You Don't Say ...

I loved passionately. I loved wholely. I loved with everything I've got.

I can't say that I've done everything correctly. In fact, I haven't. I know I've got my flaws.

But above all, I tried, and I was going to try again and again and again.

And what's wrong with that?
Why do you make me sound so pathetic to the rest of the world, when I am the brave one who was ready to weather the storm, to honor my commitment, to go until the end, to protect, to love, and everything else that we have promised each other again and again?

Your honesty is not honesty because there is no fairness involved. With no foreshadowing, no opportunity, no communication, no attempt to understand, the end hardly seems fair. It's always so easy for the one who has the upperhand to say he's done everything he could and take the moral highground of "I didn't do anything wrong; in fact, I was virtuous."

How could he be surprised at the fact that I'm taking it so hard? How could he even begin to think that we could just be on good terms instantaneously? How could he force me to be pleasant and happy when everything that my life has been and ever would be disappear? How could he even deny that he did anything wrong when so many things went wrong?

Why am I being punished? Why am I made to carry this burden alone?

Why is he always right and I always wrong? Why do I get put down like that? Why does it always have to go his way? Why can't he just understand and not assume? Why can't he just stop thinking he can't change his behavior -- no one wants him to change his personality! Why can't he keep an open mind? Why can't he believe that there's more to life than what he knows?

What is love to him? What is commitment to him? And what is loyalty?
He loved me during the good times, left me during the bad.
Self-righteous superficial and fairweather fan ... so cold, so distant, changed so quickly.

Because "things shouldn't be so hard" ....
Well, things shouldn't be easy, nor should it be impossible.

I was patient. I kept on believing even when it wasn't perfect. I gave way. I tried to understand.

and for what? All for love. All for him.

I haven't exactly lost myself. If he'd look closer, if he'd have patience, he'd see that all the things he loved about me is still there:
honesty, selflessness, sense of wonder, determination, strength, kindness, ....
Everything. There. For those who wanted to see.

What things I do for love.
And now I'm being punished for it, while he moves along with easy.

Chess

I miss what he was to me, and what I thought I was to him.

In May, I was absolutely adored. He loved 'waking up next to me everyday and knowing that it will forever be that way'. He wrote me so. (But is nothing so good it lasts eternally?)

In July, I buried my Atlas and Ever. They had died with my heart.

And still, he has no remorse for how he treated me at the very end.

AH HAHAHAHA!

YES! YES! YES! YES!

I GOT A JOB!!!! I'VE NEVER BEEN CONTENT WITH MY CONDITION, CONSTANTLY WORKING AND TRYING AND HOPING AND ATTEMPTING TO UNDERSTAND. I'VE ALWAYS BEEN MYSELF, AND I AM PROUD OF WHO I AM. Thank you for all those people who believed in me and helped me along the way. You never abandoned me even at my very worst. THANK YOU! I could not have done it without you. I'm not home-free yet, but I'm getting there.

... As for all those who didn't have enough faith in me:

I EFF'N TOLD YOU SO!!!!

PS. Don't judge. I never lost who I am. It's always been there, if you're patient enough to see it.

Dark

I feel like something permanently broke within me. No repairs, no solution, no rebirth can ever make it right again.

Torn Seams

He said he loved me so much that he'd jump off a cliff for me. That was on Halloween night.

When came summer, he just wasn't ready to jump at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The threads on the binding of my life are dyed with your never-fading colors.

In Closing

A letter to the ex.

Urgent: Read (all of it)

I don't want to argue anymore since there is no point with you, so I'm going to make it clear:

Yes, I have my flaws, and I admitted to them. I was never going to stay the way I was -- I made sure that I was working towards it. I was aggressively finding work when you didn't recognize it. I was planning with DeEtte about how I should make sure I can get out of my rut, etc.. But maybe I could have done more.

However, if my flaws were bad enough for you to leave me, why didn't you say so earlier? Why wasn't there a conversation about it? And before that, why wasn't there a conversation about how best to BOTH WORK TOGETHER on some of these problems, so that they wouldn't get to the point where it made you want to leave?

I do have flaws and problems. I know. But I would have worked on them with you to make it so that they weren't problems anymore. We were a TEAM.

You gave the one who cheated on you multiple times many chances. And what did I do to you? I was merely having a life problem. And you just had to put me down and bark at me and belittle me and practically chase me out of the house with your emotional brutality? That's unacceptable.

And why did you have sex with me Monday night? It didn't make me feel better; please do not insult me with that excuse. You were taking advantage of my being in a vulnerable position. That was unethical. No one would have ever dreamed of you being this type of person deep down.

All I did was love you and was ready to stick with you until the end. I admit that I have problems and flaws, but they weren't the true reasons for the break up and never should have been. Lack of motivation, loss of direction, lack of life experience, and loss of "self" were correct statements. But I am not "uninteresting", not "less of a person", not "going for a free ride" (only seemed that way because you didn't give the relationship enough time for me to straighten out and prove you wrong), not lazy (you have no idea how many resumes and letters I sent out!) … and a host of other things you described. How dare you to have told me that I was in no position to tell you what lessons I feel you could take away, as if I am not good enough for you. All of that wasn't honesty; that was you judging me wrong and you putting me down. You didn't help me with my problems. All you did was just to complain and point fingers at my problems. Duh. I know I have problems. Some support, understanding and guidance would have been more constructive than projecting your life and outlook on life onto me.

How could you have viewed this relationship as a transaction, like if you do something for me, you expect the same, if not more, in return? "A gift given with expectations is not a gift; it is a loan." What was this relationship to you? A credit card/loan business? I couldn't get on my feet before you lose your patience, so you evict me from the house and the relationship?

The fact is simple: you weren't there for the "relationship" like you portrayed to me; really, you just wanted an arm candy that is easy to manage and maintain, and to keep forever so that you wouldn't have to go through inconveniences to find another one again -- I mean, seeing as how you have all your life aspirations, you just didn't have time for a troublesome partner like me, or to find one that has as much value as I do. In other words, you wanted more value than you could afford. All was fine, until I turned out to be harder to manage than you thought. THAT'S why the relationship failed, and that's what I disappointed you with and nothing else.

You were luckier than most people to had had someone like me (with flaws, but who definitely also value love and commitment) -- now to look back, you were luckier than you deserved to be and will ever deserve to be.

… You have just made one of the worst mistakes you've ever made.

However, I still wish you the best. If nothing else, please REMEMBER what I said to you about your lack of ability to relate to other people's emotional conditions (aka. empathy). If you don't improve, they'll make you lonely and angry sooner or later. Do what's best for you: don't get into that rut ... work on your problems and don't just be content that "you are just the way you are and cannot change" -- people can't change, but their behaviors can be altered and their horizons can be expanded.

I will call you and send you an e-mail copy of further instructions of what you need to do to move me out of the house.

Never About

I get it now.

It was never about me and my loss of direction in life, not my becoming "less of a person" like you said, or anything else that I am.

It's all been about you and your change of hearts, you and your career, you and you.

It was never about me.

But here I am, carrying this burden I didn't even deserve. I feel punished.

my largest piercing

a shot to the heart ...
it rang in the ears like a real gun shot,
but it probably was just because i was lightheaded from listening to him.

i thought i had given him my heart long ago
in exchange for his heart in the place of mine.
i thought that meant more than
'it shouldn't be this hard' and
a relationship ending as abruptly as thunder strike.

his heart ...
when i looked down last night,
it wasn't there anymore.
there was nothing more than a hole,
with little broken, frayed, withered,
twitching ends that stuck out
like broken wires. in that space,
those finger-like bonds that
once attached me to his heart --
his heart which occupied my core --
now, are just painfully frail twigs.

lover,
that's what i meant by 'losing everything' ...
hollow, empty, not full of love,
my hand not in yours.

dear god,
i can't afford to do this again.

A Few Words

I was wrong.

There is no 'together'.

I was naive.

There is no 'for better or for worse'.

I was forgetful.

There is only 'myself'.

Believe it or not, every morning, the one you have to face in the mirror is yourself. At night, the one you stay up with is yourself, the one you have nightmares with is yourself. In good times, there are always companions; but in bad times, there's only yourself to wallow in tears with.

Don't be fooled for a second that the way to devotion is to lose yourself. The minute you lose yourself, you die. Your spirit withers away. That is much worse that losing your body. It'll become that scar that always aches.

Your light will dim.

You will sit somewhere and listen to old songs that you used to listen to when you tried to soothe yourself. Those are the songs that you should never delete.

Here's More of What I Think

To be tactful, just shut up -- you'll astonish when you suddenly do speak.

To effectively maximize the value of your sleeves, double them as pot-holders-on-the-go.

To be wise, stop thinking and start feeling.

To be fashionably sensitive, wear torn clothes, stop grooming your hair for a few days and stay away from fashion magazines.

Broken Wings

My cat killed the happiest butterfly I've ever seen.

[end]

Somebody's Little Afternoon Nappy

On warm afternoons after lunch, I would sometimes drift off to that world in between sleep and wake and wonder ...

What if this physical world as we know it really was just a little side job that God worked on when s/he was doing the exact same thing I'm doing right now -- on a warm afternoon after a filling meal, something to pass time before drifting off to sleep. I mean, that would totally explain why this world isn't perfect, right? Because it really wasn't meant to be perfect!

When that higher being rolled over after a nice little nap and delighted in this little world of a creation inspired by nothing but boredom, maybe s/he thought it was, well, cute, and decided to keep it -- like a snow globe.

If that were true, what, then, would we think about the grudges we hold today? Or the job we didn't get? What about the neighbors you hate? And what of the wars we engage in? Political fuck-ups? Religious zeal?

Ah, they're just tiny imperfections that occured during somebody's an afternoon nap.

Anywhere, Really

I must admit that I'm absolutely and completely lost.

Lost.

How many other words in this language are there to describe that foggy, isolated, tiring feeling of being lost, when home starts to wear out on you because you have nowhere to return home from, but you're reluctant to step out because you're disppaointed at what's outside?

You just don't want to be anywhere, not even here.