I had to leave for the prospect of short-lived rain. I had to leave because store-bought bread, as I suspected, didn't have to be stale and could come in different nutty flavors; that peanut butter didn't have to drip from an open-face sandwich. I had to leave poverty. I had to leave hopelessness.
I had to leave because I didn't have enough money for my son's decent education. I had to leave the inbred life of campus thinking. I had to leave the inanity of jobless days.
I had to leave because my friends were being published, having one-man/woman shows and I didn't. I had to leave because I was belly-aching. I had to leave my botched affairs to oblivion. I had to leave because my mother only had us, her children, left.
I had to leave because there was no one in particular to leave behind. I had to leave because I wasn't feeling particularly patriotic. I had to leave because, though able to sing "Home" and "Bridges" decently enough, I couldn't make it to Japan.
I had to leave because I didn't have the gall to uphold the legacy of the "dawn after the darkest hour" of EDSA I. I had to leave because subsequently I couldn't care less who was seated in Malacañang—because I believed that it didn't matter what I believed. I had to leave because I'm not the kind to take to the bundok for love of my fellowmen and fellow women. I had to leave because, though I had the desire to serve, social work was not in my flow.
I had to leave because poignant as it was, "Bayan Ko" was a kundiman, was a song of lost and unrequited love. I had to leave because I was not by any long shot related to a Lopez, or a Limcauco, or any other Spanish- or Chinese-sounding name that would have guaranteed my survival. No judge godmother, no doctor lover ... heck, not even a lawyer friend! I had to leave because I wouldn't have inherited a house-and-lot in the villages nor even a barung-barong on the reclamation land.
I had to leave because I had to leave... because Inang Bayan, with all her good intentions and unconditional love couldn't cradle my dreams and aspirations, that all she had left to offer was the square of dirt that I stood on.
And yet, for whatever it would have been worth, I wish that I stood that one-square foot of ground for what I believed— because even now, I still could not totally leave.
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