The reason, I realised, that I don't make friends is that I think people are very, very unreliable. It's not a trust deficit, it's something else. Every single time I've tried to make an effort with someone has turned into that person and me drifting apart for no apparent reason. And my problem is, I have too much of an ego to make an effort with too many people. So, I stick to my lot, the people I've loved, hated, tried out, spend a significant amount of time with, and they're still there.
And I guess I'm fairly alright.

Except that, every once in a while, you think back about that one "friend" who drifted away, who you had a wonderful bond with, and it makes your feel wistful. Because there was something there that someone lost along the way.
And that is sad, if not tragic.

Hole-65daysofstatic

"You're so mournful, ever so mournful, always so mournful." She said, emphasizing the tragedy of the situation as she took a delicate bite of the chocolate donut she held in her hand. ("Ishouldn'tbeeatingthis, I'msupposedtobeonadiet" says the voice in her head, and like all other unpleasant voices, is drowned out on a whim.)

"Truth is, I just don't see it anymore, me- who am I? What is this, what are we? How wonderfully existentialist of me to ask, how very Ayn Rand- perhaps one day I'll be one of those high-flying career women without a love but with..what's that word...job satisfaction? Yeah, and a six figure salary.
What's that? Expectations? I hate that word, though I do have an awful lot too, of course, don't we all? But I despise it. It sounds dirty, and cheap, like a trash fiction romance that we all want (admitit, tit? No. It. MovingON)in our lives but will never confess to. And yet we have them (expectations, not trashfic romances), will keep on nurturing them until they kill us from within- or maybe not. You can't kill that which never lived, yeah? Yeah.
Don't look at me so reproachfully with those pretty eyes, honey. You know all this is nothing new, I'm just saying it so it seems to be. We've heard it a lot, you and I, that the world is no place for us-primarily from ourselves. Believed it too. So I know, I know it's a bit of a shock when the high heavens don't open up to mark your passage into some transcendental, parallel reality. You're as normal, as ordinary as that clerk who's stuck in a strictly average 9-to-5 job, as that beggar who(that?) was knocking with his filth encrusted knuckles on your car's window. It's just that the filth is within you. It's your heart that's covered in it.
Don't be so defensive. It's only just me, and I know you inside out. I see you everyday, we've spent our lives together. You can't hide that face from me, you know it too."

She finished eating that donut, daintily licked the tips of her fingers, moved from in front of the mirror. Monologue over.

Overdue.

I've never seen her cry. Except that one time, when he was dying, and she was struggling to make that decision about whether she should have him put on life support or not. She decided against it, because she's a strong woman. I've known people who have put loved ones on life support in the vain hopes of a turn around, a full recovery that never happens. It's an empty reassurance, telling yourself that there is a tiny sliver of hope as long as their heart is beating, as long as that oxygen mask mists over with the machine-breath. You feel like your words are getting through to them, and any moment now their eyes will open slowly, and they will smile and all will be well.

Too bad life isn't an episode of Grey's Anatomy. The Merediths in our world aren't such resilient survivors, I will tell you as much.

Point being, I've never seen her cry. They wanted her to sign his life away, but it wasn't because they cared. It was just a matter of wanting to get it over and done with. It's a fact I've become accustomed to in the past five years that have made us feel like unwelcome strangers to an exclusive party. It doesn't make a difference to me, things rarely ever do. But it devastates her in some way, I can tell because she talks about it repeatedly. And I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her "It doesn't make a difference. They're not our family, not your relatives, not his relatives. It really doesn't make a difference." But she's my mother and I'd be violating some code of conduct if I were to do that. Besides, we're not very expressive as a family. No hugs, no kisses, nothing of that sort. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

She cried then. Didn't make a show of it like they did, but she cried, and didn't eat for two weeks. I wonder what she thinks every year on the day he went. 17 years is a long, long time.

Burn so bright I wonder what the wave meant. w00t.

Wait a minute I'm passin' out win or lose...

Frenzy and (wrong) value judgments made in the nick of time. Relying on past examples of getting-away-with-it and pulling-it-off ( so many). Fueled by over-sweetened black corporate poison and an intense desire to get this over and done with. Self-reflection when there's really no time for it, and a lack of company.

In bursts I don't know what to do with myself, with this syllabus, with my insane last minute endeavors. There's everything but an hour and a half of tomorrow to look forward to.

Godspeed?

You're welcome.

Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don't intimidate her

Is that why you wanted a love song?

Too much work and a lack of concentration fueled by the desire to let go and write and scream. But how?
There's a block surrounding us and we're being consumed by the fire we began ourselves. Too ambitious, perhaps? Too eager? I'm told bitter truths that I swallow in sugar coated pills, pills that let out bursts of cyanide into my thoughts, until I am not I and you are not you, our world is changed, and there are no intersections in the venn diagram of our story.
Except maybe love.
But was love ever enough, as much as it may be? Does it part oceans, shake mountains, perform those miracles? Or is it just... Something that's there. Abstract, intangible. Is it possible for something to die when all you have is love? Wasn't it supposed to be the glue that holds it all together. "We might not have anything, but we have love." transforms into "We might have love, but we have nothing else."
I have no idea when and how that happened. I don't even know if it's happened. Sometimes I wonder about the past and how the years shaped the path I was going to take. I wonder if I'm a tad bit heartless, if I'm deliberately insensitive.
Insecure, invalidated. So am I.


I'm trying to let you hear me as I am

Bombed.

They flew off the roof, I stared in awe and horror and shock and... I stared. A death rally, mobs clad in black setting alight crimson fires and a celebration of the utter morbidity reached by mankind. They stood there with last goodbyes on their lips, reckless and loud, eyes screaming vengeance and rage. I stared still, waiting, immobile.
The crowd jeered, the noises clashed and collided, like a deluge of misery washing over me,and I was mesmerized. A row of men and women, preparing to propel themselves into thin air as the ultimate act of rebellion. The most profane of sacrifices, lined up as they were on that rooftop. Oh, it was such a convoluted joy then in that mob.
And then,"Allahu Akbar", an explosion.Or was it cheering? The shattering bodies, bloody fireworks and sparks and ashes. Orange red gray. Guts, concrete, fire, smoke. Alarms.

A declaration of our own funeral, a collective suicide song ringing high in the charcoal air, and then, silence. For the dead and departed, for the pieces of flesh and bones strewn in the mob's feet. They coloured their foreheads with burning blood and let go of the inhibitions tying them to this half baked sanity. Incited, ignited, they cried "La Illaha Il Allah, Muhammadur Rasool Allah!", a chant eerily disturbing to me after being used for a lifetime as a confession of my faith. Who was I then, in the face of this unknown Islam?

Who were these people I saw, and when had this happened?

Swords were unsheathed, and criminals who looked like me were brought out. Women, girls, little children, made to stand right there in the middle of that circle, and still I stared. I stared as they began slicing here and there, watching the blood spill out, as the mob warded off satan from the souls of these infidels who hadn't donned the nameless, faceless black garb of these apparent revolutionaries.

And then, I snapped out of my trance. Backed out of the balcony, ran inside to protect my family, because I had seen what they remained oblivious to. Knowing, even in my desire to save, the futility of it all. Because I was not nameless, or faceless. I was not covered. But I ran. And just as I was reaching that lock, the door burst open.

I saw the metal stained red. I smelled the blood and soot on their clothes, I saw the hatred in their eye for us. I wondered which God I should pray to, because they had claimed mine for their own and excluded me from faith.

And then my eyes flew open.
The clock said 11 am.

Gas tank.

Love shoots her in the middle of her forehead, point-blank range. It's such a game of hide and seek, the endless riddles plaguing the days of a beautiful dream, now on its last legs, now brand new again. The polarity is annoying, astounding, magical. A word throws her off balance, and then he pulls her back up, preventing a hard, skull crushing fall.

She remembers curling up against walls and sobbing till her heart is empty, letting out all the joy that made her feel like she would burst. And once she has been detoxified of all that happy, he lets her in again. In her quiet musings, she feels quite like the gas tank of a car that's been going on for a long, long, long time.

She needs a miracle, he a new faith.