being someone’s daughter shouldn’t make you feel guilty. because first of all—why would you carry the guilt from a decision you didn’t even make? nobody asked for your permission before you were born, and yet here you are. breathing, but barely. living, but it feels more like a responsibility than what it should really be.

you are here not because you wanted to be here, but because of someone else’s wants. and yet they say that leaving is probably the most selfish thing to commit, when what is more selfish than putting life into something that didn’t ask for any of it, and then expecting it to stay? to be grateful for what you have done?

but then, perhaps it is true—that taking your own life is selfish. not because you are putting yourself above anyone, but because you are finally the decider rather than the one who must tolerate the result.

i used to want to be selfish, too. when i would cage myself inside the bathroom and collapse on the floor with my clouded eyes falling onto the gallons of disinfectant in the corner, i would think that once i swallowed them, i would taste freedom. but before my hands could reach death, they were pulled away by the remembrance of my mother. and there—the guilt came. i felt guilty for thinking of leaving. i felt guilty for stealing her chance of proving that motherhood was what she was best at, that it was where she was always meant to be. i felt guilty for being the reason she would get taunted by disappointment that she fell short in something she should be good at.

i know. i am aware that being someone’s daughter shouldn’t make me feel guilty. but i can’t help it. whenever my mother talks about her life before us, i feel it more and more. i always end up blaming motherhood for taking away her chance of becoming the woman she might have become if it weren’t for it. for us. for me.

so to make up for the future she left behind for our sake, to leave no space for her to get dragged back by the could-have-beens, i have become a daughter who needs to be perfect in everything. because who is my mother if i fail as her daughter?

i know my mother loves being a mother. i can see it in the way she takes pride in making sure we have food on the table, that our clothes are washed and clean, or when she worries when we forget to bring an umbrella when it’s raining or when the sun is blazing. but on the moments when she thinks no one is looking through her, like when she sits alone on the dining table with her cup of tea and eyes that seems to be so far away, or when she pauses briefly in the middle of her story about the plans she had in her twenties that are too late to achieve now, there is a kind of sadness that launches on her face. it claws at the tight lines around her lips, it bruises her voice when she attempts to laugh.

it’s the sadness that motherhood cannot erase.

some people talk about motherhood like it’s the only purpose of women. like it’s the only thing that will complete us.

if it does, then why does my mother appear as though something has been torn away from her?

to be honest, i am afraid that there’s a deep part in her that regrets this. i wonder if her sleepless nights contain not only a mourning over the dreams she needed to forget to make room for ours, but a prayer where she begs god to bring her back so that she can redo. the same way i silently ask myself every time she speaks about her childhood—is this the kind of life her little self really wanted?

i am afraid to ask.

i am afraid that i am right. that the child in her will stare at me as though i am made of the mistakes she wishes she could correct.

i am afraid she realizes that this is wrong. that she was wrong.

because marriage sounds perfect when you’re young. when dreaming about walking down the aisle in your wedding gown is still as harmless as running outside your home to play with your friends barefoot. when the sense of having a child of your own in your arms is still as fulfilling as spreading your palms under the rain so you can let it kiss them without leaving any weight.

it doesn’t warn you about a mother’s self-pity and self-abandonment and self-grieving.

it doesn’t warn you about a mother’s unmaking herself to make a home for somebody.

it doesn’t warn you about a mother’s guilty daughter.

a daughter whose responsibility is to be living proof that her mother is not a failure. a daughter who has to be flawless so that her mother will never see how flawed motherhood truly is. a daughter who needs to unmake herself to make a home for her mother’s longings from the dreams she had long given up.

motherhood is beautiful. but i never asked to be born.

i never asked to bear my mother’s unlived life.

i never asked for any of this.

god, i am grateful for my mother, but sometimes i don’t know. am i still staying out of love, or because i am just filled with overflowing guilt?

people come and go,
but i really wish we had stayed.
i wish we didn’t need to outgrow ourselves,
so we’d forever fit into each other’s shape.
because now my palms are vast,
and you’re slowly slipping through my hold.
but my tongue is still fluent in the tale
we promised we'd write until we were old.
truth is, i have built a home,
where the "us" was supposed to be.
and i still see you in the shadows
of what could’ve been you and me.
every stranger suddenly has your face,
every poem ends with your laughter.
every heartbreak song sounds like us,
maybe love equates to grief when it is not yet over.
i think i’ll never love like this again,
like the kind i have loved you.
no one will ever know me as you did,
no one will ever have me and all my blues.
we may be apart for now,
or worst, for the rest of our breaths,
but the stories we made and shared
will keep me alive on the day when death sleeps in my bed.
and i hope i die smiling at what we once were.
i hope there won't be a bitter sadness to come.
i hope the pain and the ache i carry now,
will transform into gratitude for how we have gone.
there is still so much more to life than us—
and though it's hard to believe that in this hurting,
i hope i live long enough to prove that it's true,
that there's beauty in all kinds of ending.

(but then again, if i had known from the start
that you would just come and go as others are,
do you think it would have hurt me less
to continue loving you like this—from afar?)

the only world i know is a world where there is you. the only home safe enough to linger and to stay for a drifter like me is when i am held captive under the roof of your sight. you are my purpose and losing you is my death—so if you die before me, i will eat you limb by limb.

i will sink my teeth into your skin until i can taste your soul. i will lick your blood and suck every drop, and by the time my organs are drowned, the universe will hear everything in me rejoicing; it will listen to the psalms of my veins, chanting that to be buried in you is to be alive; it is to breathe without feeling like i am letting go of something every time i am to exhale. i will pluck your eyes out of their sockets and set them in mine, so that i can see the world through you, and you can live through me. i will finish your every inch—from the border of your toe to the tip of your lashes—until we merge into a one, singular being. i will not be satisfied with you becoming only a part of who i am, i need you to be my entirety.

so i will not pause until the shape of my shadow is identical to your fingerprint. i want the pulse beneath my wrists to be in tune with the vibrato your heart is singing. you will not perish as long as i exist. most people vow they will die for the person they love, but i—oh, i will live for you. for us.

and even when my lungs halt operating, i still won’t pray for our rebirth. i don’t fancy the concept of seeking you again and relearning you in a new era, since it only means we have been separated. and i refuse to believe that there is a force strong enough to accomplish pulling you from my grip, nor is there a hand proud enough to put a period on what is persisting—because to love someone like this—like us—is to earn immortality. and i love you so severely that even when we die, i have no doubt we will still be eternal.

so why would i ever yearn for another lifetime when i can commit my heart and my all to you in this one—completely, fully, to a degree that it will transcend eternity? the only lifetime i know is the one where there is us. and it is now. it is now or never. it is now, and we are never going to cease.

our bodies may rot, but not our love. our bones may break, but never our oath. the maggots will feast upon our decaying flesh, but i promise you that they will spit us out long before their growling stomachs can obtain us, for we will be a poison to everything that dares to take what is ours.

and a love like ours builds a legacy that doesn’t die. therefore, i am yours until the end of time, and you are mine even after forever loses its pride. we will outlive all those who think they can remain. we will be greater than anything, even death.—especially death. it may deceive its disciples that it has the capacity to fade us away, but it can never corrupt the truth that it cannot do us part. nothing can. not the heavens, not destiny, not even the gods.

they will see. every creation will fall to its knees before our greatness, once they come to witness that death is not the end of us—it is the genesis of our becoming.

^{this piece is heavily inspired by choi jin-young’s novel “hunger”, translated by soje. “if you die before me, i will eat you.” line is a direct quote from the book.}

^{if you like yearning and cannibalism and angst, this book is perfect for you!!! it’s sooo good!}

my beloved,
victor.

i know there’s no point in writing to you. i know it won’t heal the cracks on my rib cage from breathing the oxygen that never belonged to me. no, it won’t revive the parts of me that died only because i’ve lived to love you. but perhaps, i’m writing so i can have a place to meet grief without ever feeling like it’s wrong. like it’s a mistake not to know how to unlove someone whose heart is already owned by another. and this is not an elegy, but a prayer of forgiveness for the love i couldn’t have, for the unshared memories i had to bury, for the vows i promised to a wrong church.

tell me, victor—can a heart still break once it has stopped beating? can it still love after losing every reason to? maybe you’d say that it’s impossible, that it won’t. but mine still does. i still can’t close the casket of what we could’ve had, without suffocating from the lack of your nearness. and i guess you’ll never understand how cruel it is to let go of something you never even touched. you’ll never know the pain of ignoring the warning signs just to keep someone from leaving you. you have no idea how my eyes poured longing in secret, how i had to catch it with my own hands, because i knew you’d never dry my rain with your warmth. i was scared you’d let my loneliness storm until i drowned.

and i am still soaked in the heartache that brought you freedom. i am still sinking in your goodbye that carried you to your new beginning. my heart has already died, victor, but it is still sent to hell every time i think of you and know that you’ll never think of me the same way.

i loved you, victor.

even if your hand felt like a sorrow i could not lift.
even if your wine tainted my cup that you always emptied.
even if your candle burned me as you deserted me alone in your darkness.
i loved you still, even without a ring, even if you were never mine.

victor,
my beloved,

i loved you. not only when it was easy to do so, but even in the glances you didn’t make, in the future you didn’t want to risk, in words you shouldn’t have said. i loved you, in all those times i shouldn’t have stayed.

the other woman,
emily.

hello. this letter is not part of the film, but i love writing letters from a character’s point of view to another after i’m done watching hahaha. this is like how i cope with films. anyway, i love corpse bride so much! so here is how i think what emily would say to victor in her unsent letter.

sa tingin ko, hindi naman mataas ang pangarap ko. simple nga lang siya kung tutuusin: maging isang writer and teacher. anong grade level? doesn’t really matter. pero siguro high school na lang para intense. anyway, siguro jowa na rin pero wag muna ang pagkakaroon ng pamilya, soon na ‘yon kapag mentally, physically, and financially ready na kami pareho ng partner ko (if ever). but pets are allowed! dogs and cats para cute.

hays, promise, simple lang talaga ang pangarap ko. hindi ko naman talaga gusto ‘yong sobrang yaman ko na halos hindi ko na alam kung saan gagastusin ang pera—sapat lang ba. eh ang totoo nga niyan, mas prefer ko pa ang mamuhay sa probinsya. lagi ko ngang iniimagine na mayroon daw akong poultry business sa province namin, tapos mayroon akong garden kung saan dinidiligan ko every morning ang mga tanim kong bulaklak at mga gulay, though hindi ako maalam pagdating sa pagtatanim hahaha. pero i like the idea na hindi na ako mahihirapan pang mag-isip kung saan kukuha ng lulutuin kasi mayroon naman akong mga tanim, idagdag mo na rin ang itlog galing sa mga manok ko. tapos sa balcony, kung saan tanaw ko raw ang garden, doon ako magbabasa ng mga libro or magsusulat ng sarili kong mga story. lahat-lahat ng gusto kong isulat, isusulat ko. nga pala, side job slash hobby ko lang daw ang pagsusulat kasi isa akong teacher. tapos every time na dadapuan ako ng writer’s block or katamaran or stress from teaching, maglalakad-lakad lang ako sa garden while nakabuntot sa akin ang mga cutieful kong pets, at i-che-check ‘yong mga manok ko habang may hawak na tsaa o kape o juice. basta ganun.

at kung iisipin, ang dali-dali niyang abutin—at least for me. i think, under a different circumstance, attainable naman siya for me, eh. malawak ‘yong bakuran namin sa probinsiya, puwedeng-puwede ibalik ‘yong garden ni lola, tapos mag-aalaga rin pala ako ulit ng baboy. keri ko rin naman siguro maging teacher kasi passion ko talaga siya. like, kahit super stressful niya, makakayanan ko pa rin kasi ‘yon talaga ‘yong gusto ko. nakakapagod pero worth it pa rin. kaysa naman ang dami mo ngang pera pero hindi ka naman masaya sa araw-araw mong ginagawa, ‘di ba.

kaya lang, hindi kasi iyon ang pangarap ng pamilya ko wahaha. ito ‘yong sinasabi kong “baka under a different circumstance.” gusto kasi nila mataas ‘yong maabot ko, hindi ko sinasabing nakapababaw maging isang teacher, pero iyon bang may mas malaking sahod. like laywer. or accountant. or both. gets ko naman. in this economy, sinong hindi maghahangad ng mas malaki ang pagkakakitaan, hindi ba? realistic lang sila. practical. rational. ibang-iba sa mindset ko. minsan napapaisip ako kung masyado ko bang niroromanticize ‘yong buhay ko to the point na ang bagay na mukhang “madaling” abutin ay hindi naman pala talaga siya kayang kuhanin. teacher na writer na may poultry business at garden? with pets and good partner? too good to be true. baka pagpiyestahan lang ng mga insekto ang mga gulay ko. baka hindi ko maalagaan nang maayos ang mga manok. baka mawalan ako ng time for writing. baka kamuhian ko ang pagiging teacher eventually. pero ewan… kahit siguro gano’n nga ang mangyari, i can still see myself being happy. why? kasi naabot ko ‘yong gusto ko. kasi hindi ako naging alipin ng pera at ng kapitalismo. kasi kahit mahirap, at least naipaglaban at naisabuhay ko kung ano talaga ang tinitibok ng puso ko.

hays, ang corny. pero anyway, sayang daw kasi ang potential kung simple lang ang gusto. may point. pero aanhin ko ang potential kung hindi naman ito totally na magpo-prosper sa field kung saan imbes na ma-motivate ako to be a better worker/person, eh mas maging dahilan pa ‘yon kung bakit pagod na pagod ako? gulo, ‘di ba? basta ‘yon. ang gusto ko lang sabihin, minsan, ang mga simpleng pangarap pa ang mahirap abutin.

kasalanan ng gobyerno, tbh. kung maayos lang sana ang pamamalakad ng mga nakaupo magmula noon pa, wala sanang “simpleng” pangarap ang nababasura, ang kinalilimutan, ang inaabanduna sa “imaginations” lang, dahil kailangang piliin ang mas praktikal na option. iyong kung saan ka mas matutulungan sa nakaka-highblood na gastusin ang dapat na i-pursue kaysa sa kung ano talaga ‘yong passion mo. okay, sige. sabihin na nating puwede mo namang gawin both (ang pagkuha ng high-paying job at ang passion mo), pero huy, sa tingin mo ba may oras at energy at budget pa para ro’n ang mga ordinaryong pilipino tulad ko?—IN THIS ECONOMY?? sabi nga ni george sa the hows of us: “hindi tayo mapapakain ng passion na ‘yan!!!” sa totoo lang din. ang unfair, ‘no?

bakit kasi naging priority na ang pera, eh? lord, gusto ko lang namang mamuhay nang hindi kontrolado ng gastusin. ang lumalabas kasi niyan, i’m only surviving and not living.

nakaka-frustrate lang hahaha. kasi naniniwala talaga akong i am meant to be a teacher and a writer, eh. well, i can be those pa rin naman. sabi nga nila, habang may buhay, may pagsubok—este pag-asa. pero magiging mahirap nga lang ang pag-abot sa dream life na ‘yon. (i know na wala namang madali, but my point is, iba ‘yong bigat kung ikukumpara mo ‘yong pag-abot ng pangarap mo without having to sacrifice a lot of things than just aiming for it. gets baaa ewan hays). in my case, dami pang need i-consider, eh. marami pang kailangang unahin, for example: gastusin, pamilya, etc. nakakatamad na maglista. kung uunahin ko kasi itong “simpleng pangarap” ko na hindi sapat ang salary, ang nagiging dating ay parang ang selfish ko naman. hahaha.

basta ‘yon lang. ang hangad ko sa pilipinas at sa lahat ng may pangarap—simple man o hindi—sana suportahan sila ng pamilya at gobyerno para maabot ‘yon. kasi sa bawat pangarap na kailangang itapon, may isang kinabukasang namamatay.

too good to be true. pero not wrong din naman siguro to demand a better government and life????? idk na. ok bye.

lately, i’ve been missing the version of me i had with you.

i think i died the moment i realized we would never be the same again.

i light candles for her, for you, and for whoever we had to bury behind just to get to be alive now.

lately, i’ve been thinking about you. i want to ask if life has been kind to your bruises, if your blanket covers a gentle protection to your open cuts that i never got to meet. i want to know if your pillow caresses your cheek—the same way i wish i still could—after catching the fragments of hurts you don’t talk about. i wonder if you have met someone who will never leave you with the remains of an unlearned soul—i hope you have. i hope she doesn’t flinch at the wraith of your misery and run away from the monsters that plague your mind. but then again, sometimes i want to reach out and say i wish i had stayed, and i want to know if you also wish i had.

the ghost of our past still haunts me—or perhaps i’m the one who does the haunting. i’m the one who still goes to the cemetery and looks for our tombstone because that’s the only place where it feels like home. i sit silently by it, put flowers atop the thorns we didn’t know we’d planted until the “us” had bloomed into something we could no longer hold. i stare at the name of what we used to be and pray for it to become something that breathes. something i once had but now i don’t. something i once loved, and i still do.

i still ache for your existence, i still long for the days that are long gone. i still force myself to get familiar with your absence, but it only grows more unfamiliar the longer i try.

they say grief is the price we pay for love. i wonder if you’re also paying the same price as me? or is it only those who have regrets who do? i don’t know. all i know is that i miss the version of me i had with you. she, who was loved. she, who was enough. and more importantly, she who was alive.

but perhaps it’s not just that version of me that i miss—it’s you. it’s everything that you were. everything you made me feel and everything we could’ve been. and no—if i’m going to be honest, i’m not thinking about you just lately; i’m thinking about you every single day. if it were possible for a star to fall every time i think of you, the universe would only lose one. i never stop. you never leave my mind. not even once. the thought of you is a constant pulse in my head, a steady light that can’t be flickered by the new radiance of those i’ve attempted to know. you linger. you stay.

if i could dig our corpse out from the ground and ask god a miracle, i would kneel before him and do whatever it takes. i still love you with a heart that doesn’t know how to let go of what no longer wants to be kept. i am a ghost that persists in dwelling in a home that’s been long abandoned. i am a soul stuck in the purgatory of our almosts, wishing for a second life with you.

but the tragic truth of reality is that it doesn’t always accord us another one. it does not work like a terminal where waiting for the same train we didn’t catch is attainable. sometimes things pass by without coming back. sometimes things happen only once and then never again. like us.

so now your name is no longer my language to speak, your eyes are no longer my town to live in—your love is no longer a church where my prayers are preached without it sounding like an insult to a belief that saves you now. all you have become is a graveyard that lies between the sanctuary of my what-was and the battleground of my what-might-have-beens. and all i’m left to do is light candles for you, for us, for the person i will be in the future because whoever she is, is dead.

the only version of me that will remain alive is the one that existed with you.

they say you won’t meet the same person twice, not even in the same person. but i disagree. because i think that deep beneath me still lies the person you once loved. deep within me, i am still her. she lingers. she stays. she’s only waiting for your return.

oh, please breathe life into me once again.

take me whole. bite me not in pieces, but swallow everything that i am. i want to be devoured. to be craved like i’m the only bread that can eradicate their endless hunger, my blood the only drink potent enough to soothe their parched throats, my lips the only dessert that leaves them satisfied yet still beseeching more.

i want to be loved without restraint. open me. dive into my soul. explore the ruins in my rib cage. walk through the cracks in my bones. enter the museums in my chest, look where no one dares to go. see where they don’t linger, somewhere the ugliness is usually displayed. and there, i want someone brave enough to stay. regardless.

i want a love that undresses me. no, not in a way that bruises my shirt and forces the buttons to undo themselves. i want a gentle hand that will ask me where it hurts. not really to try to save my scars from their drownings, not to touch me as though i’m a disfigured image needed to be fixed—for i don’t demand a savior, only for someone human enough to understand. someone curious enough to unearth my body, a prayer where i can confess without fearing a verdict that, yes, it hurts. here. this is where it hurts most. do you see it? do you feel it too? it’s not that i want them to be burdened by my debris, but because i want a love that feels like a religion that doesn’t necessitate my perfection, only my honesty.

so i want its fingers to dig into my layers, to thrust into my flesh. to reach my depth until it discovers the grave that buries the gospels i muffle beneath my groans. i want a hand that will hold me, despite the thick, disgusting callouses that reside in my edges, despite the spaces between my fingers that can be too wide to cross. i want to be held, regardless of the lines that can be too heavy to carry.

i want a mind that aches for my thoughts. one that will never tell me to shut up, for what i think matters to them as much as the air they breathe. i want eyes that yearn to watch me age through the years, ones that won’t blur at the sight of my complexity. i want a tongue that salivates at the taste of my name. arms that tremble at the thought of my absence.

i want a heart that will love me deeply. not only what’s on my surface, but what’s beyond it. i want someone who doesn’t just want to know me, but is willing to accept. regardless.

i want a love that will never make me afraid of who i am. because i’ve been afraid of myself for so long. i’ve been a monster to my own taste, my own thoughts, my own ugliness. i’ve been an enemy of what i am made of. i’ve been my own judge, my own leash. i have hated myself for the same reasons i wanted to be loved. so here i am, waiting, hoping, wondering about how beautiful it must be to be loved regardless.

and if the gods will remove all the languages from my tongue, i think i will still be fluent in speaking your name. if they wipe out my memories of you—your face, your soft laughter, the divine galaxies living in your eyes—i am sure i will still recognize your existence like it’s my own. and if everything i have been blessed with will soon be taken away from my possession, like i am never qualified of acquiring them for as long as i desire, i don’t think there’s any god that is ever capable of confiscating what you have bestowed upon me (not that they aren’t powerful enough, but because i am so full of you, it’d take them heaven and hell just to extinguish a fraction of you from my being).

i am so full of you that i can no longer take ownership of myself. that if someone slices my skin, the blood that will crawl out won’t be burgundy red, but the shade that envelops your irises. my cries will not resonate painfully, as they will sound like that tune that pleases your ears. my laughter is the melody that rhymes with your sighs. for all i ache to achieve is to be someone who takes pleasure in your gaze.

my heart is no longer mine, but a home to everything that you are: to every genre of you that i have and will soon encounter, or even to those you conceal behind your fears that i might never come across. and so perhaps this is why my heart always feels as though it will explode every time you’re near: for every edge of it has been occupied by thoughts of you, and your nearness leaves it no space to breathe, no room to contain, only to overflow.

the gods might be wondering now as to why a lost traveler, who used to wander the living with death in their hands, suddenly traverses the hills of life with optimism in every step. if they ask me how i learned to love myself, i will simply say it’s because i loved you first. i learned how to be the love you deserve, to be the altar that listens to your prayers and the zephyr that dries your tears. i will tell them: how can i not love who i am when my identity is all about you?

so, no. the gods will have to quench an ocean first before they can drain you out of me. they have to cold a fire and dull the stars and shrink the sun and moon before they can dim my devotion. and even if they do, even if it is true that nothing can dominate their supreme holiness, i will find a way to love you still. that is not a promise, but one you can trust as truth. i will fill every lake with your poetry until every part of the world carries a piece of you. i will light every candle until the darkness suffocates from having too much of your brightness. i will love you—still and so much—until the world is full of you, the gods will no longer have the authority to claim it as theirs.

( i don’t belong to them for i am yours. )