because i know i owe it to myself (again), i am writing this piece.

it has exactly been two days after cebu was engulfed with the sinulog festival, five months since i blurbed a diary entry, and seven months after i took a plunge and readied myself for another heartache that will inevitably test my already fragile emotions, but my questions have not only lingered to haunt me,  they have even morphed into bigger questions that deal with my existential angst, my tragedy, and my despair.

i am literally and figuratively spent, used, and burnt by the festivities that i embraced wholeheartedly; and as i write today, i know i am still reeling from the euphoria of the religious event-turned-paganistic practice.

these days, it has become my habit to look for answers to questions that will never be answered, and self-actualizations that are not bound to happen within this lifetime — the absurdity, the vagueness, and the intangibility of this despair has been amplified, and will naturally commence with my submission of the inevitable defeat.

for in these troubling times, there is only one thing that i have grown to accept: that for each time my smile is bathed by the brightest of days, the foreboding of the darkest of nights constantly threatens to derail my short-lived sporadic streaks of happiness.

i think i’m lost, and there is no passage from the abyss.

the promise of the brightest sunshine continues, to this day, to be an elusive promise for me.

Dear Diary,

I am bored to my wits today, but since I am expected to feign diligence in the workplace, I am trying my darndest to make my face look serious: I try to wrinkle my forehead, pound my fingers angrily on the keyboard keys, and create my own, impenetrable, serious Clyde bubble.

Yes Diary, day by day, I am slowly feeling my layers being uncovered; my once steady resoluteness being mellowed down by gradual and graduated submission.

And yes too, Diary, I am growing weary of trying to conform in an environment where I see not longevity nor personal, beneficial growth. But perhaps, this is the path which most people tread: we are thrust into the world as infants, oblivious of what lies ahead; we metamorphose into fiery, angsty adults, resolute and aggressive in trying to withstand the external pressures of societal confomity; and we end up like the rest of them, submissive, passive, and slave-driven by the world.

Once the optimistic infusion of being a change-bearer is slitted in the wrist, we end up as the very people that we once swore we would never become.

Yes Diary, it is a sad, sad world and we live sad, sad lives. And I can only offer my apologies to you at this point.

Woefully yours,

Clyde   

It’s a long, hopeless spell.

when colors burn into ashes.

and red fades into gray.

it’s when petals wilt.

and wither.

even when there are mornings.

and the rain.

whistles.

for it.

to blossom. 

it’s devouring the poison.

and hoping.

that the monotony gives way.

to psychedelic escapes.

and momentary departures.

it’s when the insuppressible lets loose.

as it.

subsists in the empty crevices.

or the poisoned words.

and the stupor of a dreary.

existentially-angsty.

existence.

or not even.

it’s when marlboro lights.

is the only stick that sticks.

and wishing.

wishful thinking.

that as the smoke swirls in sad and nauseating circles.

and dissipates.

ascends.

so would this dry, dry spell.

when colors burn into ashes.

and red fades into gray.

* for you who might not talk to me ever again.

before you even try to cry and tell me that you will reject my words even before they are released from my lips, please do not.

look in my eyes and tell me that this is not the right thing to do.

look at my exhaused eyes and, for once, expunge your system of your glamourised perception of me, and see me, or at least try to, as i really am. or better yet, see us as we really are.

yes, i like you. but like is not love. and love will never be like. we exist in our world together. but this existence has the foreboding of an abrupt rupture - or of gradual departure; the latter worse than the former.

i look at your hands firmly locked in mine, and i see you smile, but is this all there is to it?

right at the onset, i have told you of my misgivings, my shortcomings, my paranoia, my brokenness. you have seen me stripped of that facade: you saw me at my worst.

thank you for trying. believe me, i mean it when i say that.

but ever since my vulnerability has taught me that things are not always as they seem, and that i am better off making sure my self-respect is kept intact, so must i guard my sanity from leaving me. i need to sift through what is genuine in the long haul, and liberate myself from the deception of short-term bliss.

i love you, believe me i do.

it’s just that. love. is. never. always. easy. and. loving. me. is. never. easy.

i look at you now, and i only see a shadow of who you used to be. in my mind.

i look at your eyes, and my heart instinctively closes itself because it sees what my mind chooses not to see.

i firmly intertwine my fingers with yours, but it does not stay long, because its clairvoyance is almost always certain: it prepares my fragile hands to pick up my broken pieces after our inevitable demise; it readies my heart for mourning.

adieu stranger. 

and thank you for making me believe that i can be loved.  

I watch him.

I see him, but I no longer recognize the soul that inconspicuously lurks underneath his exterior.

he seems lifeless. dead, apparently.

and his death is not the common kind, it is a death that he shamelessly carries around with him.
he does not care if people smell the stench of his death, or if they do not conceal their pity and
mourn in front of him.

how can they care when he himself does not care?

the prostituted verse of ‘the eyes being the window to one’s soul’ is what gives him away. it is bereft
of life. its shimmer, long gone. he only uses it to see, but not to perceive. he looks with it, but
his direction renders his vision inutile.

what has happened to him? why is he devoid of life? of emotions? of dreams? where has the little
boy gone? has he gone somewhere far, far away, and does he not plan to come back?

dreams, they say, are
the little shimmers of light that lead us far and away, even when it really just leads us to where our
emotions thrive in — in our hearts.

where did the faint flicker of optimism go? what happened to the dreams? to the arrogant belief that
this is how it should be? why have they bailed on him?

the detachment, i am certain, was what had cut off his link to himself.

in an instant, he was dragged forcibly away from himself. his shell, a pathetic excuse for what had once
been shiny and new. his smile, a flimsy attempt at convincing himself that the stars will soon realign
to make way for his re-emergence.

and his laughter?

his laughter is pained, and he is laboured as he wills himself to laugh each time. the chuckle does not
resonate with how his heart had degenerated into something that once throbbed. into something that is there, but it is only there for a mechanical and calculated function.

it sustains his misery, and so, through
the years, it has become his source of spite. it mocks him and yells at him: you may be alive, but you are
no longer living.

he heaved the first time. laughed it off, until he was convinced that it was a sporadic, spontaneous thing.
but subsequently and as the frequency of these episodes progressed, he was convinced that it was just being unapologetically blunt. that he was indeed hollow.

yes, he is dead. and unlike christ, he does not seek redemption nor does he want to descend back into miserable mortality. he is petrified at the prospect of futile resuscitation. he longs to be where he ought to be.

he is drawn to the silent but profound honesty of the dark, and he is convinced that the light is only for those who have yet to be broken by life.

i do not like seeing him. and i wish him a second death.  

i have been blog-dormant for the past few weeks, and this was not because i did not have enough thoughts to weave into paragraphs, it’s just that my thoughts have been in disarray. as a matter of fact, i know i have much to rant about and even more stories to share.

but fact is, my mind is fuck-lazy. just like always. and it can be pretty taxing to feign sincerity, especially when it comes to writing, so i opted to just shut my mind temporarily, keep all the words in my heart, and all the emotions in my mind.

i was waiting for the perfect moment of release. 

suffice it to say, the past few days have been witness to a love that was hastily nurtured, and was ripped just as fast; friendships that have become life contracts, and those that have deteriorated into friendships that once were; life decisions that could possibly be life-altering; and the flippant regression of once steely resolutions of being stronger and weathering whatever shit life throws at me.

yes, i do believe i am in the throes of defining, or redefining, the life that is meant for me. and i know that this crucial phase will determine how i make it out eventually.

this is just a sample of how my mind has been wracked by all sorts of complications from the recent weeks, and i hope, i just do, that soon, i can weave my thoughts once more into something that makes sense.

that, i am.

it is exactly 2:50 am as i write this — and i am seriously pissed because this night was supposed to be different — i was supposed to sleep earlier than usual, err, with usual being 4 am or 5:30 tops.

and there was a reason why i was so bent on sleeping early tonight, or last night — because tomorrow is supposed to be a different day. at 9 am, i am supposed to head to one of the universities here and cheer my kids on for a parliamentary debate that me and theri worked hard for (err, this might be exaggerated, but considering my lack of anything worthwhile to do these past few days, THIS could possibly be my week’s highlight)

damn you, thoughts. you never let me sleep.

or perhaps, this is what happens to puyat torrent-downloaders who’ve had to sleep late for the past week or so. and i guess, this is what i deserve for fucking up my own body clock.

but anyhow, i plan to wage an all-out war against my rebellious body clock, and i intend to defeat you, thoughts. ha. i will tire myself today, not sleep (even a bit), and we’ll see who gets exhausted once this day is over.

i will win, thoughts. and you better put up a good fight. or probably not.

it’s your call — but be forewarned though, i will go to bed prepared.

‘why are you still single?’

then the look of pity cushioned by a gesture of concern.

‘what’s wrong?’

clyde (deep inside): first level of rebuttal, putang ina ka.

second level, i don’t need your pity, and you can pepper someone else with your concern –

because on the third level of rebuttal, i am perfectly happy with my current state, and no amount of pitiful gestures can make me feel miserable because i know myself, i know what i currently need, and i am not desperate.

gets?

one thing that i like about being in dumaguete is that everyone looks out for everyone. concern is everywhere, and i literally mean everywhere: it’s in school, in church, in family, and in all other social circles that are really just intertwined with each other. but this supportive social base is unfortunately, also the reason why we have to entertain the annoying snootiness of those who are convinced that they have the right to intrude just because they are part of any of your social circles.

first level of rebuttal: why is it so discomforting for these people when one’s status message says single?

let me substantiate this claim.

being in a relationship, mind you, is not something as trivial as choosing who your top friends in facebook will be, or deciding what’s going to be your pulutan for cali-tan (cali and tanduay, try it, it’s love). relationships are complex — almost as complex as love (if ever it exists), and so leeway should be given to those who:

a. have been burned before

b. are still unsure of the right person or,

c. just don’t feel like being in a relationship.

because personally, i believe that no one can really predict the path of our emotions. i remember, with fondness now but with contempt when it happened, how it took me two years to forget a surreal conversation that i had with a complete stranger in a bus ride in manila 5-ish years ago, whereas a relationship that lasted for seven months was nowhere near bothering me a week after it ended.

this, for me, shows the extent of its unpredictability, its complexity notwithstanding.

society, in all honesty, is actually very imposing with its standards of what is a happy life and conversely, what constitutes its miserable half. but these standards are almost always arrived at consensually, even if this concession is not really absolute and is thus, questionable still.

this is probably the reason why society thinks this way:

happiness = relationship.

and moreover, this is why those who are subsumed under this line of thinking feel helpless, hapless, and desperate when they are without a partner — they instantly feel that their temporary demise is a foreboding of things to come: a life that is sad and empty — that they will inevitably be alone and miserable. which is why they look for relationships even when it is clearly for the wrong reasons. they try to fill the void by feigning affection towards those who are presumably as desperate as them.

first level of clarification: you are not as unsell-able as you think you are — you just need to wait for the right moment and the right person. (but this has to be tempered by how you assess yourself physically, just kidding)

second level of clarification: screw societal pressure — they don’t get to fix your heart once it gets broken by a relationship that was not supposed to happen to begin with.

‘why are you still single?’

there’s that pity again. there’s that futile attempt at hiding their concern.

and here is my rebuttal again:

putang ina ka.

‘is it something that happens as we grow older or do we have problems because as older people, we tend to overanalyze things?’

jeneil asked as silence, for once, descended on our group that night.

her question kept us quiet for a little longer — because it got us thinking: as older people, are we messed up because we have aged considerably? or are we the very reasons why we live directionless lives as of the moment, exactly eight years after high school graduation?

of course, we were the perfect mix of people to answer that question — we had in our group a registered nurse who did not know what to do with her career path what with the retrogression in the US and all, we had someone who just broke off her engagement with her erstwhile fiance, still, there was one who did not know what his life meant as of the moment and where it was leading to, and then there was me, a college junkie who just finished formal schooling after over eight years (thank god it was only seven years and a sem, yehey).

we fell silent because we tried to look for a sensible answer to her sensible question.

then edon quipped: ‘are we really miserable?’

everyone erupted in laughter — not because the answer was an obvious no, but because we all knew that in our own unguarded moments together, especially with the presence of spirits around, we crumbled in the presence of each other — admitting human frailty in the company of friends who did not judge nor took pity because they themselves felt and understood how it was to be broken.

‘how could it have come to this?’

all of us looked in different directions — but there was a subdued concession among all that what kept us together, and what will keep us together in the years to come was the comfort of our friendship and the future rounds of tagay in between heartfelt laughters and sporadic emotional outbursts.

we had become the friday night drinking club — and we knew, in that solitary moment of silence and bliss, that we will be each other’s lifesavers in the days, and drinking nights, to come.