Letters

59

Letters to the Universe

Liza Bianca D. Tacliad

Everybody dreamt of being an astronaut-- to stand at the precipice and see how the northern lights unwind you as you succumb to its delight; to glance into your telescope one more time and just imagine how many light years would it take you to land on planet B3C24? Where people can wear layers of thick jumpers even in a hot summer's day, eat flavourless ice cream, paint the solar system while learning the entire universe; marking them along the back of their hands and say, “Hey, I know the solar system like the back of my hands”.

When you have symptoms of schizophrenia, there is not something really to be proud of; all you can think about is many things. Meet my shadows: Lela Delusion! Dear Cosmos, today Jack bought me lunch at work, I just realized how thoughtful he is and—oh, no maybe he is trying to poison me… Hilda Hallucination! Dear cosmos, today I saw a monkey throwing bananas at me and he is laughing recklessly, hah! Hilarious, but I did not care because

I was the only one who saw it. Jenifer Disorganised Speech! Dear cosmos, I said some higgledy-piggledy words to myself today, “duck, phone, meteors, pencil, bubbles?” Do not worry though nobody heard me. Bubbles Disorganised Behaviour! Dear Cosmos, I am on my way to planet B3C24 and I am so excited to wear all the jumpers I have; and Catherine Catatonic Behaviour! Oh~ dear Cosmos, Jack said we could be friends, and I am utterly shocked! I literally did not move a single muscle; I was like this (gesture) for four hours! Avery Avolition! You know, I would have made my DIY astronaut suit but nah…

My dear, dear Cosmos, I remembered when Sara Kay said, there is pain, oh, there is hurt. Right here which band-aids, music, poetry, even chocolates cannot fix for no matter how wide I stretch my fingers, my hands will always be too small to catch the pain I want to heal. I felt that. They would not comprehend how my spine is made of celestial bodies, expanding to fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars, to let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. Then finally, Cosmos answered back and said, “You are the masterpiece of peculiarity and enigma, you are not an easy code to decipher, a nice matter of cosmic-dust in which the gravitational pull is too strong to bear even for their intermolecular forces. I appreciate you.” Your loving, cosmos. P.S Welcome to B3C24. 60

Dibuho ni

Marielle Ann Fernandez

61