Fµ¢k You, A$$Hol3 on a Motorcycle!
September 26, 2009
This asshole on a motorcycle, obviously overspeeding, passed by me in a long, deserted street. He was swerving from side to side, enjoying the diesel roar and engine horsepower. I looked at him skedaddling, and I wondered how my body would fly and land on the concrete had he hit me.
Then it happened: he ran over a dog, unknowingly sitting in the side of the stretch.
It was 4 pm. Broad daylight. There was no reason for him to not have seen the poor dog.
I saw the entire thing happened. The dog started to writhe and cry. Apparently, its spine was broken for its body was contorted in a sickening manner, which pains me to recall or describe here. As for the asshole on the motorcycle, he lost control of the vehicle. The motorcycle landed on its side and vehemently slid circling towards the side of the street, with sparks flying. The man, as though weightless, flew out of his vehicle, crashed onto the pavement, and bounced and turned ‘round and ‘round, while his helmet took off in another direction.
The cries of a dying dog, the grating of metal against concrete, the whacking of an asshole’s flesh on the ground – I knew this morning that something was going to be different about this particular Friday.
I’m a nurse, and not a vet. I wished to save the dog, but I couldn’t. I paused walking, and stood inches away from the writhing and crying dog. I looked at my soiled, red shoes and focused there, and wished so hard for the dog to please just pass away that instant to spare it from the pain. Never had I wished so hard for something in my entire life.
After nearly a minute, the dog let out a faint whimper. I looked at it. It never had to die that way. Oh, shaken and most likely injured, the man slowly stood up and limped toward his then dilapidated motorcycle.
I continued walking, and reached where the man and his motorcycle were. A couple of people, appearing from nowhere, started to approach him.
I’m a nurse, and I saw what he did. I could have helped assess his injuries and apply first aid. But I did not. I prefer dogs over assholes at any given time. Besides, I had some place to go to. So I continued walking.
My job there was done: I was assured that the poor dog was suffering no more. On the other hand, you, asshole, will just begin to suffer, once the shock fades out, once everything sinks in, once your body detects and reacts to its injuries.
I’m heartless. And so was the asshole. Let’s just call it quits.
Crying a River: A Letter for K
September 20, 2009
To read a letter from someone like me is something you do not deserve. Yet while I still have the chance I will tell you a few things, for this connection between us, born of luck, stands on weak footing which may anytime give way. I will be evermore grateful that once, by accident, I ran into you. You are an amazing person. I had often wondered why, of all the strangers on the planet, I was the one singled out and blessed with the opportunity to have known you. What did I do to be worthy of this?
Alas, on account of my naiveté, I had steered things toward my advantage. I wish to say I greatly regret this, for it set off many sleepless nights on my part, and perhaps exasperation on yours. However, I don’t.
Once at the height of everything you became my world. Thoughts of you bled into my every waking hour. At night I went to sleep only to dream of you. It was all about you, and very little of me. I had wished for it not to end as I hardly ever experience happiness and caring for someone so much; the validity of which, by the way, you once challenged. And though I cringe at the sight of a gun, I would fearlessly take a bullet for you.
I believe that you can never take me seriously enough. For I suppose that, through the many months of communicating with one another, you uncovered the saddening truth that I am just a little boy who refuses to grow up. I understand you. I always had and I always will. As someone who does not have anything extraordinary to offer, understanding your every distant thought, every fit of temper, and every lack of feeling is what I can solitarily contribute to your life. But who am I compared to the wonderful people around you? I am nothing. Yes, mayhap a bit unusual, but nonetheless disposable.
I don’t know what will happen in the years to come – to you, to me, and between the two of us. I pray not to lose you, although I am fully aware it is a likelihood I have no control over. Once I have told – no, begged – you to say “goodbye” to me should you decide to go away. Hearing that word from you will not save me from, for sure, many years of crying and longing, but it will make it easier for me to accept the veracity of parting.
If only I wrote as good as you, I would be able to impeccably compose my thoughts here, and perhaps win your understanding. But I guess my writing is just good enough for demonstrating a mere fleck of the burden I had begun to carry around, silently and helplessly. Isn’t it downright absurd that what brings so much hope and happiness to my life is exactly the same one that causes me sorrow?
To watch the sunset beside you is a marvelous way to end a day, but to wake up beside you even for just one morning is a completion of a lifetime. But when things come to an ending, I guarantee that the ending is solely mine, and never yours.
Struck With Awe
September 4, 2009
Once a boy, on his way home from grade school, wished for his umbrella to magically disappear so he had a valid excuse to get wet. Back then the rain to him was just a multitude of disobedient clouds which no longer fancied drifting across the sky. Whilst spellbound by raindrops crashing into the ground only to ricochet in lovely disarray, a song — now forgotten with the passing of years — was playing on his mind, or was being hummed, though uncertain because of the raucous rain.
He was scanning the street for a huge rainwater-filled pothole, for if there was one he would mindlessly lunge and land with two feet in it, dispersing the rainwater. His Mom would be enraged alright, but then he would just secretly call to mind that splendid spattering he created, reducing her scolding to a mere nothing.
But there were no potholes in sight, only a man a few feet away from him. His clutch bag was his makeshift umbrella, which evidently was of no help for his office clothes were soaked. The sight temporarily stopped the song playing on the mind of the boy, or was being hummed. And as it was about to resume, suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light, immediately followed by an earsplitting boom, and an inexplicable force that almost sent him crashing to the ground.
Then the sight a few feet away from the boy sufficed for any graspable explanation: a man with soaked office clothes and a clutch bag in tatters, lying lifeless on the ground. It is said that lightning does not strike twice; it needs only one strike to reveal its wrath, and leave a boy fearing that wrath for the rest of his life.
Walking Wounded
August 20, 2009
I was not able to walk without the aid of crutches for six months after a knee surgery. The surgery may have mended an injury but, while at that time concealed, it made an incision on my ego that would eventually leave a spiteful scarring.
More than just withstanding the agonizing pain of healing a massive wound, I was putting up with the thought that I was crippled. For how long I was not going to be able to walk without crutches was uncertain; rehabilitation proved to be extremely grueling that I ended up sickly each time.
Days and days of staying at home, mostly in bed, fashioned a monster out of me. I started hating people merely for being able to walk normally. I decided to be transferred to our old family home from my mother’s apartment because there I could lock myself up and not be disgusted with the sight of people who could walk normally.
In there I was alone. I became a recluse whose entire world was framed by four walls and set in motion by two aluminum-alloy props and one functional leg. No one was around to feel sorry for me. No one was around to give a helping hand. If I died in there, no one would find out till after the stench of my rotting corpse called the attention of the neighbors.
One day, on the sixth month of being crippled, I decided to let fall of my crutches. Their clanging on the floor meant that I was standing there unaided and there was no turning back. I had gotten so used to not being able to walk normally that if my injured knee gave way upon supporting my upper body weight, I wouldn’t mind being crippled for the rest of my life. I had lost so much already there was nothing else to lose anyway.
With eyes closed, I took my very first unaided step. There was pain, a sharp one, but I felt no popping or tearing in my knee. One step was followed by another, and another, and another. The pain did not really disappear after ambulating without assistance, but was eclipsed by the thought I was walking on my own again after so many months.
The next day, I was in a shopping mall. For the first time I was in a world apart from what I willfully founded in the seclusion of the old family house. And there were people all around me, walking normally as I did.
While walking, I looked to my side and there on a reflective panel I saw myself, as though for the very first time. I had very pasty skin, put on a lot of weight, and had hair that grew down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. And most of all, I had a very odd gait. I looked around and saw that people were staring at me, which I failed to notice earlier. The stares made me feel like I, all of a sudden, did not belong to such world anymore.
I went home. The world outside had gotten so big and strange all the time I was crippled. I felt there was no room for me outside, so being a recluse once more was the only option. What was the point of being able to walk again without crutches, to learn to walk normally as other people did, and to return to a world I once left behind? More than just being an outcast, I felt so very small.
Like Peas in a Pod: A Letter for B
August 14, 2009
Where do I even begin? This letter may not say much for we try to make the most of each time we have a conversation. We provide answers to each other’s questions. We supply strengths to each other’s weaknesses. We infuse certainties to each other’s doubts. I believe there is nothing we can’t talk about.
I feel like we have known each other since the beginning of time. Never in my whole life had I been this comfortable sharing with someone anything under the sun, from trivial to profound ones. I am thankful that, beyond listening, you know how to understand.
The more I learned about you, the more I wished I were like you: smart, funny, benevolent – a fascinating person living an equally fascinating life.
I wish to apologize for the moments I was parading my folly while under the influence. You remained serene and gentle while I was lambasting your thoughts, belittling your plights. Each time our conversations ended I felt guilty. Each time you were the first one to ask for forgiveness I felt worthless. I can think of nothing that would suffice to make up for everything.
Making excuses is the one thing I am good at. During that moment I turned my back on you, I learned a very valuable lesson: The world does not revolve solely around me. And instead of swallowing my pride at once, I tried to justify my mistake by making up aphorisms that I, while pretending to be wise, myself found ridiculous.
The truth: I was afraid that I had lost you and, in my quest to find what instigated it, decided to pretend that you were the one who had lost me instead. It was just to protect my self from harm – to cushion the blow, to offset the loss. In the process, I believe, I had hurt you. The intensity of which I couldn’t tell, but your reasons were enough for me to realize never would I have the capacity of hurting you a second time.
It pains me to think that, despite our sameness, we are separated by a distance whose presence I fail to understand. And this distance is easy to bridge, but I believe neither time nor fate allows it at present. What if, someday, one of us decides to pursue the other, only to find out everything is too late?
There are a lot of things about you that remind me of myself. Could it be that you and I are one and the same, living in parallel worlds, gifted with the ability to get in touch with one another?
I wish to not wear you out reading this letter. There are a lot of things that take up most of your time. I will be here, waiting and wondering how you are. And, please, try not to chase happiness too much. For when you chase it you might just get your hands on something not meant for you. Happiness will find you. Just like when you found me once.
To Fill What is Empty
August 12, 2009
It started out as transitory feelings of sadness. For someone who is a willing loner, admitting that the burdens of being mostly alone had begun to show up is self-defeating. I did not understand what was going on. In a way I felt that my identity was slowly wasting away. Knowing that, in reality, no space can ever be perfectly empty, I gathered that it was only a matter of time before something filled up the void.
What started out as transitory found permanence in the days that followed. The problem before me was something I was neither ready to face nor escape.
I don’t know when and how exactly it happened, but, without prior notice, I found solace in alcohol. Being intoxicated made me feel I could put everything behind momentarily, and that particular feeling made me feel I was in control. Nightly I was either drinking alone in front of the TV or present at gatherings where alcohol is served. Suddenly I realized I couldn’t stop. It was extremely difficult to turn my back on something which helped me supersede emptiness.
It went on for many months. Being sober only made me feel I was trapped in a body that was not mine, in a home that failed to understand me, in a world that did not need me. The only time that I had felt I was worth something was when I was intoxicated.
One Sunday morning my father, who lived in a different house, dropped by to pick up a toolkit he once owned. He started looking for it in the dining room. Being one of the less frequented part of the house since the family broke years ago, I thought the dining room was a fairly safe place to hide things that I wished unseen. Then in one of the unused cabinets there, he came across piles of empty alcohol bottles.
My bedroom is close enough to the dining room to hear just about any activity going on in there. I just woke up that morning and, as I was to grab the doorknob, was taken aback by the sound of my mother and father frantically whispering to one another. I couldn’t make out what they were talking about. But for them to be talking in a manner different from their customary screaming clearly suggested disaster.
I did not continue with going out of my bedroom. During that time I was not aware that the matter which bothered them had something to do with me. Thinking it was just about one of those issues the two of them often failed to resolve, I went back to sleeping.
Sleeping had always been my chosen analgesic, although the pain resurfaces upon waking up. In spite of this, it is comforting to think that, even for just a few hours in the realm of nothingness, I am not familiar with hurting.
But then I had to wake up. The minute I stepped out of my bedroom, into the dining area, I ran into my mother. To indicate that discussing the dispute she earlier had with my father was something of no importance to me, I continued walking toward the bathroom. Then my eyes caught something: one of the cabinets there was left wide open, exposing piles of empty alcohol bottles. Our eyes met, and there was no need to articulate anything. For in those few seconds that our eyes were locked I sensed an undisclosed array of uneasiness and disgust emanating from her.
In the bathroom I buried my face in my hands out of humiliation and powerlessness. I was back at where it all began but, more than just feeling alone, by then I was also lost. The moment my palms touched my face, I began to wonder: “to whom does this skin belong?”
Coffee Klatch
August 10, 2009
The blackness that is its nature
conceals whether it’s sugared or not.
And unless you allow it through your puckered lips
and singe the tip of your tongue,
chances are you can never guess
how well it destroys with its beastly shade.
Meeting an Accident
August 8, 2009
Accidents do happen. But the upsetting fact remains that, when they transpire, the lessons learned are overpowered by wounds.
Wounds bring forth pain. Pain tends to eclipse everything else. When in severe pain we lament in our mother tongue and beckon comfort by assuming a fetal position. In such instances there are no black or white, no rich or poor, no right or wrong — just people shrieking and squirming in pain.
Wounds bring forth scars. There are scars that are worth flaunting, such as in the case of battle scars, that anyone who wears them feels dignified before a spectator. There are, on the other hand, scars that are not only worth keeping a secret but also forgetting. Either they are remnants of the distant or recent past, they remain just that: a disgrace dragged around though hidden from view at times.
One evening I met an accident. But this accident was unlike most any other accidents for all ensuing indications — the wounds, the pain and the scars — appeared only many months after.
Accidents need not be planned to happen. They just happen, sometimes, too, even in the presence of preventive measures. That evening I was completely devoid of plans as mostly the case. Without forewarning, the accident took place.
It was nothing. Although my pain tolerance is very impressive, however, it was of no importance at that time for there was no pain to bear, to begin with. So I stood up, furtively checked if no onlookers were around, and went on sauntering aimlessly. It was one of those accidents where you are made aware of it only minutes after it smacked you in the face.
Many weeks passed and one day I realized something about me was no longer intact. I lost myself — suddenly I was no longer who I thought I was. Little did I know that I incurred a tiny bump during that accident. And that tiny bump, throughout the weeks that it nestled on one of my temples, grew inward, like a prisoner armed with a pickaxe, in hope of unearthing an underground tunnel system.
All of a sudden I found myself wounded, bleeding and living through pain that was unbelievably beyond my tolerance. I sought for help, for time comes when one acknowledges pride single-handedly does nothing to resolve anything. But it was a move that later on I had regretted. If truth be told, everything took a turn for the worse. For to be denied of the reality of one’s pain is the grandest form of mockery.
Accidents bring forth lessons. I learned that pain neither weakens nor strengthens us, but just an indicator that something within is taking place. I learned that wounds are merely reminder of our vulnerability, without which we might just be misled that we are invincible. I learned that scars are indelible marks that, far beyond deforming us, define us.
Even Lucifer Weeps 