eat me henger

i know how much it sucks to drive on a rainy friday night in manila. now, i wouldn't go as far as to have someone stab me as an alternative to disappointing a loved one, but i guess it's a generational thing. i consider myself an expert on being a complacent lover and the complications that come with it. i have a hundred percent success rate of ending relationships because of it. i live with the regret of missing countless opportunities to step up for the women whom i committed at the time to love. so it pains me to see it in others. the original plan was selfish. my original plan was to rectify past broken hearts by being the friend i failed to be during the aftermath. the objective was to be present, be grounded, hold space to process grief. since i can't travel back in time to fix my own failings, i sure as hell am going to make it my mission to make someone else's present better. time machines may be fantasy but generational whiplash feels real. wait, so sharing loc...

i frequently find myself being the reason why relationships are pushed to the breaking point.  and it has always been the same: just me genuinely showing up to provide emotional scaffolding buttressed by intellectual rigor of understanding the underlying dilemma.  apparently, playing to my strengths inordinately reveal a romantic relationship's weakness. ironic because i don't keep the strongest relationships either. so i have empathy for the partners who suffered the consequences of my presence. at several points in my life, i was them. i may not fully know these people - based only from the stories their aggrieved partner - but i have love for them. despite being the reason for complaints now, i'm sure at some point they felt strongly about their affection for the partner. they used to be excited for them, their hearts used to feel full from them. but i'm always the guy who has to hear how their love is crumbling. i share the pain, because i too was the reason for com...

i'm always grateful for mornings i wake up without depression weighing on me. but it's also the period of my cyclical psyche where my writing feels less soulful. it doesn't feel like there's a conflict wanting to be resolved. that's the magic of it really. i write to resolve an inner issue. i sit with the feeling. i type my thoughts. i somehow build a narrative with the next word, sentence or paragraph unplanned. it falls into place, messily built, but assembled intuitively with purpose. i don't believe it makes any problem more solved, but it definitely makes it easier to believe that if i can construct order in this debilitating chaos, then i have a fighting chance to have control over my own life. and that belief in agency is the first step to a proper solution. it's just square one though. once i publish my writing, i have to step into the real world and follow through with concrete actions. that's the hard part. you can't just sit in one corner ...

i'm afraid. i'm afraid of hurting those who decide to love me. i want to be loved though. i really do. i just carry with me decades of integrating the many times i've been the bad guy. i truly wish for a love with the cleanest slate. not the piece of shit i see when i look into the mirror. i act out the bad guy, the piece of shit that i think i am. i hurt others because i'm not being pure, not honest. i guess before i could begin to consider love, i need to first be real. because the "bad guy", the "piece of shit", they're not really me. they were me, they were others' perceptions of me for a momentary period. but the me that has the capacity for care, protection, joy, love - lives within me.

it's 1am on a workday and i can't fall asleep. i yawn. my eyes are getting blurry. but i've been laying in bed for hours and i can't be at peace. i reckon it's my irresponsible use of caffeine to blunt the medication comedown that i avoid. perhaps it could be the blunting of endogenous melatonin from repeated use of the substance to stun me into unconsciousness. i guess this is the new phase of my life. being drug dependent just to stay functionally alive. i've longed for the sweet release of death. i'm gifted other things instead. ostensibly everything that goes my way are gifts, one way or another. i'm just not getting the one i truly want. and i give up, if i have to struggle through a sleepless night every now and then, if i have to survive anxiety attacks every now and then, then fuck it, we ball. truth of the matter is, i've already gotten the sweet release of death already. just not in the form i wanted it to be. essentially, i'm already d...

it's quite telling that i've been told a couple of times already that i should let my friends be friends for me.  we're past the casual phase of friends primarily spending fun times together. with what used to be a bigger social circle, it has filtered into the handful of true friends that that match intellectual rigor or emotional depth - or both, if i'm lucky. i've always been present at their lowest, and have been fine being absent at their highest. i'm the clutch friend they needed to get through tough times. i'm well versed in navigating the dark because i deal with it every single day. once we're done, i can crack a joke, share a smile, and life normalizes. except for me. i have to return to cohabitating with my demons. serve them dinner, fold their laundry, tuck them to sleep - because somehow i'm convinced i need them to keep me sharp for the next time someone needs my services out of hell. i've given up on having people around me that un...