Me and so much more

I used to be a thirteen year old girl who contented herself with furtive glances thrown at you. You were oblivious of me. Even now we're grown ups, you can’t remember whether we shared a class or not.


When we grew up and stayed connected, we never really shared anything except the food served on the dinner table and the friends we shared them with. To me you always had a beautiful quiet face that rarely lit up. I’d resigned to the corner of the table sharing laughs with our friends. In my periphery, though, I watched you and your firm expression. It was difficult to get to you. It seemed like I was a thousand miles removed from you even if, between us, there were only two or three seats. I had to go through crammed spaces to get a single word from you. I don’t think I’d ever managed to be friends with you until lately.


I do not know you and the approximation I have of you does not have any root to stand on. What I know of you are fragments of stories from friends that I had recklessly pieced together; the cracks that remained, I tried to fill up but they’re figment of my creative mind. They aren’t true but they are pleasant. They put a stupid but otherwise pretty smile on my face. With you around, I was thirteen years old again: giggly and excited. I forget, for a few moments, my share of struggles in the real world.


When we recently hung out together, I shoved the thirteen year old girl away. I looked at you at eye level and there was no pedestal this time around, only the same ground that we rested our feet lazily on. You like to laugh and can be weirdly amusing at times. I enjoyed your company. You’re one of the few people I probably share an interest on films, theater and the artsy fartsy stuffs some of my friends get bored with.


If anyone asked the thirteen year old me what she liked about you, she’d probably say “cute” and “smart.” But you probably are more than these. I am only a tad wiser after thirteen years, but I know it isn’t reasonable to hold on to something as flimsy and superficial as these words. See, I am still the thirteen year old girl but so much more. My world shook, moved and expanded. I cannot, in my true sensibility, hold dear someone who is only a face to me; someone I conjured up.


I’m turning twenty eight in a few months. I’d be ushering in a new year, literally and figuratively. I’m coming full circle now. I know what I want and what I can have and I’m going after them. I’d like to hold on to this infatuation because it’s one of those nice, happy childhood recollections that I have. But it brings in a lot of false hopes and expectations and heartache too. And I’ve gone far away from being thirteen.


Years of unrequited love is a good material for a telenovela script. It suits part of me that’s naïve, wistful and dreamy. But part of me that’s sensible and sharp says I should take an upperhand and write the end of it before any real sob story starts.


I’m letting go of this feeling and moving on. I hope this time around we can genuinely be friends.

Sophia by Nerina Pallot

For my friend Nori who cries to Regina Spektor: another song to inspire "herstories." *wink* *wink*




Five o' clock and a fire escape symphony
Spilling out across the road and the square
And the sky's the same as your own, do you think of me?
Do the parks and trees and the leaves reach you there?
After the rain, in the lonely hours he haunts me...
Calling out, again, and again...
Sophia, Sophia, I'm burning, I'm burning
It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out.
Sophia, Sophia, I'm learning that some things
I can't go without
And one of them is him.

And now I walk these streets like a stranger in my home town,
Learn the language, form the words when I speak.
But he changed me, I'm his ghost since he came around
Now I count the hours, and the days and the weeks...

Passion and silence,
Every word, every line a measure
It's the science of the soul.
And his books, they breathe a reason
And now, I want to know...

Sophia, Sophia, I'm burning, I'm burning
It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out.
Sophia, Sophia, I'm learning that some things
I can't go without
And one of them is him.

And you, with your new born eyes,
Have you ever loved a man like I love him?
Do you hurt, but still feel alive
Like never before?
Oh Sophia. Sophia.
Sophia, Sophia, I'm burning, I'm burning
It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out.
Sophia, Sophia, I'm learning that some things
I can't go without.
I can't go without him.

Driving away.

You mouth the cursory goodbye, get into your car, and start it’s engine. I look through the iron railings of the gate, about to give my own farewell (something I am not fond of giving away to anyone) when I hold it back. Instead, I quietly turn my back to the road and begin inching towards the house.

I feel relieved that the day finally ended.

I am grateful you seem to have developed an impeccable timing. You make your presence felt when I am most in need of company: calling when I am about to drown in my own wistful reverie and confused ramblings. And now you arrive at my doorstep when I feel most bogged and broken down.

Riding with you seemed a perfect way to forget where I am.

We spend the whole day practically together (your words, not mine). We drive around town, as we talk, eat, drink, look, laugh, smile, diss, bash, joke, that not only do we cover an itinerary of places, things and persons we fleetingly pass by, but also stories that catch up with lives.

But riding a car alone with you seem to have a different effect doesn't it? I breathe the air of uncomfortable consciousness that hung over our heads: when our enjoyable conversations are suddenly marred by lulls and silence and efforts to avoid skin from touching skin. Then you segue to girls, girlfriends, flings too often I have to bite my tongue so as not to snap. Why can't you stop being a jerk and be a friend for a day?

Sadly, your little punctilious and deliberate efforts impressed me more than our day's impromptu trip. while you drive away from the city, you drive yourself away from me too. I say nothing and you think I am throughly enjoying. But I am annoyed and disgusted more at myself than at you.

I can not put up with you everytime. I am my own universe too.

Now, as I carefully make my way through the garden's concrete pathway towards the house, I wait for the sound of your car running away. But you don't drive away immediately. You sit inside the car for a couple of minutes more than what is necessary. I acknowledge this gesture of you looking over me, literally and figuratively, at the moment. But I wince nevertheless. How you can you do it, be sensitive and insensitive at the same time?

Tonight my friend, we become merely a boy and a girl driving.