#casipit

I see you.

The way you keep your gaze down as you walk,

The way you avoid any eye contact,

The way you try to look like nothing; not lonely or sad or happy or different — literally nothing.

I notice you watch the "cool" girls,

And try to figure out how they work, how they manage to always be first.

And why do you always come last?

In a crowded room of people, there is not enough oxygen for everyone to inhale

So you take shallow breaths and push yourself against the wall.

You try to make yourself as small and insignificant as you can

Because God forbid you become an inconvenience.

You've given yourself to so many other people you've forgotten you need yourself.

And that induces a different ache,

One I am familiar with

Because I did that too.

They told me, "breathe easy!"

I said, "I try to!"

Do not let yourself suffocate,

As I did myself for so long.

Pause and drink in the air

Because you can.

Stand up straight and tall

Because you actually matter.

My darling, you're not a "cool" girl.

You are something else entirely.

My grandmother loves her stories. She would tell me of the life she had as she grew up on the island of Okinawa and then what it was like after she moved to Batangas at age 6.

At times, my grandmother starts laughing out of nowhere. These are the times that she reminisces about her stories, like how she used to come home from school and play piko with the children next door even though she was already in college. "That's how it is when you're old," she says. "You remember all your stories and start laughing. Then, people look at you like you're crazy."

She tells me what certain places used to be like, how her father was a writer, and how her great aunts would send her home from their house in a kalesa. She said that when she was a child and she wanted merienda, she would clean her own grandmother's house and get paid 25 centavos to buy her food.

We were once at a coffee shop and she bought a mug of tea. "It smells... Japanese." I said to her. "It smells like home to me." She answered and just like that she was back in Japan, a little girl again.

Kundiman. Kapighatian. Yakap. Galang. Po. Opo.