pair with my dinner. I called my sister, I told her there’s no sugar in this thing. But then again, what is it made of anyway? I’m reminded of my mortality. But I drink anyway.

I’ll love you til it gets to me. That all things end. That our finiteness define our very last days. But also our good days, our bad days, our moderate. Because everyday I forget. How severely temporary I am in the scheme of things. And I think I’ll forget it everyday still. If it’s what it takes. To love you like there won’t be an end. To live in forever, to know this creative cruel incandescence over and over. That is, to love you.

I’ll love you til it gets to me.

like many things at once, seared tomatoes, garlic and minced sardines. grief and joy. the other day, cheese had no rancidity, the crème I bought at the convenience store downstairs paired well with the chili flakes I asked from Teya.

8 minutes I set on a timer to reach al dente. 8 minutes all the same I repeated the video lecture over and over and over trying to understand— grief and joy.

I’m on my second try on my mockboards this Thursday. On the bus again to get home. This time my sisters are not here, my mom is abroad. And I could faintly taste the oregano, and the heat from the pan wells up through my cheeks.

Grief and joy. Knowing you can cook while you miss your sister’s food. Understanding nutritional benefits without your mom telling you which food is best for you. Not sitting down with your youngest sister, waiting for the spoon brought to us by ate. “Taste” she says. I tell Aly and Arvi and Tanya and Teya, “taste”.