Things I shouldn’t be sorry for but I’m sorry anyway

I’m sorry I left. Sorry if I told you I wouldn’t, but I did anyway. Sorry if each time we have lunch or dinner together and I didn’t like the food i ordered, you would exchange yours when it tastes better—you could sacrifice your own taste buds’ craving for my mouth’s neediness for greatness. Sorry if I always demand for neatness, as I would ask you to shave and you would, so frequently as if your hair roots are endless—but you never whined. You always wanted to look good in my eyes, is this because you didn’t want me to look elsewhere? Well if that’s a yes, then you succeeded. I never liked and loved someone apart from you but I’m sorry if that ain’t enough for me to stay. Sorry if I’m always anxious even at the tiniest of issues, at the pettiest of problems and at the shallowest of reasons to be anxious to begin with. But you stayed, you were there, when I was so down, when I thought I couldn’t rise up bravely enough. You listened patiently to my rants, gave me thought provoking advices about life, comforted me each time I cry. You never left, I’m sure you even wondered—’how come she did?’

I’m sorry I gave up in a snap. Sorry if I wasn’t strong enough to fight, if in this race I have to yield and vanish in your sight. I didn’t expect you would understand but you did anyway. You said it was your fault though I never blamed you. You said you should have been more, but I think you are wrong. I think you were more than the true meaning of “more”, perhaps “most” fits you best or a “too much” all along. You’re too much of a decent man it nearly killed me. It scared the devils inside me so I pushed you away. It wasn’t your fault, it was the fears I created that knows no origin. I’m sorry if commitments are still foreign to me. I’m sorry if ‘trust issues’ are tattooed in my skin — I’ve been trying to remove them, but they keep coming back like cancer cells that deteriorate, no matter how hard you try to get rid of it. You were the best man every girl should have. But my brokenness doesn’t match to your wholeness, and if we continue this, you might catch this disease. And I couldn’t afford to drag you along in this bloody hell of anguish. So I’m sorry, if I have to cut this off and finish our book with a dreadful ending. I’m sorry for being me, even though they say that’s something you shouldn’t be sorry for, but I reckon you deserve to hear my apology.

One day, I’ll show up in your doorstep and maybe beg for another chance. I promise to figure out this mess and put things on their proper place. But right now allow me to fix my broken pieces and find out how to be whole again—all by myself. I want to be right for you, and I will only be… if I get to love the reflection in the mirror that in every single day, I see.

(Photo credit to the owner)

Love and Loss, Truth and the End (2)

He shrieked like a hungry baby. He knows it ain’t manly to do so but he knows no other strategy to make her feel a little bit of guilt and maybe just maybe, through his sobbing, she gets to realize that she couldn’t live without him—that his love is genuine, that he’s the one for her.

“Tell me, how can things have a meaning, if you’re not beside me all the time? I can’t picture you with another guy, no ugh I just can’t. Please just please, this time I’ll make things work. I promise you, I’ll be better. I’ll do everything to revive the love that died when I foolishly neglected you. Would you please give me another chance?”

She looked at him whilst he wept, waiting for a message from her heart, thinking maybe the act will somehow awaken the feelings that withered but there was nothing — all she felt was utter pity. He was pressing her hands, kissing the back of it. Like a puppy who finds a way so his owner won’t go to work and they could play all day, like a salesman who desperately asks a customer to buy his product. But it ain’t effective. Too much of emotions seems like a flood of disaster for her. She’s a strong independent woman who barely relied her happiness over someone. And this strategy of begging is just a huge turn-off. She allowed him to say please as many times as he wants, but it’s lucid to her that the word won’t change her mind.

“Everyone deserves a second chance. Even a man of infidelity could be given another chance by the woman who truly loves her. I want to follow this common notion but when I look at you now and I ask myself — is this the person I want to spend the rest of my life with? The answer is a NO. I’m not saying this to hurt you even more but sometimes we need to get smashed in the face by the truth than to forever suffer with a lie. Truth deepens the pain but a lie prolongs it. What do you prefer?”

He stopped crying when each word that came out of her lips stabbed him with no warning. Her confidence numbed his muscles he couldn’t seem to move. Some words got tattooed in his skin: love and loss, truth and the end. He knows that he won’t be able to get rid of these words just as much as he won’t be able to move on from her. He knew he took her for granted, because he thought it was okay for her — she never complained that much anyway. He lacked the initiative to communicate with her, he ignored the signs to feed her needs in the relationship. He was a fool to keep on takin’ but rarely givin’. He was stupid to think love is enough to keep her happy.

What do you think should the boy do? Should he insist and keep on saying please? Or should he let her go despite the fact that a life without her is a puzzle with a huge missing piece?

 

#fiction

 

 

 

Love and Loss, Truth and the End

“If you really love me, why would you leave me?” He said, facing away from her, evading the moment where he should be asking this whilst looking straight to her eyes, but he didn’t have the courage—he was frightened to see an unspoken truth that lies beneath her big brown eyes, he was scared to find out that maybe, she just simply fell out of love for him.

Silence kicks in, it was deafening. The kind that makes your heart throb a little faster than the ordinary beat, the kind that gives you no hope to search for a validated line that could satisfy the boy’s muddled mind.

The girl started to speak after a moment,

“Baby…” she said, with her voice shaking like a shivering body of a homeless girl on a sad winter night. She stared at him, waiting to meet his eyes, but she failed. She held his hand with her right and put the other to his chin, gently forcing his face to tilt to one side, to face her, so she can have his eyes as a witness, as she would speaking nothing but the truth at 3:30 in the morning. She took a deep breath to release the tension and fear she has inside and said,

“I love you so much. It breaks my heart to hear you question the love I have for you because I reckon you don’t even know the real depth of it. Please don’t ever think that what I’ve said to you, what I have showed you, were all a complete lie. Because I have always been true to you, I’ve loved you more than you know. In fact, I’ve given so much of me. I’ve even devoted my entire life into the pursuit of our growth as partners. But now when I look at myself, all I see is a restless woman who got so drained for giving too much of her it has exhausted every part of her being. As I look into your troubled eyes, I asked myself, can I still fight for this? I want to give up now because I think I don’t have any energy left. I got so tired, I’m sorry but this is true. They say, if you love someone, you should never feel tired. I say, I loved someone so much I came to this point right now that nothing is left, I spent too much effort on this, done everything I could to make you happy, but it has always been me, and guess I’m still not enough for you. And for two years, I haven’t felt that security. Not even a single plan has been laid out in front me.”

She tried to stay as composed as she could, trying to hold back them tears from falling. After speaking of truth, she felt that sense of relief. She’s aware that he might not understand it right away, but telling the truth has set her free, from the constant anxiety she has felt for holding on to something she wasn’t sure of, just because she couldn’t feel the same level of commitment she has for their story to work.

What if he doesn’t accept this and asked for a one more chance? Should the girl give this boy another shot?

#fiction

Sheer suffering

The ache deepens as I was having a tour of our old photos again,

I could hardly breathe, my heart seemed like being punched by a giant’s fist.

I shed tears as I cogitate the why’s of your unforeseen evanescence.

How could we end up as terrible as this?

How could you just let go of the dreams we vowed to achieve?

You left me hanging like a cat of multiple lives who was born again after a cataclysmic death—in this new life, there’s but no more of you.

Tell me, is there something I should have done to prolong the pages of our story?

(Photo credit to the owner)

To love and to unlove

After I decided to put an end to it, he couldn’t stop crying. It’s but a queer thing for a man like him to carelessly sob in front of a woman. He was the strong kind, he was in fact the bravest person I know. This time, however, he allowed his heart to overrule everything, he allowed it to be vulnerable, to be so weak in front of me. He couldn’t understand. He kept on asking me why, but I only gave him the common shitty excuse that I need to find myself. I didn’t look at his eyes when I said this because then he’d be able to figure that I’m lying. It’s unfair I know, but it will only hurt him more if he finds out the truth. I know deep within me the real reason why I have to leave—but I am aware too that it will only worsen the damage I will cause him, it will crush him into pieces and I can’t afford to see him break.

I thought it’d be easier to lie to him. I initially thought he’d just let me go, because he’s not the kind of man who would beg someone just to stay and he hasn’t expressed his love for me lately anyway. You know what’s true? That for almost three years, I felt like he forgot that I exist. I became his wife he would go to every night, eat the dinner I cooked for him, talk about his day ’til he falls asleep or even after we made love. It was mostly about him—about how he kicked ass in the courtroom, how he smoothly won a case, how good of a lawyer he is. I always listened, because I loved him and I do learn from him too. I offered him my heart with my eyes full of admiration for the passion he has towards his career. But rarely did he ask about how my day was.

I am a housewife with no kids, got an online shop and our dog Rafa who somehow eases the pain of being unappreciated. I left my parents in my hometown in Cebu and had to go with him in London and this is where we got married four years ago. I made a couple of friends from the neighborhood and we usually go out once or twice a week, sometimes bring our dogs to the park. Every time I text him I’m going out with Olivia and Tara, he would only say, OK have fun. He never asked where were we going, perhaps he didn’t care.

I woke up one morning feeling sorry for myself. For accepting the fate I chose when I decided to marry him. I cried endlessly and when I’m done, the way I looked at him has abruptly changed. When I first saw him, I fell hard in love for him. But my constant non existence to him consumed it, until nothing is left. I didn’t know it was possible. To love someone with no reason to begin with and to unlove someone in the process of knowing him. I don’t know if the word unlove has been registered yet in Oxford or in Google, but I don’t care, all I know is this is the perfect word that could delineate my current emotional state. I am leaving him not for somebody else, neither to find myself because I was never lost. I am still me, I still exist in my own eyes, but I am no longer happy to share “me” with him. I am not mad at him albeit my existence has been ignored and unappreciated. For I know that at some point, I also am to blame. Because I allowed him to treat me like this, because I wasn’t strong enough to voice out my disapproval or complaints. I am not the straight forward type, hence I let him figure out my dilemma but I failed. Guess he’s too busy to focus on what I’m thinking, on what’s bothering me.

You lose something when you don’t appreciate the value of it whilst you have it. You will only realize it’s pure worth once it’s gone. This is an old saying but it will always hit you deep within your skin. He begged me again for the nth time and it breaks me to see him like this, but I don’t want to live in a lie anymore. I let go of his arms entangled in my torso, he’s down on his knees, with his face glued to my belly, my shirt seemed to be dripping with his non-stop tears. I felt bad for how he looked like when I saw him but I couldn’t do this anymore. I started to leave and then he tried to stop me, but I stare him in the eyes that says, “I want to be free”. I subsequently closed the door behind without even a glance at him. I walked away forever and there’s no more turning back.

#fiction

(Photo credit to the owner)