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On Depth, Futures, Home, And Love (A Dump)
Originally posted November 2016
She sat, enveloping herself in me and laid her head on my shoulder so she could look me in the eyes. “You know,” she began in the hushed tone she used when she was telling me something serious, “I had a panic attack at the museum. I like walked into the room and all the paintings and statues were bigger than me. It’s pretty pathetic knowing that I can’t go in there all by myself.”
I looked at her, and then away. The position we were in was too awkward for eye contact. “Why do you think that happened?”
“I don’t know.” She looked in the direction I was looking. Our friends were practicing a skit. “I guess I’m scared of big things. Like I could go to rallies at the Bonifacio monument but I couldn’t go there alone when, like, I’m pretty much the only one there. It’s too big for me and it’s scary.”
“So what happens when you and a guy hit it up. And then you find that he’s huge?” I snickered to myself, more out of genuine curiosity than in the need to lighten the mood.
She laughed in response and shifted a little. “I don’t mind the size. I don’t judge.” Our friends took a break from their practice. Some sat across us and listened to our conversation. They could pick it up, they’ve seen her tweets.
“I’m also scared of huge open spaces. Like, if you guys weren’t here, I’d be panicking. It’s pathetic.” She nodded to those around us, acknowledging their inclusion in this.
I looked at the others to see if they were going to say anything in reply, when they didn’t I said, “It isn’t that pathetic.” I looked back at them and they looked back at me. No one else seemed to really be getting into the conversation. “Maybe it’s like being afraid of the unknown. Kinda what every fear is about. And it isn’t pathetic, I’m scared of the unknown.”
She sat up and I rested my chin on her shoulder, “But I don’t want it to be deep like that, fam. I don’t want my fears to be that deep.”
Originally posted January 2017
My dad went over to me, holding a keychain and a few other things. They all had my sibling’s name and were all medically themed. “Have you seen these?” He chuckled to himself in an attempt to lighten his mood but I heard the sigh he made. “I sometimes hate cleaning up around here because of these.” He puts them back on the shelf and looks up at my sibling’s medical school books and material. “It still depresses me, sometimes, to see those kids in white.” I nodded and went back to my own cleaning.
“Before, your mom and I were really just hoping she’d go back to med school. But it looks like she made her mind up.” Pause. He sat on my bed and leaned against the wall, still staring at the shelf. “Before, the only thing that kept me going was the thought that, at least, she’ll be healthier.” I sighed a yeah and went back to my own cleaning.
“You know, with the way you talk and the way you present yourself, anak, you would make a good lawyer.” He said offhandedly. He was looking at me, but I shied away from his eyes. He added, on second thought, “You know you’d be great whatever you’ll be. I trust you, anak, you’re smart, you’re hardworking, and you like cars.”
I tried, casually, “I was thinking of getting a Beetle or some SUV.”
“I was thinking of saving for a Fortuner,” my dad took the car segue.
***
Originally posted January 2017
Rambling.
I’m not sure if this is finished or if I ever will finish it. I’m not quite sure I like it or if it makes any sense, but I want to keep it.
---
If you wake me up as we pass under the subdivision’s welcoming arc by the gym, I’ll tell you to take a right and to keep going forward until you see a house on the left with a yellow gate and a blue fence. I’ll tell you my home is an old two-story house built in the 70s when my grandparents made their first move into the city. And I hope you know better, that I live in another, much bigger city where there are many more cars, and a lot more cases of vigilante justice. I live in a village past the houses and the stores of the urban poor, the stark contrast between their galvanized iron walls and our tall concrete houses make it apparent that the government had tossed in their hats with urban development plans. But on weekdays I live in an even bigger city, in a condominium unit alone where I spend the days either looking out to count the glowing windows or up and wondering when the stars will shine.
And I know you know better than me that my home is not simply where I rest or where my heart is. And I know you know better than me that I don’t put my whole heart anywhere. I take it apart by the fibers and hand it to whoever pays me attention, whoever so much as bothers to tell me that they care, whoever I lose track of time with and find that I can’t help but mention how much I love them, wherever I find myself thinking that someway somehow things could be this way. And that’s a lot of people and places and things that hold a part of my heart. And I’m forgetful, I misplace things. I forget that I leave a part of me with the people I know I will never see again or people I know I will never see; in a bookstore where I could find about 20 books I’d like to take home with me but will only ever want them before I see their price; on the overused couches of cafes that make me spend too much money on drinks and too much time side by side with someone I’ve found myself in; in blue and white corridors where we were young enough to think of hiding strange letters in the cracked and movable floors; in embraces during sports events and practices where I’d find myself talking more personally than I would without the gesture; in houses with amber walls and the comfort of holding hands and staring into eyes that I know I want to see for the longest amount of time I could think of. I forget sometimes that I’ve ever had a heart at all and I forget sometimes that my home is all in the past. And I forget still that I had taken my heart out so that there’s nothing to burden me, and I’ve left my home behind so that there’s nothing to go back to. But somehow I wish somebody would give me back the fibers– chewed, dusty, I don’t care– and take me into their home even for the littlest while they can spare.
***
this is yet another unfinished thing. i doubt i will ever finish it.
also
dear chesca, fuck you
***
one time i was told that bad boys were hot. i didn’t get this. why would anyone be with someone who was not good for them? i asked a friend and got shrugged off, i got told that i’ll get it one day. and that one time buried itself under all the other things that meant little to me. until that one day came. why would anyone be want to be with someone bad?
and it hit me while i was listening to your favourite band, wondering how in the world i could help you fix yourself. and it hit me how you’ve spun my world around you. or how i fell into your trap and spun my world around you. and it hit me that i never noticed that it ever happened. that somehow i started thinking that we could be together. but it hit me. why would anyone want to be with someone who was not good for them?
i’m not saying that you’re a bad girl. i’m saying that you’re not good for me. that the air you breathe might fill my lungs with cancer. that a problem shared might be a problem halved but it didn’t mean a lighter load. that a spirit split didn’t mean we were soulmates or that our lives or livers would be any better off. you said that you’d never want to hurt anyone, but you’re sucking the life out of me, but it doesn’t mean i wouldn’t let you.