ART AND ARTIST

I

I thought I forgot how to grip my favorite pen. How to play with words – with my mother telling me, “Dear, your words are your talent.” How to translate my feelings – or my laughter and tears, into a novelette filled with metaphors only I could understand. How to effortlessly gaze at the constellation in Manila sky and “eureka!” I could made tens of poetry in a single night. I convinced myself that he was my poetry. He was the art and I was the artist. He was the everyday formula of my prose. He taught me the romantic way to grip a pen, or to laugh at pollution of lights and forget about the stars, to decode myself into a book, and to treat myself like I was both an art and the artist. And, in every night I read my poems I am in awe of the magic love could give. I was so in love until he was gone.

I thought I forgot how to write. How to pick the sweetest words for a romantic poem. I could hardly distinguish creative from technical. Prose from poetry. There were days I was staring at the sky begging to give me back my metaphors for I was feeling less of an artist. I lost my imageries. It was all “reality.” There were days I was crying, gripping my favorite pen, yet I just could hardly write even a holophrase. I thought I forgot the difference between a vowel and a consonant. Pollution from constellation. Love from infatuation. An art from an escape. And, in every night I reread my poems I am in awe of the illusion I could give. I was not in love with him. I was in love with my art.