Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Downpour

The rain patters like machine guns
unleashing a salvo at the gates of repressed memories and long forgotten pain.
Winds screeching like nails on a coffin,
restless and warm
rolling buried under covers.
Somber sounds of slumber abound like a macabre symphony
that pulls the heavy lids wide open
with a tangible dread of the uncertainty of morning.
Then quiet as if Death breathed silence into life.
The cacophony of thoughts and regrets vanish like wisps.
Sleep.

One Jeepney Ride

I was in the jeepney first. I was half-asleep. My eyes dulled by the monotonous oscillations of traffic. Then sunshine came. You got on with a friend in tow. You wore a maroon shirt and short hair. I usually never forget faces. I could not remember yours. I remember the feeling though. I remember warmth. Or was it just fumes from the exhaust?

You were engrossed with a conversation I could not hear over the sound of my earbuds stuck firmly in my ear canal. I wish I heard your voice. But come to think of it, we were on both ends of the jeepney so I probably would have not heard you anyway. Maybe if I did, I'd be writing songs not silly notes on facebook.

I was in love with you for the duration of our jeepney ride. The whole fifteen minutes of it. Love doesn't have to be forever. I was happy.

Misery, being an island and reading Haruki Murakami again.

I always felt like a character in a Murakami novel. Adrift. Living in alternating planes of reality. On one plane I am a struggling passive-aggressive conformist, and on the other a struggling pseudo-intellectual elitist. Sticking out like a sore thumb but too forgettable to matter anyways. Perfectly makes sense. But Murakami never makes sense. Which is a whole contradiction or three-quarters a contradiction. Maybe a paradox. I could never distinguish any of that. All I need is that one disappearing act. Maybe I have that. The self. I have lost sight of the self. What do I want to be? Who do I want to be? A few leap years ago I had that vision of who I want to be. A man who would conquer the world. A game changer. Then the world happened. Reality bit me in the arse. Life has become a rerun of the plot of ON SEEING THE 100% PERFECT GIRL ONE BEAUTIFUL APRIL MORNING. Only more miserable in every iteration. Tough luck. Boo hoo. Ground Hog day is such a paradise. Or hell. Either way I'm screwed if this continues. Every waking moment is a struggle of holding back and fighting all out.

Maybe it's all in my head.

Maybe I'll read Palahniuk instead.

On sadness and eloquence: a collection of nonsense and sensibilities of a pseudo-intellectual

I have written and deleted this sentence quite a few times already. I don't know where to start or what to write about. I just felt like listening to the clacking sound of my aging computer. I like to feel that I am in control of whatever it is that has jumpstarted this whole writing bug. I am writing again because I am sad. The reason for my sadness is not important. The tone of what I write and how I write it is.

Whenever I ramble on with nonsensical themes and imagery, I am just plainly sad. Not as verbose as the profoundly sad me. I could not be as eloquent as a diesel engine with a hundred percent efficiency when I am just sad. What encompasses this profundity you may ask? I myself do not know.

I am writing because I am vain that way. This is the superficial me talking. I compensate for a lot of things by exploding verbal fireworks that upon critical scrutiny fails every literary criteria for aesthetics and prose. But most people would not notice that. It's all about the power struggle between the people who knows and who don't. Information is a powerfult thing. Control of information is a devastating weapon. Having unequal distribution of information keeps them doctors and politicians rich and famous.

What does this mean then? I have disjointed thoughts. No cohesion whatsoever. But English sort of works like them smoke and mirrors magicians use to enchant their audiences. Making them believe that the beautiful assistant disappeared into thin air. English in this country makes you seem smarter than you are. Another layer of pretentious armor that prevents people from truly understanding who someone is.