Thursday, May 17, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
And Deeper
Down and further down, deeper and deeper I go.
One would expect the days to blur easily into the next (after all, what meaning does form have in the dark?), but one would be wrong. Every second of every minute is blindingly clear. Every line, every movement is sharp as sunlight on water, every sound a piercing wound. Life--all thunder and movement and mad, mad color--barrels on without pause, without pity.
All this, however, has done nothing but contrast how utterly colorless I have become. Everyday, life would shine even brighter, and I would slink off deeper into my own shadow. Shorter and shorter would I spend time thinking as a human would, preferring to regress into a world governed by instinct and knee-jerk reactions. If I am not looking for food, I would be online, looking for sex. I would be reading or playing a video game, less for the pleasure it gives me, but more to really escape my own self. I do not have the guts to kill myself, so I am erasing my identity in ways I know how.
Deeper and deeper, and darker and darker.
I have accumulated shame as old things would dust and ash, and I have turned it into something that resembles sustenance--a perversion of passion. Shame, I have realized, is something that I have lived off of as soon as I started being aware of how insignificant I am, how utterly useless and how completely inadequate I have become. Shame brings me to my knees and I stay there--down and defeated and broken... and safe.
There is no light from where I am standing. Just a vast darkness, thick with fear and dead things. Life barrels on above me, but it casts no light on my flesh. If anything, all life does is push me deeper and ever deeper into the dark.
One would expect the days to blur easily into the next (after all, what meaning does form have in the dark?), but one would be wrong. Every second of every minute is blindingly clear. Every line, every movement is sharp as sunlight on water, every sound a piercing wound. Life--all thunder and movement and mad, mad color--barrels on without pause, without pity.
All this, however, has done nothing but contrast how utterly colorless I have become. Everyday, life would shine even brighter, and I would slink off deeper into my own shadow. Shorter and shorter would I spend time thinking as a human would, preferring to regress into a world governed by instinct and knee-jerk reactions. If I am not looking for food, I would be online, looking for sex. I would be reading or playing a video game, less for the pleasure it gives me, but more to really escape my own self. I do not have the guts to kill myself, so I am erasing my identity in ways I know how.
Deeper and deeper, and darker and darker.
I have accumulated shame as old things would dust and ash, and I have turned it into something that resembles sustenance--a perversion of passion. Shame, I have realized, is something that I have lived off of as soon as I started being aware of how insignificant I am, how utterly useless and how completely inadequate I have become. Shame brings me to my knees and I stay there--down and defeated and broken... and safe.
There is no light from where I am standing. Just a vast darkness, thick with fear and dead things. Life barrels on above me, but it casts no light on my flesh. If anything, all life does is push me deeper and ever deeper into the dark.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Dark Places
Terrified of life. Terrified of dying. For the past few weeks--no, for the past decade, my life has alternated between running away, feeling shameful, feeding on regret, wallowing in fear, and steeping in anger. I have been flickering from one dark place to another, I'd forgotten how it was to breathe without feeling thorns in my chest. I'd forgotten how it was to think without claws raking at my mind. Was there ever a time when breathing was easy? Was there ever a time thinking did not hurt? I see no light from where I am standing. Only shame, fear, regret, anger, and dark, dark places.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A Dream of the End of the World
I dreamed of the end of the world. A planetoid, or a planetoid-like object came hurtling down from the sky. It landed far from where I was standing, which was in front of our house, but everyone in the neighborhood saw it. At first there was wonderment, and then, realizing that it wasn't just a harmless heavenly phenomenon like Halley's Comet or the Aurora Borealis--that it was, in fact, a sign of the end times--wonderment instantly became panic.
We felt it connect with the ground. It sounded like the Earth was yawning, like it was waking up from a very long slumber. Sound eventually became light. From the horizon, whiteness sped and spread towards our little neighborhood, a celestial blanket. My heart was beating fast. I could hear everyone running, although to where or towards what, I do not know. For my part, I wanted to welcome the light. Finally, finally, the end. I spread my arms wide.
But the light stopped when it was right in front of my face, and I did not die, and it wasn't the end.
We felt it connect with the ground. It sounded like the Earth was yawning, like it was waking up from a very long slumber. Sound eventually became light. From the horizon, whiteness sped and spread towards our little neighborhood, a celestial blanket. My heart was beating fast. I could hear everyone running, although to where or towards what, I do not know. For my part, I wanted to welcome the light. Finally, finally, the end. I spread my arms wide.
But the light stopped when it was right in front of my face, and I did not die, and it wasn't the end.
Friday, March 16, 2012
A Cycle of Running
I hate that I'd fallen into a cycle of running. I'd always known that I have my family to fall back on whenever things get a little out of control in my life. I'd always known that quitting was an option and that things will be OK. I hate that I'd never had to grow my own backbone because I'd always known I'd have a house to come home to. I hate how much of a weakling, how easily breakable, how much of a quitter I turned out to be. At 6'0", approximately 180 lbs., I'm easy to pick out in a crowd, and I hate how much of a contrast my physical size is to how small and weak I feel. Survival of the fittest is how this world works, and this world has no place for someone as weak as I am.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Defeated
Cutting myself didn't work, so the other night, I ran away.
I was 16. Senior high was almost done with three more months to go before graduation. I remember it was Friday because I had my cadet training gear with me. I left home the usual time that morning but I didn't go to school; instead I went to a park a few blocks halfway to the school. It wasn't my first time there, and it wasn't my first time cutting classes. I stay there the entire day reading, writing, listening to three or four cassette tapes I bring with me.
Nobody disturbed me during these excursions, and I never really thought about it all that much. To me it just felt right being there, where the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It felt like a completely separate world, walled off by the buildings that stand sentry along the park's perimeter.
I'd write about being afraid--of disappointing the people around me, of life--but mostly I'd write about a boy I fell in love with. Randy, I found out his name was. I forgot how I did, now. I was a batch ahead and he never knew me at all, but I was in high school and love will never be as intense and as pure and as powerful as a trainwreck or a flower blossoming as it was in high school.
And so it was a Friday. I just got settled into the bench I'd usually sit on and started the first few paragraphs of the most recent litany I had for Randy when someone sat beside me. It was a schoolmate. A batchmate, as a matter of fact. We were classmates once, but we were never really friends. He asked me what I was doing. I forgot what I said but I remember being cautious and unsmiling. I remember he accepted whatever my reason was with an 'Ah' that could have meant anything at all. He lit a cigarette and offered me one but I refused.
I don't remember if we talked, but it wasn't long before a teacher was suddenly there asking why we weren't in class. I remember panicking and apologizing. I remember the teacher saying that he had an important errand to run and that he better see us when he gets back in the school. The teacher left and me and my schoolmate looked at each other. He shrugged and started walking back. I proceeded to fix my things, thoughts whirling in my head. I was about to pick up the bag where my cadet gear was when I felt my mind shifting gears. I left it and started walking towards another direction.
For the next eight hours, I wasn't thinking of anything else but walking. By 5:00 pm, I remember reaching the end of the LRT station, in Monumento. I sat on the sidewalk and stayed there for about an hour, an hour and a half. I'm not going back home, I thought. Once again, I have been a terrible disappointment to the people around me. I started walking again. Eventually I saw a bus that said Malinta, several jeepneys that said Plaridel, and signs that said Valenzuela. I remember stopping at a closed sari-sari store. It was dark and there was a bench not immediately visible from the streets. I laid down to sleep. It didn't take long for me to decide to go back home.
Life is just as terrifying for me now that I am 29 as it was when I was 16. Everyday I live with that same fear--of not knowing what I am good for, of coming up short, of disappointing the people around me, of life and all the disappointments it brings. I tried to kill myself two weeks ago with a primary school-grade cutter, resulting in a gash and a couple of scratches barely visible now. The other week, I didn't report for work for one day, physically unable to get up with the thoughts of terror weighing down my entire body. Two nights ago the whirling of fear in my mind was too much to bear, I needed to run away. 'I can't pretend anymore,' said the text message I sent to my manager. 'Life terrifies me. I am not right in the head. Please don't tell anyone.'
I left everything in my locker except my ID, which I needed to use to leave the office, and my ATM, which I used to withdraw what's left of my salary. Baguio would be a good place to die in, I thought, so I took the 5:00 am to Baguio, nothing but my office clothes and P5,000.00 to my name.
By noon I was at Session Road, cold air nipping at me as only mountain air could. I got about buying more comfortable clothes, a small bag, and a book--Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. I didn't need money where I was going I figured, but I needed a book. For hours and hours I walked around Baguio, up and down streets separated by steep inclines and long flights of stairs. I was desperate to drive out the fear in my mind with nothing but exhaustion.
It was dark when I stopped walking. 8 hours of walking and still I ended up back at Session Road. It was a waiting shed still moist with the afternoon rain. I sat, got my book out, and started reading. Words never reached my mind, however. I want to go home, my thoughts screamed. I want water and food and a warm bed, my thoughts screamed even louder.
Memory fired every nerve in my mind and I remembered the people I saw while I was walking--how every step they made had purpose, had direction. I want to live, their actions seemed to say. I wandered into a school some time in the afternoon and I had trouble finding the exit, but I heard every single student in that school say, I want to live. I passed a wet market with old ladies selling vegetables saying, I want to live. I passed people going home from work, I passed lovers in the dark, I passed several homeless people grinning toothlessly at passers-by, rummaging through the corner-garbage, sitting on a wet bench at Burnham Park, all saying, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
These memories--novel and bright and burning--seared through my mind, and I wept. I was not at all like these people. I did not want to live. With all my heart I wanted to die. But I continue to be a slave to my body, and I was tired and thirsty and hungry. For me to die I must step through that door of mortal pain, and that adds another fear in my mind. I am defeated by life, and I remain its prisoner.
I was 16. Senior high was almost done with three more months to go before graduation. I remember it was Friday because I had my cadet training gear with me. I left home the usual time that morning but I didn't go to school; instead I went to a park a few blocks halfway to the school. It wasn't my first time there, and it wasn't my first time cutting classes. I stay there the entire day reading, writing, listening to three or four cassette tapes I bring with me.
Nobody disturbed me during these excursions, and I never really thought about it all that much. To me it just felt right being there, where the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It felt like a completely separate world, walled off by the buildings that stand sentry along the park's perimeter.
I'd write about being afraid--of disappointing the people around me, of life--but mostly I'd write about a boy I fell in love with. Randy, I found out his name was. I forgot how I did, now. I was a batch ahead and he never knew me at all, but I was in high school and love will never be as intense and as pure and as powerful as a trainwreck or a flower blossoming as it was in high school.
And so it was a Friday. I just got settled into the bench I'd usually sit on and started the first few paragraphs of the most recent litany I had for Randy when someone sat beside me. It was a schoolmate. A batchmate, as a matter of fact. We were classmates once, but we were never really friends. He asked me what I was doing. I forgot what I said but I remember being cautious and unsmiling. I remember he accepted whatever my reason was with an 'Ah' that could have meant anything at all. He lit a cigarette and offered me one but I refused.
I don't remember if we talked, but it wasn't long before a teacher was suddenly there asking why we weren't in class. I remember panicking and apologizing. I remember the teacher saying that he had an important errand to run and that he better see us when he gets back in the school. The teacher left and me and my schoolmate looked at each other. He shrugged and started walking back. I proceeded to fix my things, thoughts whirling in my head. I was about to pick up the bag where my cadet gear was when I felt my mind shifting gears. I left it and started walking towards another direction.
For the next eight hours, I wasn't thinking of anything else but walking. By 5:00 pm, I remember reaching the end of the LRT station, in Monumento. I sat on the sidewalk and stayed there for about an hour, an hour and a half. I'm not going back home, I thought. Once again, I have been a terrible disappointment to the people around me. I started walking again. Eventually I saw a bus that said Malinta, several jeepneys that said Plaridel, and signs that said Valenzuela. I remember stopping at a closed sari-sari store. It was dark and there was a bench not immediately visible from the streets. I laid down to sleep. It didn't take long for me to decide to go back home.
Life is just as terrifying for me now that I am 29 as it was when I was 16. Everyday I live with that same fear--of not knowing what I am good for, of coming up short, of disappointing the people around me, of life and all the disappointments it brings. I tried to kill myself two weeks ago with a primary school-grade cutter, resulting in a gash and a couple of scratches barely visible now. The other week, I didn't report for work for one day, physically unable to get up with the thoughts of terror weighing down my entire body. Two nights ago the whirling of fear in my mind was too much to bear, I needed to run away. 'I can't pretend anymore,' said the text message I sent to my manager. 'Life terrifies me. I am not right in the head. Please don't tell anyone.'
I left everything in my locker except my ID, which I needed to use to leave the office, and my ATM, which I used to withdraw what's left of my salary. Baguio would be a good place to die in, I thought, so I took the 5:00 am to Baguio, nothing but my office clothes and P5,000.00 to my name.
By noon I was at Session Road, cold air nipping at me as only mountain air could. I got about buying more comfortable clothes, a small bag, and a book--Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. I didn't need money where I was going I figured, but I needed a book. For hours and hours I walked around Baguio, up and down streets separated by steep inclines and long flights of stairs. I was desperate to drive out the fear in my mind with nothing but exhaustion.
It was dark when I stopped walking. 8 hours of walking and still I ended up back at Session Road. It was a waiting shed still moist with the afternoon rain. I sat, got my book out, and started reading. Words never reached my mind, however. I want to go home, my thoughts screamed. I want water and food and a warm bed, my thoughts screamed even louder.
Memory fired every nerve in my mind and I remembered the people I saw while I was walking--how every step they made had purpose, had direction. I want to live, their actions seemed to say. I wandered into a school some time in the afternoon and I had trouble finding the exit, but I heard every single student in that school say, I want to live. I passed a wet market with old ladies selling vegetables saying, I want to live. I passed people going home from work, I passed lovers in the dark, I passed several homeless people grinning toothlessly at passers-by, rummaging through the corner-garbage, sitting on a wet bench at Burnham Park, all saying, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
These memories--novel and bright and burning--seared through my mind, and I wept. I was not at all like these people. I did not want to live. With all my heart I wanted to die. But I continue to be a slave to my body, and I was tired and thirsty and hungry. For me to die I must step through that door of mortal pain, and that adds another fear in my mind. I am defeated by life, and I remain its prisoner.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Too Much To Ask
A week ago on my way home from work, I got colored pens, a small illustration board, and a cutter. I didn't need the first two.
I got home, undressed, got on the bed, bared the blade as far as it would go, and--as casually as one would initiate a suicide attempt--I let the sharp edge touch my left wrist. Everything was still, and silent, and burning. I was maestro, and bow, and string, all at the same time. I was flesh. I was metaphor. I never moved.
Exhaling--I didn't notice until then I was holding my breath--I let the blade drop and I got one of the colored pens and the illustration board. On one corner of the board I wrote, 'Thank you. I'm sorry.' I put it aside.
I picked the blade up and let myself relax. A single note, soft and distant, floated somewhere in my head. Pressing the point against my left wrist, I pushed. Slowly. I angled it down. Slowly.
A symphony, gaining volume in my mind. A bullet train, approaching. Clouds, parting. Sunlight. Lightning. Water. Rain. And then--pain. Singing, stinging pain. No metaphors here. I was sweating, and I was terribly, terribly frustrated. I cursed, and hurled the cutter to the wall.
Why must that stop me? One last dam bursting, one last door to go through! Anger. Yes, that should be enough to dull steel on flesh, flesh breaking. I picked up the blade, sat on the bed, held my breath, and pushed--sharp edge on soft flesh. I pushed, and I let it glide. A symphony, getting louder. Strings, breaking. Someone, screaming. The blade made a weak, hollow clatter on the old wooden floor. I sobbed into my pillow.
'Bakit hindi mo ako masagot?' I asked him. 'Why can't you give me an answer?' It was Christmas, I think. Or it could have been New Year's. Anyway, it was the holiday season, and we were having dinner at this fancy Korean restaurant in Eastwood. I told him I didn't eat seafood because I didn't like having to put too much effort breaking a crab's shell apart just to get meat barely enough for a few nibbles, or picking my way through fish bones, or spending time removing a shrimp's head and tail. He did all of that, unceremoniously tossing the respective meat onto my plate, looking plainly content--or smug. I nibbled everything anyway. 'Isn't it easy being with me? Didn't you say you're happy spending time with me? We've been seeing each other for a year, what's stopping you from deciding--finally--THIS is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with?' I gestured grandly, hoping it would come off as a joke, but we both knew it was a serious question.
His attention was on the crab. 'Lahat na siguro ng pwede kong magustuhan sa karelasyon, nasa'yo,' he said. 'Everything I could have wanted in a relationship.' Something cracked. I winced. 'But there is something about you... I can't understand.'
The pause was quite noticeable, but I considered his words. I considered his words were stupid. 'Alright,' I said, nodding. 'Alright. That's fair.' Spectacularly stupid. 'More crab, please.' It would be months before I realize what he said was spot on. There is something not easily understood here.
My plane just landed on Manila. I spent three days in Iloilo, reading and doing little else. I met someone nice--beautiful and smart. I was big enough to admit it wouldn't go farther than dinner and coffee and the smallest of small talks, yet still I allowed myself to be affected in the deepest, most profound ways. Needless to say my spirit was shaken--as it has been similarly shaken many, many times before. For an evening, I thought maybe if a person as beautiful would like someone like me, then maybe I could be beautiful too. Until a familiar, irrevocable force slams into my chest, hurling me back into my place. There is nothing beautiful about me, nor the world I am living in.
I was at work. I was taking calls. I was digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping the minutes would go faster, hoping the phones would cease their infernal beeping. 'Follow your dreams,' the voices in my head kept singing, 'Follow your heart.' I have none. I have none. Beep. Beep. I looked out the window and imagined what it would be like hitting the pavement if I jumped off from the top of the building. I laughed, and the person on the other line laughed with me.
I was sobbing into my pillow. My room was humid. I could hear birds in the distance and nothing else. Steam, maybe, from the wall of the house opposite my room, white-hot and grime-thick with the Third World afternoon sunlight. I managed to lift my left wrist enough to see what I was able to do. A couple of weak scratches, a few shallow, hesitant gashes. I sobbed even harder. 'There is something about you I can't understand,' said a voice in my head, planets away. 'I can't understand it either!' I shouted back. 'Where are you?! What do you want from me?! Why am I here?!' I was beating at my pillow over and over again. Why is dying painlessly too much to ask? What am I doing all this for? Why does the burning never stop?
I got home, undressed, got on the bed, bared the blade as far as it would go, and--as casually as one would initiate a suicide attempt--I let the sharp edge touch my left wrist. Everything was still, and silent, and burning. I was maestro, and bow, and string, all at the same time. I was flesh. I was metaphor. I never moved.
Exhaling--I didn't notice until then I was holding my breath--I let the blade drop and I got one of the colored pens and the illustration board. On one corner of the board I wrote, 'Thank you. I'm sorry.' I put it aside.
I picked the blade up and let myself relax. A single note, soft and distant, floated somewhere in my head. Pressing the point against my left wrist, I pushed. Slowly. I angled it down. Slowly.
A symphony, gaining volume in my mind. A bullet train, approaching. Clouds, parting. Sunlight. Lightning. Water. Rain. And then--pain. Singing, stinging pain. No metaphors here. I was sweating, and I was terribly, terribly frustrated. I cursed, and hurled the cutter to the wall.
Why must that stop me? One last dam bursting, one last door to go through! Anger. Yes, that should be enough to dull steel on flesh, flesh breaking. I picked up the blade, sat on the bed, held my breath, and pushed--sharp edge on soft flesh. I pushed, and I let it glide. A symphony, getting louder. Strings, breaking. Someone, screaming. The blade made a weak, hollow clatter on the old wooden floor. I sobbed into my pillow.
'Bakit hindi mo ako masagot?' I asked him. 'Why can't you give me an answer?' It was Christmas, I think. Or it could have been New Year's. Anyway, it was the holiday season, and we were having dinner at this fancy Korean restaurant in Eastwood. I told him I didn't eat seafood because I didn't like having to put too much effort breaking a crab's shell apart just to get meat barely enough for a few nibbles, or picking my way through fish bones, or spending time removing a shrimp's head and tail. He did all of that, unceremoniously tossing the respective meat onto my plate, looking plainly content--or smug. I nibbled everything anyway. 'Isn't it easy being with me? Didn't you say you're happy spending time with me? We've been seeing each other for a year, what's stopping you from deciding--finally--THIS is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with?' I gestured grandly, hoping it would come off as a joke, but we both knew it was a serious question.
His attention was on the crab. 'Lahat na siguro ng pwede kong magustuhan sa karelasyon, nasa'yo,' he said. 'Everything I could have wanted in a relationship.' Something cracked. I winced. 'But there is something about you... I can't understand.'
The pause was quite noticeable, but I considered his words. I considered his words were stupid. 'Alright,' I said, nodding. 'Alright. That's fair.' Spectacularly stupid. 'More crab, please.' It would be months before I realize what he said was spot on. There is something not easily understood here.
My plane just landed on Manila. I spent three days in Iloilo, reading and doing little else. I met someone nice--beautiful and smart. I was big enough to admit it wouldn't go farther than dinner and coffee and the smallest of small talks, yet still I allowed myself to be affected in the deepest, most profound ways. Needless to say my spirit was shaken--as it has been similarly shaken many, many times before. For an evening, I thought maybe if a person as beautiful would like someone like me, then maybe I could be beautiful too. Until a familiar, irrevocable force slams into my chest, hurling me back into my place. There is nothing beautiful about me, nor the world I am living in.
I was at work. I was taking calls. I was digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping the minutes would go faster, hoping the phones would cease their infernal beeping. 'Follow your dreams,' the voices in my head kept singing, 'Follow your heart.' I have none. I have none. Beep. Beep. I looked out the window and imagined what it would be like hitting the pavement if I jumped off from the top of the building. I laughed, and the person on the other line laughed with me.
I was sobbing into my pillow. My room was humid. I could hear birds in the distance and nothing else. Steam, maybe, from the wall of the house opposite my room, white-hot and grime-thick with the Third World afternoon sunlight. I managed to lift my left wrist enough to see what I was able to do. A couple of weak scratches, a few shallow, hesitant gashes. I sobbed even harder. 'There is something about you I can't understand,' said a voice in my head, planets away. 'I can't understand it either!' I shouted back. 'Where are you?! What do you want from me?! Why am I here?!' I was beating at my pillow over and over again. Why is dying painlessly too much to ask? What am I doing all this for? Why does the burning never stop?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Far, Far Away
There is a howling in my chest that wants to be heard. Every second it is there--an obsidian fire, varying in power and volume, but always, constantly awake, always, constantly there.I have just spent the last three days in Iloilo, my first real trip by myself, my first real flight. I suppose in a way one can say the trip went as expected. Most of my time here was spent reading and sampling good food from new, untried places--even if it is far from the local cuisine.
I met someone, too. Beautiful and smart and possessing of more enviable traits most youths ever have a right to. Wanting him came easily enough, of course, but I have lived through enough stories woven from similar threads to know how the pattern would take shape. At any rate, what I have been given should be enough--should be more than what someone like me deserves, surely.
There are times when I want it known. When I would want nothing else than a visible manifestation of my pain to take shape right before my eyes. This howling swimming from inside me thrashes about my blood like silverpike caught in a barbed net. Nothing else would please me more than seeing this wild, flailing thing in front of me, gutted and bloodied and drained of life. What would that leave me with, I wonder? What would I find inside myself when all the bad things have been drained out?
My flight isn't until four more hours. I will leave Iloilo with much the same awe and incredible, incredible sadness as I did Baguio six years ago.
I will go back to the life I have been living with everyone who claims to know my name, my face none the wiser. Everyone will see a smiling face, 'Oh yes, I enjoyed my trip very, very much. The flight was comfortable enough. The food was good. The people were nice.' I might make mention of the person I met to close friends, but they will never know I'd fallen in love with him--him, little better than a complete stranger, after seeing each other for a few hurried hours.
Love, I'd come to realize, is free for me to give to whomever I choose, however much I choose, and take back when necessary--or refused.
More and more voices in my head ask 'Is this worth anything?' More and more voices take up space in the mad, mad chorus in my head, in concert with the howling. 'Is this worth anything? Is this worth the crushing pain? The growing space between islands of sanity?' And then I see something beautiful--heartbreakingly beautiful--and I say 'Yes', and I weep.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Still
I stopped writing because you left. You. You, the one I called gravity, the one I called love. The dragons went silent when you left. There were no more lightnings, no more storms. Nameless creatures that travel through folds of shadow took wing and disappeared into unknowable dimensions. You left, you took everything, I place all blame on you.
I am ruined--as grief ruins spirit, as wind wears away stone--yet it is still you who I want. I want only to write stories of you. I want only to write stories for you. Everything else is hollow, without depth, and terribly, utterly grey.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Absolutely Nothing
Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, because I allowed nothing to change. Why bother? 'Valar morghulis', as it is said in A Song of Ice and Fire. 'All men must die.' We bide our time, justify our actions, compromise, and do the best we can with what we are given. Death expects nothing from us, and I am perfectly content with doing/being absolutely nothing.
I should point out that, thinking this way, I expect less and less of people, too. And just as well. What does this world's people have to offer? More to the point, what does this world's people have to offer me?
So for the following year, I say again: Be nothing, do nothing, expect nothing.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Decay
My body feels very, very old. My throat is dry. My head feels hollow and cold and dank. Still the world turns, and threads are spun and unraveled and frayed, all in a whirling, neverending cycle. What good serves howling when the sound is not heard, when the air is thick and black and bitter as tar? How does one look away and live pretending the darkness is far away when every turn of the head reveals a shadow? Time--barbed and thorned and boiling--rubs against my skin with each movement. Every second is a jolt of pain, every sound a roaring blast through my head. When does it end? Completely, utterly, and truly end?
Friday, October 21, 2011
Blurring/Burning
I could be anywhere and it doesn't matter. I am not really where I am supposed to be. Everywhere--anytime--it feels as if I am shadowing myself from a step back.
There are times barely noticeable when instead of the shadow, I find myself as the other--the person. Real as blood and guts, real as glass on skin. But despite the reality, the solidity, the binding laws of the known Universe, this shapeless, nameless force pulsing from somewhere within my flesh screams for the push and pull of unreality, of the limitless sky, of the void, of chaos bleak and riotous and infinite.
Eventually, however, I am forced back to being my own shadow: silent, gagged, and tethered to its organic master yet burning long, burning without sound--a cold and ancient fire. And it is this. Every particle of energy orbits this, my sun. What little is left, I leave for getting from one place to another.
But the world does not stop. We fight. We dance. And sometimes one blurs into the other that the only thing that really matters is we keep moving. How? Why? What for? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You do not matter. Who you know, what you know, how you use what you know and who you know do not matter. Nothing matters. Everything is moot. We keep moving for as long as we can, as much as we can, in whatever way our instincts take us, until we die.
Who is this person? What is his name? Why does he do the things he does, and those a certain way?
There are times barely noticeable when instead of the shadow, I find myself as the other--the person. Real as blood and guts, real as glass on skin. But despite the reality, the solidity, the binding laws of the known Universe, this shapeless, nameless force pulsing from somewhere within my flesh screams for the push and pull of unreality, of the limitless sky, of the void, of chaos bleak and riotous and infinite.
I am not supposed to be here. I am not supposed to be doing this. I am not supposed to be talking to you. I am not. I am not. I am not.
Eventually, however, I am forced back to being my own shadow: silent, gagged, and tethered to its organic master yet burning long, burning without sound--a cold and ancient fire. And it is this. Every particle of energy orbits this, my sun. What little is left, I leave for getting from one place to another.
Enough. No more. Everything needs to stop.
But the world does not stop. We fight. We dance. And sometimes one blurs into the other that the only thing that really matters is we keep moving. How? Why? What for? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You do not matter. Who you know, what you know, how you use what you know and who you know do not matter. Nothing matters. Everything is moot. We keep moving for as long as we can, as much as we can, in whatever way our instincts take us, until we die.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Hyperbole
I'm too tall. Everything is too bright, too noisy. My neck hurts. My sides hurt. It's too crowded. Stop talking. Why is everything so slow? I feel like throwing up. It's too hot. I'm not sure if I'm too angry or too sad. Who cares about clothes? Who cares what you think? Who cares what I think? I damage myself when I write. I damage myself when I see myself in the mirror. My lips are cracked. My nose is too big. I'm too tall. I'm too tall. I'm too tall.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Kaleidoscope
It's still here. I still feel its traces. A kaleidoscope of jagged shapes and dissonant colors floating in the space between my throat and my gut. They move as one, but I feel the turning of every sharp edge breaking tendon and tissue, lancing through every vein. Every piece is disjointed and disconnected, as if belonging to many different puzzles.
I try to walk but it feels like the rest of the world moves instead and I am always at the same spot held down by a magnetic force. I speak, but the sound does not come from my mouth, bouncing off the walls instead.
I couldn't stand the thought of being with another person. The thought of life pulsing at close proximity makes me want to vomit. 'How do you move like that?' I want to shout. 'How do you think that way? How can you ignore flesh and blood and decay when it is all around you? How can you think of fighting, when surrendering is so much easier?'
The Universe is very, very old. It is used up, crumbling, filled with patchwork and running on blistered feet. It is exhausted and my skin all but feels it. Sleep is what the Universe wants -- quiet, dark, cold, and lasting sleep.
I try to walk but it feels like the rest of the world moves instead and I am always at the same spot held down by a magnetic force. I speak, but the sound does not come from my mouth, bouncing off the walls instead.
I couldn't stand the thought of being with another person. The thought of life pulsing at close proximity makes me want to vomit. 'How do you move like that?' I want to shout. 'How do you think that way? How can you ignore flesh and blood and decay when it is all around you? How can you think of fighting, when surrendering is so much easier?'
The Universe is very, very old. It is used up, crumbling, filled with patchwork and running on blistered feet. It is exhausted and my skin all but feels it. Sleep is what the Universe wants -- quiet, dark, cold, and lasting sleep.
Monday, September 05, 2011
The Cut Deepens
It was maddening almost to the breaking point, the way it was this evening. Life pulsed inside that little corner of the world, like living light trapped in a blackened glass bubble. It was sickening, when you are both light and blackened glass -- pushing and throbbing for escape, at the same time contracting and constricting to imprison.
At one table a young couple was stealing kisses when they think no one was looking. At another, four young professionals discuss business. At the table behind me, a middle-aged woman was quiet with intense concentration, eyes darting left to right as she lets words out onto her laptop screen. Life was singing in that quiet little corner in the city, sonorous like the rush of water in a deep, wide river flowing out into the ocean.
Everything terrified me. Everything, moving at the same time -- singing, flowing, squirming and writhing like the monsters of myth -- bore deep into flesh and bone and drew out a steady trickle of liquid fear, thick and grey and steaming. I wanted to howl from fear and grief. I wanted to howl until my soul came out through my mouth, vanishing into the damp night air.
What I wanted. What I wanted. What I wanted was to die, be forgotten, and never thought of as having ever existed, but -- as I'd always pondered year after year, day after day, second after excruciating second -- some unknown force stays my hand. Nameless it stays, though it has lodged itself in different parts of my body, and I am kept alive.
In the meantime, life keeps pulsing -- a steady, rhythmic beat. A distant, sonorous melody. A call. A call. A call.
At one table a young couple was stealing kisses when they think no one was looking. At another, four young professionals discuss business. At the table behind me, a middle-aged woman was quiet with intense concentration, eyes darting left to right as she lets words out onto her laptop screen. Life was singing in that quiet little corner in the city, sonorous like the rush of water in a deep, wide river flowing out into the ocean.
Everything terrified me. Everything, moving at the same time -- singing, flowing, squirming and writhing like the monsters of myth -- bore deep into flesh and bone and drew out a steady trickle of liquid fear, thick and grey and steaming. I wanted to howl from fear and grief. I wanted to howl until my soul came out through my mouth, vanishing into the damp night air.
What I wanted. What I wanted. What I wanted was to die, be forgotten, and never thought of as having ever existed, but -- as I'd always pondered year after year, day after day, second after excruciating second -- some unknown force stays my hand. Nameless it stays, though it has lodged itself in different parts of my body, and I am kept alive.
In the meantime, life keeps pulsing -- a steady, rhythmic beat. A distant, sonorous melody. A call. A call. A call.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Desolation
There is nothing left. I would write foolishly, 'I stand before an empty field,' when it would be more accurate to say that the empty field had always been within myself -- nearer and terrifyingly more personal. There is no wind, there are no leaves dead and dying. Old things break and crumble to dust under the skin of this old, old earth -- leaving no traces, allowing no histories. But what burns inside me if not fire? What wills me to move if not my own mind? This desolate vastness, this grey room, these white-paddded walls -- what binds everything together? What tethers me to this place? Why am I still here?
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
This
Why do I insist on this? Why do I believe that I do not deserve better? Because there is nothing more. Because there is nothing else. Because this, even if this is a lie, is mine. Because this is my lie, my pretense, and no matter how intangible, it is more than what a million, two million, countries and countries worth of people alive now can hope for.
This. This is mine. This purple butterfly bruise is mine. This humming, thrumming pain is mine. This madness, this turning away from light, from sound, from flesh and language and color is mine. I insist on this. I deserve this. There is nothing else.
This. This is mine. This purple butterfly bruise is mine. This humming, thrumming pain is mine. This madness, this turning away from light, from sound, from flesh and language and color is mine. I insist on this. I deserve this. There is nothing else.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Tonight
Tonight he came back. Tonight he said sorry, and some truths were disclosed. Tonight I told him I love him.
'Thank you,' he said.
'Thank you,' he said.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Lines Crossed
'Umalis ka na.' So leave. Those were the last words I said to him yesterday. It looked like he wanted to. It looked like he was done using me.
The weekend was spent at Puerto Galera. He said he's never been to the beach before but despite this, most of his time was spent arguing with his aunt -- according to him, at least -- over text about the fact that he never asked for permission to go. I tried not to mind but as bull-headed as he can be, how can an argument stretch for a day and a half? It did stretch, however, from when we were still at the beach the day prior, to the following day when we were about to leave, even until the bus ride back to Manila.
He wanted to stop for pizza before heading home, so we walked over to Amici after getting off from the bus at Pasay Road. He was lagging as, yes, his god-fucking nose was still on his god-fucking phone. But there was nary a word from me until we got to the restaurant. If I was going to be angry with him, it's not going to be weak and half-assed; I wanted my anger to build up to something... more. We were waiting for our food to be served and as if on cue, he affected a startled look, and he said without taking his eyes off his mobile phone that his aunt was on her way to the boarding house and he had to leave immediately. Lies. A voice, dark and rasping, clawed at my mind. So leave.
'Sorry for disappointing you,' his message came not 10 minutes after he stepped out of the restaurant. I finished both of our drinks. 'I knew this would happen. If this is the last time, it will be very memorable. Take care.'
He was never very smart but I knew every word was a trap, if unwittingly set -- crude yet delicate. I never responded but then again I could never come up with anything less biting and less melodramatic than 'So you're done using me.' It's hard not to feel used getting back from a trip one paid for entirely, and then being left high and dry, yes?
So are you done using me? I highly doubt it. But we'll see.
The weekend was spent at Puerto Galera. He said he's never been to the beach before but despite this, most of his time was spent arguing with his aunt -- according to him, at least -- over text about the fact that he never asked for permission to go. I tried not to mind but as bull-headed as he can be, how can an argument stretch for a day and a half? It did stretch, however, from when we were still at the beach the day prior, to the following day when we were about to leave, even until the bus ride back to Manila.
He wanted to stop for pizza before heading home, so we walked over to Amici after getting off from the bus at Pasay Road. He was lagging as, yes, his god-fucking nose was still on his god-fucking phone. But there was nary a word from me until we got to the restaurant. If I was going to be angry with him, it's not going to be weak and half-assed; I wanted my anger to build up to something... more. We were waiting for our food to be served and as if on cue, he affected a startled look, and he said without taking his eyes off his mobile phone that his aunt was on her way to the boarding house and he had to leave immediately. Lies. A voice, dark and rasping, clawed at my mind. So leave.
'Sorry for disappointing you,' his message came not 10 minutes after he stepped out of the restaurant. I finished both of our drinks. 'I knew this would happen. If this is the last time, it will be very memorable. Take care.'
He was never very smart but I knew every word was a trap, if unwittingly set -- crude yet delicate. I never responded but then again I could never come up with anything less biting and less melodramatic than 'So you're done using me.' It's hard not to feel used getting back from a trip one paid for entirely, and then being left high and dry, yes?
So are you done using me? I highly doubt it. But we'll see.