fragment 3

Now I understand why people associate sadness with rain.

Sadness isn't rain: it's the umbrella that won't open when
you need it, the clogged pipes that keep Dapitan flooded, the
joke your literature professor won't be able to say because
classes got suspended.

Sadness most of all is you bedridden and feverish and sick,
is you unable to meet up with me past class, your sweat
trickling from forehead to pillow already soaked with tears.


At the Airport

It was a speck of white in a flutter of green
when the wind swept the ground of its fallen
leaves. I remember it clearly now: the deftness

of each fold, the accuracy of angles,
even the weight and smoothness of paper,
its proper height and breadth. The breeze

was finicky, my brother used to say,
when it came to launching paper planes in the air—
everything just had to be exact, symmetrical,

everything had to be perfect. He would ask me
to get the materials needed and lay them complete
on the old narra dining table— a sheet of legal-sized

bond paper, a cutter, a pair of scissors, a 12-inch ruler,
even a glass of cold calamansi juice— 1 teaspoon
of sugar, no ice— or a hot mug of coffee to warm

his stomach. Perhaps this is what planes are for,
those made out of paper: a memento of sors,
a souvenir, a folded keepsake, to keep an absence

less than total.