We Are No Better Than You.

We sat in a circle, us again, meeting each other after a long time. Acknowledging each other's presence after a prolonged separation by the hectic and distracting confusion that is life so far.

Missy was hunched over in a defeated pose, her shoulders slumped, her hair limp and lank and bounceless, much like the wilt of her limbs and the downward cast of her eyes. She has had a rough time and the weeks have taken their toll on her. Much so as it had wrung her out like a sponge and hung her out to dry under the rain and the storm before being wrenched from the clothesline by an errant gust of chilly wind only to be dragged back in by the cat and left in a sodden heap on the floor.

"I'm sorry..." she intoned softly, full or remorse and guilt and burden. "I'm so sorry. This is all because of me."

And she was not necessarily wrong. What she did was an inconvenience. A burden and a pain. But somehow, in the fabric of this strange human existence where people feel that to bleed and to feel pain is to feel alive, what she did was also in this strange, nonsensical equation, necessary.

We cannot live without her and she was an essential part of the puzzle. Much as we hate to admit it at times.

Mademoiselle sat in the corner, the black in her hair bold and strong and solid. The firm set of her jaw and her eyes, the flashing of her look as she sat, a presence in an otherwise limpid room. When did she regain her stature? I wondered. It was somewhat an unforeseen though not necessarily undue consequence.

And I as always, sat on my armchair, my legs crossed in a casual and a neutral position. I didn't know what to do, and when I don't know what to do or to think, I always adopt the neutral position.

We sat in heavy, loaded silence. Much has come to pass since and much pain has been brought into the periphery. The room sank under the weight of it as it pressed down and in from all sides like a pressure, making one's eardrums pop as we try to equalize the inside and the outside.

I sighed.

"No Missy. Maybe you are a mistake. Or the sum of all mistakes. But I am a mask. And Mademoiselle is bitterness and anger and fear. We are all broken pieces of the same puzzle. We are no better than you."

Maybe that is why we need each other. Maybe that is why we have each other. Because if each of us on our own is a disaster, then maybe together, we can find some semblance of something that works.

Stream of Consciousness

Things have come to a head and I don't know where to look next. What will come out next will probably be partially an incoherent stream of consciousness spew which and undilated mind needs to get out before it chokes on it's own poison. Because expression is how the world deals with its pain and itself. It's how we handle and explain ourselves and try to make sense of this big, crazy mess that we have all come to know and love. Life as a whole.

Yes, things have come to a head and I don't know where to look next. I have spent months. And months. Wallowing in misery and dragging my feet and my whole self everywhere I went, living as through a dense haze of smog and other choking substances which threatened to block out my entire meaningful existence. Feeling like I had hit rock bottom and yet with no way to get back up, contrary to the popular saying. Months and months and months. I was wallowing in my misery and my self-pity and my regret and my disappointment and all those unpleasant things. And then I came here, and then not 2 months pass and I find myself again wallowing in the misery and the pain and the misery that I thought I had left 6570 miles behind me. And maybe this is hindsight talking but this time it seemed worse than before. More suffocating, more disabling to the heart and the soul. So much that I couldn't find a way to carry on any more. I was assaulted from all directions suddenly with my insecurities and fears and even shit I didn't know I had and didn't know existed or never acknowledged before this all came assailing me with an enthusiasm equal to a Mardi Gras day parade. I buckled under the pressure. I caved. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move, I couldn't comprehend. I was curled up into the foetal position and yet I had to go about my day like nothing was wrong, like nothing was the matter. Because life marches on endlessly whether we participate in it or not. Life goes on uncaring of an individual woes and sorrows. It was a disorienting mess of sound and silence and noise and clamour and confusion and anger and fear and disappointment and shock and so many things in between. I had to sit down and close my ears for the din was driving me crazy and it did drive me crazy. I might have left a few screws along the wayside, I wouldn't know. Not yet anyway.

Many long nights were spent in unnecessary, needless contemplation. Many long hours were spent in uncalled for contemplation and introspection where every wound and every pain was dragged out of the mud again and again and again and again like an endless cacophony of sound and chaos and poisoned smog. Many long, quiet moments were spent in endless, needless thinking. About things. About things that were unwise to spent any time and grey matter on. Unwise. Nobody said one was wise. We are all not wise. For the most part, we humans, we are unwise beings.

Maybe I was happy once. But that was in the past. And the past is over. And it's gone. And where we are now is here today. Where I am now is here today. The past is gone and maybe I was happy once but that was in the past. There will be many things that will break your heart. Smash it to the ground and shatter it to smithereens. Run over it with a bulldozer and Zamboni the whole damn thing into the cold icy ground before you. There will be many things that will break your heart again and again and again and make you doubt the very fabric and purpose of your existence in this wide, cruel world. There will be many things that will make you cry your now non-existent but somehow still hurting like a motherfucker heart out every night into your pillow. That will make you sob the night away and squint into the morning sunlight with your puffed up teary eyes and repeat the whole damn process again the following night. There will be many things that will make you feel like the world's going greyer and greyer every day like every single pinch of sorrow is bleaching the colour right out of your world, making it go from Technicolour to a dull shade of bleh. Even grey is too good a shade for it. There will be many things that dash your heart into the ground and rend it and squish it till it leaves a bloody mess behind which you have no idea how to fix and just stare at.

But we must all just carry on. With our broken hearts, with our dulled out and disillusioned minds and souls, with sorrow weighing heavy on our spirits, we must join in on the endless march. And we shall carry, we must drag our burdens and our baggage behind us and carry on for there is nothing else to it. And maybe one day, we can finally find a way to let go of it and leave it behind.

Maybe I'll be happy again one day. But for now, the only thing to it would be to just carry on.

I Have Travelled 6,600 Miles Away

I have travelled 6,600 miles away from all I knew before. From the familiar lifestyle and culture. From the familiar food and roads and places. From everything I had left behind from my life there before. But I have travelled so far and possibly found myself back again at square one.

I arrived here and cried wretched tears that night. Bitter, wretched tears that poured out of a broken heart, spurred on my memories of what was supposed to be and reminders of what was. I took one look around and descended into a puddle of sobs.

As the days went by and the week ended, I was asked the question of whether I missed home. And somehow to my surprise I found that the answer was no. Within 7 days I had managed to start running again. Because back home was where I sank into the comfort of my daily routines and built around myself a comfort zone consisting of my daily activities and distractions. I wrapped myself in my routine like a blanket and hid. I pursued distractions like it was going out of style. And I left it all to oblivion. I hid from everything in the comfort of my familiar routines. And upon arriving here, I was wrenched out of that comfort zone, out of that routine and the warm blanket I had curled up and hid in for so long. The pain was real and raw and brought about the tears like those of a baby from a womb but burdened by more than just the shock and cold of the new world.

As the week went by since I was forced to shed my protective emotional blanket, I realized that now back home felt and seemed like the past to me. It was where I hid, where I curled up into a ball and hid and sank desperately into my comfort zone and my routines. Burrowing desperately to seek some reprieve from something no place or routine could truly give.

I didn't wanna go back to the place where I hid and burrowed so desperately seeking comfort. The memory of it depressed me, the haplessness, the desperation, I wanted to turn away from it all. And I wanted to look outwards, further ahead to future and better things. But then I realized, my time here in this place is short. Regardless of whether I like it or not, staying would be a difficult option. Work is difficult to find, and I would only be here for one year depending on various external factors and circumstances. And with that realization, I felt like there was nothing I could look forward to either.

So then I felt lost. Untethered by either a pull or a desire to go back to where I was, but not led or pulled forward by a dream, a hope or an intention. I felt lost, floating freely, un-anchored and adrift. Some would call it freedom. One could also call it a lack of direction. I didn't know where to turn for truly in that moment, all that existed was truly just today. No yesterday, no tomorrow, only today.

To a certain extent I wondered. Was it better to have longed for home since it tethers one to something and gives you something to hold on to, a certainty and a constant, as opposed to this directionless drifting in an ether of uncertainty and confusion.

Love brings us to funny places in the end.

I thought I had run and was running away from what had tethered me to the sorrow and the heartbreak that pervaded my life back there where I left. But it occurred to me the other day. I was running. I was still running. And I'd probably continue running. That wasn't the way. Because it doesn't matter where you go and what new life one carves out for oneself wherever one is. You can't run away from what's inside of you.

Fallout.

We all sat in a circle on individual arm chairs, and we all sat in silence.

I could feel the quiet buzzing in the air, an electric tingle and prickle as I sat down and took in all that has come to pass. How things have changed. And I, for one, was stunned silent.

Mademoiselle sat languishing in shadow, the silver wisps curling slowly from her stick. The shiny black heels less shiny, the powerful polished veneer chipped and cracked at the surface. All that was once stark and bright about her seemed to have gone. The dominance and the certainty, faded into a mere shade and where it once gleamed like polished steel, now just seemed weak and plastic.

I looked over to where Missy sat, her head in her hands and the shine of tears in her eyes as she looked up at us both. The sun gleamed over her hair like a halo, illuminating every inch of her, bathing her in a warm golden glow. Such brilliance and I looked on sadly as a single tear fell from her eyes and slid down her cheek, dripping from her chin to land on her t-shirt.

I knew why she was crying. And why Mademoiselle looked on in silence. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing I could do. At least, I didn't think.

"What am I going to do?" Missy whimpered softly.

I squinted slightly as I looked at her, the glow too bright. Too bright.

"Mademoiselle, do something," she pleaded. Even her name fell flat on the tongue and ears.

Mademoiselle sighed and sat up, "There is nothing I can do Missy."

Missy shrank back into her halo and I felt a loss of control. Like things were out of my hands and they were slipping. Slipping every which way and where. Well, maybe they were. The strings I used to pull, that were taut in my grasp and that I manoeuvered swiftly and easily were now gone. As I looked down, feeling the absence of their familiar tension in my palms. It was all up in the air now. How had we come so far?

I looked at Missy, as she stared back at us with a slightly bewildered look in her eyes. She had never been in the spotlight this much before, in such a way and thus had never known the full extent of her potential. Neither had I. And as a result, I was reeling from the discovery. I looked down again and felt the familiar pang of my loss of control; and the bewilderment that followed it. Maybe once day we will all move out of this shock.

"We're learning quite a few things about ourselves aren't we," I intoned flatly.

"To put it lightly," Mademoiselle said weakly as she exhaled a thin stream that shot into the air and floated languidly, thinning out into nothing.

"I'm sorry guys... I'm sorry," Missy trembled and hugged herself, seemingly making herself smaller even as she glowed brilliantly against the sunlight. She looked particularly guiltily at Mademoiselle, sitting half-obscured in the shade.

I sat quietly, contemplating all that I have discovered. We had all learned much and all of us, had learned things we didn't like about ourselves.

"I can't believe I did all that. It was so disgraceful. I didn't know I could be so pathetic," Missy wept softly.

Until today I hadn't believed that Mademoiselle could fade so much into the shadows either. We surprise ourselves sometimes.

"It's ok Missy... It is what it is," I said resignedly.

"We all are weak in different ways," I continued. "And maybe you are weak, but so are we. There are things we all can't do."

We were all missing something. That's why we needed each other.

"Letting you take control was a disaster," Mademoiselle spat bitterly.

Missy turned away as silent tears coursed down.

"Look, she loved him and that's why we let her take over. It was a good thing," I said soothingly.

Mademoiselle just crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked hard at the both of us. "I told you nothing good would come out of it. Nothing."

I nodded, "Yes, it failed. But it was something that had to be tried." "Don't take it so hard, both of you."

Mademoiselle sniffed and turned away, taking a drag as she lounged on her seat. Missy just sighed heavily and bent forward, putting her head in her hands again as she tried to blot out the blinding light that was on her. But at least, she had stopped crying.

"We were in a rut before and now we're in a rut after," Mademoiselle muttered angrily. "I told you, her influence is degrading and destructive."

I glanced over at Missy who just sat there and stared solemnly at the ground, looking for all the world as if she agreed. But that was Missy.

"No, Mademoiselle, \" I sighed as I looked around at my friends who I have not seen in a few years. "We need her and you know it."

"I just say her decisions are unwise, that's all," she sniffed stubbornly.

"Yes, they may be unwise. But sometimes they're just the decisions we have to make," I said.

Perspective.

I have done many things that I regret in my relationship. And now when I look back on it I wonder. Was I really that person? Was I so comfortable in it that that was the real me?

Looking back now I can't seem to believe it. But perspective shifts. And now it has shifted back to a place I haven't been in 2 years. And it is with a heavy heart that I look back at the things that I have done. The way I behaved.

I was good. I was plenty good. And no one is without flaw. I recognize that. And I am not aiming to be perfect. Just sometimes I feel like I was foolish. I behaved rather foolishly. Rather immaturely. But maybe that is who I am.

I was a different person. So different now and then. Perspective changes.

~ When the wind is blowing in your face, and the whole world is on your case. I could offer you a warm embrace, to make you feel my love ~

Why Do I Write Now?

I haven't written in a long, long time. Why do I write now? Is it because I have fallen so far that I have resorted to previous haunts to sort myself out somehow? Does my subconscious feel desperate enough to reach out into any foothold it can grab onto be it something outdated and found in the habits of the past?

Why did I not write then? Why did I stop? ... Maybe it was because I was happy. And happiness does not need an outlet. It just leaks out of every single thing you do, like barely contained rays of light. Because happiness is not a lonely thing; it is not confined to the solitary spaces of your mind where they fester and beg for an outlet that is not so personal yet personal enough. Hence, writing.

Why was I reluctant to continue? Why did I associate writing as an act of the fallen? Maybe because I did not like the darker spaces of my mind it brings me to. The sordid, melancholy, convoluted spaces where ideas twist and form into something that looks nice on paper but not in experience.
Maybe because I am disgusted by the habits and the mentality brought on by this activity of writing. Makes us feel like we are smarter. Makes us feel more superior somehow and in that we dwell, whether we know it or not because the expression in written form is a skill that must be good to possess. Makes us overthink things and in doing so, keeps us writing about it, thinking about it, instead of feeling it. Feeling in its purest form, uncontained by mastery of language, no matter how fluent.
Maybe I associate it all with darker days. Days when my written word was my only companion and listening shoulder for I felt like I had no one to talk to and no one to share with. Maybe it reeks of that sense of loneliness I carried around with me like a cloud and I don't want to admit that it's back. The heavy, oppressive disconnection.

Then why do I write now? God knows. Why do I write now? Because I suffer a broken heart which is while insignificant, is significant enough in the history of any man's life.

Why is there even a chance that this time could be different? There is no chance. I highly doubt that it's any different this time,

So why am I cataloguing insanity this time? Because I let one person open the floodgates and open up a very dangerous part of a person. Especially dangerous to one who has stupidly decided to seal theirs for whatever insane, cowardly reason there was. I let it happen and it happened and I changed. I became someone else and while I cannot be sure that someone else is a good someone else, or even an improvement from the previous, the changes happened and I just rolled with it. It was a good place. It was a nice, safe place to be where while one may still have one's problems, it was a good, safe place to try to fix them. In the embrace of a welcoming and understanding influence. Where one feels accepted and loved.
But it ended. And now everything is clattering in there because the one string that held them all together, the new improvements, the one thing that made them made sense and seem worthwhile has been snapped and everything clatters around in the mess. Where do I find what belongs where and how do I put it all back together in a good and coherent manner? Especially when the mess is so large and unprecedented that I trip all over myself trying to sort things out.

So why do I write now? God knows. Maybe I just need a way to help myself.

I learned today. That love can be difficult.

I learned today. That love can be difficult.

It is not the ideal that we write, sing and talk about or hear, watch and read about. I don't know if it ever was or if it ever will be.

Not to say that love isn't all those things and more. I'm just focusing on the "and more" part. Because it is not the ideal when we take a closer look at all the "sordid details". That's why they're called sordid details. They just ruin the ideal somewhat.

And love being an abstract concept, cannot logically, be blamed. It's a beautiful thing. It gives joy, meaning and humanity.

But it can't be the ideal. Because we are only human. And misunderstandings happen. Problems happen. Oversight happens. Life happens.

We sail past each other every day like two ships passing in the night, and where things get lost is where the missing pieces of the ideal go. We see what we want to see, what our paranoid minds tell us to see, what our truthful hearts tell us we must see. And in those gaps of understanding, where we misunderstand each other, where the heartache happens and the blame runs either way; where it is so that each story has two sides to it. That is where the ideal fails to materialize. And that is where the missing pieces go.