Layout by: Casandra Bibon
Published by: Ayesa Nicole Aman
Date Published: March 22, 2024
Time Published: 1:00 PM
Category: Prose
Theme: Building an ideal relationship only to have it halted by disinterest.
May we never forget those times when we were together: in Ermita, waiting for a pair of grilled Betamax. In the Museum, wondering how arts were made. In Taft, where I first saw you, and in QC, where I saw you last.
We both stood in an alley when you told me we'd go back here. Even though the smoke triumphed over your sweet smell and covered half of your white dress, I would still choose to be by your side and sniff the scorched scent of your clothes. You were a film I loved to watch.
We held our hands, I fed you our newly grilled Betamax—you did the same thing to me. I sedately gnaw because it is a necessity to remember its texture. I pined to taste its sourness for a reason to not be noxious the next time we go here. I longed to smell it because it reminded me of you.
You requested to walk, and it was not my thing. But angels knew how I hardly prayed that this path we were walking on wouldn’t end because we danced, we talked, and we loved.
It all happened in Ermita.
Yet nothing would beat how you looked dreamy when we went to the museum in Antipolo; you were such an art that I would stare for hours. I've never drawn before, but I had the sudden desire to learn so I could place you on that wall, then abruptly you became a piece of art that wouldn’t speak to me.
I felt like I was in a tug of war. I wanted to ask you; I wanted my questions to be filled with nothing—so please, meet me between the paradoxes.
Though you met me in QC instead, QC was big and I was lost. I needed to find you, but QC was big. I couldn’t find myself.
I need to go home given that my skin chafed, so I told you. I shall get inside the train, feeling blue while the sky darkens. Right away, I knew I wanted to return, despite the itching of my skin and the suffocating air on the sidewalks, since you were there.
Until you left, I searched for you in Taft, where I first saw you, wondering if Taft would be the same place to see you again.
Barring that I was so tired of going around Manila and I had to stop by Ermita, I came back to look for you, to look for us. The place was filled with smoke, and the charred stainless steel where we grilled our Betamax was there, but you weren’t.
It all ended in Ermita.
That’s why the Cranberries might have been right; I’m such a fool for you because I remembered, and you didn’t.
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