F5.

Yes, refresh. There are things that have been going on inside my mind for I don't know how many months now... more than 12 for sure. And when I say my mind, my emotions and even faith are all lumped in there together, it's my central processing unit. There is no concept of separateness, like logic and emotions when they are part of the same as what they have always been. It's just calling it the mind does not exactly capture it. Like soft rains when you're missing someone. Words are most always inadequate when it comes to describing what goes in our minds. And there's that word again. Mind, mind you.

F5. I found the refresh button of my mind; when I wasn't looking for it, when all this time I was looking for some sort of explanation as to how life had just happened, or how emotions are always different every year, even when you have the same name for each and every one that you had felt. I think it was just that my mind wasn't itself, and I felt sure that if I knew the reason why it was that way, it would be okay, that it would be the answer to itself.

F5. It was just that button, not that button farthermost, uppermost button in the right corner. It was not that goddamned button at all. It was not. It was Refresh and it wasn't just a flicker of the screen. It was flickering back on. Pretty weird to be knowing this and making this barest smile to myself, on an afternoon where I am weak with hunger, barely two hours sleep for the past 25 or more hours, with no sign whatsoever of any rain, and with the rent coming up, there are people I miss enough that it hurts everytime my mind touches on their memories. And I still managed this smile.

Refresh.

i missed my letters.

In fact, I missed a lot of things, a lot of people. I missed you. I know. I think it's about time I stopped running. There are still a lot of strands of tangled yarn that I cannot see the two ends of, I don't think those things will ever untangle by themselves. There's no pressing concern to untangle anyway, it is just for, when I have the time or when I finally have time to think about someone else other than myself.

It's not even raining. There's no music playing. Or a picture of you near me. But I miss you.

And it is nice to remember again. To live, I think that is the phrase I was aiming for. There is no standard prerequisite for that. It is easier with the warm fuzzy feelings, I know, but as I said there is no standard prerequisite.

Just breath. And that is not even a trick, it is just something that you do when you are alive.

I don't know if the Thaw of Terisiare would be a good analogy for this, but I think it is near it. Everything would not be less painful after this, in fact, I feel everything is going to make itself feel known after this; and with pain being associated with a good working nervous system, I am going to have a blast with it. Blood flowing through your veins after you were out in the cold for too long will in fact hurt. It is only a reassurance that you still live.

I am going to miss you forever now.

my mind has to stop running eventually.

I have to feel again. There are more than enough reasons against it and perhaps I wouldn't run out of reasons; if I think about it hard enough that I could go on indefinitely, without worrying about running out of gas. And that the more I think about it, I think I could stop the inevitable. the inevitability of emotions. Even if I wasn't built that way.  It's just that, I know, this isn't living. Or even a semblance of it.

This is only a continuum.

There is no irony that it rhymes with vacuum. I have to stop running, even if I know there is nothing to go back to anymore. Yes, I have to stop. There is a need to live again. In the meantime, I'll just run for a little bit more.

getting cold again.

It doesn't rain as much as it used to, but the rain still falls and it still is cold. Then I wonder if the statement of those facts would do something instead of me just sounding foolish. Because everybody knows that. Everybody.

That perhaps saying those things would change some thing in my mind. Trigger some chain reaction in there that would make me explode. Instead of this slow burn. Slow undying burn.

And again it does not do anything and I make the mistake of speaking again. Reluctance losing out to the need for something to happen. Which is why most of the time I keep to myself. Things are less complicated that way. Less complicated in the way that other eyes will see. I am okay with my complications, though okay would not be the right word, I know.

I watch for rain. then I lose myself when it does. Yes, it is still cold. Unembraceable.

irindahan.

inda man.
inda ko man kung tano arog kani ang maagahon.
inda ko baga.
inda ko kung tano halawig pirmi ang mga biahe.
inda ko kung mauran atsan.
inda.
inda sana kung aram mo.
inda ko talaga.
inda ko sa mga sinabi mo kadto...
inda, inda; kaya lang giroromdom ko pa.
inda ko kung ika iyo man. inda ko sana.
inda ko baga.
inda kung nagsagin sagin lang,
inda kung garo mayo lang
inda kung pasil ingirit
o kung mas pasil lingawan.
inda sa inda mo,
inda kung kaniguan o bako
inda kung pasali lang o totoo man nanggad
inda.
inda ko saimo.
inda man saimo.


basta.

don't cross the streams.

It isn't that hard to feel, unless you mean pain, let Atlas shrug this off if he can. It isn't even an effort to fight it off because some part of you will still feel. So, I just let it go at that and found out that, it was in a way, how to escape. I should have just fought it off then, continuing would have been more easier even broken. Even if I knew that a broken vase can still be further broken.

But as it is, I am now here and the strangeness of Manila, as I have known before, wouldn't be of help; it just made me more detached. The rains I have been in are halfhearted at best; and if it doesn't rain, then I remain, unmoving and waiting. There is no one here, no one, except myself, and this time I need more than myself.

I know I have to go home, that I have to miss you like I have never missed you before, hoping that there would be clues left for me in the sadness of it; that I may sometimes feel that I am living another life, that it would be this detachedness that I have to understand and balance at the same time. I have to go home, even if only in the physical sense of the word.

Like because I can never have your embrace again, and because that is home too.

when i'm fighting sleep somewhere around 3 in the morning

and thoughts like miniature angels float and defy gravity above me, almost within waking reach but only almost, only almost and they leave a faint impression of what those thoughts would be, fully formed and fertile. so I struggle to wake and push my shuffled music to a higher crescendo than before but the angels instead only lose form and only reveal reality behind their fading shapes. and as I wish for that borderline consciousness again as my music starts to fade into the background.

I think I see you there, a hazy outline, going in and out of focus, a ghost in my periphery, somewhere to my right, somewhere near enough to reach.

like moments after a dream, when you are real enough to touch and just before reality punches through that skin of longing.