Self-Portrait

today I draw the saddest picture.
of a hollow so hollow it is a vacuum.
of a nothing that is weightless but unbearable.
of a thirst that exists asea.
i will brush the canvass with tears of the most morose colors.
it will tell a story of a devastation so vast
that it surpasses romance.

Bubble

I'm going
to fill you
up with so much

emptiness

that rainbows begin
to form upon your
delicate membrane

and you become
a beautiful crystal

breakable

by air.

Dragonfly

Your figure is obscured by the lashes at the corner of my eye.
I conceal my voyeuring of your voyeuring of me.
I was never good at catching your kind.
My hands always trembled.
And you were never good at staying still.
You were always flitting.

You hide amongst the weed,
But you leave a wing in the light.
I see you meant it when you said
You want me to find you.
I sit motionless.
Fighting to keep my head from turning to your direction.
Because I know that when I move an inch
You will flutter away.

I am learning to love your image
Tucked in the corner of my eye.
It induces a paralysis.

I am starting to enjoy this catatonia.

Courtship

I so desire to not have you.
It may be ambitious of me because you are not mine yet.
But I want to have you...
Not so much to have you
But to want to...
And forever float in that wanting but never have you.
Because having you would be a beginning
That will crash into an ending
And I never want it to end.
So never be mine.
Never.

Cab Rides

I took a cab to work today and the driver told me to add some more to my fare since no one really got cabs from where I was working... I said, "Whatever, I don't care..." and I suddenly felt like I was going to some far off nowhereland.

As I was sitting at the backseat I was fiddling with my phone. Deleting old pictures, names from my phonebook that don't really have a face attached to them in my memory. Deleting messages. Deleting a lot of things.

There's something satisfying about simplicity. When you delete a message from your phone, it's gone forever. And there's no way you can retrieve it. If only deleting messages will make you forget that a message was sent at all, if only deleting a picture can erase a memory, if only deleting a phone number can guarantee a burned bridge, then everyone would be happy.

Sometimes I wish my brain only went as far as a regular straight guy.

I suppose I would be less troubled if my thoughts were occupied exclusively by cars, chicks and basketball... and bliss would be as simple as a shapely lady flashing her boobs at me.

No, thanks. I think I'll pass.

___________________________________

Last night I was in a cab with one of my good friends. He's the boyfriend (supposed ex-boyfriend he says) of a former officemate, who happens to be a friend of mine too. We were going home after drinking. I was a mix of sleepy and tipsy. He was generally sober. And it was never resolved who was worse off between us in terms of disposition, predicament or mental state.

I've always desired to be with him. And he's always seen me as a friend. And in the "secret" moments we went out for coffee just the two of us (apparently he was telling my friend, his boyfriend, all along), we only talked about the status of his love life. So fuck me for being a punching bag. And for trying to pry into things I should not have any business with. And for treading everytime on that thin, thin line between telling him what he has to know but won't kill him and telling him what he has to know, period.

I almost made the biggest folly of my life when I tried, not once, but twice, to tell him everything. Apparently, I didn't have to because he knew all along (he is gay after all, making him immune to being oblivious) and I suppose he wasn't excited with the idea since he stopped me on both occasions for saying something that according to him I was "going to regret." I tried to convince him that I was not going to regret it. And expressed clearly that it would not bother me if he were to vanish from my consciousness entirely post-confession (as was clearly the imminent result had I been allowed to do as I planned). I even went to the extent of saying to him, "I want to eliminate you."

How incredibly romantic/ sappy/ stupid/ gay.

Saying the words is the only way to make a feeling real. And hearing them is the only way to make them true. Otherwise, everything's just a hunch... an infinite "I wonder..."

So there I was, half-asleep with my head on his shoulder. My body entwined on his left arm(which fit the hollowness I was feeling smugly) at the backseat of a cab leading us to where I was to drop him off, and because of what did not happen, encasing the beautiful limbo where my love story with him was suspended.

As he stepped out of the cab into reality, I was left alone again. And I fought to stay awake to make sure I got off that cab right where I had to.

I hope it rains on Friday

It was raining on the Friday that we met.
When you walked past me.
When I fancied being hurt by it.
It was a gentle kind of rain...
The kind that pitterpatters on a tin roof.

It was raining that same Friday that we sat together.
When you called me Shiela.
When I asked you to promise me you'd devastate me.
It turned into a thicker kind of rain...
The kind that reminds you of a thousand little hearts beating.

It was raining that Saturday.
When you crushed me in your embrace.
When I turned myself into a straw house.
It was a steady kind of rain...
The kind that anchors a love song like a drone.

It was raining that Sunday.
When you tied my hands behind me.
When I was soaking in vulnerability.
It was a soft kind of rain...
The kind that wells out of your eyes as tears.

It was raining that Monday.
When you asked me to forget I met you.
When I began to erode in confusion.
It was a violent kind of rain...
The kind that drowns your screams.

I hope it rains on Friday.
When you become a vague memory.
When I am left like the mud after a great flood.
I hope it is an invisible kind of rain...
The kind that you can walk through, as if it wasn't raining.

the other

i broke your heart.
and right at the point when you were down.
how sadistic.
i told you i wanted to see you.
to do it right.
i don't feel like that now.
i want to rub salt all over you.
i imagine it would sting so much.
maybe i shouldn't...
i might get envious.
i've decided to hate you because i don't feel any pain.
screw you--
no, you say you're too afraid.
i so want to be you right now.
have a wall collapse over me
throw in the wrecking ball that toppled it.
i want to bleed.
ache.
throb.
but you won't hurt me.
that's how i know it would never work.

Coffeebreak

Something's been bugging me for a while now.
And I can't quite put a finger on it.
I feel like not talking to anyone.
I feel constantly paranoid.
I feel constipated.
In love.
So not in love.
Bored.
Confused.
Not making any sense.
Trying desperately to express myself artistically.

Frustration comes when aspirations offshoot resources.

Lowered expectations.

But what are aspirations for anyway?
What if we are meant to saunter in a limbo of discontent?
Discontent fuels progress.
It also fuels despair.

My brain is whirring.
Heart palpitating wildly.
Fingers Parkinsonian.

I don't even drink coffee.