Dear Athan,

Please understand. Don't think about anything. I just want to write this. I don't want to sound anything, especially defensive. I am writing this piece for an old friend. I am writing not because I am still not over her. You know very well what happened between us.

We had a good closure that sadly turned sour.

I know her and she knows me like no one else does. If anything, I want to keep her as one of my friends.

Only that she's so real.

in love,
Bananas
----c(@_@)a


Today, January 18, five days before her 29th birthday, is her wedding day. I owe her an apology for the all the difficulties I caused her. I owe her so much that I could not even dare think about it for long.

Now, perhaps as I am writing this, she could be exchanging that the lifelong promise with her boyfriend of more than a year. Could it have been me? I stopped thinking about that since I finally felt that I'm finally over her.

Well, no. I don't think it could have been me there, standing opposite her, telling her of my promises. We did that before. We promised forever. Something went amiss. And we replaced our "forevers" with "goodbyes".

Ending the four-year relationship was so emotional that it had me for quite long.

Months before I met Athan, my boyfriend of six months, I dreamed about being in the woods, consumed by the little warmth trapped inside a red tent. Not far from me
was a wedding, so discreet but lavish.

The image was clear but not the messages. It was her wedding. I was there, lurking, attending the union but was univited. I was there silently witnessing the union.

Then the traditional throwing of bouquet of flowers came. No one from the ladies, who anticipated with wide smiles at the beautiful bride's back, got the flower.

For some reasons, the flowers flew. It transformed into a fancy bird. And the bird made its way into my tent--made its way into my clasp.

And then, just as I was too ready to give them back the bird, they no longer wanted to take it--knowing that I had it.