It was one of the saddest things in the world yesterday, to say goodbye to my barely awake friends after three months of shenanigans in Utah and three nights in Vegas. I turned my back when Angelo gave me a hug, saying he'd miss me, because I wasn't used to us not laughing about everything. It was hard to close the door on their sleeping forms.

I watched, embarrassed, as Courtney hauled my heavy luggage from our hotel to Planet Hollywood, where the kind attendant helped us on the taxi instead of making us go to the pick up station as he should have. In silence, we were driven to the bus station where our paths, which have been so unexpectedly entangled in friendship, would separate. 

I waited on the side with my orange and black bags as she stood in line to get her ticket. It took her about an hour, and that time I spent looking back on the all the times we've spent together when everyone was still here - all the sleepovers, the movies we've seen, laughters that turned to tears because everything was just so funny. 

It was time to say goodbye. Her bus was an hour before mine, and I thought, that was the last goodbye I'd be having here in America. She was my best friend. When it came time to board her bus, she squeezed me tight and I gave her a one armed hug, thanks to my luggage that would fall to the floor if I let go. 

I held back everything when everyone was there. The night before, I went to the hotel bathroom and cried, and I washed my face before coming out to cover the puffiness of my eyes. It was one of the saddest things in the world, to go on a 9 hour bus ride alone to a strange city you only see in movies and TV. To sit next to a lady who gave you a hostile look when you asked if the seat next to her was taken. To stay focused on the book you were reading as a drunk man across you slurred his words, and the hipster EDC attendees in front of him threatened to "beat his fucking ass up at the next stop" if he didn't shut up.

It was one of the saddest things in the world, to stand in that bus terminal with no one and nothing but my suitcases on my side, looking lost, tears falling, because I'm bad at saying goodbye. Because I hate saying goodbye. It was the saddest thing, to look at all the pictures, all our smiling faces, and think, "this is all I'm gonna have for now." 

My eyes adjusted

to the blinding brightness

of your summer dandelion sun

feathery white wings falling

where shadows should cover land

My skin sizzled

with the electric touch

of your wintry cold hand

light, heavenly snowflakes 

burning the tip of my tongue

There was a storm brewing in the crevices of her dreams. Looking at the stars on the long walk home that night, she suddenly felt small, too small, irrelevant and insignificant. She wanted to hide. She tried, but the upturned bowl of dark blue skies and glittering lights would not let her disappear. She was alive, but she did not feel like it. Life has bitten her off one too many times that what was left, time and tears could not mend.

He was a flood of unwanted emotions and mixed signals. One moment, she was his world, the next, he was so out of it, he didn't even notice her staring. The worst kinds of mistakes come in the most beautiful packages sometimes, she's been warned, but like any other starry eyed girl, she did not listen.

He sprinkled stardust over her head whenever he felt like it, and she basked in the attention, cause finally, finally, someone sees. Not only that, someone cares. It was nice to be cared for, for a change. To not worry about whether she was wearing the right dress for the right afternoon stroll, or if it was okay to send that 'good morning' text, cause there was always a long one waiting for her when she woke up.

She was pretty, he said. She shone and glowed and radiated light wherever she went, and he was her power supply.

And then everything died out.

She was okay before he came, before he made everything so bright that she simply was blinded when he walked away. There was no goodbye. There was no see you later. There was just the silence that she once used to love, except now it was the wrong kind. There was time, a lot of it, to think about what she could have done wrong, and how she should have done it differently. There was self loathing. There was silence, the deadly kind, the one where the only sound is the rushing wind, and the clouds were twisting into a storm, and lightning sliced through the downpour of words in her head.

She was small, irrelevant, and insignificant.

I have no idea where life is taking me. Sometimes, it's just so good that I find it hard to believe I woke up in my own body. And then it goes downhill, and I wish I was back in bed, sleeping it all away.

There's this noise inside myhead. It's the sound of the cry of hungry kittens abandoned by their mother. It's the weep of an athlete who sustained an irreversible injury right before the fight of his life. It's the song of dreams breaking right in front of the dreamer's eyes. It's all the sad things in the world combined.

She probably shouldn't be doing this, she thought, as her lips spread into a wide smile. It wasn't something she planned, but things had their way of falling into place, hadn't they? 

A few years, even a few months ago, she never would have believed it was possible to be happy again. Her red balloon flew from her hold. Her favorite ship sank in the middle of an ocean storm. There was no hope for her until now, and she probably shouldn't be doing this. 

It was a bad idea to fall for things beyond your reach. The impossible had always been unattainable. When the sun comes up, she will have to tiptoe back into reality, a bouquet of restored faith in one hand and an even bigger self doubt in the other. 

She probably shouldn't be doing this.

But no one knew how it felt to be held in his strong, able arms. To be tied to an anchor so grounded that it keeps you from drifting back into the black, muddy waters. No one else knew how her heart floated up in her chest upon every mention of his name. No one else had gone to bed with smiling lips in place of pillows soaked in tears. For years, she waited, and now that she found it, she had no plans of letting it go.

But she probably shouldn't be doing this.

He was in love with the chase,

She was in love with the distance

They were two cars on a race,

Trying to outrun circumstance.

I received some sad news today that we will be transferred to work in the diner. Apparently, the restaurant was a temporary one until the diner opens. I overheard one of my managers talking to our boss about keeping me in the restaurant, and there are also some talk circulating that only three or four out of the five of us are actually being moved, but no one pulled us aside to explain anything clearly, so nothing is sure for now.

It snowed a lot today. It was nice to watch from across the window, but it made me miss the Philippines. I used to hop on a random bus especially on a rainy day to calm my mind, and I couldn't do that here. It seems like all we do these days is work.

I found some pretty crucial information today that I'm not comfortable sharing here, but it's a terrible one to bear, to assure you. I wonder if I'm being self righteous for feeling like this or maybe I judge people too easily. All I can say for now is that I'm so thankful I have self respect enough to help me know when to stay and when to walk away, because, as I've found out recently, not all people do.

I've been in America for almost a month now. I have earned enough, mind you, to feed a Filipino family for two years or so in the three weeks that I've worked a minimum wage job.

Anyway, I've been reading some of my old posts lately, especially those in August and September of 2010. I had so many problems that I thought I wouldn't get past back then, but looking back now, I see how easy it all played out in the end.

There are some hurts that just never leave. I carry these in my heart at all times, to all places, and when I'm not busy, I open my mind and welcome the pain. It is a buttersweet distraction from the emptiness I zone out to when I have nothing better to do.

I miss my home country very much. It's very cold here although for the locals, this is warm. It snowed the other day, and Pau and I were very excited, we kept glancing giddily out the window in between seating guests. Elena, our manager, thought it was hilarious how happy we were. She said we were like kids watching TV, which, in a way, I thought we were.

Although it can be pretty sad here sometimes, I have met a lot of kind and interesting people. My favorite would be Alisha, since day 1, she has been nothing but kind to us, and she always gives us her sweet smile. When you see it, you can't help but have a good day. I'm not even exaggerating. Elena is the kindest of them all. She shares with me some stories from her home country, that is Romania. I wish I could give her their local brands of chocolates because she said she misses those! With her, I don't even have to ask sometimes. She's just always there to help whenever I mess up or put myself in trouble. She's really pretty, smart, funny and approachable. And then there's everyone else who have been very understanding and patient with us: Amy, Krista, Sir Marius, Sir Alex, Courtney, and the servers who I know get tired of us always making mistakes but they forgive us anyway.

I'm loving my life here. This has been mu dream for years, and I still can't believe that I'm living it now. It's hard to be so far away from home, from all things safe and familiar, but this new adventure is worth it. I just wish it was a little warmer.

Four years ago, I never thought I'd be where I am right now, lying on an empty bed, words pouring out of my head.

I miss you. I miss you so much that I could embrace the air around me and make myself believe that I am holding a part of you once again, which is sad because you had not even been here. For four years, I've been trying to convince myself that I am only supposed to have you in my life for a short while. Four years, I've been tearing myself down and building my life back up around your absence, but it seems now, tonight, that this loneliness is all i have ever known.

I have goosebumps on my arm, hearing your laughter in my mind. For the first time in the longest time tonight, I see a glimpse of your laughing face in my mind, and everything crumbles. The ground shakes beneath my feet, and tears pool inside my chest. Still, the world spins on...the wind sings on....the sun shines on. Everything is the same, and yet everything has changed.

You would have been so happy for me. You would have listened to me rant endlessly about the most trivial things, but you are not here where you promised to be - beside me. And yes, even after all these years I soent pushing your memory to the deepest corners of my mind, I haven't fully covered the screaming hole you left when you took my heart with you, six feet under. Four years ago.

You were my best friend. You held the switch that turned my night sky on, and now all I have are a few dying stars. I was so wrong to think that somedy, I'll get over it, because even now, with all the new people in my life, I keep looking for you in the sounds of their laughter, in the crinkle at the corners of their kind, smiling eyes. I keep looking for any sign that you have come back to touch my life again, and I keep finding more questions instead of answers.

Will I ever find you?

Will my soul learn to live with this pain?

Will I wake up one day and find that I am finally, truly, freely happy?

Hello.

I used to be the girl who waited for the phone to ring three times before answering your call, because I didn't want you to see how eager I was to hear your voice an hour after we've parted ways.

Hello.

I used to be the one you turned to every night, recalling the best and worst moments of your days, reliving your liveliest childhood memories, laughing at your most embarrassing deeds.

Hello.

I used to close my eyes and hear you peacefully breathing on the other line, out of things to say; never out of new ways to feel.

If I had known where you would go, I would have followed.

As it was, there was one click, and since then, life was nothing but a humming static.

Hello.

I used to lie in bed, under the blankets even on the hottest nights, afraid to share with anyone the happiness I found in you.

It was a frail, fragile one, but it was the best thing I've had. It all went downhill from there.

Don't you know? Didn't you know?

Goodbye.

You were my sunset. You took away all the light there was, and I had to teach myself to get used to the dark so that I could finally see the stars.

Goodbye.

The only word I never heard from you; the one I needed the most to close the door you left open when you went to chase things that made you happy, things that did not include me.

Goodbye.

You were the sizzle on my skin, the fizzle in my blood. You were all the things I never thought were possible. You were my lightest flight, the ethereal flutter of my wings.

You were my greatest fall.