Sunlight
The safest place is below people’s eye level.
Growing up all by myself in a home where peace was upheld through quietness, my description of security had been contained within the bubble of being alone.
From this, I learned the comfort of staying away from people’s sight and found that life could easily be lived as is — without doing much, just by walking straight ahead.
And in the stillness of my presence, everything progressed smoothly.
I wake up in the morning feeling well, and I close my eyes at night feeling all right.
My days could go up and down and still remain in uniform — mellow — and I would feel satisfied.
I have never resisted learning or anything new as it came. I have never complained about the way things unfolded.
Because after all, the concept of life isn’t something new. Change isn’t. Neither is love.
Just like everyone else, I expected I would fall in love myself one day.
And the definition of my world would then differ, revolving around this one person whom I would want to protect for the rest of my life.
It would feel overwhelmingly beautiful. I would claim the same words others did.
Love is secure.
Love is peaceful.
Love makes you feel at ease.
For someone like me, it would only make perfect sense to expect to feel all such emotions toward someone conditioned to the same boundaries.
Someone who would also prefer dimmed lights,
earphones,
and silent whispers.
Someone who was used to chuckling at other people’s jokes rather than cackling after casually throwing their own.
Someone who had been more comfortable with the seats rather than the faces of everyone.
And certainly, someone who had listened more than they had sung, and observed more than they had been seen.
I thought it was obvious,
and given,
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and natural.
So I waited for the quiet love — a discreet, subdued one —that would color my world in the muted hues I was familiar with.
But I guess it wouldn’t really make sense to make perfect sense —
to try to grasp a concept that is, in reality, out of this world —
to expect love to come in the same exact way it comes to others.
Before you, I had never heard so much. I never knew love could be done in such a loud way and still be okay.
Before you, I had never looked around as much. My gaze had always been straight.
My movements had been limited.
My life had only taken a small space.
That’s what I had been accustomed to, and that’s what I was willing to live and die by.
But you freely danced,
and laughed,
and cried,
and sang on my linear path.
When I was convinced one could only move forward, you ran horizontally and created countless dimensions.
I didn’t think the life I had known could move in different directions,
and still be secure,
peaceful,
and make me feel at ease.
Before you, I had never felt so much.
You are evident in the spaces between the peaks and troughs of my heartbeat.
You make me feel alive.
day 22. stemmed and exaggerated from my power f’s huge reactions in 17rhJkt. in one second, umikot siya and naglakad nang tumatawa. tawang tawa yarn darling? napaka oa. napaka apparent. napaka binuomonanamanarawko. he’s so seen! and he makes me so damn happy! so a phrase came up to mind — 크게 하는 사랑.
