lifeinthed
You could be anywhere, and I wasted your time. I'll never forget and I won't forgive myself any time soon. I've been saying sorry a lot lately, but you can't hear me. I'm sorry for that.
It took me a long time to appreciate my roots. My loud, noisy, Filipino roots. My roots are great at cooking, story telling, pinching children's cheeks, spoiling their grandkids, and terrible at being quiet.
I remember bonding with my brother as we drove past a construction site on the way home from Transformers, hoping that the crane to our right wasn't a crane, but a sentient being from another world.
It wasn't.
"How do I solve for X, if Y isn't given?" I asked my teacher, frustration with the math class, high school, general education system and "The Man" slowly growing within me. One math problem had sent me over the edge. "Just don't," she said, sensing my anger, and a possible riot on her hands. We ended the class playing hangman, using taxpayer's dollars and time to keep us all from losing it.
As a little boy, he was the kind that would snip the ribbons off the braids that belonged to the little girl in front of him. As a man, he apologized to any universal power that would listen, hoped to god that all the little snots would leave the head of his precious little girl alone, as he sent her off to her first day of school- standing next to his wife, who knew the feeling of suddenly lighter braids.
Maybe honesty isn't the best policy. It certainly has never been the most enjoyable, or reliable, or satisfactory. If I were to be honest, I'd say that I rather like the feeling of a lie slipping between the gaps of my teeth. Because I've found that nothing like the sly words that slipped from my mouth, could ever put a bigger smile on yours.
Wading, waiting, wading. She lived her whole life that way. Dipping her toes in, testing the waters, and retreating before the cold could pierce her heart. Nothing could consume occupy interest her. The deeper she went, she feared, the harder it would be to reach the surface again- to breathe. She wasn't afraid of drowning; but she was afraid of getting lost.