Silentium

"kung ikaw at ako ay tunay na bigo
sa laro na ito ay dapat ba'ng sumuko?"
- Oo, Up Dharma Down

the path is unfamiliar, but the journey is the same. rather, the destination is the same. if i teach myself to ignore you a little each day, will it guarantee my freedom? will i finally break free from your gravity? if time & distance are the great deadeners to affection, then indifference is the final nail to its coffin. it is the dark and macabre wish of my heart. and so i'm on this path of deliberate & intentional silence. no word, no response, nothing. the intent is to teach the heart to care less and less, to diminish desire until it is all but extinguished.

the price may be your friendship.

logic's cold assessment: if the friendship is as strong as one believes, it will survive. and isn't the purging of this unrequited affection a means to preserve this bond in the long-term?

maybe i will listen to logic this time & forge on.

i will tread this unfamiliar path and hope that this journey will take me where my heart should be.

"So the world makes heavy things
Like airplanes
And skyscrapers
Like your heart
And heavy things fall down
Because the world cannot bear them either"
- from Heavy Things, Denver Butson

it comes regular like seasons - this falling - measured by yet another day saluted by your silence. my heart, pushed to the edge & unable to bear its own weight, plummets into the shadowy abyss of despair where the unwanted dwell. it flails around for anything to clutch on - a reply, a word passed on through a friend, a message. but it finds no purchase. not even the sparkle of bygone days kept precious like jewels can reach this darkness.

because you have forgotten.

this is the weight that my heart cannot bear. this is the weight that will lead my heart to implode, collapse within itself.

i'm glad you took the time to get away from everything. the daily business of living has frayed your spirit at the edges. what you needed was time alone by yourself, by the sea. what you needed was the comfort offered not by family nor friends, but by the uninterrupted ebbing and flowing of the waves against the shore. the sun was your faithful companion in this journey, generous with its heat and light, leaving its golden mark on your skin.

you've brought nothing from your sojourn but the smile on your lips and the promising return of the twinkle in your eyes. your gift of stories and the time spent in its telling is better than any homecoming trinket you can find. these are the souvenirs i love best. because they are unlike any other. because they are from you.

***

you say you have always been honest with me. i pray that you continue to do so. your candor and openness have allowed me a glimpse into aspects of yourself which you choose to hide from everyone else. i am honored by this distinction and hope i remain deserving of this privilege.

i thank my friends for showing me what a pathetic, petty moron i have become.

***

i don’t deserve you. at all.

whatever illusion i may carry about my value to you is immediately and effectively shattered by the adamant refusal of my phone to ring. its silence is taunting, a clear proof that when desire is absent, the will remains passive and unmoving. does it matter if the silence stretches for a day, or four? despair is exacerbated by this unreasonable expectation - anytime now, he will remember. anytime now, he's going to ring, to buzz, anything, anything which will mean he remembered and cared enough to let it be known. one text, one lousy message, is all i need to get me out of this funk that is slowly spiralling into quiet desperation.

the desperate insistence of my longing produces no results. the phone remains silent.

somewhere in this madness, i begin to make excuses for you, rationalize this silence. i understand work and life's pressing concerns that can pull you in several directions at once. i understand that sometimes you are spread too thinly over so much that requires your attention, all valid demands for your time and concern. it is in these moments that my folly is revealed to myself: whatever favor, whatever value i think i may have gained in your eyes diminishes as the truth becomes clearer.

i don't count. in the grand scheme of things, i am nowhere near that space you reserve for those dear to you, those whom you will have time for, no matter how short, come hell or high water. no questions asked. no demands required. no pleading necessary.

I literally don’t know your middle name. does that
matter? what systems we arrange for intimacy, small
disclosures like miniature bridges, your mouth. not
what I’d anticipated. softer. to begin with,
I should tell the truth more. I could miss you,
and that’s a liability.
- Marty McConnell, Miniature Bridges, Your Mouth

***
i am thankful for the gift of hours and the memory that springs from such random acts of mercy. now in empty moments, alone and friendless in a strange room of white sheets, white walls, i can hold this gift up to white light, turn it in different ways and still be dazzled by its ever-changing colors.

even though i know i would always find myself back here in this place where everyone leaves from, says good-bye and turns away, the joy of shared mornings (and rare evernings) was a temptation i have unrepentantly fallen into. happy hour? anytime between seven until ten. it was a shared experience of milkshakes and ice cream, tea and poetry, theater tickets and lengthy text messages.

and always, always, animated conversations. always about those who matter most to you. always about that which is closest to your heart. i am never part of it, yet always taking part in it. i am the outsider looking in, my pockets heavy with privileged inside information. it could make me wealthy one day, if the currency would allow for an equitable exchange with your heart - that thing you keep away from me so cleverly, always just beyond my reach.

maybe i'm just dreaming. maybe i'm just an old hick reliving my glory days, when i believed i could put out with minimal effort for maximum effect.

those days are lost to me now.

already you are pulling away, slipping beyond my grasp. soon, i will have lost you to the waves of determination i have encouraged you to ride. soon, i will diminish from your sight, become a speck in the horizon, until i am no more part of anything.

***
I could miss you,
and that’s a liability.

"can i take you home and have you talk to me till i fall asleep?"

this and more i would do for you; you have only to ask. please do not be afraid to ask. i know that my outburst last weekend may have given you second thoughts about confiding in me about your problems, but i guess i have rendered myself indispensable in your eyes. you tell me that i have a gift with words, that they bring you comfort. i wish they could do more. i wish my words would have the power to take away your pain, to clear the dark shadows in your eyes, to coax a smile from your lips.

i will keep trying.

***

why is it that we end up in mcdo whenever you needed to get something heavy off your chest?

it was an exercise in futility. is there anything more frustrating than trying to move one which is fixed, unmoving, and implacable in its resolve?

if the most desperate of efforts do not result in the desired effect, does one get any merit for trying?

***
note to self: what part of "no" do you not understand?

surely you must be used to this by now.

***
other note to self: know your place. remember it.

To his lost lover
Simon Armitage

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.
For instance… for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush

at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery –

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather –

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,

the another,
or knew her

favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb
where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,
where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart
in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,
and never once described

an attack of the heart,
or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,
her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,
where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,
or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,
or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,
or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,
or said “Don’t ask me how it is

I like you.
I just might do.”

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,
or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball
of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,
and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them –
sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,
about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.

***

only you have the power to lift my spirits with a smile, dash my hopes with a word.

your absence is the heavy burden i carry.

i will probably never hold your heart in my hand, yet i yearn for it like a lost part of myself - lost to me forever.

first a poem:

Seaside Improvisation
Richard Siken

I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.

***
then a quote:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." -T.H. White, The Once and Future King

***

and another one: "I'm writing you into the journal of impossible things." -Chris, inspired by Dr. Who, i guess?

***

why can't resorts be a bit friendlier to single, unaccompanied individuals who want to go on a holiday by themselves? i mean, i am willing to pay the rates. why should it be twin-sharing all the time? is it too far-fetched an idea for someone to want to go somewhere nice by herself?

there goes my plan for getting away to galera for a couple of days. yes, i'm looking at you, coco beach resort!

***

i've already ruled you out as impossible. it doesn't stop me from wanting you. in spite of myself. in spite of logic. in spite of the facts.

when it comes to you, my learning curve resets. everyday.