Every time I talk to you it seems we're going through phases of forgetting.

By: Cyriel M. Valeroso

It started with a loss, so bad you were crumbling apart. A loss so big you should've carried it
with someone else. You didn't. I couldn't do it. I can't even manage to hold on to a loss I own
without falling apart.

So you went searching for places to dispose of it.

Is it bad to think that you swallowed it whole? 'Cause I think that's why looking and talking to you
feels heavy. Like you're tied to stones and you're sinking in the ocean-like air around us.

I could've saved you if I knew how to swim.

The next time we talked, no one uttered a single word.

I complained to a friend about you and he complained about you too. He meant the words and I
didn't.

Let's just say that in my years of knowing you it's like I barely recognized you at all. But this
time, you're spreading all of your insides for the whole world to see and all of it is screaming like
you're built of anguish instead of bones and flesh.

I can't put you back together. You won't let yourself be whole.

So the next time we talked, we didn't really. At all.

The next time we talked you greeted me "Happy Birthday. "

No, I think it was more like "Hey, you're someone I once knew and I think it's your birthday and
we're stuck in this space of awkward compliance to send a casual greeting to remind you of
how equally close and far we are from each other"

And I said, "thanks! miss you!"

But really it was more like "You shouldn't have sent the message. Now I am obligated to send
you one back and now we're stuck in this cycle of passing the blame of who gets to be the bad
person."

We're people who haven't dealt with honesty properly, so this is how it's gonna be now.
I would know. I have a friend I only talk to when it's our birthdays through emails like we're stuck
in time. I could just send a quick chat if I wanted to. God, I could even call if I really meant to do
it.

But we didn't. It's easier to think we're both good persons if we don't perceive ourselves and
each other entirely.

I think I would've told you about that if you're here on the surface and we can breathe in this air
surrounding us.

Or maybe I can just fish you out of the water so I can tell you about the friend that I talk to during
our birthdays and tell you that I don't really want us to be like that.

I don't think that's gonna happen. I think It's determined for me to wish you a half meant greeting
each year starting now.

The next time we talked, it's like we don't recognize each other at all.

Like you're equally a person I just met and a person I have decided to forget.

I say "I'm going there this christmas," but I won't really.

You say "We should hang out soon," but we won't really.

Of all the words I said I only meant it when I said I missed you. I don't know if you said it back,
I'm too scared to check.

I don't think you did but I really hope you just forgot.

I think what this really meant is that we can't comprehend love enough to save ourselves.

That you'd rather disintegrate and I'll always keep on trying to tie severed strings together even
when I know you're pulling it back in.

It was as linear as the path we were inevitable to take, bound to be familiar faces from afar.

Now we're disintegrating, becoming extinct out of each other's lives.

Here we are, two cowards who ricochet between the despair of our uncertainties and doubts.
I know when I'm not wanted.

You don't know when you are.