Poet Karessa Malaya pens a heartbreaking parting of ways with a lover some summers ago.
It began in the summer of 2019. Your hands on my skin, your mouth along the breadth of my molten surface over and over again.
I told you that should this cease to exist, repay all the credit due to your unwavering guts.
Even though they never, heaven forbid, granted you enough courage to exhume that lifetime oath, sealed with bent gold. We were secret chats, hushed calls and impatient 60 kms apart, yet you always managed to appear on my doorway where you’d sow kisses on my neck. We had nothing to expect. No love was allowed to grow on either body; only, perhaps, hope, along with our tongues and teeth from our heads down to our feet.
You kept me like a tortoise kept its home, you shielded our hearts against massive tides yet, for me, for us, you were always never willing to stand up and fight. At times, you wore me like a medal as long as there were no people. Or, in the midst of strangers you would say my name, a bold refrain to a chorus that would readily clamor for blame should they dis- cover your shady game.
Unleashed from the monotony of your days and the tedium of your nights, you prayed nobody knew. But your nail marks on my thighs, the traces of your hair on my hips and the color of my flesh painted on your palms would escape from the crooked smiles and straight lies spread on the ground.
You took me to places she’d never look; we had picnics where no life could be; watched movies in motels by the hour; made dinner reservations in bistros far, so far, that once, you were supposed to be at a Summit but in fact, you were twice climaxing on top of me, so thrice, you had to tiptoe and sneak while dawn was asleep.
It was fun. It seemed forever.
Until yesternight got flooded with singed sky. Stung like a final strike when I beat the twilight but refused to cry. Then you knocked on my door earlier tonight. You brought tequila to avoid the drunk texts; I gulped wine to drown the drunk sex. What’s next? Oh, yes! You plagiarized feelings through “I miss you…” prologues
that ended with “Go back to your wife!” epilogues while we skipped the twists of the binding conflict within, without which none of this would’ve come to be.
“Another shot of tequila”, you said; you’ll give it another shot, “what we have”, you said. You said:
I couldn’t get through you like vino tinto; I graze your lips and you let me in, but won’t let me wash over you, explore and caress the tender parts concealed in you; let me rest still in your belly, lay in its warmth, change the rhythm of your heart; linger upon your breath, raise the spirits to your brain. Have me unlock the laughter, courage and shame; I’ll cling like tannin, I’ll be the bitch of your thoughts, the villain of your little deaths. I’ll be your companion, your alibi, your collateral, your vaseline and your lullaby.
Don’t act like you didn’t foresee this to expire. Don’t act like this is going to be for the rest of your life. Or mine.
“I’ll be what you want; I’ll do what you ask, vote for the Socialist Party, learn Tagalog songs with the guitar, just… Don’t. Leave. Me.” You said.
You almost had me. You almost had me but your phone rang and I heard her voice and the gold in your finger shone brighter than ever.
It’s a wrap.
I stayed until past this midsummer night to scrub your fingerprints around my imposter of a heart who did not tell, who will keep the tale; breaking as it was, it swore to hold your secret safe.
I wished you well, well away from me. I wish you the best, the best life as far as possible from where I am.
Then again, maybe I ignored the writings on the wall and the other signs that foretold…
Because last winter, I had a dream that it was summer. It was in the after light when I saw your feet, lost and unbalanced on the side of a road stretching into the dark. They seemed astray, trying to find the way back to me. I looked up and searched for your eyes, but your face was unclear from where I was. Your heels crushed the soil and dirt clung on to your toes. Mist cooled the air above, but I couldn’t really see from where I lay below.
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