tempting, but no!

it's been six, seven years since i last saw you.

i was excited late last year while i was preparing to move back home when i heard about your plan to drop by manille and see me. it made all the agonies of my everyday life seemed ordinary, mundane, nothing to sweat about. at the end of each day, when i am about to go to bed, all i think about is seeing you again. after all these  years.

how do you look like now?

are you still the young boy with braces (you got them too late)?

who easily gets mad, irritated and flustered (especially when drunk)?

the one boy whose dream is to be able to buy a bicycle so he can travel the whole world on wheels. (how are you gonna do that remains a mystery until now. back then, i didn't bother to ask because you are a person with a plan. unlike me. you may look innocent, you may laugh at my silliest jokes, but  you are no ordinary boy of nineteen. in fact, you seem old for your age. older than i was then (i was what, thirty six?). you have a roadmap to where you want to go and you know exactly how to get there. in contrast, i am a driftwood. floating on a river of lies and deception, going where the wind wants me to be.)

do you still remember how you marvel at some strange food that we used to order at a restaurant? how you wept when i gave you one of the best "gifts" that you said  you've ever received? you used to call me your angel for being there at the time when you needed me most.

but you are my angel. you rescued me from the depths of misery. you came just as i was ready to call it quits, throw in the towel and weep at a corner. cut my losses.

you came when everything seemed old and trite. when everyone seemed false and deceptive.

you made everything old new again. cliche but true.

like a vampire who has awakened after a hundred years in solitude, you helped me connect with the world again -- i opened my eyes to the magic of our daily existence; you helped me understand the simple truth about life. that it's a constant.....i forgot the word.

%%%%%

but you shattered everything. you broke the last thread of hope that i have been clinging to. of course it's wrong for me to bet all my hopes on you. to draw happiness from you (or from someone else for that matter. it's the basic lesson in happiness 101 -- never derive your happiness from another person, because you are bound to fail. i failed that class, by the way. i never cared for happiness anyway. it's all hype. overrated. i have always been miserable and i thrive on misery.)

&&&&&&

so the next time you see me, please don't say "hi." anymore.

because by then i would have erased you completely out of my life (or what ever is left of it).

after this, i will start a blank page.

get on with my life.

i have spent too many years on you, it's time to exorcise your ghost.

completely.

%%%%%%

six, seven years is too long for being a fool.

my poor, old, weary heart can only take so much.

&&&&&&

but in the meantime, while i am still gathering the pieces of my shattered ego (not heart, mind you), here is a song for you: