See you, Laurent.

i

I'd like to think I have it all wrapped around my dainty fingers – the image, the control, the sense, the class, the know-it-alls.

I'd like to think I am big enough to cripple the small debris and rubbish that comes my way and surprise me like a kid given an explosion box.

I'd like to think that I am lengthy enough to catch and grasp the farfetched stars and galaxies and asteroids and dust – that in just one snap, I could have my astronaut suit with a popcorn bucket in my left hand, gazing through the natural form of stars that is a ball gas of hydrogen and helium, or whatnots.

I'd like to think that life is a process – it has a beginning and an end.

I'd like to think I could be a person of simplicity but with complex and sublime thinking. I'd like to think what I'd like to think.

But with a world so big that does not fit within my mere and small hands, with a throng of a crowd that is so malicious and crooked to pass by, I have always asked myself – would I become the person I would like myself to be?

Would I become my aspiration when the mouths of insecurity and self-deterioration are louder and gaudier than the honks of vehicles that wake me from my deep slumber? Would I become my weight and mass if the dumbbells of the world were very much imbalanced because I carry heavier loads on my shoulders than on my back? Would I become me, and would you become you?

I would say yes – because if I say no, that puts you and me in shackles.

I would say yes – because if I say no, that disappoints our 2024 versions, shaking their heads in distress and discontent, mouthing, 'You could have tried.'

Because in a life where the pull of injustice is stronger than the rebound of innate strength, all else fails until you do something about it.

I have my share of confusion that range from the colors of melancholy, grief, and tendencies. My frustrations pummeled from the ground up to the sky. I couldn't even fathom their speed and rapidity.

But I knew I could transcend every cloud that is not on 9. I knew I could emerge from the pull of the mad. I knew I could catch stars with small hands because I had you. Or so I thought?

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