caffeinedrunk

[caffeinedrunk]

"dense": 1/7/22

i told myself that I wouldn't write anything. That, I'd focus on something else first. But it calls. I don't know if it's the pressure I get from scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. My writer friends and acquaintances writing away on their posts with my mind comparing: how can they write in such a sophisticated manner while you sound like dog water? I can't write for ... anything. For art. If I said art is nothing... that'd be so fucking stupid. But here I am, a voice telling me that when a boat is shipping, in the end, the poet is the one sacrificed first. Because how useless-

But ... we're living in a society, not on a sinking boat. But we are still. Sinking, I mean. We're drowning in ourselves, in our nonchalance of everyday, in our non-movement, in our adventures to the next fanciest restaurant, in our competitiveness driven by our need to do things.

Why do I want to look pretty? Aren't I already pretty?

Why do I say things I don't mean? Why do I not say things I mean? Why do I not know what I mean?

How is it easy to live in such ambiguity? Nobody wants to live alone but we hate--no, I hate everyone.

I said 'I' instead of 'we' because I don't want to drag you into this self-made quicksand.

But, to be honest, I want you to tell me that I'm not alone, that I'm just thinking a lot about this too much, that I'm not speaking the right thing when I say that I shouldn't speak.

I shouldn't. How could I care less? Will the people who stayed, who I love dearly, continue to be here with me? Or, will they leave?

Why does it always feel like I'm not seeing myself in my bareness, that I can't see what other people see? That I'm blind in some kind of way. Aren't we all blind?

I know that I'm a true being who makes mistakes, but at the same time, it's tiring to always fight against the current.

I'm drowning.

[caffeinedrunk]

"idk which platform to sneak my head in": 11/7/21

tbh, ... idk where to write anymore because none of them feel right. privileged are the writers who love writing w their favorite pen or laptop or notebook, whatever. i want my desk and space. i want my desk and space. i want that big window overlooking trees where squirrels are occasionally seen from branch to branch. i want to see the chubby brown birds that always sit in pairs on the window ledge of the adjacent room. i was privileged. im still privileged. i just don't have space. my space isn't mine. my space isn't mine, because someone takes over my life, and it's not my god. how do you make home in your own body when your eyes look forward and never inward?

[caffeinedrunk]

"i submitted a poem and got a prize but i never received it": 10.14.21

I went out of my way to do something during a creative frenzy I had months ago. I ended up winning a prize of 50 dollars but I was never contacted, nor was I answered when I emailed them. To be honest, I don't really care about the monetary reward. I was already overjoyed when I was recognized for my poetry, especially during a time when I felt so low.

I don't want to sound stuck-up or conceited with my work, but I recall the moment I sent that poem and while I was writing it, I felt very much connected to what I was writing. I had this soft feeling in my gut that this piece I made had a chance of winning something, and I was right. That was awesome. It made me think that patience is very important while writing. I don't care anymore about how there are other writers who devote themselves to writing everyday. I'm not saying they suck; they're brilliant. But what I mean is that: I don't want to force myself upon a writing practice that made me feel constricted and unproductive. I'd rather do something that goes by my own pacing.

Probably this makes me lazy too as I'm lax now with my school requirements. But I always have been ever since I started college. I don't know anymore, lol.

I just want to escape to somewhere I don't know, but where I oddly belong. I achieved something but I don't feel anything anymore.

[caffeinedrunk]

"I joined a poetry challenge and i suck": 12/8/21

I find that through thinking--attempting to pull superficial philosophies from observing mundanity--for the purpose of writing poetry turns itself into an act of self-indulgence. That, here I am, able to express thoughts with periergia (means flowery words) for means of recognition and, hopefully in the future, financial stability. But isn't everything we do an act of self-indulgence? Some of what we do may be self-serving but we can also indulge ourselves through helping people because it makes us feel happy (or just not guilty).

That's why my ingenuity is my problem. How can I strike the right chord if my creative facilities (be it physical or mental) are limited? I need to strive but the hesitance of knowing that it may not even be what makes me happy.

But how will I know that if I hadn't tried getting there first?

But at what cost? Will I lose myself in the process of getting to the top of my capabilities?

Or am I simply overthinking?

Or am I just lacking sleep? I'm sleep deprived, and the more I'm alive thinking about death at night, the closer I get to it.

[caffeinedrunk]

"after reading bradbury": 21/7/21

The goal I started with was to finish Fahrenheit 451 so I can finally move onto reading other books.

For four years after being a people-pleaser, I was hit by the realization that I was not important or liked by everyone. People were alright with me but no one liked me enough to keep me in their life, and if they did, they used and discarded me like used tissue paper. I built reality on how people perceived me, and it was a pretty stuck up and insecure way of thinking. I somehow stopped knowing how it felt like to be pulled in my own world because I assumed I had to live out reality. Be normal. But that cost me so much. I lost myself, and I sabotaged the kindest things in my life that strung me together through the years of my existence. I was dragged in by what other people wanted and subjected myself to the shame of being weird, but it was exactly that weirdness that gave me happiness in the first place.

And now, at this very moment, I finished Ray Bradbury's book, and I felt like I could breathe again. I felt so immersed that it was as if I've never read a book before. Through the finely weaved story-telling and well-paced tension with treasurable lessons littered in all the right places, Bradbury lived up to the theme of Fahrenheit 451--not only in pages, but--through the multiple people who have read his book!

His book lit up a fire within me that did not burn me, but warmed me to the very core. Life is lived, knowing that we don't matter. We live things behind through our actions. That's how we would live on. A gardener is remembered through his touch, by what he's done, by the beauty he once maintained. It re-taught me about the inevitability of life going on beyond our death. There will be Dark Ages no matter what, but after the dark, there will always be Light. We pass down what's worth passing down (memories, lessons, prayers, and laughter) for other people to live, and through the generations--the thread that connects us to each and every person after us--we will continue to live on.

There is a life for us, regardless of what path we choose to take; we will live our lives doing what we're capable of doing and doing it with love. There is no true purpose, but there is worth in every action, every thought, and every second of life we breathe in--remembering that we got to get up and go to the next station.

For all we know, they might need us there.

#booklover #book #ray bradbury #fahrenheit 451 #just reflecting #self reflect #bookaholic #book review #read #book recommendations

[caffeinedrunk]

"blurt": 20/7/21

Incompetency is an inherent disease that people address or dismiss. It can be cured, but it sometimes proves impossible.

I have it. I have it--bad. It's terrible, really.

Watching other people already up the ladder, halfway there, even; incompetency tells me to quit. It's hard to shut off the part of me that tells me about how bad I am at learning. Okay, thank you! I'm bad at learning. I know that, and I will always know that.

I'm envious of the people who get things in a second. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to turn into a machine and automatically receive the information other people bring onto the table. I'd gobble it all up and send it straight to my stomach chamber. Swallow, churn, burn, and shit. Fuck this shit.

I'm so tired of blurting out incompetency. It's the first thing I've ever said when I was little. What was the first thing I said when I was birthed? Was it "Dad", "Mom"? No. It was, "Dadu."

Here's a reply to that: Nobody's perfect from the beginning.

Yeah, I know that, but how many people have perfected the art of Not-being-Imperfect-in-front-of-others? People could manage that and later at night beautifully break down as if it was the purest thing in the world. The Human Imperfection would be the title of that award-winning movie if ever those moments were compiled with a ribbon tied on top.

Do I mean to hate them? Despise them for being that way? No. No, I don't.

All this was because of one simple reason that everyone can sing along to:

I fucking hate myself; I want to fucking die.

A while ago, I blurted some stupid shit in front of someone stressed and high on academics. I admire them--all of them. I want to be like them. I've embarrassed myself. If I told them that I felt sorry for blurting out, they might say, "Lol, this girl is so bad at looking perfect." But no, nobody says that. Maybe some. But I don't think that someone would say that. It's only me.

This is all a projection.

My writing, I mean. Hello, welcome to my dump! Welcome to my mid-life rant about how I'm still learning how to re-learn.

How do I even begin? How do I start? I start by making mistakes, of course. Professionals start as amateurs. I'm one, but will I always be one? I can.

I might. But I don't want to, so I won't.

So here: Here is my Incompetency with a capital "I", staring at you right in the face. Here is my bare-baby-ass, with a stick-it-note saying, "I can wipe my own ass from now on." Here is me: An Imperfect Bitch from a Background Nobody Needs to Know About.

So have a good night, and stay alive.

[caffeinedrunk]

"i have to keep writing": 16/6/2021

All my friends are either struggling to pay for rent or chasing after the ambitions that they've never even thought twice about abandoning. I'll probably stick to a self-deprecating, edgy way of promoting myself--by downgrading myself--and calling myself a piece of shit who has these dreams shoved into a pipe. I don't know what pipe dreams mean but based on the lessons on Context Clues from primary school, it's easy to assume that it may mean something about romantic lies being withdrawn a little later, until all that's left is you and a bag of pipe dreams, sobbing, because you thought life was Disney. It kinda is--in the Walt-Disney-is-frozen-in-Disneyland kind of way. This must be a lame attempt at trying to get something written. Maybe I should go back to writing fanfiction.

[caffeinedrunk]

“some sad shit”: October 14, 2020 (archived)

TW: Suicide

I must’ve died by drowning myself in a lake in my past life, if there is one. My fear of cold water was something that I always had from when I was younger, always crying for a towel to wipe my eyes dry as my mom gave me baths in the middle of the afternoon.

It’d make so much sense: to drown, I mean. Other methods of suicide aren’t like drowning: you’re submerged into a matter you’re foreign to; you’re physically suffocating from all the problems and memories you wish to erase; you’re not on land, not dry, not there, where most people are. And that seems perfect.

Because I’d rather be somewhere else; I’d rather feel soaked from head to toe to feel suspended where no one can reach me.

I don’t want to quit though. 

(Original post did not have the last line.)

[caffeinedrunk]

“I used to dance on top of my desk”: January 14, 2021

They were nights like this. Nights like this where I was all by myself in the room. My parents weren’t there. Siblings too. Yayas had stopped cleaning. It was just me and the stereo. 

I loved using the machinery: the way it’d open its mouth to be fed a disk, and the way it closed while the disk spun inside. Then, music. 

The first song that played was always, “I Won’t Say (I’m in Love)” from the Disney movie, Hercules. And readily, I’d jump onto my desk, pushing aside some of the books, papers, and pens with my small feet to make some space for my raw performance. 

Then, the lyrics:

If there’s a price for rotten judgement, 

Then I guess I’ve already won--that. 

It was me, the song, and the stereo inside that room, and together we made a show. I’d pretend I was Megara and shift personalities once one of the Muses was singing. 

I’d dance on that desk with my view of the dusty walls and figurines on top of the high shelves; places that I could never see walking on the floor. I knew that I belonged there: away from everyone and experiencing the union of melody, wrapping its soul around my own wandering one. 

I was never lost while dancing on top of my desk. I was always easy to spot with nobody to spot me, but I felt present anyway. 

[caffeinedrunk]

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Loves Philosophy”

 The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever,

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle:--

Why not I with thine?

 /////

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:--

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

#love #love poetry #love poem #poetry #poemsaboutlove #poem #percy bysshe shelley #loves philosophy #philosophy #literature

[caffeinedrunk]

“An Old Friend”: November 26, 2020

It was during this time of the year that I met my friend whom I knew from high school, yet never spoken to. He’s a level higher than I am, and I’m a year older than he is. 

We had to cram for our finals, and I was at my lowest. It was hell to see how many papers I had to read, aware that the words would leave me before I even move on to the next paragraph on the same page. Reading hadn’t been the same ever since senior high school. Everything’s different, and I’m still the same mess I was since I left my home. 

The feeling was as if I woke up one day inside a body that I had decided to hit pause on, where the world has already gone by but the body remains. I wasn’t myself because I didn’t know who I was, and I had a hard time making sense of it all. I was floating in the middle of the ocean. I couldn’t feel the ocean floor, my legs dangled and paddled as if in mid-air. It hurt to breathe in the abundance of air that I once shared with my siblings in the same room, now I was alone in my condo at a high floor, far away from the ground. I hated being away from the ground. 

Until one day, he came along. I met him by chance with my friend. He looked like a mess, an athletic mess: sweaty, unkept hair barely held by his cap, thin jacket, and shorts. Who was he? 

He was the person who helped vacuumed the ocean to keep me from drowning.

He was the person who took in most of the air that I needed to breathe. 

He occupied the extra space I had. 

But in the end, he took too much. 

Too much of the ocean.

Too much of the air. 

Too much of the space. 

Till there was nothing left for me, and I was caged. No longer struggling, but no longer moving. 

So I cut him off. 

[caffeinedrunk]

“Pride”: November 21, 2020

It’s 2:41 AM. 

My mom’s off flying to Canada for work and I’m here with my dad and my sister. My oldest sister’s in Australia, stuck there with their closed borders. I often wonder whether she wishes to come back or stay there. I miss her so much. 

I try to imagine how it must be like if she were here in our small flat, among this clutter of all the things my mom, dad, youngest sibling, and I have spent lavishly on during this pandemic. Would she have burst out crying from time to time? Would I find her shaking in a curled ball, wishing that she would dissipate into thin air? Would she comfort me whenever I would look in the mirror and see that I was sometimes remnants of who I was before the pandemic--how much of a mess I was? 

I have sibling issues. I don’t know how other siblings work, but I know how mine does. Sometimes I find that the bonds that tie us together as family tend to find itself wrapped around our necks. And as a result, we’d find ourselves blaming all that could be explained by Freudian psychoanalysis on how we were raised (which is true to an extent): sibling rivalry, women’s lack. 

In my family, my dad’s the only male. Would that explain how sensitive I am yet how boyish I act? My sisters--I’m the middle child--are not very ladylike in manners most of the time, but they were blessed with the looks of a woman. Their builds are narrow and slender; although, they’d beg to differ, especially Youngest. 

I could recall my dad calling me his son, and I was proud of it. Why was I proud? Probably because I thought that I was special, not like my siblings, not like pretty girls. And that--that--is very narcissistic of me to think, yet I only realized it recently. I’m slow to process; I’m simply glad that I caught it and I’m aware of it now. Because the truth hurts, and the truth is: I hated myself, and so as a result I hated other people. In containing myself in isolation from other daughters, sisters, and girlfriends, I forgot that I’m a part of a society, and we’re all here to live. Support other girls, support yourself. Don’t think that I’m my own category. 

I stare at myself in the mirror to observe how the tilt of my head evokes the feminine qualities to my lips and my eyes. However, if I straighten myself and pose like an empowered woman I wish to be, I see a male resemblance to the set of my jaw and to the size of my wide shoulders. 

There’s nothing wrong with that. A body’s a body, and it’s simply a vessel. 

[caffeinedrunk]

“Woe and Boo-Hoo is Me”: November 18, 2020

It’s 1:49 in the morning. And I’m still awake, ever still the night owl. Since this is my first blog entry, I’ll begin by introducing myself. 

Hi, I’m Maejo. I have a unique name that people always hesitate upon pronouncing. Oftentimes I wonder how it feels to have a normal name; that in every first day of classes at the new school, the teacher wouldn’t have to furrow their eyebrows or take a second longer to attempt saying my nickname, let alone remembering it. The people with interesting names might relate. 

It’s late, and usually what this indicates is me ending up writing. Here, I am, satiating the expected, except that now I’m writing online instead of on paper. 

This experience, I find interesting; I write much more gracefully digitally, whereas on paper, I sound like a fool. Probably rambling about a family member or a crush or myself. This may be because this looks like a public space, and I, if you must know, am really self-conscious. 

Maybe in another mood, I’d even go as far as to call myself narcissistic or self-centered. I really love myself, you see. I love myself that I’d wrap a ribbon around my neck to look pretty, but the ribbon would have been soaked in poison. 

This is me introducing myself, so what better way to do it than mention right off the top of my head how I concede my love-hate relationship towards myself. 

In all honesty, who doesn’t care about how they look to other people? It’s that burden of having to look pleasant or modest in front of others, in exchange for respect, leniency, and approval. 

I had unfortunately gone off living most of my life being exactly that that I no longer know how I should act. 

My friends would cringe whenever I act differently or strange or dramatic. The only time that they’d actually give me feedback would be when I write in the caption: “Oops, sorry. I know I look like a mess-”. 

I’m in need of affirmation. It’s a toxic need. 

I don’t need it but I desire for it. 

Then, would it still be a need? If I desire something so much that without it that I’d mentally convulse and turn into the dreaded self that I wish to avoid; then, would that still be a desire? Or a need? 

“Words of Affirmation”, if you say it this way, it sounds familiar. That’s because it’s a love language. 

People say, “Don’t care about what anyone says! Don’t listen to them! Be your own you!” 

But I want those words of affirmation. What if it was my loved one who told me that I must adjust my style or give up a certain venture? Don’t you see the issue? 

Every single moment I brought a version of what I thought was my true self out there, it’d be shot down. My trust in myself and in my family? Poof, until I rebuild it back again. 

I need those words of affirmation. But I can’t pay someone for them, nor can I require someone to tell me I’m beautiful, my writing is good, or I’m enough 24/7. 

That’s not how it works, so now I try to change who I am. Adapting to the certain likes and preferences of that person, until when I’m finally away from them after a long time; I’d stop functioning as that human but wonder who I should be next. 

That’s my struggle in college. When I was finally left to live on my own in my small condominium, I had nobody with me. Therefore, I had no mask to function with. There was no fitting trial whatsoever. I was off to a big community, where I had to somehow fit in. But I had no idea what passions I had, what I was interested in doing. I had failed miserably at having a simple conversation over the things that I liked that from the person who’d chat endlessly and animatedly on anime or books, I turned into this other person who’d listen and just listen. Saying anything felt like I was walking on a minefield. However, that’s the only thing that I was only able to do: step on mines, ruin myself further and further. 

All the things that I had said to the people I met there in that university made me feel tinier than I already felt before I entered. I hated people as a result of hating myself. I wanted to be alone, but longed to belong.  

Was I too fragmented a person that nobody wanted to stick with me? Or is this another complaint coming from my narcissistic self? 

Well, I don’t know. And I’m tired. 

So good night.