As the first episode of the Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop (PGLW) slowly came to its conclusion on February 28, we knew that we had one more thing that we can offer our bright young fellows: a starting platform for their creative endeavors. Here, we present one of their final outputs from the workshop. We also asked them to provide an artwork that they think best represents their stories. Read on.
She sighs as she leaves the altar. No one knows for how long, for many hours, days, weeks, or months have passed since this happened and the only certainty is no one knows why. Every Sunday, she goes to church. She sings her heart out during worship as if it were everything she ever longed for. Her knees filled with gradient violet to red, red to yellow marks as her blood cells suffocated from the hours of kneeling with rosaries on hand. She bends over the scriptures, lips moving without sound. Her finger follows each line, then returns to the beginning, tracing the words again before she turns the page. She pauses, closes her eyes, and recites the verse under her breath, testing where her voice should rise and break—like an actress rehearsing a revelation. But this isn’t a movie. For it was a matter of life.
Every night, she writes devotions, applying chapters and verses from the scriptures as if it would decide her fate like a reading from a tarot card. Every night, she prays hard… and hard… and harder! She utters each word, each line, each verse, to the air, as if the world depends on it.
Each day repeats themselves, like how the bone marrow keeps regenerating blood. She commits crimes at day, asks forgiveness at night. “Oh God, please cleanse me… cleanse me with your holy wine and bread… with your holy, holy body and blood,” she begs, a lump on her throat, eyes swollen, face red, tainted with the salt of her tears, hands trembling as she hugged her knees beneath her chest.
But after all that, nothing seems to change; each day still seems to eat her up. Each day becomes heavier and heavier. Each day is a burden. Every night, her mind roams, she wonders, wonders, and wonders why everything is not the same as before, why the world suddenly stopped revolving… why tomorrow suddenly became uncertain. She’s dying to know why she can’t do it like she used to.
But would heaven still open its gates for someone sinful as her?
With no arms to run to, with no one willing to lend an ear, no one to be there for her. It has always been like this. Though this time, she can’t fool herself into the comfort that a supreme being is listening to her—especially for someone whose first sin was losing faith.
On the next day, she goes to church, asking for forgiveness, longing for the resurrection of her deep buried faith. Or else… “heal my soul, or they would forsake me.”
After all, no one knows—cares about how the world collapses for a religious girl once she loses faith.
Kirsten Kate B. Salgado is a freshman taking up BA Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman. She first discovered her passion for writing at a young age, enjoying essays, articles, and stories as much as she enjoyed participating in writing contests. However, this passion faded as she grew older. Now, as she pursues BA Creative Writing, she seeks to rediscover that spark, hoping to regain the drive to write stories that matter.
