2020

days bleed into days

four years passed in a second

to a new decade

Dear Daddy,

You don’t have a blog and god knows you can’t navigate your way through the internet that well. You also don’t have much of a knack for reading, but I thought I’d write this anyway.

Mom always told me that you weren’t very hands-on with me and my sister when we were babies. You didn’t even hold us until we were at least a year old. That doesn’t make you a callous father, though. On the contrary, it makes you caring because you weren’t familiar on how to handle babies and you didn’t want to hurt us by carrying us in a wrong manner and breaking our fragile little bones. You’re also not that expressive with your emotions. No I love you-s or hugs or kisses on our foreheads. The most heartfelt text message I would get from you would be a “take care” or “stay safe”. That’s why I was so touched when you sent me that long message on my eighteenth birthday. I had classes that day so I was at the dorm and I woke up to my beat-up white phone vibrating. Mom had sent me a really, really, really long message. Grandma did as well and so did some friends. I read your message last and it was so sincere it made me cry.

When I was a kid, I admit I felt some estrangement towards you. You were barely home, and if you were, you would be busy talking on the phone or with work at home. You took me and mom out on Sundays but when works calls, we would be home in a minute. You weren’t even there when I had my Halloween party or my recitals in school. It made me upset sometimes, but it didn’t make me angry. I always understood that you wanted to go but you had to work to give me clothes to wear, food in my stomach, and a good future because that’s what you always wanted for me. I would see you come home tired and I wouldn’t be upset anymore. Instead, I felt guilty for feeling upset and I also felt the need to help you, to make sure that I wasn’t a burden. I did my homework on my own. I taught myself things on my own. You and mom had a lot on your hands already, and with my little sister being born, I knew I had to learn how to stand on my own two feet.

Also, I want to thank you, dad. There’s so much I’m grateful for and too many things I want to tell you but when the words come out, they don’t make much sense. Thank you for being the best dad you can be, for bringing me to school when I have a seven am class and we have to leave at six am when you’re still supposed to be asleep, for picking up from my dorm so late in the night whenever I feel terrible and sick, for buying me ice cream whenever you pick me up during Fridays, for giving me advice even when I don’t follow them all the time, and for so many things, and mainly, for believing in me and inspiring me even when I think I can no longer go on. You’re the best father I can ever ask for.

Happy father’s day, daddy! I love you very much.

Love,

Your Daughter

Primary Colors

Red

The color of your

Lips, when you kissed me before

You walked down the aisle

Blue

Your bruises, I found,

You tried to conceal with the

Sleeves of your sweater

Yellow

The daffodils on

Your pretty golden casket,

The flowers you love

 

On The Infiltration of My Subconscious

You,

You managed to sneak into my dreams again. I think you have some form of mind-control power or something. Over me or over a lot of people in general, I’m not sure. It was kind of a weird dream, set in a weird mall-like place. I couldn’t comprehend what happened, but I think something happened that pinned the blame on me again. I remember something about stem cell treatment or some kind of medical innovation. Weird, eh?

I get weird dreams a lot. Nightmarish ones and confusing ones. Dreams about zombies and all kinds of weird things so they’re nothing new. Recently, though, you started appearing in them more frequently and I’m not sure why.

What do you dream of? I wonder if you ever dream of me. I wonder if anyone ever dreams of me. Maybe strangers do. After all, there’s this article I saw that says when someone sees your face, you start appearing in their dreams even if you’re just a random by-stander. I read that every face in your dreams was someone you’ve seen at least once— someone you’ve passed by on the street, maybe, or that barista from the Starbucks near your school. The possibilities are endless.

Dreams are fragile things. They dissipate easily. I want to preserve as much of them as possible because they’re like small pieces of our subconscious, something we cannot touch, so maybe recording them and analyzing them would help make me understand myself more. (Fragile is a nice word.)

I hope to see you in my dreams again and I’m hoping a bit that you also see me in yours.

I love you, okay?

Forever dreaming,

Me

Happy anniversary, my sweet blog.

Is it a mere coincidence
that distraction
sounds like destruction?

II. (WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN, WHAT NEVER WAS)

Everyone’s laughing, nudging at you, asking why you didn’t bring your little guy friend along.I try to avoid looking at you, knowing you were looking at me, but we both know my resistance always crumbles when it comes to you.

My eyes find yours in the darkness. You give me a shrug and a sheepish smile.

You change lovers more often than I lose my pens. I’d rather stay in this boundary of not knowing than have the same fate as them.

Punctuations

Ellipsis would be that short girl in the background, wearing glasses with frames to big for her face and a tiny nose. Ellipsis would be the one always doubting whether she would continue her sentences and the one with sweaters too large for her.

Exclamation point would be the leader, the one standing out in the group. He would be impulsive and driven and always wears crisp suits.

Question mark would be exclamation point’s right hand. Always providing ideas and grounding exclamation point’s wild plans.

Period would be the group’s most grounded. She clashes a lot with exclamation point because of their complementary personalities.

Period has an intense unresolved sexual tension with exclamation point and always wears her hair in a bun and cat-eye glasses.

Comma is the barely-noticed member of the group. Forgotten most of the time despite his importance. He doesn’t mind and always wears a grin.

Colon and semi-colon are twins. Semi-colon is the mediator of the group and colon is always missing in action. The two are identical.

I. (What Could Have Been, What Never Was)

Don’t do that.

Stop doing that.

I hate it when you smile like that. A tiny, tiny smile that slowly widens into something so glorious like sunrises or ice cream on the beach.

You can’t just suddenly show up after ten months, two weeks, and three days. Yes, I have the duration counted. As if it matters. I know it doesn’t. See what you have done to me?

and so the paper fell for the ink
and the fingertips for the typewriter keys
but the writer’s muse, oh, the writer’s muse,
still doesn’t know she exists