I live in days where I begin yours and you end mine. Hearing your voice in a day has become a temporary cure to this desperate longing. I listen to your stories, your plans, your dreams... imagining I was part of molding them.

   One thing I regret doing on all these years of waiting is letting you feel I have unrequited your every doting act. You have done much more than what I should have done too, but because in nature I am not as sweet as you are, I could not match them. Maybe I never will, but I try. That's why I hold on. I strongly believe in you.

   No one knows how long we can wait but we still try to break the barriers between us. We have endured five long years of unbearable distance and still counting, so take your time. Satisfy your dreams. I won't go anywhere further.

   Still, if only I can fast-forward time, I'd go to the day the seas have gone and bridged us together.

It has been a very long while since you last made one. It's through these that I find the sincerest in you.

Lovey

Imagine all things around us seem so endless and fast paced
Creating a barrier to our love that won't change
I love you so much that it is hard to explain
Even If I see myself standing in the middle of the rain
You are my angel fell from heaven to rescue me
So beautiful and so perfect all my life waiting to see
I care about you more than you ever know
I got million of reasons why I love you and it will take forever to show
My Lovey you don't need to worry and cry
I won't forget you until I lose myself and eventually die
I will sacrifice my whole life dedicated to you
You will always be the name that my heart looks for when I am down and blue
You are the one that made this love story so true
I will hold you in my arms and forever say I love you.

Lumps formed in my throat as I read your message. In an instant I couldn't go back to work; shortness of breath, I waver.

It was indeed my fault. I know, I was rude. I should have ended the conversation as calmly as possible, but you still won't understand. You never will.

You do realize that we both live in opposite sides of the earth. Your free hours are not my vacancies, especially now that work's too much and I can't get the hell out of it. I can't have breaks as you tell me to do so. I have a strict schedule to follow. Still I try to find time, even for a second, to hear your voice and make up for every day that we're apart, and that's only at twelve o' clock on work days. Inasmuch as I'd like to have long conversations, my one-hour break isn't enough.

What pisses me off is I can't blame you. I can never blame you. This situation's gone far beyond my reach.

Pride is never my game. You really know my weakness. But I've gone tired of threats. Your threats are never tests of how much I love you. I only need you to understand.

I give in again.

I was at a cake shop this afternoon when I browsed through my mails and read one I received from pappy at facebook.

  "Hi, we love you, sana matuloy na transfer mo the soonest para di mo na
   mamiss yong boses ni mama mo at ipapagluto kita araw araw ng fried,
  tinola, adobong chicken.

   Good luck.

   Papa, Mama n Kim"

Oh no, not mom's mega phonic voice again! For a while I felt homesick again.
I am due for transfer within the year (now verbally approved, but still, if God permits).
When Bryan came at the IBR office for his interview for a position in La Union two years ago I knew at that moment I can have my swaps with him, but I never expected it to be this fast.

Two years ago, though newly hired, I was at once too eager for home base. These were the days I saw office as a fiery furnace, where my room at Brgy. 4 was the only safest place I know amidst lurking office evils, where some of my very few accomplishments were not acknowledged but always questioned, where two or four or six eyes kept their piercing stares at my direction, if not on my work - as if anticipating any failure I can do for the day, where every tiny fault was seen as grave ones, where there was barely a day when my eyes were dry and having no one to turn these gloomy days to but myself, and where I always thought "If the prize of receiving a lot of dosh and prestige is degrading oneself, I'd rather be as poor and loathly as a rat". Later did the realization come that, as usual, these are fitting tests of life. This indeed is the real world, and if you survive, you're just as fitting. I still survive, but have become meaner. Still as fragile as china, but have become as strong as a rock.

If there is one thing I'd reason out to deny the transfer, it's because finally I taste the sweetness of independence - of having to pick up grocery stuff without pappy checking in my basket and returning pricey stuff on shelves, of having quiet days without hearing mum's deafening voice, of riding buses (biased for Partas though) alone and enjoying the panoramic views of Sur's coastlines at sunset, of merely appreciating life's simplicities. I was enjoying Ilocos, the serenity, the simple living, having no worries as to where my tears and sweat are spent. I was enjoying solitude - in a positive kind of way.

No matter how the wheels turn though, solitude has become as lonely as living alone in an island.

Since childhood, my LU home never had one whole week where all five of us were together. Only the weekends are lucky enough to complete us. Pappy was always destined as far as Isabela - anywhere where going home everyday was impossible. But as soon as he got Urdaneta last year (the nearest he can go to travel back and forth from home everyday), I and Kris were the ones destined further. That's why amongst us, pappy is the most eager for home base. I see how excited he is when one of us goes home every weekend and how he’s as sweet as he could to repay his and our absences.

The call for home base is a very tempting one. They say CBR's meaner and more challenging. Whatever. At least, when lightning strikes again, I'd have a stronger shield. I'll have my family.

How long have I been waiting? I can barely count the days. I can only count through fingertips the moments I spent holding your hand, wishing each fingers were locked so tight we can't ever let go.

I make my countdown 'til the day I hold your hand again.

"I love you..."

These words are always enough.

My six-hour ride back home took me down memory lane.

Saturday at 5:30 pm, I boarded. I brought out the shuffle you gave and played random songs as I always do. Every scan played songs I never wanted to hear... of melancholy, of cynicism, of trying to end something that once was too perfect to believe it is nearing end.

Then the bus played Big Momma's House. Martin Lawrence... I remember Pau saying he looks like you. Here I go thinking of you again.

Scan, scan. I was like a fool. Lumps of tears formed at every daunting lyric. Fortunately no passenger was beside me. I wiped every lump with my bear hand.

Another scan... the music played.

        "Oceans apart day after day, and I slowly go insane..."

Memories. I remember playing this song at our Humanities class six years ago. How I struggled to learn it in piano just so I can play it perfectly. My fingers were shaking at the start, I never played the piano before. Still I played with you watching, hoping each note reached you.

I was now at Santa when its first note started. The scenic view of Santa's coast is arresting, yet eliciting abhorrence to the fact that this panoramic view is what's keeping us apart. I saw myself standing at its edge, yelling out your name under gray skies... hoping you could hear it at the other end.

          "If I see you next to never, how can we say forever?"

It has been a week since you told me these words. It hit my heart so deep thinking about it. I miss you so badly.
Tears formed again.

          "I took for granted all the times that I thought would last somehow.
           I hear the laughter, I taste the tears, but I can't get near you now..."

Maybe I really blew it, the time you came home last September. I regretted letting every chance of seeing you slip away. I was too confident our every meeting was enough. My confidence faked me.

          "I wonder how we can survive this romance
                            but in the end if I'm with you, I'd take the chance."

I was wary the moment you asked me to either keep this relationship or not before you left five years ago, but I knew in my heart I can't let this pass. Without any doubt I said I'd keep this... until now.

          "Wherever you go, whatever you do...
            Whatever it takes, or how my heart breaks...
             I will be right here waiting for you."

Our struggle is indeed tough, like how I struggled playing this song first time. I wanted to play it so badly. I took a chance. I struggled. I found ways to learn it even if in majority I could suck. In the end I managed to play it.

Everything I have, everything I am now is because you are my inspiration.

It pains to see how you could be so cynical now. I have become cynical too.

Still, I am just right here, waiting.

Somehow, I still wait. I still can't give you up.

     A friend once told, "Some things are mas matimbang. We can't have everything... there are choices that have to be made."

     What if i don't want to choose? What if I only consider one option... something I greatly believe in, something I can't let slip away?

...if i had not greeted you, would you have?

   Yours was the coldest calloused greeting I have received.

     ...still waiting for a single reply, then my wish will be granted.