28/08/2025
Warm Me In Your Cold Embrace
December 24, 20XX
11:45 p.m., Special Cell 5
Let the reader find solace upon reading this passage, for I shall be no more and finally be reunited with my beloved.
I hear the guards outside the white room that surrounds me. The conversations were a buzz, but I am certain that the lethal injection is ready to go.
Faintly, I can hear a family whispering somewhere outside. I sure have quite the audience.
Why the preparations? Ah, my wish to go out with a bang.
After all, I am innocent—always and will be. My hands are clean, for I have done nothing but act out of love.
But my beloved is waiting for me on the other side—I cannot help but anticipate the joy upon my ex*****on.
I have always lived my life for the duties of society. Though no traditionalist, I uphold and value the family code.
And I have always loved people for who they are, as the church has taught me. For God had always loved the world of sinners, the very world that crucified Him, a perfect man.
Ah, how I longed for your embrace, my dear…I cannot proceed with the talk of love without an ounce of thought of you.
But if I omit your name again, the world will taint it again. I cannot allow it! Never! You are my only dearest and beloved, my one, my being, my soul!
Our meeting is the threading of God. It was His masterpiece. It was His will that we shall meet.
Your existence has brought the missing joy into my life.
When we got separated by college (I forgot which year, perhaps the effect of these white walls), I have always believed in God’s judgment; this was his test, for us. An ordeal of love and loyalty.
And you and I both knew. On that one Sunday, on that one time you agreed to go to church with me, you understood that our love will one day be tested.
The youthful fervor. We kissed before the moonlight on Cebu’s highest hill. We both vowed to God our celibacy, and I agreed. You agreed. We agreed. Your eyes meet mine with glimmer and romance.
The same eyes that saved me from the hells of life. Your arms that have touched my very soul. My dearest upon the stars, all that life presents matters no more. You have brought warmth to my cold paradise—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Oh, sorry. The guards were just checking if I was still alive to feel the injection. Indeed, I am. Thank you very much.
Very loud knocking, do they not? I am sorry for that.
So, where was I?
Ah, our oath…the very oath you betrayed.
No. That wasn’t right. Indeed, the human perspective would be that you betrayed me.
But for the holy presence, it was yet another trial. God has promised me you, and you are only for me.
You remember, do you? We made that oath! Of course, how could you have betrayed it? Millions of stars bore witnesses.
Your engagement with that home-wrecker was nothing more than just another fluke, another trial. Your wedding vows were nothing compared to the oath we made to the heavens.
Oh, how God was such a wonderful teaser. He can be a bully, too. He has given me you, because you are my resting place, my paradise…
You were my paradise, yet I lived in Hell.
But I finally got to meet you again. I have found the joy in my heart that was once missing.
We met in a disheveled hut in the middle of nowhere, but at least the stars were still looking at us. You were kind of more shy and hesitant at first, but now, the moonlight has shone upon us again.
We have made our old oaths again to the stars. You cried from the joy of our reunion. You were shaking from the excitement of our reignited love. It was the most romantic of all romance in our lives.
I have missed you so much. That wedding vow with another man tore my heart. But here you are to heal it again for me. You have tended and cared for it as if it were your own. The Aphrodite in you came inside me, her tender caress shaking the hell within me.
Under the moonlight, we were united. Our romance has found its way despite the distance.
The crimson matter in your heart was warm. The warmth of love.
But that wretched hoarder just had to appear before us. And long before I knew it, your flesh became cold.
Even when my hand was still laid on yours, you became cold. You were freezing.
You collapsed from the warmth stolen from you, and so was I missing yours. And upon my wake was the hoarding idiot framing me for a crime I have not done.
But what I have done was an act of love! It was an act of love, of mercy! My virtue and conscience would not allow me to commit any heinous sanity.
This pawn of Hell points his finger at me—a man of virtue! But I know God never left me, and I have placed my faith in Him that He shall smite this homewrecker.
These white walls have been etched on your unreachable image, and I have been aching for so long to finally have you again in my embrace!
But do not worry. I am here to bring you warmth once again, just as you have given me yours. You don’t have to worry anymore about that guy who stole you. In a few minutes, I shall be with you again.
Your cold embrace shall become my warmth once more. You are safe with me, and we shall be together forever and for eternity.
Words by Paul Philip M. Bucog
Illustration by Kenjay Lungayan
