Better Days

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​I am the waves forever going back to the same page, holding the illusion of running away from the shore. I don't know if its gravity or fate that keeps on slapping me and shoving me back to chapter one. But in my mind I never stop running. Ever.

​I wake up, brush my teeth and stare at the food cooked my mother. These few days I've been forcing myself to eat even if all I want to do is throw up and faint and never wake up again. Everyday I've been trying to figure out my life, trying to get out of this endless maze, searching, always searching for more. And every single time I end up with nothing but strings and strings of nonsense things, multiple dots which are not connected with each other. All I want is to find meaning to everything, some sort of assurance that I'll get somewhere better. It's like probing deeper and deeper, trying to see beyond your blind field. So far, nothing has make sense yet.

​The hours move too fast and too slow at the same time. I walk back and forth, back and forth, cradling my fragile thoughts, putting them to sleep so they don't haunt me. The house is quiet, but wait for it.  My parents, they like to ignite and burn each other to ashes. Quiet moments in the house don't normally last an hour. It's like waiting for a bomb to explode. I used to be scared of the explosion, mom and dad spitting poison at each other. I guess you get used to it, conditioning as they say.  You smell gasoline, you know what happens next. It's completely rational to save yourself but you wait for fire to lick your skin and devour your flesh instead. Because that's how it's always been. All you can do is anticipate.

​We have better days too, back when my elder brother, John, was still alive, before he stepped in his personal quicksand and drown himself. Since then, I not only lost my brother, I also lost mom and dad. I have nothing left. There's not a single second that I don't wish for these better days again. I wish and pray so hard for these walls to stop crumbling down. But who am I kidding, there's no going back to yesterday.

​And so I lock my door and turn the volume up. I love rock music. It's chaos and tragedy and bullshit all in one. It gets me. Funny how people can't always be there for you, but music always got your back.
​I stare at the pills in my hand. It's the best I've got. I wonder if John's still here, will things be different? If I discovered my personal quicksand first , fell into it and he was the one left, will it change everything? When kuya died, he took everything with him. What will it be like when I'm gone? Will someone take over the same space I used to occupy in this world? I hope not. No one has ever occupied kuya's space since then. It turned into  a massive vacuum sucking all of us in, skin, bones, muscles, cartilages. Everything. Right now I can safely say that I am a breathing empty vessel with a numb heart.

​I look at the pills in my hands again. If I do it now will things be different? Where will I go? Will things get better when I'm gone or is the massive vacuum kuya had left us with will turn into an infinity of black holes? Who else will be sucked inside?
​Or if I stay a little longer , maybe, just maybe, the sun and the moon will work its magic and the gravitational pull will finally align my misaligned life. Or maybe I need to set things in motion. Hell if I know how. But I wonder if I ever set things in motion, will my life make sense? Is it just a matter of inertia? Or am I just a fucked-up optimist?

​I clench my fist and feel the pills inside my hands. I let the music sway me, take me away.

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