Saturday, March 31, 2012
Dark Places
Terrified of life. Terrified of dying. For the past few weeks--no, for the past decade, my life has alternated between running away, feeling shameful, feeding on regret, wallowing in fear, and steeping in anger. I have been flickering from one dark place to another, I'd forgotten how it was to breathe without feeling thorns in my chest. I'd forgotten how it was to think without claws raking at my mind. Was there ever a time when breathing was easy? Was there ever a time thinking did not hurt? I see no light from where I am standing. Only shame, fear, regret, anger, and dark, dark places.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A Dream of the End of the World
I dreamed of the end of the world. A planetoid, or a planetoid-like object came hurtling down from the sky. It landed far from where I was standing, which was in front of our house, but everyone in the neighborhood saw it. At first there was wonderment, and then, realizing that it wasn't just a harmless heavenly phenomenon like Halley's Comet or the Aurora Borealis--that it was, in fact, a sign of the end times--wonderment instantly became panic.
We felt it connect with the ground. It sounded like the Earth was yawning, like it was waking up from a very long slumber. Sound eventually became light. From the horizon, whiteness sped and spread towards our little neighborhood, a celestial blanket. My heart was beating fast. I could hear everyone running, although to where or towards what, I do not know. For my part, I wanted to welcome the light. Finally, finally, the end. I spread my arms wide.
But the light stopped when it was right in front of my face, and I did not die, and it wasn't the end.
We felt it connect with the ground. It sounded like the Earth was yawning, like it was waking up from a very long slumber. Sound eventually became light. From the horizon, whiteness sped and spread towards our little neighborhood, a celestial blanket. My heart was beating fast. I could hear everyone running, although to where or towards what, I do not know. For my part, I wanted to welcome the light. Finally, finally, the end. I spread my arms wide.
But the light stopped when it was right in front of my face, and I did not die, and it wasn't the end.
Friday, March 16, 2012
A Cycle of Running
I hate that I'd fallen into a cycle of running. I'd always known that I have my family to fall back on whenever things get a little out of control in my life. I'd always known that quitting was an option and that things will be OK. I hate that I'd never had to grow my own backbone because I'd always known I'd have a house to come home to. I hate how much of a weakling, how easily breakable, how much of a quitter I turned out to be. At 6'0", approximately 180 lbs., I'm easy to pick out in a crowd, and I hate how much of a contrast my physical size is to how small and weak I feel. Survival of the fittest is how this world works, and this world has no place for someone as weak as I am.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Defeated
Cutting myself didn't work, so the other night, I ran away.
I was 16. Senior high was almost done with three more months to go before graduation. I remember it was Friday because I had my cadet training gear with me. I left home the usual time that morning but I didn't go to school; instead I went to a park a few blocks halfway to the school. It wasn't my first time there, and it wasn't my first time cutting classes. I stay there the entire day reading, writing, listening to three or four cassette tapes I bring with me.
Nobody disturbed me during these excursions, and I never really thought about it all that much. To me it just felt right being there, where the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It felt like a completely separate world, walled off by the buildings that stand sentry along the park's perimeter.
I'd write about being afraid--of disappointing the people around me, of life--but mostly I'd write about a boy I fell in love with. Randy, I found out his name was. I forgot how I did, now. I was a batch ahead and he never knew me at all, but I was in high school and love will never be as intense and as pure and as powerful as a trainwreck or a flower blossoming as it was in high school.
And so it was a Friday. I just got settled into the bench I'd usually sit on and started the first few paragraphs of the most recent litany I had for Randy when someone sat beside me. It was a schoolmate. A batchmate, as a matter of fact. We were classmates once, but we were never really friends. He asked me what I was doing. I forgot what I said but I remember being cautious and unsmiling. I remember he accepted whatever my reason was with an 'Ah' that could have meant anything at all. He lit a cigarette and offered me one but I refused.
I don't remember if we talked, but it wasn't long before a teacher was suddenly there asking why we weren't in class. I remember panicking and apologizing. I remember the teacher saying that he had an important errand to run and that he better see us when he gets back in the school. The teacher left and me and my schoolmate looked at each other. He shrugged and started walking back. I proceeded to fix my things, thoughts whirling in my head. I was about to pick up the bag where my cadet gear was when I felt my mind shifting gears. I left it and started walking towards another direction.
For the next eight hours, I wasn't thinking of anything else but walking. By 5:00 pm, I remember reaching the end of the LRT station, in Monumento. I sat on the sidewalk and stayed there for about an hour, an hour and a half. I'm not going back home, I thought. Once again, I have been a terrible disappointment to the people around me. I started walking again. Eventually I saw a bus that said Malinta, several jeepneys that said Plaridel, and signs that said Valenzuela. I remember stopping at a closed sari-sari store. It was dark and there was a bench not immediately visible from the streets. I laid down to sleep. It didn't take long for me to decide to go back home.
Life is just as terrifying for me now that I am 29 as it was when I was 16. Everyday I live with that same fear--of not knowing what I am good for, of coming up short, of disappointing the people around me, of life and all the disappointments it brings. I tried to kill myself two weeks ago with a primary school-grade cutter, resulting in a gash and a couple of scratches barely visible now. The other week, I didn't report for work for one day, physically unable to get up with the thoughts of terror weighing down my entire body. Two nights ago the whirling of fear in my mind was too much to bear, I needed to run away. 'I can't pretend anymore,' said the text message I sent to my manager. 'Life terrifies me. I am not right in the head. Please don't tell anyone.'
I left everything in my locker except my ID, which I needed to use to leave the office, and my ATM, which I used to withdraw what's left of my salary. Baguio would be a good place to die in, I thought, so I took the 5:00 am to Baguio, nothing but my office clothes and P5,000.00 to my name.
By noon I was at Session Road, cold air nipping at me as only mountain air could. I got about buying more comfortable clothes, a small bag, and a book--Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. I didn't need money where I was going I figured, but I needed a book. For hours and hours I walked around Baguio, up and down streets separated by steep inclines and long flights of stairs. I was desperate to drive out the fear in my mind with nothing but exhaustion.
It was dark when I stopped walking. 8 hours of walking and still I ended up back at Session Road. It was a waiting shed still moist with the afternoon rain. I sat, got my book out, and started reading. Words never reached my mind, however. I want to go home, my thoughts screamed. I want water and food and a warm bed, my thoughts screamed even louder.
Memory fired every nerve in my mind and I remembered the people I saw while I was walking--how every step they made had purpose, had direction. I want to live, their actions seemed to say. I wandered into a school some time in the afternoon and I had trouble finding the exit, but I heard every single student in that school say, I want to live. I passed a wet market with old ladies selling vegetables saying, I want to live. I passed people going home from work, I passed lovers in the dark, I passed several homeless people grinning toothlessly at passers-by, rummaging through the corner-garbage, sitting on a wet bench at Burnham Park, all saying, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
These memories--novel and bright and burning--seared through my mind, and I wept. I was not at all like these people. I did not want to live. With all my heart I wanted to die. But I continue to be a slave to my body, and I was tired and thirsty and hungry. For me to die I must step through that door of mortal pain, and that adds another fear in my mind. I am defeated by life, and I remain its prisoner.
I was 16. Senior high was almost done with three more months to go before graduation. I remember it was Friday because I had my cadet training gear with me. I left home the usual time that morning but I didn't go to school; instead I went to a park a few blocks halfway to the school. It wasn't my first time there, and it wasn't my first time cutting classes. I stay there the entire day reading, writing, listening to three or four cassette tapes I bring with me.
Nobody disturbed me during these excursions, and I never really thought about it all that much. To me it just felt right being there, where the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It felt like a completely separate world, walled off by the buildings that stand sentry along the park's perimeter.
I'd write about being afraid--of disappointing the people around me, of life--but mostly I'd write about a boy I fell in love with. Randy, I found out his name was. I forgot how I did, now. I was a batch ahead and he never knew me at all, but I was in high school and love will never be as intense and as pure and as powerful as a trainwreck or a flower blossoming as it was in high school.
And so it was a Friday. I just got settled into the bench I'd usually sit on and started the first few paragraphs of the most recent litany I had for Randy when someone sat beside me. It was a schoolmate. A batchmate, as a matter of fact. We were classmates once, but we were never really friends. He asked me what I was doing. I forgot what I said but I remember being cautious and unsmiling. I remember he accepted whatever my reason was with an 'Ah' that could have meant anything at all. He lit a cigarette and offered me one but I refused.
I don't remember if we talked, but it wasn't long before a teacher was suddenly there asking why we weren't in class. I remember panicking and apologizing. I remember the teacher saying that he had an important errand to run and that he better see us when he gets back in the school. The teacher left and me and my schoolmate looked at each other. He shrugged and started walking back. I proceeded to fix my things, thoughts whirling in my head. I was about to pick up the bag where my cadet gear was when I felt my mind shifting gears. I left it and started walking towards another direction.
For the next eight hours, I wasn't thinking of anything else but walking. By 5:00 pm, I remember reaching the end of the LRT station, in Monumento. I sat on the sidewalk and stayed there for about an hour, an hour and a half. I'm not going back home, I thought. Once again, I have been a terrible disappointment to the people around me. I started walking again. Eventually I saw a bus that said Malinta, several jeepneys that said Plaridel, and signs that said Valenzuela. I remember stopping at a closed sari-sari store. It was dark and there was a bench not immediately visible from the streets. I laid down to sleep. It didn't take long for me to decide to go back home.
Life is just as terrifying for me now that I am 29 as it was when I was 16. Everyday I live with that same fear--of not knowing what I am good for, of coming up short, of disappointing the people around me, of life and all the disappointments it brings. I tried to kill myself two weeks ago with a primary school-grade cutter, resulting in a gash and a couple of scratches barely visible now. The other week, I didn't report for work for one day, physically unable to get up with the thoughts of terror weighing down my entire body. Two nights ago the whirling of fear in my mind was too much to bear, I needed to run away. 'I can't pretend anymore,' said the text message I sent to my manager. 'Life terrifies me. I am not right in the head. Please don't tell anyone.'
I left everything in my locker except my ID, which I needed to use to leave the office, and my ATM, which I used to withdraw what's left of my salary. Baguio would be a good place to die in, I thought, so I took the 5:00 am to Baguio, nothing but my office clothes and P5,000.00 to my name.
By noon I was at Session Road, cold air nipping at me as only mountain air could. I got about buying more comfortable clothes, a small bag, and a book--Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. I didn't need money where I was going I figured, but I needed a book. For hours and hours I walked around Baguio, up and down streets separated by steep inclines and long flights of stairs. I was desperate to drive out the fear in my mind with nothing but exhaustion.
It was dark when I stopped walking. 8 hours of walking and still I ended up back at Session Road. It was a waiting shed still moist with the afternoon rain. I sat, got my book out, and started reading. Words never reached my mind, however. I want to go home, my thoughts screamed. I want water and food and a warm bed, my thoughts screamed even louder.
Memory fired every nerve in my mind and I remembered the people I saw while I was walking--how every step they made had purpose, had direction. I want to live, their actions seemed to say. I wandered into a school some time in the afternoon and I had trouble finding the exit, but I heard every single student in that school say, I want to live. I passed a wet market with old ladies selling vegetables saying, I want to live. I passed people going home from work, I passed lovers in the dark, I passed several homeless people grinning toothlessly at passers-by, rummaging through the corner-garbage, sitting on a wet bench at Burnham Park, all saying, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
These memories--novel and bright and burning--seared through my mind, and I wept. I was not at all like these people. I did not want to live. With all my heart I wanted to die. But I continue to be a slave to my body, and I was tired and thirsty and hungry. For me to die I must step through that door of mortal pain, and that adds another fear in my mind. I am defeated by life, and I remain its prisoner.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Too Much To Ask
A week ago on my way home from work, I got colored pens, a small illustration board, and a cutter. I didn't need the first two.
I got home, undressed, got on the bed, bared the blade as far as it would go, and--as casually as one would initiate a suicide attempt--I let the sharp edge touch my left wrist. Everything was still, and silent, and burning. I was maestro, and bow, and string, all at the same time. I was flesh. I was metaphor. I never moved.
Exhaling--I didn't notice until then I was holding my breath--I let the blade drop and I got one of the colored pens and the illustration board. On one corner of the board I wrote, 'Thank you. I'm sorry.' I put it aside.
I picked the blade up and let myself relax. A single note, soft and distant, floated somewhere in my head. Pressing the point against my left wrist, I pushed. Slowly. I angled it down. Slowly.
A symphony, gaining volume in my mind. A bullet train, approaching. Clouds, parting. Sunlight. Lightning. Water. Rain. And then--pain. Singing, stinging pain. No metaphors here. I was sweating, and I was terribly, terribly frustrated. I cursed, and hurled the cutter to the wall.
Why must that stop me? One last dam bursting, one last door to go through! Anger. Yes, that should be enough to dull steel on flesh, flesh breaking. I picked up the blade, sat on the bed, held my breath, and pushed--sharp edge on soft flesh. I pushed, and I let it glide. A symphony, getting louder. Strings, breaking. Someone, screaming. The blade made a weak, hollow clatter on the old wooden floor. I sobbed into my pillow.
'Bakit hindi mo ako masagot?' I asked him. 'Why can't you give me an answer?' It was Christmas, I think. Or it could have been New Year's. Anyway, it was the holiday season, and we were having dinner at this fancy Korean restaurant in Eastwood. I told him I didn't eat seafood because I didn't like having to put too much effort breaking a crab's shell apart just to get meat barely enough for a few nibbles, or picking my way through fish bones, or spending time removing a shrimp's head and tail. He did all of that, unceremoniously tossing the respective meat onto my plate, looking plainly content--or smug. I nibbled everything anyway. 'Isn't it easy being with me? Didn't you say you're happy spending time with me? We've been seeing each other for a year, what's stopping you from deciding--finally--THIS is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with?' I gestured grandly, hoping it would come off as a joke, but we both knew it was a serious question.
His attention was on the crab. 'Lahat na siguro ng pwede kong magustuhan sa karelasyon, nasa'yo,' he said. 'Everything I could have wanted in a relationship.' Something cracked. I winced. 'But there is something about you... I can't understand.'
The pause was quite noticeable, but I considered his words. I considered his words were stupid. 'Alright,' I said, nodding. 'Alright. That's fair.' Spectacularly stupid. 'More crab, please.' It would be months before I realize what he said was spot on. There is something not easily understood here.
My plane just landed on Manila. I spent three days in Iloilo, reading and doing little else. I met someone nice--beautiful and smart. I was big enough to admit it wouldn't go farther than dinner and coffee and the smallest of small talks, yet still I allowed myself to be affected in the deepest, most profound ways. Needless to say my spirit was shaken--as it has been similarly shaken many, many times before. For an evening, I thought maybe if a person as beautiful would like someone like me, then maybe I could be beautiful too. Until a familiar, irrevocable force slams into my chest, hurling me back into my place. There is nothing beautiful about me, nor the world I am living in.
I was at work. I was taking calls. I was digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping the minutes would go faster, hoping the phones would cease their infernal beeping. 'Follow your dreams,' the voices in my head kept singing, 'Follow your heart.' I have none. I have none. Beep. Beep. I looked out the window and imagined what it would be like hitting the pavement if I jumped off from the top of the building. I laughed, and the person on the other line laughed with me.
I was sobbing into my pillow. My room was humid. I could hear birds in the distance and nothing else. Steam, maybe, from the wall of the house opposite my room, white-hot and grime-thick with the Third World afternoon sunlight. I managed to lift my left wrist enough to see what I was able to do. A couple of weak scratches, a few shallow, hesitant gashes. I sobbed even harder. 'There is something about you I can't understand,' said a voice in my head, planets away. 'I can't understand it either!' I shouted back. 'Where are you?! What do you want from me?! Why am I here?!' I was beating at my pillow over and over again. Why is dying painlessly too much to ask? What am I doing all this for? Why does the burning never stop?
I got home, undressed, got on the bed, bared the blade as far as it would go, and--as casually as one would initiate a suicide attempt--I let the sharp edge touch my left wrist. Everything was still, and silent, and burning. I was maestro, and bow, and string, all at the same time. I was flesh. I was metaphor. I never moved.
Exhaling--I didn't notice until then I was holding my breath--I let the blade drop and I got one of the colored pens and the illustration board. On one corner of the board I wrote, 'Thank you. I'm sorry.' I put it aside.
I picked the blade up and let myself relax. A single note, soft and distant, floated somewhere in my head. Pressing the point against my left wrist, I pushed. Slowly. I angled it down. Slowly.
A symphony, gaining volume in my mind. A bullet train, approaching. Clouds, parting. Sunlight. Lightning. Water. Rain. And then--pain. Singing, stinging pain. No metaphors here. I was sweating, and I was terribly, terribly frustrated. I cursed, and hurled the cutter to the wall.
Why must that stop me? One last dam bursting, one last door to go through! Anger. Yes, that should be enough to dull steel on flesh, flesh breaking. I picked up the blade, sat on the bed, held my breath, and pushed--sharp edge on soft flesh. I pushed, and I let it glide. A symphony, getting louder. Strings, breaking. Someone, screaming. The blade made a weak, hollow clatter on the old wooden floor. I sobbed into my pillow.
'Bakit hindi mo ako masagot?' I asked him. 'Why can't you give me an answer?' It was Christmas, I think. Or it could have been New Year's. Anyway, it was the holiday season, and we were having dinner at this fancy Korean restaurant in Eastwood. I told him I didn't eat seafood because I didn't like having to put too much effort breaking a crab's shell apart just to get meat barely enough for a few nibbles, or picking my way through fish bones, or spending time removing a shrimp's head and tail. He did all of that, unceremoniously tossing the respective meat onto my plate, looking plainly content--or smug. I nibbled everything anyway. 'Isn't it easy being with me? Didn't you say you're happy spending time with me? We've been seeing each other for a year, what's stopping you from deciding--finally--THIS is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with?' I gestured grandly, hoping it would come off as a joke, but we both knew it was a serious question.
His attention was on the crab. 'Lahat na siguro ng pwede kong magustuhan sa karelasyon, nasa'yo,' he said. 'Everything I could have wanted in a relationship.' Something cracked. I winced. 'But there is something about you... I can't understand.'
The pause was quite noticeable, but I considered his words. I considered his words were stupid. 'Alright,' I said, nodding. 'Alright. That's fair.' Spectacularly stupid. 'More crab, please.' It would be months before I realize what he said was spot on. There is something not easily understood here.
My plane just landed on Manila. I spent three days in Iloilo, reading and doing little else. I met someone nice--beautiful and smart. I was big enough to admit it wouldn't go farther than dinner and coffee and the smallest of small talks, yet still I allowed myself to be affected in the deepest, most profound ways. Needless to say my spirit was shaken--as it has been similarly shaken many, many times before. For an evening, I thought maybe if a person as beautiful would like someone like me, then maybe I could be beautiful too. Until a familiar, irrevocable force slams into my chest, hurling me back into my place. There is nothing beautiful about me, nor the world I am living in.
I was at work. I was taking calls. I was digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping the minutes would go faster, hoping the phones would cease their infernal beeping. 'Follow your dreams,' the voices in my head kept singing, 'Follow your heart.' I have none. I have none. Beep. Beep. I looked out the window and imagined what it would be like hitting the pavement if I jumped off from the top of the building. I laughed, and the person on the other line laughed with me.
I was sobbing into my pillow. My room was humid. I could hear birds in the distance and nothing else. Steam, maybe, from the wall of the house opposite my room, white-hot and grime-thick with the Third World afternoon sunlight. I managed to lift my left wrist enough to see what I was able to do. A couple of weak scratches, a few shallow, hesitant gashes. I sobbed even harder. 'There is something about you I can't understand,' said a voice in my head, planets away. 'I can't understand it either!' I shouted back. 'Where are you?! What do you want from me?! Why am I here?!' I was beating at my pillow over and over again. Why is dying painlessly too much to ask? What am I doing all this for? Why does the burning never stop?