Paper Boat Dreams

Tonight I will gather myself on top of the highest building and all the more you will love me there.

I will surprise you beyond all view with stronger love that collects itself with city things and neon lights which you and I used to fancy in our subsequent years.

Because you long for a man with nests of wild things in his mind, off the edge I’ll take this step with reminiscence and prayers as I come down to you to fit this ring of ageless love.

I hope this won’t freak you out.

We spent so many Sundays together and with your hand clutched onto my arm, I could walk with not even an eye open.

In the dirty market in the early morn. Our pouches filled with citrus delights: oranges, melons, tangerines. Upon the sidewalk, we’d sit on benches to peel their skins, suck the juice, spew the seeds. Often I’d say, “Bitter!” You’d say, “Sweet!”

Lunch at the barbeque stall along the highway. We smiled to each other as cars and jeepneys travelled by. We gave slices to stray cats; some sprinkled on the ground, some served by hand.

The afternoon was for the city park. We liked to roam around the field of much green, streetsides lined with sunflowers.

But on this Sunday, all I can stomach is some cheaply-priced bread. A stiff, tasteless dough, the size of your fist.

At the stall, I only make it to see the cats but nothing to find there except burnt sticks shredding from passersby steps.

And I can’t look at the park. Instead, I find myself sitting in someone’s garden, facing these wilted roses and furling forget-me-nots.

There is something just to proximity, to having known a person by constant conversations, to loving his words and the realizations behind it, the cheerful voice that comes out of him, the efforts he makes to be amusing, and then, too, something to having been awhile– let’s say, a week or two, a day, an hour, the time in which you were removed, briefly free of him, even– and to coming back into places you had been before and finding him still there, unchanged, the same as he was when you last checked on him, left him.

But there is something to this, to finding that you cannot possibly fill in what he was in your absence and, whatever your way of feeding and fishing, your words still mean nothing to him. That whatever subtlety or frankness your concern take, you cannot still imagine him as having been anything at all, even just making the most of his unexpected dependence on you, his forced submission to people he knew nothing deep. Something about this is bound to overcome you.

This happened to me many times when I brought someone to places. It swayed me. It had been easy enough to go away, to sit in a beer house or in a park and hate him for an hour or for the rest of my life, but being again in his proximity, seeing the way he laughed at my jokes as he planted another cigarette in his mouth– a thing as minor as that– made hating him, even for a second, feel like a crime. Watching him as he smoked, I decided not to tell him about everything else. I decided not to go to my other appointments, to stay an hour with new friends in another beer house. I’d cancel two or three interesting meetings.

These things happened many times. And after many times, just this morning, finally, I wakened this love with a fingernail scratch.

Supposing that Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are the lover’s right to “lie” days.

And, supposing that Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays are the beloved’s right to “lie” days.

Let’s say that the remaining day, i.e. Sunday, is considered a day of “truth” for both of them.

One day, suppose you hear the following conversation;

    The lover says: “I lied yesterday.”

    The beloved replies: “Yeah, me too.”

Now, what day is this conversation taking place?

Now that it finally expires – madness and all insatiable kinds of things that kept me wakeful, breathless, trembling, impervious to reason and incessantly on the point of tears for what seemed half a decade, I found my sanity restored, regained my happiness, went exercising and prepared good meals, called my parents, shared stories with friends unseen for months, wrote happy poems, watched the news, made a point to be amusing, and celebrated each new day upon the sidewalk with a few cheerful people waiting for something miraculous to happen.

Some people say that love, when it is broken, lies about in little pieces. They further say that you have to walk around such feelings or they will pierce you like a thorn.

I’ve lived most of my life believing them. Probably it is one reason I’d never gotten myself off the chains of drama.

But, to this day, whenever the old feelings come to mind, I tend not to wonder about it — all the stupid questions raised but remained unanswered. Somehow, I’ve become more aware of it as time rolls by that I finally know how to break loose.

So where do I go from here?

I’m so tired of reading old letters. For now, I will dress and walk to the market. It is a glorious day.