Sabbath

Yesterday, I asked for advice on how to channel anger. My friends, you answered. Aul, Jab Andry, Martinus, Ingka, Nathania, Stefani, Avi, Nikita, Anisa, I am very grateful. Please believe me when I say that.

However. I feel like some of you might have been under the impression that something happened yesterday (or recently) that incurred my wrath.

No such thing happened. Instead, this is something that's been around for quite a while.

That's the main problem, I guess. What I have, it's old rage. It's aged ire, accumulated over the years, fermented in the deepest pit of my being, congealed and conglomerated into . . . something else. Something more abstract, yet, I suspect, more potent. For this reason, I can no longer say where it came from.

Some of you say to confront the source, the cause of my anger. You see why I can't. If you like, you can say that I'm angry at the universe in its entirety, or that I am only angry at myself. They might as well both of them be true.

Some of you say to deal with the anger as soon as possible and not let it pile on. I am sorry, the pile had been there already. I do try not to add to it, but what can I say. It's still there.

For the most part, my pit seemed enough. (Be honest: you've never seen me angry, have you?) But lately . . . I fear of overflowing. I think it's already happened in small leaks. In front of the ones I see every day, I willingly, maybe even intentionally, present a grumpy and irritable persona. One time I even caught myself trying to suppress a genuine smile, for no other reason than because . . . I had them as witnesses.

I do wish that it manifests in a better, more specific way, Matilda-like. I do wish this is how sorcery starts. But so far, no such luck. I am left to my own, more mundane, devices.

I've tried singing. I've tried rapping. Loud as I can, fast as I can. It worked, for a while. But the thing in the pit seems to be stronger, and when the music stops, as it must after some time, the pit-thing bubbles menacingly.

I've tried writing. Oh, Lord knows I've tried writing. But just because I write things down, doesn't mean I forget them. Forgive me for saying this, but my memory is, I believe, quite a few pegs above average. Far from enabling me to let go and leave the fury behind, my writings instead become monuments to my memories inside my memory. And the pit-thing delights as it feeds from my memory.

***

I fear that it is too late. That the pit-thing is too powerful. That if I began to intentionally let some anger out, I would be unable to stop.

That when the rage is upon me, it won't be enough just to break inanimate objects. I'd want to take an ax and chop down every tree in the world.

It won't be enough to stomp on innocent invertebrate vermin like cockroaches and mosquitoes. I'd want to wring kittens' necks. Wait, no. What was I thinking? They're small, I can do their entire bodies. One spine at a time.

It won't be enough to box with another person. I'd want to hunt a human, corner them, grin as wide as I can, break their arms and legs (just to make things easier), and, with them tearful and screaming, sink my teeth into their throat, tasting their tendons, getting high on the smell of their warm, fresh blood.

It won't be enough to shout curses and imprecations at Reality. I'd want to crucify Tze-Yo-Tzuh and stab Them in the guts.

*****

And I dig the pit deeper, drenched in latent rage, throwing out bits and more bits of me.

It doesn't overflow. It doesn't.

Therefore Go

I have been feeling down for the last couple of days. More than the usual gloom, I mean. The reason is simple: I lost my bag. And all its contents with it.

The contents themselves can in fact be quite easily replaced; a couple of novels and comics, a copy of The Resistance: Avalon (the excellent hidden roles game!), and some stationery. In terms of material loss, it's not very much, I know.

But the immaterial still mattered to me.

***

I always hated losing things. But mostly, I hate getting caught off guard and getting things taken from me without my knowledge. That's what happened, you see: I was watching some friends play music and I left my bag in my seat, along with my friends' bags. When we got back, my bag was gone, presumably taken by someone. I let my guard down. I wasn't being pessimistic enough. I lost things, because I lost control of the situation.

Of course I blamed myself. "I am the one thing in life I can control!" Hence, I am the one thing in life I can truly blame for not performing up to my standards. Doesn't mean that they who took the bag wasn't in the wrong, doesn't mean I wouldn't try to break their arm or smash their nose into a table had I caught them at it, but it's simply no use blaming them NOW when it's happened and they've scarpered off with the bag.

I blamed myself. Which would, if I am being consistent, lead to me modifying my behaviour during live shows or any public events. The simplest way is to be paranoid, and not trust anyone, including myself, and keep my possessions at or as close to my person as I can manage.

But. I've tried that, you know. It's tiring. It's a lot of work. It's way too much work for the meager reward of "getting to keep having the non-perishable things I have now." 

***

This may seem weird, but it was only after I fully felt the pain of the loss of trust (for myself and other people alike) that I noticed the pain of the loss of the things themselves. Or maybe not. They are just things, after all. Replaceable, and rather easily at that. I should just replace them all, and the problem would be solved. Yes?

No. They are - were - NOT "just things." They were MY things. And the moment I recognised them as my things, I created a bond between myself and them. If you were so inclined, you can say that they were my Horcruxes. As are all my possessions. I put fragments of my soul (whatever that is) into each and every one of them. As such, each time a thing of mine stops being mine, whether by going missing or getting broken or destroyed . . . I die a little.

This is also tiring.

***

I'm lazy. I don't like getting tired. And right now, I am tired. Tired from all the self-hate, all the poisonous possessiveness, all the mistrust.

So I'm changing tack.

I'm not becoming paranoid. I'm not going to look at everyone with distrust. But neither will I kill my feelings for my things.

Rather, I'm going to try to stop looking at my things as my things, and start looking at them as my children. They already have part of my soul (whatever that is), after all.

I will try to be a good parent. I will be happy when my children are around, but I will realise that they might not reach their full potential by staying beside me. I will feel bad when they're hurt, but I will recognise that they are not weak, and they might have to get hurt to be useful.

I will learn how to say goodbye.

I hope that, wherever all my lost things, over the years, have gone, and whomever they end up with, they bring more even good now than they have already done for me.

By the by, if anyone was expecting me to comment on Tooth and Tail . . . My laptop was not strong enough to run it, so I had to get a refund. I just bought Niche, though. It's a genetic survival game. I played the demo a few months back, and it's just as engrossing as it was when it was a demo. Three hours just blinked past during my first playthrough.

Not Enough

I read (or thought, or heard, or overheard, maybe) somewhere, that when we are in love, and we hurt, it is the feeling of our soul growing so large that our body can barely contain it. So that when our act of love starts to hurt, embrace the pain. It’s how we know we still live; it’s how we know we still love.

I took it to heart, I took it to mind.

It is true, or true enough. I look at someone I love, and my heart beats faster, and the pounding feels as if it would shatter my rib cage. My blood rushes through my veins, and I fear they would burst through my skin out of sheer force. My fingers and toes grow very cold, until I start imagining them breaking and falling off. My lungs inhale without exhaling, and my throat chokes me with solid, unbreathable air.

It’s how I know I live; it’s how I know I love.

But how our minds play tricks on us! Before long, I started associating love with pain. And I only knew that I loved when I felt pain. Yet I never complained. It got me through many, many instances of unrewarded love and longing. The pain was reward enough.

It was a small enough step to take; from thinking that love is pain, to concluding that pain is love. So when the pain stopped coming, I did not hesitate.

I started small. I used candles. Oh, the sweet agony of dripping boiling wax! The satisfaction of ripping it, solidified, from the back of my red, raw skin! The small spikes of sensation saved me from the horror of unfeeling.

It didn’t last. Too soon, I developed tolerance. So I tried other avenues, and they did not disappoint. I used whatever caught my eye. I saw a fork; I raked myself with it. I saw a pencil; I sharpened some more and pushed them and pounded them onto my skin. I saw a length of shoelace; I bound myself until I was blue. I saw my leather belt: it became a whip. I was pretty cunning about it, too: I left no mark, and my practices were all restricted to the weakest and most rarely used part of my body: my left arm and hand.

The nadir (or is it the zenith?) was when one day I saw my kitchen knife. I decided to relax my rule about leaving marks. I unsheathed it, I felt the cool steel on my skin, and I drew blood. My blood, my sweet, tangy, precious blood.

It was then, with that mark I left, that I realized what I realized with the candles: it, too, would not last. My body would not last. I would again develop tolerance, or my body would waste away: either way, it would not last.

So I stopped hurting my body, and started going for my mind and soul instead.

It is much easier; very few physical forces are involved, and there is no fear of running out of material: my mind happens to be very good at hurting itself. All I have to do is shut my eyes and keep the outside world out, and just start remembering all the horrible things I have done.

Oh, and they are horrible, indeed. Far more horrible than mere cutting and bruising.  I’ll spare you the details. But in these meditations and contemplations, I come to understand that I am evil. And I hate my evil self. And with that, I feel good about myself, and I start to love myself. I can still hate evil; why should I care that the evil is me? Why should I pay any mind to how horribly the act of hating myself hurts?

It’s how I know I live; it’s how I know I love.

So the next time you see me, you most likely will not see anything different. I’ll still smile at you, I’ll still laugh with you. Some of them might even be sincere. But if you’re up for it, try to look harder. And maybe, just maybe, you will see, deep inside and far away, the true me: the maimed and mutilated remains of a soul, ethereal, barely alive, floating vaguely inside itself.

It’s the price I pay for escaping my all too small a prison of a body.

Worlds of Wonder

I miss you.

I have always missed you, even if I was reminded of the fact only after reading a stranger's remark.

I miss you. I love you.

We met at the library. You were quiet. You were quaint. So very different from the others. I hope you will forgive me my jealousy, but back then, I hoped no one else noticed you. I hoped I was the only one that did. I hoped that our relationship was one flush with the taste of an affair: of a secret love so lovely that one can't help but question whether it was not forbidden.

When we met, perhaps you remember, I didn't speak. Neither did you. (It was a library, after all.) But I saw your face, and I could not avert my eyes. And to my surprise, you looked back at me. There we were, engaged in a staring contest neither of us wanted to back out of.

And then you smiled.

And then I smiled.

And the sun was brighter, and the grass was greener, and the air was sweeter.

Can anyone blame us for what we did next? We escaped the confines of the library, and did the thing all lovers long to do: we got to know each other. You told me about yourself, and the universes contained within you. I marveled at your tales of miracles: of a man who sails between stars, of a force of attraction that is more than mundane mass, of a farmer who built a cow, of refugees fleeing from the sun, of the magic that is science and the magical sciences. And I responded the only way I knew how: by loving sighs and smiles.

I didn't want it to end.

But it did end. As I knew it would.

For the sad, stupid fact was that you were not mine. You already belonged to someone else. And what we had, all those glorious nights and gentle days, could never be forever. The universe entrusted you to me, and me to you, for a while, but still -- you were not mine.

I said goodbye to you at the place I met you. I turned away from you and made my exit from the library, with closed ears and heart lest you called at me one more time. No one saw my tears.

Since then, I've walked on my path in this world, hoping that I would meet you somewhere else. Your soul, in another incarnation. But I have not been lucky, and I grow more pessimistic and desperate by the day.

And I can't help but wonder, if ...

If I went back to that library, that blessed library, could I, by whatever chance The Almighty allows, see you again?

I miss you. I love you.



If only books could read.

Peter's Pain

I've been exposing myself to quite an amount of girlie fiction lately.

You know what I'm talking about, right? Despite the stunning and oftentimes messy complexity of real-life girls, there is one particular genre that most would be quick to associate with them; namely, love stories. And if I may be so bold, I assume it's true enough, in the sense that most love stories are made by women with female readers in mind.

I have to say that, in a way, those stories have been somewhat consoling for me.

You know why? Because I, who am in fact a boy, have as of late been feeling the sort of feelings they generally have in love stories. And it's always nice to know that there are others who feel the same way. Especially if those others are people of 'the other side.'

Small comfort, though. I mean, however nice it is to know that others feel the way I do, it doesn't do much to the feelings themselves.

And the feelings have been dominantly melancholic. The future is dark and dangerous, and I have been thinking about how good it would be to have a lasting ally by my side through the ordeal. To know a companion with whom I can share my joys and my sorrows. To be with someone long enough to be able to finally say, "Our time together is worth the price of our eventual, near-certain parting."

"Always I knew that Heaven would be the cruelest of places." I think I'm beginning to understand what Hyde says there. Once I have an idea of what I really, really, really want, not to have it is such torture. I don't have it. I've never had it. And I worry that I am not worthy of anyone or, which is worse, that no one is worthy of me.

But it's no use wallowing about this way. I believe that, however much I want it, I don't really need it. I've survived this long without having it. I just have to keep the desire from getting intense enough that it becomes indistinguishable from necessity.

If mine is to be a high and lonely destiny, or even a low and lonely one, then so be it.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas...."

Ah, bollocks.

Until Lambs Become Lions

It is night right now.

I went outside for a smoke.

It is very cold.

Not for the first time, the cold gets my brain working. It's like a thermistor that way. Or, yes, Discworld's Ankh-Morpork's City Watch's Sergeant Detritus' brain.

This time, somehow, it made me think about compliments I have received over the years.

I have received a lot of compliments in my lifetime. This is not bragging, mind, it's just the way people go around. They compliment each other. I do that too, sometimes. However, only a few of said compliments I can still remember.

Three, in fact.

Here they are. In a chronological order. And, as it turns out, ascending impact.

One was from my mother. She once called me 'spartan.' This was some time after I moved away from her to go to college. I rarely went home. And, yes, my lifestyle changed quite drastically from the time I lived with her. If you happen to see me on the street, or worse, in my room, 'spartan' is probably among the last things that will come to mind. Imagine King Leonidas in the movie "300". Done? Now, I'm very nearly the exact opposite of that. I don't have a great beard, I'm really fat, and I don't walk around in leather briefs (not in public, at least). But I do have a somewhat austere outlook of life - if I do say so myself - and as such, I was glad when she called me 'spartan'. I am continually trying to live up to that name.

Another was from a senior of mine. A friend. I can't remember the setting in which he said this to me, but he called me 'asexual'. And I was pleased. It brought a smile to my face. I wonder, what does that say about me?

The third, and the one that I felt very, very honored to have received, was from my brother. Guess what he called me?

He called me 'Mycroft'. As in 'Holmes'.

For those of you who don't know, Mycroft Holmes is the older brother of the more well-known Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was played in more recent times by Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, among others.

Of course, some might think that my brother was just trying to call himself 'Sherlock' in a roundabout way. And make no mistake, he is smart. And he is good. I would not mind if indeed that was what he was saying. But, if you've read or seen some of the stories, it was evident that Mycroft was way cleverer than Sherlock. I choose to believe my brother knew about this.

My little brother was not timid to say, "I'm good. But you're better."

And I consider it the greatest honor I have received.

I'm inclined to think it the greatest honor I will ever receive, at least from men.

But enough about me. How about you? Have you ever been moved deeply by a simple compliment? Would you like to tell me about it?

Thicker Than the Water of the Womb

I am happy. I can't sleep right now, and I'm happier than I've been in a very, very long time.

Here's why:

For the first time in my life, I truly, truly realize that, yes, I do have a friend. And it feels SO FREAKING GREAT.

Contrary to my previous assumptions, it feels nice to finally find someone for whom, if they should die before me, I would cry and wail and scream and rage and grieve without reservation.

I want to smile.

I want to tell you about my imaginary friends. Yes, I once had imaginary friends.

You might ask, "What do they look like, these friends?"

See, the thing about imaginary things (friends, enemies, deities, whatever) is that oftentimes you can't really say what they look like. Sometimes you can only say what they are.

So let me tell you that, back when I was smaller, my imaginary friends were mice.

Yep. My imaginary friends were mice. Two of them, in fact. They were envoys from a large colony (is this correct? I'm not sure) of mice that lived under my pillow. Since they mainly operated around the pillow, I only got to talk to them before I slept at night. At nine pm, after brushing my teeth and changing into my pajamas, I'd get in bed and call to them. I'd wait until they have climbed onto my hand, and snuggle up with them until I fell asleep.

What did we talk about? Nothing. I'd just gather them in my hands and close my eyes, believing that after I fell asleep they'd go back to their colony under the pillow. I've never said anything to them, aside from the summons I made. My only mode of interaction with them is the snuggling. I don't even know their names.

But they were my friends.

I wonder where they are now.

"You want to know how I got these scars?"

Depression is playing Pokémon Emerald with an emulator on your laptop until the fuse in your room blows. And only managing to get six gym badges along the way.

Depression is getting a large box of biscuits and milk from your mom and rushing through them all in two days.

Depression is eating rehydrated instant cup noodles for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks after finishing the aforementioned large box of foodstuff.

Depression is playing The Notting Hillbillies' "Feel Like Going Home" on the piano over and over and over again, and failing to shed a single tear, while your heart feels like stopping, and doesn't, and your eyes keep sneaking glances at that red kitchen knife you carry around everywhere everyday, and not having the guts to use it as you want to.

Depression is watching three seasons of Game of Thrones in five days.

Depression is reading a book about personalities and going back again and again to the chapters on sociopaths, because who doesn't like reading about themselves?

Depression is spending only two hours attending class in a semester. And zero hours on exams.

Depression is asking your friends, "What would you do if one day you received news that I committed suicide?" right before getting off the car.

Depression is trying to type a confession of all the things you have and have not done, addressed to your parents, knowing that they are currently so very thrilled that your little brother has just been accepted in universities abroad.

Depression is having a dream where you see your beloved friend, with his hair dyed blond, smiling and waving at you, walking away, getting on with his happy life, while you sit on a table at a pier with your back to the evening sun and a stranger on your side, unable to stand and give a goodbye hug to that friend, wanting to scream and finding your throat blocked by something, and only managing to smile weakly while tears escaped your eyes and rolls down your cheeks onto your chin and then falling to the gravel below.

Depression is having your cold fingers tremble while pushing buttons in front of a glowing screen.

Depression is packs of cigarettes and large bottles of cola.



Depression is not Destiny, nor Death, nor Dream. It is not even Destruction. You would think it was Desire, and Despair, and you would be wrong. I wish it were Delirium. Alas, it is not.



Depression is doom.

Sol Invictus or Saturnalia, As You Please

I saw the movie "Arthur Christmas" a few days back. (Edit: more like two weeks ago. This post was, remarkably, tagged 'draft' for quite a long yet definite period.)

I liked it. A new spin on the Santa story, at least new to me, it was. And the voice of Bill Nighy was no drawback. He plays an old man, as usual.

Back to the main topic: Arthur Christmas. The movie, I mean.

Spoiler alert, just to be safe.

So, the modern-day Santa operation is no longer the private affair like it used to be years and years ago, when St. Nicholas walks around all by himself. It has even progressed much more than the traditional eight reindeer-powered sleigh flying around the world in one night. Santa kept with the times. The thing is, Santa is not immortal. So when he gets old enough, he retires, just like most people in the world, and Santahood is passed on to another (in the case of the movie, to Santa's son).

Eh, I'm not that good at describing movies. The tendency to ramble is irresistible. Look at the paragraph above. The third and fourth sentences aren't really connected. Not to mention I missed the first 15 minutes or so of the movie. Go watch it, I'm not going to bore you anymore with the main plot.

What I happened to notice is that, the Santa Operation is now Santa Corporation. There are loads of elves doing the main bulk of the work of assessing children's gift preferences, manufacturing them, and delivering them on Christmas Eve. The Santa, while still delivering the gifts himself, acts more as a supervisor and manager. I'd like to say captain, like on a ship, maybe.

How many elves? I said loads. I'd even say multinational. One elf, if I remember correctly, wears a kilt, so I assume he's Scottish. There are also elves that speak in German and Indian accents, I recall. I suppose it would be very difficult trying to do the kind of work Santa does with just the native elves of North Pole.

But the point I'm trying to make is this. Christmas is no longer (if ever it was) solely a Europeans' or Westerns' holiday. Remember the Indian elf.

I am even going to suggest the preposterous: that the Indian elf might even be a Hindu elf.

And Christmas is not only for Christians.

Sure, Christians celebrate Christmas to commemorate Christ's birth. (And for those of you who try to argue "Christ was probably not even born in December!" I am going to say, "Correct. Ever heard of the saying, 'Happy belated birthday?' Doesn't really fucking matter to them, man, what the correct date is.") Why can't others celebrate Christmas for something entirely different? Tim Minchin, an atheist, likes Christmas. And there's nothing wrong with that, right?

We impose our own views on holidays. We imbue them with meaning that might not even exist at the holidays' conception. We turn every holiday into our own holiday. We make each day as holy as we want. And it is good.

And redefining a holiday's meaning to be "trying to stop people from wishing goodness on others and/or sneering at those who do" is just fucking stupid.

P.S: If you're still wondering who Tim Minchin is, here's a link to his song about Christmas. I love it.

"Look on My works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Dear readers, gather round. I am going to tell you something that, until now, only I know.

I am going to tell you about my secret weakness.

It's sunset.

Surprising, I know. But since I could remember, that dusky one-hour period, from 5 pm to 6 pm, has always held a certain power, almost a spell, on me.

As a little boy, every day, at 5 pm, I was made to take a shower. Once I had gotten out of the bathroom and put on some clean clothes, there was always this strange, deep melancholy that came over me. I would kneel on the sofa and look out the window, gazing at the orange-purple sky and the darkening road and the neighboring houses' lamps that were starting to come on. I would call out, silently, in the coming twilight, to my father and my mother who are making their daily commute from their places of work. "Father, Mother, please come home," I would chant under my breath with a voice only I could hear.

I did not have a name for it at the time. But each day, at sunset, I was heartbroken. I was pining for my protectors, my guardians, my lovers, wishing for their presence beside me, knowing that everything would be right once they are in my arms and I in theirs. There was this ache in my chest created by their absence that has no remedy save for their coming home and saying something as simple as, "Hello, Son, how was your day?"

That was when I was a small child. When I loved few but my parents.

I have loved much more since then.

But thankfully, as I grew, so did the distractions. My schoolwork got tougher, my circle of friends grew larger, television shows got more interesting and numerous, if not always better. Even more so during junior and senior high school. Discovered books, attended extracurricular lessons and courses, got tangled in the mess that was the world wide web, experimented with computer games, played guitar, sang, laughed.... There was no shortage of diversions that protected me from the dread melancholy with a shield of forgetfulness.

A thin and flimsy shield it was. For at times, I forgot the distractions, and I looked up to the sky as the sun starts its dive.

And the sunset hit me with the force of nearly twenty years of experience. Nearly twenty years of knowledge. Nearly twenty years of sorrow, of fear, of longing. Nearly twenty years of life, and of love.

And my heart was broken once more.

And there was pain. The deep pain of memories. Of broken playthings, lost loves, enemies, and friends. Of hateful encounters and joyous reunions. It was pain that made it hard to breathe. The pain that made me want to hide behind the curtain. The pain that made me want to howl, want to sob, want to wail, want to beat at the ground, want to run away from it all. The pain that made me wish for oblivion.

And there was the pain that made me want to cut my chest open, and to pull out my heart, and to caress it lovingly, and to whisper to it gently, and to soothe it with my voice and my touch, as a shepherd soothes a lamb, or as a father calms his son.

To be able to still my own tumultuous heart, like a lone albatross flying above saying, "Courage, dear heart." Ah, that would be a power worth having.

But I am my heart, and it is me.

The pain did not last very long. Very few things really did, in my experience. Soon I would forget about it, and immerse myself again in the swamp of distractions that is the world.

But the sunset comes every day, ever so patiently waiting for me to raise my vision to the western horizon at its hour.

Names are for Mundies

I fell in love yesterday.

I didn't know her name. Even now I can't really remember her face.

She was blonde. With waist-length hair. That I do remember.

I saw her naked. She was some sort of handmaiden or something. Maybe a slave to a lady or a duke. My memory about that is a bit blurry. Maybe she was not even really naked. But there was something Leia-ish about her. You know.

I asked her, you see. About whether she wanted for us to be in a relationship. In retrospect, I might have gone slightly overboard with it. I remember that I was in a kneeling - possibly even crouched - position when she answered.

She didn't say anything at first. She was silent. But beaming. She looked really... positive, you dig? All smiles, a bit embarrassed maybe (there were people around us, I don't know, it was a wedding or a ceremony or a party of some sort), but still smiling. And glowing.

Then she shook her head. Still not a word from her lips, which are still curved in a gorgeous smile.

How do you respond to that? It was my first time proposing a relationship with someone, I had no experience at all in that particular area. So what did I do? I continued to be silent in my crouch. "Do not break eye contact," I heard someone said, in my head. So I didn't.

She shook her head again. But this time she made a motion with her hand across her neck to go with the head-shaking, which was of course the universally recognized gesture for 'I'm going to kill you for your transgressions,' so I was a little... disconcerted, so to speak. The smile on my face began to fade.

Not hers, though. She kept smiling, kept looking so pretty and nice and slim and bright and, most importantly, loving.

And then she kissed me.

On my lips.

And the smile came back.

Then we danced, and held each other, and turned this way, and then that way, and everything melded together in a vortex of golden glow.

.......

The problem of falling in love with a dream is that most of the time, when you wake up, you forget that you did indeed fall in love.

And those are the lucky times.

.......

I am not happy.

That was surprisingly hard to admit.

I am not happy.

I'm not sad, just... not happy.

I wasn't always like this, you know.

Time was, I used to feel strongly about things. I used to feel shock. Sadness. I used to fear.

Fear.

The emotion I hated the most was fear. I knew what it was to fear. To dread the morrow, to wish for the cup to be taken away, to feel in my bones that what was coming to me was loathsome, and to make every effort to avoid it.

I used to fear things. Many things. Bullies. Teachers. Tomorrow's classes. Exams. My parents' wrath regarding bad exam marks. Rejection. Acceptance. Isolation. Suffocation.

I hated fear. It was terrible. It was as if my heart would like nothing better than to stop its rhythmic beating just so that I can't feel it anymore. It was painful. I didn't want to fear.

I was afraid of fear.

I tried to avoid fear. But instead of endeavoring to strengthen myself, to surpass the fearful hurdles, I acted as if the hurdles were not even there to begin with. I diminished the problem by thinking that there was no problem.

I spake "Let there be Nothing."

And Nothing was.

Nothing is.

Inside.

No fear. No surprises. No joy. No desire. No passion.

No love.

No life.

Fissures

Ahem.

First of all, I want to apologize for the previous post (Cracks).
It was late night, there was a lot of stuff, it got too intense and (ugh) emotional.

So I'm sorry if it got a little incoherent.

Wait. No I'm not.

I mean, I'm sorry if anyone got offended.

But I have got the chance to re-examine the circumstances, and I'll have at it again with a more rational process.



I still hate my life. That hasn't changed.

And I do want to die. But what I wrote, that was a bit of a rushed thinking. It's too simplistic, it didn't look at every aspect of the problem.

I mean if I really wanted to die, I could very easily off myself at anytime. There are a lot of ways to end a human being, you just need to get creative. Heck, I even carry a kitchen knife in my jeans pocket when I go out. The point here is: it's easy. But of course, the fact that I'm still here typing away on my laptop means that I don't find that solution feasible or desirable. Or at least not yet.

The biggest obstacle in deciding whether or not to kill myself is, I have to admit, my family. I happen to be the first-born son of a first-born son, so that means I'm sort of like the crown prince in the family. This is honest. They all expect me to carry on the family name, be the patriarch, and so on and so forth. Again, this is completely honest. So you can see that should I decide to kill myself, there would (I assume) be a lot of grief. My father, my mother, my grandparents, my cousins, perhaps my friends also (although I think they would have an easier time than my relatives), and my younger brother, the single male human I love most in this world. And I don't want to cause more grief in this world.

So, killing myself is off the table. Oh, and hoping for someone to kill me out of mercy is not really feasible in this day and age. And paying someone to do so is just so unrefined. So, there.

But there are, as always, other ways.

One can argue thusly: the main objection is the grief of family members. If we should eliminate said family members, there would be no one to feel the grief, right? Correct. But this is a huge task. I mean, if I wanted to do it elegantly, which I do. If I should start with the easiest, of course I would start with my grandparents. They are, I admit, rather superannuated, and have many ailments appropriate to their age. It would be easy to, say, poison their food. I just have to find an agent that creates a natural effect (as opposed to, for instance, dumping a large quantity of mercury in their bowls). It wouldn't be that complicated either, there are a lot of substances they can no longer tolerate. As for the rest of the family, I perhaps could design traps or resort to poison again or just use my knife. What I'm saying is, it's really not that complicated. But the problem lies in their numbers. If I started killing my family one by one, sooner or later the suspicion would fall on me. Which, again, would cause a lot of suffering in the family, even if said family is reduced in numbers. Besides, it would be very, very hard for me to kill my brother.

So, killing the rest of my family, while perfectly feasible and will bring about much-desired relief and freedom, requires large expenses, and will take quite some time to see any return on that investment. No.

What about just simply severing ties? I don't believe in that. Deep down, I and they (maybe) would never be able to completely forget about the other(s).

No, I believe that death would be preferable. As the North Wind in the Fables series say, "Death cancels all obligations."

Of course, the best possible outcome is the Apocalypse, which would save a lot of work on my part and hatred and suffering on all parties involved. But since it involves other, less measurable or predictable entities, I can't very well engineer it.

Or can I...?
No, no, let's keep this solid.

So that's it. I just have to decide whether to put an end to all of my family, or just hope for some miracle or natural catastrophe which kills either me or all my family.


Quite rational thinking, don't you think?

Cracks

FRIG.

Pardon my language.

FLIP.

FLUB.

FRACK.

FUCK.

FUUUUUUUCK.

I think I can now say that I HATE MY LIFE.

I hate it. I hate it.


You know what crossed my mind, last Sunday, when a ginger cat passed in front of me?

"I wonder if it would be hard to surgically remove that cat's heart. And lungs. Maybe it's easier to start with just the head. Simply cut the neck. Oh, this reminds me of that idea I had about a guillotine. For kittens."

That.

I don't know if that's relevant, if it's a reliable indicator of my hating life, or just a sign of severe depression, or even insanity.

But I do like the color red.


FUCK.

I hate my life. Usually when I hate things I don't want them ended.

But this is an exception.

Come, Death! I'll probably resist, maybe I'll fight you all the way, but know this: I WANT TO LOSE.

So come at me. Hurry.

Shame. Contempt. Rage.

I don't know your name.

I know where we met.

At a bookstore. One of my favorites.

I know how you looked.

Perhaps as tall as me. Shorter hair than mine. Infinitely more beautiful than me. Close to perfection.

I don't know your name.

I remember what you wore.

A light blue shirt, slightly large for you. Simple. Practical. Lovely.

I remember the things you said.

My hair. Sheep. My studies. You wished me luck. How I wish to hear it again.

I don't know your name.

I know your age. Two years my senior.

I know where you study. Over the seas, in Japan. Studying sheep for your master's degree.

I remember how your eyes looked when you saw me.

But to know how you saw me,

A boon not meant for me, I think.

And I don't know your name.

I do not know your name

I know how I could find out.

I know how I could try to reach you.

I know who to ask.

But I cannot.

Not without mortal embarrassment.

So I beg you forgive me.

For being cowardly.

For being embarrassed of my own feelings.

For settling for a shadow instead of fighting for the light.

What a wretch! What a fool!