Mark Dela Cruz | Muni-Muni

 Mark is someone I've known for more than a decade and it's a friendship that has span the transitions of platforms on the internet from Blogger, to Friendster, to MySpace, to Facebook and beyond. 

It is interesting though that as far as personal interactions I can remember not more than a dozen times when we were able to interact personally and its mostly at shows in San Pablo Laguna or when we shared the stage with his band Driveway to Driveway at Saguijo, AMOS Cafe and the short-lived Sazi's/Myric's in Malate with 2 of those venues already closing shop and Saguijo in an indefinite hiatus because of the pandemic I think personal interactions would be far from happening.

apologies

 I've been spending the past two weeks in bed.

The plague got me albeit, not fatally.

On the road to recovery, my heart aches.

Because it has also taken a toll on my loved ones.

Whose lives are on a sudden pause.

Whose lives I've put at risk.

I'm sorry.

despondence

 

I just got sick and I'm doing my best to isolate myself.

But I've already been living in isolation long before the pandemic lockdown.

The past few years have been my loneliest

And the pandemic, the omnipresence of social deterioration, and protractedness of it all

Just seems so overwhelming.

I can’t smile.

I’m numbed by cold inside and out.

I constantly feel alone in a world full of people

Cold and unfeeling

In a cold unfeeling world.

Too far gone

 It doesn't matter

Which side of the door

I find myself in

I'd always end up 

With a broken heart

All I got going

Is a song

In my head

Fuck this shit

 

Fuck the weekends

Fuck the holidays

Fuck vacation leaves

Fuck sleeping in

Fuck brunch

Fuck work from home

Fuck this life

Life Is Trying

Happiness is elusive

Love is bittersweet

Living in anxiety

Unable to sleep

Our existence

Fleeting moments

Passing fancies

Idiosyncrasies

living dead

Christmas is one of those seasons that make me depressed. In the recent five years, anxiety has been my general feeling towards the holidays.

Although a few years ago I would still write a Christmas reflection on how the timeless narrative finds meaning in the confusion of the times. I used to believe those pieces were my theological contributions to the triumphalism of the born again evangelical Christianity that I have distanced myself from a decade earlier.

To sum it up, in my biased opinion: I live a joyless existence.

The sadness magnified exponentially by the 9-month lockdown; the omnipresent threat of contracting COVID-19; the rampant killings; the vilification of activism; the looming fear that we would breach thresholds  that would lead us to runaway climate change.

But beyond that is the personal: the physical exhaustion; the low morale of me and my collective; the recent developments in my personal circumstances that are beyond my control; and finally the paradox of finding meaning and purpose in the precariousness of activism in this current political climate.

I see no hope in sight. No shining light beyond the horizon. I am living dead and living in hell. I wake up to dreamless sleep and open my eyes without any zest for life.

I don't want explanations nor comforting words saying that things would work out well or that there is cosmic meaning in pain and suffering.

Maybe there is--but as far as I'm concerned it is nowhere in sight.

loneliness

 Loneliness is realizing that 

You've been robbed of your youth

Robbed of something you can

No longer take back

If only patience had expiration dates

I live in a house that 

I don't want to go home to

Am I just exaggerating?

But I've lost all zest for life

No hero complex

Just grasping at straws

Imagining the illusive

Better days that

I can't enjoy

amor percussit propter tristitiam

 Sadness eats my chest

The palpitations and 

The feeling that

My heart would burst

You're gone but still there

We're over but you're still here

You're so near yet so far

And all I have are

The memories and tears

Sleepless nights

And Netflix binging 

Lonesome bike rides 

And guitar noodling

Wishing to catch back

That spark of lightning

Meals are the worst.

I can no longer force myself to small talk.

I can't sit through the deafening volume of the television.

I can't stand that I am faulted for finishing my meal before they finish it.

I can't stand the commentary on the deficiencies of the food on the table.

I can't stand how they don't wash their hands and how they take offense when they're reminded of that.

I can't stand how much food go to waste because of spillage and how they easily decide to throw things away.

I can't stand that I am no longer finding joy in simple things like meals.

I am too far gone.