alarming (the eye opener)

I was walking with –name-, then you-he saw us. I briefly said hello. But when I looked back, he was gone. Or was he that same guy only wearing a different shirt? I wasn’t surprised. Then a message.

“Who was that?”

“-name-”

“I mean, who is he to you?”

“A special friend.”

“How special?”

“Very.”

“Do you love him?”

“Not yet. I just met him, I’m trying to.”

“And what about mr. future former, however that label goes?”

“I’m trying to forget him.”

“At the same time?”

“Why? Trying to forget a man, and trying to fall for a different guy, they’re not mutually exclusive. In fact, you need one to do the other.”                              

“Confusing much.”                                                 

“Hardly.  I’m done with confusion.  I had that for almost five years, and it’s tiring, suffocating even.”  

“That easy huh.”

“No. It’s not like he did anything. I had all the love to give, he just wasn’t taking it.”

“Maybe he wanted to, but he just couldn’t.”

“That’s not an excuse.” I think at some point I quoted Jane Jones/Alice Ayers, “Oh, as if you had no choice? There’s a moment, there’s always a moment, ‘I can do this, I can give in to this, or I can resist it.’ And I don’t know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one. I’m gone.”                                                                 

“I love it when you quote Closer out of whim.”      

“You missed the point.  You always do.”

“Harsh. It just seems there’s nothing more I could say or do to change your mind.”

“You-he-you never tried.”

“I know. It breaks my-his-my heart.”

“It shattered mine.  At least we’re clear on that one.”

A scream.  Suddenly I heard someone screaming.  It sounded like my sister screaming, knocking at my door. “Yveeeeessss, yung alarm mo! Nagset ka pa ng alarm kung hindi ka rin magigising.”  I turned it off, then looked at the time. Fuck!  I overslept.  I’m going to be late again.

when a tree falls in the forest

Maybe, it’s not because of me.

“What am i supposed to do?”
My friend said, “You are not a tree.”
“What?”
“You are not a tree,” he repeated. “You are not rooted on the ground,” he said.
“So I can fly?” I asked.
“I didn’t say you’re a bird, i said you’re not a tree,” he said.
“Ahhh… you mean I can move on?”

the wound i helped you make

I was looking forward to it- being in the same room with you. The moment I walked in, I could only see your eyes, and I thought they were smiling at me. That was all I could see. Those lashes that seized me breathless.

I stood closer, waiting for you, and then it began. You knew you were in control, and I yielded, willingly. Your commands were decisive, yet gentle.

There were times when you leaned on me; you seemed to smoothly wipe your forehead on my shoulder.

You said something, but your words were muffled. I drew myself closer. I looked straight into your eyes, but I couldn’t understand. Suddenly, it hit me. Could it be? Were those words of admiration that you just uttered? I tried to make sense out of it. You realized I didn’t understand, and once again you said those words I thought could’ve given me hope. You said them clearly the second time. I heard you, and I realized you were just asking me to pull, and pull I did. There were no proclamations of undying affection, just a simple order, nothing more. It was like suddenly feeling a dagger strike me.

It began to bleed. That’s what happens when you cut someone, in whatever manner. I knew that before, but it still surprised me. Everybody bleeds, I told myself.

You asked how I was doing. I couldn’t answer immediately, I wasn’t sure if I heard you right this time. I just smiled. You didn’t see it, you couldn’t. You must’ve thought I was ignoring you. And of course I wasn’t ignoring you. How could I? When you’re too close I could feel you breathe– your arm constantly brushing against mine.

What began as a shallow cut has become deeper. You wanted to go deeper. For a moment, I thought you hesitated. But you did what you had to do.

Minutes seemed like days. Everything at a standstill. The silence between the songs in your player seemed longer. For a while, no words were exchanged.

Before I knew it, you said, we’re almost done now. I knew you were looking at me, but somehow I felt it wasn’t me you were talking to. It was almost over, but the moment was already stamped in my memory.

Briefly, our fingers touched. I pulled away. In everything you did, you managed to put me in perpetual blush. But I know my place. A second of ecstasy followed by an hour of misery.

I felt as if my head was floating, dreaming, delaying the inevitable, wishing for a different ending.

I looked at the wound I helped you make. It will heal, I told myself. But the scar will remain, I countered.

You took another second; looking at your work… it was just another accomplishment. I wish I could treat it as casually as you did. I wish I could tell you. But it was too late, you walked away. Gloves off, you removed your mask, you turned around and said, “Sige, scrub out ka na, pasend na lang sa surgical patho yung specimen. Thanks.”

-end

THE PARADOX OF NOTION

Asking to take home that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,

May be asking for too much.  So I’ve come to a resolution, just

Have someone take my picture holding it.  [still deciding if I want

The leprechaun anywhere near the shot, because I’m the bitter

Jealous type]

 

In spite of well-practiced telepathy, compounded by mini-movies,

Spontaneously scripted screenplays, my mind could only alter

So much of reality.  I gave up solipsism the moment I figured

You’re free to choose unchoose me!

 

So, I think, but it could just be me, but I think, now, hear me

First before you answer.  Can you hold my hand, or wrap your

Arms around my shoulder (or whatever intimate manifest within

The zone of your comfort) while someone takes our picture.

 

Pretend.  Truth is variable and meaning is amorphous.  Just

For this purpose:  photographic evidence! my love.

 

So that in the future, year 2051 A.D. (After Denial), I could tell

My grandchildren of this one great love that got away.  “Here,

Look!”  Pointing at our almost fully smudged old picture.  “That’s

him, he was adorable one second, and gone the next.”  I’d appear

miserable, as I explain how things didn’t work out. 

 

“Why didn’t things work out?”  They’d all ask.

“Now, remember when you were younger, 4 or 5 years old, and

we discussed Eleatic Philosphers of Old Greek?  Parmenides?  Does

that name ring a bell?”

“Yes!”  They’d say in perfect synchrony.

“Who is his favorite student?”

“Zeno!”  Again, they all answer at the same time.

“Well, Zeno argued that motion is impossible.  In his argument  

‘The Dichotomy’ he said that there is no motion, because that

which is moved must arrive at the middle before it arrives at

the end, and so on ad infinitum.  The object travels the infinite

half-ways but never arrives at the destination.”

“Ahuh.”  You could see them captivated.

“Remember, distance, my children, will always overpower

freewill.  Now, go to sleep, and in the future, you should know

better.  Consider this story a warning.”

 

That’s far easier than telling them I deluded myself.

 

 

 

I’m still a philosophy major.  Don’t ever forget that my dear.

 

.

A Form of Suicide

A lot of people have undergone, and lots would still undergo, the agony in deciding whether or not to declare their undying affection to someone. But most just endure the torture of keeping silent and suppressing the truth. Why the choice?
Telling the truth is not as virtuous as most religions would have wanted us to believe, that is if by virtuous we mean to say it is naturally and inherently good. Truth hurts. Reality bites. Haven’t we heard enough? I guess we haven’t. We seem to have this addiction of dwelling in pain. How have we become so masochistic? Perhaps when religion has implicitly taught us to equate virtue with pain and vice with pleasure.
We are human beings, and perhaps emotional pain, besides logic, is something that separates us from the rest of the kingdom animalia. Like what Agent Smith said in The Matrix, human beings couldn’t handle sweet perfection (which was the original model of the Matrix world that later on failed) because we define our reality through suffering and misery, and anything less than that, anything remotely close to perfection, our sanity cannot manage. So inspite of our complaints, we feel that pain is a natural condition of life. But the tricky part that I recently learned is that no matter how much we, perhaps unwittingly, embrace suffering we’d rather choose to hurt ourselves than let others hurt us, even if the former is frequently more intoxicating and debilitating than the latter.
When we love, romantically speaking, we rarely choose to declare our love because we know doing so would make us vulnerable. It is wrong to open ourselves out to someone who could take our emotions away, just to wrestle with them only to later on throw them away. We’d rather choose to suffer in silence. Most of the time, this option is extremely melancholy, worse than the fear of rejection or deliberate deception, and it seems only natural that a person would prefer this option. Why? because it’s personal, because self-inflicted pain is more acceptable than one that is externally inflicted. Why? because that’s how we embrace life. Besides, misery should not seek company; misery should be taken care of without it.
I find the act of confessing our undying love similar to suicide, and I know a lot of people will agree with me on this. This is not only because our honesty would necessarily cost us our dear lives, but more because of the idea of the act being irreversible. In suicide, if we succeed, we can’t say, “whoops, I didn’t mean to cut my wrist and loose five liters of blood”, or cry “I’m sorry, I didn’t know jumping off the 40th floor would crash my skull and make my brain splatter on the ground,” or wail “Whoa, so walking in front of a very fast-moving vehicle would be fatal, I have to tell the others, I have to live.” We can’t shout apologies, and say sorry can we come back to life now? When we kill ourselves, we die. Confessing our love would be quite similar, although not as gory as it sounds.
Confession obviously uses words, and when words fly we cannot catch ‘em. Once we say, “I love you,” we really can’t take it back by saying, “just kidding” or “gotcha, didn’t I?” Well, we can say some could get away with it, and I have to agree only if the object of desire has an IQ of 60. The thing is, once we utter words of devotion, we just have to face the consequences, and most of the time, I have to say we are terrified of the consequences. Although the chances could go either way, meaning, it could either cause our heart to jump for joy or for it to flounder in pain, we only rivet our attention on the latter possibility. The only way that we think we could avoid exacerbating the agony would be by convincing ourselves that our hearts will never jump for joy, otherwise we might get our hopes up and by doing so would only worsen our condition in case floundering in pain is the possibility that ensues. Defense mechanism my friends, that’s what it is.
And in my case, there is that awful stage where I almost hope for the plausibility of him knowing how I feel about him, that maybe I don’t have to confess and that I only have to affirm whatever assumption he has of me. That’s when I hate him the most. I have the audacity to hope that he might discover it for himself. But whenever I think I am giving him the liberty to assume, it seems his density level goes beyond any scientific formula could ever compute.
I have to ask, why then should I let him in? Why should I share this suffering, this burden? Why should I utter the words “I love you”, when this would mean I will end up joining those herds of romantic crooks who have misused and abused the phrase, they’ve trivialized it so much it no longer bears the meaning of pure and genuine affection. I’m too good for that, I won’t give in. Between suffering in silence and losing my life in honesty, I would choose the safer one, I would rather keep my mouth sealed.
But what difference does it make, I still suffer, I still writhe in despair. In the end, I want something to hold on to. I want to be proven wrong, tell me to choose the other option.

the tragedy of a semantic affair

After years of mending a broken heart [sharing 90% of the blame, the rest my pride dictates to be the fault of the other person], i realized that nobody really moves on, and closure is an absolute myth.

Especially when someone undergoes the dramatic act of resurrection… no prior crucifixion included. Mr. Former-future-love-of-my-life has shifted back to being Mr. Future-former-love-of-my-life.

him: new word I learned- obstreperous. . It means unruly, stubborn, resistant to control.
me: cute. I hope you’re not alluding to anyone in particular.
him: just wanted to share my new word. Haha. .
me: my friends and I used to do that, lovely.

Later in the day, i wanted to use the word. it’s the subtle hey-i-remember-everything-you-tell-me gesture. I had second thoughts, i might just end up overdoing it.

The other night, guessing it was my turn:

me: Oronyms. Phrases having the same sound. Like “the stuffy nose” and “that’s tough he knows” are oronyms. la lang.
him: Cute. . Never heard about them till now. .
me: It’s evil, actually. They’re the root of most disastrous communication, not to mention the demise of some relationships!
him: Too much anger against oronyms. . I hope it’s not based on personal experience.  I didn’t expect that. Haha. .

* oh sure it’s not based on experience. damn you.

me: Haha. Still, there’s something poetic about them. Two things having different components, yet ultimately sounding the same. Like soulmates. ayan.
him: You should go to sleep. . you’ve invested too much feelings for oronyms.
me: I’ve reached my cerebral quota again haven’t i. a bout toes leap. Get the oronym and forgive it.
him: You’re forgiven. .

POSTSCRIPT
To avoid intense agony afterwards, I realized I’m left with these options:
1.to deny he likes me
2.to deny he exists
3.to admit he exists, but I haven’t met him yet.

as an impartial judge, I don’t think I could ever choose the first one, because in my head all evidence point to the other direction.

As an empiricist (I try to be), the second option is too close to being moot. Plus all reasons, even beyond myself would prove otherwise.

So, I guess I have to choose the last one.

Tough.

MATCHPOINT (A Tale of Language Games)

Have you ever met this person?

This guy who stares at you when you’re looking the other way.

With him, you could use words that you thought could only exist in old literary works of authors long gone. Your vocabulary will never go to waste because you know he knows exactly what you’re talking about. So you decide never to filter, as you float in polysyllabic bliss.

You’d have long conversations, and you’d realize despondency is a thing of the past. You don’t have to be gloomy… you don’t have to drown in misery just to impress him. And just when you are about to impress him more, it’s too late, he’s way ahead of the game.

You’d mock him, out of sheer endearment, and he’d laugh immediately, and you didn’t even have to say “I was just being funny.”

He’s your match in every way, and he’d make sure to point that out.

Have you met this person who’d tell you how much he knows you? And he would do it in the most trivial and mundane manner, and you’d know.

You’d cunningly say something vague, afraid of telling the truth. Your words would have meanings more than you care to admit, but he’d get it. He’d indulge your ambiguity, and he’d deliberately respond to all possible interpretations, and you’d have this long seemingly simultaneous forking correspondence. Both of you would revel, immersed in the exquisite confusion.

When you spend time together, you’d talk fast, you couldn’t stop the verbal diarrhea. Your mind would race… flights of ideas competing to be muttered under breath. You would exhaust yourself in panic… knowing you couldn’t freeze the moment, nor trap yourself in that split-second before you’d realize one of you has already turned his back about to walk the opposite direction.

He’d do something out of the ordinary, and you’d both act as if it’s nothing special. Still, you’d end up on the floor, walking on all fours, searching for something. He’d ask what you’re doing, and you’d say, “Nothing. It jumped off of my chest just now.” He’d start laughing again, and then he’d raise his right hand, he’d say, “Oh, this old thing?” Aparrently, he has his fingers wrapped around it the whole time. And you’d find yourself stuck, deciding if you still want to take it back.

In spite of ridiculously long emotional sommersaults, there are moments you would stop breathing, afraid that any small gesture would cause him to disappear.

Have you ever met this person?

If you have, tell him to call me.

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