Dante

DANTEÉ APRIL ISSUE | 2015

welcome to the seven circles of hell

~

by Kyle Chua Resist, resist, for evil is near Be strong, be firm, have no fear Temptation lurks in every corner He guides, He sees, obey every order

You are born an imperfect being Living life without purpose or meaning Welcome to the Seven Circles of Hell Wickedness awaits, your soul to sell Resist, resist, for evil is near Be strong, be firm, I have no fear There can be no right without a wrong Fret not; He has been with us all along

Nando

She was wearing black skinny jeans and a neon green blouse; she was not asking for it.

She was wearing a little black dress; she was not asking for it.

I was wearing a mini skirt and a plain white shirt; I was not asking for it, but he gave it.

Why do we live in a world where we teach girls how to avoid getting raped instead of boys not to rape? As I walk to my cubicle at work, I hear whispers.

“Slut.”

“Whore.”

“I bet she provoked them.”

I never wanted to get raped. I never asked to get raped.

I never hung a sign on my neck with a big written “RAPE ME” written across. Why is it my fault?

Society constructs all these labels for women that overshadows the real problem; lust.

Lust destroys relationships, reputations and lives. Because of lust, I became prey to a predator lusting over me like a ferocious lion craving for an innocent lamb.

To him, I was not a person, but an object he used for sex and pleasure.

I am a woman, not an object.

I am a woman, not a toy.

I am a woman, and not an accessory.

I am a woman, strong and independent, and this is who I was meant to be.

-Aaron Sumayo

I want to find a tattoo he doesn’t tell anybody about: on his back or his torso, or somewhere along his spine and I would kiss it every night and try to see what it feels like to be forever etched onto his skin -Untitled,Rica Superable

Alyssa Bartoline

Alyssa Bartoline

“They come with their axes, in the night, to the cottage we lived in, to the cottage we loved in, and start to chop the roots of the tree that we called Love.

You are the hand that feeds, I am the mouth that swallows, we are bursting with sacred light.

They do not see it.

The name on their tongues is not His, but is Sinner and somehow they have become the same.

God and Sin. God and Betrayal.

God, how I loved you.

God, how I would have cracked the Earth’s spine, with my own two hands, for you.

In my conversations with Him, I tell Him about your light.

How burying myself inside of you, for the first time felt holy, a different kind of pure.

I tell Him that the first time, I fell headfirst into your skin, I found Him there, a version my mother hadn’t taught me about.

How glorious, how full, how shaking.

In my prayers, you and I are the same person.

In my prayers, we live in a field full of sunlight, and we are flowers and we are stretching towards the bright hurt of it.

I tell Him that they are coming, that they are angry our love is not what they expected.

I tell Him to save us. That I love Him. That I love you.

Father, what now?

They are coming with their axes.

They’re calling us sinners.

They’re going to burn that beautiful dream right down.”

-Conversations with God, Azra Tabassum

2012, I was eighteen years old when my fairytale dream came true in the form of Marco. I always had my seemingly unrealistic ideals in searching for my prince and he fit them like a missing puzzle piece. He was sugar-coated with a flawless smile, an excellent taste in fashion, a sculpted body and a whole lot of intelligence to back up his ambitions. Meanwhile, I was all things average; not too pretty, not too smart, not too exciting. And so, like any fairytale, the prince fell for the damsel in distress.

I was on a constant high without the drugs. He constantly took me to new adventures that I never dreamt possible. On the eve of my nineteenth birthday, he came to my house unannounced, next thing I know we were on a flight to a date in Hong Kong. I always

thought those things only happened in movies. He also consistently brought me to and fro school, not missing a single school day in spite of my protests that I am capable of handling my own transportation. But more than that and everything else, he lifted my spirits up and encouraged me to dive deeper into my craft of digital arts. He supported me by signing me up for every workshop that came and submitting my works to contests, some of which I won. His presence in my life was changing me, and back then, I thought that was a good thing.

Two years into the relationship and on my last semester as an Architecture major, that’s when things started to go downhill. We had decided, a few months earlier, to rent a condo unit near campus for us both because we expected

Ariel Tangaoan

Ariel Tangaoan

every time I upset him by not doing what he wanted me to do.

Before even a sound escaped my mouth, Marco somehow made it from the door and on to Julian, pounding his fists to his face like an untamed animal. It took me a second to realize what was happening and to react to it. I tried to use all of my body weight One night, after the group had finished working in our unit, to pull him off of the poor tiny Julian came knocking on the door, boy but it was not enough. Next he said he couldn’t find his phone thing I know, I was lying on my back and there was blood. My and that he must have left it so blood. I was slowly sinking under we spent a good thirty minutes the shadow of unconsciousness. searching the high and lows for his phone.

The last thing I could remember Marco arrived. If fury had a face, from that night was hearing the sound of Marco crying. it would be the look that Marco had when he saw me alone with Julian. It was twice as horrifying I woke up to the smell of food.

Someone was cooking. I tried to as the face that he would wear spending longer hours in school for our respective thesis projects.

I devoted my time and attention to my plates and papers because I thought Marco understood. That was when Julian came into the picture. He was my thesis group mate.

move but my body was sore and I could see bruises already forming under my skin. I still had no sense of what happened the night before. Marco entered cautiously, carrying a tray of food.

I felt my insides turn at the sight of him, remembering vividly how he brutally attacked my friend. He sat by my side quietly. I flinched when he tried to touch my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t--. I can’t--. I--. I love you. I love you so much. I don’t know what got in to me. I don’t know.

I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”

I believed him. More than once.

I still believe him. And over and over again, I’ve given him what he wanted—I never left.

-Janine Sevalla

Tokwa Penaflorida

I’m the man known around town For holding the bright gold crown Meals and meals I shove down In wine and drink, I drown I have the appetite of a bear Eating everything in the fair Step aside, I’m on a tear You’re hungry? I don’t care There is no stopping me I’m never full, can’t you see?

I’m the sole owner of the key To the Third Circle of Hell, gluttony -Glutton, Kyle Chua

Tokwa Penaflorida

Tokwa Penaflorida

For most of my life, I have always been called by one thing. I was called fat.

Not chubby, flabby or any other synonym, but fat.

Let’s start off with how my childhood was. When I was a kid, I was that little fat one with the chubby cheeks that everyone loved. I guess it was acceptable back then to be in that weight because it was cute. However, as I aged the bigger I got. I knew that I was overweight but I just didn’t care at all. Food was everything to me and I couldn’t stop eating. No matter what I do or what people tell me, I just won’t stop eating.

When we are kids, our parents keep telling us to “eat your food” or “don’t forget to finish your plate.” As a kid, it was great to eat a lot because you’re a growing child. But as an adult, I still eat as though I am a kid trying to get nutrients. I have to admit, I can be a glutton at times and I do feel guilty.

It’s just hard to resist food.

As a self-proclaimed glutton, do I have plans on being healthy? The answer here is yes! I’ve been doing it and recently, it has been great. But I’m just a needle in the haystack of gluttony and there are still a lot trying to cope with this unhealthy sin. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fat (or what I can proudly call myself “chubby”) and I still have those moments of eating like a beast. Bu, I know some ways of beating it and I could help those in help.

Gluttony is just another form temptation and before beating gluttony, you have to beat temptation. Temptations are the devil’s way to draw you close to him. Whether it be by food, sex or whatever, it’s near to sinning.

The best way of beating temptation is knowing yourself and your limits.

An example would be going out for a stroll in your local mall. If you know that your favorite restaurant is in that mall, would you go in it? If I were you, don’t. The closer you are to that temptation and more likely you will give in to it. Distance yourself from temptation and you will get your way.

Another is to actually fix your eating habits. Eating better and cleaner. This is a hard step (well-experienced here) and often brings you to tears, but this is a much needed transition in one’s life. After eating better and cleaner, the physical activity should come in and soon or later, you will be a new person.

It’s easy for me to just tell you or you to just read whatever. It all matters with you if you want to beat this or accept defeat. Winning is much better than losing, anyway right?

-Jolo Yulo

here they come: the worshippers crawling on the stony path to meet their gods. watch them slither on their bloodied knees and scraped palms all for the miniscule chance to meet their masters.

prose | Shea Martinez photography | Jolo Yulo post-processing | Janine Sevalla models | Nicolle Groves & Hannah Locsin

* the gluttons frothing at the mouth, salivating, thirsting, starving: so pathetically slow they crawl, weighed down by their very drugs, heavy stomach brushing across the reddened rocks on the ground. watch as the tired collapse, watch as they are taken by their god, devoured whole. watch the limbs stick out from between his shining lips, watch his followers on the ground beg for a single bite.

-if you’re hungry, eat, he declares, and the creatures on the ground gaze at their neighbor and in their eyes they change: look at that, he looks just like your favorite brown paper bag, with the emblazoned red M, your new age god of the bored and hungry. and how very fragile paper is: but that’s not the point anyway. it’s the inside that tastes best. *

* the lustful writhe sweaty on the ground in a mix of bodily fluids, in a haze of the smell of sex. she sits at their heart, touching and touched and their sounds are a cacophonic harmony coloring the air with their there there there no harder harder yes yes yes yesyesyesyes yes it’s not enough, not enough, grab me harder, harder, harder melt into the skin of the mob lose yourself make yourself new faster faster faster there it is there there it’s not enough it’s not enough claw into me dig me out tear me open take me my we us harder *

* pride and his followers stand, watch and turn their noses up and laugh loudly and condescendingly and oh look at them aren’t they all pathetic? we’d never stoop so low we aren’t savages we aren’t monsters writhing on the ground in p-pleasure starving for a.…bite... sweat starts to pool on their foreheads, matting their hair and clothes to their skin. their feet, bleeding on the rocks beneath them, itch to move forward, to jump in. their knees begin to buckle: but they resist. they resist, they remain, look at their god as though for approval and he looks right back with disdain: to him they are all pathetic creatures beneath him but he’ll suck in their attention happily and turn his frown on them, watch them bleed into the ground all to please him. and sweat pools on his forehead, and his knees begin to buckle but he isn’t the god for nothing: he’s learned to resist. *

* clawing at her own face, blood streaming down her eyes, envy screams that pride has too many followers, that gluttony has so much to eat, that lust is having too much fun and she has nothing but followers who want her dead, followers who wish to take her place. in her angst she does not notice the man standing behind her, does not see the rock that smashes against her head until it is there and she is dead: a new envy stands and he clings to his stone, fearfully eyeing whomever will take the throne next. *

*

none of them notice how their followers seem to dwindle in number as the hours go by: stolen quietly by greed hiding in the darkest corners, seducing the creatures to his side, keeping them as his own pets, members of his terrible collection.

*

and greed in turn does not notice the woman who steals from his collection, adding them to her own. she carelessly tears off their skin, slashes at their insides until they lie haplessly on the ground, until her feet are drenched in a pool of blood and guts until her anger, assuaged, abides‌ not that it ever happens, not that her emotion is something to be tamed. so she takes them, one by one, laughing derisively at the poor fool whose greed feeds her own thirst. *

* sloth, no one has seen in years, but his followers lie in a pile on the ground, passively waiting for his return. they are nothing more than a pile of food, part of greed’s collection, victims of wrath’s thirst. wrath thinks she’s won, that she is superior as she slaughters the followers of her siblings: *

they are but children: and every child has its mother. theirs sits upon a throne unseen, laughing hysterically at the tragedy of her children. the forgotten mother shoved aside by her sinful children as a virtue, one of the good guys. her laugh only grows more hysterical: a virtue, her? love love love i am the mother of all sin, the root of all that is wrong. it’s love devouring people, it’s love fucking them into the ground, it’s love asking for approval, it’s love wanting to be a part, it’s love keeping them in cages, it’s love tearing them apart. her children scoff at her and she laughs at them, naughty children that they are: her beloved children, their beloved followers, their beloved blood painting the world red. love is the root of everything after all and since when is sin not everything?

Tokwa Penaflorida

Nando

Nevan Doyle

For the ten years I’ve been Sophie’s best friend, there was never a time when she seemed any less perfect to me. From the way she looks to way she talks, she is the epitome of Cool, and I’ve always had trouble trying to keep up.

Sophie was like this holy grail of perfection, possessing every characteristic that resembles her to a goddess. Most of the time, I’m convinced that she couldn’t possible even be human because there’s nothing Sophie can’t do.

In third grade, she won every spelling bee she’d ever entered; in sixth grade, she was voted MVP for the girls’ soccer team; and sophomore year, she got the lead role for this big school play; the list could go on for days. Flash forward to a couple of years and together, we dreamed to take college by storm. The two of us got into the same prestigious univer-

sity that turns away almost 50% of its applicants. For Sophie, it wasn’t a surprise, but how I managed to get in was something I considered as a miracle. This was one of the rare occasions that I leveled with her and I was thrilled.

ence and if they did, I was always referred to as “Sophie’s friend”. I was merely an afterthought, but Sophie never seemed to notice.

Her appearance was the cherry on top of the Sophie Sundae.

She would strut around in her I’ve always been proud of Sophie, expensive clothes, not a hair out but that’s not to say I’ve never felt of place. Her annoyingly straight teeth were also blindingly white, like some sort of sidekick. and her sun-kissed skin made her look like a cover girl. With my She was always the one being jeans and plain shirts, I constantly shoved in the spotlight. She was always the one who got what she looked under-dressed next to her. wanted and she never had to work I felt sloppy and inadequate and as hard as the rest of us. For some there would always be this nasty feeling bubbling up inside me reason, life just hands her everywhenever I’d realize I would never thing on a silver platter. Being surrounded in all the Sophie glory be as good as her. made me feel like I’m about as useful as the letter ‘g’ in ‘lasagna’. Despite the green monster of jealousy constantly showing up, Next to her, people didn’t even look at me. Why would they, when I remained to be someone she could rely on. I ignored the nagthere’s her to stare at? People ging voice in my head telling me hardly acknowledged my pres-

end up with a girl like me when that I will never be as perfect as her. I convinced myself none of it there is a Sophie who exists in this truly seemed to matter, and clearly world? for Sophie, it didn’t either.

Ten years’ worth of frustration Her interest in my lack of love life and disappointments and pent-up aggression towards my best friend led her to introduce me to Jake. began to rapidly swell inside me, He was studying Anthropology threatening to burst and tear me and apparently shared similar interests with me. Because Sophie apart. Instead, I found myself was good at everything, who was I accusingly jabbing a finger at her, to question her Cupid skills? Jake blaming her for the almost’s and never’s in my life. My eyes flashed was a smart, laidback guy with a with a new kind of exasperation, great sense of humor, and was easy on the eyes; we immediately fully unleashing the green monster of jealousy that’s been asleep clicked. I was beginning to really inside me for so long. truly like him; but later on, the progress of our dating came to a All hell broke loose as I freed dead stop. every unspoken word, and I didn’t care. With every venomous word I threw at her, the monster de“It just happened,” Sophie constroyed our friendship, destroyed fessed, failing to look me in the her, and destroyed myself. eyes.

I discovered that it was her who he was falling for and not me. Of course; what else was I supposed to expect? How stupid was I to think that a guy like Jake would

As I shred everything to pieces, the only thing that remains is my satisfaction that she’s not so perfect after all.

-Rica Superable

Nevan Doyle

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?

Will I be pretty? What comes next? Oh right, will I be rich?” Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells.

The word hangs from our mothers’ hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry.

out, “What did you let them do to you!”

“Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?” But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dryad: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother.

And now, I have not seen my own face for 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me.

“How could this happen? You’ll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb. That’s why your teeth look like that!

You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were 6. Otherwise your nose would have been just fine!

“Don’t worry. We’ll get it fixed!” She would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way and that, as if it were a cabbage she might buy.

All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Like my mother, unwrapping the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty?

Pretty.”

This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.

About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.

This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When But this is not about her. Not her fault. She, too, was you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecuriraised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow ty, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworperoxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs. Laying thy of everything you will be, and no child of mine in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning will be contained in five letters. the brand new nose the surgeon had carved.

“You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty Belly gorged on 2 pints of my blood I had swallowed amazing. But you, will never be merely ‘pretty’.” under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside -Pretty, Katie Makkai

Unknown

At the crack of dawn, Steven has yet to accomplish a single paper assigned to him by his teachers. This was his second chance after failing to turn in anything on the first deadline. Despite this, there was no sense of urgency from the self-admitted slacker.

Even his friends think, it is a hopeless cause to encourage him to do what is asked from him. “This is his life. He wants this for himself. I just don’t want anyone blaming me for not pushing the guy. No one can say I didn’t try.” says his long-time friend, Greg.

Surely, Steven knew everyone had boiling points Steven, a junior in a priveledged exclusive private and that whatever chances he had of making it school, believed that laziness is a natural “side-effect” through the school year were now long gone. All of growing-up. To him, the most important thing in those years of dodging expulsion by a tiny margin the world is the “now”. He is way too caught up in a were catching up to him. moment to even bother caring about his own future. The school’s principal felt it was time to pull the plug. By sending a personal letter to Steven, PrinciHis parents have exhausted all possible options of pal Andrews looked to finally talk to Steven face-topushing Steven to reach his potential. His teachers face. think receiving any output from him is near-impossible. His friends barely see him.

By what some believed to be a divine miracle, Steven actually showed up to Principal Andrew’s office the Abandoning all regard for living his life, Steven has day after, as scheduled. Even Greg thought it was not found comfort and security in reclusion, enjoying like Steven to respond to invites like this one. the company of alcohol and video games. Every now and then, he would have friends over for company Steven entered the office and courteously greeted continually shutting out his other day-to-day respon- the secretary. Patiently waiting for to be called in, sibilities.

he examined the portraits hanging on the walls of the brightly-lit room. He saw the faces of the early founders of the prestigious school and a number of notable alumni. Just a few moments later, he heard his name being called from Principal Andrew’s room.

“Steven, how are you doing? Have a seat.” greets Principal Andrews, as he points to the seat adjacent his wooden desk.

“I’m doing alright, Mr. Andrews.” replies Steven.

“I already know where this is going and I’ve already told my parents. Is this it?”

“There’s one other thing.” At this point, Principal Andrews paused, as though he lost the ability to speak.

“What is it then?!” Steven is now getting quite impatient.

“Steven, I don’t know if you know but, I was once like you. I sat in that same seat with a different principal breaking the same news.”

“I think you know why I called you here. Surely, you’re perfectly aware that you have not exactly been meeting the academic standards of the school.” “…and your point is?”

“I know that. Hey, Mr. Andrews, if you called me just to break my grades down, then I’ll just escort myself to the door ‘cause…”

“It’s not too late, Steven.”

“Alright then, thanks for nothing, Mr. Andrews.”

“That’s not the reason you’re here today, Steven. You Steven stood up and quickly left. As much as he know…I have always hated being the bearer of bad wanted to forget everything that transpired, Mr. news but, someone has to do it.”

Andrews’s words lingered in his consciousness for the rest of his academic life.

-Chances, Kyle Chua

Tokwa Penaflorida

Some people say greed is good.

But is it really?

illness, this sin that was eating her up.

I am sitting in my bed with legs crossed leaning my back against the headboard as I turn to the last page of the book.

It started when we were in high school, Sarah spent on food, clothes, and gadgets more than she needed. Her name was everywhere, yet she still wanted everyone’s attention. Sarah won the election and she was making the most of it; ruling over the school. She was greedy for the material things of the world, for love, and for power.

‘You don’t really suppose do you that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck? Just for your sole benefit?

You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!’

‘Thank goodness!’ said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.

I ponder on the ending of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and realize that the last sentences sum up what the book is all about. It has a central theme of Greed evident in a lot of characters such as Bilbo, Thorin, and Smaug. Tolkien says that greed causes people to become irrational, if not corrupt.

And it reminded me a lot of Sarah.

Sarah and I were friends; we were close friends. I thought I completely knew her back then but there is this dysfunction, this

Her cravings were intense that it was out of control. Despite all our efforts, Sarah had turned her back against us. I tried to tell her but she wouldn’t listen. So there I was, hopelessly watching, as Avarice poisoned her soul slowly but surely.

Greed is not good. Greed is evil.

It always was.

We can easily be pulled in to the temptation to think we need to keep things for ourselves and that we deserve it. But we must remember that we are just a small piece of a larger game. We cannot remain greedy and selfish in this overcrowded world.

-Poison, Stephanie Cea

Josephine Cardin

It is said, “He who holds the hook is aware in what water many fish are swimming.” I was full once.

Before the night he gutted me. The night I heard my own ‘no’ echo into his cavernous moaning mouth.

And even then, I was only a fish, and what else was I good for but an easy catch.

I should have known better than to swim alone along such a dark and foreign shoreline, where grown men with rolled up sleeves reach beneath the surface groping the river for something alive. Something to turn into meat. He did not look like a fisherman. His clothing was not soaked up in the blood of a prey, nor did he smell of the sea. I mistook him for lighthouse, something innocuous.

Sometimes, it is accompanied by kind words and wet lips. Sometimes, it is easier to believe you deserve it. To believe you owe it to him. To wake up the next morning to serve him the pulp of you he scraped from your bones on a breakfast table, the class of orange juice, and let him walk you home holding your hand. And when you arrive at your front door, remove the hook from your throat and with a sore and grateful tongue, thank him for choosing to catch and release.

Even now in the retelling, what I would give to tell you I was a python coiling around the flesh of his neck ringing the life out of him slowly. What I would give to tell you I was an alligator, hyena, grisly bear, anything but a fish. Anything that doesn’t go down He must have slipped the hook down my throat without a fight. What I’d give to tell you I spit on as he brushed my hair behind my ear, bought my him, pushed him off of me, carved into his abdomen second gin and tonic. It is customary to keep fish wet with my own teeth. until you scale them.

But I am only a fish and what else is a fish good I was so taken by the act of being chosen I didn’t for but to be consumed even on the holiest of lent notice the pierce. Blood dripped behind my tongue without ever breaking his fast. And now, the first and this is my story. I let a man spread open my man since the gutting to bring me into his bed peels abdomen, reach inside, bypass my refusal, remove back my scales to find me empty. My liver, kidneys, parts of me and scoop them into his bucket. tongue, heart removed, my body stitched from gill to pelvic fin. My eyes cloudy and sunken. Underneath The thing about being raped I need you to underhis sheets, he thrusts into me. Ask me what’s wrong, stand is it doesn’t always happen on concrete. Some- if it’s his fault. Ask me, why I’m lying there lifeless times, the gutting happens inside of a bedroom. like a dead fish.

-The Gutting, Beth Cooper

I glance at the bed -- the right side that Abigail always claims to be hers. Her favorite thing to do, aside from absentmindedly tapping her foot, is to lie in Lost… alone in a loft with nothing but the ringing silence and the glaring absence of Abigail. It’s raining bed with the lights off and tell me the first memory again. The grey skies seem to mimic the heaviness in that comes to her mind. On the first night, she told my chest, but I won’t admit it -- not even to myself. I me how she climbed a tree when she was twelve, won’t admit that for the first time in a long time, the only to fall off with track tryouts the next day. She laughed, and it hit me hard how her laugh is easily emptiness is silently wrecking me on the inside. I divert my eyes away from Abigail’s now-empty draw- the best sound I’ve ever heard. And as the night got er and the bobby pins that are left strewn across the deeper, so did her stories. Abigail lied on her back as she told me that her parents have always been floor in her haste. happily married until her mother passed away when she was sixteen. Her dad still sets her plate on the It’s my fault. A year of being with Abigail lulled me dining table every meal and that’s when she knew into a state of safety and serenity that I’ve always she needed a love like that. She smiled at me like she thought was too good to be true... too good to be happening to a person like me. I’ve always convinced knew something I didn’t. myself that this feeling of euphoria had an expiration date. It was too exhausting to be constantly afraid I would lie quietly next to her. Most times I let the silence blanket as I let the air speak for me. I’ve always of what’s going to happen next. And as an easy way out, I ended it. Just like that. But I’m never going to loved listening to her but not as much as she loved listening to me. admit that what I did weighs heavily on the dumb side of a hypothetical scale because I no longer have “Your turn,” she’d whisper, closing her eyes. to be a slave to my own emotions.

I don’t know how I ended up here.

Peony Yip

She would wait, occasionally stealing glances at me. Abigail had always been patient, never pushing me into sharing more than I volunteer to. I tiptoe around mine, telling as little as I can but enough to appease her for a while. We came to an unspoken conclusion that discussing my past is a taboo territory. As much as I loved Abigail, I wasn’t up for being emotionally stripped down, baring my soul, all vulnerable and weak. Not again. The darkness of peaceful nights tricks us into believing it’ll keep all our secrets for us. Then she’d look at me like she can see right through me, but she’d only purse her lips and leave a whisper of a kiss on my collarbone.

All the time, she would try to peel back my layers.

She cried once, asking me why I was so impossibly distant, as if I’m in some far off place she couldn’t reach. In the end, it was never enough of a reason for me to take down the walls I’ve desperately built to shut everything out. I didn’t need to. I was fine. I am fine.

The night I ended everything, Abigail was too tired to even put up a fight, as if she expected it. She looked

up at me with those brown eyes I knew so well, and she shook her head.

“You’re scared of the way I make you feel because you don’t want to feel anything.”

And with that, Abigail walked away from my apartment and out of my life.

My first coherent thought the moment she left was that she forgot her iPod and I registered the palpable heaviness of everything. The walls I’ve built around me shook with each passing second she’s gone, but this is all too familiar. In the grander scheme of things, it’s all the same. I saved myself.

Long before, I’ve learned to be the one who walks away first… to be the one who leaves before I’m left.

So tell me. What is it like to call someone else’s arms “home”, and not your own skin and bones?

-Walls, Rica Superable

Peony Yip

EDITORIAL TEAM JANINE SEVALLA STEPHANIE CEA KYLE CHUA JOLO YULO RICA SUPERABLE AARON SUMAYO

special thanks Ms. Eden Estopace Shea Martinez, Button Poetry, Azra Tabassum, Beth Cooper, Katie Makkai Nando, Tokwa Penaflorida, Ariel Tangaoan, Nevan Doyle, Josephine Cardin, Peony Yip, Alyssa Bartoline Nicolle Groves, Hannah Locsin, Orlando Suites http://dantemagazine.com