There’s an abandoned house I keep returning to — along the coast of Manilva, the one with a residential tile “casa playa” fading with the blistering wall. For some reasons, I feel drawn to it. its windows shattered, its doorless with wind and memory.
It dawns on me that each room is haunted by the ghost of someone I once loved but I felt like I’ve never been loved back. Nikko, Francis, Arturo, KevinCordoba, MeaIdMax, and now… him —Manilva.guy.
Each space is a mausoleum of what could’ve been. The living room holds the quiet moments and companionship that never lasted. The now empty kitchen still smells of coffee and unsaid apologies. The bedroom? It's a rotating stage of heat, passion, intimacy — and then, vacancy. I pedal my bike through these ghostly halls, stopping, visualizing their ghastly images on one of each empty spaces.
***
Love, Like a Fever
When I met the Manilva guy, something in me burned. A new fever — just like it did with Arturo once. I hadn’t seen him for weeks, and yet, when we finally met again, I couldn’t help the giddy thrill that flooded me. I missed him, and my body knew it before my heart admitted it. When he touched me, every time I'm able to smell him, I broke open — in pleasure, in longing. I swallowed every drop of him as if it would somehow fill the void inside me. And then he was gone again. Physically but not mentally. Or maybe it’s just me — replaying my part to be horrified in this ghost movie over and over again.
My eternal quest reveals: Is it love or just the idea of it? Am I in love or am I simply lovesick?
Camp Sawi by the Sea
It’s been my regular thing to do after Costa Natura, to visit Manilva beach, roughly 18km, an hour and half bike away from my apartment in Estepona. Even Just to be near where he lived. Just to see if maybe being close to him, I could somehow feel his presence. The pain of missing him maybe patched and alleviated. Like when I once visited Tagbilaran to feel close to Nikko. I keep chasing shadows. I keep romanticizing the searing pain.
And when I reached Manilva Beach, I always cry. I even saw a random sign that looked like the one in the movie Camp Sawi — a broken heart’s accidental pilgrimage. It felt like the universe reminding me: this is your healing, if you choose it. But healing is not romantic. Healing is raw. Lonely. Silent. It doesn't come with fireworks or closure texts. It comes in waves — like the tide at that beach — crashing, receding, returning.
The Loneliness of the ever wandering meandering heart
The hardest part is not the heartbreak. It’s not even the jealousy I felt seeing him on Grindr, in another location, potentially with another guy. No, the hardest part is this: I have no one. No “official” lover. No label to cling to. No hand to hold and say, “This is mine.”
And still, I love. I give. I ache. I exist in that limbo of almost and maybe someday.
Eartha Kitt Had It Right
Whenever I find myself slipping, I remember Eartha Kitt being asked about love, compromise, and partnership.
“There’s nothing in the world more beautiful than falling in love. But falling in love for the right reason. A relationship is a relationship that has to be earned — not to be compromised for.”
And yet, haven’t I compromised everything? My peace. My dignity. My sleep. My sanity.
Ghost Stories Never End — Unless You Let Them
Maybe this is my real heartbreak: not just losing lovers, but losing pieces of myself trying to be loved. I am the one left behind in the house. Everyone else has left — except their ghosts. And maybe it’s time I stop feeding them.
It is time to wake up, get out and lock the door.
A Final Thought
If he’s not meant for me — Manilva guy, or any of them — then may the sea take the remnants of my sorrow. May I mourn, may I cry, may I scream in the silence of that abandoned house…
And then — may I walk away from it.
Not forever drowned in the dark, but finally, resurfacing to the light.
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