Mental Mess

In my dark bedroom.. way past midnight.. I lie paralyzingly sleepless.. with the usual exsitential dread and insomnia dropping a question after the other in an endless trail of thoughts..

I wonder if my life matters.. I wonder if the ones who say they love me really do love me.. I wonder.. why everything seems to be trying to kill me.. even my own self sometimes..

I wonder who I am.. Who I’ve become..

I wonder.. if i’ll ever get my shit together…

Together..

togetherness was dispersed… togetherness was mourned by the rain of June..

Togetherness was lost along with home…

And the remaining stench of the orgies of killing.. where the killers are aroused over the smell of horror and death.. orgasming to the spilled blood drying out.. forgotten… do they find comfort in forgetfulness?

fragments of echoes of voices falling into my ears screams and cries from outside and I want to close my window… I want to cover up my ears..then an inner voice would tell me “No you can’t! cuz its your heart that hears”

And I’m here… barely..

for pieces of me are everywhere..

and in everywhere.. are their names..

the ones who faced death and still breathing… the ones who faced death and got the likes of me choking for air ever since…

But yet.. In everywhere, there are still dreamers I know will create realities my mind can’t yet comprehend.. I mean, even babies are born fighting.. resisting.. hands in fists..

so here is to the generation that dreamed of a better nation.. dreamed of peace, justice and freedom.. here’s to the ones suffering in silence, or have given up, or still surviving.. here’s to women here’s to women… and here’s to the martyrs..always..to the martyrs..

I wonder if I too am still resisting.. revolting..

I wonder if I have given up already or if I’m too tired to feel my movements.. I know I am here.. But barely..

I imagine life is a movie… and in the last scene I’m vomiting every bad memory.. i flush the flash backs and I forget what I thought I’ve already forgotten but it weighed me down for so long..

fights with bullies that I’ve lost to… heart break after another and another one after the other…

unforgivable stupid, stupid mistakes..

a cannibal bite at the age of four that i told no one about until it grew into the deepest wound I carry around…

and a revolution.. a revolution..

I find comfort in forgetfulness.. I empty my body of this soul and sleep..

The Way Back Home

To the chubby, short, and restless storm of constant trouble

The little tomboy princess, who so badly wanted to own her own planet, just like the Little Prince, catching stars and exploring the universe.

The one that always believed that God loved her the most. Believed that she was special and destined for something big.

To the little girl, that used to play with the boys. But later, was taught, that boys are danger. Taught that boys grow up to be wandering wearwolves hunting for a naive girl to chew on her flesh, and she the “naive” girl must strategically plan escape whenever they are around.

The little girl that, hated every single moment of having to deal with getting boobs. Every moment of aunties pointing and commenting about it. Every, moment of having to say “No realy, I’m 11” and watching the faces of disbelief turn away. Watching the wandering wearwolves form fantasies that would leave her body bloody and grieving.

To the little girl who is still alive and well inside me. And so badly.. wants to be herself freely. But is always suppressed by this adult woman who hates herself, who hates everything, really and wants to leave this world and never come back.

This is to the little girl I was.

Little girl,

I miss you.

And I’m sorry.

It’s just life isn’t so pretty, and I want to complain. I’m always tired. Even in my sleep, I’m fighting battles.

This older woman I’ve become isn’t as nearly strong or enduring as you are.

You were always the strong one

I mean, stating facts:

At one year old, you gulped on a can of Kerosine thinking it’s Pepsi, it caused you fatal chemical pneumonia that lasted for whole two weeks and look, we’re still breathing.

At 4 years old, you fell from the 2nd floor balcony, on your feet, broke no bone, and limped your way back home.

You went to school everyday from the 1st to the 7th grade, knowing you’ll face bullies, and you faced them like the war hero you are. Gloriously.

But… Today I can barely stand having a headache.

Little girl, I need you.

I’m too old to afford making mistakes, yet too young to avoid making mistakes.

I need you to remind me of how to live.

Beacause I’m helplessly staring at these hands .. that were once yours, waiting.. for them to learn the trick of living this life.

This adulthood thing. This whole being a strong independent woman, in a capitalist,

patriarchal, misogynistic world, with such mental status, while trying to maintain a social life, craving to love and be loved, and striving to build and plan for a better future all together; is so f***ing hard.

I’m in a darkness, I am soaked and dripping in it. And if I don’t change, I’ll remain a prisoner to the darkness I’m in.

I don’t know what it takes.

I just know that I gotta change.

I have to change the woman I’ve become.

I need to change.

I want to be powerful.

I want to be brave.

I want to be beautiful.

I don’t want to be fake.

I don’t want to be a push over.

I want to have faith.

I want to be in control yet,

not be so scared of losing control. I want to grow. Not just older, but I want to grow

Perhaps grow back into the little girl I was, before she was broken into many parts.

Little girl, I’m ruined and in parts. My self worth is bleeding to death and I can’t seem to save her.

I’m in pain and I can’t cry. Because, because big girls don’t cry? Because someone might ask why am I crying and I’d say I don’t know and they’d laugh at me or judge me or ignore me? Because I don’t want to be weak but I’m weakly trying to be strong?

Little girl,

I’m writing this poem, I’m writing this poem for you but deep down I’m wishing you would’ve written me one. I wish I’d find a lost diary with your handwriting and bad spelling on it, telling me not to worry cuz I’ll figure it all out. I will know what to do eventually. We’ve got lost many times before but we’ve always found our way back home.

Haven’t we?

Little girl; The Little Princess who so badly wanted to be The Little Prince, or his best friend at least. You knew you would’ve loved him more than that red rose ever did. Because you love big. You love with all your big warm heart.

You are still alive in my heart. You are the only strength I still have within me.

Walk me through this life.

Show me the way back home.

The 3rd

1- My rebelliousness cowered at the sound of bullets and teargas.

2- I stood behind my parents words and their fear of losing me in the mess.

3- Collapsing needs one to be standing.. but I was already lying down when my mother called to tell me about the news she was watching on TV.

4- I used the dirty matress in the hospital where I work as shelter.. it didn’t shelter anything.

5- Detachment.. was what I thought I’d be doing while clinching my phone so hard reading about who’s missing and who’s murdered.

6- I called Gaki’s phone so many times hoping he’d answer.

7- I called Mageed’s phone so many times and everytime it was off.

8- If transforming into a martyr.. was what’s needed for this fucking revolution to win then take me instead. Bring back everyone who was there and take me.. I can’t bear this burdening existence with its air clogged at the throat with so many souls ascending.. no wonder suffocation was the only thing I managed to do with my lungs that day.

9- What’s good of chanting when everyone who’d chant with you is dead? What’s good of chanting if the ones listening are still deaf, still delaying their empathy or sympathy to people lost. To people not breathing anymore To people.. drenched in mud and blood and courage, courage I could  never carry in my heart.

10- When emotional pain starts numbing, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt anymore. It means I’m used to keep scratching where it hurts till it bleeds again then maybe.. I’ll get a glimpse of the pain my friends felt when they were there. Where I wasn’t, While lying down in the comfort of my bed cursing this survival I didn’t ask for.

11- The purpose of all this was to live. Not to end up dead. Not to end up jaree7. Not to end up missing or losing what’s left of your sanity or hope or soul or will to live.

12- Invulnerability is a fucking previlidge.

13- Existing.. at this very moment is so severe Knowing.. that last night.. Just last night.. I was there..belonging.. and it rained and we laughed and sang and held hands and chanted against the fucking authority that was busy planing our death.

14- There..it is still burning.

“Dear god, how broke

do you have to be

to not buy people time?”*

15- I stopped praying.

 

*Andrea Gibson – Orlando

Memories

TRIGGER WARNING

 

Around this time last year, I tried killing myself by injecting myself with adrenaline. Purpose was: the effect of adrenaline would stop my heart by causing it atrial fibrillation then arrhythmia. One year has passed. I haven’t attempted suicide again ever since. But the thought never leaves my mind.

I was blessed to find myself in love again after so many years of false crushes and one sided love. I found someone who gave me comfort and warmth like never before. But unfortunately, it didn’t last. And I lost all kinds of communication with that someone. Someone I still miss every day, still wish to find myself in their arms one last time.

I’ve had so many dreams and ambitions. The plan was by this time, I’ll be out of the country. Living on my own, supporting myself and helping support my family. Working toward my future. Becoming my whole self freely and successfully. But here I am. Carrying whats left of these dreams in my hand and feeling them slipping through my fingers slowly and vanishing.

I can tell I’m in a bad place. Mentally and emotionally. I can tell that complaining about it won’t change a thing. I’m aware that if it’s not me, then who will move and get up and woman up and do something about it? But I have given up. To me now; life and everything about it is tasteless. I don’t know where to go from here.

What happens to someone who is lost in the desert and got tired of all the walking and sun and thirst?

What was on the minds of the musicians playing music while the Titanic was drowning?

Maybe

I need my friends.

I wanna tell them that I’m struggling.. but they’re all also struggling.

Struggling with real shit. Real life shit. And I’m just struggling with myself. My problem is as small as I am. It probably doesn’t worth mentioning.

Maybe I’m not okay.. or maybe I’m just riding the wave.. you know, depression and anxiety are the new trend.

Maybe I’m totally fine but I cling to believing that I’m not okay.

Maybe I’m just bored and lonely, and attention seeking seems to be the right thing to do in such case.

I don’t even know what I’d answer if they ask me “what’s wrong?”

I don’t wanna be a burden, and I want to be strong.

But I also wanna tell them that I’ve done things. And I don’t know why I’ve done them. And I don’t wanna be there again but it gets really dark. And I wanna go to a place where it wouldn’t matter if its dark or lit.

But it’s not like I’m depressed.

Maybe I just need to be held.

To not feel incredibly alone in this mess.

But what mess?

Maybe this is a cry for help (?)

Maybe I just need to be held.

Maybe I just need my friends.

But…

Exit

I need to let out.
I need to vent.
I need to explode with everything inside me.
Out.
There is rubble behind my heart.. that I need to evacuate.

There’s poetry here.
And I’ve been waiting on inspiration.
But inspiration never came…
And the words I left behind me, the ones dying to tell the truth of this feeling I’ve been harboring all these years.. the story of the scars that still itch to heal.. the memories I cluttered on the side of my brain and the migraine that knows how to choke my temporal vein, have I died? Have I died yet? And if I did, was it in vain?

Life goes on. Life.. goes on but I’m standing here still.
The war is over but the fight remains still..
The mourning is not over the grief.. constantly rain and the sound of thunder is how my heart beats and I need; I need peace.
I need quiet.
I need the enemy in me to stop patronizing my bones and interrupting my prayers with laughters and screams of “They shall not be answered! They are not to be answered!”
God must be bored of me and if God turns his back then.. the loneliness is official write that on my grave.
Write that, when you are sure that death.. did not forget about me.. that life.. didnt give up on me.. that my guardian angel.. didnt find a new job to make a living after my hopelessness.. and laziness kicked her away.
Here. Here my soul scattered and spilled everywhere.. I’m lacking living. I’m vitally impaired. I’m limping in my dreams after I been flying in them.. tell me.. tell me if there is a cure when one self doesn’t want to belong to itself tell me.. how when Im weary of all the men catcalling my flesh and reaching.. for my body like its a property.. doesn’t anger me no more but only makes me qsick.. so sick that I cannot move a muscle or snap a knuckle on a man’s face I promised.. I promised myself to be stronger than this but the smoke.. the smoke is too thick and my lungs are not pink and my lungs aren’t fit and my lungs are breathless and my lungs are tired and lungs.. my lungs.. my feet are heavy.. my back hardly straight.. the darkness.. is covering the sky and the moon is asleep tonight.. I am alone here in all this emptiness.. the doors… the doors are all trap and I need an exit.
I need an escape.
To escape.
This existence.
This storm of being.
This me.. I am is too damn much.

And there is poetry here.
I’m full of it.
And its painful.
And its heavy.
And I wrote it.
I am writing it.
But it’s still here. And the weight from all what I feel.. what I’ve been through and what I fear is setteled on my shoulders… I am the atlas of everything I don’t want to bear.
How am I to drop all this and escape.. I want to escape.
My arms wants to hold my lover, a lover who isn’t mine to begin with
My ribs wanna grow wings.
My breath wants to become wind.
My liver wanna stop cleaning my blood
My blood wants to be a river
My mind wants peace and quiet.
Needs peace and quiet.
And my body needs a home.
A home outside of me.

The Ending

The moon is hiding behind clouds.
Just like how I hide my feelings behind my expressionless face.
Even if I cry, I cry from a place of strength.
I hate weakness.
I hate vulnerability.
But Im right here between your arms that chose to embrace someone else.

I abuse myself.
All for the sake of not feeling anything.
Feelings are too much I feel like they’re eating my heart.
And I miss you.
And cigarettes help me to push down all the breathlessness I feel whenever you strut across my memory.

Maybe I’m depressed.
I am yet to hear from my therapist.
I’ve been avoiding facing her.
She is a stranger that I do not want to feel naked in front of.
It fits me more to be naked before you.
But you dont seem to care.
And I wish my heart and lungs would fade and numbness would replace them.
I dont want to feel.
I dont want to feel.
I dont want my hunger fed but rather it stops visiting my guts.
I’m a mess.
I’m a mess.
If I had a blade in my hand right now I would’ve taken my own life.
I would’ve ended all this.
But I have nothing but myself.
And poison in my veins.
I wanna be okay.
I wanna say I’m fine and mean it and believe it.
Not saying it as a robotic response to “how are you?”.

But I’m a mess I’ve failed to clean.
I’m water spilled.
I’m a soul watsed.
I’m the remaining mud that God didn’t know what to do with.
Or a wandering sperm that accidently found its way to an ovum and surprise! Another child. A girl that would grow into a broken woman that would still stand firm inspite of her scattered flesh and missing bones.
I’m a warrior that death swore to spare. So all these battles will be fought till the end.
I wonder how the end would look like.
Will I die proud? Or die from over exhausion?
And I want you to be there.
To hold my body as it lets go of the last bit a life remaining of it.
Like how Cleopatra kissed that last drop of soul remaining in her lover.
I want you to be there.
To witness the wounds and the blood and the sacrifices I made subconsciously.
Hold me.
So in my death -unlike my life- I wont be alone, without you, missing you, lover.

Prayers

I collected all the words I’ve ever wished to tell you. Gathered them in my mouth and whispered them to stars. And stars would race between them to bring these words to where you are.
If only I could tell where you are.

God already heard all of my prayers, all are prayers for you to be close to me.
But would he answer?
Would you think of me?

Dazzled I am and amazed by everything you say or do. I would worship your kisses if pure faith ever found its way to my heart.
I know love by the ways my heart tingles at the mention of your name.
And I know I would never run out of that love as long as your breath remains.

There’s love here that only speaks of your name.
There’s warmth, that only longs for you.
I have many cigarettes that dream of burning between your lips, or perhapse, thats just me.

And God already knows all of prayers, they are prayers for you to hold me.

I lit a candle, I whispered your name, and prayed that you’d be comforted, centent and safe.
A star fell, crying out your name as it does, in hopes that wherever you are, you’d hear her and know it’s me whose calling across skies.

But do you ever think of me?
Does my name makes a song at the back of your memories the way yours does to me?

God has already heard all of my prayers.
But would he answer?
Would you answer?
Could you think of me?

Fly

1/
Sometimes I feel like every bone in my body would snap into a wing. 206 wings all flapping at once, flying me to the farthest star where poems make wishes and jump to the belly of the sky.
Sometimes I wonder what would be of my soul if it was not trapped in this body of mine. How did it learn to tame herself in order to fit in this 5ft height, soft skin and a mouth that doesn’t say much, if anything at all?

2/
I think whenever I crave being in the arms of a lover, is when my soul is revolting against me attempting to leave this world. For it is made of revolution and a fascination for the night sky.
I think my soul would’ve been a sky.

3/
The woman I am today is restless and tired. With a chest heaving with longing and a desire that burns bright at the core. I’m afraid that I will run out of days before I can breath all of this out.

4/
The wind blows against my naked soul and I almost fly.
I don’t belong. I don’t belong. I don’t belong anywhere. But I want to find home.

 

 

Learning

Under a cloud of smoke.
I write this poem hoping it wouldn’t turn into a suicide note.
I’m learning to live without constantly thinking of killing myself.
I want to find what saved me for all these years.
I need to know why it decided to leave now.
Leaving me awake and aware of my desire to not exist.

I wanna remember the first cry I made when I was born.
I wanna know who comforted my father and told him I was well and alive.
I wanna know if crying is what means that one is alive.
Because if so, then I wanna laugh.
I wanna laugh till my ribs protest against my lungs.
But I’m learning to live without constantly wanting to die.

I wonder if my past self is watching me.
I wonder, if it is watching me in pride or disapointment.