*verdad

I keep old photographs and dog-eared letters inside my plastic treasure box, along with little stuffed animals and the things we shared. While you took my heart with you when you left, I found it lying lifeless on the gutters of solitude. And this is where I was born again.

The stars didn’t twinkle like tantalizing christmas lights anymore. They turned on and off like a dying fluorescent lamp. And Mr. Sunshine bid no greetings in the morning. In its place, I saw only the dark sky and raindrops falling like needles on my skin. Tears were shed with movies that remind me of you and I, and the places we never saw and the long bus rides we took together. We were supposed to see the world. But our world ended right in the middle of our journey, which sent me crashing against a wall of bricks. Helpless and alone.

Thoughts meander restlessly in this little space I have atop my head. Were you going back? Perhaps this is all a big joke. But no, no it wasn’t. It was a little more serious than Joker saying he’s out to kill Bruce Wayne. But unlike Joker, you really did kill Bruce Wayne. Somewhere along these thoughts, a hole in the sky’s crowd of clouds had appeared and some piece of the sun glared at me. I liked it.

I am never going to use umbrellas on sunny days again. They shield me from seeing the world; the birds, the falling leaves, the blue sky that slowly turns scarlet when the sun falls asleep. Still the dawn of you is slowly passing by and it would be a lie to say that I reside in a corner void of melancholy because you’ve become who I was and letting go of you would have meant letting go of who I am. But life is different now. You became the footprints in the sand that I left behind and like other dreadful memories, the footprints drifted into the sea as its waves swept you away from me.

I may be walking alone in a vast space of the harmonious play of come and go and in-betweens but I have a love affair with the world.

~~~

I open my plastic treasure box and re-read your letters. I put them aside and admire with a certain kind of nostalgia the passion you enclosed with the little presents you gave me. I shed one last tear and hide them all away again for there is more to come. Tomorrow I’ll wake up with the unique fragrance of school supplies in June. Tomorrow, I create something new, experience something new. And you will stay in that treasure box forever, and perhaps, beyond.

I take one last look behind and walk ahead, eager for all things new and sparkly, while carrying re-polished old belongings that may aid me in the new journey I will take.