Tag: Alyssa Ilaguison

1. Begin with the rice.
   Day-old, cold, waiting in the bowl.
   Grains cling to each other as I press them with my fingers.
   They never loosen the way yours did.
   Set it aside.
   We learned to wait for the small, stubborn hope
   that someone might still return
   after the burial.
2. Rinse it gently.
   Run your fingers through water.
   The water clouds.
   It smells faintly of the kitchen you left behind.
   Swirl. Lift. Swirl again.
   The motion should be ordinary, but my arms ache.
   There is no instruction for how long this takes.
   The grains never remember your hands.
   The water never clears. 
3. Crack the eggs.
   Beat them slowly, coax them together.
   Add garlic, sliced thin.
   Add ginger.
   Scrape the memory from the edge of the knife.
   Spring onions. Soy sauce.
   There is no measure, no recipe, no certainty.
   Your hands knew.
   Mine only tremble.
   I whisper your name over and over
   and still nothing answers. 
4. Heat the wok.
   Oil shimmers and waits.
   I pour it too fast.
   The flame jumps.
   The metal looks at me with patience I do not deserve.
   I want to be steady, useful,
   to hold something without breaking.
   Ahma, I want to move like you moved,
   to meet heat without fear, to meet life without trembling.
5. Pour the eggs.
   Fold them gently against the pan.
   Lift. Push. Stir.
   They break anyway.
   Add the rice.
   Fold it in, separate the grains.
   Add everything else.
   Push and fold and lift.
   The spoon clangs against the pan.
   It is loud enough to remind me
   I am learning in the dark.
   Ahma, I want your hand over mine,
   even for a second,
   to guide me on what I do not know how to do.
6. Taste.
   It is warm. Only warm.
   It fills the stomach but not the room.
   The color you coaxed from white things
   does not come.
   It stays muted, shy, unfinished.
   I swallow anyway.
7. Fold, stir, fold again.
   My arms ache. My hands fail.
   Everything responds to heat except the one who taught me.
   This kitchen knows.
   The wok knows.
   The rice knows.
   I still refuse to know.
8. Ahma, if you can hear me,
   Come back long enough to teach me
   what Mama refused to learn.
   Come back so my hands can finally be good
   for something that matters.
   Come back so this recipe
   does not end here,
   so I do not have to learn alone.
   Come back so this rice finally knows
   what it was meant to become.

---

Alyssa Ilaguison is a media producer and, at times, a writer, from Davao. Her works have appeared in MindaNews, Sunstar Davao, and Dagmay.

You were told to wear the blue one-piece
because the two-piece seemed too much.
The instructor’s whistle sliced the air,
marking time with each sharp note.
You lined up at the pool’s edge,
feet flat against the concrete lip,
waiting for the water to strip you bare.

The water is not cold.
It is just unfamiliar.
She says, blow bubbles through your nose,
says it’s easy to breathe underwater.
Says kick, not like a horse, but like
you love the floor leaving.

No one tells you
that swimming begins with surrender.
That you must let your body forget
it was built for land.
She says arms like windmills,
says float like a leaf,
but leaves only ever
go limp in gutters.

Week one,
you tread water like prayer,
each movement a question
you’re afraid to ask out loud.

Week two,
a boy says you swim like
you’re drowning.
You let the words sink.
Think: same thing.
Think: he doesn’t know
what it means to look up
and still not breathe.

Your mother in the bleachers
folds and refolds a towel on her lap.
You curse her under your breath.
That summer, she told you
God watches even when you’re underwater.

Week three,
your legs cramp mid-lap.
You clutch the pool’s edge,
gasping like something
trying to be born again.
The instructor says, breathe,
but you can’t tell what part of you
is water and what is panic.
That night, you dream
you forget how to float.
You wake up sore
in places no one sees.

By week four,
the instructor slides a foam noodle
beneath your belly
like a secret you’re finally allowed to hold.
She says, trust it.
But you’ve spent years
tightening your spine,
so nothing slips in or out.
You clutch the foam
like a maybe, like permission.

You glide the pool’s length.
They clap like it’s victory.
But all you feel
is the quiet of your own limbs
doing what they were told.

You learn to shake the water from your ears
without flinching.
You learn no one rescues you
unless you pretend not to need it.
You learn the deep end
is not a punishment
if you never ask for help.

Later, when a boy asks
why you don’t like beaches,
you’ll say the sand.
You’ll say shells pricking your soles.

You won’t mention
how the ocean has no edge,
how it keeps pulling,
how it waits beneath you
quiet as a whistle,
watching,
just in case you forget
you were never meant to float forever.

---

Alyssa Ilaguison, a 4th-year BA Communication and Media Arts student of UP Mindanao.