Fade

As how I see it, I guess you already know my stand. Given the mornings and the late nights that I expected (but failed) to receive the reinforcements you could’ve been given to fight off the fear that I’ve been feeling. I wake up and sleep at night feeling left on my own again to deal with the same nightmares I’ve been fighting before I met you. 

I guess some magic only happens once. Like a one-time hit movie. As soon as the sparks go off, all that’s left would be a deceitful trick. You may have easily dusted off the fairy dusts and the spells we both chanted together; or just lost your belief. Either way, I am glad.

That you’re on your way finding someone who could fit like the missing piece in your jigsaw puzzle. Who can comply on the standards you’ve set or let you do what you want to do as your happiness and pleasure also gives him pleasure in return. I hope you find your heart at peace when you wake up each day knowing that you’ve met someone better than anyone else. I hope he’d easily taste the sweet honesty I’ve never tasted unless I squeezed it out from you. May you open your mind and heart out to each other in each post-coital mumblings and cuddles you’ll have unlike what we had. For we never had any. 

My appearance in your show might be short. And I am looking forward for possible cameo roles in the future. But for now, I hope I made a difference in your usual late night talk. And please remember that I came not to make you like me. But to make you realize that you’re worth loving for.

No goodbyes for now.

-A

Phobia

I once glanced at you during that time when we thought we were free. You stared too long at the fine glass table throwing your reflection back at you, which you didn’t even noticed. Your mind was full of thoughts and seeing them all would be like a sightseer in the middle of the dessert facing a deadly sandstorm. Dark. Deep. Dangerous.

I brought you back to reality with a tap. I smiled and looked through your eyes. You smiled back and that’s the moment when everything changed. The sun suddenly turned dark, and the wind stopped blowing, and everything seemed to pace from slow to a stop. The world seemed to halt as I started to feel fear from within. You’ve made me felt a familiar feeling. A sensation I had before that made me seek escape and runaway. And it felt like I’ve been trapped on a time loop. That the things I’ve been trying to forget started happening all over again. A single look in your eyes made me feel that I’ve been staring at the same person who caused me so much hurt and trouble in the past. Someone who awakened and trained the tamed devil inside me. I shivered at the thought as the imagery of the past started to flash in front of me. The struggle, the fear, the anxiety, and the anger in which I’ve been trying to bury haunted me again by that single flash of smile.

I can’t say whether I triggered my phobia (which I wasn’t sure if I already had) after encountering the experience but I was bothered so much that I binged sleeping.

But not for long. For the escape I seek in my sleep was conquered by the fears taking their form into living nightmares, making me more exhausted upon waking up than prior going to bed. I am struggling to have the rest I need without letting the torment steal my sanity.

So I have to take a step back. To a hole. Six feet below. And be dead for me to be again alive.

Visions of the Past

It was your decision to call it quits during the second week of the advent. You reasoned out that the infidelity you’ve made was just because of a previous act, which may I remind you, a baseless allegations coming from your part.

It was a conscious act of flirting, hooking up and seduction in which you fueled by rage and false assumptions. You did it without hesitation and reluctance despite knowing such would mean a slap on my face. You did it because you thought that such would be the best reciprocate of the disloyalty you believed I did.

And here you are in front of me standing proud with your claims and your crooked reasoning that never even gave justice to what you’ve done. And you have caught the perfect moment to strike me back while I was unstable and been hitting rock bottom for few weeks now.

To tell you honestly, it wasn’t your unfaithfulness that caused me pain. It wasn’t your allegations that made my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t your doubtless declaration of a sinister act that made me step back. It was your outward motive of revenge that made me broken to pieces just because of your inability to trust. A revenge directed towards a heart I thought you’ve loved and cared so much. A heart which never ceased to love you.

“If you want to break up now, might as well do it while I’m depressed. Pagod na ako..”

Rehab

Lying on the floor, I was staring at the white ceiling in a quiet sunday morning. Combined with the white walls, they give me the feeling of being constrained in a prison cell locked on my own thoughts. The floor was cold, no traces of warmth other than the part where I was lying. A proof that (1) no one has (ever) been here since and (2) I haven’t move even a bit for my heat to radiate across the room.

And I tried to remember the last time I went down on the floor and wonder. Of the things I’ve been through and the people who played some part on this journey. Of the lessons I’ve learned, the smiles I’ve given and the mistakes I’ve made. 

It seems so much change have happened since. I barely recognize myself by the way I deal with situations and atrocities presented in front of me. I’ve left the attitude of determining the white and black of things. I’ve been doing bad things because they make you feel good, and realized that doing some good things make you feel bad. 

I have opened myself to anyone, but never let a finger touch me within. I was like a heart filled with laughter, but my soul was rotting like an oxidized autumn leaf. I held on to that beauty and purity too high and now they’re crumbling down for the life choices I’ve made. I listened to my will to do things I want no matter how bad or good the consequences may be. 

And now I have woken my senses up to free myself with the self-induced euphoria. I have to stand up and break myself out from the prison of my conscience. Act on what needs to be done even though sacrificing own happiness is a prerequisite to turn things around.

Still I wonder..

If doing the right things causes pain and a broken-heart, do you still consider the act good?

Sunflower

Who would have thought that watching the sunset gets this tiring. Beautiful. But tiring.

As I sit on the couch facing the glass wall of the artsy coffeshop, the sun tries to bid goodbye on the wet land covered by the gloomy clouds floating in the sky. Its rays give that warm highlights on the clouds’ silver lining. A sign that another day is about to end for some, while it meant beginning to a few. And here I am stuck in the middle. 

I glanced carefully at you in front of me as you block the light passing through the glass which forms your silhouette. The long bridge of your nose and the faint smile formed in your lips never gave justice to the sun’s magnificent exit. Your beauty is reinforced by the sun’s sad glow. 

I looked down and calmed down all the thoughts flowing in my head into a piece of vacant canvass as my fingers fidget every letters. As those letters became words, and words formed phrases and sentences and paragraphs. 

I smiled and looked up to see that you’re gone with the sun. Like a bubble popped into the air. And left me with awe of the dark blue mystery presented by the yellow-stained horizon. You’re gone now and I can no longer exert any effort to find you back. For tomorrow I will find you on the same spot, doing pretty in front of me and would still leave me when the cold night strikes. 

I am loving you from afar and I love the loving part. 

But I hate the tiring feeling. 

Anamnesis

I remember those nights when we never cared for the next sunset. As if the only full moon of the month is our last. We drove around to open night breeze inching towards the fancy restos and antique shops along the road away from your crib. I looked at you and how you’re rockin’ your bedside hair that speaks ‘ain’t giving a fuck’. You smile at me back treacherously as your scent imprints and lingers on my dreams that night. Yes, I never told you, but I’m digging it all.

I remember how you wanted me so bad in your bed and still let me do what I want. The way your body responds to every touch, to every whisper, to every kiss thrills me within and sends me to euphoria. You have given me the freedom and the same liberty I admit I denied to you when I refuse to consider the truth. It was those nights where I believe that I did own you, and I submitted myself to be owned. That you were my fortress. My shield. My strength. But all of it came to rust once doubt from my heart spread out across my body. An every inch of me questions everything about you.

And sunrise came, I had to go. I woke up with swollen muscles, doubting thoughts and crushed morals. The exhaustion seeps in despite a restful night followed by the question of “what have I been doing?” And “what do I really want.”

I may not like what I’ve been doing. I may had struggled before. But I like you for sure. 

And tonight, maybe I’m just tired. And I’m missing you. 

But I don’t want you back.

Chess

There’s the person who “just loved” and the other who “just loved and got hurt.”

You celebrated a year of blessed love. Of genuine trust, honesty and selflessness. Of compromises and sacrifices. And you’ve proven that the love you both had was built on the strongest element to withstand decay and other variable forces outside your own. 

As years go by, the love was undaunted. It stood firm with silver coating and pride as both of you reach for the dreams you aimed in the beginning. But as inevitable as it seem, people change. Whether you like it or not. You get tired and exhausted. You hang on to him like a fortress in which you gather all the strength you need for days to come. 

Then the other one will soon get tired too and manages to do the same thing to you. You cling on each other’s arm; hoping that love would withstand the inner turmoil you both had.

And you, being the perfectionist, the smart one, the self-proclaimed good would not wait and watch the flow of things. You will aim for something different. Something new to freshen up the existing struggle that both of you have been going through. 

You’ll ask for space because you think that such would be the best option that you had, rather than exhausting each other’s strength and patience each night of fighting before going to bed. But you bear inside the love that still exist for your better half. Believing and conditioning your mind that you’re doing this for the sake of both of you.

While the other one, who’s love never dwindled, allowed you to do what you wanted to do. Simply because he loves you. And he trust your decisions and aimed for your happiness more than his own.

And you hold such love and thought in you, and let your wings spread through the vast landscape of freedom that you never thought existed. Soon enough, you soar through higher flight as you see him whole-heartedly  waiting for you to come back and at the same time, supporting you and your decisions. 

But man’s contentment ain’t easy to be filled. 

You still find something lacking. And you seek other free souls for guidance and they’ll be obliged to teach you what you haven’t learned. A bond would soon form, considering the circumstances and the distance present in your condition. 

You fall in love. 

To the one you believe who’s been teaching you how to live your life, who’s been there to guide your every step, who’s been there when tears fall. 

But you, being the perfectionist, the smart one, the self-proclaimed good, knows that you must choose between the two. 

But the guy who’s been waiting ever since, knows the struggle you’ve been going through. And because of the selfless, unconditional love he still had for you, he will give you the freedom you’ve been yearning ever since, for you to find your momentum of flight back. For you to reach your dreams that you believe, too hard to reach with him. 

Now, you may reason out that you just followed your heart and fell in love to someone new. And you can say that you can’t teach your heart. That it can transmit a force too strong to break. As you go along, you heal your ego with a believe that you just did and acted upon what you believe is right.

But. You shouldn’t forget that there’s someone who hold on because of love.

In the end, he got hurt.

La Vie

I know I had a life different than yours. A lifestyle chosen by few, but sustained by some. You sleep early during weekdays, while I work at night. You go out during weekends with your friends as I try to sleep early by moonsight. You celebrate long weekends on the road somewhere unknown while I count the days before I spend my single rest day with you.

Trust me, I appreciate your compromise for the sake of this to work out. But I’m letting you enjoy your life outside the mess we’re about to make. I’m giving you the freedom to do what you want to do, and let you mingle with some of the superficially fake friends and genuine people that you have. I wanted you to sin as early as now and learn the importance of forgiveness while the tension is still too strong for us to drop out. Knowing that I was never a fan of second chances, forgiving would still be easier on my part.

I wanted you to live your life separate from me in order for you to realize things that you do not realize when we are together. That the best lessons are made by experiences and mistakes, of fake people and shitty situations. Of out-of-hand accidents and things beyond your control. I wanted you not to forget the life you had before me and learn how to merge the two without compromising the way you fully wanted to live your days.

And when you are tired and the party is over, when you get beaten up by daily challenges and people I despise made you feel worthless; come back to me.

And I will make you feel home.

Recedere

I blended well but can’t identify myself with the crowd. I was hazy, they were sharp. Yet I cast shadows formed by the lights against my back. But I feel invisible. I immaterialize quickly as another wave of feelings surge from within. I felt it spreading from my gut. To my lungs. To my extremities. I shiver from the coldness  that suddenly wrapped the insides of my skin. But I superficially perspire as I struggle to move ahead despite the heaviness of the earth reaching for my back.

I wanna let go. Fall back flat. Slowly towards the open soil and let the heat of the earth incubate the pain I had six feet below. Return to the safe haven of an unborn fetus comforted by that strong maternal protection. 

And I would immediately let go and forget holding on. Let my fingers and limbs coil and flex within. Let my body necrotize like an abandoned cannister as my soul seek of freedom deprived by the living but can be granted by death. I will forget who I was and the reason for living. Until my heart halts beating and I would no longer feel anything. Everything will eventually turn dark and I would stop seeing the memories of the past and the pain of the present. And the flowing tears soon would end. 

They said hearing would be the last among the senses to be lost once the death came to fetch. How perfect it is that the last good byes and farewell bids would still find their way to you. But no words can undo what has been done, no declaration of love and begging of forgiveness could return what is lost. Everything would no long matter.

In the end, you return to nothingness.

Dysphoria

I can’t remember how long I’ve been here. They brought me here for reasons too shallow to be considered. They say I stopped eating for days. It wasn’t much a surprise for me to lose my appetite. I am already full of emotions building inside me, heavy enough to suppress it. They say I stopped talking to anyone. Yet in my mind, I have thoughts echoing and rolling like thunder. I just don’t let them out. They said they’ve seen me crying for no reason. I say, I cry for reasons they do not know. 

It was summer. I am watching the last sunset of the summer solstice. I feel the warm wind blowing on my face. And the scent of the sea fills my lungs. The waves hushing low below me. I am sitting at the rock formation caved and formed by the thousand rages of the sea. Yellow and orange hues competes at the sky canvass. 

Do you know that feeling? When something beautiful is in front of your face, but you felt like it’s leaving you behind? And you have to wait and bear the cold dark night unsure whether you’ll witness such magnificence again?

I feel that. All the time. Waiting for that person. Who never came but already left me behind. Now I’m stuck with the agony of waiting in vain, for a hopeless love brewed and could be rotten in time. And I’m holding on with my sunset’s words of “wait for me..” not sure whether such return would bring me to a new sunrise or another sad goodbye remarked on a sunset by the sea; all of this as I clamor myself in the darkest of the night looking at the stars. 

I never noticed the years passed ever since. But I remember everything especially when the sun starts to set. When its rays pass through my car window as I drive the long urban road, or when it shines through my glass-walled office. I remember as I watch at the peak of the mountains, or at the calming seas. I would stop and leave this world and swim on my thoughts of me and my future stuck in the past. And let the tears run dry by the sun. 

They say I’m crazy, and I need to be cured.

I’m not crazy. 

I’m broken. But I don’t need to be fixed.