You Became My Sadness

I hate to write 
About how this pain stayed after old happiness
I hate to admit  that in this world, 
You became my sadness 

I hate to remember
Sitting beside you, you were looking at me
Without wearing an expression that mirrors my feelings 

I hate to think that I always write 
About our moments on the bus going home
Seemed you were en route to your destination
Taking the best part of my heart
And turning the rest into dust 

I hate to let you hear this
When I admit this was written for you.

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl,you became my sadness)
Journal Date: 02.14.2023

Waiting

For the past eight years, waiting has been my game. It was a game of hoping for you to miss me and disappoint me at the same time. It was the game of waiting for you to find another love around your circle and wanting you back at the same time. It was the game of waiting for another rejection. It was the game of loving another soul while waiting for you to ghost me again. Because I became your game. Waiting for you is the game I can not lose. Waiting is love.

—Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, waiting)

Journal Date:

Poor

This love is poor in every way. We can not see it in our purses of lucky coins. It shows no match even in the cheapest stone in the world. Someone will just toss it back into the ocean like a broken shell. Ended up planting what-ifs instead of plans. We can not grow this love because this is poor —that we can not afford even just friendship.

—Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, poor)

Journal Date:

Spilled Ink

I sometimes took note of every word you told me that made me live, confused, and sad. When I should've written everything. When every time I talked to you, I have nothing to shield myself from loving you more continuously and somehow secretly.

Those written words seemed spilled ink that glows after the fallout. It glows on the nights I grieve. I feel weak for needing to grieve since no one has died. And it doesn’t make sense that I grieve so much for someone who was no longer mine. 

And I am now spending my 8th year of mourning and erasing the stain you left me. 

—Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl,spilled ink)

Journal Date:

Maybe Not

And then, the butterflies in my stomach will turn into anxiety of not having you. That I will still willing to give the gigantic part of me in exchange for the smallest broken part of you. 

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl, maybe not)

Journal Date:

Maybe Now

And now, I long for the night to hear how your day went. To laugh at them through our giddy comments. I long for the night I write everything you can tell me. To cherish them now that even a word can not exist in our inboxes. I long for that six days I have freely hugged you. Because now, I just cuddle with the pain. 

–Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, maybe now)

Journal Date:

Maybe Someday

And someday, I will write not because of pain and foolishness but because it's my talent and I have good reason to start a page.

–Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, maybe someday)

Journal Date: 

Your love knocked me down

"I want to feel it again. To be someone's favorite human alive. The thirst and stomach ache I felt when you forgot to give me drinks on your birthday. To run your name in my chest with all possible meanings for the nth time around. Your jokes knocked me down to my bed and couldn't find the air to sustain the laugh. The scare we both felt the night I told you something talking from the ceiling and you called it Olaf.

I want to feel it again. Your love. But you loved me once and you think that was enough."

—Jhunamae Moja, Smnllyl(your love knocked me down)
Journal Date: 

Art of the game

Will you ever understand the damage you've made?

I learned the art of self-medicating

Through tears and poetries

Like a playing doctor

Because these are all a game to you

I always end up puzzling over this weakest spot 

And you memorized its cracks where I glued it

Hurting in your sudden absence 

You caused it.

Will you ever condone being the cure to all the faults? 

I learned the art of having what-ifs

Through our memories and stained souls

Like a playing doctor

Because these are all a game to you 

I know my heart is broken 

Because I am the doctor and you are the cure

But you leave, you always leave

It will forever be sick.

–Jhunamae Moja, Smnllyl(art of the game)

Journal Date:

So Different

Our lives are so different, yet here we are, sitting in the same city on different roads. Attempting not to cross our eyes again. Attempting to forget we were once known as lovers or friends. While were proving how many worlds apart we are. And we’re so many worlds apart —not even in the same universe.

Our thoughts are so different, yet here we are, sitting in the same city on different buses to take. You were busy getting your life better. You were happily crawling to your games. While I am now fitting all my frustration and disappointment in this too damn small city.

Our futures are so different, yet here we are, sitting in the same city with different thoughts about our dreams. You were sure about being a man of the sea. You were loving the sound of the ocean by now. While I am now confused with the sound of negativity in my head.

—Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, so different)

Journal Date: 11.06.2022

If we make it

"Maybe, if we make it,

I swim to your ocean to light where you are blue. My playlist is filled with love songs about you. Your words are what will keep me awake every night and what wakes me up in the morning. Your hello never sounds like goodbye but everything.

The monochrome rainbow inside my head is pink in all layers. Your favorites are well-listed in my mind. We have popcorn and soda over movies or games. Coffee and cookies over nice books. We can have a refrigerator-light dance with spins and bends. 

Maybe if we make it,

this is not the only way I let my love language be well-spoken. Because you are always well-written to every corner of my senses.

I wrote this, so that even just through these words, this way we can make it."

–Jhunamae Moja (If we make it, smnllyl)

Journal Date:

Treasure

"In the next years of this lifetime, our memories will be in a jar —kept on shelves of my feats. 

To remember that I once became a home by a man of the sea. A home between flying ships and sinking planes, never been wanted, never been haunted, and not wanting this kind of love again." 

–Jhunamae Moja (treasure, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 

The last time I saw you

"I walked out through the backdoor of the mall. I ran dumbfoundedly. I wondered if the world looked different to you that night because it certainly looked different to me."

— Jhunamae Moja (the last time I saw you, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 11.12.22

You Always Own It

"Here's the part for you, always been the same
Never been whole, never been claimed
You always own it
You always deny it

Always been shouting your name
Sneaking on its window pane
There were days it crawls back
To where it always belongs from
This bear in me calms when I say so
Think of you only to shut its claws

It roars at dusk
Memorized my hands on your lap
Your jacket smelled of chocolate perfume
The day we breathe in the same room

Here's the part for you, since I was sixteen
Never been haunted, never been needed
You always own it
You always deny it

Always searching for a second chance
When you have already gone
Or searching for closure
As a turmoil without any cure
Whatever is not meant for me
When there's nothing any
Turned like a void in my chest 
From the broken road between our fate

Will it be permanent?
Wanted to cross without looking back when I can't
A night with tears made scattered lights to the city
Felt like spinning and don’t find my center of gravity

Here's the part for you, haunted by your ghost
Left long-lasting footprints on my roads
You always own it
You always deny it

Always owned by you
Started with pink that turned into blue 
A gem that rests in the first corner of my heart
The faults on it turned into poems and arts
Not only when things go south
Because this is so much to talk about

This part of me to where I buried
The memories of you that ended their limit
You always own it.
Even if you never wanted it."

—Jhunamae Moja (you always own it, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 10.21.22

Soulmate

"I still believe that you are my soulmate. I just lost my soul for half and year. I never regret that I missed the train to come home to you. Maybe because I didn't see you lightning and waiting for me at the end of my tunnel. I took a bus driving the long way where they played nice music until I forgot that "Ours" is my favorite to remember you. I learned to carry my luggage alone.

I still believe that you are my soulmate. I just missed reminding you that I was there for years waiting after I walked out that night. Years of waiting became our fallouts.

I still believe that you are my soulmate. Even if we only have chances to talk when it is convenient for you. If it is not, it subsides. All chances never offered us to light another one, it always rains. 

I still believe that you are my soulmate. Where in this world, soulmates are meant to cross along happiness but with different roads to take after the stoplight. 

I just believe that you are my soulmate and my heart can't deny it."

—Jhunamae Moja (soulmate,smnllyl)

Journal Date: 08.27.2022

26th

"It's funny how mornings of this date in December take my first breath.

Funny. In every way of December 26th(s).

I still feel the night when I felt a little lost and no one ran after me. To go back to where I belonged. Not there. Not to every place you have been and will be. To go back to where I am alone with my thoughts of you —a perfect place where you are mine, always mine. 

I still feel the night when I can not make my feet worthy enough to walk on the same ground you walk upon. Nothing I can do would ever make my heart worthy enough to share the love with yours. That night, nothing in my wallet could afford your love.

I still feel the night when I felt walking on a tightrope of being unwanted as I finally walked out. That night, your ghost started to walk up into my sleeves. That night, I realized were not on the same page and had never been in the same book.

I still feel the night when I wanted to go back —even to just look back. Even it will anchor me again to you. Even it will make my feelings swirl again. But I never did. Because I never thought we will end that way —never thought I will see you the last time in that way.

I still feel the night when lights inside the mall were scattered all over my eyes. I stopped them all. I wiped them all. I gathered them all. I saved all the tears for my pillow.

I still feel like that night.

I always will.

It's funny because it is the same as my birthdate.

Or should I say "sad" in every way?

It's sad how nights of this date in December will take my last breath before meeting my 27th."

–Jhunamae Moja, Smnllyl(26th)

Journal Date: 12.26.21

What do I always write about?

"Every word I write is either about you or about us. 
Though it is not my way of hoping or holding on, this is me letting go.
This book is a draft of my happy ending without you.
This is me reminiscing my story, writing about this puppy love from being a kid inside me.
Yes, a puppy love. 
That left a stain on my soul.
And I know that I don't write about the love we shared but about the pain after it. 
From the pain, I sail away but still not getting anywhere. 
And I'm not yet satisfied with the drafts I brought in over the nights about my happy ending.

So I write. 
I always write."

–Jhunamae Moja, Smnllyl(what do I always write about?)
Journal Date: 12.25.21

Vow

"I always want you to remember in a good way. Because we always vow our goodbyes. And maybe in the next days, weeks, or months, we mess up again and choose to go our separate ways again— always remember that on the other days, weeks, or months, I will be there again, saying Hi. Because I will always be your girl who will keep on coming back to you, to watch over you, and to mess up again with you."

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl, Vow)

Journal Date: April 2021 
NB. Notes from February. Pink Journal. 

Home

"I was so sure that our home door will close one day

I watched you leave with the key as my access to it

I wish I'm tapping your back when you're drunk by your negativity.

But we all have our own little excuses and our own little unspoken truths

I wished to be the back of your hand when you cry

But I messed up once again. Once more.

You left.

And I should be okay with it, I should let you off

I should stay, and don't chase you anymore.

Letting you sail away hurts, it badly hurts

And I think that the deepest wound that you left me is when I became a poet

Because I wished I found myself first before I found it in your eyes

And I always seek home since I saw a home in you, but home seems so far away now.

Your life seems measured waves, aligned shore, and toned splashes—it is perfectly made

And dewdrops in my hair at night, being jealous with things that make up your day, being blamed, and being lost will be okay. 

I deserve it. 

But please, open the door for me when it's right and when it's not right, it's okay.

One day, that door won't bother me anymore —not even pushing different keys for it because I knew it won't work. 

Someday, when you give that key away and I see it in another warm hand, it will be okay."

—Jhunamae Moja (home,smnllyl)

Journal Date: 

Nothing

 

"You don't have to fight for me— not with the word "anymore" because you never did. You don't have to fight for me— when in the first place your rival was just your ego. You don't have to fight for me because I knew you as someone who feels upset when your friends just tease you. I knew you as someone with a resting love on your hands only for your mom. I knew you as someone with your heart anchored in the ocean. I knew you as someone with superhero-like responsibilities. I knew you as someone who never protects my name. I knew you as someone who made me think that I am not enough. I knew you as someone who comes back without saying "hello" and disappears without saying "goodbye". I knew you as someone with shallow happiness about us. I knew you as cowardly as your weakest bone enveloped by 3 AM's wind blows. 

More of that, you don't have to fight for me, I just wish you know that you are still someone I look up to. You are still my source of silly jokes. You are still someone I highly respect even if you want to feel like a baby boy of your mom forever. You are still the bravest sailor I have ever known. You are still my favorite person who calls my real name. You are still enough in return. You are still the reason for me to leave my shoes on the seaside for you to know where I last stepped while waiting for you. You are still the happiest reason for me to wake up even though we don't see each other in the morning. You are still the best coward man I think of at 3 AM. 

You are still that brand even though I knew you like someone telling himself not to fight anymore when he only risk nothing. "

—Jhunamae Moja (nothing, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 04.09.2021

Is it a happy place to be?

"I understand that you were done
In all of these dramas,
Like what I always catalyze you
From that day you admitted that
There are colder shoulders than I used to feel on
I understand
If I have your eyes
I will do the same
I will consistently tell this person, I'm done

I will be there too
Speak without thinking twice
Consider what I feel is always valid
Inhale this own breath again
To tell our story without crying
Have a coffee without seeing you stirring around
Unintentionally forget the headdress you put on me
And not wanting everything to be written

I will be there too."

–Jhunamae Moja (Is it a happy place to be?, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 02.24.2021

All my fault

 

"Maybe, my fault as I laid my happiness on your hands. It was my fault to let half of my mornings be wasted by thinking of you. It was my fault that I still read you while you were the naked book behind the vintage shelf in my gigantic library. It was my fault when I still opened the door while you brought your suitcase of insecurities. It was my fault for having sleepless nights writing about you until my morning alarm clock rang. It was my fault when I said another hello while you were treating me as a broken bone that years to heal. It was my fault for saying goodbye when I know that I never leave. It was my fault that I don't know how to leave. It was all my fault."

 —Jhunamae Moja (all my fault, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 02.14.2021

Less than what I used to

"If I could just love you less, I would."

—Jhunamae Moja(smnllyl,less)

Journal Date: 04.18.20

Boundaries

 

"I want to define how I moved on, the way I stopped waiting for your calls, the way I passed on an empty grocery aisle to buy my favorite perfume and don't want it anymore, the way I looked at the moon without waiting for it to be whole again, the way I dreamed of the sun as if it was a guide back from the depth of despair you caused me, the way I put back the broken heart like lego parts I fell clumsily, the way I muted you in real life and called boundaries, the way I deleted the photos I once pasted in an album I gave you— deleted up to the backup files I kept until I shivered from the coldest kiss-off you showed me and the way I rushed in a castle to dance with another man without leaning from my balcony of realization to your shallow and damp lake of fondness."

—Jhunamae Moja (boundaries, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 03.20.2020

I stayed

"I stayed for days giving this love reasons to stay. I stayed for weeks realizing what I did wrong why you left it. I stayed for months to accept that it was all my fault. I stayed for half-year assuming that you will come back. I stayed for a year longing for justice why this love ended easily. I stayed for a couple of years and still waiting for you. When I stayed a little longer, I realized that maybe this love was just a piece of baggage that hasn't been claimed by someone who's not coming back. Maybe, he no longer needs it. Maybe, he thinks that it was rotten over time. Maybe, he thinks that it was claimed by others. I kept it to myself before knowing that it was just garbage for you. "

—Jhunamae Moja (I stayed,smnllyl)

Journal Date: 02.26.2020

Happiness

"With the gaps in our conversation, you chose to forget me while I was still longing for you to miss me. For you, it was easier to just move on like you never met me than to cross my life again. For you, it will always be.

With the gaps, I was running around the circle —far from the radius of probability that you will long for me too. Running around wishing for you to catch me first. I got tired somehow. Also, from thereon, I just concluded that my absence was not your thing. For you, it will never be. 

Still, your happiness is my thing and will ever be. Even without me. Your smile shines up to where I sit now. Whilst maybe, my happiness will never be someone's thing too and will never be yours —that all about me is fated to be brewed and served only just for me.

For now, please allow me to sit here, from where I have the perfect view of you, from where I decided to pause, and from where I will be starting to let go.

From the gaps, I'm counting the blessings in between."

—Jhunamae Moja (happiness, Smnllyl) 

Journal Date: 01.20.20

It will take me a jar of courage

"The next moment I will be sitting against you over a coffee or other wonderful things, I wish it is not an episode of our denouement or just a memory to be kept — I want it to be part of our tomorrow and always."

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl, Jar)
Journal Date: 2019 
NB. Note 3 

Enough

"Maybe, you do love me. 

But words are words and actions are actions. 

Because I've experienced and witnessed myself in enough brokenness - I didn't know why I hadn't discovered the difference between those words yet. And with all my heart, I can tell you that maybe you do love me — at some time in your life. Maybe, I became your favorite person once in this lifetime. Maybe, I made you happy in the moments you needed someone to. Maybe, I made you feel loved somehow through words I sent you — which will never be my loss because I have the purest intentions from my most sincere heart. 

And in return,

As my reward, 

Can I ask you these...

How many times you have made me feel confused?

How many times you have filled my heart with what-ifs and unrequited love?

With sorrow?

How many times I have felt the bitterness?

The emptiness?

The endless void that leads to nowhere?

How many times have I cried?

Enough tears to fill an ocean?

How many? 

A million. God, I don't want to count anymore."

—Jhunamae Moja (Smnllyl, enough)

Journal Date: 12.27.19

Bring It To The Sea!

A letter to a man of the sea.

Forget everything but not your strength and faith to be a seafarer. Pack your achievements or feats and scream it all in the middle of your voyage. Fold every anxiety and pressure growing in your heartbeats —hide it under your family pictures and hugs from your mom. Roll all of your visions of not being befriended by your mates and toss them aside. Load every single edge of you that you believe they would like about you.

Pile your ambitions and dreams aside from being a man of the sea and make sure you have it in. Gear up your anxiety weapons and pressure shields once it comes out when still on board. Tie all strands of your fear and decide if you would bring it in. Bring it all in your luggage of dreams and plans to navigate the story of your life.

Tuck your hopes in every pocket of it to be nurtured by the sea. Bring it all to the sea of reality.

Journal Date: 2019

NB. He made this title.

Excerpts from enveloped letters…

Dear Love, Have you seen them all? Those wonderful things around your ship, those fishes that turned out to be your TV, and the night sky full of stars that perfectly aligned. You have seen them all, for sure. Because I know you are now living in your dreams through reality. I am happy for you. You deserve to be where you are now, Jap. 

Journal Date: December 2019 NB. Envelope 1. 

════ ⋆★⋆ ════ 

Dear Love, Even though we ended up waking at different sunrise, I hope God will mean a time for us to meet again. I will never doubt if it's impossible by now. I will continue loving you from afar. Clapping for your success over the ocean. I will be happy sitting here on the shore. 

Journal Date: December 2019 NB. Envelope 4. 

════ ⋆★⋆ ════ 

Dear Love, It's another day of not finding appropriate words to puzzle and put into an awful story about us. I master this art in the back of my head but still, all I can be able to write is about my foolishness.

Journal Date: December 2019 NB. Envelope 6. 

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl, excerpts)

Imagination

 

"How I remember the day you lent me your favorite jacket and you took me a photo while I was hiding in it, to sniff it — it breathes like you. I had it in my skinny body until we called it a day. At the same moment, I was afraid to let it go and return it to you because of the warmth that felt like home. 

It happened. You brought it with you when you left. My heart. I left it underneath the sleeves that melted me up to roads walking home.

Until it became just an imagination of home. It all became stand-alone. But way different from what I felt that day.

The door became locked with my keys, making me stand in the rain for hours. The ceiling that I looked up to became a battleground of my overthinking.  The floor when I walk felt like walking on a tightrope of being unwanted. The kitchen never served me freshly baked plans and brewed hopes for us. The window darkened with hesitation to clear the feelings between us. The roof that never protected my name towards the storm which you also navigated.

From your favorite jacket, I just imagine that I became your favorite too somehow.

Again, this home —was just an imagination.

That maybe in my imagination, we can still make it."

—Jhunamae Moja (imagination,Smnllyl)

Journal Date: 11.02.2019

Forced

"There were days I forced myself to write over the sentiments I once confessed, about the same rain I heard before, touching a twinge I once devoted to lyrics you poorly vocalize, subjecting the feeling when you carried me on your back under the same ceiling, the last phone call you hang up that left my eyes as soggy as a windshield glows and about how your eyes become galaxies I get lost in. I forced myself to narrate an unnecessary fiction when I wished to have a coffee on the window instead. To write something vague and uncertain future when I missed the window to watch the bluest sky. I forced a pen to give me better shades of our downcast-weaved story. I forced myself to scribble—all because you ran away without pulling one on the shelf of stories, I made for you. You handed me a pen instead of an umbrella under the unstoppable downpour. You let me hear the bridge alone that made me feel a little lost. You let me see the fate resting on your back that I once wished to be you. You hang the phone over a leading-off conversation when still giggling over a wine. And to write because I found my favorite constellation in your glimmering eyes of hope. It was all forced because I thought you were forcing it too—for us to be fated to each other. All the bluest skies just faded as fast as my coffee's meringue. All sheets wasted and inked by traceable erasures of the undesigned story of us. And all the things coming from force never been succeeded."

—Jhunamae Moja(Smnllyl, Forced)

Journal Date: 9.02.2019 
NB. Awarded with most exaggerated wordings.20th entry. Violet Journal. 

Japjap

"I wrote your name on the seaside until little waves reached it unto the shore and kissed every sand they can touch. I hope it also reached this love like sand on my feet. I hope they are gone.

I hope everything is just that simple."

—Jhunamae Moja (japjap, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 04.16.19 

Red

"The first time we met, we unexpectedly both wore red and I can’t remember the rest of the details because I never thought you would become an important person to me."

—Jhunamae Moja (red, smnllyl)

Journal Date: 11.17.2018

Little Fish

"Your words became my endless sea. I was running against the waves of jealousy with the places and things that life could offer you. Without me. I felt jealous during our bus trip last week when you told me that you'll be overseas in no time. When I only had myself and nothing more to offer but myself. 

Counting what IFs and asking who am I to stand in your way? While was spelling your name between my heartbeats. That exact time and feeling.

And this slowly filming in my head —"I wish I could be the best version of myself too soon."

So that you can just carry me around without hesitation that I could cause you any burden. To be that someone in your passenger seat. If not and if that day comes, I'll just wish to be a little fish around your ship or a mermaid. Perfect. 

But seriously, I wish there'll be a better life awaiting me too so that I could make you proud of me to introduce me to the world. Would an Accountant make your plans undone? It's been just my thoughts from midnights. Surely, this note will make me cry someday when I can able to be one. I think this will serve as a letter for myself too. Should I believe that these plans can get me near you? If not, I should think of plan B, C, or up to Z. Well, we're still teenagers. Haha. Life is easy, I guess? Chill. Be crazy. End."

—Jhunamae Moja (smnllyl, little fish)

Journal Date: 08.09.2017