Part 2
The numbness has replaced everything I could feel now whenever I talk to you.
I feel like a different me.
That I'm just a shell of who I used to be with you.
Detached.
Amused.
Laughing at the false self I'm hiding underneath.
---
The thing is, I'm scared.
About a lot of things.
I'm scared of sleeping on my own.
I'm scared of cockroaches flying in the dark.
I'm scared of the stove burning out on me.
I'm scared of walking home drunk and find myself falling onto the waters off the bridge in my new home.
I'm scared of people breaking into my house in the middle of the night.
I'm scared when my neighbors start to fight.
I'm scared of losing my job.
I'm scared of everyone I'm not familiar with.
I'm scared of being rejected after I emerge from a long time of recharging myself after a long time of solitude.
I'm scared of being sent home and taken care of at my age.
I'm scared of unknown numbers flashing on my screen when they call.
I'm scared of being shouted in front of everyone I loved.
I'm scared of being shut off inside a cramped space.
I'm scared of random I love you's...
I'm scared at the thought of sleeping next to a person.
I'm scared of the day time and sunny days.
I'm scared when people make me smile effortlessly because I know they can easily hurt me the way they make me laugh.
I'm scared of opening up and exposed raw to a world who doesn't understand that there are people like me who like to keep some things out of the eyes of an oversharing society.
I'm scared to cry when in all fiber of my being, I feel the need to.
I'm scared.
Of you.
And of how you shush me with just a word.
Of how you could just make me spill everything onto the floor–both the good and bad things.
Of how I can never think straight when I feel you're not okay.
You can affect me so much and I'm scared.
I already know who I am and what I'm worthy of.
But when it comes to you, I'll never know if I'm ever going to be worth it.
This and only this, scares me most at the moment.
---
How do you know if you like somebody?
I asked this very same question a few years back to a giggly blind girl I was tutoring for our Department's social responsibility activities.
Well, come on.
She can't see. And half of them are partially blind and totally deaf.
I kept looking at her while she glided her hands over the brailled paper in front of her. She did this for seconds, while I sat there, wishing the paper would translate itself in front of me.
But it didn't.
Instead, I got a giggle from her every now and then.
Still, I didn't ask. This must be a private homework joke made by blind people to deceive the friggin normals.
I let her continue her giggling until one of her friends called us to go to their chapel. I helped her stand up and like clockwork, she padded her guide stick across the floor and made her way to the partially blind ones. These people guide them when there are no all-seeing guides available.
When we arrived at the chapel, there stood a group of equally rowdy blind boys strumming the guitar. My mentee was there too, along with her girls. They were laughing, just the way normal people would in these situations.
So, I took a seat in one of the edges of the front row pews.
"Nakuha na nimo ang letter?" I heard one of the girls asked.
"Ha?" my mentee's voice followed, "O. Ganina." (Yup, a while ago.)
"Unya?" (Next?)
She giggled again, but this time, all of the girl posse laughed with her.
–
The service was finished and all of us had to go back and do their homework. And military style, these kids went out rank and file towards the building we were in an hour ago.
"Uy, uban daw mo ni _____." (Hey, _______ wants to walk with you.)
And from the left corner, I saw a wiry boy with a loose shirt and pants combo, make his way towards my mentee.
I didn't go after them.
It was only when we arrived again at the table we sat in that she answered my question.
"Aw. Lyrics man to, maa'm sa akong paboritong kanta."
"Unsa na kanta?
"Cry by Mandy Moore."
And instead of doing her Maths, I ended up listening to her wonderful voice (Fact: Blind people DO have golden voices).
By the end of the day, she taught me to braille my name on paper along with the words I knew was written on that note.
"I love you."
P.S.
Visually, you can make out the dots.
I cheated.
Not sorry that I did.
----
At what intensity should I love?
When the tremor of my lips just syncs with the shaking of my hands
every time I think of you.
It leaves me weak knowing that you won't be able to see how much I am incapacitated by these feelings...
I have shut down completely.
I just work myself up to a certain place and then with one glimpse of you, everything just falls down.
I've tried my hardest, dear.
I did.
And I will try some more.
I will try until my feelings are rubbed raw of you.
If they're going to invent that memory erasing machine, I will definitely be the first in line.
You were a good memory.
But if I were to survive and see what I've been put here to do, please get out of my head and my heart.
Your presence and absence affects me so much that if I could bargain for an easier exit out of this life, I could have had already.
The world easily forgets.
I would soon be just dust under your feet.
----
