Blog for Breakfast

Home Musings: I talk about love I write in Filipino I am somewhere else

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Fireworks

It was a few minutes after midnight. After watching a few fireworks outside and deciding to stay in to avoid smelling like gunpowder. Too lazy to take another shower cos it was a long day from a delayed flight to a family NYE dinner. The lights were off, almost zero visibility. We said good night but then decided to take our first picture of 2019. Phone camera flashed and I glanced at you. Fireworks are right here. And they smell like my favourite perfume.

Happy new year!

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High five

When I say it’s different with you, I mean my ink misses my paper. I mean it used to move on its own, writing about all that’s uncertain, leering at the bruises. I mean my ink dried up the moment it brushed your skin maybe because it’s not used to the healing. When I say it's different with you, I mean it’s the changes in my sleep pattern. About the shift in my dreams whether or not I’m asleep. It’s about how I can’t seem to stay awake without calling your name in silence. And I will call your name out loud, doesn’t matter if ears would shatter. I mean I never used to hold anyone’s hand, but I crave to touch the lines of your palms, tracing the paths where your mind madly wanders. You see when I tell you it’s different with you, I mean I never thought I’d find happiness in a high five.

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Embers

I’ve always loved campfires. I yearn the feeling of being surrounded by trees, engulfed by the relaxing night breeze, serenaded by the songs of crickets while bonding and drinking with people I care for. I like it when the moon and stars are the only witnesses of how we jam to the strumming of guitars, drumming whatever makeshift percussion, humming to the tune of stillness. And I should not forget the roasting of marshmallows which I find impossible to perfect but I love doing anyway.

I don’t really understand the point of roasting marshmallows but I’m mad for the idea of holding a stick to the fire, watching the burning, listening to the enchanting sound of flames, and feeling the warmth of its blaze. I will never get tired of the beauty of its colours that speak of pleasure, desire, angst, and dread. Each flicker of light beaming on people’s faces whispering so loud about how silence is everything we need at this moment.

This silence. This burning. This separation from the world, this, the sparks from the matches ignited by your fingers. I long for this dreamy feeling of being high fuelled by every inhale of smoke I make, its fumes screaming in my skin.

This passion. This you and I, and how we play with fire, seeing flares reflected on the stars of our glowing eyes, both of us illuminating a raging inferno.

Blinked. Burnt. Extinguished. I always love this fire, this burning that evermore ends with ashes.

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Fish out of water

You see, I always thought I would swim so I never learned how to fly. And I am a good swimmer, I could live underwater, swimming in the depths of your foreign eyes. I know it is surreal to fantasize how I could fly without having to quackle like a fish out of water. And so I wonder how I would be able to keep living like this – I keep jumping up the surface, only to dive back to this sea. But this is the closest I could get a hundred and forty-three attempts for a few seconds up in the air, pretending I am flying with you.

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Disappear

I loathe this ear-splitting quiet cos I keep hearing echos of your dislike. My anxious mind's repeating your last words, your last words, your last words. Those last words that subtly tell me I don’t matter. It was like I was told a secret and kept it locked away between my teeth.

Don’t worry it’s not your fault. I warned myself not to fall but I guess this is how I am built – warning signs mean more like a motivation to overrule it. I keep arguing I won’t drown, keep finding reasons why special flowers only bloom underground. 

It is clearer now though, but I still wonder if your silence is also screaming empty -- or rather, I’m selfishly wishing it is, wishing somehow it will. Maybe I’ll just turn this unknowing into a poem, write an ode from all the words you’d say but couldn’t.  

I know I swore it was the last time, I said it was my final warning, but my hips still ache at the thought of your voice, numbing every surface of my flesh. I only begged for this escape, I didn’t know that what I asked for was a slow and whispering downfall.

Now I’d like you to crush me completely. Shout your disgust to my ears. I want to be a total wreck cos it’s easier to get up from the grave, than force existing on life support.

So please break me, tear the sheets of my skin, cos you see, when a glass breaks into many little pieces, you can quickly choose to throw it away. Unlike that ceramic vase you have in the corner of your room, slightly turned over to hide the crack, pretending it can still hold water although you know you only keep the flowers to watch them slowly die. And I am that cracked little thing, anxiously thinking if I’d be fixed or be thrown without goodbye.

But this is what I asked for, so keep ignoring me until I disappear, and my dear, I promise I will.

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This is your final warning

You cannot fall in love.

The second it takes your breath away, it’ll suck the air out of your mouth, you’ll feel like a helpless person stranded in the middle of the sea, gradually sinking until it’s only your right hand left afloat. That short embrace would make you feel good for a moment until those arms feel like a deadly hungry giant snake strangling every corner of your body. Those eyes that stare at yours like you’re the only piece of art that sparks are the same eyes that would paint fire in your chest. You’ll be forced to look at them at your final moment before you’re set ablaze.

This is your final warning. You cannot fall in love.

The name that keeps ringing in your ears right now? Believe me, it would sound like a forbidden word that would play in your head on repeat like a broken record. You would not unhear it even when you want to, even when you’re dying to. You’ll hate that name so much that you’ll shout songs of pain and angst, but you’ll still hear it somehow. So before that happens, drop that pocket knife you’re holding because you’re not carving that name on the trunks of your skin. 

Do not fall in love. Don’t overthink meanings behind everything that’s said and done to you, because sometimes even “I love yous” meant nothing. Don’t be tricked by sweet words of “I miss yous”, and find yourself whispering those same words when you’re ghosted.  Don’t be fooled by mixed signals cos at times, even the touch that travels down between your thighs is as soft as the one that pushes you away. So do not fall in love, for when you fall, you’ll bleed.

This is your final warning. A note to self.

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I see art and I think of you

I see Mona Lisa’s smile and the Girl with the Pearl Earring’s parted mouth, and think of how far more mysterious yours lips are. How good it could feel to be the reason they’ll curve into a smile. 

Van Gogh’s The Starry Night found beauty in darkness and this is how I find you. I see dark clouds over your head, yet I still paint you in colors hoping one day you won’t dread.

Artists carve stones, bronzes, or marbles, and display them for everyone to marvel at. And I call myself an artist, I sculpt the curves of your body and turn it into a statue greater than the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

I write you in poetry, I write you in prose. I write you like how Neruda writes loving in the way certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. 

I feel you like how Wong Kar-wai films images of ache and yearning, I whisper my desires into the ruins of the walls of my heart that’s breaking. I sing you like Robert Smith and Fridays, and though it’s a Tuesday, I’m still in love like I am with you every day.

Every time I see art, I think of you. They say artists create ideas, turn imaginations into masterpieces, and maybe they are right.

I try to paint you every moment I feel you sending me adrift, because at least in paintings, I can draw our lips as we kiss. I try to turn you into poems, force this romance instead of disgust. Though I know that in my poetry, there’s a world I cannot trust. 

You see, I try to turn you into art, but I know that I can never paint you like how Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa, I can never write you like how Shakespeare wrote his sonnets, cos there will never be enough ink, never enough colors, never enough words to make something as pleasing.

They say artists create ideas, turn imaginations into masterpieces, and maybe they are right. And I call myself an artist -- someone who fell in love only with this idea of you that I write.

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Leon the Professional

Do not pretend to be a blooming flower when you’re standing in darkness like a fallen tree with no one around to cry for it except me.

You keep hiding behind your smiles, sugarcoating despair with delight, but the moment I hear your laughter, I hear its echoes brimming with fright.

I know that when you kiss me, you taste my struggles, yet you still get intoxicated by the flavours of my battles.

You throw punches through your mouth, you keep pushing me away. But every time I make a single step back, you pull me by the arm to rest back in your embrace.

Don’t look at me like you want to lick every inch of my body then abruptly shut your eyes. Don’t shake your head in frustration of wanting me off of your mind.

My dear, don’t cage your feelings, don’t deny what we could be. You’re a lion, and you deserve to be set free.

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Petrichor

What is it about you, I am often asked. I don’t really know exactly but it’s kind of like the pleasant scent of nature after the last drop of rain.

Or let’s just say it’s when the day at work is so long and you hear the final tick tock yelling it’s time to go home.

It’s when you suddenly wake up tensed, thinking you’re late for an appointment, but the clock that says it’s 3 am drags you back to your dream.

It’s when you need to use the toilet aboard a plane, and the red sign that says occupied turns green.

It’s when you step into a restaurant after a 12-hour fast and you’re served your favored cuisine.

It’s your first gulp of water after a forceful workout as you wave goodbye to your trainer.

It’s the sudden pat on your back by a familiar face in a crowd full of strangers.

And I can go on and on and on, tell you about these metaphors to describe how I feel. About how my eyes turn deep as I scan a jungle in search of my favorite meal. Explain how my lips grow flowers in every moan. How one voice could echo to the marrows of my bones. 

I don’t really know exactly what it is about you, but if it isn’t still clear, let me put it this way:

it’s when I’m the person that everyone believes will never walk the aisle, yet every single time I think of you, I whisper to myself about how and why you are the only person I can imagine myself marrying.

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Seven Days

It’s been seven days and I’m thinking of you. Have you been making your milk you call coffee because too much caffeine makes you sick but won’t go a day without it anyway? You told me you are stubborn enough to take things that would hurt you. I guess I am stubborn too to think of things that would do the same for me.

Did you wash your hands twice before starting your meal because once is not enough to clean your mind? You said the first time is to clean your hands, and the second time is to make sure your mind understands that your hands are already clean. More like that same process you do when you’re dating; you date a person twice to make sure you don’t want a third one.

What did you have today? Pasta? Pizza? Or did you just go with cheese and wine like how you used to like it? I remember how much you enjoy every sip while you tell me about the first time you got drunk. You were so young then, just about as young as I was when I discovered what hangover was. We got drunk too that night but we had shared more memories than just a bottle of wine.

Who did you have dinner with? Did you also slice her steak for her, and cut yourself in the process? You said you’d much rather have yourself cut than the ones you care for. Did you care for her enough or did she care for you enough that she had to do it for you?

Who’s laughing at your stories now while your eyes spark with enthusiasm as you speak? Do they know that half of what you want to say, you say in silence? Do they understand your words unspoken? Do they listen to you like how I did? Tell me, cos it’s been seven days and I haven’t talked to anyone as senseful as I did with you.

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6 o'clock

It is this time again, the time when silence is deafening. When the sound of ocean waves I most love is now screaming to my ears, “you should be lonely, you should be lonely”. Its voice is so loud, joined by the shouts of rushing winds, the rest of my body and senses start to panic. Its blow swifts through my body like a robber in broad daylight snatching my comfort.

Now, I no longer know what I want to do cos when I stand up, I want to sit, when I sit down, I want to lie down, and when I lie down, I want to stand up. It is this cycle of not knowing what I want again. Not knowing what to do with this feeling of not knowing.

This is the time when I suddenly think of people I love and thought of how I miss them. How I need a familiar voice, not this one that keeps telling me it’s getting dark and I should go home. I miss the food I don’t eat when I don’t miss them. I miss the noise, the chaos that I loathe when it’s not this time. When it is not this winter. This is not the kind of winter that is white and relaxing. This one is desaturated to grey, fading in plain sight as it gets darker by the minute. The breeze is entering my skin as I quiver until my body almost freezes in cold blood.

“You should be lonely”, it says again, this time in its soft mellow tone as if whispering would convince me that I should be. “I should be lonely”, a thought I repeat in my head. Now I’m not anymore sure whose voice I hear. But perhaps the voices are right regardless of where they’re coming from. Perhaps, I should be.

I should be lonely. I should treat this loud sirens of alarming threat like music to my ears. I should swallow this jawbreaker like my favourite meal. I should take in every air I could hardly breathe as if it was my last. I should sulk in this feeling for without this, I wouldn’t know happy. I wouldn’t appreciate joy. I wouldn’t feel at ease with peace. So perhaps, the voices are right. Perhaps I should enjoy every minute of this loneliness and let this sadness be over in its own time.

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Cadaver

I am sorry, all I could see now is how our chemistry burns in every little flicker, how my tongue is scalded in each kiss.

We have lost the romance, the intimacy, the friendship. What we have left is the curse, the carnal desires of our flesh, or of your flesh. But it is no longer what I starve for. It doesn’t anymore save us from our hunger, instead, we are always left unsatisfied. 

You cannot quenched my thirst no matter how many glasses of water you give me. I’m even more thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. I’m already drowning from this drought, I’m suffocating from this dryness. 

You are saving me for all the wrong reasons and I don’t need to be saved by you. Please understand, you can no longer salvage my ashes the moment you’ve burned me alive.

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Bunker

Our hearts need a safe haven, a fortress of solitude, a utopian world where heartache isn’t felt, where pain abruptly stops. We need to barge into that isolation room where feelings are numbed.

But we need not only that. We just don’t need a quick fix for our damages or a rest stop for a tiring journey. What we need is a boundary, a finish line, a restricted space we trespass.

This, the safe haven. A place for when we need to stop falling. To toss in the towel for when it seems like we’re getting a little too attached. We need a traffic light, a red flag, for when the wandering goes unequalled. 

This is what we need. This safe haven for when things are threatening to blossom, cos when it blossoms, it’s dangerous.

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Our soundtrack

It sounds so good.

The opening tune tickles the nerves of my ears. The combination of each individual instruments resonates a colorful tone of euphoria. This is a song of ecstasy. The beat of intense happiness. The echos of exhilarating desire.

This is our soundtrack. The kind that gradually switches melody. Its timbre shifts in colour, its lyrics changes its course. The volume turns louder and heavy, my ears are pierced with pain. The ghastly shrill of vocals shatters my once perfect illusion.

This is my Damien Rice, my Elliott Smith. This is the song I often cry to. The playlist I listen to on repeat to have myself punished. This is the sound of passion, of love, of hurting. This is the music box I trapped myself in.

This is the last refrain, the outro, the fade out. This is the end of our soundtrack — the tune that first sounded so good.

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Bend and break

I was sitting next to you this morning, and though our skins don’t touch, I can feel the warmth of your hand on my right thigh. Warmth that travels to my bosom. To my inner desire.

I look at you as you move your hand while you talk, and I swear to God I can feel the rough edges of your fingers touching my chest.

How long has it been since the last time it was like this?

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I don’t.

I’m not saying I love you but when you stop mid-sentence when you hear a song you adore and start to sing along, when your eyes spark more brightly when I mention a book or a movie you happen to also like, when the sides of your lips begin to curve when I tell you something you find sweet, I cannot stop my heart from being overly excited, sometimes to the point of skipping a beat or two.

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I can’t.

I can't do this. I can't sympathize with you. I can't feel sorry for your friend or your aunt or your dog for being sick. I can't tell you it's going to be okay when you lose your job or a 5-year relationship. 

I can't do this. I can't explain to you about how my day was. About how the shadows are haunting me again and why I'm lacking sleep. I can't tell you about this anger because you wouldn't understand this anger from this empty.

I can't do this. I can't share this space with you. I can't share your grief. Not in this kind of mood when I can't even talk. When my simple breathing is just as hard as your deepest sorrow.