07/07/2013

There's a war happening inside my head. It is as loud as my silence in the real world. There have been countless numbers of casualties. My enemies and allies lay motionless, unidentifiable lumps of lifeless bodies.

Explosions keep me awake at night. There are battle cries playing in my head, so loud that it's like they're being whispered in my ear. There are wounds my eyes don't see, but the pain is too real for my heart not to feel.

There's chaos everywhere from the words fired, each one a bullet raging to pierce my rib. I'm torn apart, left to bleed to death on the cold, hard ground. The air I desperately need smells of grief and despair. I tell myself I can do this, I will get through this, but the better, smarter part of me knows that I might not. 

There's a war happening inside my head. I don't know if I'm strong enough to last through the night.

It rained today while I was on the bus, trying to chase any feelings you have left for me.

I had no destination in mind. I got a ticket, paid for it, picked a seat, put my earphones on, then tuned the rest of the world out. Today, there was no one on my mind but you.

You think I'm crazy for loving to do things like this. Maybe I am, but I regret nothing. I could breathe today. I could close my eyes and listen to Lana Del Rey sing my sadness away. I could stare out the window, watch the trees fade into a distant blur and sigh without anyone breathing down my neck for it. I was cleansed.

The best part wasn't watching the raindrops run after one another down the glass window. It wasn't feeling the warmth of the sun after shivering in the cold. It wasn't being able to just be alone when I needed it most.

The best part was arriving at my destination and finding you there, waiting for me like you knew I'd be there all along.

STAY.

I'm starting to realize how poisonous it can be to be the one who's left believing you could have done better. To think that there was something you should have done to save something you threw away without so much as a blink of an eye is a terrible burden to carry.

There are times when I think back on what I could have said a few years ago - words that would have saved something good, something that was probably the best thing I have ever had in life. I can barely remember when I was last happy. I spend so much time rewinding my memories, trying to hold on to the strings of hope floating in the air, wishing that somehow, he still remembers me. Reasoning that he must, for his world once revolved around me. Fooling myself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, thoughts of me keep him up at night, too.

And then it dawns on me why I am where I am today. Slowly, these pictures arrange themselves into fragments of the distant past. I remember how he let me go to bed mad or sad or both, without even bothering to help calm me down. I remember how easy it was for him to let me walk away, simply because he couldn't bear to be man enough to admit his mistakes. I remember how much I loved him, so much so that there was a map on my skin, angry lines of roads that might lead me to the page he was on, because we were never on the same one.

I remember everything.

I remember saying, "Slow down, I'm not ready to lose you."

The sound of his footsteps walking away was the soundtrack to my nightmares.

There's nothing funny about suicide jokes.

I know I'm overreacting and some people are just trying to lighten up the situation but there are a lot of ways to do that. If you want to strike up a conversation about it, then do so, but be respectful. Don't text everyone saying SUICIDE IS IN TODAY! WHO WANTS TO BE IN? HAHAHA like it's something to laugh about. How would you feel if you killed yourself and everyone you wished to care laughed about your death instead?

These people drove themselves to the extreme for a reason. Because of people like you who don't give a care about their lives. Their families are grieving. How could anyone have bones to just toss these families' pains aside just to prove how cool they are just because they can laugh about matters like this?

Sigh.

People suck.

I've always wanted to do this.

Sit on the passenger side of the car, you behind the wheel, greens and blues whirring past as your foot hits the gas.

I look up at you and see something I've always wanted to see.

I didn't even know I was waiting for you - I was just sitting on the steps of my house, wondering why I was even there - until you came.

You took my hand and held the door for me, and then you said, "Where do you want to go?", and I said, "Nowhere in particular."

And so here we are, driving to nowhere in particular, letting the air be filled with comfortable silence, making conversation with the words we leave unsaid. Your hand reaches for mine, and I let you hold it for as long as you wish to, because there might not be another time.

After all, something as magical as this, if this surely is not a dream, then it is a fragile reality which we must thread on carefully, for the slightest shift can make it shatter.

Your face is calm. You are not smiling, but you are happy. I can tell by the twinkling of your eyes, there are words swirling in your mind, words you don't dare say because they might not make sense. Oh, but how they do.


I roll the window down, fill my lungs with the fresh, cool air. Closing my eyes, I squeeze your hand, and I know that you know what I yearn to say.

I've always wanted to do this.

I wish you wouldn't see me.

I wish you wouldn't talk to me.

I wish you wouldn't say you've been thinking about me on a certain summer day, when the air is warm and there are crisp green leaves on your lawn, just like that very first day I came over and sat beneath the oak tree with you.

I wish you wouldn't ask me how I am, not because I don't want you to, because we both know it's one of the things that make me happy, but because I could lie to you and say I'm fine, or I could tell you the truth and explain why I'm not, and either way, you wouldn't really care.

It may be the hardest thing, to believe that I'm still going on about you - about us, after all this time. The truth is, centuries could pass by and I probably still would be smitten, head over heels not over you. You have been to me what I never thought I would have in my entire life - hope. 

What hurts most is when I think about how you never really meant to hurt me. They'd say boys will be boys, and it's true, you can be a real jerk when you want to, but if I'm sure about only one thing in the world, it's that not once did you plan to break me the way you had; the way you still do.

You've been good. Too good, even, from the very beginning to the last and final goodbye. Remember how you told me you understood? I wish you hadn't. I wish you asked me why, at least once, so that I could tell you what was wrong. You thought you were giving me an easy way out, holding the door as I leave, believing so strongly that you weren't good enough for me. But you were. How I wish you knew you were. 

I wish I could say it's hard to remember how it was with us, but it was the best time of my life, and it haunts me day by day. You're happy, and I'm happy knowing this, but can you really blame me for wanting to know if any of that was real?

If you were the one stuck where I am right now, would you write your heart out to me?

There are things I wish I hadn't known or seen. I'm not afraid of pain; I'm afraid of it changing me into something I don't want to be.

I'm selfish. I am, cause after all these years, I don't want you to be happy with anyone else. I stay up at night wishing you'd miss me enough to seek me out again, like you always did before. I realize it's not happening, but I keep on waiting for things to take a turn for the better.

Right now, more than anything, I just wish I hadn't seen that picture. You stood beside her, smiling like you've never been happier, your arms wrapped around each other. It reminds me of those times I refused to take a picture with you, because I didn't want to have anything to hold on to in case I feel exactly the way I do right now. I'm regretting it more and more.

I don't suppose I want you back. I don't even like you anymore. Sometimes, we just hate seeing others pick up what we have thrown away. Sometimes, I hate that she has restored you back to the amazing person you once were, something I wasn't able to do. Sometimes, I wonder how much better my life would have been if I hadn't met you.

I'm busy with the tape and the glue.

My chest still constricts when I think of you.

Even now, after all this time, when everyone thinks I'm ok, I'm not even fine at all. And I can't find the words to tell anyone exactly how I feel.

It's like there's a hole in me. Not in my chest, but in me. And I've tried everything that might work but nothing is fit to fill it in. Sometimes, it's as if I'm gong crazy. I pull at my hair as if somehow, you'd be here to stop me.

Maybe it's just the weather. It's been really cold these past few days, and the skies would turn gray, but it never rains, which should be a good thing because the rain reminds me of you. Instead, I curl up  and make myself as small as I feel, and wish it would just pour. Because I want to remember. Because lately, you're starting to get blurry. My memories can't get your smile right anymore. Your laughter sounds wrong in my head. And the sound of your voice is not as clear as it used to. And I'm trying my hardest to hold on to these fading pieces of you, because they're all I have left.

Maybe it's the way they've all moved on, and I'm still stuck in bubbles of you. We'll never be whole again, this much I know. When you went, you took a bit of each of us with you, and there's no getting them back. But they've moved on. They talk about you as if you're still there with us, your eyes crinkling as you laugh. And that hurts me, because I'm not there yet, and I feel alone.

I'm trying to hold myself together, but bits of me are starting to fall out, and it's all because of you.

2K13!!!!

Hi. I haven't been here in a while. It's because I'm sooo busy, like seriously, I feel like I don't even have the right to breathe anymore. So here are a couple of things we have to accomplish these coming weeks:

1. CWTS Tree Planting Activity (January 19)
2. CWTS Livelihood Seminar (January 26)
3. Thesis Defense (January 22)
4. CWTS Feeding Program (February 2)
5. CWTS Feeding Program 2 (February 9)
6. 8th Annual Chefs on Parade (February 12-13)
7. PE Field Demo (February 14-15)
8. CWTS Kasalang Bayan (Mass Wedding Ceremony) (February 16)

That's only some of our responsibilities. We also still have our other subjects which are equally demanding in terms of time, effort and money.

I don't know how to be a good leader, this is a fact. I'm moody and temperamental and I don't like repeating things. I hate it when people refuse to do as I say, especially when I've begged them once. And in these activities, I'm given the responsibility to lead my classmates and make them follow me. The problem is, I don't know how.

It's so tiring, preparing for these things and having to keep up with my studies at the same time, but thankfully, I manage it all, somehow. I just hope I can keep it up. I know it's only going to be harder as time comes.

Well, there goes the first few weeks of my 2013. It's not much, but at least it isn't boring.