愛

I took a sleeping pill. I shouldn’t have. I did anyway. I suppose it’s a safe drug. I am not cathartic in the least. So I took a sleeping pill. I thought it would be safe to. My memory is waning a bit already to begin with. Melatonin causes memory loss. Mild. Not severe. I don’t know why I feel the need to be needed all the time. Or wanted. As if that should validate my existence. I took a sleeping pill tonight. I wanted to sleep without the promise of laying in bed writhing about nothing because my initial emotion all day was sadness. I have to take that to bed with me, too? My bones are starting to stagnate. My veins are ripping their way out of my body. They need air. They are tired. I don’t rest them. My blood wants to flow through another’s body. Somebody who has the time to massage them. They are branches inside my skin. I took a sleeping pill. I am numb now. I shouldn’t have but the promise of laying in bed lamenting over nothing is imminent because here I am.

Music blares through my head phones. I am lost to the world. I am nothing and I stand there like a molecule in a void of colors. My nose is stuffy. The coldness sharpens. Nothing is ever certain and the feeling of rejection seeps through my skin and into my bones. Even my hair follicles are burning. It stings. “It was never me.” I say this to myself as you reciprocate her hungry kiss. You hoist her up. Her legs wrap around your waist. Your palms tightened their grip. Intertwined. But not with me. My heart is about to jump put of my chest. The word “mangled” crosses my mind. I’m going to vomit this fist-sized pumping device that I loathe so much. I step back and convulse. Wall. I grasp for the wall. I miscalculate and fall on my side. I might as well stay here and dissolve into nothing. I can’t let you see me. I have to leave. I want to do so many things. Scream. Cry. Anything. But I stare blankly seeing nothing. “It was never me.” How do I claim betrayal and infidelity when you were never mine? Hope will be the death of me.

i love all of you. i love the sun, i love the moon. i love you. i love all of you. if you’re lost, you’ll always find your way. i love the grass, even when they prickle my thighs. i will love you even with your bad manners i’ll smile at you and let you swallow my kindness and close your mouth and dare you not to regurgitate it. i love all of you. i will love your timidness and push you out into the world and hold your hand and tell you it’ll be alright, tell you that this world is beautiful and you are her child. i will love you even with your cynicism and dismissal of all that you should put your faith in, i will tell you to have faith in me i will tell you i will shoulder your pain. i will love you even with your fickleness i will gather you in my arms and tell you you can stop loving me i will still love you i will love you enough for the both of us

This Will Destroy You

The band she showed him went by that name. It was almost like a foreshadowing for what was to come the minute she came into his life. It started out as an acquaintance as it always does. But the only difference is it stayed like that for a while. For all he knew, it did not even turn into a friendship. It was skipped entirely. Maybe because she preferred black and white, moreso black from white. No eye contacts from across the room. No courtship with flowers and chocolate. No holding doors open for her. No beach trips. Nothing. Only mere intoxication and fucking each other senseless. They kissed though. When they fucked. That was the only type of romanticism she believed in — kissing. It held no ground to her, however, when they were fully clothed. When they were fully clothed, they usually go to a record store high off vicodin or some sort of pill. She smoked marijuana like a cigarette so it had no effect on her like it does most people. The vicodin is from an accident he had some months ago. It was prescribed because he had hurt his neck severely. He takes them no longer so she grabbed them from his dresser, gave him a smug smile and said, “mine now”. That’s her favorite sentence. Only two words with that same smug smile and she conquers the world. Claiming things as her own but refuses to be claimed.

But she was destroyed hence why she destroyed. She used to be something different. Something pure and the innocence she possessed was now something she abhorred. But she was the kind of girl who had enough compassion to go around for the whole population of earth, the girl who still wrote the essay that her Philosophy teacher assigned even as he passed away two days before the due date. she wrote it in his memory and for herself because she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t wrote it even though it is voided.

Where was she now? She should be missed but he never met her anyway. She would not let him.

You do things. Things that you know they will like. And then you stop doing things because as time passes, the meaning dissipates . You couldn’t have stopped it, they were the ones who never said anything about it. Why keep doing these things when they go unappreciated? It defeats the purpose of why you even do them in the first place. Doing things for others. What a joke. This is why you stopped writing. You’ve always written for yourself but you don’t appreciate your work like you used to. The happiness you gained made you lose yourself in the process because you were born agitated. It’s in your nature to prefer solace. But then you realize you can’t always be alone.

it fucks with your honor

and it teases your head

—-

Frustrating how articulate you think you have to be because you want everybody to understand you. Must I live like this? People forget they don’t have to please everybody, they don’t live for anybody, and they are at nobody’s expense. When you don’t care, when you are just sitting and enjoying your cigarette and you consist of nothings — all of them gravitate towards you. Every last one of them, even the ones who you think will never acknowledge your dull existence and your mundane thoughts and the shit you smile about for no reason. Nobody gives a shit when you do and when you don’t, they do. People are spoiled. They become so accustomed to what is the standard, they are like a child being stripped off privileges when the appalling change happens. Then the resentment. Then the attempts at good graces. Why care. Who cares. It’s perpetual and unbalanced. People either care too much or don’t care enough. Bottom line is, you came into this world by yourself, you leave by yourself. Everything else is a choice. This or that. Love or don’t love. Feel or don’t feel. And the choice is always yours. You don’t have to follow any type of fucking criterion if you don’t want to. And if you have to it’s because you want something out of it. Is it in our nature to always live so extravagantly? Wasn’t it difficult enough your mother almost dislocated her spine giving birth to you? I’d rather live simply. Be humbled by everything else.

—-

He sits in the corner of the lecture hall, still half-inebriated from last night’s festivities. He tries to keep his head up but to no avail. It bobs backwards and forward. At least, he imagines it does. But his head is perfectly perched upright. His eyes involuntarily close from the heaviness of a turbulent, intoxicated sleep. A pang of dizzy, vomit-induced pain hammers through his head in defiant inconsideration. Fuck, do not throw up. He thinks. This is his fault. Poor choices are good choices during the time but the aftermath is not beautiful. His hands quiver from the pain and he stares at them. They look like a fuzzy pair of flesh-like octopus limbs. He clenches them. He releases them. Why does everything hurt when you’re not supposed to be drunk? He immediately regrets going to class. He mildly chides himself because he should be regretting drinking his liver to muck last night. But drinking is fun. When the lips go numb, they go up in a smile. It all seems worth it but it’s not. What a tasteless thought. The girl from last night still stark naked in his bed crosses his mind. He hopes she would be gone by the time he gets back. Boundless drinking and mindless fucking seem like an okay lifestyle if you’re “smart enough” to read a book once and be able to recite almost every page. Smart is not the right word.
The professor’s vice drones on and on. She has a microphone headset because she is too old to talk loud. She suffers bodily tremors. Why is she still teaching? She should be asleep in bed. “Oh, I love to teach. I’m retired but I go back to teach because I love it so much.” These ancients all say the same bullshit. Jews. Caesar. A war with Anthony in Egypt. Peculiar ways of worshipping a god. 970 A.D. A revolt. He doesn’t give a fuck. He’s suffering from a condition. A hangover. It is serious. Tolerable but not. Remorseless men. Shut. Up. JULIUS CAESAR WAS GOING TO FALL. The professor yelps and slams her fists on her desk. His head pounds in sync. Fuck this bitch. Yeah, fuck her, right? Her voice is so tedious, monotone. Her vernacular consists of ‘y’know?’ 90% of the time. Scrap this dull she-dwarf. He buries his head into his hands. A bile creeps up his throat. Fuck. He raises his head. Too fast. His eyes cross from a blindingly, agonizingly nail-into-the-forehead headache. Oh, god. It spews out. Floor, desk, lap. Vodka, rum, absinthe? Everything vile in the world and 18-hour old pizza in the form of settled glutinous liquid. Shame and humiliation flood his face. He doesn’t know if it was the smell or everything else. But more spew out. Could be the latter. He runs out and leaks his bodily waste of judgement on the way.
Fuck all of you.
Yeah, fuck them all, right?

—-

You stalk off into the other room and I’m at a loss for words. For actions. For anything. This negative energy is all too familiar. I need to shake it off. My pride refuses to run after you. So, instead, I scream after you. I scream for you to fuck off and just fucking run away since you’re so good at it. And you come right back, right into my face. Rounding me up and my back hits the wall. I stare up at you. You’re glaring at me. Glaring so venomously.
“You do not want me fuck off. Trust me.” Your mouth is forming your words crisply. It’s making me want donuts. I’m stoned out of my mind and we’re fighting over nothing.
“You’re right. Why are we fighting again?” I pretend to forget. It works. Now I’m thinking you promised something and broke it again. So tired of fighting.
You sigh and rest your head on my shoulder, hand sliding off the wall, clutching my waist.
“I don’t want to fuck off, too.” You mumble into me. Your deep voice reverberating all over my body.
“Yeah, don’t.” I grab your head and make you face me. Your eyes look tired and I feel the guilt seep through my bones. I kiss you.
“You need me.”
“Shut up.” I push you away. You’re always like this. I hate when you do this. I hate when you make it known how much control you have over me.
You grab my arm and wheel me around to face you.
“I need you.” You gather me into your arms and sway me from side to side. Makes me want to sing.
“You wanna fuck?” I whisper into your chest. My hand making its way down to your bulge. I press up against it.
“You’re high, babe.” You chuckle.
I am. But I wanna fuck. Is that what we were fighting about?

—-

“Stop.” You grab my hands and wrap them behind my back. Your arms blocking my shoulders from moving to and fro, your legs making my hips cease its swaying.
“Why?” I counter playfully.
“Because we have to sleep. It’s late. Why are you dancing to nothing at 4 o’clock in the morning?” You bite my nose. Because I want to dance, I want to dance like I just conquered the world. Because you make me want to dance to nothing even though The Only One by the Black Keys is repeating itself in my head over and over and over. I’m still dancing even as we’re wrapped in each other and I’m singing, breathing you’re the only one, you’re the only one over and over to your face between kisses on your lips and your nose and your face and your cheeks. Your demeanor is mildly defiant because I always win. You always let me win and sometimes you try not to let me win because before we know it we’d both be dancing on your bed to nothing as I sing off-key in little whispers. You cover my mouth with yours and I smile and I feel you smiling. You groan in mild frustration because you think I always have my way. Not always, mister.
“Come on, angel. Let’s dance.”
“No.”
“But I’m in my panties!” I wriggle free from your grasp and stood up on your bed. You groan in mild exasperation and it easily turns into a chuckle. I’m bobbing my head in sync with the motion my shoulders are making along with the swaying of my hips. You look up at me with an amused smile on your lips.
“Dance with me.” I hold my hand out for you to take. You look at it, hesitant.
“Can I just snap my fingers while I sit?”
“No. Dance with me.”
You actually stand up and I’m dancing with my arms above my head.
”Cupid’s bow has stung. Now you’re the only one. Oh oh, only one, oh oh, only one.” I grab your hands and move you with me. Your laugh resounds around the room and I shush you.
“We only dance in this room. No laughing allowed.” I’m tilting my head from side to side and you mimic me with a little scowl.
“Come here.” You grab me by the waist and bury your face into my hair. We sway from side to side.

But when all is said and done,

I know you are still the one

Oh oh, only one

—-

He walks away from me and I am fuming. I’m about to make a scene. Stop walking.
“You know what your fucking problem is? You busy yourself with either living in the past or the future that you’re always too anxious or too depressed to focus on the present.” I half-screamed indignantly. He heard me loud and clear. He stopped walking. He turns sharply and I flinch. The pained look on his face makes me regret everything I just said. Then he sighs. A sigh so big it made him look small right then and there as if he deflated. He drops down on the curb and looks up at me. He reaches out for my hand but he’s off by a few feet. I can’t help but walk the few steps separating us. I can’t help but crouch down in front of him and kiss him on the forehead. I can’t help anything. I just want to gather him into my arms and tell him that everything will be okay but I’m starting to sound like a broken record. When will he believe that it actually will be?
“You’re right. That is my problem.” He says as he looks at me. His eyes so filled with agony but the tears are always absent. Eyes so desperate for an outlet. An outlet for all the bullshit but the tears don’t come.
“You keep me sane.” He kisses me, looks me in my eyes, then kisses me again.
“So stop pushing me away. I love you. I’m here to stay.” My chin is fucking quivering. And I know he wishes he was dead. He hates making me cry. But it’s become a routine. It’s so unhealthy but this is us in all of its fucked up beauty. He walks away, I run after him. I walk away, he runs after me. It’s a vicious cycle. It should end. We should end it but we don’t. Because we don’t want to. We’re far too crazy for each other for that.
“Fuck, I wish I could cry so I could cry for you.” He grabs the back of my neck and presses his forehead against mine. And we stay like that for a long while. We could have stayed like that forever.