walang tigil ang ulan

I used to put it down as some form of attention deficiency… the restless twitch of your hands, the incessant shake of your leg, and the difficulty to sustain eye contact.

Then I wondered about the seemingly inviolable weekends that could not be touched. When I heard Sisqo’s “Incomplete” that you dedicated to me, I didn’t get it at first. There were so many other things that eluded my very limited comprehension. Why were you always so pushy and bossy? Why were you always trying to control my actions? Why were you always setting the schedule and never giving in to any of my requests?

And then the bartolina suddenly made sense. And how you always needed to get a bit of me every time. I added up all the smiles plastered on your face for no special reason on each occasion we were together and I came up with a mosaic of our moments together.

The only way you’ve ever known is brittle, cold, and hard, like the tiles of wall art that need to be chiseled into wholeness. You are insatiable for some sort of warmth and light… and all those times you told me, in the beginning, that I was the only patch of goodness and happiness in your life… slowly, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. I never had the emotional tools to cure any fool, you notwithstanding… you weren’t recovering from a previous relationship… you simply felt incomplete. Did I make you whole? By devouring me every single time, taking me into your embrace, your mouth, your love, did you mean to possess me and make it stick somehow?

Earlier, over dinner at a favourite family restaurant, I tried not to notice the young girls sitting in the next table, or the couples I had passed in the mall holding hands and standing close together on the escalators. I felt a lump in my throat when I thought about how you had gone through so many other girls before me… I felt sick to my stomach. Had I been just another item on the menu that you needed to possess? I bit back my tears.