The Yeses and The Noes

Yes, I miss you too. No, it doesn't mean I want to see you again. But, yes, I still love you. I feel the truth of it like raindrops on my skin. Not those which fall as the fine drizzle you so like, mind you, but the kind which descends as a violent, destructive monsoon deluge.

No, I do not hate you. But, yes, a burning anger still does consume me from time to time, and, no, it is probably not going away completely anytime soon.

Yes, I am okay. I am trying to be. Every. Fucking. Day.

No, you are not a bad person. But, yes, you treated me badly. You wounded me in a place where I have been injured by others before you; dug your nails into old scars and scraped the skin until they bled again, until the pain was too scathing to hide under a pretense of nonchalance.

Yes, I cried over you. I did so again just moments ago, in the darkness of the movie house, as I sat between two couples who paid more attention to each other than to the film. No, I did not wish we were still together, but yes, I missed you and thought it would have been great if I saw the movie with you. Parts of it reminded me of you and of us, of our conversations that spanned thousands of Facebook messages and hours on the phone. The talk we had over soft tacos, beer, and cigarettes and the words we said in bed, merely in murmurs.

No, I don't want to want you anymore, but, yes, I still do, and I guess that's what hurts me most, because, no, I do not need you.

Yes, I still do want you. But no, because, fuck you, this is pointless.

And you. And I. And we, especially.

Without question, a yes: we are over, oui.

Allow me some bitterness, just this once

I'm not wishing you well, bastard. I'm going to be honest and admit that I sometimes hope you never meet anyone who'd try to understand you as much as I did. I won't think of the good things alone. Instead, I'll remind myself, every time I remember you, that you no longer deserve the thought, much less the tears. You deserve nothing from me. Not after you broke my heart the same way you did a year ago. Not after you blamed me for your feelings.

You can't do that, you understand? Your feelings for another person, regardless of what induced them, are your fucking responsibility. Understand? So don't fucking tell me it was my fault you fell in love with me. And don't fucking come back. I know I said you can. But don't. Understand?

Because I might let you in again. And you'd hammer my fucking heart again into a hundred ugly splinters.

Let's just pretend we never knew each other and our relationship was fiction. That's right. Let's pretend it never fucking happened outside the pages of a book. It's better that way anyway.

30.03.2012

This thing that we have now isn’t so bad, is it? In fact, it’s pretty close to what I’d consider ideal. We talk for hours through wires and satellites, through plastic buttons and glass screens, not minding that we both have to get up early the following day to do jobs we both feel no love for. We go through days like a pair of words meant to be printed side by side on a page, but written, instead, on the first and the last pages of a book.

We talk about days in places we call home, places we’d rather not be, because our place is in the woods, far from the pressures and the expectations of people we'd rather not please but need to, far from the lives we are leading but rather leave, because we have other things in mind, like a life where we roam the streets of Paris, or one where we have yakiniku together after watching the swans in the river.

But these are merely fabrications of my imagination, things that crept their way into our conversations. These are things that may be happening in a parallel universe where we appear as a portmanteau scribbled on a piece of paper, where you are a person, not a mere voice uttering sentences that, in the end, don’t mean anything.

Because what could this mean, this thing that we have now? What could this be, other than a game we play for hours, rolling dice and counting squares? Every game has its end, no matter how long it is played and I can only hope this ends in a draw. In some games, they say, you win or you die. In this game, I say, you win or you cry, which is a kind of dying, really.

But I maintain that this is close to ideal, because it has no strings (unless I choose to believe in the fabled red string), no walls, and best of all, no name, which makes it nothing and everything I want right now. So yes, it's not bad at all, whatever this thing is. Its impermanence and its inconsistence may just be what you and I need in this reality where youandi does not exist.

Dear future lover,

Love me. Love me without shame, without excuse, without restraint. Love me for me, not for what I seem or for what I could be.

Love me, and I will love you in return. And love you beyond clichés.

You know, I don’t want to be angry or bitter or (insert negatively loaded adjective here)

but sometimes, when memories come crashing toward me like a fucking tsunami, I can’t help cursing you and wishing you’re miserable.

I loved you. Actually, there’s a high chance I still do. I kept making excuses for you. I wanted my friends to actually like you. I even considered following you to Canada or Australia or (insert first world non-Asian country here) when all my life the only place I really dreamed of going to was Japan.

It makes me so angry to think I wasn’t worth the effort. That you got into this relationship without proper consideration, even when you had me wait for months, believing you were doing that so when our time comes, we wouldn’t be easily crushed. You made me believe you wanted us to last. You did.

I can’t even look at my inbox now. And as much as I want to delete your thread, I can’t, because, in all honesty, I’m still hoping we’d get another shot.

But on most days, I wonder if it’s even worth giving a second try.

On most days, I just want to fuck you over.

I miss you, love

I miss your hands, love. Your slender white fingers which you once intertwined with mine, the night we half-drunkenly kissed in front of our conniving audience. How the feel of your palm against my palm was more than a mere brushing of skin against skin. And how the cliched act of holding hands on a rainy evening felt like a night spent lounging on the living room floor sipping on a warm cup of cocoa, a small fire crackling in the hearth.

But I cannot hold your hand now. Not when there are distances between us, both metaphorical and not.

Your last text message was five days ago. I don't remember if you sent another one after that, something that wasn't worth saving, which I may have ended up deleting. But there are things I learned about love and loving over the past five days. Things I may have already known, but have forgotten, as well as things I am picking up for the first time.

I have learned to deal with this longing without having to constantly put myself in an inebriated state, to break out of my self-indulgence. I have learned that to be with you, I must be without you. That needing does not equate to loving. And that the un in unhappy is but a prefix I can always omit, if I so choose.

I miss your hands, love. How walking down a crowded hall with my hand in yours lacks the perfection so often read and written in fiction, and instead reconfirms the reality that even imperfect can be beautiful. There were no sparks, no fireworks, no electric feel. There were only you, me, and a bag of groceries.

I miss you, love.

My clearly idealized beloved,

You make me believe that for romance to exist, familiarity needs be evaded. Sometimes, once distance is closed, no amount of imagination suffices to cast glamor on a thing. In ignorance one finds no depth, but the shallowness — nay, flatness — of its topography at least allows one to set up those intricate mind games that craft bliss — that lead to the unguarded smile, the coy upward glance, the running in corridors in the middle of the night giggling in fits and spasms while waving flaming lingerie in the air (no, not really).

Nietzsche said, "A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love." This is why I do not wear my glasses when I gaze at mirrors to look at you.

To you, who has made residence in my head

Please know that I am, by no means, imposing on you the duty of feeding my worn ego. I, however, would not deny that these days, on mornings, especially, I find you in the backseat of my head doing nothing in particular, just haunting me, I guess, like the ghost of a failed relationship. You remain a ghost until, finally, a message is delivered with a beep: good morning or something else, and suddenly you're human again and I feel a little special for a while.

I want to fall in love with you.

I want to fall in love with you.

No special reason behind it. I just do. As you probably know, I've been wanting a boyfriend for months now, but Lady Luck hasn't been on my side. There were a couple of guys who came along, but neither of them were my idea of boyfriend material.

I'm not saying you are, but I realized I quite like you, and that makes all the difference. See, I don't remember much about you, except that you were with my cousin for about a year or longer and that I met you once before (only to embarrass myself by drinking beyond my limit and throwing up). I have a vague memory of talking to you about my cousin when you were no longer together. It was about her relationship with her then new boyfriend. Something you said about cherishing her stuck, for some reason, and since then I've convinced myself that breaking up with you was one of the most stupid things she's ever done in her life.

I probably shouldn't have initiated the online conversation that led to this. By this, I mean this—all this talking we do through text, sometimes through chat.

I mean, it's probably nothing.

But I must admit I've been deriving some sort of felicity from our correspondence.

Which is probably wrong. We're friends, aren't we? For me, at least, we are. I'm too scared to ask you anything because it might put you off and cause you to distance yourself from me, so I hold myself back from throwing stupid questions in your direction and plague myself instead with torturous what-ifs lacking definite answers.

I want to fall in love with you. The want in this statement implies a consciousness on my part, a decision waiting to be made. Should I jump or shouldn't I?

I really don't know.

I've been trying to weigh the pros and the cons, but I have trouble organizing the chaos in my head, so I still haven't arrived at a conclusion. Only one thing has been fully established so far: I like you. And, inevitably, I find myself hoping you'd like me too.

When such hope begins to burn in my system, I panic. And for good reason. I am putting myself in a vulnerable position because of this hope. Don't I always say that hope leads to heartbreak? And I honestly believe that. Slowly, I am becoming attached to the experience of getting good morning messages from you, of being said good night to. Then I wonder if it's you or if it's the attention I am snagging from you that has this warm feeling circling in my chest. Twice I had thanked you for your attention, and twice you'd jokingly called me emo for it. I really do appreciate it though.

I'm overanalyzing things, I know. It would be much easier to just ask you, of course, but it's too risky to do so. Besides, we've only just been talking for a week, so what the hell, right? I'm scared of freaking you out, so I'll shut up for now.

And I know you probably won't get to read this but I'm writing it anyway, just to get the shit off my head even just for a second.

I want to fall in love with you.

But according to societal norms, it's too early for love so I will like you for now. I'll make an attempt to extinguish the tiny flicker of hope buried under my skin, but I'll hold on to the possibility of you getting me a pack of Life Savers, just as you said you would.

That day, when I finally saw you again, my heart raced I couldn't help fidgeting with my phone. Games are a good distraction so I consumed the remaining time trying to beat a tough level in a game called Taiko no Tatsujin. You said I looked like I wanted to smash my phone against a wall. I probably looked retarded. I wish I were cute instead.

I don't remember much about you, but I don't think I can forget you now.

I want to go out with you on a movie date or something. Hang out with you at an empty parking lot and talk to you about the stupidest things. But I can't ask you out. I'm not brave enough. Not because I'm scared of rejection but because it might mean having to give up on the inside joke involving mouthwash and the poring faced emoticon. And more than being rejected, it's losing these things that keep me from popping the question.

And then there's you. I mean, this has been all about me, me, me so far, so let's talk about you. You do have someone you like, don't you? Maybe someone you love, even. Of course, I'm only making assumptions, and if there's one piece of advice I get told often by my friends, it's to stop assuming. Easier said than done, though.

This is so damn complicated.

I want to fall in love with you.

And if this keeps up, I might just do.

morning madness

Us

you and i -

slip and slide

between

these words

between the "you"

between the "i"

slipping

sliding

you and i

to come together,

lose the i

brighter than sunshine

i didn’t believe in destiny/i look up you're standing next to me/what a feeling

he is sitting on one of the stools in Seattle’s Best, waiting for his drink to arrive. he sees my reflection walking towards him and for some reason, he chokes on his saliva.

"so," i say as i hand him a glass of water. "i take your breath away, huh?"

what a feeling in my soul/love burns brighter than sunshine/let the rain fall/i don't care

the following afternoon he picks me up from my house. it’s raining. "brighter than sunshine" plays in the background on the way to the Fort, where we were gonna shop for more college-looking clothes. "you're an accident waiting to happen," he told me once. he doesn't say it, but i bet he's thinking it when i step into a puddle in flip-flops.

i'm yours and suddenly you're mine

i slip on my first top.
"do you have a mirror?" i ask the salesman.
"no, sorry. ask your boyfriend, o! he's the best mirror."
our eyes simultaneously widen.
"he's not..." i begin.
"i'm not..." he continues.
we look at each other and pause.

i never saw it happening/i'd given up and given in/i just couldn't take the hurt again/what a feeling

he shopped in Rockwell and toured Makati Cinema Square alone for the three and a half hours i was in rehearsals. i feel guilty. and hungry. i apologize when i see him at the lobby of the building.

"it's okay anns! i made friends with Ronald."
"Ronald?!"
"McDonald!" he says and he hands me McDonald’s fries, a bottle of water, and DVDs of Rent and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. two movies i’d been itching to watch but somehow misplaced at home.

i didn't have the strength to fight/suddenly you seemed so right/me and you/what a feeling

after dinner in Polo Club, we head for Starbucks Madrigal. over Tazo tea and a caramel macchiato, my long-term memory kicks in.

"hey, we were here before. a long time ago."
"yeah, and you were teasing me that i had hidden desire for you."
"i was?!"
"yeah!"
"omigod! that is so me to say something like that. that turned out to be true, didn’t it?!"
"..."

truth is, it was actually i who had hidden desire for him because i had a crush on him the moment we met.

love will remain a mystery/but give me your hand and you will see/your heart is keeping time with me.

we made it through the month-and-a-half in constant trepidation. i don't know if we'll ever take that leap of faith. he and i never talk about what "we" are until alcohol makes us. i don't want to demand for labels. not just yet. while others ask for a Happily Ever After, i’m alright with Happy Right Now.

inertia

this is a harmless obsession
this intermittent intrusion
of your silhouette
upon my thought
framed with a soft click and a flash
and barred from further consideration
your laughter in dreams heard
awoken from and willfully forgotten

or maybe not

they intrude echoed in conversations
with people who are not like you
who are more than you
so i ask why you of all should engage
my neurons pulsating in tales flowing through words
suctioned into a wormhole of what-ifs
arrested into pretty pictures of false memory

of the rain pattering on street puddles
electric starlight winding
around shrubs through mist
cold railing the curb on which we slump
i could smell the smoke
clinging to your shirt and
i hated it

but why are you still here
stuck like the last song
is it the weather
is it your grin
is it just me bored, humming
a catchy, artless tune?
but all is well and hurtless

between us is no equivalence
here is no gravity
and i don’t believe
in free fall



[source]

Your Way with Words

You've once written half a sonnet for and about me.

Nobody else has written poetry for or about me before or after you. And that's probably what makes you so damn special until now.

A Memory

It was a friend's birthday party, and they were just about to call it a night. The birthday girl took out mattresses and pillows and set them on the tiled living room floor. Those who were still awake found and took their spots on the floor.

She was near the television. They were to watch A Walk to Remember, at the request of one of her friends. She watched movies with such concentration and as she forgot her glasses, she needed to be near the screen. She took a long pillow and hugged it as she felt someone settling in beside her.

He lay on his side, facing her. He was the one who suggested the movie as that was his favorite. He was awfully close - she could feel his warm breath on her neck. Still, she paid him no mind as the movie started.

He didn't change his position all throughout the film. At one point, she could feel his arm settling comfortably against her back. She could even feel his fingers playfully tapping her back. Put she paid him no mind.

At one of the sweetest points of the movie, she heard him mumble. She wasn't quite sure of what he said, but she had a hunch. She thinks she heard the word love. Or maybe it was from the movie.

Nevertheless, she turned to him and gave him a confused look.

"What did you say?"

He sighed. "Nothing."

Though still confused, she shrugged and muttered a soft Okay. She turned her back on him and continued to watch. She could hear him let out a heavy sigh.

The movie eventually ended, and it was time to get some sleep. She agreed and turned, her body facing upward. Her left arm was at her side, while her right hugged a pillow that was covering her face.

She could feel him moving about next to her. She wasn't a heavy sleeper when in another house. But she didn't mind him. She too tends to be restless even in slumber.

A few minutes after, she felt a warm touch on her hand. She opened her eyes, but didn't move. Suddenly, she felt fingers entwining with hers.

He was holding her hand, holding it tight, as if letting it go would be a sin.

Thoughts suddenly rushed through her head. She thinks she's dreaming, and slightly pinched herself. She felt a little sting.

It was real.

Liquor couldn't be blamed - they didn't drink any at the party. Did he confuse her hand with someone else's?

Why was he holding her hand?

She then started to shift the position of her left arm, causing their hands to untangle. A few seconds after, she could feel his hand travelling the space between their bodies, seemingly looking for hers.

He found his way to her hand and held it again, gripping it tighter than before. She tried to pay him no mind and drifted to sleep.


She didn't know how long they stayed that way, but when she woke up, his hand was still there. She turned to him and whispered, "I think it's time to get up."

He groaned and mumbled something about still being sleepy.

"I think we have to go."

He seemed to agree as he squeezed her hand. Then he let go.



Four years after and she still doesn't know why he did what he did that night. They never spoke about and she never really asked. She's not sure she wants to know, and judging by how he is, she might never find out.

Superimposed

The girl—not a girl anymore, really—closed the door as the boy left the room (I’ll be back in a sec, babe.), and walked dazedly to the bed—wondering if it was all real, if she was really here, staring at a spaceship poster on the opposite wall, if she really sprayed that musky perfume—the scent he breathed in while he caressed the length of her arm as he took her jacket off and hung it on a peg behind his door. He had been pressing her for months. She had been doing her best to refuse—they say it was the proper thing, after all, she being a nice girl, well brought up and all that. But then she thought about that other boy and that other girl, as she often did, and she didn’t feel like being such a nice girl anymore—was sick of it, really.

That other boy, he used to be hers. They used to be always close—closer than brother and sister. He used to be always there for her, used to make her feel like she was never alone. Like that December night, when she was shivering in the cold—better be outside and cold than inside and miss the fireworks. He approached her, leaning against the railings of the veranda, with a smile on his face and a gift in his hand and her silly nicknames on his lips. He laid an arm on her shoulders.

Hey, you’re shivering.

I feel chilly.

So he wrapped his arms around her, wrapped her in his warmth, and they swayed gently in the stillness, to a melody only they heard, only they understood.

Then that other girl came into his life, came between them. At first, she lent him books. Then she lent him her Sunday afternoons and her laughter and gab and homemade goodies and warm brown eyes, and he repaid her in full, and more. He often murmured how beautiful that other girl’s eyes were, how fit for a poem or a song. He’d sit at his desk, sometimes for hours at a time, scribbling pretty lines for that girl’s pretty eyes. Soon he was far away from her, lost in a world where that other girl’s name was the melody he swayed to. Soon she found he was not hers, not anymore.

You two look perfect together, she had said with a perfectly bright smile. And then she too walked away, put some distance, tried to dull the pain that was always there, tried to let go of what could never be—and find something else to hold on to.

And this was where her steps had taken her. Another December night with another boy—not a boy anymore, really—and again she was shivering—but not from the cold. Suddenly, she felt rough hands on her waist and jumped with a start. She hadn’t noticed him enter the room—for the past few minutes, she hadn’t noticed anything at all in her midst. He had sprung on her, with a glint in his eye and his shirt in his hand and her name—and other words besides, words like I want you—on his lips. He stroked her shoulders.

Hey, you’re shivering.

I feel chilly.

So he wrapped his arms around her, wrapped her in his heat, and their bodies agitated to a wild rhythm his coaxing and touches induced. As his lips trailed down her ivory neck, she thought of that other boy again, and tears rolled down her ivory cheeks. She thought of his face, not this boy’s, and murmured a name, murmured it so softly only she heard, only she understood:

Kuya

Wedding Song

On the day of their wedding, she came, with flowers adorning her hair and ribbons circling her arms. She was arrayed in the simple white gown he had sent her, and on a delicate chain around her neck she wore the silver heart-shaped locket he had given her on the day he became her beau. He had put their pictures together inside it, murmuring words of endearment and happiness and forever, dear, dear heart. You know how these declamations of love go, when lovers are giddy and new.

He approached her before the ceremony started, smiling with no hint of nervousness, only of excitement.

“You look lovely,” he told her, beaming. “That dress suits you very well.”

“You look dashing too,” she replied, eyeing the white suit he wore and remembering the way he had played Prince Charming, onscreen and in her life. He was her fairy tale—although of course she was too smart to really believe in that. Yet as he left her to take his place in front of the altar her eyes that never strayed from him saw not his receding back but daydreams the hue of strawberry cotton candy—rosy, sweet, sometimes too sweet.

The piano started playing, and she walked the length of the carpet, her feet dragging. She kept her eyes down, on the floor or on the bouquet she was carrying, afraid that if she looked ahead she would see him smiling at her and imagine that he was waiting to reach out for her hand. A few steps before she reached the altar and him, she turned right, stepped on a podium, took the microphone, and turned it on.

She sang. On the first note she let out, the church doors opened and in walked his bride, resplendent and beautiful, and very, very happy. His eyes grew wide as he saw the woman he was about to marry, then crinkled with a smile and never left his bride’s face. Still the other woman sang, sang of love and bliss and promises of eternity, and with her singing sounded a chorus of sighs and smiles and tears of gladness. You know how these weddings go, when people believe they’ve attained happily-ever-after.

She sang of vows they had given to each other, sang of castles in the air they had built together, sang words she had wanted to say to him. She knew that aches were what one got for dreaming too much and too sweetly, but she dreamed on anyway, allowing herself to pretend for a moment that it was her hand he took, that it was she he pulled towards the altar and knelt down with. But even a moment of dreaming can prove too much, and she finished her song with a broken voice and the beginnings of tears. She stepped down from the podium and returned to her seat, hoping they would think she was too touched and too happy for the couple that her mascara threatened to run. Actually she was never one to cry at weddings.

As they recited their vows, she silently promised herself something too—to someday love after love, with a lighter heart. As they exchanged rings, she took the locket he had given her from its chain and removed the pictures within. As they kissed, she joined in the chorus of cheers and applause.

When the ceremony ended, she rose to take her leave, her fist tight around the silver heart. Again, she congratulated him, and reached out to shake his hand. Then she let go and walked away with a smile and tripping steps, carrying the locket and its weight no more.

He is a bad habit

He is a cigarette sandwiched between her lips, the lighted end burning in the dark like a lone firefly. His smoke circles in the air, gathering around her, only to be swept away by a late October breeze. She takes one last drag before chucking him. He lands on a puddle and immediately dies out.

His light is no more.

She sniffs her hand and frowns. Awful, she thinks. Goddamn awful, the smell he leaves on her fingers every fucking time. On her clothes. On her hair. And, oh, on her pretty little mouth too, of course. She shrugs off the thought. After all, one shower, one wash, and one brush are all it takes to doff his lingering stench.

But he is more than just white paper rolled into a stick, filled with nicotine and tar. Sometimes he is methamphetamine, sometimes he is cannabis. Sometimes he is ethanol going by some fancy names such as Kajmir, Midori, and Fior d'Alpi. Sometimes he is libido.

He is a vice.

And she is ready to quit.

And it should be fucking easy. Twenty one days is all it takes to break a habit, wise and not-so-wise womenandmen say, and twenty one days is not even a month. So, yes, quitting him should be painless. She will, for twenty one days and beyond, pretend he never existed until her body, too, is convinced. And then she will not need him. And then she will stop craving his feel, his taste.

And then, perhaps, she would be free.

If only the wreck he had made inside her could as well be so easily eradicated as the wisps of smoke coming from his lighted end, she would be free.

Things I Never Told You

There are things I never told you, things I never will. They aren’t lies, merely an avoidance of the truth.

You could call me a coward, but then you’d have to call yourself one too. I am not the only one with shadowed eyes. I am not the only one tired of our games, our lives, our past, our future.

And yet, it never changes. We are stuck in a limbo because it’s safe and it’s comforting even if it aches. You still call when you are in town, still show up at my tiny little apartment and make yourself at home. Sometimes we sit on the floor, backs pressed against the paint chipped walls, the only sounds our breathing and the rustle of clothes as we shift at random intervals. Words never seemed all that necessary between us.

I don’t know what I am to you. I don’t know what you are to me; a shoulder to lean on perhaps, someone who I’ve never had to spill words to, ungainly sentences to fill empty space, simply because you always understood the unspoken.

Then there are the times where sitting isn’t what you need, and stillness seems to suffocate me. I can hear those moments in your clipped words over a short phone call, see it in your eyes the moment you shut the battered door behind you. Those are the moments I rise from my chair or uncurl from the bed in the corner, book left open, tea left cooling.

You’ve been rough and you’ve been gentle. Sometimes you leave, kissing my bruises in a silent apology as you go. Other times I am the one pressing chapped lips to your bloody scratches.

Why don’t we speak? Is it because you don’t want to know about the mundane moments of my insignificant life? Would the ins and outs of the average person, working in an office cubicle, staring at a screen that shows your face more often than not, depress you? Or is it me that doesn’t want to know? Would you tell me about your life, the one that looks shiny and sparkly from the outside, and make me see how dark it really is underneath?

I see enough in the smudges beneath your eyes, the darkness that seeps into your veins after a long absence and the weariness that weakens your bones and makes you slouch in pain. Those are your secrets, the ones I try to heal without my tongue trying to twist the emotion I’d like to convey.

You see enough in the faded colors on the wall, the chipped floor and worn tablecloth that supports cheap beer. You don’t need to ask and you never will and I don’t want you to. I have my pride just as you have yours. And you still come to me and offer me your warmth.

There are things I’ll never say to you. I’ll never pull at your hand and beg you to stay, I won’t tell you I love you, I won’t ask your reasons for picking me… a simple nobody to all your somebody. I won’t give you a reason to feel guilty or hold you back because you are meant to be free.

There are things you’ll never say to me. You’ll never ask me home, you’ve only ever come to me. You’ll never introduce me to your friends or parents, or offer to give me more than just you. I don’t want it because however convoluted and twisted this is, whatever we are, you let me be me, and I let you be you.

In here you aren’t who the world sees. In here I’m not just another ordinary. In here we are together, hidden hearts in a room of flaking drywall. Promises hidden down so deep they will never find the courage to climb free.

We are cowards.

But when we lie on the floor, smoke curling from forgotten cigarettes and dancing in the light from cracked curtains, we are brave because we don’t need words to see the truth. Naked and bare our souls know each other through all the traps and defenses we’ve put around us to shut out the world. In those moments, I am strong because you are and you are strong because I am.

This is why I’ll never tell you the things my head doesn’t want to admit, and why you’ll never ask. Why complicate something so simple with words that are so meaningless to others?

I don’t want your promises.

I don’t want your lies.

I don’t want your secrets.

I just want the silent moments frozen in time, locked in memories to keep my veins warm on cold evenings. That’s all you have to give. And it aches. And it comforts.

[Source]

Breakfast

The alarm gives out a continuous, annoying ring – like that of a set of church bells come mass time. She squirms in her bed, reaches out her arm, stretches it across and over his body curled up like that of a little boy. He lets out a soft moan and straightens his body, not letting go of the pillow his arms are wrapped around in. She manages to hit the stop button on the alarm clock, almost knocking off their framed wedding photo.

Six a.m. She strokes his back. “Honey, it’s six.” He grunts and moans and goes back to sleeping soundly. She waits for a few moments, and slowly climbs out of bed.

She walks quietly to the kitchen with light footsteps. She wouldn’t want to wake him up. He doesn’t like it when he’s woken up too early – the time of which changes every day. A few steps later, she’s opening the fridge, checking what she can prepare for him today. She vaguely remembers him telling her of an early business meeting he has for the day. Still, meeting or none, she takes two eggs off the rack and a pack of sweetened ham. He needs to have his breakfast.

Frying takes a few good minutes, it shouldn’t take longer. He doesn’t like waiting for his food to be cooked. It has to be ready when he’s up. He doesn’t like waiting.

She listens to the little sizzling sounds on the pan as she sets the table. Two plates, two pairs of knives and forks and two tall glasses. He was never the coffee type, so he’d have a tall glass of orange juice instead. She shouldn’t forget. He gets upset when she does.

Just as she was transferring the newly-cooked slices of ham on a ceramic plate, heavy footsteps arrive. “Honey! Time for breakfast!” He sluggishly gets to the table, putting down his laptop. She can’t see the screen, but he’s typing away. Probably an overdue email, she thinks to herself.

“I have a breakfast meeting today. Didn’t I tell you yesterday?” She can’t quite remember when he told her – when he got home? At dinner? Just before she turned out the lights? Or how he said it – angry? A matter-of-factly?

“Oh.” That was all she could say.

Then the phone rang. She walks quickly to the phone.


Hello?
Hi Anne.
Who is this?
Has your husband left?
No, we’re not on the 53rd.


He has a puzzling look on his face. Credit card, she mouthed, hand on the receiver.


I miss you. I’ll come by when he’s gone.
Yes, that’s the street that you’re looking for.

She twirls the telephone cord playfully. He’s typing heavily.

I can’t wait to be with you.
Neither can I. I don’t understand why you have our number in your list.
Alright then. I love you.
Thank you for deleting it. You take care too. I hope you find what you’re looking for.


Then he hung up.

“Are they offering a new card?” He peers from the laptop screen and takes a sip. “Yes, some new company. They were calling for another person in the street next to ours.” He looks back to the laptop screen and types faster and harder.

She takes her fork and plays with the now cold slices of ham.

I Fucking Hate You

I wish you weren't so perfect.

I wish you didn't seem so right for me and that you didn't have everything on my goddamn checklist of what a wonderful guy should be like. I wish you didn't make me laugh with your silly antics. I wish I never knew what your voice sounded like, or that you liked to draw, or that you also happen to be into a lot of the shit I listen to.

I wish you weren't so fucking awesome. Because your awesomeness only makes me wish the universe made copies of you and hope I could have one of your clones to myself. Although, to be frank, I would much rather have you.

Oh boy. I fucking hate you.

You make me miserable without meaning to, without knowing you do. You make me wish I were special (as if I don't wish for it enough). You make me want to read novels and write a few myself, only to be reminded that you write even better than I do, so I scrap the idea for someone who will happen after you. Someone less bright, probably. Who won't notice the lapses in my grammar or comment on the mediocrity of my style.

You are just an episode. A really bad episode of an even worse sitcom airing on my mental TV. You are a one star record blaring in my ears, a B movie playing in my subconscious' cinema.

I fucking hate you. I fucking hate you.

I really really really wish I hated you.