Tabula Rasa
I stared at my blank notebook, which was not really supposed to be empty. I was trying to weave out words, string them together and make coherent sentences.
About what?
About what I think right now. About what I feel right now.
Unfortunately, I feel that I am lacking things. Something is wrong.
In case you do not know yet, I stopped combining words together since God knows when. There was a time when I lost everything that I have, even my love for words. My commitment to write things just disappeared. Poof. Like smoke. But despite of my deep relationship with narratives, I did not even attempt to revive my habit. I just let this whole literary shebang die. And so I stopped writing.
And then there you were.
Your presence, which I have not paid attention to for the past years, suddenly disrupted my supposedly quiet and solitary life. Just when I thought that I could live without words, without writing, you, without your knowledge, rekindled a fire that I have long extinguished; a feeling that I tried to avoid, and a commitment that I have refused to involve myself into.
I think this is a joke. I think this is another phase when there are butterflies in my stomach, when the smiles have deeper meaning, when my movements are different. This is the phase when I am going to look at you differently. This is the phase when I will decide whether I should continue this or not. Believe it or not, this is also the time when I resume using words to express how I feel. Yes, about how I feel about things, about myself, about you.
But why do I have the feeling that the words will slip out again? I am afraid that all these things will disappear, and what pains me the most is that I am losing grip of things sooner than I expected. I am losing hope, I am losing optimism, I am losing my words, I am losing you.
I could say, “Is it okay if you’ll spend a little bit more time here?” You probably won’t suspect things and might say, “Sure, why not?” But will you really stay? Will you still allow me to walk beside you? Will you actually understand what I am saying, right now, at this very moment?
Again, I look at my empty sheet of paper. You brought my words back only to take them away from me again.
# # # # # # # # # #
Originally published at Filipino Journal, Volume 21, Number 24.