DEFINITION OF TERMS

prepared by Sabrina Ysabelle C. Ledesma inspired by the poetry, stories, and themes found in this folio

anemoia, n. The world is never as we see it. There is always more beneath the surface and beyond the cracks that we are yet to unravel. Soon enough, we’ll realize there is no war between man and life; or time and existence. No matter how far we pull at the limits of these strings, we could never fight an enemy we can’t even begin to understand. All that is expected of a human being is to see the earth and every moment it spends through their eyes. Let sight record every encounter of time and life, experience the best of every side of existence through someone else’s memories, and come up with our own mundane conclusions. But still, all we can do is just observe––and never understand. Not even when these forces fight tooth and nail for greater control, nor when they smear themselves into our own paths. No, in the end, all we can do is sit down, watch, and long for a day where we would finally understand. astronomy, n. In retrospect, it’s all really just ridiculous. How can four stars, who shouldn’t even be aware of each other’s existence, determine one’s fate? How can the distance in between outline the shape that dictates who a person is? How can the perfect placement of these celestial bodies make everything make sense to someone? Oh, of course. Of course, the answer is still you. I guess I can’t really question the stars when you’ve been lightyears away and I’ve been adjusting every beat of my heart just to try and get over you. It’s hard seeing you around, this constant reminder of what I lost. But I don’t see you as I did before. No, you’re different and I’m...well, exactly as the four stars foretold—brash, impulsive, and all–too compassionate—all because you were at the right place and just at the right moments. atlas, n. We’ve all been there. Nobody tells you, but it happens to all of us. It’s not like the stories we hear, though. The world doesn’t crash down on you out of nowhere until you suddenly become the hero amongst many. No, it was never that simple. Like a heavy heart, the odds will stack against you, weigh you down day after day. There will be forces that will entangle you in uncertainty, people that will burn your life to ruins, and moments that will leave you stuck in the retelling. But the world is still yours and it is you who carries it. To be the titan who holds up the earth is one thing, but to be the fickle heart who braves through this sphere of doubt is the true victor. So live this, every second of it, and command weight into your existence. You can only rise from here on out.

axis, n. I don’t want to keep yearning for a lifetime with you. This was never just something to pass the time. When I said I was meant for you, I meant it. And there’s no more pretending here. I can’t go on with the lie that I’m not helplessly in love with you… because I am. What I feel about you isn’t just some wish on a shooting star because it is like the axis that my world turns on. So even when the world shatters itself, I can always rely on this probability of us meeting. But for now, I’ll spin madly on until I wouldn’t have to.

big bang, n. They say the world was born from this cataclysmic explosion, but mine just started with you. In the midst of silence and chaos, it all led to now. To my existence constantly yearning to be pulled into your orbit. My heart has now grown to be the singularity, the crash site of every feeling you’ve brought upon me, like cosmos that rush down to my very core, stretching more and more every minute spent with you. You truly are something, aren’t you?

clandestine, adj. Here we are again, in this quiet. The same one that used to be so deafening, so painfully empty that my mind began to wander in the worst places. Luckily enough, my heart went to the right orbit—her. When I’m here, in this infinite map of darkness, nothing else matters but the whispers of our hearts. In this silence, we exist far more than they’ve ever let us. From beyond the earth, we become the wreckage of order and the living proof of fate. After all, why would I keep listening to a sphere of chaos that has grown to hate me, when I can bask in the silence of loving a person completely? clay, n. When daylight breaks, I hope you forget about me. Even when it stings every vein in me, I hope you stop begging me to stay. Some sick and desperate part of me wishes we never met at all. We both know this was always ephemeral, just an illicit affair that fate allowed to expand into years of shamed looks yet passionate hearts. It was never even meant to happen. You have your kingdom and I have my legacy to fulfill. And that’s okay, it has to be okay. Because we will always be a part of each other. We will always be clay. We will always be the dust of dust from which this earth was created. And someday, as we take our final breaths, maybe we’ll be back to where we were, where we were always meant to be—each other.

collision, n. I like to believe that in some weird way, my orbit is meant to go along yours. I know it’s crazy and we have our own specific place and I’m not even supposed to see you like that but… what if I was right? Maybe we were born from the same crash billions of years ago and we’re the ones who are meant to retell this story? I don’t know, I can’t stop thinking about it, how great we would be. How the stars would be reborn from the moment I hold your hand in mine. How fate will once again switch its gears in favor of this celestial creation. How we will exist even in the darkest reaches of space. It’s a silly thing, I know but… maybe one day? constellation, n. Life hasn’t been easy without you. How could it be when it was always you who made it feel like it was supposed to be? Everything has been so different ever since you left. It’s as if your death suddenly meant the demise of the village as well. It’s quite sick if you think about it, how these gods just take and take, and glorify their murders by painting them in the sky. Meanwhile, everything underneath unfolds in inevitable chaos. But knowing you’re somewhere up there in the sky, living in your own constellation, helps me feel closer to you. I wonder, when I die someday, would my mark in the sky be worth the loss? cosmos, n. They say this is what we call the universe when we believe there’s more to discover than what we are shown. That space has its own secrets and the earth has more to unravel. One thing remains, though—perspective. No matter what lies beyond us or what creeps around, humans grow with the vocabulary of poetry. These cosmos we’ve grown to love the sight of are the very things we sacrifice ourselves for, the ones that remind us of subtle pinks and blues of the skies. For some, it’s the skinny intentions with the great star’s stare; for others, the oak tree where the young crown prince once fell as he reached for the skies; for most, the in-between moments of dusk and dawn.

creator, n. It’s okay, really. When everything falls apart, you’re allowed to curse at the world. You can curse the heavens for not putting enough stars in your eyes, blinding you every time you look in the mirror. You can curse the oceans for being too deep, catching everything but your fall, leaving you stuck within the boundaries of a bitter life. And you can curse at god for leaving you in this forsaken place that has only gone to show that you don’t belong here. Our maker is nothing but words on a book, but you? You can always have one genesis after the other and rebuild history with your heart. The earth is nothing but a sphere of ignored existence and life is too short for the constant wreckage of humanity. Remember, this is your world before it is god’s—you can always renew its torn nature or bear a new one.

crown, n. A lot of people think that the moment you earn a crown, life treasures you with every fortune there is. Perhaps in some ways, that is true. But all it really did was grow heavy on my heart—a weight that burdens the one it has always beat for all the same. There couldn’t be 76

two kings, after all, and I know that’s on me. Was it even the universe who wasn’t on our side, or just my fear to fight for you? It’s too late to question this, and god knows I’ve spent every second since you left trying to piece together what has already been gone. Maybe when dawn arrives, I’ll really forget about you this time.

earth, n. It all started from dust and dirt and in the grand view of things, it really all is just that. Without question, however, there is still a lot more weight to it. It carries itself with so much I often fear it’ll crack and shatter into the ruins of endless memories. Sometimes I feel like that too. Just dust, dirt, and a whole lot of chaos to make me feel less hollow (it doesn’t work, by the way). The difference is, will there be anyone who’ll see me as their world and carry the weight of this emptiness? Or am I just another body, on the edge of breaking into fragments of a wasted life? existence, n. I’m tired. I really mean it this time. I’m tired when I shouldn’t be. Life has been good, it’s just… the same old thing over and over again. I’ve been living in a world of black and white with nothing in the midst of it. Even my best moments are all lost in the in–between, faded and blurred the moment I get back home. It’s like I have nothing to ache for, nothing to shake my senses and keep my world spinning. I yearn for the pain I’ve spent too afraid to demand. Now all that’s left of me is a tired heart and nothing else. Just a hollow silhouette, waiting for something that might never come back. Shouldn’t life carry more weight than just this sad excuse for living? I really hope so… But maybe all I am is an apocalypse, existing only for survival.

extinction, n. The first message was clear. We weren’t supposed to go further. Not when we were just cluelessly approaching death. But how were we supposed to know an early arrival by billions of years was even possible? So we went, no matter the circumstance. It was a battle between fear and pride and of course, we chose the latter. If fate has its plan for us, then so be it. We set the course of demise, but death doesn’t have to mean losing. Let god’s wishes come to life, let the path towards us glow brighter than the swelling sun, and let the maker find us, crush our lungs until life becomes nothing but a fight well-fought. The first message was clear. We weren’t supposed to go further but how were we supposed to know? forces, n. I know I was always the dreamer, too much of it that I’d fall off trees while I try to reach for the stars. You enjoyed it though, every second of my wandering mind. But I know you fear it too, sometimes. Like now—when we’re both just a dusk away from reality pouring its inevitable misfortune. But fate and reality are two different things. The truth is, I’ve spent so long living through fantasies, I never let the weight of the world get to me, and now it’s all crashing down. We’re not kids anymore and you’re no fool. You know I only beg from my heart but my mind always wins. You once thought the stars never aligned for us, but we are just hours away from them finally sharing the same orbit or forever drifting apart. And it’s all up to me. I know I was always a dreamer, but reality grounded me too far and this destined collision—well, it seems like our worlds are never gonna bear a better beginning and just witness this unexpected ending.

fate, n. They say it’s nothing but a fool’s god, that our lives are ours to map out and erase until we see what we want. But the moment our hearts feel a tugging from within, we follow along its orbit. So when you came in and dropped storms all over me, am I really one to blame for letting you? After all, how can I be unforgiving when it is you who destiny intertwined me with? genesis, n. Like everyone else, I greeted existence with a loud cry. It was no big bang, but perhaps it was still some sort of explosion to welcome in the birth of a new life. Or maybe it was a siren, a desperate warning for a new victim that life only knows two things: to steal and to kill. Think about it, we think so precious of it all, we don’t even realize we’ve been robbed of love and readied for death all along. So when our god proves he’s against us, why shouldn’t we create our own worlds?

god, n. Don’t blame yourself for betraying what you were always meant to praise. Nobody should hold that much power anyway, not when all gods do is bring life into chaos or steal it before you even realize. From warriors, from the ordinary, even from little kids. How can they expect you to think of them as a source of faith and joy when they don’t even look at us as real, living beings, with lives of our own to preserve. You don’t have to hide the bruises on your knees, it must be tiring to worship someone who can only betray you—so you can always return the favor and curse at your god for creating a life so cruel to you. We’ll all end up in the same inevitable paradox anyways, either die in the hands of god or pray that we never see it coming.

lifetime, n. We ache for what we can’t have. And human as we are, we let ourselves. We let minutes stretch into a lifetime and lifetimes shrink down to trinkets of false hope. We are drawn to the uncertainty of existing, as I am drawn to you. It was a promise, after all. For every lifetime you are born in, the earth would welcome me there too. As the clocks spin their gears and recreate one realm after another, the universe will paint the exact same skies we were under in every single reality. Because there is one thing that survives the shifts of time—the truth. Whether our paper rings crumble into dirt or the cherry smell of your cologne fades from my senses, we are going to meet in every—

moon, n. It’s a shame nobody sees you the way I do. I would never understand how they overlook you. You, who learned how to keep your glow even in this graveyard of lifeless celestials. They may never see you for what you truly are—the radiance who only reincarnates into greater beauty and never loses the battle of demise—but my mind is the void of the night sky, holding you tight in the precious reaches of my dreams, singing you a lament from my heart. Infinitely. paradox, n. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unchangeable occurrence? I wouldn’t know… I just know that I keep running to every realm where I’m still hers. I haven’t gone back to reality for weeks, it’s all really just a blur now. It keeps aching for me, though. For every jump to a different fantasy, I start getting pulled back as if my silhouette has created a ripple effect of nonexistence. But that’s not mine to care for, not anymore. Nothing can set me off my course, not when fate allows me to control its gears. I know I’m never truly gonna have her again but I also know that there is always a wrinkle in the truth, a loophole I can get myself sucked into. This is just where I belong, I guess—in the pulling of the truth and the tugging of the heart, the paradox of everything I’ve lost and loved again.

price, n. We don’t determine our fate, sometimes it just doesn’t work like that and reality hits. But when you’re really lucky, you find something stronger than fate—fear. The fear to love and to lose. So you sacrifice every piece of you for her—your world, your time, even your immortality. We don’t determine our fate, but life has its very own loopholes; its own clever ways of living forever, you just need to know who’s worth the price. reality, n. It truly is a god of its own, isn’t it? It demands pain, only for us to crumble at its feet. The truth seeks what we have chosen to avoid, and I am a fool caught in this trap. I find myself surrendering to you once more, betraying the very god I was taught to worship to bow down to yours. For I love you far more than I love him. So I’ll fly on the raven’s back, brave through this bitter treachery, and praise the god you worship. I’ll let the weight overcome me and crash me down over and over again. Life is nothing without your existence, so I’ll conquer the forces of fate until the truth means having you.

realm, n. Snap! There they are again, that same couple I’ve been seeing. A little bit different, but just as happy. They sit under a tree, echoing laughter into the field in front of them. They probably think so otherworldly of each other to be this in love—oh… he really isn’t from here? Snap! The sky looks empty here, a huge contrast to the first memory shown. He’s alone this time too, talking to some determining force of his fate. Deadly threats pour onto him but all he can 78

seem to do is be an immortal foolishly defying his purpose. He goes through all of this just to love a mundane who he should have never clutched onto in the first place. Snap! She’s back. Or rather, I’m back visiting her life. Or at least, the last moments of it. The immortal begs her to stay, to go on without him but in the end, the mundane paid the price. Snap! I… I’m back? I don’t understand… What was th—Noah? What is he doing here? Oh, it’s him. He waited, from our first world to this one, he really stayed. I guess realms are just short distances from another when a promise is made from the heart. stardust, n. I really don’t think you understand. My existence solely lives for you, and nothing else. So when I collect every speck in me into my core and multiply my lifespan by millions, I hope you understand that this disambiguation is my attempt to combust bright enough and outshine everything else that blur your eyes from me. The moment I immerse into my rebirth, I can only pray I’ve left enough debris to leave you aching for more. everything else that blur your eyes from me. The moment I immerse into my rebirth, I can only pray I’ve left enough debris to leave you aching for more.

time traveler, n. It’s hard to shift back to reality when I have to turn back time to exist in yours. I often kid myself with the thought of meeting you again. Of seeing your eyes and knowing that you’ve been yearning to see me too. But the moment I hear the deafening ticking of the clock, I’m reminded of my own ridicule. So why shouldn’t I go all the way and control the gears? For every second I spend aching to come back to you, I’ll relive every minute I didn’t have to. I’ll keep running through all the timelines where love still meant now. I’ll chase after every beginning I had with you and detour when dusk arrives. So trap me in this wormhole of memories, wrap me in the ivy of the past, call me a fool for love—in the end, I’d rather keep running than run out of time. torn, adj. I keep finding myself stuck in this paradox: the blinding shades of the past or the obscure reality of the future? Even my body is starting to question it. Every nerve inside it trembles to the sight of this hall that warps my senses. I can’t help but lose my way in this maze of foggy illusions. These loud murmurs haunt my surroundings as I relive every violent streak of memories and visions. There’s nothing here but the black holes of yesterday and tomorrow. These maelstroms of time and pain tug at each other against my very will but all the while, I remain to be nothing but a torn soul.

universe, n. The universe, as vast as we know it, has plans for all of us; stories that lie behind its very celestial bodies; and mysteries waiting to be discovered. Don’t rely on your time here. Time is the earth’s way of trapping us in a cycle of mundanity. It’ll trick you that you’ve seen all there is, that the hourglass is emptying its days in you, that you are just a remnant of an afterthought. And life? It’s nothing but an illusion to make you feel like you have to leave a mark in a world full of sand. So forget it all. Forget the rules of living and seek what your heart aches for. No matter what it is, there is always more to unravel.

weight, n. Would you question the world and wonder if it questions you too? Would you reverse astronomy and let the skies discover you? Would you take the risk of knowing pain like the edge of a knife? Would you gamble the agony of losing someone for the work of loving them? Would you even dare to ache for your heart’s longing? Would you even dare demand weight into your existence? Is it even really living when your hands aren’t bruised as harsh as your chest should be? The world is a hollow sphere waiting to be filled, do you really wanna carry a casket of what could’ve been your whole life?