whispers and mutters • blasnique

Chapter Twenty One

UNIQUE

What is it that people see in my bleak, mundane personality? It's a question I ask myself every now and then when I get the news of high school adolescents pasting my picture on their lockers or singing my songs too loudly while absentmindedly walking along their school hallways.

The thought of myself is like remembering a Sunday visit to your senile grandma's house who couldn't bear to form out your name anymore.

To remember Unique Salonga is like visiting the church when you're nihilistic.

I'm a damaged, shattered flower vase crayoned by warped and abused children. I'm an adored piece of art done by an overrated, quote/unquote "well-celebrated" artist when he was troubled and sullen. I'm the façade of a well-painted home whose walls could not speak. I am what is behind closed doors. I am what people cannot see.

Nihilism has done much for me. The usual bathtub drownings have proven the distress I've shown but could not be seen. The bland, gray days speak in the music I create. And for once, maybe there's a little bit of colour even outside the lines.

What is the meaning of an unspoken love letter about a love that dare not speak its own name? Could it possibly be a ripped page unwillingly torn apart or a lost bottle in the sea waiting for its awaited freedom?

Mundo. The composition that seemed unutterable by spoken words. The poetry that could only be written by a certain grace.

It's an unfinished song that will not write itself. But what if the inspiration is no longer there? Maybe the smile of a certain person could absolve all the worry. Maybe a certain person's words could be my own litany?

Every moon I stare at always shone with its celestial godliness. Every moon I stare at always knew the prayers I mutter to a non-existent deity I refuse to believe in. But the sun knew a different person from who I am at night.

The sun was a bitter Disney princess who never adored an inch of me. Her supposedly warm breeze always touched my skin like needles to the bone. So we never saw each other. We never talked.

But she heard my voice and became inexplicably drawn to it. Whenever my guitar strings sing in chorus, she shines through the open glass and sings with the angelic melodies my guitar hum. I sing with the sun; I talk to the moon.

Last night was an unspeakable disgrace to my only moon. For some reason a fuckface like me becomes Arthur Rimbaud or some other overrated poet when I do some weird shit the night before. It was like sobriety is my own hangover.

I shouldn't really phone Blaster now, should I? That low, threatening voice of Blaster's dad just really crawls under your skin like caterpillars in a pressed syringe. I'm not afraid of the fucker. He's just like my own parents to me: dead. But for this instance, I dreadfully see him often.

Blaster is a good guy. He always was. Some part of me wishes him a better family and a better future. He's mistreated and he's seen as what he isn't. Hope the guy doesn't fall into heavy drugs.

Going outside is like chatting with that neighbour you secretly talk smack behind her back. But on second thought, maybe the clouds kept her shy enough to even show herself today. The wind gently caressed my skin.

With my guitar in hand, I walk to that certain place Blaster and I usually hang out with the unusual determination to finish that song there. It's weird and bizarre when I get these motivations out of the blue like a sudden ant infestation inside your house. It's not me to be like this. I cringe.