every single time
when i wonder
how long do we still have
in this world of clay
every thing answers me
slowly, at the same time,
at the same breath

the wind whispers
the trees leans
the waters rumble
we will stay

the stars are saying
we will always be here

and you, you sway
through them all
through time and memory
through the walls and skin
that i always thought
separates us

separated us

Whatever Today Is, April

Let me tell you a secret.
I am writing again.
And taking crappy pictures.
I'll post them later.
Yes.

Perchance

There is always a happy ending. It is something I tolerate, something I can live with, especially in books, even movies, and in songs sometimes but not always in real life. I have learned to expect it, and sometimes I am even pleasantly surprised when somehow, some way, it pulls through and makes its presence known in song. But I do not trust it. Most of the time when it happens, all I see are holes in the facade, the cracks in the smile, the lack of light in the eyes. I see the contrivance, the puffery, the yellow wallpaper. I have learned not to trust it.

I am, no pun intended, quite happier without it. I trust the stigma, the apathy, the downright boorishness of the grey, filthy smog that blankets the real world. Okay, the "real" world. Looking out the window of cars, and buses, trains, and planes, I find comfort in the not unhappy ending exactly but the not-happy one. If I made any sense at all, the last few sentences would fly. But usually I only make sense to myself. And that isn't even true some days.

But really, when a song turns out not to end in rose-tinted bath water, and stories end with my characters walking away from each other I find myself quite relieved. Because really, who likes smelling like rotten roses? Who likes running into another person promptly resulting in concussions and bruises in delicate places? It's not realistic, it's painful and it is rife for great falls and even greater disappointment.

I prefer when baths are without bubbles or rose oil or floating botany. I prefer my endings to be open with possibilities. For reconciliation and fate to still be able to do its work, that in spite of walking away in different directions, my people will still be able to meet on the other side. Picture-perfect endings unsettle me like how tupperware boxes smell synthetic and musty, it is not beautiful. There is no beauty or satisfaction in a connect-the-dots denouement. It is in the unravelling, the overcoming, the happy accidents that beauty can be found. It is in the scars we carry, the memories we can never forget, the chinks in the armor or even the veritable chunks of it that have gone missing that we can actually say that we even deserve an ending.

I have faith in the not-happy ending. Because in it I see a gleam in the eye, the broken smiles that have just this something keeping it together, the sigh that goes for miles that tell me that even when it is a not-happy ending, it doesn't matter. Because "happy" was never what we were going for anyway.

7

Acedia. Avaritia. Gula. Invidia. Ira. Luxuria. Superbia.

Ah, Yes, How Do You Do?

This is really my first post of the new year, and the first one in oh-so-many months. There was really nothing to say and, even now, nothing to say. I am still the me I was three years ago; just in a different country, a different school, a different house. I am also not me anymore but in so many little ways that I wonder if this and that negate each other than my being different and the same will ultimately end with me not being anything.

What did I really want to say anyway?

Did I want to share how what semblance of trust I have in the world was lost last year in a penultimate betrayal? Or how I am living a double life, pretending all the time in a wholly different way than before? How I've contemplated not suicide but murder? How vengeance is a dish I am slowly accepting as better after years of fermentation? How this time I have decided to give it will culminate years from now on last year's burst bubble? How I am more tired, and have discovered the first symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis? How I am more proficient in fooling people that I am happy/responsible/golden? Or how I can never fool the people I want?

Maybe it's just that I feel this place which I have cultivated and watered has become so desolate. This was my refuge, something that I guess he has also taken from me. There is so much wrath brewing underneath every fold of skin and every knot of hair and every gulp of air that I do not know how I manage to look like nothing has changed.

I never knew I was this good. I thought someone would notice that I was different. I thought someone would figure it out. I thought someone would have caught up to me by now and asked me the questions that I would've tried not to answer. I thought someone would be here so that I could take everything off and break down and cry already.

I want to tell someone but no one is here. I've become too good at this and no one noticed. I can't stop being good.

I keep myself. But I am not someone.