This time I will not say I love you

Prologue

You're cold and I burn
I guess I'll never learn

- The 1975, Settle Down

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Prologue

The very first day we met is a blur to me.

All I remember was, there was you laughing and me smiling goofily in the midst of a busy corridor. But no, you weren't laughing because you saw how I blushed when I saw your dimples while you were speaking to someone. I was smiling because of my friend's joke, not because of how silly you looked: wearing a jacket in the middle of a sunny day.

Other than that, I have no recollection on why you are you now, and why I still seem like myself, and why we are nothing as of the moment.

But who am I to believe that I don't know why?

I'm an absolute fool and you... you were the one.

All those crazy conversations late at night, some overly dramatic moments, few stolen glances, fortuitous eye contacts, the walk in the rain under an umbrella. The bridge in Makati. Our obsession over a boyband. KFC. Hundreds of apologies, thousands of I love yous, millions of tears.

It is true that we will only know the value of something by the time that it's gone.

But you will always be that guy. Perhaps, the one that got away. My downfall, my what if, my regret. You are my teenage person- engraved in my heart, attached in my soul, and in almost every piece of my neurons. Your touch, forever familiar to my skin for it left me scars of love and sorrow that i will carry, until my last tomorrow.

I loved you. I loved you so bad that up until now, I couldn't quite express how much you meant to me during the time when my heart was all about you. I couldn't find the right words to say. All I know was that your laughter used to be my summer. It echoes in my head as severe as LSS and I used to found myself smiling like an idiot whenever it happens. Your smile was a file, saved in mind.

You weren't perfect as I am, I confess. Yet I loved you and I accepted you without reservations. Every inch, every edge, everything -- all of you up to your last hair strand, was beautiful in my eyes.

You were there, the flame that shines the brightest among the others. A spark, stronger than a 250 volts plug. We had a connection in a blink, faster than any internet or application ever created in the race of humanity. You were my kind of forever, and I was your rightest one.

I guess, our timing was wrong. Or maybe, "we" were wrong, the very idea of us. You were just a momentarily flame, one that dies by a single blow. A spark, that will eventually be gone in split seconds and that our connection is temporary, later on we will have different taste in music, or contradicting ideas. But tbat time if "we" are wrong, and if loving you is wrong, then shit. I didn't wanna be right.

Yet soon enough, our paths widened. Our hands got tired from holding unto each other and our hearts got sick of understanding the errors we both commit. It all became noticeable. You no longer forgive my shortcomings and I no longer write you letters and put you in my poems. You say I love you for the sake of saying it, and I only greet you good morning because I felt that I need to do so, not because I wanted to.

"We" became a dish we are sick of eating and we started seeking for something new, something "us" was never serving.

We took each other for granted, threw away all those years. The crazy, funny, romantic, cheesy and tear jerking moments became garbage, slowly decomposing in our hearts.

You and I felt unwanted, unnecessary and unloved by each other.

We were so young. So unaware of how big the universe is for us to explore.

Until you realized that I was not the only person in the world and it dawned on me that you were just a blaze in a wildfire.

Please be informed that while typing this letter, I'm smiling. Because finally! After a few years of denial, I can now say that I'm already okay and I am thankful because you happened to me. Thank you for all the inspiration you have given me. I have written a lot of books because of you. I wish you nothing but bliss, and a chance in love again.

I am now signing off from the love I have been keeping for you all along.

Good bye.

PS.
This time I will not tell you that I love you.

(03.17.16; 2:42am)