taking up space

prose, poems, and diary scraps

[yourlocalghostwriter]

He is your apology.

I met someone today. Someone new. He's cute. He's smart. He's funny. He's thoughtful. He resembles you.

I told myself a long time ago that I will stop searching for remnants of you in people, that I would give myself the chance to stop looking for a blueprint so unique it cannot be replicated. Yet here I am. You took so much of my heart and soul that whatever I do, whoever I meet, it all comes back to you.

The first time I saw him took my breath away. I knew right there and then I would get totally smitten by him and I was right. He looks, talks, and acts just like the very man I thought I would never meet again. I like him. I would like to get to know him more.

He is so much like you—and yet, not you at all.

There are songs I still cannot listen to without feeling an ache in my chest. I stopped hoping of being able to fully let you go. You are engraved in the very sinews of my heart. I guess I will forever love you. Everything that I will ever do, in everyone I will ever love, will have pieces of you in it.

Thank you though.

Thank you for praying hard enough for me that I got to meet you all over again—in a different body, with a different voice, with a different story.

He feels like an apology from you.

With him, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time—something I only ever felt about you.

I could cry for you, for us, for the fact that we didn't stand a chance. This is the best we will ever get, the closest chance we will ever have. You will meet me in another woman and I will get to meet you all over again through somebody else.

And this time—it's him.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

Faith of Decay

What if the church stood in the middle of the woods,

beneath the darkening shade of arching trees,

its walls and cracks growing mold,

gated by thorns and weeds?

What if the church stood in the middle of the woods,

and a rancid smell of sins and disgrace filled its air,

of dust and cigarette soot,

of a shameful odor of fear?

What if the church stood in the middle of the woods,

and echoes of the ragged breaths of a dying child,

of creaking floors and eerie chimes,

of crying men that wiled?

Will its worshippers walk in barefoot mud to praise in the quiet,

beneath the darkening woods,

amid an aroma of mildew and fear,

a chorus of evil and good?

Tell me.

What does a church become when it stands in the middle of the woods,

without its museum of paintings and carvings of angels,

that rustle of creatures that lurk and brood,

a church that reflects the very doors of hell?

[yourlocalghostwriter]

I wish I could tell my friends how lonely it really is inside this heart of mine.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

College was just a fever dream.

I remember my mother calling me early in the morning because the government just announced that cities will be on lockdown due to COVID-19. I just got home from a night of partying that time. I was 19 years old. I was in a different city. It was also my first year in college.

When I ended the call, I can still recall how I hurriedly stuffed my bags with everything that I could, not minding if clothes were folded or if everything was just a crumple of mess inside. I need to hurry before the buses are filled, I thought just as well as the other people in my dorm.

Before I left the familiarity of my dorm room walls, I remember receiving an announcement—a university memo—stating that classes will also be cancelled for two weeks due to city lockdowns. "Two weeks", it read. So I decided to leave a few of my things—my bedsheets and mattress, dirty laundry, and a few books—thinking I'll just be back after a couple of weeks. It sat in my dorm locker for two years.

The world seemed to stop spinning within those two years. My life was also held on pause. I spent my second and third year of college in front of a screen, not seeing the faces of the people I thought I would spend my highs and lows with in what was meant to be the most exciting time of my life, and most of the time I found myself dozing off on lectures just as much as the world had dozed off on everybody else.

When the government had given the go signal for a few universities to finally hold face-to-face classes, my university was one of them. I was ecstatic. I would finally get to see my friends again. There's still time for us to catch up to the two years we lost. Little did I know back then that what was lost will remain lost forever.

My last year in college was filled with the business of my feet moving from one place to another just to finish my thesis paper on time. It was filled with the voices of my supervisors telling me what and not to do because I was their intern. It was filled with phonecalls towards home, asking my mom for an additional allowance, because I barely had enough money for meals because my thesis and all the other things that came as a graduating student was a financial burden. It felt like I was scraping off time from the little spaces left on my academic itinerary. I barely got to hang out with the blockmates I-so-wanted to be my college buddies.

I'm 23 years old at present, turning 24 next month. I just graduated college last year in June. I'm still studying but it's for a licensure exam now, not for midterms nor finals. Until now, I still don't feel like an adult who just graduated from uni life. I still feel like that 19 year old girl who just left her hometown to study in a far off place, looking at the world like it held big adventures in its path. I feel robbed of that liberty. I feel like what was supposed to be mine—the experiences, the joy and sorrow, the highs and lows—were all stolen from me in a heartbeat and were never brought back.

College felt like it didn't happen despite all the certificates, the pictures, and the diploma proving that it did.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

Perhaps you did love me.

Perhaps you really did love me. Perhaps I really didn't need to villainize you. Perhaps you did try to love me in all the ways you knew, in all the ways you can. Perhaps it was just me who never found it enough. Perhaps what was inadequate for me was all that you had. Perhaps you've also hurt and wallowed over what we lost. Perhaps it wasn't just me. Perhaps it was you too. Perhaps you did love me, and I loved you, but we were just not meant to be.

[joytri]

[yourlocalghostwriter]

You loved me in only a song length, but I loved you an eternity more.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

Dearest Red,

You are the colors of addiction,

the colors of sex,

the colors of a burning cigarette,

the colors of wine.

Yet you are also the colors of the sunrise,

the colors of warmth,

the colors of love,

the colors of the setting sun.

As I am devoid of colors,

I obsess to touch you,

to paint with pallettes of red,

to create a lilac sky.

Forever Yours,

Blue

[yourlocalghostwriter]

The World Did Not End At 15

An Open Letter

I am sitting here looking out at the world. It's dark. It's gloomy. Lighting slashes are visibly seen in the sky like a streak of a paint brush as thunder crashes through. For a moment, the universe holds still and I know my heart is at peace. I do not know how I made it here, but I did.

To my dearest self,

There are a few things I want you to know.

We made it.

We've met many amazing people. We've had so many first times. We experienced a lot of learning moments but those were also the times we made the best memories.

You will find your people and you will know you will never forget them. As much as you've gained, you will also lose those who are dear to your heart and more. It will break you and there will be days when you will refuse to see the sun. You will cry a lot about it but you will also meet the ones you will have far better connections with. You will learn a lot of things and you will grow into someone you think you will never be, but you will be proud of who you've become.

One day, you will start to see the world differently, and you will fight against your own morals and beliefs. Don't worry. You will be strong enough to fight by then. You will be okay.

You will lose a lot as life will propel you forward. Don't be afraid. The joy after each pain will make up for it. Never stop being a dreamer. Keep reaching for new heights. Keep having big goals. That is your magic. That is your spark.

Your hope, your passion, your kindness, will be the things that will guide you through life. Just keep holding on, my dearest. Things will always get better.

Your heart will break a lot of times but it is in your heartbreak that your strongest friendships will be forged, that the kindest hearts around you will be revealed. You will be grateful for meeting them and you will give them pieces of your heart.

Leave our hometown. Fall in love. Take risks.

Also, we love dad now.

♡

[yourlocalghostwriter]

I love loving people and this is both my magic and my tragedy.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

The barbecued chicken was handed to me for the first time.

I am the eldest in the family. As I was growing up, I was taught to always be the one to give up my piece so my little siblings could be twice as full. I didn't resent this. I viewed it as a labor of love, of a familial sacrifice. If I wanted a piece during dinner, I had to cook my own or take it from the serving plate with my own hands. I was never handed anything because I am supposed to be the one to lend or give something. This is a part I played without question.

Tonight, I went out to dinner with my best friend's family. She is a middle child and so perhaps she had not known what just transpired in my mind during dinner. They ordered barbecued chicken and after saying grace, I waited for everyone to get their own piece before I'm supposed to take mine. I didn't do it consciously. It was perhaps a reflex that came after years of practice.

When everybody already had their own piece and as I was supposed to reach for mine, my best friend's dad handed me the barbecued chicken and placed it on my plate. I was fazed. I looked at the chicken for a couple of seconds, blinked, and had to compose myself before I swell up. This is mine. This is my piece. I didn't have to fight for it, nor prove myself worthy of it. For the first time, I didn't feel like the oldest person in the room. For the first time, I felt like a child being taken care of, a child that is seen, treated as one, and does not have the title as the "eldest".

As I went home, I realized it opened a wound I learned to bandage over time. I am not saying that my family never had affectionate moments nor acts of services when it truly mattered, but it did feel nice to be treated without the expectation of a sacrifice.

The barbecued chicken was handed to me for the first time and just a little bit, a part of me healed.

[yourlocalghostwriter]

"You are still the best thing that's ever been mine. You raised the bar of who I want to fall in love with. I still wish nothing changed. Don't blame yourself that it did though"

This is the greatest tragedy of being perfect but not worthy enough. The heart will always just be a prototype, an example, but never the subject. always an angel, never a god

[yourlocalghostwriter]

I know now that even in another life, I would've loved and lost you still. Some heartbreaks are absolute points and you were always mine all across lifetimes.

- In All Our Absolutes / Riri

[yourlocalghostwriter]

Entry No. 23

I search blindly in the dark for a love to stay. I long for something that lasts forever, for something that will never slip my grip. My heart is tired of often finding happiness and having it taken away from my embrace in a heartbeat.

I want a house on the hill, a family filled with love and laughter, a husband who loves me and that love extended in little feet. I keep advocating for independence, feminism, but honestly, I just want a place, a person, a heart to belong to.

My heart is not built to roam this world alone. It's a half of something. I try to fill it with books, music, and art but it stays just half of something. It can barely survive on its own.

Souls are made in pairs, and when a piece of a heart is alone long enough, its hopes and dreams die.