To Harvy, Beloved Brother

dear harvs,


you cannot imagine how i much i wish you were here. some days, i make-believe. i  imagine i could just go home to davao and yours would be the first face i would see. that our routine would resume, you bringing me to and picking me up from my friends' houses. i recall that joke you cracked about a few men who rode on a military truck. i smile at your hilarious impersonation of that Eskinol guy. oh, how your younger sisters laughed. and how proud i was of you. it seemed suddenly, you had grown up. that there was so much more to you than the tough guy we knew.  i drink up stories about you like i would a green mango shake, with zeal and dedication. i loved that you looked out for us. how my heart broke when i learned about you leaving the house. it wasn't really the running away but the image i had of you at the knowledge that you had been found. i felt the defeat as much as you must have. looking back, i am sorry that i wasn't there for you. not that you would have opened up to me but i knew it would have been great having me on your side at that time. i live everyday of my life thinking that i failed you. and this fear is assuaged only because you were someone who made his own choices. early on, you stopped calling me "manang" and started calling me by my first name. at first, it sounded weird but it endeared you more to us, to me. it made your "thank you's" the sweetest thing in the world. like tristan ludlow, "you followed none of the rules and yet we all loved you more".


i hug you with all the love i am capable of. god, i miss you so...


One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.


Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.


Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.


I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.