You’ve allowed me to tread the outer circles of your life, only to create a ripple from the inside that would push me away. For a moment, I tried to keep my balance, confident that since I have been here over and over again in my life, I have already mastered how to create friction in even the smoothest of surfaces.

But there came a point when your ripples turned to waves, then to tsunamis, and I am no expert in swimming. I know the feeling of drowning but that does not mean I know how to swim back to the open air. Survival, for me, is not always finding my way up but forcing myself to blend in. So I began slicing the sides of my neck to make room for gills.

Slowly, the water from your ocean entered my body and I thought, there I was, finally consuming you, letting myself become a part of you through the impossibilities and limitations. But you weren’t impossible and limited for nothing, and you eventually became too much for me to take in. That not even my newly acquired skill to breathe underwater could make me survive the way you, the ocean, cradled my body – rough, hard, violent, impatient, unloved.

I used to wonder if a fish could drown in the vastness of the ocean. I found it illogical if it could, knowing that every depth, every trench is its home. But at that moment when all I could taste was your rage, I was able to conclude that if a fish would die, it is most likely because it allowed itself to drown.

While I would have wanted the same fate for myself, I know that you wouldn’t want to be tainted by my blood. And so, in an alternative form of surrendering, I let myself be brought to the shore by your continuous rage, continuously pushing me until I reached the shore.

From where I am now standing, you – a beautiful ocean – look so calm, and still, very inviting, tempting, as if I haven’t learned anything yet. Maybe I haven’t.

Maybe, one day, I will try again. Yes, you have tried to drown me. Yes, you have rejected me. But not even the earth’s 70% can extinguish the burning sensation of your lips against mine.

Heard this conversation between two underwater friends:

SPONGEBOB: What do you normally do when I am gone?

PATRICK: Wait for you to get back. 

For the longest time, I circled myself to a dead earth and I was his moon – distant. I could never come nearer for the fear that my gravity would pull bigger waves in him. And despite wanting to do so much more than just being an accessory to the many nights he needed someone to look down on him as he sleeps, I stood still.

There were nights when I would wander on my own, completely out of his sight. But I would always come back, just as soon as I left. I would fade, quarter by quarter, only to show myself whole again.

And then everything changed when you came.

Like stars, you made black beautiful. The darkness did not feel scary anymore. At some point, it felt like I belonged more to the night sky we shared together than the Earth that gave me existence.

While the Earth was in front of me, I felt that you were around me.

But the truth was, you were also someone else’s sun in a faraway galaxy that I could only look into, and never be part of. From where you were, I, this moon, never really existed.

In here, you were a thousand scattered pieces capable of adorning the dark and imperfect sky. From one constellation to another, I drew a better world I would like to remember.

How come you used to fall in love with almost every person that comes into your life?

For so long, I have fallen in love with the idea of love, and not the person. I was not looking for a hand to hold, but the warmth that it could give. I was not yearning for a pair of lips to kiss, but the inner sensation I could get from it. I was not after the person, but the existence he could occupy in the many vacant spaces in my life.

So what happened?

It is easy to remember how you did the things you did – 

The way you wrapped your arms around me on that night I let my broken pieces down felt like the first time my Mama closed a wound with a Band-Aid – a wound I got from too much running around carelessly. It did not stop the pain, but at least it made it appear less badly.

When I placed my fingers in between yours, it seemed like touching the fine grains of sand again. Suddenly, counting my fingers from one to 10 became impossible. Everything turned infinite. It was as if holding hands could lead to so much more. Like the ocean, I thought we were endless.

Looking into your eyes took me back to an eclipse in ’99. We just studied in science class how the Earth blocks the sunlight from reaching the moon, thus casting redness to the lone satellite. Your eyes carried the same mystery that was too hard to totally explain but too beautiful to completely ignore.

Your lips tasted like ice cream at a time my tongue could only recognize the sweetness of milk. I reckoned that it had the same vanilla flavor but it was of a different kind, something new, like nothing could have been better.

As you speak of stories of births and deaths, I saw myself being that kid in high school who would listen to the fables and parables of my religion, believing in every syllable in the Bible. I put my faith forward, doubts back, and accepted your stories like blessings.

This list could just go on and on because remembering your existence along mine is looking back at a new life you handed to me. I had become an empty vessel, yours to unwillingly fill.

I am now half-full, still half-empty. So create more memories with me. It is so much easier to remember how you did the things you did

For so long, I sheltered myself under the safety of the canopy of the trees, enjoyed what little light I could see. Yes, my life was filled with shadows but I knew that that was where I belonged. My arms and limbs were rooted to the ground, keeping me alive.

Then you came. From above, you took down the branches, one by one. Slowly, the shadows were casted away and I began to see what lies beyond beyond. You pulled me up and together, we traversed the vast land of my safety until we reached the edge.

From there, you brought the clouds to my hands, the stars to my eyes. You made me see so much more.

I was overwhelmed. I know I could not adapt to this kind of environment. I was bred to simply be where I was born. Not up there. Not with you.

And you, you still have the rest of world to explore. You are bound for greater things, for new beginnings. Not just here. Not with me.

So go. I am staying here at the edge to see you sail along. I would spread my arms and limbs so I could grow my roots, and again, create my own canopy, my shelter.  

Let the shadows be mine.

I am afraid to fall in love again even if I know I want to, need to.

Because if I did, I might forget about you, about us. If I would stop remembering the memories we created, who else will? No one.

No one else will tell the story of how much I loved you unconditionally.

That is what I am afraid of.

If only I knew that was the last night, I should have hugged you tighter then kissed you longer. I should have looked deeper into your eyes to know what pain lies behind. I never should have left all too early so that I could see your face against the morning light like how I wanted each day to begin.

Then things could have been better, best even, for a last night of being romantically alive. That last breath could have been like that of a dying person who would see his life in burning flashes of light. I could have at least prepared myself for death that would come only seconds after I left.

Because when I did, I began to build a story that was never meant to be written, a story tailored around my self-imposed possibilities and expectations. The plot was prophetic but in a different sense. It only confirmed that all was fiction, nothing more than high hopes to be true.

And a fading hope, this is and will be until such a time when you will be the same person I met on that one night in August; until you can kiss me again and again and again, and never fade away ever again. That is until such a time when you have finally decided to stay. Then to love again.