i made an english ver of this as a part of my portfolio when i was applying as a contributor in candy magazine in 2015. i decided to publish it instead of it just sitting in my drafts.
_________
Five long years have gone by. Your touch ghosting on my skin and your appearances on my dreams, so vivid are now over.
The taste of your lips grew foreign in my mouth but your love forever embarked clearly in my heart.
The agony of missing you have come to an end. Finally, you are in front of me once again, back in the same coffee shop which was the setting of our first day.
I welcomed you with a smile as warm as the cup of coffee in my hands.
Time had obviously changed you, but your lips are still vibrant red, I could imagine them tasting like cherry wine. The same fondness and passion are lined in your autumn-like eyes, and I found myself still loving you like i used to.
“Hey.” An awkward greeting left my mouth.
“How are you?”
“I miss you..”
The silence grew so loud, it was intolerable.
“How have you been?” The words hardly left my throat as I grew fragile by each passing second.
“Okay then, if you won’t talk, I will.”
“I am now a writer, see? I told you I will become one someday.”
“I wrote a couple of stories, published a few books.”
I sipped on my coffee which tasted even bitter now. My eyes gazed through the place and then back at you. I realized how so much was altered. But it was not only the coffee shop that changed-- you, us.
You laughed though nothing was funny at all.
Nevertheless, I laughed still, because your laughter is my laughter too. I remember how your happiness is my happiness too.
“I miss you so bad. Can I hug you?”
It was a plead.
a desperate beg for happiness.
you returned it with a sweet sweet smile.
“You look pretty in your red dress.” I heard you say.
“I'm wearing brown.”
“Your make-up suits you.”
“I'm not wearing any make-up.”
In those few exchanges of responses, I have shattered into pieces.
“I love you.” I croaked amidst the torment that’s slowly taking me to death. Like overflowing water in the brim of a glass, my emotions are pouring and stirring up.
“I love you too, Trisha.” You smiled once again while saying a name stranger to me.
“I'm clair.”
Finally, hot tears left my eyes and flowed through my cheeks.
I wanted so bad to hold you, feel your skin upon my skin, and once again familiarize my lips with the taste of yours but they are all forbidden now.
Maybe this is enough.
I'm contented sitting in the table infront of you while you are sitting in front of her. I'm contented hearing the things you were telling her, imagining it was for me, watching you laugh because of her, wishing it was because of me.
“Let's go Ace.”
I see your name changed too.
I watched how you left with her, leaving me behind with a book in my hand, and the first page acknowledged to someone eternally special.
this is for you xyle, a constant reminder that you used to love me. i know you’d forget me forever but i can’t promise to forget you too. i can never forget my other half, an ember of my soul, a fragment of my heart.
We used to love each other, this coffee shop was its witness. Our story started here. I never thought it’d end here too. But what can I do? Retrograde amnesia is one great villain and love has no fight over it. I lost. Our love lost.
(Wrote this when I was 15, pardon the cliché).
