Mac

I’ve been dreaming of home for three straight nights now. And not just home, it’s always in the town plaza right across our grandma’s house. The first one, I was dancing in the rain with my cousin Erika. We were in our underwear. The second, we were listening to this creepy guy doing lame-ass street magic. The third, there was some kind of street party. All the townspeople—everyone we knew—gathered at the town plaza dancing, doing what seemed like exercise stretches, sitting at the fountain, just walking about. Even Brent and Bianca (our old childhood friends and neighbors who are now in the States) were there.

But the weird thing about this last dream is the presence of a boy. I don’t recognize his face, but he was handsome. His name was Mac. He was sitting by the fountain with a bunch of kids, and we were passing by talking about something (I’ve forgotten what). Whatever it was, this seemed to have touched a nerve because he suddenly butted in with a really irritated voice. I don’t know if I’d do it in real life, but I answered back as curtly, and we were soon having a verbal faceoff. This ended with me walking away (with my escapist tendency with arguments) and him following behind. Apparently, he wasn’t finished arguing. I’m desperately trying to remember what the topic was, but all I can recall is that he said, “You don’t know because you’re not a teacher.”

I remember feeling appalled at the statement, and I looked at the kids he was with (one looked like my second cousin Ken). I told him, “We’re teachers too you know!” And now I forget who I was with during that time. Probably college friends. So we ended up laughing and walking toward the street where I grow up. We stopped at the store that one of my godmothers own. He suddenly put his arm around me, and I held his hand and felt warm and alive. We then went inside my godmother’s backyard to have a drink. Then his father arrived and joined us. He later told me that he was one of my dad’s closest friends. I don’t really remember what happened next, just that Mac and I stared at each other until I woke up.

And this morning, I really feel a little more alive. Probably because of that dream, because I got a good night’s rest (fever’s gone, thank God), because my mom texted me last night. Oh well, at least there is a reason for me to smile today.

It gets worse before it gets better

It gets worse before it gets better. This is what I tell myself every morning when I wake up finding two or three papules sprouting from a last one that just healed. It gets worse before it gets better. This is what I tell myself when I look into the mirror and feel absolutely repulsed by the person looking back. It gets worse before it gets better. This is what I tell myself every time I’m tempted to slip away into a daydream that I know will always be just a daydream.

It gets worse before it gets better.

Sometimes I wonder if my face is a reflection of my life. And maybe, in some weird, scientific fact connecting hormones to oil production to psychological stress, it probably is. All I know right now is that when I’m happy or disgustingly in love, my face is a ray of sunshine—all clear and pretty. Even though my skin is far from perfect, I don’t give it much thought because I’m somehow convinced by the proverbial “when you think you’re pretty, other people will too.” Usually, my life’s a breeze too when I feel beautiful. Though there are the occasional glitches and power outbreaks, I usually just sit and smile through the temporary stop and pray to God that everything will run smooth again. And when I’m lucky—which I usually am—they do.

But now. My life feels so broken, I’ve almost given up hope that anything could be done to repair it again. And maybe even then, it won’t run the same way. The question that’s been eating at me right now is—how did I get here? Why did I become so sad and so lonely?

Looking back, I guess part of it is because of the psychological damage that comes with the breakouts. I’m pretty big about looking pretty because I know I will never ever live through my life without proving to myself and others that what that stupid boy said in the movie theater wasn’t true. Yes, I may be shallow, but if you were told that you were extremely ugly and fat, wouldn’t you be? Wouldn’t you spend the rest of your life wondering if that is true? Wouldn’t you try everything to make yourself feel otherwise? And yes, that is exactly why I’m losing weight. That is exactly why my life has gone to a halt now that I’m breaking out like hell.
But I guess the bigger part of why I’m suddenly empty is because of love. And isn’t that always the reason? Always?

I should probably stop ranting since I’ve experienced “unreturned feelings” one too many times. But this . . . it’s the worst heartbreak yet. And I’m just so lucky that it had to happen at the same time as my downward spiral. Talk about pretty timing.

There are so many things I’m unsure about my life right now: Should I quit my job? Should I go home and rest for a year? Why am I not studying for that board exam? Am I going to top it? Am I going to even pass? Does anyone love me? Why doesn’t he love me? Do I look disgusting to other people? Am I sick? When will these zits go away? How may pounds have I lost? How many more pounds do I have to lose? Should I go back to school? And if I do, would I still be smart?

So many fucking questions. I wish I knew the answer to just one of them. Yet there is one thing I don’t doubt, this one thing I’m absolutely sure of: I love him. I fucking love him.

I want to hold on to those feelings, those warm tingles that remind me life is still beautiful. But even they have left me cold. And those same feelings that once made me so alive and gave me beautiful dreams that got me through awful days—they’ve turned into ugly, calloused hands violently wrapped around my neck, choking me to death under the illusion of gentleness. Yes, even the love I feel for him has turned ugly. Along with everything else in my life.

In retrospect, I rise above these emotional stupors eventually. After a good book or a warm hug from someone I miss or the smell of sunshine at home, these ugly feelings eventually just come off and I just find myself happy again. So far, this is all that gets me through these days—the thought that I’ll come around someday. My birthday is coming, and I want to be back when I turn twenty-one. I want to face another year in my life with a smile, with gratitude and appreciation and happiness. I want to feel alive again.

But until that day comes, I’ll just hold on to these words and to the people that still give meaning to my life. I’ll be waiting.

Rain

In my dream, I was dancing in the rain. Naked and shameless. I don’t know what that means, but something tells me it’s finally time to let go. I know I promised to wait until my birthday, but it’s getting harder every day. And there really is no point in hanging around anymore when I’m practically, absolutely sure that whatever it was that I felt existed between us was merely an illusion—one of the stories my mind desperately weaves when I’m feeling beautiful but lonely.

Now that I feel horrible—with my recent breakouts and this feelings of emptiness following me like a shadow—the story’s finally beginning to crumble, and I can see us for what we truly are: nothing. All those messages, those dates that aren’t even dates, those accidental touches, they’re now just part of the huge dagger that life thrusts into me further every waking day. They’re all just figments of happiness that are now long past. They are no longer real.

I can’t remember the last time I was happy. Sure, there are people who make me smile every day, but there is a special kind of happiness that only I myself can conjure. And I’m discovering that I can’t do that anymore. I’ve lost that magic, that innocence, that sight of something wonderful at the end of the day. I feel so lost, so empty, so away from myself. Is this what they call depression?

God knows how much I’ve been praying for something to make me alive again—music, poetry, a boy, anything. But I’m still slumped and useless, all my insecurities and self-reservations eating away with what’s left of my pride.

And maybe what I do need is the rain. A cleansing, some sort of renewal. Maybe I just need to get home desperately, to be in a place where there is sunshine and familiar faces and family. Maybe I just need to get away, for a while. To forget. To heal.

That Moment

We are swimming in this crowd of strangers, of faces I’m suddenly finding myself looking at as an excuse not to look at you. You walk quietly beside me, your arms swinging dangerously close to mine; and when the occasional person who wants to get past us unintentionally shoves you toward me, some of your fingers meet the skin of my hand, leaving a trail of a slight tingle, resembling a kiss.

I get a good enough reason to look at you. You give me one of your awkward smiles—eyes twinkling, teeth bare, cheeks sinking into that dimple where I’m sure you hide some of your secrets. I give out a small laugh, a constricted sound somewhere along annoyance, embarrassment, and frustration. It’s not one of my genuine laughs; it’s a laugh that I unconsciously make when I want to say something and decide against it.

We walk, but now I can’t take my eyes off your hands. Your hands are the most beautiful hands I’ve ever seen, and I keep coming up with excuses to touch them without you suspecting that I want to. I love your long fingers, and I often dream of them entangled in mine. They must be soft and strong and safe. That’s how you make me feel. Safe. I love your clean-cut fingernails too. They tell me so much about you as a boy—how different and how strange and how appealing you are to me. I’m probably drawn to your silence, to your almost hateful indifference, to the peace that emanates from your presence. But what I love, most of all, is the protrusion of veins that snake from the middle of your arm to the point where your fingers start. I’ve always had a thing for them—not exactly a fetish, but a longing or a wish or an out-of-this word fixation. They are what caught my attention. They are what makes me see you differently from anyone else. They are what makes you a man in my heart. They are one of the many reasons why I love you.

Silence. People say it’s sometimes comforting, but it never is between you and me. Everything else—the voices of people, the whoosh of paper bags, the electric creaking of escalators, the impatient brush of shoes against marble, the indistinct buzz of the outside traffic—is drowned out, sucked by the thin thread of space between the right sleeve of your black shirt and a disobedient strand of my hair. And now all I can really hear is the sound of your jeans when they collide when you walk, the gentle, seemingly calculated steps your slipper makes on the floor, the beep that the keypad of your cell phone produces when your fingers fastidiously press on them, the occasional huff of your breath. And suddenly, it looms visibly, so unmistakable, so clear. It’s the cruel distance between us.

“They’re not coming.”

You manage to say it matter-of-factly, but there is a tinge of disappointment in your voice. Maybe not a tinge. You’re probably very disappointed that you’re stuck with me, that our other friends couldn’t be with us. You probably don’t want some friend or acquaintance to see us together because you know they’ll assume we’re on a date. A date. Will you ever take me out on a real date?

But I guess I’m not really your type. Compared to other girls, I don’t really think I hold a candle in the physical department. That’s what kind of sucks though. You’re not exactly my type either, and here I am, devouring every nicety of every moment, desperately rummaging my brain for something cool to say, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear like a crazy, unbelievably obvious, lovesick teenager. But I guess that’s why I know my feelings for you are real. I don’t care anymore if I slip into one of those helpless romantic archetypes. I don’t care anymore if I’m sounding like those girls I hate. I don’t care anymore if you’re nothing like those boys in sappy young adult fiction novels that I secretly love. If it’s you—to hell with all those. I don’t care anymore.

“Okay, so do you want to go home?”

“Do you?”

Here you go again. Letting me decide. Always letting everyone else decide. Sometimes, I hate you for that. Why can’t you just tell me you want to go if you do? Why won’t you tell me you want to stay with me a little longer if you that’s what you want? Why aren’t you trying? At all?

“Not yet. Let’s walk for a little longer.”

I know that when “a little longer” has passed, it will have passed. So I swallow whatever holds me back and boldly take your arm in mine, pretending to drag you away from the crowd. I let the touch linger for a moment and then I pull away, knowing it makes you uncomfortable. You don’t seem to mind the contact, but I know you’ve probably analyzed it. I want you to analyze it. I want you desperately to know that every second of my existence right now—with you, with the consciousness that I could just lean a little close and feel you, with the possibility of so many wonderful things hanging between us, with the world rendered unfamiliar, with this feeling threatening to free the words my pride has worked so hard to contain—is that one prayer God has finally answered. This is the dream that I know will fleet away before I get the chance to wake up. This is the moment that will too soon pass. This is where time finally stops, long enough for the words to form themselves from the silence. This is where I will love you always. And this is where I know you will break my heart.

“Let’s go home.”