The Only Stage I Know (original)

Have you ever fallen in love with a place you have never been to before? A stage you have never stood at? Have you ever imagined yourself standing on that stage, knees quivering, veins pulsating, a four-letter single-syllable word that reads "Sev's" hanging behind your back?

I have.

For so long, that has been the only image that came to mind whenever I imagined myself finally being able to perform an original spoken word piece in front of a large audience. Sev's Cafe. On that stage. Illuminated under a spotlight, where some of the most moving words stringed together were given birth to.

I thought if someday I was good enough, if I learned the art form hard enough, that I would one day find myself in the very same spot that some of the most amazing Filipino spoken word poets I know have found themselves in.

That was the dream. Moving to manila someday for work. Finding refuge through this small corner tucked somewhere underneath the bustling streets and intertwining city lights.

Sev's cafe was not only a venue for those who needed a stage, an 'open mic' in its most rudimentary sense. It became an art hub. A platform for music and poetry. Sev's cafe was a melting pot for people who found their own truths in other people's words, of words that fought their way out of bodies, and how once there was a time when we had to cut our skin to set those words free. Sev's cafe became a place where those stories bled freely from mouths. Where they took lives of their own. Where they humored us, hurt us, and made us fall in love simultaneously.

You see, I will never get to set foot on that stage, or inside that cafe for that matter. Sev's will be closing its curtains and dimming its spotlight for good. Along with it goes the fading sound of the imaginary applause I once dreamt of being drowned in. I cannot claim my affinity to the place to be anymore meaningful than that of others. I have, afterall, never been to the place myself. But to me, Sev's will always be my own personal fairy tale. My neverland. And it doesn't have to exist to be magic.