Not career. Not money. Not success.

Love.

For as long as I can remember, I've always had this specific picture in my head. A guy who's older in the way he carries himself, mature enough to make me feel safe without trying. Tall. Tan skin. Curly hair. Outgoing enough to pull me out of my shell, but clingy enough to make me feel chosen. The kind of guy who would randomly hold my hand, text me good morning, and never make me question whether he wanted me around.

I built this person from years of watching BL series, reading stories, listening to love songs, and imagining that someday someone would look at me the same way characters look at each other.

It wasn't just about having a boyfriend. It was about wanting to be loved in a way that looked effortless.

I used to daydream about it for hours. I'd imagine dates, late-night calls, introducing him to my friends, celebrating birthdays together, even the stupid little arguments followed by "I'm sorry" hugs. It felt so real that sometimes it was enough to make loneliness hurt a little less.

But lately...

I don't dream about him anymore.

And that's the part that scares me.

Nothing happened. I didn't suddenly become heartbroken. I didn't stop believing in love because someone ruined it. The dreams just... disappeared. Quietly. Like they packed their bags and left without telling me.

Maybe this is what growing up looks like.

Adulting slowly replaced fantasy with survival. Instead of imagining what my future boyfriend looks like, I'm thinking about tuition, responsibilities, deadlines, money, and whether I'm becoming the person I need to be. Love stopped being the first thing my mind reaches for.

Sometimes I wonder if I've become too used to being alone.

I've spent so many years imagining love instead of living it that maybe my heart got tired of waiting. Maybe it learned how to exist without expecting someone to arrive. Maybe loneliness became familiar enough that it doesn't feel loud anymore.

It's strange grieving a dream that never even happened.

I still believe love exists. I just don't chase it in my imagination anymore. And honestly, I don't know if that's healing... or if it's just another version of giving up.

Maybe one day I'll dream about someone again.

But for now, I'm just learning what years of being alone does to someone: it doesn't always make you hate love—it just teaches your heart how to stop expecting it every night before you fall asleep.

i don't know if this is a talent.

sometimes i call it a special ability because calling it a talent feels too flattering, and calling it a problem feels too honest. i just know that i have this weird, almost embarrassing ability to sense when something changes in people.

i can tell when someone is mad at me.

i can tell when someone doesn't want to talk to me.

i can tell when someone's energy toward me has shifted, even when they haven't explicitly done anything wrong. it's not like they suddenly tell me, "hey, i'm annoyed with you." people rarely make things that easy. instead, it happens in the smallest ways. a reply that suddenly feels too dry. a conversation that used to flow naturally becoming something i have to drag out of them. the difference between "haha" and "HAHAHA." the missing punctuation. the unfamiliar silence. the way they stop asking questions back. the way they suddenly sound like they're talking to me because they have to, not because they want to.

and somehow, i notice all of it.

i don't even try to.

that's the annoying part.

i wish i could say i'm just overthinking everything, that maybe i'm imagining things and giving meaning to things that don't mean anything. sometimes i actually convince myself that i am. maybe they're just tired. maybe they're busy. maybe i'm being dramatic. maybe they just don't feel like talking today.

but then something happens.

they admit they were upset.

they tell me they didn't want to talk.

they eventually say, "yeah, i was mad at you."

and i'm just sitting there thinking, see? i knew it.

not in a satisfying way, either. there is no "i told you so" moment. there is just this strange confirmation that the feeling i've been carrying around in my chest wasn't completely made up.

i think i have always been unusually observant when it comes to people.

i memorize them without realizing i'm memorizing them.

i remember how they usually type. what words they use when they're excited. what their laughter looks like in messages. how long they normally take to reply. the way they tell stories. the little jokes they repeat. their favorite things. the things they hate. what makes them uncomfortable. what makes them light up. what they sound like when they're genuinely happy compared to when they're pretending to be okay.

i collect these tiny details like they're nothing.

and then one day, when something changes, i notice the missing piece.

that's probably why i can tell.

people think you need some huge, obvious sign to know that someone is upset with you. but sometimes it's not about what they do. it's about what they stop doing.

that's what gets me.

the absence of things.

the warmth that isn't there anymore.

the extra message that doesn't come.

the question they don't ask.

the joke they don't make.

the softness in their voice that somehow disappears.

it's almost funny how people can say, "nothing's wrong," while everything about them is quietly screaming that something is.

and maybe that's why i don't believe words as easily as other people do.

i listen to them, obviously. but i also listen to everything around them.

i listen to the silence.

i listen to the hesitation.

i listen to the difference between what someone says and how they say it.

and sometimes, i hate that i can.

because being perceptive sounds like a beautiful thing until you realize that being perceptive also means having very little room to pretend you didn't notice.

you can't unsee a change once you've seen it.

you can't go back to being unaware.

once i notice that someone is pulling away, i can't simply return to the version of me that didn't know. i'll start replaying conversations. i'll wonder if i said something wrong. i'll trace the timeline of when their behavior changed. i'll inspect every interaction like i'm looking for evidence in a crime scene.

was it that joke?

was i too much?

did i reply too late?

did i say something i shouldn't have?

are they tired of me?

and sometimes there isn't even an answer.

sometimes people just change.

sometimes people have bad days.

sometimes their distance has absolutely nothing to do with me.

i know that.

i know that.

but knowing something logically doesn't always stop my brain from searching for an explanation.

maybe that's the downside of this weird little ability of mine. i don't just notice emotions. i notice possibilities.

and possibilities are dangerous when you give an overthinking person too much of them.

still, there are moments when i think maybe this isn't entirely a curse.

because i've been able to notice when people needed someone before they asked for help. i've been able to tell when a friend wasn't okay despite insisting they were. i've learned when to ask, when to stay, when to give someone space, when a simple "you good?" means more than a whole conversation.

maybe that's why i pay so much attention to people.

because i know what it's like to hope someone notices without having to explain yourself.

i think there is something deeply human about wanting to be understood without having to translate every emotion into words.

so maybe i became someone who notices.

maybe i learned to read people because i wanted to be able to understand them before they had to beg to be understood.

i don't know.

i still don't know if it's a talent.

i don't know if it's intuition or observation or experience or just some strange part of my brain that refuses to let small things go unnoticed.

but i know this:

when someone i care about changes, i feel it.

even if it's subtle.

even if they think they're hiding it.

even if they tell me nothing is wrong.

i feel the difference.

and sometimes, when i'm right, i wish i wasn't.

because there is nothing particularly magical about knowing that someone is mad at you before they tell you.

there is nothing beautiful about realizing someone doesn't want to talk to you while you're still trying to keep the conversation alive.

there is nothing comforting about recognizing the exact moment someone's warmth begins turning into distance.

i don't think i've ever admitted it this plainly before, but i am. i'm jealous of those kids who get to greet their mothers on mother's day without having to think twice about whether they should post something or not. jealous of the ones who wake up in the morning and the first person they can call “mom” is right there, alive and present and somehow still part of the ordinary little things in their lives.

even something as simple as walking into a flower shop, picking whatever looks pretty, holding it carefully on the way home, and imagining their mother's face when they finally hand it to her. i envy that. i envy the awkward little hugs that probably come after. i envy the pictures they take together, the captions they write, the “happy mother's day, ma!” messages that probably look so ordinary to them.

ordinary.

that's probably what makes me jealous the most.

because to some people, having a mother to greet is such an ordinary thing that they don't even realize how precious it is.

and you know what else i envy?

i envy those kids who roll their eyes when their mothers tell them to clean their rooms, to stop using their phones, to eat properly, to come home early. i envy the ones who get annoyed because their mothers keep asking questions. the ones who sigh and say, “i know, mom,” for the hundredth time that day.

i envy those kids when they're having a conflict with their mothers.

i envy the slammed doors, the silent treatments, the arguments over things that probably seem so stupid afterward. i envy the “i hate you” that gets thrown around in the heat of an argument and the awkward apology that comes later. i envy the crying, the yelling, the frustration, even the moments when they desperately wish their mothers would just leave them alone.

because at least there is someone there to argue with.

at least there is someone who cares enough to be angry.

someone who knows enough about them to know exactly what they're doing wrong.

someone who can knock on their door afterward and ask if they've eaten.

god, i even envy the things they complain about, because at least they have someone to complain about someone who asks if they've eaten, someone who notices when they've gotten quiet, someone who remembers what food they like and someone who knows when they're lying about being okay.

i envy the kids who wake up to the smell of breakfast their mothers prepared. the sound of plates clinking in the kitchen, someone calling them to eat, the little “bangon na” or “kain na” from another room.

i envy those who complain about being woken up too early.

i envy those who get embarrassed when their mother calls them in front of their friends.

i envy those who get irritated when their mother gives them unsolicited advice.

i envy those who secretly wish their mothers would stop worrying so much.

I want to be annoyed because someone cares too much, i want to complain that someone asks too many questions.

i want to roll my eyes at someone telling me to bring an umbrella.

i want someone to remind me to eat.

i want someone to text me asking where i am.

i want someone to tell me i'm being stubborn.

i want someone to get mad because they were worried.

i want the stupid arguments.

i want the misunderstandings.

i want the awkward apologies.

i want the reconciliation.

i want all those tiny, frustrating, painfully ordinary moments that other people sometimes wish they could get away from.

because to me, even their worst moments with their mothers look like something precious to me.

i envy the kids who can walk into the kitchen after an argument and still find their mother there.

i envy the kids who can cry in their rooms knowing that eventually, someone might knock.

i envy the kids who can be angry at their mothers and still know that tomorrow, they can say “good morning.”

i envy the certainty of knowing that the relationship exists even when it's difficult.

because i don't think people realize how beautiful it is to have someone you can fight with and still have somewhere to return to because sometimes i wonder what it feels like to have that kind of relationship not the dramatic movie version of motherhood. not the perfect mother who always knows what to say, never gets angry, and somehow has all the answers.

i don't even want that i just want the mundane version, the boring version, the version where nothing extraordinary happens where i can sit beside my mother while she's doing something completely unimportant and still feel like i belong somewhere, where i can tell her about my day while she's cooking, where she can yell at me for leaving something somewhere, where we can argue about something stupid, where i can storm into my room and close the door, knowing that somewhere outside it, she's still there, where we can eventually laugh about the argument, pretend nothing happened and where she can still ask me if i've eaten.

i think that's what i'm jealous of.

not just the flowers.

not just the breakfast.

not just the mother's day posts.

not even the pictures.

it's the certainty.

the certainty that there is someone you can turn to and call your mother.

someone whose existence doesn't have to be explained.

someone you don't have to miss through photographs.

someone you don't have to imagine.

and i hate admitting that because sometimes my jealousy feels ugly.

sometimes i see people posting their mothers and instead of immediately feeling happy for them, there's this tiny, horrible ache in me that whispers,

“must be nice.”

and then i feel guilty for thinking that.

because their happiness isn't my loss.

their mothers didn't take anything away from me.

they didn't do anything wrong by having what i don't.

but envy isn't always rational.

sometimes it just sits quietly in your chest and watches.

it watches daughters hug their mothers.

it watches sons bring home flowers.

it watches families eat breakfast together.

it watches someone casually call out “mom” from another room and hear an answer.

it watches someone complain about their mother and secretly wishes it had something to complain about too.

and it wonders what it would have been like if things were different.

i think i've spent weeks trying to find the right words for this, and somehow i keep coming back to the same sentence.

i'm jealous.

i'm jealous in the most childish way.

i want what they have.

i want the flowers.

i want the breakfast.

i want the random conversations.

i want the laughter.

i want the annoying questions.

i want the little arguments.

i want the scolding.

i want the slammed doors and the apologies afterward.

i want someone to worry about me enough to make me angry.

i want someone to love me enough to be disappointed in me.

i want someone to know me well enough to notice when something is wrong.

i want the ordinary.

i want the inconvenient.

i want the complicated.

i want the messy parts of motherhood that other people sometimes wish they didn't have.

because maybe that's what i've been trying to say this entire time.

i don't just envy the kids who have mothers they love.

i envy the kids who have mothers they can be angry at.

because even conflict is a form of closeness when you know there's still someone there afterward.

and maybe i'll eventually learn how to live with this jealousy.

maybe someday mother's day won't feel like a yearly reminder of everything i didn't get.

maybe i'll scroll past those pictures without feeling that strange pressure behind my eyes.

maybe i'll stop wondering what it would've been like.

but today?

i'm jealous.

and i don't want to pretend i'm not.

i'm jealous of every kid who gets to hand their mother flowers.

every kid who gets to eat breakfast made by her.

every kid who gets to sit beside her and talk about absolutely nothing.

every kid who gets to laugh with her until their stomach hurts.

every kid who gets scolded by her.

every kid who gets angry at her.

every kid who gets into stupid arguments with her.

every kid who can slam their bedroom door and still know their mother is somewhere outside it.

every kid who gets to say “i love you, mom” and hear it back.

i'm jealous of them.

not because i want to take their mothers away.

but because, for once, i wish i could have known what it felt like to have someone to argue with, someone to annoy me, someone to worry about me, someone to come home to.

and maybe that's all this is.

not hatred.

not bitterness.

just a very quiet little ache saying,

A Philippines before the Spaniards came. Before colonization rewrote so much of what we were. Before foreign ideas of religion, morality, gender, and “proper” identity became so deeply embedded in us that we sometimes mistake them for our own traditions.

I keep thinking about the babaylans.

These women held some of the most important roles in pre-colonial communities. They were healers, spiritual leaders, advisers, ritualists, and keepers of knowledge. They were believed to communicate with spirits and deities, to understand things beyond what ordinary people could. Their knowledge was sacred. Their presence mattered.

And god, I wish I could see that world for just a day.

Not because I think pre-colonial Philippines was some perfect paradise. It wasn't. I don't want to romanticize history into something it wasn't. But there is something so heartbreaking about realizing how much of our indigenous identity was disrupted, suppressed, or forgotten because of colonization.

And then there are the babaylans who make me think about gender.

Because the babaylan was not exclusively a role occupied by women. There were male babaylans who took on feminine clothing, mannerisms, hairstyles, and expressions associated with women. They could embody indigenous femininity while carrying out a role that was deeply respected within their communities.

Like... imagine that.

A man could be feminine and still be sacred.

Someone could exist outside the gender expectations we are so familiar with today and not automatically be treated as something shameful or wrong. Their femininity could be part of their spiritual identity rather than something they had to hide.

And I can't stop thinking about how much of our understanding of queerness was shaped by colonization.

Because sometimes people say that being queer is “not Filipino,” as if our ancestors had never existed outside the neat little boxes colonial society later gave us. As if gender nonconformity arrived through the internet. As if queer Filipinos are somehow importing an identity that our own history never knew.

But our history is messier than that.

And honestly, I love that mess.

I love finding these little fragments of the Philippines that existed before someone else came and told us what we were supposed to be.

The babaylan makes me wonder how different our relationship with gender, spirituality, and femininity could have been if colonization had never interrupted it. What would our language for gender look like? What would our traditions look like? What would our queer communities look like if they had been allowed to develop without centuries of colonial shame being placed on top of them?

I'll never know.

And maybe that's the part that hurts.

To yearn for something you can never personally remember is such a strange kind of homesickness.

I wasn't there.

I never saw the babaylan walk through an ancient village. I never heard their rituals. I never saw the clothes they wore or the way their communities looked at them with reverence.

But somehow, I still feel like I lost something.

Maybe that's what decolonization feels like sometimes: looking through the cracks of history and realizing there was a version of us underneath all the things we were taught to forget.

And wanting, desperately, to meet them again.

Data centers power almost everything we do today—from streaming our favorite shows and storing photos in the cloud to running the AI systems that are rapidly reshaping our world. They are the invisible backbone of the internet, and as artificial intelligence continues to expand, so does the demand for bigger and more powerful data centers.

But behind every AI prompt, every cloud backup, and every algorithm is something most people never think about: water.

Data centers consume billions upon billions of gallons of water for cooling and humidification. A single large-scale data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water every day—roughly the same amount consumed daily by a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. As AI continues to grow, so do its water consumption, energy demand, and carbon emissions.

Data centers have an insatiable thirst, and their rapid expansion threatens one of the most essential resources for life: freshwater. Although Earth appears to be covered in water, only 3% of it is freshwater, and only 0.5% is accessible and safe for human consumption. Water is not a luxury. It is survival. The average human can only live about three days without it. Yet while droughts become more frequent and freshwater supplies continue to shrink, companies are extracting more water from rivers, reservoirs, and underground aquifers just to keep servers from overheating.

The world is racing toward an AI-powered future, but no one seems to be asking a simple question: What happens when our technology begins competing with people for water?

The United States alone has 3,960 data centers—more than the next fourteen countries combined. And now, my own country, the Philippines, is preparing to join that race through a proposed project known as Pax Silica.

The name Pax Silica comes from the Latin words pax (peace or stability) and silica (the foundation of silicon computer chips). It is being promoted as a project that will create millions of jobs and position the Philippines as a hub for artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure.

But I can't help asking: How can AI-powered data centers promise millions of jobs when AI itself is designed to automate the very work people do?

The proposed AI data center complex is planned for New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac, covering around 1,620 hectares of land. Beyond being empty space on a map, this land supports the livelihoods of countless Filipino farmers. These fields feed families, sustain local communities, and represent generations of hard work. Once replaced by concrete, servers, and cooling systems, that land may never return to what it once was.

This is the dilemma we rarely talk about. We celebrate technological progress, but we ignore what it asks us to sacrifice. Every new AI data center demands more electricity, more water, and more land. The environmental cost continues to rise while the benefits remain concentrated among a handful of corporations and tech giants.

I'm not against innovation. But progress should never come at the expense of the very resources that keep us alive.

Because when freshwater becomes scarce, no amount of artificial intelligence will be able to replace it.

Pax Silica brings promise—but at what cost?

In fact, I'd display them in frames just like the achievements hanging in our house. Some people spend their lives hiding their failures, burying them so deep that no one can see where they once stumbled. They lock them away as if they are something shameful.

But me? I won't.

Because my mistakes tell the story of who I became. The person I am today wasn't built by victories alone. I was shaped just as much by the moments I got things wrong. So I won't hide my mistakes. I'll display them proudly beside my achievements.

Because trophies show where I succeeded, but mistakes show how hard I fought to get here.

We were sitting on the balcony that night. You had a cigarette between your fingers. I had one too. The city below us was drowning in its own lights, and the smoke hung between us like a secret neither of us wanted to confess first. For a while, we said nothing. We just looked at each other. Then I did something reckless. I leaned in and kissed you. The moment my lips left yours, I braced myself for anger—for rejection, for the look people give when they realize they've been misunderstood. I thought you would pull away. I thought you would tell me I had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.

But you didn't. You grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me closer. And suddenly, every unsaid word between us disappeared. The distance, the hesitation and the months of pretending, all of that is gone.

Then, you unzip your pants, and I kneel before you. Not out of submission, not out of weakness. But because, in that moment, loving you felt easier than resisting you. I was too busy being consumed by the moment to realize it was the last one we would ever share and that there I realized how permanent some endings can be.

And I wonder if somewhere, you also built a house for us… because this house knows you more than anyone does. Because I did build one for us. Not from wood or stone, but from patience, devotion, and futures I once trusted to your hands.

But sometimes I ask myself something cruel — does this house still carry the ghost of us when we never had enough time to give it memories? Can a home be haunted by a love that barely had the chance to live? Or have I mistaken longing for architecture, building rooms out of what could have been instead of what truly was?

Perhaps that is what grief truly is:

a house built faithfully for someone who no longer knows the way back. Still, I sweep the floors and dust the windows, caring for a home that was never given the chance to become one.

Devour me—not because I ask to be engulfed, but because I I ache to be loved so deeply that nothing of me is left. Perhaps this is the only language I have ever known for love—to be consumed, to be held with such intensity that I no longer feel the distance between my soul and yours.

To be devoured is to feel love—deeply.

And I am not afraid that after consuming all of me, you might leave. Because the purest thing I know how to offer is not perfection, nor beauty, nor permanence— but the raw and trembling surrender of my whole self.

So if you must love me, love me with teeth. And if you must leave, at least let it be known that I was once loved deeply enough to be devoured.

Before I learned who I was, I learned who I needed to be. Not for myself, but for the weight they carried and the dreams they could not hold anymore. Some children are raised with freedom to wander; I was raised with a map already drawn.

Their expectations sat on my shoulders like heavy hands, shaping the way I spoke, the way I acted, the way I hid parts of myself to become easier to accept. I learned to be useful, to be careful, to make myself smaller when needed. Piece by piece, I offered parts of me without noticing how much had already been taken.

A sacrificial lamb does not choose the altar.

It is led there by familiar voices and trusted hands.

So I stood where they placed their hopes, carrying their wishes that felt too large for my small hands. My mistakes became proof that I was failing the role given to me, while every success felt less like joy and more like another reason to keep giving.

And somewhere along the way, I started asking myself—if so much of me was built to carry others, what parts of me were ever truly mine?

I know you did not choose to leave.

I know no mother bargains

to abandon her child

to the cold arithmetic of grief.

Yet knowing does not soften

the emptiness you left behind.

I still search for you

in small and foolish places—

the scent that lingers on old clothes,

songs you used to hum,

the warmth of memories

I replay until they begin to blur.

People say you are at peace now,

that heaven is kinder than this earth.

And perhaps that is true.

But forgive me

if sometimes I resent paradise

for keeping you longer

than life ever did.

If love alone could resurrect,

you would have never died at all.

So until my voice, too,

becomes part of the wind,

I will carry you—

not as someone who forsook me,

but as my first home

that fate was cruel enough to take away.

The sky outside was still painted in soft shades of gray when I quietly moved around the kitchen, trying not to make too much noise. The scent of garlic fried rice filled the air while coffee slowly brewed beside me. I kept telling myself this was enough—maybe a warm meal could somehow make up for the mistake I made yesterday.

Maybe this could be the start of fixing us.

I was so distracted arranging the food on the table that I almost dropped the plate when I heard the faint click of a doorknob turning upstairs.

Kael.

My heartbeat instantly stumbled against my ribs.

I quickly fixed myself, wiping my sweaty palms against my shorts before forcing a small smile on my face. The moment he appeared from the hallway, freshly showered and wearing that cold expression he had mastered too well, I greeted him softly.

“Good morning.”

But he didn’t answer.

Not even a glance.

He simply walked past me as if I wasn’t standing there, heading straight for the front door. The warmth inside the room suddenly felt useless against the icy silence he carried around him.

I swallowed hard and followed him with my eyes.

“Good morning… I-I’ve prepared breakfa—”

“Sa labas ako kakain.”

Those sharp words made me motionless and my lips slowly parted, but nothing came out.

I stood there frozen, still holding the plate I prepared for him while the sound of his shoes echoed against the floor. Every step he took toward the door felt like another quiet punishment I deserved.

Then the door opened.

And just like that, the cold morning air rushed inside the house together with the realization that no matter how early I woke up, no matter how hard I tried to make things right—

He was still angry at me.

No one was shouting. No doors were slammed. But somehow, every quiet moment felt heavier than noise—like I was standing between two lives, both calling me by name.

There’s him—the one who loves me.

He doesn’t make me question anything. He stays. Even on the days I become difficult, even when I pull away without explanation, he waits like patience is second nature to him. With him, love is gentle. It doesn’t rush me, doesn’t demand proof, doesn’t leave me guessing where I stand. I see it in the way he looks at me—like I’m already enough, like I’ve always been enough.

And sometimes I wonder… why does that scare me?

Because there’s also you—the one I love.

You never stayed the same way. You were never as certain. But you were… everything. You were the kind of feeling that made the world louder, brighter, almost unbearable in how alive it felt. Loving you was never peaceful, but it was real in a way that still lingers in my chest, like an ache that refuses to heal properly.

I hate that a part of me still looks for you in places you’re no longer in.

And now I’m here, in the middle of it all, holding two truths that refuse to fit together.

With him, I could build something that lasts.

With you, I’d relive something that once felt like everything.

Sometimes I sit in silence and ask myself if love is supposed to feel safe… or if it’s supposed to feel like losing control. If choosing him means I’m settling, or if choosing you means I’m refusing to grow.

I don’t say any of this out loud. I just smile when he’s around, and I pretend my heart isn’t splitting itself into directions it can’t follow at the same time.

Because the truth I’m too afraid to admit is this—

He loves me in a way that could heal me.

But I loved you in a way that almost destroyed me… and somehow, I still remember it as something beautiful.

So I stand here, unmoving,

not because I don’t know what love is—

but because I don’t know which version of it I’m brave enough to choose.

Itinuro sa’kin ng mundo na ang pagmamahal ay dapat may ebidensya—mga litrato, mga alaala, mga pinagsaluhang alaala, mga konkretong patunay na nakasama kita—pero iba ang akin, kasi lumaki akong nakatayo sa mundong ito, tangan ang isang pag-ibig na walang dokumento. Hindi kita kilala, pero may mga sandali na parang kilala kita—naaalala kita tuwing humahaplos ang malamig na simoy ng hangin tuwing alas-diyes ng gabi, naaalala kita tuwing ako’y nag-iisa, naaalala kita tuwing ako’y nakikinig ng kanta. Hindi ko mawari kung ang lungkot na ito’y gawa-gawa lamang ng malawak kong imahinasyon, kasi hinahanap kita sa pagitan ng mga bagay na hindi ko maipaliwanag—sa mga ugali kong hindi ko alam kung saan ko namana.

At minsan, naiinggit ako sa mga taong may malinaw na alaala ng kanilang ina, naiinggit ako kung paano nila kayang ikwento ang yakap nadama nila, mga boses na nadinig nila, mga pag aaruga na naranasan nila.

Samantalang, ang meron lang ako ay isang pakiramdam—at ang pakiramdam na ‘yon, ikaw ang laman.

Sabi nila, paano ka mangungulila sa isang taong hindi mo naman nakilala? Paano nga ba? Ewan ko. Basta andito ako, patuloy kang tinatawag—isang taong hindi ko man lang nahawakan, nahagkan, o nakita. Basta ang alam ko, nangungulila ako sa’yo—at totoo ‘yon, kahit walang konkretong patunay.

There is something stubborn in the way a heart keeps its rhythm, like an old radio still playing a station that stopped broadcasting years ago, yet it refuses to switch off, refusing to accept the silence on the other end. It learns absence but doesn’t turn it into stopping; it just continues, like repetition might still bring back what was lost, like enough beating could convince the universe to return what it took.

And it’s strange, because human hearts act like they have a duty to remember and love everything that is no longer here, as if missing someone is a responsibility it can’t resign from, even when the world has already moved the name into the past tense. It keeps loving in emptied places, keeps sending signals to nowhere, like devotion is a language it can’t unlearn even when no one is listening anymore.

Maybe that’s what makes it so mysterious—not that it feels, but that it continues. Not that it breaks, but that it still functions even while broken things quietly echo inside it.

There are people who keep love like glass behind display cases—polished, labeled, preserved in a quiet arrangement of nostalgia. Everything intact, everything admired from a safe distance, as if memory is a clean exhibition you can walk through without bleeding on the floor.

But not all hearts are built like that.

Some of us do not preserve what we lose. We do not frame it. We do not arrange it into something that looks survivable. What remains is not curated—it is scattered. Unfinished conversations buried under other unfinished conversations. Names that stop sounding like names and start sounding like echoes in a place that never stopped collapsing inward. Love, in that kind of body, does not become an artifact. It becomes residue. It becomes weight.

And when you have held too many departures, you begin to understand that affection is not always gentle in its leaving. Some people do not exit—they disappear in layers. First from touch, then from voice, then from meaning. What remains is not their presence but the space they hollowed out while they were still there.

So the heart turns into something closer to a field after a long history of loss. Not sacred. Not preserved. Just layered with what was once alive and now only exists as absence shaped like form. Every connection becomes a mark that time refuses to fully erase, even when you wish it would. Even when forgetting would be easier than remembering how something once felt warm in your hands.

And still, people speak as if love is something that can be safely stored, as if it does not rot or fracture or press back against the one who carries it. But there are those who carry it differently—who do not get to keep it clean. Who live with what remains after intimacy stops being mutual and becomes memory that refuses to leave quietly.

To have loved like that is to become a place where endings do not fully end. Not because you want them to stay, but because nothing ever truly departs whole. Pieces linger. Fragments insist on being witnessed again and again, like they are asking for a language they were never given while they were alive.

And maybe that is what others call preservation.

But in some lives, what is kept is not beauty. It is what could not be buried properly.

Because some people were taught to fear every raised fist, every question, every voice that refuses to kneel. Say it louder, because power survives by making courage look dangerous. Say it until the lie begins to crack.

Activism is the sound of people who got tired of begging for crumbs while the powerful feast in public. It is the language of workers denied fair wages, of students denied truth, of women denied autonomy, of communities denied dignity, of citizens denied justice while corruption wears a suit and calls itself leadership.

They call it “noise” because truth disturbs their silence. They call it “rebellion” because obedience benefits them. They call it “terrorism” because they know words can wake people up faster than guns ever could.

But look at history. Every right people now enjoy was once called impossible, inappropriate, radical, or dangerous. The right of women to vote. Labor protections. Civil rights. Access to education. Protections for the poor. The right to criticize those in power without kissing their boots. None of these were gifts handed down by kind rulers. They were demanded, fought for, bled for, organized for.

Progress has never been born from comfort. It was dragged into existence by people willing to be hated for telling the truth. By those who marched while being mocked. By those who spoke while being threatened. By those who stood alone until others found the courage to stand beside them.

And in the Philippines, how many times have people been told to stay quiet while they are robbed in daylight? How many times were citizens asked to be patient while public funds disappear, while families go hungry, while lies are polished into press releases? They want a population that smiles politely while drowning. They want gratitude from the abused. They want silence from the betrayed.

But activism says no.

No to a government that serves private greed over public need.

No to systems that reward cruelty and punish conscience.

No to the idea that being “neutral” while others suffer is maturity.

Because neutrality, in the face of injustice, is often just cowardice dressed as manners.

Activism is not disgusting. What is disgusting is exploitation.

Activism is not shameful. What is shameful is stealing from the people.

Activism is not dangerous. What is dangerous is teaching citizens to fear their own voices.

To those who mock people for caring, who insult anyone who speaks up, who confuse apathy with intelligence—you are not defenders of peace. You are defenders of convenience. Empathy costs nothing, yet some people are too bankrupt in spirit to give it. Kindness is free, yet some still choose cruelty like it is a personality.

And to every person who feels tired, silenced, ridiculed, or alone for standing up: history remembers the brave more kindly than it remembers the obedient.

Activism is love with its sleeves rolled up.

It is grief refusing to stay quiet.

It is citizenship at its highest form.

For the people.

For the truth.

For a future that refuses to be bought.

I didn’t ask to be rich. I didn’t ask to be worshipped. I didn’t ask for the world to kneel at my feet. I just wanted to be decent. To care. To love without calculation. To help without keeping score.

And somehow, this fucked up world treats that like weakness.

Every time I gave patience, someone took advantage. Every time I gave trust, someone lied. Every time I gave love, someone used it like a weapon and handed it back covered in damage. People see softness and think it means access. They see kindness and think it means permission.

That’s the filth of this world.

Cruel people always know how to find gentle ones. They sniff out good hearts like parasites looking for something warm to feed on. They drain you, then act offended when there’s nothing left to take.

And somehow they still blame you.

“You should’ve known better.”

“You’re too nice.”

“You let it happen.”

No. Fuck that.

Maybe people should stop being liars.

Maybe people should stop using others like tools.

Maybe people should stop confusing kindness with stupidity.

Maybe the problem was never the person who cared. Maybe the problem is this rotten culture that rewards selfishness and punishes sincerity.

This world loves predators and laughs at the wounded. It praises manipulators for being “smart” and mocks kind people for being “naive.” It trains people to take, to cheat, to harden themselves, then wonders why everyone is empty.

I am tired of pretending the blame belongs to those who loved honestly.

The blame belongs to the users.

The blame belongs to the cowards.

The blame belongs to the greedy, the fake, the emotionally bankrupt pieces of shit who consume people and call it survival.

I wanted to be kind.

And this world answered with cruelty.

So if there is anger in me now, good. This world earned every fucking drop of it.

I hate it in a way that doesn’t fade, doesn’t soften, doesn’t “heal” just because time passes. I hate how something you can’t even properly see at first—just cells going wrong, something silent and hidden—can destroy an entire life like it was nothing. Like it was disposable.

It didn’t just take my mother. It ripped her out of my life and called it “illness,” like that word is supposed to make it easier to accept. But there is nothing easy about it. It took the person who was supposed to be there for all the normal things—the everyday routines, the comfort of being called, the presence that makes a house feel like home—and it just erased her from it all.

And what’s worse is what it did to me after.

I didn’t choose to grow up like this. I didn’t ask to learn independence while I was still supposed to be learning how to lean on someone. I didn’t ask to wake up one day and realize that the safety I thought was permanent was actually fragile as h**l and could disappear without warning. One moment things are normal, and the next, they’re not—and there is no fixing that. No rewinding it. No getting her back.

That’s the part that makes me furious. Not just the loss—but the permanence of it. How the world just keeps going like nothing happened, while you’re stuck carrying something that changed everything inside you. People move on. Life continues. But you don’t get to go back to who you were before it happened.

And I hate the way people talk about it sometimes. Like there’s some hidden “lesson” or “purpose” in it. Like I’m supposed to find peace in something that stole so much from me. F**k that. There’s nothing poetic about watching your life split into before and after. There’s nothing beautiful about learning how to survive something you never should’ve had to survive in the first place.

The anger is always there too. Quiet sometimes, but heavy. It shows up in random moments—when I remember something she said, when I realize there’s something I’ll never get to ask her, when I see people my age still living in the kind of safety I lost too early. It’s not just sadness. It’s rage. Deep, burning, helpless rage at how unfair it all is.

Because why her? Why my mother? Why does something like this get to exist at all and just tear through people’s lives like it’s normal? What kind of f**ked-up randomness is that? There’s no answer that makes it feel right. There’s no explanation that fixes the hole it left.

And yeah, I’ve learned to function. I’ve learned to handle things. I’ve learned how to stand on my own when I had no other option. But don’t mistake that for acceptance. Don’t mistake survival for peace. It’s just adaptation. It’s just what you do when you’re left with no other option.

So yeah—I f**king hate breast cancer. I hate what it took. I hate what it forced me into. I hate the version of life it stole before I even had the chance to fully live it. And I hate that I have to carry all of this forward while the world keeps acting like everything is just… normal.

Because it’s not. It never will be.

I don’t think I was ever taught how to be feminine. Not in a way that felt safe, at least. Growing up, it always felt like there were invisible lines I wasn’t supposed to cross—like softness, like sensitivity, like the way I naturally wanted to express myself. Being a boy meant performing a version of strength that never really fit me. A kind of toughness that felt rehearsed, unnatural, like I was constantly watching myself from the outside, making sure I didn’t slip. So I learned to hide parts of myself, or at least quiet them down enough so no one would notice. I swallowed gestures, softened my voice only when I was alone, kept my emotions in places no one could reach.

It wasn’t always loud, the way I was corrected. Sometimes it was just in the silence, in the looks, in the subtle shift of how people responded when I was “too much” of something I couldn’t name yet. I became aware of myself in fragments—what to show, what to suppress, what to reshape into something more acceptable. And over time, I got good at it. Too good, maybe. To the point where I wasn’t sure anymore which parts of me were real, and which ones were just survival.

But somehow, I found myself surrounded by girls. Or maybe they found me, in the quiet way people do when they recognize something familiar in you. And in them, I saw something I wasn’t allowed to fully be—but deeply understood anyway. It wasn’t just admiration. It was recognition. Like looking at a reflection that wasn’t mine, but still felt like it belonged to me in some way.

Girlhood, as I experienced it through them, wasn’t just about aesthetics or shared interests. It wasn’t just the surface—the makeup, the clothes, the shared playlists or inside jokes. It went deeper than that. It was in the way they made space for emotions without turning it into something shameful, the way feelings were never something to hide but something to hold, to pass around, to understand together. It was in their honesty, their openness, the way they could say “I’m not okay” without fearing it would make them less. The way they could be both strong and soft at the same time without needing to explain it, without needing to justify their contradictions.

And slowly, without realizing it, I started to unlearn the idea that I had to choose between being “too much” or “not enough.” With them, there was no constant measuring of myself, no quiet pressure to shrink or harden just to fit a mold I never asked for. They existed in a kind of fluidity I had never allowed myself to have, and being around that felt like permission—permission to feel deeply, to express freely, to take up space in ways I was taught to avoid.

There’s something deeply healing about being in spaces where you don’t have to filter yourself. Where your softness isn’t questioned, where your emotions aren’t treated like weaknesses or inconveniences. Where crying isn’t something to be embarrassed about, and vulnerability isn’t something people weaponize against you. With them, I didn’t feel like I had to perform masculinity correctly, didn’t feel like I was constantly being watched or evaluated. I wasn’t trying to pass as something I’m not—I was just there.

And in that simple act of existing, something in me started to settle. The parts of myself I used to hide didn’t feel so out of place anymore. They were seen, mirrored, even celebrated. And for the first time, I realized that maybe softness was never the problem. Maybe I was just in the wrong spaces before.

I think that’s what I mean when I say girlhood heals me. It’s not about wanting to be someone else—it’s about finally allowing myself to be who I already am, without shame. It’s about putting down the weight of pretending, of constantly editing myself just to be accepted. I’m tired of shrinking parts of me just to fit into a version of boyhood that was never built for me in the first place.

Girlhood didn’t change me. It revealed me. It gave language to the softness I used to hide, gave space to the emotions I was taught to suppress, gave me permission to exist without feeling like I had to apologize for it. And that kind of healing isn’t quiet—it’s loud in the most honest way. It shows up in the way I speak now, the way I feel without immediately shutting it down, the way I no longer see my femininity as something embarrassing, but something real and worth protecting.

There’s still fear, sometimes. There are still moments where I catch myself holding back, where old habits try to pull me into silence again. But now I know what it feels like to be seen, to be held in spaces that don’t demand I change. And once you’ve felt that kind of acceptance, it becomes harder to go back to hiding.

So when I say girlhood heals me, I mean it in the most honest, almost desperate way. It saved parts of me I thought I had to lose. It gave me back to myself. And for the first time, I’m not trying to be less—I’m finally allowing myself to be whole.