depth of desolation

sa may abisong sakdal ng pighati

I hate you, yet I love you…and it’s the very same reason why I wanted to stay away from you now, knowing that nothing will ever come out of this anyway, despite the fact that you also feel the same way for me, or so you say in one of those rare times you acknowledged your feelings.

After going through a very emotional break-up, I was somehow delighted by the fact that you disproved the myth that I would probably get jaded, and that I would probably never love again. I’d like to thank you for making me realize that, yes…I am still capable of falling in love, and that I can still be silly-happy just seeing someone’s face or hearing someone’s voice for no reason at all. Funny, but that someone turned out to be you.

I didn’t know how it all started, or when. Though I did question myself when I started anticipating your calls and your texts, I tried to assure myself that you were just a friend, that I am just enjoying your company, and that there’s nothing more to it. Even from the start, I felt that we were meant to be the best of friends. We enjoy the same music, the same movies, and we share the same wavelength as far as anything and everything is concerned. I felt so comfortable around you, as you are to me, and we’d hang out as often as we like, unmindful of what anyone would say. You were the coolest guy for me, and I was the coolest girl for you. And our friendship seemed like the coolest thing that happened to us.

But unfortunately, somewhere in the middle of all these, I fell inlove with you. Ironically, just weeks before you told me about your girlfriend. For someone so used to heartaches, I didn’t imagine it could still hurt me this badly. But it did. For days, I gathered enough courage to avoid you and to ignore the nagging thoughts in my mind that tell me I miss you, and that I need to see you, or talk to you, or even just to text you. Soon enough, you noticed the changes, as well as the space that I’ve tried to create between us, and expectedly, you assured me that nothing would change, and that nothing would get in the way of our friendship, not even the fact that you already have a girlfriend back home. A part of me wanted to believe you, but unfortunately, I know better. Of course, things will change.

We tried to keep the friendship at the same level, but it’s hard pretending to be just your friend when I know in my mind that you are so much more than that to me. We still tried going out together, but it just hurts me more each time you cancel at the last minute because your girlfriend texted you and you have to be with her, as if slapping me on the face with the fact that I’ll never be your first priority just because I’m just your friend.

Despite all these, I still continued to be your friend, I still continued to be there for you, I still continued to be available whenever you need me, and I still held on to the thought that maybe you could still change your mind, and that you could still fall inlove with me.

Somehow, in the middle of all these, my wish came true, but not in the way I expected it. In one of the rare times that you acknowledge your feelings for me, under the guise of drunkenness, you admitted that you’ve also grown to love me more than a friend; you admitted that you also tried to avoid me by not answering my texts, and by canceling most of our “dates” just because you thought you’re “not worth it”; Funny, I should be happy hearing you say all this, but I don’t know which is worse, not knowing the fact that you love me too or knowing the fact that you love me too yet the reality that I could not have you.

I am not one to fool myself and make believe that there will be a happy ending for us. I couldn’t fault you for laying it down to me plain & simple that we can never be more than what we are right now. Ok, so you felt the same way. Period. Who am I to expect that you also want to bring this, whatever this is, to the next level anyway? I might’ve been watching too many romantic movies that I am led to believe that one kiss is all it takes for two people to live happily ever after. I am dead wrong.

You don’t have to avoid me to make me realize that nothing will come out of this. I’ve realized that early on. Truly, love is not enough. I don’t regret being friends with you, but I regret the fact that we became too close, and that this closeness made you so special to me and gave me the chance to fall in love with you. When you came into my life, I didn’t really think of how long will you stay or how soon will you go, but I’d like to thank you for the fact that at one point in my life, you made me happy just by being in it.

Although I could’ve loved you more, I know now that you’re not the right one for me.

I will tell you what makes me happy while I think about you. I know that this thing has just as good a chance of being wonderful as it does of missing the mark. There is a strong possibility that it will be both and somehow, this is a tremendous relief. I came to understand this from the various experiences I have had in the past. However, I’m banking on this ultimately new thing I’m feeling for you to weigh a bit heavier on the wonderful side. I do not expect to be wrong about this though. I just know.

But the day you left was the death of me. I thought I could manage, but every waking day is no different than the day before: a tedious collection of hours consciously trying to put you out of my mind, incessantly hoping to finally put you to oblivion. I know not though for which this life is in its utmost disgrace, to have had a glimpse of heaven in just hearing the sound of your voice or never to have met you at all. I now feel that I should have taken heed to the undercurrent of the slight sense of fatal distraction on that fateful day I came to know you. A warning which, though obscure even in hindsight, was perhaps as good an omen as any I can ever hope to receive in this life or even in the life I’m given thereafter. Denial is not a river in Egypt, like you used to always tell me, so I might as well succumb to this. Somehow I know that the mighty has fallen this time around. This frail heart that I have dutifully guarded has finally been captured and imprisoned, permeated. Everything, in retrospect was a signpost pointing to disaster; from the moment I knew a certain you existed. Sometimes there would be vivid flashes of memory of you that seemed like pieces of a wonderful dream, as if none of it had ever happened. Yet in many ways you seemed the only real thing that happened in my life.

There should be, at the very least, something I could do to salvage myself from the pit that I am slowly seeing myself falling into. So I am trying to put myself on a willful amnesia of you. It seems practically all too cruel to me that you are constantly on my mind and it consumes me. I can’t take it. This is entirely not who I am. And it frightens the shit out of me. For the past couple of days, I don’t know how I managed. And every time the thought of you meanders my mind, my heart vaults up for a soaring, incredulous, gorgeously cruel moment.

The last moments I have had with you was soul-destroying and yet I could think of nothing else. And amidst the millions of faces I am sinfully shown upon, only one face evidently yet vaguely appears on my mind tonight. Yours. Like the full moon that is melodramatically looking down on me, it seems to harbour some unknown secret I intend to unfold. And as I blankly stare at the moon tonight, I candidly welcome every thought of you. God, I almost forgot…I forgot how good you always made me feel.

You still do.