139: congratulations

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This is hardly a congratulatory letter. I'm just saying that things at this stage have finished and we're all moving on. From now on, there are two stages you'll come to know: move ahead or linger in between. Move head with vigor and expectations, great ones. I'm not sure what may come for you, good or bad, but I can tell you what happens with the in-between. This is definitive.

Impressionist have captured it between sunset and sunrise, an ever changing board that finally settled right in between. The middle is where the heart hurts the most, where the pain is dragged across the floorboards leaving stains that appear unwashable by time. Always fixable but never fixed, to be unable to move forward but have nothing to turn back to. It's the impression failure has left upon you.

Muse 110: here comes Now

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Fear came in pairs of threes. She was always scared of the combination. Three words (I love you), three sentences (I'm sorry, There's something I need to tell you, and No.), three numbers (666) and then there was three letters (now). (Now) She heard that word last. It was so permanent and present, describing everything in the small time space that had just happened (now). 

"You're different (now)," he said. "It's only been a year since I last saw you, but you've grown so much." Plenty of things can happen in a year, she thought sarcastically. It's 365 days, 365 chances to hear words unexpected, three hundred sixty five moments to hope for the worse like this moment between us (now). "Things feel different (now)."

Now if only she could take those words and throw it back in time. Now wouldn't matter so much as later. Not so much as back then. She scratched her head and smoked her cigarette as he looked onward with distaste. The science of words and time - figuring out how would fix everything (now). 

Muse 101: Warwick

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The hotel stood on the corner of the street, at the edge of downtown between the ghetto and the department stores like an ironic icon of society. Dan was driving carefully then, and we were trying our best to get out of downtown without making eye contact with ragged strangers. Every two seconds, I found myself checking the locks, freezing when I could make out private conversations of pedestrians. I kept looking outside and we escaped the stories of Hilton, Macys and oversized parking lots. That's when we passed by the Warwick Hotel. It had long windows, balconies with long iron bars for a fence, semi-transparent window curtains, iconic columns and a lamp post at its entrance. I traced the silhouette, wishing I were inside. It was a perfect place to get lost and write. 

Muse 100: The Blame Game

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The night I died, I felt my eyes pushed to a close by a pair of warm hands and wanted to resist it. I didn't want the cold to take me, but death wasn't a choice. Then there was a sudden exhale and I knew I was no longer the same, like my body had breathed me out, birthed me out after all the pain I had endured. I came face to face with a light streaming through several doors, but the room itself was dark, only illuminated and hinted towards the outside world. I wandered towards the light, and found the doors locked. As I shook the handle, a voice echoed through the small room.

You cannot go outside.

I frowned. Who are you to tell me what do to? And I realized that this was God speaking, the same God that allowed evil, disasters, sickness, death and sorrow. I looked up, but he wasn't there. You would throw people out of your home because they won't chose you. I continued to search the ceiling, but he wasn't there, not even a voice box. If he was the light, then I could make do with the dark. Of course, he heard the voices in my head, and whispered in return. He did not have to whisper, his voice was strong and loud regardless. 

I am only giving you what you have chosen all along. 

A world without me, a world to stay as what you know, with me outside.

Muse 99: Stories We Tell

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I was eight when I heard my first ghost story. It was worse than riding a roller coaster, worse than sitting alone in the dark, wondering if my parents remembered where I was. My cousin sat across from me, in broad daylight, with a bowl of cereal in front of her, as she told me about the dumb little girl that didn't know what laid in the dark. As soon as the story ended, I began that little girl, wary of shadows, crying when the blackness crept towards me. I cuddled with my blankets and hid underneath its comfort until I forgot about the stories. But the stories were warnings. Soon I forgot all about the ghosts in the darkness and wanted to walk in, wanted to bring light where the shadows were. The stories were told too early, she should've told me later, because in those stories, the ghosts always win.

Muse 83: Heels

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This was her secret past time; he was her secret way to past time. He kept the key underneath the carpet, but she never touched it until he went away. Each day she stroked the ridged ends, wondering if she should take the risk, and when she did, the interior shocked her. The beautifully adorned room had the loveliest wallpaper pattern. One could spin and become dazed, lost in the maze as it lead her straight down to the bedroom. Curiousity wrecked her mind as she danced around the edges, afraid to see what was inside. Today was the day, the time, the day to discover what was inside. The dark was encroaching upon her, from behind and in front, and she looked in, gasping. She fled quickly, forgetting to lock the doors, to wipe away her mark, as she ran back into her house. Leaning against the safety of her door, she couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the bonded woman who had no feet to run.

Muse 77: Air City

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It was only mid-October. The skies were clear, no hint of dusty grey or murky yellow, and not a single cloud in sight. We stared at the sky while we rested on our backs, loving the way the sun didn't blind our eyes. You were beside me, so close and barely touching, and my neck craned to be close to your shoulder. I swear my neck was cramping up from wanting to rest against you. I wonder what you'll say if I decide to close my eyes and keep you close. You're always near, but never close enough, but then again, you're just enough. I don't need a sunrise or a sunset when I'm with you; just a sky and our hands barely as we point simultaneously at whatever passes. We're barely touching, the intensity caught in my chest - we're barely touching - and there's enough air between our hands to make build a city. 

Muse 66: Animal

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Someone once asked me, "If you could be any animal, what would you be?" And I thought about it carefully. I thought about how nice it would be to run wild free among the grass, let the green blades brush against my skin. Then again, it probably wouldn't feel the same against a coat of fur, maybe I wouldn't feel it at all. So I imagined myself soaring in the wind, living in the heights of the trees. I could touch the sky and kiss the sun without the fear of Icarus. Of every animal I could change into, I imagined myself small so that I could hide away from all the predators and anything that could hurt me. I would run fast, fly faster and hide all the better. And then suddenly, when I looked at the five fingers that could have just as easily been claws, I felt disappointed. What a dumb ass question, I realized. You could tell me of any animal that I wished to be, but I have always been the same. I'm still an animal.

Muse 62: Get Away

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Did you forget? We had a time where symbols weren't a concern. I was six when I had a birthday party with life-size beavers and Cinderella. My smiles were priceless and my laughter could not be scanned through the store's bar codes. I don't think I thought about $ then. I can't remember the exact date when home actually coming back and not retreating directly to my room. @ defines my address now, and you can find my faster that way. Perhaps you can call my #, but I rather have a TXT because my ears aren't too good. I don't hear unless I want to. I live in my technological treehouse made of bits and bytes, forgetting that once upon a time I had dreams for my hands to achieve.  

Muse 61: Sand Castles

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We used to make castles out of sand. It was harder than it looked, harder than I imagined, but the attempts were always worth it when we took a group photo at the end. Those are one of the few photographs I physically own. I always liked the way film looks, the grainy feel. When we stopped going to the beach, I stopped making castles. Our photos are just stored on the computer. Sometimes I forget they are even there and I don't look back because it's not the same. I can't touch these pictures, but I guess all the same, the grainless photographs will still fall apart with the waves of time. 

Muse 57: Shutter

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I hold this camera wherever I go to make sure that I catch our story from beginning until the end. She asks me, constantly pestering me with her hands and words, to put the camera away because she's "shy." Camera shy, because - as she says - she's not photogenic.

"Does this mean you think you're more beautiful in reality?" I finally ask as we sit face to face on a sunny day. The light is perfect, and every click of the shutter forms a halo around her face. Her features are barely visible with the overexposed backlight, yet she still claims, "No, I don't think that, but just - Stop it, I look really ugly!" And I stop, my finger starving to press the shutter, but I think my eyes are just afraid of missing out each second she might change. She holds out her hand, all I see is her thin wrist, and says, "Can I have the camera?"

I don't complain when she holds the camera, fumbling clumsily to take a picture. It doesn't matter because when she looks through the viewfinder and sees my face, it says all the words she needs to know.

Muse 25: Existence

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In a sea of shapeless, shadeless greenery, the brown box dropped slowly into a hole of oblivious existence. The finality in the wires creaking, the ropes itching and worldly physicality itself threatens to let the coffin drop with a disrespectful thud. But what is inside is not human. He is alien. He is a wax replica of the man I love - a filtered, massacred replacement to comfort my soul, and I must reject it. My attendance is merely symbolic; my mind is distantly near - Do you think that when people die, their corpses shrivel up because something beautiful has been forcibly sucked out of it? It's like the form itself suffers an inexplicable loss, so complicated and violent, like the shape has been raped and must be reassembled by human hands for the sake of soothing the human mind. We make, we exist, and we lose.