It has been a while. A long while indeed. From time to time, I sneak a peek at this site wondering what else is there? Wondering if the world deserves to know me. Or, in circumspect, do I deserve to let the world see me?

Imagine an alien probe honed in on an ordinary object. So ordinary, in fact, as to be deemed dismissible. Now, imagine that object is you. For years you have crawled under that rock, glaring at the sun in defiance yet hunched over at its glare. Then retreating under your sanctuary at night to lick your wounds with salt. The night is peaceful, the air warm but there is a gentle breeze that makes it almost bearable. Then as you start to lay down and close your eyes, a bright light penetrates your eyelids. Instinctively, you open your eyes. Stung, you put up your hand to hide your sight from the glare and peek from under the shadow of your palm. Heart pounding and mind racing, you try to make sense of what is happening.

Panic turns to confusion. Caught off-guard in your jammies with your blanket clutched tightly in the fist you have made with your other hand, you squint and try to see who is beyond the light. Who is it? How many? Why? What?

Confusion turns to anger. How dare they! You start to feel the stirrings of anger. Simmering. Quietly at first. Then boiling. Tipping over. They have just invaded your privacy, your home, your place of comfort!

Anger boils into rage. No respect! Somebody has to be blamed. Anger needs direction. You feel your whole body shake and your head start to swim as blood rushed in turning your ears red. They will pay for this intrusion!

Rage simmers down and now you have exhaustion. Appropriating blame requires too much of the body. You hands grow numb and limp from holding your fists too tightly. You shiver as if cold but you are not. You realize you have the beginnings of a headache when you feel the steady thumping of blood on your temples like drumbeats.

Exhaustion turns into deliberation. You try to make sense of the situation. You rationalize. You turn to logic. You apply mathematical equation to come up with something statistically probable and hold on to it. Expounding it into comprehensible data. Creating order from disorder so your brain would not rattle so much like a pin ball machine when it tries to wrap around the details.

Rationalization turns to...what? Acceptance? Or does it go back to anger when denial sets in? Doubt. Something that would not fit. A puzzle that must have come from another box. Surely, it's a factory defect. Surely, an error. Surely, they did not mean to do it. Surely. Surely.

So I log out and close the page. Perhaps next year i will write something here again. Perhaps.

TJ

My heart aches, it breaks with the overflow of realization. When news came it seemed so sudden that disbelief and denial overruled rationality. With hands shaking I clicked on your page and saw the endless stream of comments and realized that with physical validity the truth can no longer be denied. You made the unbearable bearable and what could have started out as a mundane experience you've managed to turn around and actually made me look forward to spending another day - day after day without fail - in an otherwise intolerable environment due to innumerable indirect circumstances that had governed my perceptions. You were a rare ray of sunshine that darkness could not penetrate despite those post-midnight conversations we've had while smoke made our eyes glisten with unshed tears that we blinked back in not-so-subtle ways, laughed over our own pathetic attempts at hiding what couldn't be hidden and celebrated instead with those antediluvian songs you never grew tired of. You were, still are, a beautiful soul and those of us who saw through your sweet and light-hearted yet paradoxically, seemingly-emo facade knows I speak the truth. You are free now Teej despite the gruesome circumstances that surrounds the mystery of how you left us. Questions will be answered soon, I hope. For now, for now our hearts cannot help but break a little bit more.

F l 0 w

i am falling..yet again.
heart pounding.
blood
d
r
i
p
p
i
n
g.
mind-consuming.
overwhelming.
unnecessary hate.
numbing anger.
i.
cannot.
breathe.

THuD

i long to hold on to once more to that sense of sensibility; to fully realize my own destiny and finally be able to internalize, and not just simply comprehend, the fact that my own destiny is what i make of it. i cannot dictate circumstances but i can work around it or with it. however, why am i still stuck with this mud around my ankles making each laboring step another step i have to regret? i realize that impressions i have about people and the way they tend to linger in my thoughts is a longing in my part, a kind of dull throbbing behind the ears: constant, nagging.. a longing about shortcomings that i have led myself to believe that i have simply and miserably failed in my own personified existence. such shortcoming, as i believe them to be, are what disqualifies my own narrow perspective while i look upon myself viewing the world from the corner of my room hungrily sucking in the air motes as they fly around me frantically dying to satiate my need to know while, inadvertently, peeking at the world with circumspect. a paradox of complexities yet when broken down into pieces evidently appear so simplistic in its essence that it's almost comical how many times i broke down trying to get from one emotion to another; a point wherein i can almost surmise an emotional detachment to a seemingly hostile environment. the type of hostility where i find myself candidly reacting to without preamble. the type of reaction that is all too consuming. my failings are my own and no other ought to shoulder the blame, yet blame requires redirection otherwise it will insist to bury itself deep in a non-stop, full-speed reverse. afterwhich it will be inescapable. internal hostilities are more harsh than any because it is the self battling with the self. finding myself in that position once again, again i could feel the tug and the counter-tug of each thought as they race to compete with each other in a marathon that neither will claim full ownership of. that upon ending the race the full responsibility still befalls upon the host. the watcher. the prisoner. there is a struggle for dominance within, and a weak host is a weak host. this analogy reminds me of an alien movie. funny, once again my thoughts have gone too literal.

Speak

There is a certain justification, somewhat, in having knowledge of things when under the pretense of nonchalance; that little glint of knowing that momentarily flashes right across the iris is too fleeting that it would have remained amiss had it not been anticipated. Is it so wrong to feign nonchalance when the objective is simply to avoid unwanted conversation, not for the lack of intellectual aptitude to grasp a topic or the emotional quotient factor that allows one to carry on such a conversation, but simply, one choses not to participate. Why all the objections over such a simple, yet definite, choice when it is more convenient to simply stay mum?

seek

i feel like it's one of those days when everything starts to go wrong...precedence, small coincidences that have been dismissed as inconsequential...my heart feels like it is being crushed as i scramble to make sense of the circumstances that have recently occurred. To whom do i point the blame? Who can stand up and confidently say "herein lies the reason and the reason is simple"? Not I. Speculation has grasped my mind driving away rationality. How i oftentimes long for the swift destruction of finality. But nothing can ever be that simple, can it?

~r0aDtriP~

Arriving in Terminal 3 at 8 in the evening, the airport was almost empty except for the guards at the gate, there's an eerie feeling being in such a huge establishment filled with metal and chrome with every step echoing along its artificial facade. Upon stepping outside, I was greeted with the fresh night air and it seemed almost ages since I've been there. The sights, the sounds, the familiar yet unfamiliar bustle of a big city filling my senses momentarily overwhelming me. I stopped, not knowing where to go, so I looked around and there I found the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. The familiar, the comfort..I felt like I was coming home. My senses were greeted with that wonderful tingling sensation running up and down my spine and I was instantaneously overjoyed and overawed. With the tendency to wear my emotions on my sleeves, anybody watching would see that I have found what my heart was seeking for. Had it been that long of a wait? Perhaps it had been. Getting in the car I couldn't wait to get going, because it would mean arriving, finally arriving, and finally being able to do what I had longed for so long to do.

The trip was long, the conversation a mixture of emotions, and the road harsh and cold, as I felt the tires rushing frantically willing to get us to our destination. Finally, an hour or so before sunrise, we arrived. The air was cold, the roads almost emtpy, the winding highway left me dizzy and at that very moment all I ever wanted was to go to bed. But it was so beautiful and I was so happy...

It's time to start another beginning.