<memoirs of a heartbroken man>

[gareb]

---

edit: this blog is not mine.


An Introduction: Ending Credits

So, f**k, I've had my heart broken.

Into more shards than worth trying to put back together. And despite my friends telling me to move the f**k on, sometimes you just don't have a choice. So I stick around to pick-up the pieces, one shard at a time, cutting my fingers along their sharp edges; and wiping my blood on my favorite t-shirt. The cuts sting like a bitch, I confess, but no one else is going to pick up after me other than myself.

So I've sold out to this little wasteland that is livejournal to help me sort things out. A bit melodramatic, but it's the truth. To probably file the pieces back in order and realign what's left of my life. To maybe open a venue for others to lend me a hand. Or somehow convince myself that, yeah, other people give a shit about the crap I write. And yeah, the world isn't shit. But some people have gotten into thinking that I've gone on to exaggerate my little situation so…

P*****na ninyong lahat. Sana iwanan din kayo ng mga mahal niyo sa buhay.

So I guess I've taken the break-up pretty badly. Just as badly as Michael Jackson took his being black. Unfortunately, there isn't any cosmetic surgery to fix what I have. And even if there were, I don't think covering it all up with manufactured cellulite is going to do us any good. For her or me.

I'd like to claim that I'm on the highway to recovery. And I'd like to claim that I've learned a thing or two from the past two months of being without her. Unfortunately, being hung-up is like waiting out the ending credits of an amazing movie. Sitting down watching the names roll by, you secretly admit to yourself that you don't give an anal-f**k about who did what. Or who did who. But rather, you're just waiting to see if there's something else. If there's something more. A blooper. A trailer. A sequel. An anything.

And I guess I'm still waiting for my ending credits to finish.

Call this a social experiment. A cry for help. A rather deranged form of self-expression. I guess in a more pragmatic sense, I'm trying to find out what it's like to bring my personal life to the public field. To see how far a social setting imposes on an individual's own willingness to express himself. And what better way than to present this to all of you - my readers (as few, or as bored as you are) - than by imparting to you just how lonely, lonely can be.

I plan for this nook of the internet to be rather bemusing, if not irritatingly dramatic. To write about all the shit that you reassess when you're taken out on a limb by the woman you love -- and are, quite literally -- pushed the f**k off it. Ramblings about love and life, intimacy and publicity, friendships and significant others, marriage and polygamy, *** and sleep, white lies and brutal honesty, emotions and the lack of them. Not to sound puristic, but somewhere along the way, I think a lot of us pretty much forgot about where we stand on a lot of things.

I guess, we realize, we're all just waiting for our own ending credits to finish.

But the question is; why I would bother to pick up the pieces of something long broken? Because, my fine reader, I'd want to have it intact when I finally give it away to someone else...

http://livejournal.com/~x_boyfriend

[vanceloma]

nice writing ^__^

[gareb]

Episode I: Between Habits and Everything Else

So love is a habit.

Just as it were some nervous tick or some random form of compulsion. Like all things that grow on you ‘til it festers itself into your very being. It’s the last bar of chocolate when you’ve promised to stop at the first. It’s the ninth round of beer after you’ve said you’d stop at the third. It’s your last stick of Winston before you decide to quit yet again. It’s pictures of her you still keep in your drawer. It’s her five month old message you have yet to delete. It’s her name in your phonebook, at the top of the list. It’s the sound of her voice on the other end after you’ve said –

“Hindi ko na siya mahal.”

And after two months, I haven’t seemed to kick the habit that was her. As if my hands move in the sway that was her waist and weave the strands that were her hair. As if I, in some strange daze, still check my calendar for our dates and our evenings. I seem to be suffering from some sort of romantic withdrawal. Still walking in the shoes of some derided lover, some misplaced boyfriend. Still waking in a bed that had been quiet seclusion for so many dreams. The sort of withdrawal that ends in cold sweat in the early mornings, with the words --

“Pinaginipan ko lang pala.”

I still look for her company. And I miss how she’d tell me that she did too. So like nothing’s happened, I look to a name in my phonebook; and dial the number I hadn’t so quickly forgotten. And we talk like friends from distant countries. Catching up on who likes who, and whom we secretly had a crush on. And we end before the sunlight breaks along the windows of our room. Bidding each other farewell and good morning.

But this time without the i love you's. Only the goodbyes.

But unlike alcohol and cigarettes, chocolates and promises. This habit’s harder to kick. In love, you brace yourself to give everything. And everything takes you by force, and never by choice. You never notice how much it’s taken, and you never recount how much you’ve given. And before you know it, she is your whole day, and your whole life. Just as it is for the alcoholic. The addict. The heartbroken. And when she leaves you, well, everything is taken along with her.

I don’t want to make it seem that we had no lives independent of each other. She was the very person who made me realize that it was healthier to be in love, have each other and still have ourselves. But love is a habit, it seems. Nobody concedes to a habit, it just happens. It cannot be helped if attachment becomes an issue.

So I’ve been told that’s it’s wrong to give so ****ing much. But if love really meant everything, would you expect yourself to give anything less?

Memoirs of a Single-Man

[anniepetilla]

er--im not very sure whether the purpose for this post is to gather comments on the writing, or to get some advice so...er....i dont want to step on too many toes here....

this piece sounds so familiar, but the writer still succeeded in making it sound (to me) as if i was reading the first heartbreak epistle ever.

im devastated struck speechless by the sheer loneliness in the lines. Its reeking with it. Its bitter with it. Its an emotional bloodletting on electronic screen.

It may be redundant to say...I feel for you.

[gareb]

anniepetilla: it goes on. to date there have been XVIII chapters to this sordid tale of a harrowing heartbreak.

with quite a number of interludes too. too bad they are hidden entries.

you should visit his site. im posting some some of his entries... some of the nicer (translate = sadder) ones.

[gareb]

Episode II: Snowflakes Falling Over Quiapo

Last night, I dreamt of snowflakes falling over Quiapo.

It was the strangest thing. Snowflakes. Falling over and all around the crowds and jeeps of a mid-afternoon summer. The snow fell slowly at first, then quickly blanketed the entire city with white sheets of oneiric ice. I stretched out my hands to catch a snowflake. But-

-it’s only human to dream.

And I sometimes catch myself dreaming about other things. The strangest, most beautiful things. As if sleep were a sort of delirium, and dreams an onset of uncontrollable hallucination. Watching the snow fall on Quiapo, I realize how some things can only be left in the hours past bedtime. And if taken anywhere else, a dream would suffocate under the weight of reality.

I dream about her every now and then, I admit. Not as often as before, but mostly during the evenings that remind me of how much I loved her. And if I had a choice, I would’ve rather dreamt of something or someone else. Of riding on the backs of dragonflies over Edsa. Skimming rocks over the Atlantic on the fins of dolphins. Or of another girl, who with one word, could make everything okay. I would much rather dream of Quiapo, with my hands outstretched to catch the falling snowflakes. But choices are as rare in sleep as they are in the waking world.

In one of my dreams we were looking out into the street waiting for a jeep. We waited alongside each other, my hand five and a half inches away from hers. But the silence made her seem farther. So much farther.

“I’m sorry,” she suddenly tells me, with the sincerity that bit into my chest. And she looks to me. And I can only look back.

I smile.

And she kisses me on the lips.

They say dreams are the experiences that have refused to leave you, imbedding themselves in the back-alleys of your subconscious. They are the experiences that you refuse to remember, but quite sadly, refuse to forget. And so you do not discard them completely, no; but bury them somewhere in the backyard of your mind. Atop all the other days, weeks, months, that you would’ve much rather forgotten.

I would much rather forget her, but at the same time, I admit that I do not. And so maybe I cling to the dreams of her because that is all I have left. And if maybe I had lost her under the weight of reality, I would still keep her in the strangeness of my dreams.

It is only human, after all.

And for the impossible things that we all dream, maybe tonight I will dream of us looking out into the street. But five and a half inches away. Waiting for our jeep. And maybe we’ll see snowflakes fall over Quiapo.



http://livejournal.com/~x_boyfriend

[gareb]

Episode III: On Line Breaks, Dramatic Pauses and Semicolons

I told her that I loved her.

And one morning, she told me that I said it far too often. It was the truth, I knew, but I could say no less. As if at the time – at any time – it seemed like the only thing to say. But she quickly ran me through the dangers of how sincerities turn routine, and how words lose their meaning. And how, in only so many words, she explained –

It’s all the same…

Maybe our days together began to mimic the tired motions of a worn dance. And having lost its grace in the repetition, practice no longer made perfect. Then something that had been so romantically spontaneous, I realized, was in danger of suffering to be so uninterestingly tedious. So complacently stale.

You don’t have to tell me all the time, she said.

And maybe I hugged her too often, and kissed her too much. And on the evenings when she would drift farther than my arms could reach, I felt like an appointment she had to keep. An obligation she had to meet. I had become, what she had explained to be –

All the same.

I loved her, I admit, and that was the truth, but I guess even the truth tends to draw dust. So one learns that the only way to love as much as you want, is ironically, to love less than you need. I found myself telling her much less than I had wanted, and as the months passed, even less than that. Then ‘I loves yous’ were quickly replaced with ‘I miss yous’ then ‘Just take cares’. And soon enough, my words had taken up a kind of code, decipherable only through the peculiarity of my line breaks, dramatic pauses and semicolons.

How was your day, I would ask. I still love you, I would mean. She was never one to tell me that she felt the same way, and maybe I told her so often in hopes of trying to make up for the both of us – or try to convince myself that she still did too. And as my words were quickly shelved into the archives of my mind, I began to hope that silence was indeed much louder than any phrase.

I loved her to the point of breaking, and now I am as broken as this heart I cannot bring myself to give to anyone else. I still spend most of my early mornings wondering why she had left me, and looking back, it seems it was because I had loved her too much.

They say it takes two to tango. And though she had grown tired of the same old steps, I admit that I could’ve danced with her ‘til my legs caved in. But in the end, I found myself alone on the dance floor, still waiting for her to take my hand.

I love you, I told her. And I guess she got her way in the end, never having to hear me say those words again.



http://livejournal.com/~x_boyfriend

[balut_man]

hah! found you.

[gareb]

Episode IV: Counting

It’s been three months and six days.

I’d give the exact hour, but I fear that I’ve already admitted too much. I’ve realized, weeks ago, that I’ve so systematically counted the days that I’ve been without her, but have so easily let slip the number of days I had been with her. It’s an irony I’ve never gotten past. And maybe, if I had known that forever were but a lie I had made myself believe, I would’ve tried harder on my arithmetic.

I’m not one for numbers, you see. And for the longest time, I remember, she did the counting for me.

“It’s been six months,” she told me once, not surprised that I didn’t remember.

She knew me too well. Half-a-year, I thought, and it seemed like only yesterday. Then again, at the same time, it seemed like I had loved her for much longer. So much longer. But she would kiss me, and thank me for putting up with her. But in reality, I was never putting up with anything. I loved her, and I still do, and you never put up with who you love.

She was proud of our time together. And I guess, looking back on it now, as short as that turned out to be – I’m thankful for that much at least. We weren’t one to have a formal anniversary, though I don’t think we were together long enough to even merit an informal one. And if she hadn’t told me that it had been nine months, before she left me, I would never have known.

Nine months, I thought. Though it would all depend on where you started counting… Was it May? June? December? Probably less. Maybe more. And in between putting my fingers to my temples, I remember our friends telling us that we were actually two years in the making.

Nine months is not a very long time I admit, and I do confess to a certain shame in comparison to some other affairs. But despite our short-lived relationship, I do admit to having loved her very much. And it hurts to think that a good number of you – my livejournal peers – have grown to dislike her.

I have grown bitter in the three months and six days that have passed, that much I can admit. And looking back at how things have turned out to be, I cannot, in good conscience, say that she is to blame for everything. If she was indeed happy with me, she would’ve never left. And maybe if I had spent more time to understand her, to show her that I loved her, in the way that she would notice, then maybe I would be writing, instead, of the many reasons why I love her.

There are things that I regret, just as there are things that she does too.

“If I could take it all back, I would. Dear God, I would,” she told me once, in between teardrops. “I’m sorry.”

In the end, you realize that counting doesn’t matter much. Whether you loved her for a few days, a few months, or a few years, it is in the way we love that makes the counting worth something, if not anything. Love cannot be counted, it seems, and sometimes its very meaning is lost in the trivialities of our own arithmetic.

It was a short nine months, I sadly admit. A short nine months that I wish had been longer. But those were nine months I would only trade for nothing less, than another nine months with no one else but her.

http://x-boyfriend.livejournal.com

[gareb]

Episode V: Half-Meant Advice in Drunken Conversation

“There’s a difference between making love and straight-up f**king,” a friend tells me in between shots of tequila. “Porn is f**king.”

“So what’s making love?” I ask.

“Well. Let’s just say porn is f***ing.”

And maybe it could really be that simple. Maybe all I really need is a good f**k. A few hours in someone else’s bedroom, underneath someone else’s sheets, my fingers on someone else’s skin. Someone else, whom in more ways than one, would allow me but the moment to forget – without any strings attached.

It’s an idea easily dismissed with all the other half-meant advice in drunken conversation. But sometimes alcohol has a way of adding clarity to an already slurred mind. In this case, however, a slurred heart.

“Sex lang yan,” a friend advised, sharing his no-frills, cure-all to every heartbreak.

And it could really be just that simple. A good f**k. Complete with all the theatrics – hands gripped on the bed sheets, sweat along her back, and the neighbors calling from across the street telling us to keep it the f**k down. And that’s exactly what we’d be doing. Keeping the f**k down.

In looking for emotional band-aids, maybe I’ve been looking in all the wrong places.

“Baka kasi mali yung tinitignan mo,” quips my sympathetic friend, “Medyo below the waist naman.”

I’ve never considered myself a conservative individual – since, in everyday conversation, I’ve assimilated the habit of using f**k in every other sentence. It might actually do myself some justice if I’d go out and do some actual f**king. But then --

The evenings are the most difficult to endure, and maybe that’s when I need it the most. During the hours past ten o’ clock, finding myself home earlier than usual, I can’t help but admit to myself how big my bed is. My two pillows space themselves like quarrelling bedmates. And the bed sheets remind me of a certain loneliness that I’ve confessed to be far too familiar with.

The nights are longer than usual, and it is during the later hours that I miss her the most. Or maybe it’s the passion I miss. Her touch. My fingers crossing the length of her legs. Her lips. The scent of her neck as I run my hands along the small of her back. Her hair. Her warm hands on my chest. And how, I so painfully believe, she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

Then maybe a good f**k isn’t all I really need.

In the end, you realize, it’s not the ***. It’s someone. Anyone. To keep you company.


http://x-boyfriend.livejournal.com