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oh Julien, what am i if not layers of regrets and trepidations?
as youthful as i am, Julien, i might have to admit that God is real. this is my call for a ceasefire. man, did you know how much they would pay for the head of a liberalist like me? it still creeps me out how they talked about the universal value of kindness on a congregation, and then few hours later they're out and about committing homicides. but i do believe God is real Julien, how about that?
as a concept or as a subject of worship? as a companion, Julien. as someone to beg, someone to blame, someone to bow to, someone to betray. call me reductive and i'll shove it right back to your damn throat. he's a God, Julien. i am an ugly duckling, trying to make a sense out of this miserable life. repenting for the things i could have done, chances that i could have take, paths i could have choose. anxiously pacing back on forth as i wait for people to decide whether i am good enough (the answer is always a faint shake, if you're wondering). he's a God and i am the losing dog they kept betting on. how can i, out of all entities, be reductive?
i don't want to argue with your logic. if i am me through geography then so be it. i told you this is a ceasefire. a momentary truce between me and my deteriorating state of mind. this is the path that i resort into. so what about it? at least God doesn't question why i have teeth marks all over my wrist. or why i kept my hair short. or why i stared into an empty bottle of soap for hours. he'll burn me for some things that i have done and i'm fine with that. i know i deserve it. they said that there's no sin bigger than biting your own hand, especially without getting anything worthy out of the pain you have put yourself through. oh i am a sinner after all.
it's so peaceful, Julien. i am home wherever i am because God is with me. i spent my entire life gnawing on the bar of my enclosure and it's a bad comedy. this is the liberation you've been preaching about. it matters, Julien, it matters how we live our life. the things we put our hands into. when i put my hand on God, i knew that I crushed you, the way you had crushed me every time you came back home all drunk and bloody. my love, my darling. i'm not trying to make you to be anything. i'm just trying to save myself. isn't that what i ought to do? we were born to survive after all. in every calamities, in every fallen empire. there are prices to be paid.
i'm drifting now. like a hollow driftwood. wherever the wind takes me. i said hail to the King. God save us in the ways we cannot possibly fathom. through loneliness and desperation. through chains of bad news and rejected prayers. oh maybe i am, losing, Julien. maybe i am losing myself in this war, but i gained him so what more can i ask? who am i to say anything? Julien, Julien, Julien. what more can i say? when i lost myself and gained God, what more can i say?
what more can i say?
what more can i?
what more
you were talking about entropy on our way back home.
thermodynamics. Lorentz theory of chaos. Gibbs paradox. two pendulum in motion. randomness of a system. greater degree of disorder. how cunning of you to hide those childhood dreams under the pretentious notion of physics and philosophy?
in a lot of ways, i must admit that you are better than me. maybe it was the ten kilometer run you took alongside the coastal road every morning. maybe it was the amount of self-help books you own. maybe it was your aptitude in things i can't even begin to learn. maybe it was the fact that you don't need any medication to feel sane. maybe its simply just because you're older. and wiser. and well, just, better.
we grew up together watching landslides unfolds. covering and uncovering skeletons in its wake. i was born an observer and you were born a thinker. i watch how the ground swells and fell to the earth, you question the magnitude of its damage. i kept count of each screams we heard, your mind wanders to the possibility of survival. two divergent souls learning which ropes to climb. two birds getting caught by one stone. i wish i could've told us that the world doesn't end on that small alleyway. it doesn't end when you came home with blood on your arms. or when i went batshit crazy from hearing cameras clicking all over my head.
i have simplified too many things. was it to save a face or as a undeniable proof of my cowardness, i'm not quite sure. to lift our chin and moves forward was our sole mission in life. but with you being constantly pushed to the school fences, and me against the school bathroom stalls, i never thought that we'd ever found our way outside this walls. and yet we did. it took so much of us to be able to stand this tall. but we did. if you follow all the scars and burnt marks they had tore on our skin, everything traces back to that one night where we set up a a campfire, bodies pressed to each other as we giggled to the horror stories our dad was telling us. for true horror doesn't lay on those faceless monsters, it lives on the eyes of our teachers and friends.
our coming of age has come and gone now. i once stood in front of a reservoir. wondering if it was my calling to just jumped into the water. you always said that you preferred to drown, but the idea of cold water filling my lungs was almost too hard to bear. i couldn't do it. i wanted to say to you. a heart is a heavy burden and i don't think i can handle such amount of cosmic turmoil. i am not as strong as you, who swam to point nemo for shits and giggles. you who jumped from a moving shinkansen with your high school shirt undone. you whose ideas of fun always involves committing arson and public disturbance. so many hills to die on. you said and left all your baggage behind for me to unearth.
the power is out and it's stormy outside. you were still talking about entropy and i had to stop you. there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. i wanted to say that it wasn't our fault. i wanted to say that we did so great in this thing we called living. i wanted to use our mother tongue and said that i love you. so so much words cannot begin to describe themselves. oh, how we were just a kid. we were just kids in a burning house with nothing to shield us from the heat. and yet we learnt how to recover. we learnt how to love and forgive. we learnt how to be kind. we were just kids, oh Gods, we were just kids.
so many things are said in the unsaid. silence was our answer so i tap your shoulder. you'll be flying back up northeast in the morning. we still got time to look back on the old albums, reading through all the old letters, or watch our favorite TV shows. we still got time to listen to that records. we still got time if you want to go to the beach and race me up into the sunset. we still got time to visit that old abandoned house near the mountain. we still got time to hop on our bicycles and go to the river. we still got time to return to that day when we were seven and thirteen and nothing bad had happened to us. i lift up my face to see the resemblance of us, painted on your usual grin.
i'll take the beach.
the beach it is.
we were two intersecting lines, carrying the weight of our crossing spot.
or so i decided to describe us. drifting apart. going no contact. something that we pledged would never happen to us. we devoted our heart and soul for evergreen before it betrayed us in the form of lost letters and forgotten birthdays. oh but now i wonder whether we were holding onto devotion or just blind optimism. whether we were star-crossed lover or Dinlas' biggest moving target. well, it doesn't really matter anymore, does it?
we were in love. or so i finally realized on a random tuesday, digging into my takeout plate in despair. what we had was true. whether we betrayed God or was being betrayed by him, i knew that we once stood upon the goodness of love. i went over and over it and my answer stands the same. how did the first love that had the grandeur of Alfeheim's golden gate turns to dusty ruins? well that's another case worth dwelling for. but in the end, there are no odds. we rise and then we falter. this is the cycle of cataclysm. we were bound to be damned.
you made it clear that you want to see me happy. selfish bastard. and yet, i couldn't elude the power you have over me. you happen to be the moon to my tide, controlling my breath from afar. i'll go to Rome for you. i'll take my master. i'll nurture the Tabebuia argentea that you gave to my mother. i'll wash away the pain. i'll grow up and never let the time touches my soul, it will be as youthful as you preferred. i'll do anything. i'll take any pain. i'll burn down the world if you asked me to. so please, when that spring does come, do your side of the job. walk trough that door and return to me.
"i'm so proud of everything that you have achieved." was your promised line. mine was "thank you." and despite how much it understate the amount of happiness i have received from you, for what it's worth, i'll say it as it is. you don't know how grateful i am for being able to love as much as i did. to know and to be known. to touch and to be touched. to be a genuflecting ghost, kneeling on every altar to wish you a good night sleep. to carry the weight of our crossing line. to have you break my heart with your silence. this is my final, unspoken, devotion.
you'll have kids and Christmases. i'll have my passport and a heart to heal. i'll watch you settle while you watch me shine. that smile of yours was as haunting as it was. holding me down and telling me to run. the sun is going down in your eyes. oh i'm tearing up now. this is a prolonged tug of war and i'm losing. i'll accept it as our redemption. i'll pay the price of us. so kiss your wife and pass her my gratitude. so long my dove. so long. i can't believe i'm saying this but so long.
i'm closing the gate.
so long my darling.
my moon.
my brightest star.
i'll see you up in the north.
