Back from the grave

You're alive. 

I'm shook. 

I don't know what to do now. 

That is all. 

A picture paints a thousand words...

A letter to the dormant warrior.

Inner peace is... Not present. 

Turbulent waters crash and weather the rocks that have held the breakwater solid for years. 

I refuse to yield. Call it pride, call it immaturity, call it whatever you want to. I feel like it has been that way or the highway, and I've had to ride the highway for months now. I don't really care to repair what's broken. Does it sadden me? Of course. Anything that was whole but now broken always saddens me. But I have no room for being soft. To survive, I have to stay strong and not let emotions come into play. 

However, I shan't deny what I'm feeling, as that is sweeping things under the rug. I have to air it out, even if there is nobody to acknowledge these emotions. At least by putting it down here, I'm able to vent. Who cares if my audience are a bunch of 1's and 0's?  

So this feeling of loneliness, of me going solo against the world, of having no support in this daily polite war I have to wage... it fucking sucks. To be denied, because I don't have a partner who will stand up for me against the force and make things right... it fucking sucks. To run around and hide in the shadows like cowards in search of the easiest way out... it fucking sucks. To not have a partner that will drop everything with spontaneity and embrace the unknown with me... it fucking sucks. 

Stability sucks, but uncertainty possibly sucks even more. Living day to day, hanging by a thread, not knowing what other curve balls life is going to throw me. 

Friends dropping off like flies. Family members getting old and sick and dropping off like flies. Years of friendship, betrayed and tossed out of the window like a dead fly. 7 years spent with a partner building a future, only to have that flimsy house of cards collapse within weeks. Energy put into creating a home, a life, a unit... all that gone. My wrinkle poofball now out of my hands. I have nothing. And yet, I feel like I've had to pay for everything I've done, with no results to show. 

Everyone assumes I'm fine. I tell myself I'll be fine. I'm tired of lying to myself, on top of lying to everyone else. 

A choice has to be made. Something has to change. Can I hold out for a few more months? 

Waking up and coming to work everyday is an ordeal. To put on a mask, it fucking kills me from inside out. I feel suffocated, I need air. I don't know if this is the right choice for me, but I don't know what else to do. I don't have anyone to talk to. 

I've always lived for momentary happiness. I get such brilliant flashes of happiness everyday, but these moments are always surrounded by dark clouds just waiting to engulf me when I have a moment alone with my head. I need happy pills. I'm so tired of this. As a human being, I feel all dried up, with nothing left to offer the God of tears. I wish I could though. Crying is cathartic, but I have no relief from this pain. 

Perhaps my emotions are being manifested in my physical pain. If the back is the pillar of support for the human body, that makes perfect sense that my back is in constant pain. I'm just all bunched up with nowhere to go. 

This is such a senseless rant. I'm walking around in circles, chasing my own tail, trying to talk sense to a brain that refuses to act upon this conundrum. 

I have no allegiance to the force. I could wreck it. And wreck my future here. Do I take my chances? If I only knew that my partner would be willing to stand by me and do this with me, I would. But I have no partner. I'm just alone in this war. 

I need to fight my own battles. Again. As Always. 

Dez, you come off as a social creature, but really, you're just a lone wolf having to battle the elements on your own. 

Be strong, and go forth. You've done this all your life. You do not need help. Anyone you let into your life has the potential to weaken you and hurt you. You don't need them. Use them, and move on. Hurt them before they hurt you. You need to revert back to the warrior you once were. You've become soft, and that's not conducive for the situation you are in now. You have to bulldoze your way through this time, and when you emerge from the dust... You will be a stronger soul. 

Fuck them all.

A perfect fuck up.

If we aren't careful, ghosts from the past take the opportunity to sneak up behind you, and curl their aged talons around you, wrapping it tighter with each passing day, and suffocating all traces of hard earned rationality that one worked so hard over the years to build up. 

It doesn't matter what people say. In my mind, I've always been neglected as a child. Ignored. Dismissed. Loved, but not mollycoddled because everyone thought I'm the strong one. The resilient one. The happy child. The intelligent kid. The street smart teen. The fighter. The survivor. 

Why can't anybody see that those are masks that I've had no choice but to put on. When I have such a dysfunctional family, there was no way I could let my problems add more fuel to the fire. But nobody ever asked me how I'm doing. How I'm coping. Whether I was okay. Whether I've ever had thoughts of... Stuff. I just feel so under the radar, like no amount of distress I felt would ever be justified sufficiently to mention to anyone. 

I think I'm constantly wishing someone would listen to me. Hear my silence. And understand what I'm going through. Instead, I'm going through life hiding my true feelings again, afraid of telling people what I'm feeling in case I trouble them or bother them. 

I'm not an altruistic saint. I'm a fuck up, just like so many other people who are allowed to fuck up. However, I just never feel like I'm allowed to fuck up. 

I don't want to wait till I fuck up bad enough to know that someone loves me for the fuck up that I am. I am not perfect, but I wish someone would tell me that they know that, and still love me regardless. 

This endless cycle of repetition is getting tiring. Go away ouroboros. You are not welcome in this roundabout. 

Apple sauce.

Mediocrity. The midpoint of extremities. The safe line to thread when life throws crazy opportunities at you. 

Do you take it? 

I did. 

After 20 years of being flung around on a roller coaster, nothing seemed like a better idea than sinking into a cozy armchair, surrounded by calm eaters. 

Growing up with sightings of a monster squatting in the toilet with spoons and needles, potentially setting the house on fire with candles... Locked bedroom doors with strange grunts of stifled screams... Aggression knocking on the front door with strange adults walking  in and out of the house, looking like emaciated zombies lusting for their next fix of brain numbing chemicals. 

Fighting. Screaming. Crying. Cutting. Blood. Insults. Degradation. And time spent in fetal position, wishing the womb had never expelled this worthless piece of shit. 

Let down after let down. Who in their right mind would stay? 

I guess the ouroboros doesn't discern with fairness who it strikes. 

Spinning round and round in circles, moving so fast, moving so far, running and running as fervently as these little legs could take me.... Stop. Scan. Wait a minute. I'm right at the same spot, with my tail jammed into my mouth, halfway down my throat. There's no escaping patterns. Conscious? Subconscious? 

They say the apple never falls far from the tree. I thought I was the apple that got picked to become apple sauce in a factory far away, set on an adventure that would open new doors and pathways. 

No. 

The apple ends up being brought to the factory, and sold to a place that leaves it feeling just as broken. 

The blades that dice the apple core is unforgiving, shredding the very heart that brought life to the fruit. It loses it's essence as it crumbles into a soppy purée, giving way to instructions on how to preserve it's dreams of becoming applesauce. At this point, the apple isn't even sure if this is what it wants anymore. 

What will become of the apple? 

Stay tuned. 

Dust bitten.

Another one bites the dust.

Out of the blue, I was contacted by A last night, telling me that Shaun is no longer walking this earth with us. His travels to the great beyond has been cut abruptly, by a train accident of some sort. Feeling the blood drain from my extremities and gushing to the empty pits of my stomach was surreal. I've always talked about wanting to feel alive, but last night, I felt what it was like to have life sucked out of a person. The numbing of every cell in the body, the loss of comprehension, the lack on cohesion, the obliteration of sensation, and the deafening silence that just screamed in my ear. Death came knocking to deliver the news that one of the brighter guiding lights on earth has been put out.

Shaun, we met at a time when I was a mess. It was a time when I cried as hard as we did party hard. You saw me evolve from a soggy wreck, into something stronger. Perhaps harder. But nevertheless, I always had a soft spot for you and the happiness that you gave my kindred spirit. Although it meant me losing a much required pillar of support, I felt happy for you two that you had found each other. It was trying times for us both, and you were there to lift one of us out. For that, I am thankful.

Some may say that we hedonistically indulged in mind numbing substances. I choose to see it as us exploring the deeper realms of our human existence. I always enjoyed visits from you both, totally fucked outta your heads and giving me the biggest bone crunching hugs with loads of kisses to follow. Baby kisses. They were our signature gifts to each other. I wonder if your soul still remembers those baby kisses.

After things ended and everyone moved on, we all lost contact. The group disbanded, and everyone living at River Valley just drifted apart like an explosion of spores. Nothing lasts forever.

But I would follow your adventures through life, peeping occasionally at your travels. I saw that you left Singapore, and ventured North where life is simpler, and the people more genuine. I felt happy for you. You were living my dream of a vegabond. A beach bum that abandoned the materialistic chase that everyone at home seem to live for. You don't know it, but your lifestyle inspires me to keep it real, and it keeps me grounded to what I believe in. At times, I lose track of it, but you always post something at a time when I need it. What will I do without your posts now?

Shaun D'Cruz, you have an amazing smile that always reminds me of the sun breaking from behind dark clouds. I hope you're adding that sunshine to wherever you are, because this world is that much darker now that you aren't around.

You will be missed dearly.

The mask of progress

For someone who takes pride in being analytical and somewhat perceptive, its crazy how I have been blind to the effects of gentrification. With wide open arms, I had dumbly accepted all the rhetoric that developers spew, thinking they were restoring the crumbling "feta-buildings" back to its natural charm. To be honest, I found the newly furbished buildings rather pretty.

But thank cupcakes (they're my idea of a perfect god) for academics who write papers on the effects of gentrification. Never mind that they can be over the top with making a point, (Yes Bunge, its you I'm talking about), its just crazy how seemingly free floating entities that supposedly have their own unique identity get sucked into the capitalist economy, exploited for their artistic capabilities or alternative lifestyles, and then brutally chased away with the broom made of dollar bills.

Well, this post isn't meant to discuss the paper. I just wanted to say I'm starting to see how evil gentrification is, and how its been so well masked as a necessary and not-bad-at-all step towards progress, that it evaded my detection. Abhorrence.