LIPUNAN

You’re sad because you’re sad.
It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you’re trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside you head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.

— Margaret Atwood

    there is no depth in me. what you see is what you see, the rest is but my struggle to live. the way we all struggle in this life.

    sometimes though, i wish i was more, more of that something which i cannot point out; that i may stop feeling as if the glass where the water is poured has a leaking bottom.

    but then, there are times when i just stand still. frozen. perhaps from inspection. perhaps because  there are times when i just want to be like everyone else.

    and then there are also times when i’d like to scold myself. for thinking too much. of whether or not the glass is half-empty or half-full, when in reality there’s a whole table of glasses everywhere, and these tables are in rooms, and these rooms are in houses, and these houses are in villages, and so on.

    in the end, there is still no depth in me. i am but struggling in this life.

i am sorry. i can be really insensitive. because i choose to be insensitive. or because i don’t feel a thing. i don’t feel. the coffee helps sometimes. it keeps me going, especially at times when i just want to wander in slumber. perhaps i deserve what i have right now. it’s not at all bad. i am happy. i really am. i have wonderful friends, i have a loving family, i’m surviving my work (i call the stuff i do for school and kule and polis work). i’ve discovered that when you concentrate on the good things in life, you wouldn’t be as miserable. self-wallowing just adds to one’s everyday burden.

but i feel a pang sometimes. because insensitive as i may be, i am still human. i do realize that i may have hurt other people. but i swear i was not aware of it. i can be one-sighted at times, if there is such a word. i only see one thing, and nothing else. besides, my reality does not match yours. we all perceive things differently. as such, my memories are not the same as yours, even if we shared the same experience.   

i promise you will find happiness — in other things, in other places, in other people. that’s the way things work. give it time.