The Gaps In Between the Lines

Even when it appeared I was absent, I remained.

And even if you've accused me of not listening, truth is I've been paying attention to every word you're saying. I feel every bit of emotion that you're trying to hide from me. I am not oblivious to your grief because your pain is also my pain.

Perhaps you're trying to catch up, but you know me very well. You know that not a fiber of my being can be frozen and be put on hold. I was born to wander. You once said that I am meant to travel far away places. After all, I am never destined to settle.

Thinking that both of us are growing makes me smile and feel a little bit proud. We've seen each other stumble, fall, and learn from our mistakes, intentional or not. However, there is also this emptiness that keeps on thriving between us. I can sense the unuttered panic in both of us and though this feeling remains implicit, we know that it will continue to dwell within ourselves, and haunt us.

Sometimes I keep on exhausting my mind and try musing over our memories. I can still feel the warmth of that Saturday afternoon and the cold sweet air of January mornings with you. They're so vivid not to feel nostalgic towards them.

In sleep, I journey and go to places we could have visited and confess to you feelings that should have been acknowledged. But then I wake up and it's another day.

What we have now, are only the memories of our memories.

They are the ghosts of our past that haunt us before and during sleep. They sleep with us and are far more dreadful during dawn, the time between sleep and full consciousness. These moments are often mistaken for reality where in fact they're just combinations of failed dreams and false hopes.

If your heart has gotten tad weary, I would understand you asking me to stop, or at least slow down, and wait for you. But for all we know, standing still is far beyond the bounds of possibility.

I never got the chance to express my gratitude and appreciation for you. Words are not enough now. I hope I had the courage to show you how overwhelmed I was before, with you.

I know that maybe someday, when the moment is right and when what we are willing to give to each other is more than enough, we will be together. We will be able to transcend all these pains and guilt that keep on weighing us down.

Of all the possibilities waiting in line, what I want the most is for you to outrival anguish and sorrow, and to truly know love and peace in this life.

As much as I want and need you, I also need to be free and redeem that sense of independence that I have long forgotten. There's a need for me to safeguard this little amount of love that's left in me. You cannot give what you do not have, they say. So might as well nourish my soul first and by then, I can be your infinite source of love and life.

Yet, it could also be that the universe wants me here for some other reason, and that could be to prepare you for someone who deserves you best. Likewise, you might be paving the right path for that one special person to meet me and love me in some rare and incandescent ways.

Let us not drown ourselves in learned helplessness. There is more to life than picking at old wounds. Let's complete the cycle and move to another.

There will be light in every step of the way. This, I can promise you.

P.S.

I have loved you.