Miss

by Franz Austin De Mesa

Missing has become a misnomer. I see it passed around mistakenly, see it miss its marks and what it used to mean. Maybe it’s because we’ve said it so often: I miss traveling, I miss visiting friends, I miss a lot of things.

Like the mist that forms on the windows of LRT after rain, or the catching of my breath as I rush through the downpour with wet misguided feet. I long again for the sore bump from falling drunk on the sidewalk, the misaligned bone, the sprained ankle—mementos of misfits that misbehaved.

I miss a place where missing was blissful, where we could reminisce about our memories over a cold glass. And talk about our dreams as time passed lying down wrapped in blankets, staring at the ceiling, into the stars with misty eyes, lucky enough to say “I’m gonna miss… you guys” in person.

But now missing is a misconception, thrown about like cheap plastic about things we misremember. Forgetting what it was we wanted to go back to, to replay, to revel in again. Like I miss that city that has been missing for the past two years, a city misrepresented in my mind. “These signs are new; there was once a store here; wait, when did that Jollibee close? I miss that bar we used to go, it had that— what was it? It was called, Spot—something?” Those fractured hesitations like missiles destroying what we used to, what we used to chant by heart.

Even you, I’ve told time and time again: I miss, and I keep missing like a parallel line with no chance for misdirection, A stormtrooper with no talent for shooting.

I miss you without even knowing your hair’s texture— if it is still like the bristles of a walis tingting, or a soft wet rag like your cat’s tail— or what lack of sleep is chambered in your voice without the static messing it around. All that I love about you is missing; I’ve misrecognized you for someone that doesn’t exist anymore.

Perhaps we have forgotten what it really means to miss something. To go back in time to the way things would mean we’d miss all the changes that have transpired. All evolutions, all metamorphoses that we’ve endured, would come back to mysteries. Likely, we would repeat the same mistakes.

I tried to go back, and learn where the word miss came from, From the Proto-Indo-European root mei, meaning “to change.” Once I was reminded of this, I realized that it is true then.

Two years ago, the world and all its inhabitants had gone missing. And never to be found again. F