Slip of the Pen

Countless are the women likened to the stars. Stars who are adored, stars who tingle and tickle the being, stars who are courted, stars who become lovers and better halves. Ah, such bitter pairings! A beautiful star is aloof, without a care in the world, isolated by a dark vastness oft-minisculed as a greatest ocean to cross or a highest mountain to climb, and if and when I conquer the cold void between me and the star after a journey that took forever, I will just be swiftly and mercilessly consumed by the blinding and unsurpassed heat of her fire without her even blinking. In the company of a star, two indeed become one and only one.

You, you are not a woman comparable nor should be compared to a star. You are dust, as I am who came from dust and will return to dust. You and I are mere specks in the cosmos, but in our world that is only ours, we are valuable and are valued the same. There is no darkness nor oceans nor mountains in between us. Together, we are free to tumble in the grass, to slide down the waterfall, to dance to the tune of the wind. Together, we are two yet we are one.

But you are dust unlike I, dust of the earth. You — and you might not realize this — you are dust of the stars. I know this because when we are together, you make our surroundings scintillate like a firefly does in a moonless night, and a ring of gentle fire — fire that does not consume life but nurtures it — caresses and embraces our joined bodies.


Happy 22nd birthday, Ia! More October 24 goodness at last year’s She, I. This was translated from the original in Tagalog.