If I could just wake up tomorrow like none of this ever happened, if I could just wake up tomorrow and pretend I had not let myself start bleeding out again, crimson staining everything, the wounds will never heal at this rate if I keep cutting myself open.
At this point I do not know whether it is better for it to linger on in this half twilight state, having to wait until the sun has finally set completely, until the last stray glint of sunlight has flickered out, leaving the lonely darkness, or whether it would be better for it to be done completely, without a single glimmer of hope, a candle flame gutted and exstinguished, a star collapsing into itself as a black hole.
I long for that day when things like this would just slide off my back, I wouldn't even give it a single thought, I would just remain in the moment, and move on when I had to, because every second counts, however insignificant. I dreamt that for a moment at least, I was bulletproof, that slings and arrows would do me no harm, and that if love was to happen, it would catch me as I looked elsewhere, and then at that point fate would do what it would. You can't force it, it won't go, and while it is possible to calculate these things, to plan them like wars and corporate takeovers, with a mixture of foolishness and pride, I cannot convince myself of the truth.
In the end, what could I ever say to change your mind, to make you see me the way I need you to see me? Like all brief visions of happiness that have sprung into my life before, I don't what else to do but to let you fade into the mists of my memory, to let regret fill me up again, to wait patiently for one who will never return. My hands are tied with ropes of my own making. I can't even begin to undo them, and all I can remember to do, through these long lonely years, is to mourn, and hopefully forget, and even in this last thing I continue to fail.
On a night like this, I imagine that my only salvation lies in not being able to feel a thing. And then I would be able to watch life from the outside, behind the smoky glass, an audience of one for the endless play of other people's happiness.
Yes, I can feel my soul shrinking, leaking out of my eyes, and still, I've got a long way to go before I hit empty.
e-mail: aswang@earthlink.net
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