love.

A singular word, an idea, an action that has left generations trying to figure out how to do it right. There is no single blueprint or formula that could ever really explain what it means.

So let me offer you mine—because I love you, but not in the way people usually paint it.

I love you, but not in the way books write it. I wouldn’t burn down kingdoms just to keep you warm, nor traverse oceans and mountains just to prove what we have is worth the journey. I don’t want our love to become some grand story that needs a hero, a villain, or a devastating ending to feel complete.

I want the chapters they call ordinary to be our greatest story.

I love you, but not in the way artists would paints it. I wouldn’t freeze you into a perfect portrait, preserving one version of you beneath museum lights while the person I love keeps growing beyond the canvas. I don’t want to spend my life admiring an image of you that no longer exists.

I want the person that breathes beyond the frame.

I love you, but not in the way that food tastes. I wouldn’t indulge only the sweetest parts of you, leaving everything unfamiliar or bitter untouched. I don’t want to love you only when you’re easy to hold—when everything is warm and sweet and uncomplicated.

I want all of you.

The quiet mornings and mundane stories. The random songs we start singing. The excitement and disappointment of every restaurant we try. The imperfections you hate so much, from the mark on your hips to the way your lips smile downwards. The little unscripted moments that would never make the final cut—the ordinary days that mean nothing to the world, but somehow mean everything to us.

I just want to know you, for you.

Every inch of your skin. Every depth of your soul. Every shift in your voice. Every shade of your hair. Every contradiction in your heart. Every season of your life.

That maybe the real reason generations have wrestled with the idea of love—why poets bled for it, why philosophers argued over it, and why geniuses could never formulate it—is simply because they never got to love you.

Love was never complicated. The world was just trying to figure it out without the only person who could make it make sense.

Not through kingdoms.

Not through songs.

Not through paintings.

Not through grand gestures.

But through the quiet, imperfect, beautiful act of simply loving you.

always,

-p

p.s.

thank you for letting me experience this in my lifetime.

an ode to a ball of light whose light made all of us shine.

of all the jokes you’ve ever told me, I prayed to God that this is the one that wasn’t real— but here we are.

I’m torn between asking God why things had to end this way and trying to trust Him. I keep wondering why He made you endure so much suffering, only for you to finally reach a point of genuine happiness—and then, in a second, be gone.

But there’s no point in questioning what’s already done. So here is what I’ll do instead: I’m going to tell the world about the kind of person you were.

We weren’t the closest people in the world, but I believe we shared something truly special. Once upon a time, I met someone who simply knew how to bring a smile to my face without even trying.

Lean was, quite literally, amazing. He could make you smile the second you walked into a room. He made you feel seen in places where you just wanted to disappear. He exuded confidence, yet remained deeply humble. He was the star of every room, but he always shared his light—so much so that the glow in everyone left behind is a living testament to how much of himself he gave away.

And looking back, I almost wish you had been a little more selfish.

I wish you were more selfish in chasing your own dreams. I wish you hadn't loved us so deeply that you wanted to see us shine before you did. I wish you hadn't cared so much that you made it to every single outing, even though you lived the farthest away. I wish you hadn't given everything to us, only to leave us without the chance to say thank you one last time.

Three years was far too short, but I pray with all my heart that you are in a happier place now. I’ll keep your laugh and your smile locked in my memory, and I’ll remember you every single time "Water" by Tyla plays.

You are a star, Lean. You shined so bright just so the rest of us could stay warm in your light.

So Lean, as much as I wish you had kept a little more for yourself, thank you for being exactly who you were. I am endlessly grateful to have loved—and to have been loved by—someone like you.

With love,

Always

p

I hate to admit it, but you’re the first person who ever made me need to pray—because God knows how deep into hell you dragged me down to.

They say friends are supposed to be good for you. They’re meant to celebrate your wins, offer a shoulder in bad times, act as an anchor in storms, and shine a light in the dark. How did none of that ever apply to you?

I’m left with a strange mix of sadness and frustration, struggling to find the right words to capture what I feel. Most of all, I’m left wondering where your hatred came from.

The silent treatments. The manipulation. The story-twisting. The lies. The victim-playing. The cruel words. The utter heartlessness.

I kept asking myself:

What did I ever do to deserve it?

Was it insecurity? Resentment? Animosity?

That no matter how much I’ve done, how patient I’ve become, how understanding I have been—that a simple, “Hey, could you—” would leave you thrashing the place and treating me like nothi—

No.

No. No. No.

I refuse to bring myself down to your level.

We started from a place of love, which makes it terrifying how often I’ve had to remind myself that “I am a good person”— because God knows how much you’ve made me want to stop being one.

So I’m leaving this here with a sigh, but still from a place of grace.

I want to believe you can still be a good person, but I can no longer stay where I am treated like nothing by someone whom I would have given the world to.

After all the hurt you’ve thrown to reduce what we shared to ashes, I only have one thing left to say: thank you.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to love—even if I had to los—no. Even if losing me was the price you were willing to pay just so you could be right.

With love,

Always.

p

You start to become a little insecure; you second-guess every movement. Social settings suddenly become social tests—first impressions last longer in your head than they do anywhere else. The color of your shirt suddenly matters more than getting to class on time, or starvation sounds like a better idea than being happy if it means fitting into the jeans you bought three years ago.

Then suddenly, you meet someone. You feel like the world is paying back its debt and the sun is shining again. You feel butterflies in your stomach and find yourself smiling back at yourself in the mirror, even if the zipper on your pants stays stuck halfway down up and 3 inches apart. But hey, it doesn’t matter, because things. are. getting. better.

Then it stops.

You stop talking to this person whom you thought was your rest. You start spiraling back down, wondering, “Where did I go wrong?”

You try to stay hopeful. You pick up new hobbies and keep yourself busy to think to yourself, “At least I’m happier now,” while standing on your third mountain in the last two months, planning the next bouldering session with your friends—only to find yourself coming home to the clock striking 12:51. Everything settles back into place, and you ask:

“Will it get better?”

An anxious call to the void, wondering whether the darkness around you will ever pass. You find yourself whispering a prayer despite not believing in a God, simply asking: “Help me.”

But here’s a hard truth that you need to hear:

It doesn’t get better.

It doesn’t get better.

Reader, wait, hear me out— give yourself a chance.

Let’s take a step back and drop the whimsicals of life and be realistic: whenever we ask ourselves, “Will it ever get better?” we don’t realize that the things that happen in our lives are largely out of our control. If we leave it up to “fate” for things to improve, realistically, it just won’t happen. But we forget that we can dictate how our story goes.

The world was never against you.

The universe never conspired to vilify you.

Everything just happened—and you just so happened to be on the receiving end. Sad to say, it will continue to be that way.

So no, it doesn’t get better.

but you can.

because the story has always been about you.

To learn from your past; to grow from your mistakes; to create healthier boundaries; to treat yourself with respect; to allow healthy relationships; to cut out toxic ones; to nurture space for growth; to leave room for mistakes; to acknowledge the hurt; to make peace with the past—these, among many, are the ways we can be better.

So, does it ever get better?

Maybe, or maybe not.

But the question we should really be asking is how we can be better.

To our past,

with our present,

and for our future—

I will be better.

I will be better.

with love, always

p

They say that things naturally end.

Bread only lasts a few days;

every can has an expiration date;

and even trees have its weathering.

But how come, with all the endings in this world,

I never wanted to see one with you?

Truth be told, you were one of the greatest stories I could ever think of. You were the story I wanted to tell over and over. Sure, there were some hiccups, some misfortunes, but whenever your name would come up, “love” was the only thing that’d come to mind.

But like everything else, there needed to be an end.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I wanted to—rather, I needed to.

To look into the eyes that once held the soft colors of lilac, only to see how cold they’ve grown. To feel the warmth of your touch, which once brought the comfort of home, now only scalding the very hands you once called your own. To hear the voice that was once my favorite song, now speaking in words where every syllable only burns.

I always wanted to believe that I could love you from afar, that a year of silence would keep the best parts of us safe. But holding onto your memory has only made holding onto myself impossible. I built a home in the quiet and hurt, yearning that someday I may hear your laugh again only to realize that you only ever came knocking to tear it all down again.

So, I am finally letting go.

Not with anger, but with a quiet acceptance. Not with hate, but with a melancholy heart. Not with regret, but with a gentle touch. And in grace and time, may you see that this was the love I had for you.

I am leaving our story where it is, and finally letting the page turn.

And so please.

please, oh please.

please don’t come knocking again.

because I know that my love

will always let you back in.

always

-p

To live surrounded by people, yet to spend every single day questioning your worth—this is how we get by, don’t we?

I used to believe I never needed to hear those words: words of kindness, love, assurance, peace, warmth, comfort. Not because I didn’t want them, but because I was made to believe that I was undeserving of them.

So, I survived on that belief. But as the days bled together, the noises in my head began to creep in:

“Why are you even here?”

By myself, I’d like to think I’m a secure person. But interpersonal relationships change the math. In the space between people, you start to over-read scenarios. The past resurfaces, bringing back the old, looping questions that repeat as the years go by:

“Do they even want me here?”

“Am I too much?”

“When will they leave?”

Anxiety seeps in. Still, I try to stay as composed as possible. Day after day, I tell myself things will be okay, whether I am alone or not. I tell myself that needing the warmth of comforting words is just a figment of my imagination, born of loneliness, and that all I really need is grit and determination to get by.

But then the cold air blows through. It puffs out the final torch lighting the small cave I built to protect myself from the world I am supposedly braving.

silence.

And in that darkness, a sudden realization hits: the noises in my head were never meant to harm me. They were merely only voices trying to tell me my worth when no one else did.

I guess that is where empathy is born, isn't it? We learn it because we know exactly what it feels like to be alone. We know the precise sting of being promised yet broken; met yet left; spoken to yet never listened to; tagged along yet utterly unaccompanied. We were made to believe we didn't deserve the warmth words had to offer.

So, you became your own sanctuary.

As I became mine.

and so I write the words that never got to be mine, and hopefully, you will never have to go through the same.

So stranger, if you are reading this, I am here for you. Wherever you are in your life, whatever you are navigating, and whatever you hope to achieve, know this: even if you don't believe in yourself yet, I believe in you.

Through my words, I hope you may never feel alone again.

-p

I’ve always believed that we could never judge someone’s actions unless we put ourselves in their shoes—and even then, we’d only be able to understand a glimpse of their perspective.

So I want you to understand my perspective a little more— so let’s start with a visual exercise—close your eyes:

you’re standing in a room

filled with people

and yet no one looks at you

the noises in your head get louder

‘am i the problem?’

‘why don’t they like me?’

until your eyes drift across the crowd and catch a mirror on the wall and see

that the only person in that entire room

looking back at you

is you—

and you realize that after all this time

all you ever needed was

to give yourself a chance.

Now, reader, believe me when I say that I’ve spent countless nights questioning myself in every single aspect. I’ve come face-to-face with my own demons and realized that they never meant to hurt me—they were just as scared as I was.

They were just the pieces of me that felt unloved for too long, throwing tantrums in the dark because they didn’t know how else to ask for attention. So instead of trying to cast them out, I learned to pull up a chair for them and listened— because I realized that they were the very parts of me that never got a chance to be heard.

We always ask ourselves how we can be happier and create better days. I could give you a grocery list of things to do that supposedly increase your chances of being happy—things that I also just pulled off a Google search—but no. I’m telling you that no matter what I say, none of that will help you become truly content.

Contentment— not happiness, because ‘happiness’ is something that is fleeting.

I’m talking about contentment—the ability to see the good side of things despite it all, you know?

and so if you ask me how I create better days—on a deeper level, it’s that I learned to sit down with myself and give myself a chance to be heard when no one was there to listen.

To create better days means to be comfortable with all the bad days that you have. To create better days means to accept every single flaw that exists in your body. To create better days means to see your flaws not as mistakes but as mere parts of who you are—parts that make you, you. To create better days means to give yourself a chance to be heard, to be listened to, to be seen, to be comforted, to be welcomed, to be accepted, and to be comfortable with the ugliest, darkest, and most flawed sides of you, and still giving yourself a chance at life.

Because when you’re in a room full of people and no one is looking at you, all you need to do is look at that mirror and see that you’ve always had yourself all this time. That you are completely capable of giving yourself the love that you’ve always longed for. That even YOU deserve a chance to be loved.

So if you ask me, ‘how do I create better days?’ I’ll put it like this:

I learned to be comfortable in the dark so I could look forward to every sunrise and find peace in every sunset, knowing that however long my night may last, my stars will be there to guide me. Until the sun rises again for me, I will keep living.

Give yourself a chance so that at least once in your life, you’d give yourself a chance to be heard— even if it’s just by yourself.

-p

this piece was written for the Mental Health Youth Caravan of MAD

They tell you that relationships are about communication.

Work together. Open up. Fix it.

So I tried. God, I tried.

“Hey, i’m having a hard time because i feel left alone when you suddenly shut me out.”

“Hey, could you talk to me? It’s hard to know where I stand when one day you’re happy and the other you aren’t.”

“Hey, do you need space? It’s okay, you can tell me. Just please don’t shut me out again.”

(Please. Just say anything.)

“Hey, are you still there?”

And then, out of nowhere, the hammer drops:

“I don’t think this will work out.”

The world goes dead quiet. Every single moment plays on a loop in my head, a car crash in reverse, ending in the same suffocating thought: Why does everyone leave? What is wrong with me?

Then come the post-it note excuses.

You deserve someone better.

Our love languages don't match.

You’re asking for too much.

Too much? how is it "too much" to ask to be seen by the person looking right at you?

But I’m tired of asking. I'm tired of fighting for a spot in a room I'm being kicked out of.

So, fine. Leave. Walk away.

I am going to sit here in the quiet and let you go. Not because I gave up, and not because I don’t care. But because loving for me came so easily, that letting you free was the most loving act I could do— for me.

-p

But the older I got, the more I realized that the place I called “home” was also the place where I learned to hurt the most. It was the birthplace of my insecurities, my isolation, my rejections, and the quiet, heavy belief that I was simply not capable of being loved.

In the midst of the storm that was happening in my head, as I was trying my best not to live but to merely survive, I found you.

No, you found me.

You found me at a point where I was a mess and didn’t know myself. You found me at a point where even I could not recognize the face in the mirror. You found me at a point where I could not learn to love myself—and yet, you did.

I always believed that home was a place, but how come no matter where I go, I always try to find my way back to you?

Please don’t ask me about my love language—because I wouldn’t know how to tell you.

I don’t know how to tell you that I want to hold you close and feel the warmth of your touch as your fingers fall perfectly in between the gaps of mine, while your heart starts to beat faster as sweat starts to fall in the palms of your hands and you try to keep as composed as possible, praying I wouldn’t notice. Or how, after a long day of work, the only thing I look for is to find you in the comfort of my arms, resting my chin on your head and smelling the scent from the hairnet you’ve worn for hours on end—and somehow, it still became my favorite.

Please don’t ask me about my love language, because I wouldn’t know how to tell you.

I don’t know how to tell you how every time I see flowers, I have this urge to get them for you, just to see that smile you put on—the one that looks almost like a crying face—where your voice squeals in awe, telling me I didn’t have to, even if you were staring at them for hours the week prior. Or how every single peach mango pie makes me smile at the thought of your excitement, or how you look in my jacket while it disappears for weeks until I’d find you wearing it to sleep, while your saliva drips and your nostrils snort—and somehow, it’s still the most beautiful thing to see.

Please don’t ask me about my love language, because I wouldn’t know how to tell you.

I don’t know how to tell you how naturally it comes to hold the door open so you can waltz into the room, or to guide your waist when you wander off with your silly sense of direction. Or how I’d gladly carry your hot pink bag on my shoulder and tell you it adds character to my fit, just so you won’t feel guilty. Or that I want you by my side in the passenger seat as the DJ, just so you could play the songs you love to sing even if we missed our turn 5 kilometers back. Or how we’d stay up late helping you memorize terms like hematomic insertive myocardial dermatitis (i made that up).

Please don’t ask me about my love language, because I wouldn’t know how to tell you.

I don’t know how to tell you how your presence alone makes me feel at peace, making the songs of Bruno Major suddenly make sense. I love it when you stay over, bringing your own things to do while I work on mine, randomly joining in to sing my favorite songs. Or how you made an adventurous soul find so much excitement with just sitting together—that as long as I was with you, doing nothing was actually something I looked forward to.

Please don’t ask me about my love language, because I wouldn’t know how to tell you.

I don’t know how to tell you how your voice alone calms my nervous system to the point where I feel sleepy around you—not because I am bored, but because I feel safe. Whenever I feel anxious, your words whispering “things will be okay” suddenly tear down the walls I’ve built my whole life—and I believe you. You always tell me that I am good with words, but I constantly find myself stumbling over them whenever I am talking to you. But even if my voice shakes, I would always want to be the one who tells you that “you are safe here,” just as you have always done for me.

So please don’t ask me about my love language, because for some reason, it just became you.

I’ve never liked celebrating my birthday because I never felt like I deserved the love I receive. I grew up believing I was meant to stay on the sidelines—to support, to lift up, and to watch others shine. And to be honest, I never had a problem with that. I love seeing my friends and the people around me win because I know exactly how much work they put into getting there.

I’ve never liked celebrating my birthday because I grew up scared—and maybe I still am—of being loved. I want to believe in myself the way I believe in others, but at the back of my mind, the echoes of past hurts still linger. It’s hard to bring down my walls; sometimes, it’s so hard that even a simple “thank you” feels stuck in my throat.

I’ve never liked celebrating my birthday. It was never because I didn’t want to, but simply because I grew up never doing it.

So, I hope you understand when I shy away from a greeting, or when I want to run away when people cheer. I hope you understand why I beg you not to tell a crowd, or why I refuse to share the date when asked. It was never because I wasn’t grateful, and it was never because I didn’t care. It is simply because, deep down, I still feel like I don’t deserve it at all.

But since we’re here, to everyone who has greeted me, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I promise you that I’m working on it, and little by little, I will learn to accept the love I receive in my life.

But until then, I hope you may learn to be patient with me, because even until now, I am still trying to learn how to love myself a little better. :)

-p

It starts simply enough.

Teenage years. You have a crush. Your eyes meet, and you feel that first, unforgettable flutter of butterflies in your stomach. Before you know it, the first, second, and third dates fly by. Everything goes perfectly.

Until it doesn’t.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

Okay. Your first heartbreak. Ouch.

People comfort you. They brush it off as "puppy love" and promise you’ll meet someone else in the future.

No biggie. You pick yourself back up.

This time, you’re an adult. You think you know better now. You whisper to yourself, “Maybe this time, it’ll work.”

You meet someone, and that same familiar wave of feelings comes rushing through. Nostalgia hits, making you feel like you're right back in high school. You find yourself wearing a little more perfume and spending a little more time in front of the mirror, just hoping they’ll turn their head when you walk by.

One or two dates turn into years— and hust when you finally think: “this is it”, you wake up from the dream to a cold reality:

“Um… I don’t think this will work out.”

Bummed. But you keep trying anyways. You tell yourself that maybe the third time's a charm. Then the third turns into a fourth, a fifth. Soon, even a simple question like “What’s your favorite color?” starts to give you a different, anxious kind of feeling in your stomach.

You keep trying, and trying, and trying, and trying. Until you wake up one day, look in the mirror, and ask:

“Why am I so hard to love?”

It’s the question that looms every single night. It seeps in colder than the mist crawling off the sea, arriving faster than the melatonin hitting your system to put you to sleep.

You start to question everything. Memories replay in your head on a loop. Old words stick to your mind like gum on the sole of your shoe: “You ask for too much.” When in your mind, all you ever really wanted to know was: “What about me?”

Admittedly, you think about it more than you’d care to confess. As much as you’d like to believe you no longer yearn for affection—that your own company is entirely enough, that you genuinely enjoy all those solo dates. You try to convince yourself that love was never something you longed for anyway. But no matter how good the day was, the moment you settle into your pajamas, the thoughts crawl right back in:

“Why am I so hard to love?”

Am I?

And then, right there in the dark, it hit me.

We act like this is a modern affliction, a symptom of dating apps and short attention spans. But the truth is, we’ve been asking this forever. Even Walt Whitman was in the exact same pickle— he questioned the endless, recurring battle of human existence, asking what good could possibly come from it all. His answer was simple:

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

That maybe even Shakespeare would have ended up on Substack today, writing a modern-day Romeo and Juliet in serial format just to cope with his own heavy heart.

So looking back (quite awhile back actually), I realized something: maybe I've been looking at the question all wrong.

“Why am I so hard to love?”

Is it because I would tell you that I mean every word that I’d say? That I won’t shy away from telling you that I want you in my life. I won’t hesitate to hold your hand in public. That I still need to write down your favorite foods and restaurants in my notes app because I don’t ever want to forget. That I whenever I see anything pink I’d have the urge to buy it for you not because I need to but because it reminded me of you.

Maybe I’m hard to love because I refuse to sleep angry. I want us to talk and sort it out while still holding your hand. That I believe in hard conversations. That I believe in passion. That I believe that you were worth keeping in my life.

Maybe I am hard to love, but I know I love so deeply, so fully. That I love in the silence and in the loud. That I love in the calm and through the storm. That I love through and through— because I learned to do it for myself too.

I needed to take a step back. To the side. Maybe even just sleep on it. Because now that I’ve asked it enough times, I see that reducing myself to that single question simply puts me on a silver platter for someone who would choose to give up when things get heavy.

So yes, I agree. If being hard to love means having to reduce the amount of love I give, then maybe I am hard to love, and that’s okay.

And until someone is ready for the full verse, or maybe our own little version romeo and juliet— I’ll make sure to keep my plate warm so you’d never have to ponder on that question.

because I know very well that for me, you were never hard to love.

-p