The Silicone Veil

The world has done so much misery. I had been miserable too but that's not an enough reason to stay in the dark. Step on the light. Every ounce of kindness is such a rare gem one can offer.

We are all thirsty to find and hoard the beauty in this world and we tend to forget that being a human is more important than everything in this world. You are a human in features but you being a human is just a façade. You are a disruption of the world that thrives in give and take because all that you can do is take, take, and take, and never give back or if not, only a little. When I opened my eyes for this second lifetime, I realized that being fully hedonistic up to the point of ruin is pointless. It's running on a hamster wheel on the same old environment of greed and darkness. I am not going anywhere and I am not healing.

I was sitting at a café with a little warmth as I touch my cup. I try to re-associate the things from my past into something better, like a concluding remark on my recovery. I really need to do this often, it gives me peace. Moments after, my peace was bothered by a couple blasting out their rants on each other just outside the glass beside me. I can see them both—beauty is all that they have. "Did you like her because she's prettier than me? Oh no, I don't need answers anymore. We should break up!" Ah yes, the everlasting greed for beauty. Another victim, isn't it. I was one but not anymore. I learned my lesson. Though one question, is it the beauty that is the threat to any relationship that exists or it is the greed, the hoarding of an individual to hold as much beauty as he can in his hands?

Beauty is indeed poisonous—disruptive. Skin deep, we're just human. Remove our skin and we won't be attractive anymore. Why chase something that can significantly remove a chain of stability? Beauty is disruptive—eugenics. Beauty has caused wars. Laughable it might seem but isn't it the truth? Can we all be human just for a second? Just in the name of restoring peace. The couple should be having the time of their lives sipping on their orders, tasting each other's mouth at the loo afterwards but here they are, passing secrets they withheld against each other. I am trying my best not to care about their moment but actually I am indulging in it. Sometimes, a little hint of eavesdropping can spice up life. Sometimes it can teach you life lessons.

The air became chillier as the last drop of green tea my tongue. Amihan is still better than airconditioned room. I counted all the paper bags I have just to make sure I am not forgetting anything. I felt like floating after I left that dreary room weeks ago. It's a battle between my body saying I'm living senselessly and my soul returning after it found its worth.

Nearby there's a park where I decided to stay. It's where I sit most of my days in the university before I come back to my apartment unit. It isn't airconditioned yet you'll feel that in the wide sunken field, the people around there are pretty much alike—in a sense of being genuine in their emotions. I mean it's Sunday, family day, family gatherings and some are just having activities with their friends.

Old school. New grasses. New faces. I wonder what they're having. I hope their happiness isn't just a façade. I can see beauty and I feel human about it. I hope they're really happy.

Most of my days I'm just sitting at a root, observing people. Are they also a victim of beauty like myself? Did they fall to the endless pitfall of society's expectation of you being you and you being not the person they want you to be? Oh how I wish I never experienced chasing such beauty that gave me a playlist of haunting voices I'm the only one who can hear. It's the afterlife of chasing only beauty—and that's misery itself.

Maybe beauty itself is also a victim, just like me. Beauty, in itself, I can daresay, is a victim of greed. It's like a common flower, just like all of us, but this one [calling himself a god of everything] put it in a box, adored with shimmer. He was no God but decided to set a standard and declared "everyone should look like this". So everyone decided to hoard and finally ruin the ecosystem where the common flowers are planted. Beauty, as redefined by greed, ruined the coexistence of happy flowers, grasses, and butterflies. To the one who invented such cruelty in human's life, maybe he's thinking "It's the only thing that matters and for one to have a purpose is they should offer themselves to be an object of adoration." Will you truly be happy if you're just adored? What if one day your skin wrinkled? It's too bad to think that the skin is the only one holding their power—it's worthless, honestly. You want to move but they don't want you to. You want to speak because that's what humans do BUT for them, you're just an object of their hunger, the subject of their endless thirst.

For me to have a new life isn't to run away from the path I walked on before. It's to revisit the memories if there are changes to my perception. I went to a café where I usually get my latte. My reaction remained the same. The baristas kept the ingredients so well that it woke up my senses. I went here, to this field, and decided to stay for a while like I used to. Before, I observe people while waiting for my date to come, but now it's different. It might be different but it's not in a horrible tone. I am only waiting for myself and myself alone. It's me saving myself from the boredom I am getting into. Isn't fun to realize that the beauty I am looking to is just around me. It isn't on one person but the experience of feeling of being human around me.

Another thing I want to try is the staple munchies in this area. Same old flavour to taste—cheese sherbet. I had grown to the thing I used to. Nostalgia is all that I can feel.

Beautiful people have humiliated me for being human I am. I can say I'm lucky I got rid of them and their idealistic views. As of now, I can taste life again. If I'm not alive right now, I won't be able to taste the cheese sherbet—the sense of belongingness and feeling grounded.

Two weeks after I was discharged, not that much happened, though I know a lot of things made sense now. I did change and I will still do it. Repeated metamorphosis shouldn't sound as scary as it sounds for people are bound to change or if not, it's only death that will. As of now, I am a new work in progress, for the nth time. Not bad! It's a good thing that people change when they can. I did and I will still do it.

Why the change? It's another chapter. For me, it's a new lifetime. My body is already rotting from the dying flesh the society offered me. I skinned myself. Surprisingly, my skin was like a newborn's—soft and innocent. It exists for love and not hunt for the greed-produced beauty. We should exist to be giving—to be compassion not just because we want that "beautiful" or "handsome" someone to fall for us but rather we connect with humans because that's how we will truly feel alive. Dry skin chapped over time. New skin emanated. Another color will show up. New breath to give and new song to hum.

I know at this moment, I'm reborn... again.