Awww. What a title.
The other night a house mate and I decided to spend it on the rooftop of our boarding house to escape the heat of our rooms down below. We welcome the approaching December winds, and the rooftop is a calming and soothing refuge for our tired bodies who walked one of urban Manila's most depressed areas earlier during the day. We consciously but implicitly agree to spend our time there and talk about almost anything (how the day went, the food we're eating, the tambays around the corner who speak with weird Californian, valley girl accent, the cockroach traversing the veranda's rails, anything), but that night, she was her usual self. We've had this tens of times of before. And yet somehow, every night that we decide to spend our last waking hours together, I expect it to be different.
Maybe because she was tired that night. Or because she's painfully in love. We talk for a few minutes while I find the most comfortable spot - and position - in the place and as soon as I do, she's gone. The wind takes her. Me noting the wind earlier is not intended to suggest anything. She just floats away, while I look at her from my cozy spot, not with longing (desiring) eyes; without anything.
That night the spot was in the center of the veranda, lying down first plainly on the dusty floor, then later with my bed sheet and a pillow. In this position I have an unobstructed view of the sky. It too was clear, and for the first time I saw the stars as they were meant to be seen; twinkling brightly against the dark sky, without the shameless light of the moon in the periphery, and without any structures around to remind you of the earth where you stand - or lie. Heaven embraced me that night, a dark cocoon offering nothing (not even protection) but sheer awe while trinkets of light flirted with me (they did, believe me). Do they want me to follow them? And then touch them, feel them burn my skin and soul? I want to know so I did, but they quickly hid behind a thick blanket of clouds, teasing me even more.
But where was the girl? I guess the stars took her and hid her behind the clouds.
I pick up my bed sheet and pillow, and I sigh, half-frustrated, that I let the lights take her. But then I suppose, in fact I know, she's happier there.
Where do you go when you're lonely?
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