THE WEIGHT OF FORGETTING

On Suicide Prevention Day, we remember that healing doesn’t happen all at once—it happens in moments. In the quiet of an art room. In the warmth of a meal. In the courage to whisper, “I’ve been… not okay.” Luviem’s story reminds us that unfinished doesn’t mean broken. Reaching out, opening up, and holding on are all parts of the process. Like clay in our hands, life can be reshaped.

If you’re struggling, you don’t have to carry it alone. Someone will listen. Someone cares.

📞 Philippines: Call Hopeline PH 0917-558-4673 or 2919 (toll-free for Globe/TM)

Written by: Ryanne Hipolito

Layout by: Victoria Arandia

September 10, 2025 | 9:30 AM

The art room holds the afternoon like a cupped hand holds water—carefully, but never completely. Sunlight slips through the blinds in pale ladders, catching the edges of wire tools and half-formed bodies crowded on the shelves. Torsos without arms. Faces without mouths. A shoulder abandoned mid-curve. Beneath thin sheets of plastic, the clay sweats and waits.

Luviem doesn’t dare linger on them. Every unfinished piece is a promise he broke to himself. Each one reminds him he always stops before it ends. He hates that habit. He’s scared the outcome will disappoint him, so he pulls away before it can. Not this time, he thinks, lowering himself onto the high stool. Elbows propped on the turntable, hands settling on a fresh mound of clay.

The room smells like wet earth and. Iron. His tools lie beside him. All he needs to do is start. He breathes in deep, muttering, “Okay… let’s do this,” and presses the turntable. Slowly, the head begins to form. Cheekbones sketched with the push of his thumbs. The nose carved and recarved—too narrow, then too broad.

But the eyes—always the eyes—make him stop.

His legs bounce. He stares at the sculpture as if it might hold the answers. “Round, right?” His voice barely above a whisper. He closes his eyes, searching for the memory in the back of his mind, like searching for a coat—always there when he needs it. No… almond. Almond, but soft.

His hand trembles as he presses the loop tool into the clay, tracing an arc. Too sharp. He smooths it with his thumb. Again. Wrong. Again. Still wrong. Each attempt ends in erasure, hands gray and smeared, fingerprints pressed spirals into a face that refuses to exist. He tries to laugh, thinking how clattered his mind is, thinking of everything and nothing at once.

Breath grows shallow. The fan hums, useless against the heat under his skin. His leg bounces faster. He drags his hand down the clay. He can remember their laugh—loud, unrestrained, alive. The curve of their smile. The scent of their perfume. The warmth of their hand. And the eyes… the eyes. He falters. His heart stutters, thudding harder with every failed mark. If he forgets this too, what will be left?

His hands shake. The tool slips.

Clank!

The sound startles him. He flinches, presses his palms to his eyes. He forces a slow inhale. Another. It catches in his throat. His thoughts scream. “Enough,” he mutters, voice raw. “I’ll… I’ll finish it tomorrow.” Another promise to himself.

He pushes from the stool. The half-formed face stares back—hollow, waiting. The room feels smaller now, crowded with the pieces he swore he’d return to. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a faint streak of gray. The air tastes of clay dust and something heavier, like silence trying to suffocate him.

Tomorrow, he tells himself again. But even as the word leaves his mouth, he knows he won’t.

After that day, Luviem stops making art. He can’t bring himself to step into the studio, can’t face the half-formed faces that seem to accuse him of betrayal. Each unfinished sculpture feels like a wound reopened, a promise broken to the one he lost. The tools lie untouched, gathering dust. The turntable is silent.

He remembers that day at the funeral—the muted colors, the heavy press of grief, the dull sound of shovels against earth. People move around him like ghosts, but he feels nothing. The coffin lowers, and he swallows the urge to scream, to beg for it all to stop. That memory doesn’t fade. It lingers like a shadow, gnawing at the edges of his mind, refusing to let him go.

Days blur. He stops getting out of bed entirely. His phone lies face-up on the nightstand, buzzing constantly. Notifications pile up like an unwanted chorus.

Email: Project update due today.

Slack: Luviem, client needs revisions ASAP.

Email: Reminder—team meeting at 10 a.m.

Slack: Can you review the draft?

Email: Luviem, please respond.

Slack: Urgent: feedback needed.

Most people stop trying after a week. But one person doesn’t.

Message: Luviem, pick up. Please. —Elias

Missed call: Elias

Message: I’m coming by later. Don’t ignore me this time.

Message: You need to eat something. —Elias

Missed call: Elias

He stares at the screen, heart thudding, and turns it over. Silence. Ignored again. He can’t answer. He can’t explain the hollowness pressing in from all sides.

The sheets are a cage. The weight of forgetting presses on him. Silence stretches around him, thick and unyielding. The pull of giving up is constant, like a hand dragging him under.

“Maybe I should just stop… everything,” he whispers, letting the words hang in the dim light. They catch in his throat, sharp and heavy.

Even as he speaks, he knows Elias will keep trying. He can feel the persistence lurking beyond the walls of his room, a lifeline he’s too afraid to grasp. Yet for now, he lets the thought linger, tasting its bitter familiarity, letting it press him further into the mattress. The world is muted, silent, and all he can hear is the thrum of his own grief.

The days blur together until, one afternoon, something catches his eye. From the bed, he notices a faint glimmer—a small reflection where the sunlight slants through the blinds. For the first time in days, he sits up. The glimmer comes from the corner of his desk.

A bracelet.

The one his partner had given him. He remembers asking, half-smiling, “Why?” And they shrugged, eyes bright. “Just… because.”

He picks it up carefully, as though it might break, and closes his hand around it. The cool metal presses against his palm, and with it comes a flood of memory: nights of laughter until their stomachs hurt, movie marathons of films so bad they couldn’t stop quoting them, mornings that felt lighter just because they shared them. The weight of grief doesn’t vanish, but for a moment it shifts—making room for something softer.

Then another memory surfaces. A night he almost quit art entirely. He had said, “Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I should stop.” And they had looked at him and said, firm but gentle:

“When your hand moves, your heart remembers.”

The words echo in him now. His chest feels heavy, but alive. He takes a deep breath, rubbing at the ache in his sternum, then swings his legs over the bed.

In the kitchen, the air feels sharper, cleaner. He opens the fridge, pulls out what he can—eggs, a few vegetables, some rice left in the pot. The motions are clumsy at first, hands unsteady from disuse. But soon the pan hisses, the smell rising warm and familiar. He sits at the counter with the plate in front of him and takes the first bite.

It hits him all at once. The salt, the warmth, the way it spreads through his body like something alive. He hadn’t realized how much he missed this—how food could taste like comfort, how a simple meal could feel like being held. He chews slowly, eyes stinging, savoring each mouthful as if reminding himself he is still here. By the time the plate is clean, the heaviness hasn’t left, but something inside him has shifted. A flicker of warmth he thought he had forgotten.

When he finishes, he stands there for a long moment. Then, almost without deciding, he walks to the art room. The smell of clay hits him. His eyes move over the shelves, the half-formed pieces waiting like witnesses. His hand hesitates on the doorframe.

But he steps inside.

He sits at the turntable, facing the last project he abandoned. At first, he feels nothing. His hands move mechanically, like muscle memory dragging him forward. But then, slowly, as the clay yields beneath his touch, he feels something stirring. Not joy. Not yet. But presence. As if each press and carve is pulling him back into himself.

He is so absorbed he doesn’t notice the footsteps until the floor creaks. The door opens.

“Luviem?”

He looks up. Elias stands there, holding a takeout bag. The smell of his favorite food fills the room. Elias’s face softens when he sees him at the table.

“You haven’t been returning my calls,” Elias says quietly. “Are you okay?”

For a moment, Luviem can’t answer. He looks at his brother, then at the clay under his hands, then at the bracelet gleaming faintly in the light. His throat tightens, but this time, it’s not silence that answers him—it’s the faint hum of memory, of love that refuses to be buried.

Elias lingers in the doorway, waiting. The smell of food drifts between them, but it is the silence that fills the room. Luviem swallows, his throat dry. His hands rest on the clay, fingers trembling against its damp surface. He looks down at it, at the half-formed shape under his palms, and the words push themselves out before he can stop them.

“I’ve been… not okay,” he says at last. The words sound foreign, rough-edged, as if his voice had forgotten how to carry them. His chest tightens, and he almost swallows them back. But once they’re out, more follow, tumbling faster.

“I stopped… everything. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t answer. Every time I saw the clay, or those sculptures, it felt like I was betraying them. Like I was letting them die all over again. And then I’d think… maybe it’d be easier if I just—” His voice cracks, and he presses his thumbs hard into the clay, reshaping, destroying, reshaping again. “Everything feels so heavy, Elias. Too heavy. I thought if I stayed still, maybe it would hurt less, but it didn’t. It only got worse. And I—”

His words break. He bows his head, shoulders trembling, hands sinking into the clay as if grounding himself in its cool weight.

Elias doesn’t rush to fill the silence. He steps inside quietly, sets the bag of food down on the workbench, and pulls up a stool beside his brother. He doesn’t touch the clay, doesn’t try to fix anything. He just listens. His eyes stay steady, his posture open, his presence unyielding.

When Luviem finally stops, chest heaving, Elias places a hand gently on his shoulder. “I hear you,” he says softly. “You don’t have to carry all that alone. I’m proud of you… for telling me. For admitting it. That takes more strength than you think.”

The words hit deeper than Luviem expects. His chest feels lighter, the suffocating pressure loosening, as if air has returned to a room long sealed shut. His eyes sting, and for the first time in weeks, he lets them. He turns, and Elias pulls him into a hug—tight, steady, the kind of embrace that tells him he isn’t floating aimless anymore. For a moment, he lets himself lean into it.

When they part, Luviem exhales shakily and looks at the clay again. His hands move slower now, more deliberate. With Elias by his side, he keeps shaping. The form begins to emerge, rough but undeniable—cheekbones, a curve of a smile, not perfect but present. The imperfections feel different this time. They feel human. They feel real.

The bracelet lies on the table next to him, catching the light as if watching over the process.

Elias doesn’t leave. He stays there quietly, sometimes offering water, sometimes just resting his elbows on his knees, watching. He doesn’t push or pry; his presence is enough. A tether keeping Luviem grounded.

Hours pass this way, the silence in the room softer than before. And when Luviem finally leans back, wiping clay from his hands, he studies the sculpture. It’s unfinished, uneven, marked with fingerprints and smudges. But something in it feels alive. Something in it feels true.

He brushes his hand across the bracelet, then looks at Elias. His voice is quiet, but steady this time.

“I’m not finished yet. Neither is this clay. Neither am I.”

The words hang in the air, fragile but unbroken. For the first time in a long time, they don’t feel like a lie.