annykadc

[annykadc]

the friend who confessed his feelings.

Aren’t you a little bit straightforward? The way your voice knew what it should say and how it should say it.

The timing was a bit off — but my heart made a small skip, being taken aback by the untoward confession of feelings.

I did not see you as anything else but as a friend, but that unprecedented divulgence in your emotions kind of cracked a certain part of my walls.

I knew for a fact that I liked hanging out with you and that I was at ease when I was with you, but I did not think of it as something else. But when you decided to admit something that I might have been curious about, I found myself being curious about my own cluster of feelings.

Maybe I also did like you? Or maybe you were just as the same as me. Or maybe we were just placed in one similar circumstance and that we found refuge in each other despite the external pressure being scoured against us.

Crazy how feelings find their way in very unlikely terms. Crazy how feelings can change the very foundation of a friendship.

But tangent lined people are not meant to cross again, and I’m fine being a part of your life during the months of August and September.

[annykadc]

i remember.

i remember you walking down the stairs, your head slightly tilted to the right as if to peek if i was there waiting for you on the third floor. i remember you smiling, in your navy blue shirt when you saw me. i remember your eyes wanting to ask something. i remember trying to act as if i did not want to ask the question, because i was afraid of the answers.

i remember seeing you there at that common area, your eyes focused on what you were reading. i remember you looking up and smiling — as if to invite me for a seat. sometimes, you would ask me directly. i remember thinking maybe you were just bored. i remember declining.

i remember walking in the busy streets of Manila, i remember you making fun of me at how i always said yes after being invited to go out. i remember you not buying anything anyway. i remember you complaining at how expensive the chocolates were at 7-11.

i remember saying that we should start studying at two in the afternoon. i remember you still playing random songs even when it was already past two and still saying that this will be the last song. i remember the late afternoon snacks and you just casually listening to how i wanted the world to be. i remember you smirking and asking me apprehensively, if i was serious.

i remember you sharing about your family and how your eyes kind of flickered a bit. i remember wanting to say something to make you feel better, but failing to do so. i remember the silence. i remember sitting there. i remember you remembering everything i had said. i remember you paying attention.

i remember how you woke me up. i remember you waiting for me so that you could accompany me for breakfast. or for lunch, or for dinner, or even during snacks. i remember the walk during that afternoon and laughing at whatever we thought of brewing. i remember sharing an umbrella and how our shoulders brushed.

i remember the night you confessed and how it changed everything. i remember feeling shy. i remember blaming myself for the things you had to go through. i remember saying sorry. i remember you saying it was not my fault.

i remember it all, and it’s crazy how it was different then, and how it’s different now.

[annykadc]

reading in bed. painting by marta astrain.

[annykadc]

(June 27, 2021)

Today while I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed -- I found the lost list (a piece of paper with the list of things to buy my mother had enumerated for us to buy), that my boyfriend had misplaced days before.

He must have forgotten that he placed it on top of the fridge near the sink.

Crazy how things pop out whenever they are no longer needed, after an intense search just to actually find them.

Crazy how things that were so important to us, no longer seem useful only days after.

I found a quote today that seemed rather appropriate for today's moment.

"You may not have given me some things I prayed for, but I still thank You for all the things You have given me that I did not pray for."

These past few months has been a whirlwind of emotions. Some of them were anger and frustration towards God, due to a couple of unanswered prayers.

But over time, I seem to rekindle whatever I have built with Him and in Him -- may it be faith, the relationship or that warmth that I have been focusing on as I pray. And slowly I start to realize that those emotions are too similar with that lost list.

My emotions may seem so important now, but I know later it will just all be an untouched figure on top of the fridge -- forgotten and unimportant, like that lost misplaced list.

[annykadc]

(June 25, 2021)

Today, I brought my little sister along while we were doing errands with my boyfriend. After checking everything on my to-do list for the day, we decided to take her to the mall.

As we were strolling around the clothing area, she found a cute plaid pink skirt worn by a mannequin. She immediately begged to have it bought.

As we were trying to get it off the mannequin , the zipper handle broke off and my little sister's smile turned into a small frown. The store clerk advised her to find a different skirt because the one she initially picked was damaged.

I looked at my sister, and after a short moment, she said, "I'll still take it."

I was at awe.

"Why buy something damaged?," my boyfriend asked her.

My little sister shrugged, "It fits me well, and I'm sure I can fix it. That's why I'll take it."

To avoid any other discussion, we bought it, paid for her damaged skirt and went home.

The moment we arrived, she immediately brought her skirt to her room then called me.

"Ne, look, I fixed it by replacing the zipper handle with a necklace. It looks even better!" She exalted with joy, flexing her new skirt as she wore it.

She was so excited that she even showed our Nanay.

What a day Lord, to show me that not everything that is broken is worthless -- to show me that broken things may even turn into something better when fixed the right way by the right person.

[annykadc]

We were in a place near rock bottom. Both my parents stayed at the hospital to take care and accompany my brother who was fighting his battle against brain cancer.

I was the only one taking care of the household when it happened. I had just finished crying due to immense pressure of trying to raise funds for the hospital bills and the daily needs of everyone in the family - when a visitor came and knocked on our doorstep.

He was asking for money for his child who was also in the hospital.

My grandmother's caregiver called his attention and told him that we, too, were struggling as well with our financial needs. But he would not budge. He raised his voice and still insisted and continuously asked for money.

Initially, I was furious. Angry. Disappointed and frustrated. "How dare he come and intensely solicit from us, when we were at the verge of breaking down," I thought.

As I was about to come up to him and do a little scolding, my boyfriend (who was helping us through this ordeal), came up to him first.

He gave him around three hundred pesos and asked for his forgiveness first. Told the solicitor that we also had our problems in the family and that's the most we could give as of the moment. "If the family were in a better situation, I am definitely sure that they would help and give more," he said.

The solicitor became teary-eyed, a bit disappointed with the money given but still gave him his thanks.

I felt embarassed with how I reacted and was immediately taken back to my mother's words, a few months back, "Generosity isn't just giving away something that you have, it's giving away something that you also need until it hurts."

And in that moment, I got that. I finally understood.

My God had used my boyfriend, as an instrument to show both the solicitor and I, what true generosity looked like.

[annykadc]

i wish i knew how to find the answers before asking the questions, to know the feeling of the cold air between my fingers before rolling down the windows, to prepare for the unavoidable rain even when the sun still fiercely blazed in the empty sky

how i wish the mysteries of life would reveal itself in front of me -- lower down its cloak and allow me to feel hopeful, just for once. bob his head from the cerulean waters and show itself to me, despite the crash and fall of the waves.

how light would life be if i had known what i have known now -- to save time, to shield myself of the unnecessary heartbreak like a flower retreating back to a bud because its bloom is not yet welcome.

if only life had been more open to me, with all its nakedness and rawness in front of me, then maybe i would be a little bit more open as well.

open, annyka dela cruz

[annykadc]

🌊☀ ghibli + summer 🍦🍉

[annykadc]

cobweb dreams, leading me in to a tunnel of vivid memories

in one string you are there laughing in the dining table

in another string, you are in the ICU

and in another, you are blowing your birthday cake

and then in another, you are being resuscitated

then i wake.

dream (prompt), annyka dela cruz

[annykadc]

Night.

[annykadc]

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

— — Audre Lorde, from “A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer,” The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (via lifeinpoetry)

[annykadc]

when i talk about God, people often tell me that my faith is full of error. a mistake, should not be how it is, a weed among a garden of cicadas.

i usually sprawl back in silence as a reply, closing the doors of my mind behind me -- trying to make something out of the correction of my faith.

is faith made to be dictated by man?

i could not explain the faith i have developed with God through simple words like religion, like intervention or bible verses. my faith is something more than that, something so complex, like situations, like emotions, something so intangible and tangible at the same time, something so near and so far that it is no longer comprehensible by the intelligence of man --

my faith is God's promise to get me through pain, suffering and loss rather than actually delivering me away from it.

my faith is the cry of my Father to the heavens when his only son was taken away from him, a howl that would put to shame a pack of wolves

my faith is the grip of my Mother on my brother's hands as we waited for his monitor to flatline, a scene I would like to forget but always, always too vivid to even try.

my faith is my sister silently crying in the car, angry with God, asking why didn't the miracle come when we needed it the most? The furrowed eyebrows and the sharpness in her voice still gives me chills, up to this day.

my faith is questioning God because we believed in Him with all our soul, "why Lord, have you forsaken us?"

but at the same time, my faith is believing in God, that despite all the questions, He had already prepared all the answers, even before we asked Him.

my faith is knowing my God had foreseen all the anger, the ache and the frustration that I am and have been feeling.

my faith is knowing that God had gave me permission to feel this way for He knows that sooner or later, I will come back to Him, more ready to take on more crosses that He has in store for me.

but until that day comes, my faith will remain as is, and I am still a little bit angry with God.

so when people tell me that I should not be angry with God, I guess they haven't had that personal conversation with God just yet.

my faith, annyka dela cruz

[annykadc]

[annykadc]

tender love

thomas merton // “eurydice” sarah ruhl // ernest hemingway // anis mojgani “in the pockets of small gods” // lemony snicket // franz kafka “the castle” // @fridayiminlovemp3 (mitski “strawberry blonde”) // mitski “pink in the night” // khalil gibran // gustave flaubert from a letter to george sand, 1876 // danez smith “acknowledgments” // “love freely” E.C. @desultory-suggestions

[annykadc]

Georg Janny, Title Unknown, 1923

[annykadc]

“Perhaps love is to give one’s own solitude to others? For it is the very last thing we have to offer.”

— Clarice Lispector, Selected Crônicas (via quotespile)

[annykadc]

It's Lakan's last three days with us. His friends came by -- Third, Jude, Ikee, Raymond, Justin Reed, Marco and Jose.

When they laugh, it feels as if I can hear Lakan laughing along with them. What an extraordinary moment. To be fooled by the mind because of the keen familiarity of it all.

But I know that in the heart of the Heavens, Lakan is certainly looking down, ears in full attention, eyes glistening and mouth bursting into laughter just like how my mind have been picturing it all this time.

What a sight to behold, to be assured of someone's laughter.

God, take care of my brother. Let him laugh more, like thunder echoing through the clouds of your Kingdom. It has brought us joy here on Earth, I know his chuckle will also bring joy up there in Heaven.