Fragments of the Quiet Mind

  There’s a particular kind of silence that doesn't come from the absence of sound—but from the absence of being noticed . I started sensing it in passing moments. Someone would ask, “Have we met?” even though we had. I'd smile politely, pretend I hadn’t noticed. Or I’d speak in a group and the conversation would just move on, like my words were smoke that didn’t catch. It's not dramatic. It's not cruel. It just is . Like static. Like walking into a room and not shifting its air. I don’t think anyone meant to forget me. I just think I made it easy. Maybe it was a defense. Maybe if I became nobody in particular, I wouldn’t have to explain the contradictions in me—the softness I kept folding away, the chaos I never learned how to speak, the loneliness I wore like a neutral color. Being undefined was safer than being misunderstood. But invisibility has its own weight. A quiet grief. You start wondering if your life is happening to someone else. If you’re just borrowin...

We live as if endings are always signs of failure. As if something must be broken for the door to close, the chapter to end, the thread to unravel. But sometimes, things don’t end because they’ve fallen apart. They end because they’ve simply... faded.  Fading doesn’t need fixing. It’s not a flaw in the design of the universe—it’s just a shift in the seasons. Some things are meant to exist only for a time. They come to you like light from a distant star, bright and warm, but you can’t hold it forever. You can only bask in it while it’s here. We fear the end, don’t we? The clean break that leaves us standing in the aftermath, wondering what we missed. But maybe it’s not about what we missed. Maybe it’s about what we gained in the process of letting go. Not everything that fades is lost. Not everything that ends is broken. Some things end because they’ve already given us what they came to give. And that’s enough. We hold on too tightly to moments, people, dreams, as if by sheer forc...

There’s a kind of quiet violence in nostalgia. It doesn’t hit you all at once—it slips in gently, like the softest of whispers, and before you know it, you're drowning in it. The past, once a source of comfort, becomes a place you can never return to. And yet, you keep going back, searching for something you can never hold again. How strange it is, that the very memories that once warmed us, now tear at us with a tenderness we don’t know how to escape. We remember those moments with a bittersweet ache—those sunlit afternoons, those laughs shared like nothing could ever hurt us. Back when the world was wide, and we were still so sure. But with every recollection, there’s a sting. A reminder that those days are gone, and we are not who we were. That somehow, even the most beautiful moments can become burdens. The beauty of the past becomes a shadow, pulling us back, trapping us in a version of ourselves that no longer exists. It’s not that we regret those days. No, we cherish th...

She didn’t knock. She never does. She slipped in through the cracks, between an unanswered message and the sound of your own breath in an empty room. I thought I was alone. Then she sat beside me— not quite touch, not quite ghost— and I realized I’d invited her the moment I stopped trying to be found. She looked nothing like loneliness. She looked like quiet mornings and unfinished thoughts. She smelled of old pages and cold air. And when I met her eyes, I saw my own reflection—just softer, quieter, blurred. I called her company, but she didn’t speak. She just waited, until I filled the silence with everything I never said out loud. We danced once, I think. Or maybe I just swayed while she stood still. Her hand never touched mine, but I swear I felt it where all my noise used to live. She wasn’t cruel. She never asked for anything— just that I stay. And for a while, I did. Because her silence was gentle. And I mistook that for safety. But Solitude is a ...

Goodbyes are rarely the dramatic moments we imagine. We think they’ll be loud—final, decisive, with all the weight of an ending hanging in the air. But in reality, goodbyes often take their time, slipping in quietly, unnoticed until they’ve already happened. It’s never one single moment, but a slow withdrawal, a gradual absence. The first missed text doesn’t feel like much. The second time they cancel plans doesn’t seem like a signal. But over time, these small moments accumulate, and one day you realize they’ve stopped calling, stopped reaching out. You don’t know when it happened exactly—just that it did. It’s a strange thing, how people can disappear without making a sound. You can still see their name on your phone, hear their voice in your head, but in the space between you, there’s a silence that didn’t exist before. It's not an ending. It’s a slow, deliberate pulling away—one step at a time, until there’s a distance too great to bridge. Some goodbyes don’t shout. They’re ...

sometimes, letting go doesn’t happen with a bang. it’s a slow fade-out, like your wifi signal dropping in the middle of a zoom call. this is your faux guide to vanishing gracefully—because who says being forgotten can’t be an art form? Step 1: Respond only in lowercase. no punctuation. no enthusiasm. just the emotional range of a potato. they’ll ask “are you okay?” and you’ll say “lol yeah” every message reads like it was typed from beneath a blanket of emotional detachment. you’re emotionally open the way a gas station bathroom is ‘open’—technically, yes, but no one’s excited to check. eventually, people stop expecting depth. or joy. or… replies. you become the human version of an autocorrect error. forgettable. soft. lowercase You’re basically elevator music now—heard, ignored, and emotionally skipped. Step 2: Exit group chats like a ghost with commitment issues. Don’t announce it. Just slowly react less. Heart-react a meme 3 days late. Laugh at a joke that’s clearly ...

There’s something about the Cheshire Cat that’s always lingered in my mind—not as a character, but as a presence. That grin, suspended in midair like a sliver of moonlight. It's not just playful. It’s unsettling, disarming. A reminder that not everything needs to make sense to leave an impression. I used to think it was just whimsy, part of the nonsense. But over time, I started seeing myself in that disappearing act. Phases where I’d drift in and out of people’s lives—or maybe they drifted out of mine. Times when clarity blinked in for a second, then vanished like smoke in a room with no windows. And all that remained was a feeling. A trace. A grin. The more I tried to chase answers, the more absurd the questions became. Direction blurred. Days dissolved into one another. I moved like Alice—confused, stubborn, still pretending to understand the rules. But maybe the trick was to stop trying to decode the map and just pay attention to how the path felt . Sometimes the fog tells yo...

Sitting in the jeepney with my child, I found myself quietly observing the scene next to us—a mother with her own little one, perhaps six years old. Unlike my kid, who seems to have inherited a relentless curiosity, drilling down into every detail until the universe surrenders its secrets, this child sat silently, her eyes wandering around in a restless search for something to latch onto. Boredom, perhaps—a boredom she couldn’t quite contain. Every so often, she would ask her mother a question, her voice a soft interruption to the hum of the journey. “Ma, may baon na ba ako?” “Ma, nagbayad na tayo?” “Ma, bakit nagjeep lang tayo?” Simple, practical questions. And each time, the mother would respond with a brief nod or a shake of her head, her attention never fully leaving that small compact mirror she kept pulling out to pat her face with powder. It’s funny, isn’t it?  the things we notice when we let our minds wander?  There she was, clutching a designer bag, scrolling through...