Lately, maybe Never

Lately I’ve been thinking about getting a buzz cut and dyeing it lavender. 

I want to be delinquent and sink into my desolation. Choke on it and dye, in lavender. 

But I might never do it. Because the doing of it needs obsession, a hunger in the soul, an anger. While I, pour me out and still be wanting— I feel nothing. 

Maybe nobody knows how I feel. The nothingness, and being confused if I deserved it.

The endless, quality, radio silence. 

I used to think I was special. I used to have hundreds of conversation in my head, dreams under my belt, buzzing bees thru my fingers, love letters in my heart. I used to have many hearts, I used to have many faces. Now, growing old and staying the same has made me feel nothing. I have spent away my youth, and kept all the gifts I should’ve given away in exchange for life’s gems.

And now I’m thirty two. Given my unhealthy state, I can only live a few more years, probably dying before kissing someone for the first time. Just living to pay rent and groceries for my family in a dead end job I can’t afford to leave. Sleeping away my anxieties and regrets, because in my dreams, I’m always kissing. 

That mad kissing, that making love—love in the rain. Calling people, darling. Reviving romance singlehandedly with a steady, single finger. And piano keys, hammers hitting the string. And there I save people from tsunamis. And poof! 

I wake up. I’m always such an exciting person in my dreams, a real true heroine. That for the first few moments of waking up in the night (as fat people don’t sleep through to morning), I’d believe I was the stranger and she was real. For a few moments I ask the Lord if multiverses were real and if He pitied me enough to show me glimpses of a vibrant version of me. 

And not this toad-like being I occasionally see in the mirror when I bother to look. 

Sometimes, I tap into the source and dream about second chances and second careers. Maybe a job that can allow me to slowly travel. Maybe I can be a librarian or a book researcher—something lowkey like that. But then it means I can’t be a mother. Which then takes me to these words my parents told me. 

“Wag mo akong lokohin anak, walang lalaking may gusto ng babaeng puro kamot sa tyan.”

“Baka ako pa pwede manganak, hindi ikaw”

     “Sige, wag na lang manganak, mamatay na lang.”

“Mag-adopt ka na lang”

      “Kayo nga di ko maalagaan, adopt pa?”

And I feel the small hopes I allow myself, kill themselves off. For surviving. You’re never really hurt if you never really like-liked anything. Right?

If I was stronger, or flirtier, or had moxy—maybe this isn’t the end. But I’m not. So let me dye.