The gap is 6 inches and 8.5 kilometers.

He reaches over for a vine above his head thinking it’s plastic and laughs in spite of himself when he realizes it’s not. I crane my neck to watch this. He is 6 inches taller than me and I am hyper aware of this— Of how easily he reached over for the vine; of how much longer his shadow extends compared to mine; of how there is only a little room between the top of his head to the top of most door frames. I move 6 more inches away from him so I can see him more clearly. But his big steps are always 6 or more ahead of mine so that he is now walking in front of me and I have to catch up to fill the gap. I stay 6 steps behind.

Every sigh, every little chuckle, and every micro movements is like waves to an otherwise calm sea. Ruffles to a silk skirt and creases to a linen shirt. There is no way of hiding the fact that it affects the every corner of your mind as you sit 6 inches away from him in the space this car allows. I sit with my hands on my lap and it becomes a little uncomfortable after 6 minutes. He tells me a story of the time he and his friend ended up the next town over after 6-hours of drinking. I don’t move at all and try to focus on anything but the 6-inch space between us. I shuffle to a more comfortable position, 6 breaths away from the hand on his gear shift. 

The trip home was only 15 minutes; I savor all 15 and hope there would be more. But my street comes up and this would end, just 60 meters left. He parks in front of my building and adds 6 minutes more to the 15. My hearts dances a bit. He goes on telling me another story from his youth; I am more than a willing listener. His voice was only 6 decibels short of perfect and jolts 6 levels of reverb to my every heartbeat. Then I cut the conversation short despite protests of the heart. He had to travel 8.5 kilometers more to go home and it was late. I hug him goodbye, and watch him drive away. I take 8 and a half steps to the front door and leave behind feelings 8.5 kilometers long.

i have released these feelings and now put it out to world

As soon as I spot him, I called out his name. Low at first, unsure just how loud a shout society would allow, and slightly loose under my breath from the sight of him in person after years. It was in the middle of a crowded mall, I called out to him again, louder this time, and see him whip his head around looking for me. I walk towards him and give his forearm a light tap. I say a small “hi” with the most genuine grin I could muster. He reciprocates and leans in closer for a hug. I pull away quickly, fearing he might feel my heart beat stronger.

My dad would have loved you. 

---

When is love a mistake? How do you own a heart?

Videocity was a disc rental place we went to if we wanted to watch a movie at home but didn’t want to commit to buying the whole thing. My brother and I would go in, pick out 2-3 discs at a time and pay for the rental fee. We’d watch the movie together in our living room. My brother would buy a copy of the disc when he loved what he watched. I’ve gotten so used to renting that I never thought of owning.

I was fully content on the fact that I would have to return whatever I rented. I watched them already, why would I need them again? I realized I would when I wanted to rewatch the movies I loved. But like always, the realization came too late. There would be penalties when you kept your rental for too long. When you went back to rent new ones, you would be charged a fine for not returning the old ones on time. 

In this case, the penalty was a broken heart for affection that was borrowed.

Is love on borrowed time still love after all?

---

The offer was friendship with the promise of its potential to be great as time will pass. The payment was my infatuation being put through a wringer of a distressing confession, like plucking out petals one by one indefinitely and never knowing if he loves me or not.

---

Every time he said her name, it flipped a tiny switch in her mind. She responded to it the way a dog would to their owner— tail wagging nonstop . She’d be elated, if only for a second. And she decided, quite arbitrarily, that a second was all it took to make her day.

---

the plausible deniability of memories lost

Much of my years are blurred out, pixelated, and drowned by static noises in my head. My brain has a knack for blocing out the bad parts. The way it would dutifully scratch out memories I refuse to recal can be attributed to me and me alone— I choose not remember.

My brain back then wasn’t the antagonistic meanie that adulthood has turned it into. It obeyed me. If I commanded it to forget, it would. Effectively so that when I try to recall the years I’ve went through, my mind comes out blank. There’s a chunk of my life that is faded enough to have me questioning if I had friends and if I ever hung out with them.

“How did we meet?” was a question I could never answer.

It’s getting difficult to try to form a sense of self when you can barely make out the memories of your formative years. At which point was I corrupted by life?

I guess I have to make do with what (or who) I am now.

Someone once asked me if I was sure of myself. Because apparently I have no bubble. It’s so open that people can just barge in and disrupt it, possibly influence me, as “evidence” by my being on a messaging app 80% of the day.

At least I’m not an introverted asshole who is only mildly tolerated by friends whose friendship with you is brushed off as by history not choice.

But yeah sure. I have no sense of self because I have friends I am in constant contact with.

To each her own, I guess.

verses are written, verses are sung

• When I was 18 and a Sophomore in college, I was in love with a boy 6 years my senior. I saved up what I could from my measly allowance to buy him a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Old Man and the Sea’ (one of my favorites) and an expensive blank notebook (that I couldn’t even buy for myself). He told me I was sweet. We never ended up together but the infatuation stayed with me until well into my 20s.
  
• “Do you have a radio station running in your brain all the time?” He asked. I said no. Why? “You always sing a random song and it’s different each time.” He lent me his book for a class that summer. I passed my class and promptly returned his book. He told me he liked me but he had a girlfriend then. We didn’t speak to each other for 2 years.
  
• In High School, I had a puppy love fling with a guy 1 year my junior. He always had earphones on whenever I saw him at school. It was connected to a black iPod Video. I always had earphones hanging over my neck hidden inside my uniform. It was connected to a silver iPod Nano, the square version.
  
• One time, we traded iPods and brought each other’s tiny music machines home. “Your top most played song is Rihanna’s ‘Hate That I Love You’”, he texted me. A few weeks later he ghosted me (at a time when ghosting wasn’t even a thing yet.) I can’t be bothered to remember what his top played song was.
  
• At 22 years old, I met what felt like the closest thing to a soulmate was on a dating app. He was smart, mature, and sweet. And he made me laugh. I had tunnel vision in the way I also did when I was infatuated. He told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship. I went into a manic frenzy and dated as much people as I could, including a guy my close friend was apparently in love with. My “soulmate” ghosted me and my close friend called our friendship off.
  
• Today, I remain friends with my “soulmate”. He’s happily in love with his girlfriend of 4 (5?) years; I’m absurdly in love with myself. I gave him an abridged copy of Marco Polo’s ‘Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls’. I asked him once why he didn’t think I was the one for him. “The first night we were together, I saw you replying to guys on that app on the Taxi ride home.”
  
• A few years later, I dated a guy who simultaneously dated a number of girls. He was smart, immature, but sweet. And he made me laugh. I had tunnel vision in the way I always did, again. He claimed to have ranked all the girls he was then currently seeing and wrote down their pros and cons. I was supposedly at the Top Rank–– Number 1. He changed his Facebook status a few months later to “In A Relationship”–– with Number 2.
  
• The boy took pride in the fact that he was intelligent. A classic Golden Boy that peaked in High School and left astray. He gave me access to his personal Spotify playlist so I could add songs to it. I put in a few. He rescinded my access when I broke things off the first time. “I didn’t want you inserting songs that would remind m of you,” he explained when we became friends again (for awhile). I lent him my copy of Milan Kundera’s ‘Book of Laughter and Forgiving’. He never gave it back.