Feeling author's note:

Thank you so much for being with me all throughout this piece.

DISCLAIMER, PLEASE READ:

I was supposed to pin this last night. But heck, I was damn scared to publicize, for I've written this under the influence of whatever monsters I am confronting in my head till now. I even came to such an extent of considering the Pre-epilogue as YMMF's end, hence tacking an epilogue onto an already (that's what I thought first) substantial ending would only tickle an anticlimactic letdown. But then, with all the ponders I've made, I guess some stories--are better left told. So as all readers--are better left not hanging. And so, for the Epilogue--though nothing grand. No nuptials. No proposals. Just love--kindly leaf through.

___________________

Philemon

Majority says we always tend to let time play a drastic role in our lives, and I beg not to differ. For with its absurdity--I could tell I had dragged myself into an endless maze of oblivion for beyond the number of times more than I have in all the years that came before you, and all the same I had always been persistently prevailed by the cosmic winds as they sweep me back to bethinking my worth in everything, in everywhere, even at the wrongest of the times.

And just as how drastic time could be, you staged your first existence in my world when I least awaited and readied some five years ago.

"Good morning, Sir," I heard the preppy highschooler you say though I was too immersed reading the newspaper I've got as I spent an early morning swig of beer outside family mart rather than a dose of paperworks at the office.

Simply did I wait for you to utter your next words without lifting a head nor pulling an upward stare at you though I have no partiality in conversing with someone whose name is neither here nor there to me. But instead of hearing you wording out your purpose, there came the screeching sound of metal on the ground.

You pulled the seat in front of me and occupied it right the moment I roughly lapped the newspaper on the table and knitted my brows with furry at the personable you who wasn't taken aback with my rage.

"Nagbebenta po ako ng kape, baka gusto mo," you went on while alternately pinning your gazes on me and on the bottle of beer I was knocking.

Was about to hiss 'fuck off' but didn't when you placed an overused cooler on the table and from your pocket fell off one of the oldest cellular phones which you didn't notice even after you left me with a cup of coffee on my table and a note saying, "Sisingilin na lang kita 'pag nagkita ulit tayo at 'pag hindi ka na malungkot."

Then your phone beeped from the ground seconds after your leaving, I didn't second-thought to pick it up and give an eyeshot on the message.

Ate wala na si mama

I had searched for you everywhere after that, but you didn't recognize me at all.

Yet still, I had done things unbeknownst to you--behind the shadows of your mother's charnel house, your employment, the three million peso reimbursement from your father, and our wedding you considered a fraud.

And I've done those without me knowing why.

Without me knowing why I wanted to shoulder your war of a world though I have my own to pacify.

Yet that unforeseen presence of yours that was followed by your second foot in to my life when I hired you as my right hand, both nighed exactly not in the fullness of time when I could brandish--there would come no sunsets and sunrises drenched in howleds of us, there would come no 'us' swirled and swooned by the honeymoon phases that of infatuated romances, as so there would come no restraints to bind ourselves in the lovers we could be.

Barring all, I forced love to transpire still, in so much as I thought it was nothing any more than our needs gratified in a single shagging. That its universality would mean anyone could be passive recipients of. And that its unyielding unconditional state was an immeasurable fount of will for people to drive themselves liable to deal with one's tangled knots.

"Then tell me what it is and let's make us work--"

"Sana gano'n lang kadali," you said, nearly a whisper. Swear I heard you clearly yet I didn't understand. "Kaso hindi. Kasi no'ng sabihin mo sa 'kin na gusto mo 'ko, kahit anong tuwa ko, kahit ga'no ko kagustong sabihing nagugustuhan na rin yata kita--napaisip ako bigla kung may maibibigay pa ba 'ko sa 'yo at kung kaya ko bang ibalik 'yon sa 'yo, kung ganitong walang-wala na 'ko. Naibigay ko na kasi lahat. Kay Papa. Kay Seph. Wala na ngang natira ni katiting para sa sarili ko, eh, kaya ano pa'ng maibibigay ko sa 'yo? Masasaktan lang kita at ayokong mangyari 'yon kasi alam kong natagalan ka bago mo naayos 'yang sarili mo. Kaya sana lumayo ka na lang muna. Kung mahihintay mo 'ko, salamat. Kung hindi, salamat pa rin. Masaya na 'kong nakilala kita, kahit hindi nagkaroon ng tayo."

"And who do you think you are to consider yourself as high as a deity that you'd ask me to wait for your indefinite return?" I quipped. "Keep your feathers down. I'm not going to wait for you. Neither was I happy nor was I blessed that I crossed paths with a selfish coward that you are." I chuckled in derision as I left you as the subject of the people's weighty stares.

I was half close far from you when you dropped a line that caused my heart to bang convulsively against my chest.

"Kahit....hindi ka....maghihintay.....aasa...pa rin ako.....na kung pwede na.....sana pwede pa...."

Didn't know it wasn't love I was coercing to bound, rather--I was inadvertently resurfacing the pains of yours and my past with the fake belief that you'd untangle my knots as I untangle yours, hence the art of loving. When in fact the true premise in the art of loving is--to untangle our own tangles, in so much that making others our rehabilitation center is an all-embracing detriment.

An all-embracing detriment I wouldn't ever allow to recur.

I took a long indrawn breath as I tilted the knobs of the chapel's two-way entourage, somewhere you told me we'd meet at eight in the evening after our afternoon chance-on at the psychiatric institute.

Saw you reclining your lower body on the arm of one of the pews nearest to the altar with your head bowed. And the only time you lifted your head was when I was already reclining myself right beside the pew opposite yours.

Then, you suddenly stood straight, stuck staring at me. So suddenly at the same time you cried--almost a howled. You buried your face on your palms that I almost filled the gap between us yet all I did was nothing though I was dying to touch you, for I was thinking you needed to outcry them.

"Sorry," was the first word you uttered to dawn the conversation we deserved to have and to cast out the seconds of wordlessness that ensued between your sobs.

"Sorry.....hi-hindi....ki-kita....binalikan....no'ng panahong....'yo-yon....Hindi....hindi dahil....na-nasaktan....ak-ako....no'ng sinabi m-mo.....sa...sa 'kin...na...na hindi....mo 'ko....ma-mahihintay.....o dahil....wa-wala ak-akong.....pakialam....." You arched up your head and our watery gazes locked.

"Hi-hindi....ak-ako....bu-bumalik....kasi....kasi....'yo-yon....'yo-yong....pi-pinaka....hi-hindi....maka....sariling....ba-bagay.....na....na....gagawin k-ko.....para....sa 'yo....Hindi....na-naman....kasi...lahat....ng...ng...umaalis....gu-gusto kang....iwan....ka-kasi ako....gi-ginusto lang....kitang....i-iwan muna....pa-para....pag....pagbalik....ko....ka-kaya....na....kitang....ma-mahalin....nang....nang....buo....'yong....'yong....hindi....lang....ba-basta....ku-kung ano....na....na lang....'yo-yong ka-kaya....kong....i-ibigay....."

The stillness inside the chapel we're in, quadrupled in an instant when all that lapped my auditories were the loud throbs on my chest that of a banging hammer against a wood. And your howleds that were sounding rather melodic than discordant.

"Gusto....kasi kita...eh...Gustong-gusto....din....pala....kasi....kita....Hindi ko lang...a-alam....no-no'ng una....ka-kasi....akala ko.....puro....puro.....sakit la-lang....'yo-yong de-deserve kong.....ma-maramdaman....A-alam mo....mo....b-ba.....'yon....?....'Yon bang....hi-hindi ko....na....na alam....ka-kasi....na-nasanay....na lang....ak-akong....a-ako lang....'yo-yong nag....nagbibigay.....pe-pero.....wa-wala akong....na-natatanggap.....pa-pabalik....?....Ang....sakit....Kaya....kaya....no-no'ng u-umamin ka....sabi....sabi...k-ko....s-sa....sarili ko....hinding-hindi....ki-kita.....sa-sasayangin...."

Your last line nearly swept me off my stance, that I'd rather let myself relentlessly fall multiples of times just to hear you mouth those words again.

But when you stared back at me with your incessantly watery eyes, the only urge I felt was to empty my heart's contents to see not tears rather stardust in your eyes.

"I'm so sorry, too, that I neither looked back nor did I try to confront you that night to know exactly why you temporarily wanted us apart," I said. "It's just that the old me resented you. I resented you for bringing out the weakness in me. I resented you for causing me to drench my pillows in tears thinking I wasn't lovable and that I was easy to discard. I resented you that even in my attended days and nights, I longed for you the strongest. And I resented you the most that I readied myself to fall for you, whereas comparatively you readied yourself not to catch me.

My apologies that though afterwards I realized I wronged you in every angle, I still insisted to myself that you were the ones to be blamed in as much that I didn't want to feel I was always the one at fault, that I was the flawed one, and that I always cause every detriment of those people who dare to stay within my boundaries."

It was comical how we get to have this heartrending of a talk, yet it's utter heartwarming all the same. And it's funny how I could speak so sober, though with you in an earshot and eyeshot apart from me--liquor and you were all just in the same bed.

"Sorry I was selfish for wanting you to own me while the least I could offer myself was conditional love, and I am rather eyeing you'd be the source of the unconditional one at the same time I was hoping that in your cradle would be the mending station of my wounds.

But I was nothing but an arsehole for seeing in you what I wasn't supposed to see. I was nothing but an arsehole for viewing you largely as the source of what I couldn't give myself and scarcely as the source of strength and will to build the man I wanted myself to be and the man you would pine for yourself to be in possession of."

And, just then--with the Heavens as our witness and the moon and the stars as our light, you allowed yourself as I had allowed myself, to let the vacuums in the void suck all of our laments on our regrets, on what we should've done but didn't and on what we should've said but didn't. And the only things it remained for the two of us--were an interminable time for ourselves to run free in the paradise we created as we let the current move beneath us, and as we proclaim our love that was eons in the making.

"Hindi ko alam....kung ano'ng naghihintay sa 'tin bukas o sa mga susunod pa....Pero isa lang 'yong masisiguro ko....itong meron tayo ngayon....hanggang dulo....hinding-hindi 'ko na bibitawan...." you cried.

I cut the distance between us, and gently cupped your face as I pressed my lips on your forehead. "What we have now....may not have been the sweetest story to tell our kids....but I know three things for sure....it had transformed all that exists from dark to resplendent....Had tranquilized the remaining gushing amok of my tides.....And had engendered my elatedness....at the threshold of the end.....of my almost a lifetime.....of wretched deprivation of rhapsody.....simply because.....you make me feel...."

Fin.