Grandfather
Some nights I dream of nothing at all:
paper-soft silence
& spiderweb thoughts
unspooling—
I, drifting along the roadside in Manila.
This is a street I do not know. I will write about it forever.
Your knuckles against windowpane wake me, & I bolt from the unfamiliar room without thinking to say hello.
I spend my last night in the motherland crying out of guilt. You take your last breaths here; you take your last breaths without ever knowing me, yet you carried me with you every day— I will do the same for you.
When I relearn how to sleep soundly, I dream of ambling toward your street in the distance. You are there in the distance,
& the air is all sunlight & sounds like you.
Noreen Ocampo (she/her) is a Filipina American writer double-majoring in English and Film Studies at Emory University. She is also currently a book reviewer for COUNTERCLOCK, a very amateur singer-songwriter, and an Animal Crossing enthusiast. In the future, Noreen aims to fulfill a role in the intersection between storytelling and education. She is a regular contributor for Marías at Sampaguitas.
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