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.

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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.