*clicks*

*hissing sound*

Hello? Test. Test.

*clicks*

*dead silent sound*

*hissing sound*

Hello.

I don’t have a pen. That’s why I’m recording this.

Hi. My name is Alexis. And. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if anyone would pick it up. I’m 22 years old. No, not really. That’s bullshit. I don’t know how old I really am. With my body versus my mind, I am torn between subjecting my facts to what I know versus what I can see. And I don’t think I’m anywhere near that age at all.

*sighs*

I’m tired. Of being jaded. I don’t think I’d ever fall in love again. I don’t think I’d want to fall in love AGAIN. I want to stay with what I have. I want to stay in love with what I have. I have seen broken hearts too much. I have seen wants and likes and dislikes and compatibilities, and it’s just so fucking hard to settle sometimes that finally, I think I see something I’d want to stay with for a long time. It’s not perfect, and that’s the irony of it. It’s perfect that it’s not perfect. Because if it were, then it might not be real. Real is when you try to love someone despite the improbabilities of making it last but it does because you know you want it so bad to last the universe does it for you. No kismet, no happy ever afters. Well, there’s hope, and struggle, and happy mostly and a few angers in between. But I want to stay with her. She makes me WANT to stay with her. And I really think that’s a good thing.

*long pause*

You know, once I thought you were the one. Yeah, you. You proved to me that soul mates never exist. I mean, they probably do. But you didn’t for me. You kind of broke it off. But thinking about it, maybe you were, but just in a way we never thought it would be. Counted a few broken lifetimes and now you have what I had before but you were too happy to notice. Now I’m happy but I’m still noticing, and I can’t say I don’t care but we’ve been friends for such a long time, sometimes it’s hard not to care even if I’m mostly apathetic. But that’s that.

*sniffs*

Now you. No, not the other one. The other you. The new you.

You scare the hell out of me.

You scare the hell out of me because you went from a dream to unreal to semi real to a dream all over again, but this time, a dream to aspire with, not a dream to simply moon about. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? When you go with the term “with.” God, sometimes I still think this is not happening, but I feel overwhelmed how we manage to make it work. And I truthfully like it. But honestly? I’m scared. I’m so scared—no, I’m fucking scared shitless—to be in something so real again. To be looking at futures this early when we talk about things and I can’t help but have a private smile and wish you won’t stop talking about it even if I may seem distant sometimes because I just pretend but I love it when you factor me in on everything. I just wanted you, period. You wanted me for a long time, and that’s scaring me sometimes. Because hope is never quite the same after you dropped it from 30 floors down.

I…

I don’t want to go.

And…I know. Sometimes, I run.

But…I’m just worried I might fuck it up if I do, so I let things cool down a bit and my head won’t be spinning with I told you so phrases on eternal repeat. Like, “I told you, Alexis, you shouldn’t have gone with a dream.” Or, “I told you, Lex, she’ll wake up soon.” Or, “Lex, she’ll give up one day.” Or “Lex, Lex, Lex, you pathetic little girl, stop thinking she’ll be your new world. It’s a breakable aspiration.”

But that’s the problem. You always manage to break those negatives. And sometimes, saying “forever” doesn’t seem too bad.

*coughs*

God, it’s so fucking cold out here. It’s been raining again, and it’s such a bad fucked up feeling being all cooped up in here without the warmth of you.

*cricket sounds*

*gulping sounds*

You know, sometimes I just don’t know how to deal with some news. I’m sorry.

*more gulping sounds*

But I think , I just don’t know how to really say “I’m so lucky” better other than ranting like this out in the open with an old recorder. Ugh. I have to go in. It’s really freezing. I’m just ranting this one time. I don’t know if I need to listen to this again, I hate listening to my own voice. So I’ll throw this tape in to the creek and you won’t have to know.

*pause*

Yeah. I’ll just tell you I love you in the morning. You won’t have to know.

*click*

“You’re a bitch.”

I hung my head low. I don’t really know how to really put it.

“ I know.”

She looked at me exasperatedly, as if repeating a useless fact. I tried looking somewhere else, some stone that’s gone astray in the pavement, but I felt much more foolish. Here I was, in my boxers, wearing a gray shirt and my favourite plaid long sleeves. I was a carryover of the whole day’s toll. I was wasted without effort. And I was standing in front of her and getting a beating.

“You’re snarky, you’re selfish, and you’re horribly painful with your mood swings. You’re a jerk. You’re very grumpy. You’re very unpredictable. You want me to see you, and here I am, and you wouldn’t do anything other than stare at me or just stay silent. You wouldn’t even tell me what’s wrong. And I’m here, wondering why I’m here when you’re being an ass. Just. What. The. Hell. Do. You. Want. Me. To. Do?!” She folded her arms on her chest, and I stood there, just stood there. There’s nothing else I could do.

“Stay.”

She looked at me like I just said the most inapplicable word there is.

“What?”

I took a deep breath.

“One day. One day I’ll realize that I’m not that special. That the world would not put up with me and my shortcomings. That I’m foolish beyond reason. But I’m this. And a whole lot of other bad and weird things. I’m moody and bitchy and I would demand of things that I wouldn’t even know why I would and why I did. But please. I’m not…asking you to put up with it. I’m asking you to…stay.”

She softened a bit. But there was defensiveness.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Putting up with it? And staying?”

“No. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay with me.”

“That’s awfully hard, you know.”

“I know.”

She stayed silent. I think at this point, she was simply tired of arguing. We don’t argue much. I think that’s what set it off.

“Please.”

“Alexis, if you want me to stay, give me a reason to. Because this,” she motioned to an unseen lot of emotional baggage “is just hard to understand.”

“I know.” I bit on my lip. How do I make her understand? “But these are my troubles. I’m not asking you to be a part of them. I just…want you to stay.”

“But don’t you want me to help you with that? Every time I’m here you bitch about things in a detached manner but you don’t tell me things. Make me a part of your world, Alexis. When I’m here, you just either bitch or you stare.”

“That’s the point.” I was desperate. “They…become meaningless and much more bearable when you’re around. You make things beautiful. You’re enough.”

And she looks at me, torn between wanting to sigh and bash my head. But she nods.

And that was enough.

February 29th
From the desk of Alexis

She has always had cautious eyes. On the times when she thinks nobody’s looking she still has a guarded look, not like as if anybody is posing to strike, but as if someone might hurt her. That’s the distinction, I suppose. While other people’s guarded looks are out of distance provided to help them cope, hers were more of a simple wary look, almost pleading without exactly voicing, please, don’t hurt me. I have had enough.

I have always been a slave of being misled in translating such facade from different people, but hers is by far the most interesting. While other people have obvious happiness or sadness, hers always had a tinge of sadness on both—a little unsure whether she’s allowed to be happy, a little hesitant whether she’s allowed to be sad. She was trained to observe. What she doesn’t know is that I’m noticing. And despite the soft blush on her face, the perfect lips, and the sharp eyes, even that precautious smile—all of them lead to only one hope for those who does translate accurately: that she finds that one person who does make her happy genuinely.

Sadly, despite all my perception and science of her, I wouldn’t be that character.

—–

In 1989 I would be found tying a thread on a balloon which I would try to fly across the clouds. It wasn’t vain, but it didn’t fly very high. I would recount that it was because I was planning to fly it like a kite, but was later on distracted when an airplane came transversely through my peripheral vision, and having a very short attention span, I would point out to the sky, and at such a young age, I had the ambition to fly to meet my grandmother who was then situated overseas. A brother’s friend would approach me and ask what I was pointing at, and we would both coo, bye, bye, airplane while waving at it. I resumed to flying the balloon, this time with the desire of making the balloon reach the gargantuan steel beast to bring to my grandma.

I would recount this same story to someone late this year after he asks me for the earliest childhood story I have. It came next after the question what was my passion, which was revised to become who was my passion.

It would take me some days to realize that it was not an extremely different question. That while I was a kid back in 1989 I would have the ardour to fly a plane to reach my grandmother, while today, in my twenties when I’m capable and older, I would sit and deny myself of running towards the person I would want to convince. And all it would take is one cab ride.

—–

Leap years were created by the scholars for the romantics (or irrational). You cannot deny yourself that fact.

See, it must have been foresight that, out of a human’s struggle to live foolishly and create an elaborate drama to forget, there would be one year which would spare you all the drama of remembering after maybe four years after, when someone has somehow—if not fully—healed. So if you create something that you would want to hurt you less, better have it experienced on a Leap year and wait for February 29th four years after—that way, you live and forget.

Isn’t it convenient? You grab a random romantic (or irrational) and make him pine over someone, weep his self silly, write poignant poetry and if skill allows it, create a song or an ambiguous film about the hurt, wrap it up in gold cellophane and couple him with unfounded moments—all in one day: February 29th. The key though is to ensure he would not repeat the same events so as not to prolong the drama, then, mark it as the one day memorial. The next year, he won’t be able to celebrate anything. Nor the year after that. It’s simple, it’s romantic (or irrational), it’s genius.

So, that being said, I’ll see you in four years.

(written sometime mid-Feb. I just didn’t get to post this)

One of the early memories of Nikolai that he couldn’t ever forget was back when he was about 6 years old. Then the youngest of all the brothers, he could say that he wasn’t exactly the favourite, but let’s say he normally got his way when pursued. It was in that reason that, in the middle of the year when his brothers are on spring break vacation, he took a leave from his school and stayed at home, feigning a reason of business matters–at least that was what his father came up with when the principal got a little cross, and was dubious about the two week pull out, but at 6, Nikolai knew his powers over his father, and most of them lay on incessant whining.

In those days, his brothers were all out of the house, and his mother was supposed to be on a trip, leaving the baby sitting to his father. He only heard that his mother was going to fix a few finances in Italy, and that his father stayed; it wasn’t something he ever bothered with in the first place. He simply was cooped up in his room, all his TV shows lined up; sometimes waiting for a call from one of his brothers telling him about their trips somewhere in the north.

In one of those nights, however, he found himself waking up a little hungry. He remembered passing up on dinner to get a couple more hours of sleep, to which his father didn’t mind. Let them grow taller, he always says. Gingerly, he crept downstairs and made his way into the dark, when he realized that there was a bit of light on, coming from the television in the downstairs family room. Curious as usual, he kept silent, thinking it might be his father watching one of his usual videos downstairs about naked women that he didn’t fully comprehend but left his father alone with, only to find an actual action happening on the sofa. It was only him and his father at home then, and young Nikolai would not understand privacy till the age of nine when his own mother found him masturbating in his room thankfully covered in sheets, but he was aware that he had to be quiet, and so he was till he got a full view of what he was about to see.

On the sofa was a masked woman, on all fours. His father was fully naked, and right there, Nikolai knew that they were having sex—something he learned from his brothers. But this woman who was covered by the semi darkness seemed unfamiliar, and kept moaning at every instance that his father thrust himself unto her. Almost mesmerized at this event, young Nikolai sat silently at the lowest part of the stairs, mute and watching the fascinating occurrence unfolding. He forgot that he was hungry, and knew instantly that this is something much more interesting than food. After all, the sight of his father pushing his penis on an unknown woman on their sofa was something that definitely topped his hunger.

But what bothered Nikolai, or at least a few years after when he looked back on it, was the fact that he knew his father was being unfaithful, screwing another woman on the very couch his parents have picked together—but he found it rather natural. Like an instinctive notion that was human nature. And as he watched them sweating and moaning, all he could really look at was this tattoo on the woman’s right hip, and other than that, everything seemed like a blur.

A few minutes passed and he finally got bored, and so he stood up and went back to his bedroom as quietly as he went down, and pulled the comforter to wrap him in full and went to sleep.

The day after that proved to be much more interesting for young Nikolai. He found that his mother was home; coming in that morning before he woke up, he surmised. He shared breakfast with her, and his father sat beside him reading the morning news like nothing happened the night before. It also struck him that he could look at his mother straight to her eyes and feel nothing, not even guilt for keeping a secret that he should have blurted out on the breakfast table. He felt that, at age six, it was a manly thing to do; if his father seemed okay by it, maybe he should be, too. He sweetly smiled at his mum like a little six year old boy should, and the event passed on like nothing has ever happened. Not even the fact that his mother came in close to when his father was fooling around—it did not help little Nikolai from feeling any guilt nor grudges at all.

All these changed, however, when after a few years, he received a phone call from one of his mother’s friends and gave him the guilt that he should have been carrying. After answering the phone, he went upstairs to call on his mother, to find her nearly naked after coming from the showers. Instantly his mother tried covering herself with a towel and told his son that he would be coming downstairs in a minute, and to tell the caller to wait on the line for a few more moments. He obliged, but not before he caught a glance at his mother’s hips—and there, he found, a tattoo that wasn’t there before. Immediately all that night’s recollections came flooding, and he felt himself redden, like being told of a secret that he wasn’t supposed to know. He ran all the way to his room leaving the caller hanging, and the whole time, he stared at the ceiling. Come dinner, he never came downstairs to eat.

He didn’t know exactly what to make of that sight. He understood, of course, that the woman his father was having sex with was his own mother. But it wasn’t this that troubled him—it was, the fact, that all these years he found it natural for his father to fool around, and when that thought was invalidated by the tattoo on his mother’s hips, he found himself not comprehending how his father could have feelings and lust over the same woman he has been with for more than 30 years and still have that same feeling renewed till they grew old. Nikolai never encountered any other instances of his father having any affairs, no; it somehow disappointed him. Years later his mother would tell him about the tattoo which she got after coming from Italy, and he would remember feigning surprise and interest, but he knew much more history than they really let on, and more guilt than he would ever let them know.

There was only one tender moment that Nikolai remembers having with a woman his whole life. Actually, it was really the most genuine moment he ever had with anybody outside his family, and it took him more than so many years to get over that simple small night which he has let his defences down, and nobody, except for Nikolai, knew.

Her name was Asher. She was a very slight girl who lived only with her sisters as her parents were overseas since she was twelve. She lived in a town far from where their school was, really, but due to tradition, she went to their high school and graduated there, the last in her family.

It was not love at first sight, Nikolai would claim, but in truth, Nikolai didn’t know it was love when he felt a small dip in the pit of his stomach when he saw Asher on the first day of classes with those white headphones on, a pink star in each of them. She wasn’t as gorgeous as some of the other girls, Nikolai noted, but there was something to her that stood out. And that was saying much as she was rather small, petite; with her long black hair covering much of her face. She had a very soft form of lips that would soon give troubles to his puberty stage; as if they weren’t really capable of a frown. At that time, she was mouthing the words to a song blasting on her headset, and Nikolai could make out the words:

“Did you realize, no one can see inside your view / Did you realize, for why this sight belongs to you”

It excited the hell out of him. A strange, delicate girl singing to Portishead! He was torn between approaching or giggling in his seat had the professor not asked them to settle down; but Asher was marked, that he knew.

There were a lot they shared together, in all the four years of high school. Outside the campus they would share smokes, swap LPs, and in their spare time, even make each other mix tapes of random bands that only them knew. MTV was common, and he always made a point to go to her house and watch TV with her, even slept over a couple of times. He learned that she was hard headed and rather strong with her personality; never backing down and always wanted to be treated as one of the boys in some ways; he got around to that by simply treating her as his best friend. But not once did Nikolai attempt to really court her. Asher was almost an idol, a perfect goddess for him; and though the fact that they virtually shared lives together and could not bear to be apart, he almost couldn’t imagine courting her in that sense; he still felt too boring and somehow…inadequate.

But there was an unspoken understanding between them, something unconfirmed but existing. And Nikolai was happy with that. It was Asher and him, and nothing else.

Until graduation came.

There was something in Asher’s eyes on the day that they were supposed to fit their togas. They were shifty, and Nikolai hated it; he couldn’t bear to see them troubled. Those eyes were very much adored, and it didn’t seem fitting that they were laced with worry; which was why he immediately knew something was wrong. I have something to tell you, Asher began, but they got cut off by the toga maker. They never got to talk that afternoon.

Nikolai knew. Somehow, he was born with this gut feeling of knowing when something was wrong, when someone wasn’t for him, when something was about to end. That night, he took his dad’s car out and went over to Asher’s, and they lay on the bed in silence watching an old film on. She was snuggled close, and although Asher hated being hugged, Nikolai pulled her close, and stayed close that way till the morning came. He kept kissing her temples every time, and he just wouldn’t let go—he hated it, he hated his all four years of not being able to do anything and he hated this imminent feeling of loss. And when he finally couldn’t help himself, after ensuring Asher was deep asleep, he cried on her temples.

The next day, she told him she was going to the US. She didn’t even attend the graduation rites anymore. And Nikolai had the worst face in the entire graduating batch.