Tu me manques

I walked the streets at twilight, a small map in my hands, glancing at the signs but so sure I was lost. I was convinced that the city was most beautiful at this time- a soft blue glow that melted into purple washed the walls and people with a fairtytale romance. Couples were kissing on the park benches, birds were flocking to the fountains, women were walking their playful dogs. Everyone had somewhere to be but me. I walked onwards, hands in my pocket, wondering why I was alone in such a beautiful city.

This was the time I thought most of Zach- What he was doing, what he was thinking of. My being was physically aching to have him with me. I missed him terribly. I dreamt of the day we'd reunite, with the world in black and white, the romantic stone streets skinny and empty, I'd be choking back tears, inhaling every scent and sight of him to fill the spaces behind my eyes. I counted down the days until we could hold hands and stare at each other and do anything that annoying lovesick couples do. I wanted the slap of his feet against the stone to echo mine, and his laugh to be the only language I could understand among the buzz of strangers. I thought it was beautiful that the city reminded me of the person I love, that I could feel my longing strongest when I admired its architecture, street musicians, and bright red strawberries being sold on the sidewalks. 

Look Both Ways

Everything I've ever written about longing to escape and explore has come crashing down on me in the form of an airplane ticket three months apart from its return. In a different bed, in a different city, in a different country, in a different part of the world. The voices speaking different tongues, and me understanding nothing. Finally away from everything I've ever known, but instead of feeling found, I felt more alone than ever.

Homesickness came in waves in the morning, when I awoke to the sound of a bell tower reminding me that I was not home. Homesickness came in waves in the day, when I looked around and had no idea where to go. Homesickness came in waves at night, as I clung to the blanket wishing for someone who felt like a shelter in the abyss of unfamiliarity.

I would cry my eyes out, questioning if I had made the right choice. Why was I so desperate to get away? And what was it I was running from? I seeked support from friends from around the world who were as scattered and alone as I was, and they held my hand through words and told me that the four walls were my enemy. The secret to enjoying the drastic change is to go out and embrace it. Explore the city, taste the food, meet the people, and find that although they are different, they are just as amazed by you as you are by them.

Like a newborn baby, I collapsed into a fourteen-hour sleep and decided that the next day I would wake up different. No more crying, no more fear of this strange land of cobblestone streets, bell towers, and beer. This will be home for the next thirty days, and I will speak their tongue and love their people, and by the end of it, I will be found.

Wide Eyes

A kiss. A nibble on the earlobe.

Two worlds colliding.

A tidal wave of goosebumps

the crashing of plates with 

every shiver.

That laugh, the wrinkle of your nose.

A thousand years of rivers folding

over their beds,

like us, after drinking.

The squint of your eyes,

my heart beating.

The stretch of your grin,

Roman ruins collapsing.

The sound of your steps-

my lifeline.

Pyro

The days we stayed up until 2AM in my car, listening to Kings of Leon. Your eyes closed, fists clenched, chest rising and falling with every twist in Caleb's voice. I want that. I want to watch you sing Pyro at the top of your lungs again. Your forehead wrinkling as your eyes squeeze shut and your eyebrows rising with that pain in your voice. That pain must come from a place that only a broken heart and a broken home could ever know.

I want to hold your hand tell you it'll be okay, give into reckless abandon and stupid feelings and say I'm going to be here forever, no matter what our odds are. I want to kiss you in the dim blue light of the radio and lose my fingers in your hair, kiss you until I'm out of breath and out of my mind.

That smell of your perfume, that burn of my stubble against your skin. I want to get as close as possible, bone to bone, breath to breath, and feel the soft moan of your strength caving in. I want that sad background music and our eyes recognizing each other's pain, that silent understanding we'll always have, and that comfort knowing that I have your lost soul to accompany my own.

I want that undeniable heat building between us until you pull me out of the car and into the elevator, down the hall and into your bed. I want to dance clumsily around our bodies, feel the indents of your waist fill the corners of my arms, watch your clothes fall to the floor and your eyes glimmer in the dark.

I want to believe that we belong together, give into love and not think about the future, or the past, or anything except you and me in this crazy world and how we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle we'll never understand. I don't want to question time and place anymore. None of that. I just want to feel alive with you, talk about dreams, sing sad songs, and hug you until your bones tremble in my grasp.

Travel Diary: Mt. Pulag

We left Manila near the dead of night, sitting on hard plastic chairs in a grey bus station, waiting for the next bus to take us to the mountains. I held his hand and rested my head on his shoulder, the only comfort I could find among the sullen faces of people yearning to go home. We wondered if every person with a tent strapped to his back was going where we were going, if we would meet them along the way and share a quiet connection that yearners often do.

6 hours later, there were still busses and waiting, but this time in a different place, 6 hours closer to our destination. The novelty of smoke escaping my lips with every cold, spoken word was enough to distract me from the few hours of sleep I had. We sat on wooden benches and listened to the pigs scream as they were slaughtered, and the buses roar into life as they carried the people miles away. Zach fell asleep, head rolled back against the boarded up shops, and I paced around the parking lot, searching for our bus. I ran to Zach when it finally arrived, and shook him with Glee, "It's here! It's here!" I squealed, ready to kickstart the adventure.

It was a flurry of people and dialects, unfamiliar towns and breath-taking mountain views, we raced past valleys and evergreen forests and white-wash rivers, and all Zach could say was "one wrong turn, and we fall to our deaths." I thought about this the whole ride through, and figured that there could be worse ways to go than into the bowels of nature. 

13 hours had passed since we left our homes, but there we were, still in transit. The view was even more spectacular as we raced up the mountain - emerald trees and a radiant sun glowing over an entire valley. There are few things more breathtaking than the fading view of a sunlit mountain from the back of a motorbike. We went higher and higher until we were speeding through the clouds and the sun was nowhere to be found. I shivered in the rain and breathed in the fresh pine. As I clung to a stranger for dear life on the back of his motorbike, I felt strangely calm.

Far beyond that beautiful view was a small wooden house known as "the ranger station." It was there we met our guide and started our three hour trek through the forest. It was like a scene from a horror film, but set in daylight- the dark pine trees surrounded in fog, the cold, crisp air that so quickly filled your lungs. The forest floor was scattered with acorns, foot-long worms, abandoned cabbages, and a muddy trail that led directly to another forest- a vibrant green one home to miracle berries and humidity. I walked and walked and walked, short of breath, bright behind the eyes. I felt exhausted and dizzy, but I knew there was no turning back. I was saved by spring water, straight from the mountain and into our mouths, the freshest water I had ever tasted awakened me from my slurry fatigue.

Arriving at our campsite was the sweetest victory I had ever known. That cold, hard, ground was the only bed I ever truly earned in my life and I embraced it. The air was painfully cold by the time we reached the site, and four layers of clothes were not enough to protect me from the winds bite. My feet were wet and stinging, my fingers threatened to fall off, but the view of clouds rolling over the mountains below me was a reminder of how far I had come, and no pain could ever match the desire I had to go even further.

It was a sleepless, starless night. Tossing and turning, shivering, and desperate for any form of comfort. The wilderness holds no promises for anyone, nothing but the pitch black night and a song of crickets. I counted down, 12 hours until the sunrise, and then 10, 8, 5, until finally, I fell into an undisturbed sleep, balled up and clutching my feet to save them from freezing.

4AM and it was now a race against the sun. Barely eating anything, we set out for the last leg of our trek- to the summit. It was a narrow path in dead of the night, surrounded by grassland and looming hills. Weak from fatigue and hunger, I felt my body falling in on itself, and cried to my companions that I couldn't do it. They sat beside me and urged me on, poured ice cold water into my lips and stroked my hair. "You can do it, you've come this far," Zach whispered, crouched beside my aching legs. Chest stretched and lungs dry, I stood up and powered through. He was right, I had come this far and it wasn't for nothing.

5AM and there we were: 29 hours, 335 kilometres away from home, and 3 thousand metres into the sky. The only two people on the highest point of Luzon, at the crossroads of four provinces. I sat, embraced in Zach's arms, exhausted from our journey. I held onto him, burying my hands in the warmth of his corners, saving them from the cold. Before us, there were only clouds, and behind us, there was only grass. We couldn't believe we had walked the entire journey, it felt like we were in a whole new world, one of the Philippines' best kept gems.

Watching the sun wake through a flurry of clouds, silenced by its morning elegance, I kissed Zach's lips, happy to be holding his hand and watching the day break from the best seats in the world. I thought that being on the highest tip of luzon would make me feel miniscule and insignificant, but it did exactly the opposite.  The whole world was under us, around us, above us, the Earth was turning and the stars were disappearing and the sun was rising and we were breathing, and thinking, and loving. I felt like the most royal of Queens, laid out on grass carpets under the pale blue sky with my curly-haired King. We were giants among men, in our castle in the clouds.