ALPASulat

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙶𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙰𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
✍️ Narrative essay by Calligaia
🎨 Inspired by the artwork of Von Lixin O. Coronacion

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙶𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙰𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
The rain stopped, but her waiting never did.
…
The cold mist left a haze on the windowpane as Julia pressed her forehead against it. She stood beside the window quietly; her breath fogged the glass before she traced her finger along the blur. Julia kept her gaze still on the empty road outside.

There was clear music that had lingered in Julia’s mind. But that same rhythm had transcended into a cursed mantra. ‘He promised he’d come back. He promised he’d come back. He promised he’d come back.’

Each word replayed in her mind, consuming her youthful times. Julia tried to hum it away, but the tune only grew louder, weaving itself in the crevices of her space. She could still hear his laugh through the raindrops, still see his eyes in the pale clouds, and still feel his embrace in the monsoon air.

But on that night, she realized even promises grow tired of being kept. What was once longing hanging on a precarious thread turned into the slow unraveling of everything she believed in.
As hidden twilight bled across the sky, she took out her brushes and paint. As she set down the canvas on the easel, she vetoed out anything that was thundering in her ears. She dipped the bristles in the palette and began to paint.

The eye came first. Large, alive, and glimmering— an eye that looked like hers but somehow also didn’t. Maybe it was the way it mimicked hope, when in truth, she no longer knew what that was.
Then came the tears; it started etching itself on the canvas. Beneath a trembling brush, a blurred outline shaped its drops. At a time when Julia’s love grew weary, she wanted to create something that didn’t.

Red for the love that burned too bright.
Yellow for the music that pierced her ears.
Blue for the distance that grew between them.
Green for the promise that left her hopeless.

When she finished, she stared at the canvas. The painted eye seemed to stare back at her—full of anticipation. It was her reflection, and yet it felt rawer than her dull eyes. Because, at the end of the day, there was a knock on her heart, refusing to let it swallow her whole.

Years later, the painting hung on a gallery wall, posted as ‘The Glance of Anticipation.’ People would stop and stare, whispering about its quiet ache that seemed to reach them. But none of them would fully know the story behind it; the story of a girl who waited by a window, who spilled her longing into color, and who learned that anticipation is not still… It’s constant.

🌕

The Bookshelf📖 A reflection of one's HIDDEN ability🫶

- Alexandria Hilda

: )