prettiestmorena

[prettiestmorena]

If anyone ask me how I met you, I'll let them read this.

On 6th of September, I saw you from across the building of my university standing firm and the next thing I know was I am introducing you to my friends as my boyfriend— an action I have never imagine I'll do until I actually have done it. I am pretty sure you were flabbergasted but I did not care about that. It is like when I saw you standing 5 feet away from me, I knew that I cannot let the distance stay that way. And so if anyone ask me how we met each other, I'll say more than because our common friend had nothing to do with his life so he introduced us to each other. Instead, I'll say:

I met him between racing cars and loud noises but all I can ever acknowledge is his voice and his hearty laugh. I met him between chaos and uncertainness but he made things feel so familiar that I let myself break my own walls so he could hold my hand and I could hold his. I met him so casually that it felt pretty right and comforting.

I wrote a poem about him and I thought maybe the reason why my mind wanted to read more of it was because it was so amazing that I am capable of loving someone again but it wasn't like that. It was nothing like that. My mind kept a memory of the things I couldn't seem to get enough of— loving people because of what they could be but not what they are.

And now that my mind is free from the thoughts of what he could be or what he could have been, I was able to see that it was not him that made things feel pretty right and comforting. It was actually myself that ignored the warning signs of familiarity and the questions in my head that exists the very moment I saw him.

So if anyone ask me how I lost you, I'll tell them: I lost him between things that are too tiny, too shallow, and too easy. It was too tiny that I confined my feelings on a piece of paper and hold it out for a week. It was too shallow that it made me feel empty and unworthy for days. It was too easy that I had to kneel down under the stars and pray for the uneasiness to go away. And it was not because our love was fragile but it was because our love simply did not exist.

[prettiestmorena]

Pills and Feels

The longest relationship I've ever had was neither with someone I spent eight months with last summer nor with someone with whom I spent two months together and five months apart. But instead, the short in time but longer in memory instances I have had in my entire life with pills.

When I was little, my biggest fear was not monsters hiding under my bed nor ghosts living in our backyard but rather the probability of getting sick. It stemmed from being unable to swallow big medicine pills because my tiny little mouth always rejected the awful taste that came with them. Whenever I got sick, my mom would melt it patiently and mix it with my favorite flavored drink so I could drink medicine and feel better. I was scared of pills until I got allergies, and my mom wouldn't melt a pint-sized tablet for me. It was then that my rough history with medicines finally came to an end. Finally, I didn't have to go through the extra steps just to drink them.

And so I grew up alongside the never-ending journey toward discovering one great love I'd read about in books and seen in movies, enjoying the lighthearted route filled with vodka and martinis, and staying up all night studying with the hopes of getting validation in academics. After everything, I'd still return home and find solutions between medicines and liquids to cure my hangovers from drinking too much or headaches from studying late at night. For the first time, I was thankful that pills existed.

Then I turned seventeen and became a young woman with an ever-increasing desire for romantic attachment. Later on, I had my heart shattered, stopped hearing from the people who mattered and felt incredibly isolated amidst the widespread pandemic. Once again, I turned to medications for solace while writing lengthy notes of gratitude to the many people who had made my life bearable. Surprisingly, I made it through the tough road, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a room painted in white populated by the very people I had previously left terrified.

And even after everything that has happened, the lover girl within me still remembers she wanted to experience an anniversary, the one with candlelight and petals of roses in the pathway or the one with pink balloons and a surprise Tagaytay getaway. But then the world forced me from living behind four big walls with limited time outside, and that's when my entire bucket list flipped all over. Suddenly, the anniversary I had dreamt of before was not what I longed for today. It is no longer all about the romantic gestures but already with six little words made from my tiny little progress, "I have been self-harm free for..."

The love-hate relationship with pills has taught me the whole range of human emotions. And even though it was difficult, I am grateful that the longest relationship I have ever had shaped me into the woman I am today: one who is loving and bound by the strengths that were once her weaknesses.

[prettiestmorena]

I talk a lot.

Probably a lot about the parties I've been to, like the first mini bar that served me tequila sunrise or the 5-to-6-foot pool at my last birthday party, and probably never about the laughs I shared with other people while screaming internally, the silent sighs and loudest cries only my heart and mind have witnessed and remember, the lying on the bathroom floor.

And then, I would remember cutting ties off with people whenever they become too observant to know when I am over my head because that frightens me. The fact that other people know so much about me is terrifying because I like myself more when they think I'm lively than when they think I'm barely holding on to life. I prefer it when people believe my exaggerated positive portrayal of myself rather than the reality that I am just as human as they are. I like it better when they think I am a strong, independent woman rather than someone who could cave to suicidal impulses at any moment.

I've been living my life through the reality of others, and I know that it is safer to let people believe they know enough about you to destroy your life and what you are building, even though they only know what you want them to know and what you can afford to lose. I know that life is better when it is fake.

And so, I talk a lot. Not so much about what makes me human but rather what makes me feel like one.

[prettiestmorena]

I never wanted to move even an inch close to admitting that I had a slight crush on someone, but only this time I made an exemption. I stopped trying to figure everything out in my head because I didn't want to risk missing out on finding out if our feelings were mutual. Emotions weren't well-deep, so it wasn't that hard, and your answer was clearly the one I expected. Mutual feelings were never a concern because what I feared on losing is the kind of person who never makes me feel bad for being myself. But, I believe I had already lost that the second I tried telling you all of my past 10 pm thoughts are about you. 

But, honestly, I have never understood what feels like a strong connection between us if it isn't attraction because you made it crystal clear that we were never on the same page. I have never understood how much hate I could build against you for annoying me so much today and how much it only takes one reply to make me forget about it. I have never understood how you feel about me because sometimes you make me think that you just want to rush back to me so you can talk about everything that hurts or makes you happy. Sometimes you'd make me feel like I'm the only person you need to get through a bad day and sleep soundly. Sometimes, you'd leave me feeling elated, but more often than not, you'd leave me wondering what was going on.

I see you. And I know you never wanted someone to figure you out, so I never talk about it anymore. But, I do not want to live in the hope that someday you would no longer be scared to admit it. I don't want to exist merely in anticipation of something better. I don't want to waste my life waiting for the "sometimes," "maybe," and the less-than-50-percent chance that I'll see you tomorrow. I would hate not knowing your heart, but I would hate it more to crawl into something I have tried so hard to break from.

[prettiestmorena]

We only have one plate in our house.

And I think my capability to not talk about my feelings and the tendency to fix people is more than just because I am a people-pleaser or a little human with a big heart. I think it stems from a lot of fear and shame instilled in me with having to grow up in a not-so-naked environment.

My boyfriend once ended a phone call with me because I was too slow to put my mic off, so he heard my mother shouting in the background; he asked if I was okay, and so I would pretend that they were just like that because they are deaf. I would pretend that our house was fine and that our windows were always open and my sheets were always clean, but it was nothing like that.

It was more of people living in a small house, rarely seeing each other. It was more of people shouting, breaking plates, and pointing knives at each other, so I never talked about my feelings. I would cage them in a bottle and pretend they would no longer be there the following day because I did not want to write about the things that broke me just because I ran out of things that would make me feel whole.

I would eat in a bowl and tell other people that I liked it because it was easy to eat on it, but honestly, I never do because my food would dry fast and it was too little, but I had no choice because all of our plates were gone. After all, my mom would throw them on the floor whenever she got mad. So, my capability of not talking a lot about my feelings is more than just because I am a people-pleaser but because I have never been anywhere that makes me feel safe enough to be vulnerable. I never even had a home.

And the tendency to fix people is more than just because I have a big heart, but more like because I know a lot of places that would hurt you deeply and make you hate your body to the point that you would not be able to look at yourself in the mirror. I have been to many places that would scar your soul and make you bleed, so I would guide them because I do not want people to wander in places I have been. I did not want them to break even more than they already did because I know how hard it is to build yourself from zero. I know it all too much.

[prettiestmorena]

Patrice (2004)

I was raised without a role model. However, I have a long list of people I never wanted to be.

People's expectations of me diminish as I grow older since I talk a lot and do not devote sufficient time to studying. But, I am immediately recognized when I ace tests, quizzes, and assignments. Nobody has ever questioned my position at the top since I attained it — initially, I thought it was a good thing. Now that I am at the top, people can finally see me. Finally, they have a reason not to abandon me or ignore me.

Few people urged me not to become my mother and father. I was expected to earn a bachelor's degree, unlike my mother, but also to earn a bachelor's degree and improve my life, unlike my father. Even though I was still in middle school, I was expected to be different. I was supposed to do the right thing and become somebody wonderful, but no one taught me what is right and good, and what is wrong and horrible. I was expected to know everything on my own. Then, I once again do not feel seen. I felt as though I was living in the shadow of what I was not supposed to be.

Therefore, by the age of sixteen, I was determined not to fall. I did not want to cry. I did not want anger. Because I did not know how to be anyone else, all I ever wanted was to be beautiful, intelligent, and outstanding. People around me developed an image of me as innately intelligent, so I was expected to be an overachiever, powerful, and successful. So even after expectations lingered on my skin and the internal pain of crying caught up with me, I still showed up. I was physically present even though my thoughts and emotions were no longer there. I got numb, yet I continued to turn up.

As a result of what I had to become, many individuals saw me as an inspiration or a motivation. Sometimes I believe it's a good thing that my abilities have such a large influence, but I think it's also a flawed notion because I did not wish for them to be afraid of falling. I did not want them to feel embarrassed by their tears. I did not want them to feel bad because they desired to be furious. I did not want them to become like me since no one else had taught them what was right and wrong and what was good and terrible. Nonetheless, I showed up.

Even today, I am showing up because if I did not, the fear of failing would consume me, and no one would notice, as I was expected to be a girl who is strong, independent, and naturally intelligent. Therefore, if I were to vanish, it would be perceived as a sign of laziness, not as a sign that I have regained my strength and independence to finally choose myself.

[prettiestmorena]

Even when you dance as if both of your feet are left and you aren't singing the appropriate lyrics, watching you sing and dance makes me feel alive in ways you'll never know. I've trained myself to believe that no one deserves it, although I love like no one else. I built my walls so high that nobody could climb or break through them; you did not possess a key. You failed to discover a shortcut. Nonetheless, you made a home out of yourself and made me live inside. There are instances when someone you have known for years won't be able to affect your emotions the same way someone you have known for months can. Please note that I have never lived by it because I am wise enough not to put much stock in proverbs. I am wise enough that I should not blindly believe anything. I often consider anything twice, hell, even three times. I frequently ask, but you've never given me cause to second-guess you. I can still recall sitting on sheds, terrified that I would board the wrong bus because I was without my glasses, making everything look hazy and like constellations. I remember having to leave whenever I felt like falling for someone else because I was terrified of love. Instead of walking away, I spent every second trying to find reasons not to leave you despite the tingling in my bones and the shivers I got. You are not hell-bent; instead, you were heaven-sent. I'm afraid to ruin the relationship because of your love. I'm so terrified by your love that even in hypothetical future situations, I can imagine all the ways we could save ourselves. You would never know how much you make me feel alive; you were never supposed to have the same pair of eyes as mine, but instead, you are meant to receive the whole package.

[prettiestmorena]

It was autumn.

I never felt for once that there'll be summer rains and more documents I wanted to be corrupted. I swear off love more often than I swear to God, and you were a flight risk, but I gave myself anyway.

I do not wish to do an astral project for the first time just to see myself lying on a table, holding a polaroid that has you in it, because it reminds me of a fact that we've only held hands but never had it intertwined.

My body became a creation of sleepless nights and jagged edges— and who dares to keep a broken piece of a wine glass when it causes a bad fortune? Our love has gone cold, and you wished to find warmth in somebody else's.

I do not know if I should run and beg you to be patient to hold me a little tighter. Honestly, I still don't know how to make these trembling hands stop shaking. What I know for sure is I still have a fight left in me.

Then, it was winter. And I realized that the season is more worthy of a keeping than the love you have offered.

[prettiestmorena]

I never wanted our relationship to end.

For I have moments existing between our watery hands and alluring voices— and those moments are something I want to treasure forever. And at this very second, I realized... this was never a love story because we only had a connection, and our mistake was we thought it was something permanent.

We thought it was something worth fighting for every day.

Now, we want to stay and keep switching pages, but we fear to admit that the warmth we felt when we first hugged isn't here anymore: the feeling of wanting to stay longer under your swarthy bare arms no longer exists. The deep affection between our kisses and how much your blue-veined hands wished to explore every part of me. The magic when we first saw each other's eyes... they are no longer here.

But honestly, we should never be afraid of that.

It isn't like there are no moments we exchange "I love you" and don't mean it. I know there are days when you wake up hugging me, and it doesn't flutter your heart. Moments where we think we are just ordinary people with no mutual feelings. We never wanted this relationship to end because we believe we are the best catch, the perfect match, but if we are... why is it that we were lit afire yet never blazed?

I latch onto the fact that not everything we never wanted to perorate won't really end because there are things that should not have come forth at all.

[prettiestmorena]

My earnest request as a woman is to fall in love— fall in love slowly.

Remind yourself that you saw the sun first in your eyes before you saw it in somebody else's. Remind yourself that the longest race you will ever be participating in is your self-growth: you are a child of this universe and worthy of everything positive.

Fall in love with the way you feel things deeply.

The gentle echoes of someone's laughter. The boisterous beating of someone's heart. The wistfulness of returning to places that caused you so much pleasure and pain. You are an antique soul trapped in a body slowly falling into disrepair.

Fall in love with your failures.

The events that made you a better version of yourself than who you were yesterday. Embrace the days that made you fall to your knees, for they serve as a lesson in your amorphous evocation. Let go of what's suffocating you because you do not need to carry it forever. You do not have lungs that breathe underwater.

Fall in love with your body.

Euphemize it. The small spots on your face. The stretch marks on your hips. And how you radiate warmth and happiness through your smile. Look at yourself in front of a mirror like you are something extravagant, something so sweet.

Fall in love with your existence.

The tiny bits of the things that made you a masterpiece. The sad songs you write. The way you sing. The way you express yourself in poetry. These little things make you come from the way you express yourself.

Fall in love with it until you feel like home. Because forever resides in your arms, and it is where you should be.

[prettiestmorena]

I hand him a portion of the stories of my chapped lips, watery hands, and breaking voices— but he doesn't know.

I do not mean to be a presage of forever or something permanent, so I would tell him to listen to a song every moment I get to go straight to bed first. But, do not misinterpret me; it is not the commitment that clouds my heart with fear but the fact that:

He will be charming and confident and make a home out of himself: be the safest place where I could grow. He will be caressing my fingers, rubbing my bare back with his hands: be the man that I less expect will break me. He will be someone that I will need for days. Someone who could walk an inch away from me and know I would need his warmth.

I do not want to spend my nights pampered with so much attention so he could wake up in broad daylight and decides not to care anymore. I do not want to fall down on my knees for myself to realize I gave him all the strength, and he is now making me weak.

I am not thirsting for something to only be given to me once. That's when you will know that your biggest mistake is letting love come into your life.

[prettiestmorena]

If there will be someone who will look at me that way, I’ll never leave.

They told me to never hold back from showering someone with love and affection, just like how I hold my cup of coffee and drink it without worrying about getting my tongue seared. Because I spend my mornings sitting at a café window with the sun striking my left eye, it eventually became a hobby— many poles apart from falling in love.

And as far as I remember, the last time I fell in love was in 4th grade. Whenever my so-called brother took my school bag and carried it to our classroom so I won't suffer from its heavy weight. Whenever I put our names together and flames them. Whenever my younger self still loved the slam books where you put your crush's name on it and trust that the owner will never let him read it. That puppy love until the last day of school. He pinky promised he'll still study in the same school as yours, so on your first day in 5th grade, you searched for his name, and he wasn't there. I should have known better.

Because you looked at me the same way, he did. I should have trusted you when you told me your heart was cold and relentless. You were to save me from a heavy slaughter, but I pushed myself to it. For a reason, I thought we were the same. My mind's so cruel to think that we apply to two people who are torn apart by the world and now met to help each other heal.

Even at first, we weren't each other's home but instead waiting sheds.

I should have taught myself how to bottle up my feelings and compress them so cubed stardust and mixed it with my coffee because I've never learned the real love itself, only the pain after it. So I ought to know that when someone looks at me that way, I must turn around and look away.

[prettiestmorena]

Almost

Yes that was you. You would forever be the man that could have been. You catch glimpses from the tiny parts of me and I was ready to show the rest hidden beneath the surface.

I don't want to hear about the weather but what was our favorite question when we wanted to talk more but then run out of topic: what's your favorite number in an electric fan? I want to know your pet peeves, your hopes and dreams, because you mean more to me than small talks.

We could have been an adequate moment but we fear about having to let go each other's hands when we're not holding it yet. That's why we turned into something we dread... a memory.

If only we were brave enough to give us a go. If only we tried pulling each other out of deepest waters. If only one of us has gained a little bit courage.

If only we are not both... afraid.

And if either of us had of been a tiny bit braver, we could have been magnificent.

[prettiestmorena]

They have asked me to put heaven, earth, and hell in papers, and so, I thought about you.

Remember when your mom kept on saying you were the only mistake God had ever made yet I see you as an angel, a patron of a saint, my only guide home? Her words still haunt you like ghosts who have died but still lived, whenever you walk between rivers and mountains, wishing that tears will stop welling from the inside but they never did.

They have never named you, and so I did. You are my worth of a try romance. The love notes written on brown papers that I burned with a lighter. The wine bottles in my home bar that I bought for a good display. The incredulous in-awe love makes me wonder if this was real or this was not.

Days with you either feel like heaven or hell. Sometimes you sneak under my blanket as you wrap your arms around my waist like you were begging for the world to at least make you feel secure for once. But sometimes you scare me out when the moon turns red and you stayed out on the balcony for too long. You clench my throat unjustly as I feel the pain lingers. You do sometimes forget how to love me, and how beautiful our cuddling moments are. You have gone into nothingness and did that. For you, I made myself believe it was just one dark moment but my mind kept a memory of your fist that I could never learn how to not live with it.

You don't scare me at all, but your heart does. I do not know what lives in it and what it has been through... I just know for sure that the earth has scarred you. When I met you, I promised I will hold your hand until we can climb back— that high. Because I believe you are God's only correctness and I have loved you enough to set forth your coming, you just have to keep looking forward but you looked back.

I have lived and loved through and with you to let you go home. and I realized you were a mixture of heaven, and hell so they do not need to contain you because the earth has owned a place. At first glance, you were a blank grey canvas but eventually, I learned how to see colors in hues of black and white.

I love you, truly to let you live.

[prettiestmorena]

I am in a rut.

After all of the mornings and restless nights of compelling myself not to go back to you; to you who broke me like I didn’t deserve to be whole. The tears I shed on my pillows and eyes had run dry. I can finally get up from the fall and continue to carry on.

I had thought of not getting my pen just to put down in papers the memoirs of the sunset swamping on your iris and the caffeine that will be soon reaching my capillaries. I didn't want to think of how the last weeks of May had become the winter of dead flowers and petals torn in wheat bread. Frankly, I'm trying but apparently when the clouds pave their way when the heavy weight of water is done surging down the rough beds of my heart. I'm afraid I still love you and I'll be locked forever in the thoughts of you coming back.

I make my fingers touch the letters that form your epithet, and now twice are their meaning because I was cognizant I'll always be the same: I’ll still write about you— I am again writing about you. You are the moon that stays all night listening and loving what’s left behind after the sunset but I am that bright star that's shining for what’s still on the run. I thought we can only be beautiful if one of us is gone, but I was wrong. I felt uglier than before when you left me from thenceforth.

[prettiestmorena]

I bring too much to the table.

Whenever I dared to come forward and had the bravery to do so, I was labeled as arrogant. Every time I develop solutions to issues I didn't even make, they branded me as difficult. I had the nerve to correct someone who called another woman a slut while everyone was laughing and nodding in agreement, they referred to me as a bitch. I became a lot of different characters in other people's stories, but I never took on as a woman who did too much good without expecting anything in return. So I suppose that people only give credit when there is something bad to talk about.

They say that the only way to bring down a strong, independent woman is to take her entire mansion with her and turn her people against her, but they will never understand that you can never defeat a woman who is strong-willed and confident enough to build a new empire from ground zero.

People never cease to amaze me. They have never let me down in any moment of my life to be dismissed as nothing more than just outspoken, conceited, bitch, slut, or whatever you want to call me, but I, too, have never let myself down to become the woman who could take care of herself, hold her own, outsmart people, and endure terrible situations by herself and still survive.

Life broke me and molded me, and I will never regret bringing too much to the table because no one has the right to sit at the same table with me if they think I'm conceited, overbearing, too much, complicated, or tough. People who have worked hard and earned a seat are the only ones allowed at the grown-up table, remember that.

[prettiestmorena]

How do we really know whether we know people?

I tend to overshare, so everyone I have met is aware of my picky eating habits and that my favorite colors are pink and green. And almost all of my friends overshare with me as well, but I often wondered, "How do we really know whether we know people?"

Do we perceive them depending on how many secrets they revealed to us? Or do we perceive them based on the numerous occasions when we witnessed them cry, stumble, and then get back up? Because it baffled me when a close friend said that I am like an open book, but one that only a select few people can read.

So I guess we were never truly able to get to know people even when we had already memorized their favorite McDonald's meal, knew their nut allergies, seen their immature version of themselves, and even when we were there when they got their heart shattered and all they did was cry, cry, cry— we would never be able to learn about and get to know people. It is a result of how frequently people change and how quickly the world changes.

The only benefit of meeting somebody you'll probably never get to know in the next three to five years is that you'll get to view them in a different light and be a part of who they'll be the following day. People are simply a collection of all the people they meet during their lives which means everything you do or say has the potential to have an impact on another human being.

Make a conscious effort to be kind. The world is full of decent people; if you can't find any, consider becoming one yourself.