in my home country, philippines, we don’t call it a bus stop. we usually call it a waiting shed.
a roof, or even a bench and sometimes not even a bench. just a place you where you can sit, rest or even just stand so the rain doesn’t get to you while you wait for something that was never yours to begin with.
i just realized something lately and i keep thinking about that word. waiting shed. the funny thing about this is that it is actually named after the waiting. not the bus. not the arriving. not the going home. just the waiting.
just the waiting.
just the waiting.
it’s 1:40 am and i can’t sleep again so i’m writing this instead.
this is not me being poetic. i am far to be one but i just don’t have a better word for what i am.
on lonsdale street there’s a stop outside qv mall, the one where the 200 and the 207 pull in, and i usually take this bus stop when i want to have a mont blanc at good measure. usually when it rains the roof leaks on the left side so everyone shifts to the right and stands too close to each other. and you will see and observe some strangers, pretending there’s closeness because of the rain. i’ve stood there alot. i’ve stood there with people who are gone now.
with people who are gone now.
with people who are gone now.
that is the thing about a waiting shed. people come and people go. they stand under you, check their phone to watch some reels on ig, they check the timetable, and they sometimes complain about how shitty the weather in melbourne is and then the other bus pulls in and they get on and they will never look back because why would they? you were never the destination. you were the thing that kept them dry while they waited for it.
and believe me, i know for a fact that nobody builds a house of a waiting shed.
nobody says or thinks, “i think i’m gonna stay here.”
nobody says, this is enough.
i’m used to it.
i’m really used to it.
sanay na sanay na ako. i wanna say that like it’s a strength but i’m really used to it. sanay na ako sa mga maraming paalam. i know how to say it in four languages and i know how to receive it in all of them. i always tell people that i’m already accustomed to bidding and receiving goodbyes. i’m very familiar with the shape of a goodbye before it’s finished being said. trust me, i can hear it in the way someone starts answering slower. in the way “see you” stops having a date attached.
and still.
and still.
and still nararamdaman ko. i always feel it. tumatagos sila. they go right through me. like i’m not solid, like i’m just something you walk through on your way to somewhere real.
in nursing we learn that a wound doesn’t close from the top. it’s surprisingly closes from the bottom up. they call it granulation. new tissue, slowly, from the base. if the top closes first and the bottom is still open, it’s just gonna trap everything inside. and trust me, it looks healed. but in reality it isn’t.
it is not healed.
it is not healed.
i have alot of wounds that closed from the top.
they look fine. you could look at me and think, he’s fine, sanay na yan, he’s handled worse. and i have. but underneath there’s still a cavity where every person who left is still leaving. still mid-step. still getting on the bus.
in the hospital there’s a ward we call the transit lounge or in alfred’s hospital they call it short stay. you’re not really admitted there. you’re not a patient of that ward. you’ve been actually discharged from one place and you’re already waiting to be collected to another and in between you sit in a chair with your bag or you’re lying on the bed while waiting. nobody does a full assessment. nobody learns your history. they just check if you’re breathing and they just check who’s coming for you.
i think i’ve been everyone’s transit lounge.
a transit lounge; still a waiting shed.
i think i am very good at handover. i hand people over. i give the report, i say what they need, i make sure they’re stable, and then they belong to someone else’s shift.
i’m good at it. that’s the problem. i’m so good at being left that people assume it doesn’t cost anything.
it costs.
it fucking costs
it’s just quiet and silent and also i firmly believe that the body doesn’t complain when it’s been doing something for years. it adapts. it compensates. you only find out how much it was holding when you ask it to hold one more thing and it can’t anymore. it can no longer hold one more thing anymore.
i’m not angry anymore. i’m not even mad maybe i was, for a while. i used to ask god the same question i’m asking you now. bakit hindi na lang sila manatili. why can’t people just stay? what is it in me that reads like a stop and not a home. is it the way i make room too fast. is it that i don’t ask anything. is it that i tell people they can go, and they believe me.
and they really believe me.
and they really believe me.
i do tell them they can go. i always say it first. i’ve learned that if i say it first, it looks like it’s a choice. but it’s not my choice.
we can see it in a way like it doesn’t look like being left. it looks like letting go. and letting go is something people admire you for. being left is something people pity you for. so i learned which one to perform.
but tonight i’m not even asking anyone to stay. i think that’s what i wanted to write down. i’m past that. what i’m tired of is the not knowing. standing there in the dark, and the sign says next bus and the number keeps changing. 4 mins. 12 mins. 2 mins. then it fucking disappears and comes back and says 9 fucking minutes. fuck. and you stand there anyway because leaving would mean admitting it’s not coming.
you stand there anyway.
you stand there anyway because standing is the only thing a waiting shed knows how to do.
just tell me.
just fucking tell me.
tell me if you’re coming. tell me if you’re not. i can survive a no. i have survived every no i’ve ever been given, i have the scars to prove how survivable they are. what i can’t do anymore is survive the maybe. the fucking maybe is the thing that’s killing me slowly. the fucking maybe is the leaking roof. you stand there getting wet a little at a time and you tell yourself it’s not that bad.
it’s not that bad.
it’s not that bad.
it’s 2:03 now.
the 207 doesn’t run this late. i know the timetable. i know it better than i know most people.
i’m not going anywhere. i never was. and that’s the fucking whole point of a waiting shed. it stays. it just doesn’t get to decide who does.
