I did not know that a person could be a prayer until I met you.

Your presence was like a psalm I had overheard in a language,

I was never meant to speak; beautiful yet unbearable and not for me.

Still, I learned it by heart.

You moved through the world as if it were holy, and I became a man 

who suddenly believed in something I could not name.

When you loved me back, it was not a gift. It was a consecration. 

A laying on of hands I had not asked for.

Longing for you was bearable, but having you undid me.

To be held by you was to stand inside a burning bush and not be consumed–

only changed, only emptied, only filled with a fire I could not carry nor put out.

So I left.

It never felt lacking, but it became too overwhelming.

It asked me to become someone I did not know how to be.

Because grace, when it is real, is a terrible weight.

I left the way a man flees a temple, believing that his presence

desecrates the innocence of the altar within.

I left so that you could be loved by someone 

who does not flinch at the sight of heaven.

I left because to stay would have been to lie–

to pretend I could hold you without falling to my knees every time.

And now, in the quiet after, I carry you

like a benediction I am still learning how to receive.

I do not pray for you,

for you are prayer itself. You always were.

- Josias Je Rellora, from the anthology 'Love, Maybe'

(Layout by Runoel Julius B. Barde/FEU Advocate)