Monday 20 May 2013

L

There’s loneliness
that creeps oh for
so long of a time
behind me

lurks like a shadow
even in the darkest
of the night
it’s the blackest
of all the blacks

I say to him
shoo, go away
but he never left
he never will

he says to me
I’ll stay with you
I can’t leave you
I am you

now the irony
the lonelier I get
the lonelier
I come to be

I shut my door
creep on the bed
all accompanied
by dear loneliness.

Boys

Boys – there are so many things that people always say about being one of the boys. Boys should be tough. Boys should be able to withstand anything. Boys should do things that prove their strength. Boys should not be afraid to be physically hurt. Boys should say things girl cannot say.

No one has ever said that boys are allowed to cry if they want to.

I guess that’s the way the society is built. Boys are always seen as being rough and ready for life that people always forget that they have a heart too. A heart is a flesh that beats with emotions. It carries the sadness an anger that are kept for who knows how long. And yes, boys carry these feelings too. Boys forced to act so cool and strong in front of the others hold something so fragile and distressing inside their bodies. That’s the only thing that the boys can’t do – crying or having others to listen to what they feel. It will only mean one thing: the heart is weak.

Who wants a weakling?

Do you want to be compared to a girl? People will say that you’re useless, a piece of junk, people will call you names, they will bully you, your friends will think that you’re such a puny guy.

Who wants a weakling?

No one wants a weakling.

If only boys are allowed to share what they feel with someone who they really love. They don’t even do it because of the external pressure, even from the ones who are closest to them. They fear of being seen as cowards, which is wrong, because to have fear and sorrow and rage are not cowardice. It shows that you’re a perfectly made human, human who doesn’t have the capability to feel emotions are not perfect.

Sometimes, you just want someone else to care about you for a change. You want others to realise that beneath the exterior, there is one other different thing that hides, that thing that others don’t see a lot, but it is still a living, breathing part of your existence.

Boys. Who wants to listen to what they harbour inside?

Saturday 11 May 2013

AxeShonen

So, this is AxeShonen, a photomanipulation that I did a couple of weeks ago. The title should have been this: AxeShōnen, but yeah, deviantArt wouldn’t let me use a macron above the ‘o’. Bugger…

Anyway, this is quite a comic-like photomanipulation. I did not intend to make it like this in the first place, but I love that I deviated [pun? Heheh] from the original plan.

More information on my dA!

Trapped

“Do you think we’ll be here until we, umm, die?” he said. His voice was almost unheard even in this space so small. I snapped out, looked at him and then looked above me, my hands were itching to scratch all the debris until I could find the light, but it was illogical to do so. “Sooner or later.” I replied.

He turned his face towards me. He had such a beautiful face that I couldn’t help but to look with a bit of envy. I have never looked at myself as beautiful. The resentments that other people gave to me seemed to solidify the fact that I was… nothing.

The infinite emptiness of the place was filled by a bright light emitted by his old torch light – wait, I mean his old mobile phone. I chuckled earlier when I saw him took out that… thing, but it turned out to be a saviour of sorts, really handy for a situation like this. My smart phone, unfortunately, had a cracked screen, so much for $300.

“Sooner or later?” he asked me back. His eyes were ignited embers, hazel-like with hope radiating through them.

“Sooner.” I smiled meekly. The truth was my own hope had already thinned. It had been three hours since we were stuck in this hellhole. The damned safe did its work. It saved us from death, but I was sure, sooner or later, it would turn into a makeshift coffin for both of us.

“Pretty grim eh?” I said. “Who knew this (I wiggled my hands around) would happen to us?”

“Pretty much.” He answered weakly. I didn’t mean to be so negative, but it came out that way. I should have guessed jokes made in troubled times would turn out sour. “So, ummm…” I tried to begin our conversation again. “You’re Bristol, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So Bristol, what are you thinking?” I was not a good conversation opener.

“How short life is.” He said. For a young guy (not that I was old), he looked as if he had lived since the time of Plato, though I think his Plato-self only emerged because we were in a crisis. “Mind telling me about it?” I asked him. I could see he was smiling. A Plato wannabe trapped inside a safe made from metals and rocks. Sounded like a mediaeval painting to me.

“I think we have too many secrets that we keep inside and we take all of them to our graves. No one will ever know about all those things, but then again, no one will remember us after we’re dead.” Definitely a Plato wannabe.

“You know, you could tell a secret that you daren’t say to other people, and I’ll do the same.” I suggested to him. I did not know what made me to do that, but it seemed like a pretty good idea: two certain-to-be-dead-strangers playing telling-secrets. Bristol watched me, perhaps thinking whether the cons would outweigh the pros, but let’s face it, being trapped underground gave the idea more advantages already. Bristol’s ember eyes shone ever so brightly amidst the dense dark background.

“I failed in my studies.” Bristol began while I attentively listened. “I failed in my studies, but that was not what I’m sorry about. The thing I really regret… I said to my mom that I hated her. She tried to help me, she told me I could do it, I could be the doctor I wanted to be, I should trust myself. Mom told me I was a good child. I just needed to get back on my track. I hated her for that. She bugged my life. All I did was saying that I hated her and pushed her and ran out from the house after that. I was drunk, but I knew what I was doing. I was angry. That was the last time when I saw her alive.”

I did not say anything for a little while, but I was curious. At last I said, “What happened with your mom?”

“Some burglars came stealing stuff in our house and...” He stopped. Hollow was his voice. Those ember eyes lose their radiance a little bit.

“You are still remorseful?”

“Remorse is the pain of sin.”

“Who said that?”

“Theodore Parker.”

We stayed silent. The safe was still, except for the amplified continuous sounds of droplets coming from a hidden corner. The place was airless and we were drenched in stickiness. The size of the shattered safe did not help in making us becoming more comfortable. I heard Bristol gagged rather loudly for a moment. “Are you alright?” I was panicking.

“Nothing. It was just my usual reflexes.”

“Usual reflexes.” I said, not entirely believing in him.

“So, what’s your secret?” he asked, unquestionably trying to change the topic. “Anything as tragic as mine?”
I just followed his whims, “I don’t know if my life is story-worthy. This seems to be the most exciting event that has ever happened to my life.” he burst into laughter, and I followed suits, but it was cut short when Bristol began to cough again. This time slightly badly. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again, and I was certain no one would be okay in this kind of situation.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He uttered. “So, you don’t have a secret? I should have not told you mine.”

“I have. It’s not a secret, but I don’t know. I just… I just hate myself at times. No, perhaps all times. I feel like I don’t measure up to anyone else. I’m a worthless piece of junk. No one will look at me and be amazed. I hate my body, I can’t do anything right. I can’t control my heart. I’m…” I stared at him. “Not beautiful, not like you.”

“If being beautiful is a good thing, my mom would still be alive.” He snapped. My mouth was zipped. I looked up. I was a tad ashamed for being a shallow-minded person. I taught that all good-looking guys would have the best things and the best life. Not with Bristol though. He was beautiful, but he never had a good life.

“We have our own regrets. We have things that we don’t like about ourselves.” He said. “Maybe that is how humans are made. We want to live in the other side of the fence, but we forget the garden that we already have.”

He coughed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

“I know.” Bristol cut me. “I think we should stop feeling so bad about ourselves if this is the last day, or night, of our life. I don’t want to die in regret. Tell me what do you like the most about yourself.”

“I don’t know… at least I like to do photo manipulations.”

 “And you say you can’t do anything right.” He grinned. I could not help but to do the same.

We spent a long time telling each other about our lives trying to be awaken, awoke in hopes that someone would finally find us. We stopped telling stories about our bad past because the present felt much more real than the past had ever been. Each story was interspersed with Bristol’s coughing fits that turned worse and worse after every passing hour, but he kept on talking and talking. I admitted that talking to him made me felt cheerful and warm inside. Even if he had this horrendous history, his beautiful eyes gleamed with happiness. His cough got stronger though, and I was afraid of the things that would happen to him. What should I do? I kept saying to myself. I did not know how to help Bristol. I myself felt weak, not because of sickness but because I could not be a good person to him. Fatigue started to engulf me, which I tried to shoo away.

Bristol got sicker and sicker that I told him to just sleep. He protested but my argument got the better of him. It was hot and humid, and the smells of our sweaty physiques were sewage-worthy, but sleeping was better for him. I watched him dozed off. I intent to keep awake, just to make sure that Bristol was safe, but sleep won over me. My eyes started to see grey that went on to become darkness.

“There’re survivors here!” I heard someone saying that. My eyes were burning with white. It was a dreamtime ago that I last saw the shining light. There were footsteps all around me. I heard someone yelling, “Get the EFFING medics here!” Then another voice saying, “Bomb squad is ready to inspect this place, sir.”

“Sir, are you okay?” a sweetly soft female voice asked me.

I quickly remembered Bristol. I left him on his own, I left him when he needed me the most.

“BRISTOL!” I shouted to her. “Save him! Please!” I begged to her, I did not care how damaged I was. All I knew was I did nothing to ease Bristol’s pain. The female medic went down the big hole that they created and tried to calm me down. A few other people went down as well and held me tightly as the others put some contraptions on Bristol’s face while uttering medical jargons that I did not understand nor care about.

“Bristol, wake up!” I yelled, wishing that somewhere in his head, my voice would register. “Bristol!” he did not move. I regretted myself for not being strong enough to push myself to last the night with him. I was too fragile, too puny to do anything right. I regretted everything… everything until I heard Bristol’s frail voice.

“Hey…” he said. I quickly pushed the medics aside and said I was sorry to him. He only smirked and said he was sorry for being such a jerk.

“We’re both jerks then.” I said.

“You know something?”

“Yeah what?”

“My mom visited me last night...”

“I guess that’s good for you then. Now just be quiet, and let the medics do their work, okay?” I told him. I knew he was going to tell me his dream, but I did not feel like knowing it. After knowing what happened to him, I just wanted to let that memory of his mother to only stay with him. Bristol’s grin turned into this sweet smile. The medics did their work.

“So, you’re ready to go up?” asked the female medic. I looked at her and then back at Bristol. He was smirking and mouthed something that suspiciously looked like go on. I looked back at the female medic.

She smiled at me and then said something else, “Well, wanna have a cup of java with me after that?” she got the same effect like Bristol, or maybe that was because I was trapped with a guy for a long time, even if it was Bristol. I watched her face. She was beautiful too, and a whole night in a safe was enough. “Perhaps two cups.” I agreed with her, sort of.

I later added, “So, what’s your name?”

In Love (Maybe In Love)

There is one thing about the heart that is pretty confusing. Sometimes, we are not sure whether we are really in love or we are in love with the idea of being in love.

Right, that’s the truth. I mean, can we be really truthful to ourselves?  Are we that lonesome that when we meet someone who’s really beautiful, a person who you can listen to every word he or she is saying all the time, with an infectious smile, and you can’t just look away, and such… in other words, a person whose existence makes you happy, that raises the question.

Can that be love? Or is it just a short-term desire that occurs just because we feel that we are lonely?

And they say that if you still have the feeling after 40 days, it is love. It could be that we are lying to ourselves. We don’t want to feel empty, so we fill our hearts with it. Believing is better than not having anything at all, but believing in a lie will make us feel emptier later, wouldn’t it?

Half


Hey there.

We keep so many things to ourselves – things that devour every inch of our soul, things that keep us awake at night, things that we want to omit but can’t seem to do so. We long to share them with someone, we yearn to voice them from the top of our lungs hoping that anyone would come and be there just to listen.

We’re afraid, aren’t we? We are afraid because most of the time, people will just ignore, or worse, pretending to listen but not caring at all, or even worse than that, listen and then spread what we’ve told them to others. Let’s face it: there are lots of instances when people just don’t accept the things that we keep inside our hearts. The reason: because everything that we feel shows our vulnerabilities or differences.

Will people look at us the same after that? Maybe they’ll change. Maybe they’ll blame us for sharing what we feel with them. Maybe they'll alienate us. We are half the people that we used to be. Perhaps, what we feel constitutes a half of us.

I Love You This Much

I love you
this much

So much I
harbour death
too much to seek
atonement
that much makes
you my
best part
this much but
you are
oblivious
and
I am
faking
ignorance

When the
day comes and
heaven ignites
when my skin
turns to
earth
and so does
my flesh
when I
drown in
still fire
burn in
cold water
even in the
final
moment
when you still
see me only
a shadow
in the light

I will still
love you
this much.