Conspiring.

So much blood, yet,
so little humanity.

A sea of hatred,
an ocean of doubt.
I remember what I once saw,
through those pearly blue eyes.
They’re gray now. So serene.

Tranquil,
peaceful
On the inside.

On the outside,
so much blood, yet,
so little humanity.

Perplexes me.

You, you, and you, watching & waiting.

Some have expectations, some are..well, just waiting for another downfall.
It made me wonder, when I started caring about these things again.
I’ve forgotten how it was like, writing for writing’s sake. I’ve been putting so much though on how to best sell and market my book that I’ve completely lost track of things.

It’s time to put things back into perspective, it all goes back to the ‘why’ factor.
Why I started writing in the first place, and why I’m writing a book.

I’m so messed up inside, it’s almost beautiful.
If only you could see.

If only anyone could see.

If only I could paint you a picture. I can’t. I’m no artist.
I could write, or at least, try to.
It’ll take a while.
Okay.
I guess I should keep writing then.

So what’s new?
New job.
More money, definitely.
I’ve gained many new insights.

Working in a hospital has it’s perks.
You get to see dead people being wheeled out.
And so much more. I don’t even know where to start, so I won’t, not now.
The mortuary smells funny.

I’m so messed up inside, it’s almost beautiful.
Tell them, Adriel. Tell them.

She stole his heart, he captured her soul;

A love story, for two, maybe three years.
By then, it’s all about the dust, the tears & the fears.
About how he’s not as romantic as he used to be,
and how she’s not the woman he used to see.

Four years was all it took,
a marriage, falling off the hook.

Oh, irony, you love yet you hate.
Call it destiny, call it fate,
you were never meant to be,
pity though,
it took you a whole three years to finally see.

Now he’s all tears and she’s all regret,
they both wish they’d never met.

Love.

Yeah. She tells me you were a little too harsh that day. With your words and tone. You really shouldn’t. Oh and Jacky’s getting married, did you hear? Jen’s going to have her first born soon and not to forget Tim and his promotion. Everything’s going great. Yeah. Jimmy’s got his photography thing up and going and it’s been smooth sailing thus far, he seems to be able to handle things himself.

Trisha called the other day about the dry cleaners though. Apparently they’ve moved to somewhere uptown and she doesn’t trust anyone else with her husband’s suits.

Oh and Vicky is just enchanted by the new mall that’s opening soon, that girl loves her shopping, though I can’t say the same for John. He doesn’t share her sentiments.

Helen moved into her new apartment two weeks ago.

You?
Nobody knows you.
Nobody writes about you.
What’s your greatest fear? That you are inadequate? That you may live your entire life not accomplishing anything?

Accomplishment in whose eyes? How do you measure? Who measures?
Why are we inevitably driven by fear?
Is it even possible to ever achieve enough to be satisfied, or are we perpetually insatiable beings?

Well.
Why don’t you just
wake up.

This has got to be it, you tell yourself. The feeling you get when you’ve done something, and realize that this one thing, this singular decision to commit this particular act has inevitably impacted and is about to change your life one way or another. There’s no turning back.

Regret? Perhaps. Yet knowing that even under different circumstances, better circumstances, you’d still do it. Why? Always the good question to ask, the one question where there never are any good answers to. Why?

I don’t know. You don’t. We don’t want to know. We’re afraid of the truth now just as we used to be, and always will be. No, not because the truth hurts, but because we’ve learnt two things in life, two important, vital lessons to get by.

One, run.
Two, con.

If avoidance is an option, make it the only option.
Otherwise, con. Lie, lie, and lie some more. Create an opportunity to, yes, run.

The one truth we can’t deny, is that we will never be able to fully accept others, just as we will never be able to accept ourselves. We’re liars, we’re cheats, and when the bombs start falling, we run.

You run, I con. Tiger never changes it’s stripes.

You can deny it. You can lie, con, even run from , oh irony irony. But hear this, when they know you, i mean, really know you, they’re going hate your guts.

Wait, downer one, it’s Friday. Which means the bank closes earlier after you finish your shit (and proceed to cash in your cheque).

No matter, you start work at 11pm the following day, so waiting for the bank to open before heading home should be fine. Sounds like a decent plan. During the 45minute bus ride home you doze off, and awake as the bus approaches your stop. You hesitate. Should I collect it later in the noon, or drop two stops later and wait for the bank to open?

It’s 8.45am. Waiting forty five minutes shouldn’t hurt. Besides, you’re hungry for some breakfast.

You get off only to realize (while walking to the bank) that that bank isn’t the bank you’re looking for. You spend another twenty minutes walking around trying to find that specific bank, you console yourself by telling yourself it’s okay, it’s not open yet anyway.

After twenty minutes, you’re tired. You decide to ask. The nearest branch is another four bustops down. You decide to go ahead, being that you’ve already wasted that amount of time trying to cash in that cheque.

You arrive at the bank, finally, only to realize it opens at 11am. It’s 9.20am. You manage to kill half an hour by walking around aimlessly.

9.50am. Another hour and ten minutes to go. Let’s have breakfast, why not? Oh. No hard cash. I need an ATM. You head over to the ATM at the other end of (quite a huge) the shopping mall only to realize the minimum withdrawal is 200 dollars. You need less than ten really.

You walk back to the other end of (quite a huge) the shopping mall to get your ten dollars. You have your breakfast and a nice cup of chrysanthemum tea. 10.10am.

50minutes.

Goodness. You’re so tired. You call Fiqa twice just to do what you do best. Annoy her. She doesn’t pick up though.

She texts you twenty minutes later and you exchange a few messages with her. 10.30am.

Half an hour to kill. You give yourself an imaginary smack on the forehead as a great idea to kill time gets to you.

You head for the toilet nearest to the bank and take a shit whilst texting Fiqa and hesitating about texting MinMing.

11am. The bank opens, but there’s a queue. You’re light headed. You barely slept before your midnight shift. No matter, you’ve come so far already. Press on, you. Let’s do this.

You get your money. You could have told the bank teller to deposit the amount straight into your account. You could. But no, you want to feel the cold hard cash in your hands. She counts it in front of you, you hold it for a few seconds, three, at most, then tell her to deposit it into your account.

She wants to roll her eyes, you can tell. Inside you’re jumping for joy, outside you’re somber like a church organ player.

Done. You take a taxi home.

It feels like a really long time since I’ve talked, I mean really talk, to another human being. Where hours would fly by and the venue wouldn’t matter. I do miss affection, but I dismiss these feelings as part of growing up, wanting companionship, a relationship, whatsoever. I’m able to talk myself out of pursuing these things.

Yet what I want, what I really want, is to have a good conversation, with anyone. A nice, decent, honest conversation where the other party is talking with, and not to, me, he or she isn’t complaining about how tough life is and how he or she did this or that during when.

The details are redundant. I don’t need to know.

People generally steer away from having conversations with me because I scare them sometimes. Most people are predictable to me, I know what they’re going to say, what they’re going to do, sometimes, what they’re thinking. It must be in the genes. When you’re able to guess what’s coming almost all the time, everything gets boring and dull in a way.

-

Well,

It seems you have underestimated the forces
that go against you inevitably.
Once again you find yourself in the dirt.
You try to stand up, you manage to,

but something’s different this time.
You don’t quite know what is.

Everything feels different.
It’s like waking from a dream and going back to the same dream after,
everything’s the same, everything’s different.

It frustrates you. I can see how it must, so badly. Pulling on your own hair,
inside you’re screaming, outside you try to maintain your composure.

They can’t see that you’re weak. No. They shall not.
You’re not going to see that I’m human. Not today. I refuse to allow you to.

The scars accumulate, and that’s all that’s left. All the credit you’ve gained for your good deeds are now buried, expired. They’ll remember you, if only for one thing and one thing only. How you let them down, how you failed to be who they pictured you to be.

Some see you for who you were,
Some see you for who you are,
or who they think you are,
few see who you were intended to be.
Few understand that we are all fallen manifestations of who
we’re intended to be.
Few.

So ferry, ferry the few.

These things happen. I suppose. Ups and downs, part & parcel.
And as humans, we search & we source for meaning in everything. A reason as to why.
Why these things happen.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We often fail for there isn’t always a good reason for ‘why’,
Yet every corner, a perfect excuse for ‘why not’.

I’d like to keep saying ‘goodbye’, if i may. If it’s okay.

Goodbye.