Waxin’ Lyrical

Part 4 today. Part 5 should be the last, unless I feel the urge to write an epilogue again.

There are happier news I could be reporting on, but I don’t really want to sully this piece with out-of-place brightness.

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(Originally written on December 1st, just before I do something really really stupid again. Which I’ll write about in Part 5, I guess)

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like on the other side.

Love is a many-splendoured thing, of that I have little doubt. The smell of her hair, her gentle unfurrowed face as she lies asleep, unaware of my looking at her - those are the things that remind me how utterly disarming being in love feels like. Your daily pretences, the little lies you tell yourself and everyone around you to get through the day, all cast aside in the presence of her being. Your guarded responses, your deliberate replies lose all meaning when she’s around, and you bask in the purity of her love.

Past experience, further fortified by recent events, have, of course, reminded me that this feeling is not necessarily mutual, however much it may seem so.

What is it, then, that the other half feels?

Romantic, sentimental, naive, clingy. All adjectives that fittingly describe my present state of mind, I guess. After my inital wary defences have been dismantled, after I’ve reassured myself that, hey, this time around she could be the one, I can say, with nary a hint of hesitation or reserve, that I love with all of my heart. I love with a passion. I pour my all and everything into the relationship, giving it everything I possibly can. As the inital days of bliss turn to weeks, months and years, my love remains steady, resolute, unflinching. I say this, again with no trace of shyness or attempt to qualify, merely because this is who I am, because this is what I do. I love with a passion, and the passion smoulders ever on, even in the cold darkness of the nights when you’re away.

I love, but she no longer does. What does she feel then?

What does it feel like, realising that you’re the one to be held responsible for killing off the relationship?

I pose this pointed question, admittedly in part because some part of me still blames her for her unfeeling remorselessness, but also because I genuinely would like to know, because this isn’t the first time this has happened to me, and also because asking around has revealed, rather discomfortingly to me, that quite a few girls do exactly the same thing.

If you know that the reason why your relationship ended was because you’ve changed into someone else, someone who no longer needs that love you once thought you couldn’t live without, someone who has no qualms breaking the heart of the one who used to mean so much to you - how do you look at yourself in the mirror?

Is there not a trace of guilt, of shame, of regret?

“It’s not you… it’s me… I don’t deserve you… I hope you find someone more like you”, says the cold unflinching monster she’s become. If that’s really true, what’s with all the attempts to justify your actions as something I would have done as well? What’s with all the bullshite excuses you give, with the boldfaced lies thrown in my face?

Do you not realise what a horrible person you’ve become?

Are those lies you tell for my sake, or for yours, to somehow convince yourself you’re still a decent person? What does it feel like, knowing exactly what you’ve become?

One day, I will love again. One day, thought it may be far away, I will rise up again, be willing to risk everything and all for someone else again, this I know. One day, I will love again.

But you?

Can you possibly know the same? Can you possibly think that you will be worthy of love again? Can you possibly believe that you will meet someone else whose love you will not grow tired of, though you once professed the same to me?

How does it feel to be like that?

That’s what I would like to know. But it seems a moot point, really, because if she were the kind of person to feel that way… we’d still be together, wouldn’t we?

-Stranger

This is getting to be a daily thing…

The 2nd half of this Part 3 was actually written on the same day as Part 4 (which, I guess, judging from trends, will be posted tomorrow) The reason why I’m splitting it up is because, not only is Part 4 really long, but it’s probably the one I feel deepest about, hence I believe it probably should get its own section.

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(Originally written around November 25th or so? What happened between this entry and the last was, well, the aforementioned dithering. She began leaving suspious status messages on her MSN account (in FRENCH, no less), and while I hated doing this roundabout “I’m not really talking to you but here’s what I think hahahaha~” game, I was (and probably still am) too much of a sentimental fool to leave that alone. I responded in like kind with messages that could easily be read as responses to her messages.

Some time around this period I also found out she had sent a mail to one of our mutual friends, whom I’ll call A. This was kinda significant in that this Awas someone I had talked to who was, and still in, a similiar predicament, in that A is thinking she should leave her boyfriend of a few years for nearly the exact same reasons my ex was giving me. A never told me the specific contents of my ex’s mail, but apparently my ex wanted to talk to “a friend of my ex-boyfriend”.

This, coupled with the above silly MSN games, made me think that she wanted to get back together. And then she sent a mail to that effect, saying she still missed the times she spent with me and had thought several times about asking me to take her back. I recieved this email on my Monday morning, her Sunday night. I hummed and hawed, and the second I told another friend of ours I was going to call my ex she appeared online. I asked her if she was free to talk and the reply she gave me was basically “I’m sorry, I have a lot of homework due tomorrow and a test I have no idea who’s going on about in on Wednesday. Is Thursday alright?”

Understandably, I was more than a little pissed. I obviously still felt a lot for her, and she just sent me an email saying she still thought about me. And then she told me “Hey, I’ve got homework. Would you mind waiting 4 days?”. I basically told her off, before telling her I still missed her but couldn’t be with her anymore if she was going to keep putting other things before me. She apologised, asked for time and wondered if I would pick up when she called. I said I would.

She never called, but she sent a letter.

This part comes from after reading that letter. )

A month and a half now.

You looked back once. Or at least, you pretended to. Or, perhaps, you thought you wanted to. It matters little now.

You looked back once, but you turned your head back again, quickly. And I, for my part, continued playing the role I play so well, tried to let your gaze linger, tried to make you see what you had been missing, what still lay within your grasp.

You looked back, but other things caught your eye.
——————-

(Originally written on December 1st)
There are times. Times when everything seems like it’s going well, when it looks like I have, in some way, put to rest the events of the recent past. Times when it looks like my pride, while hurt, broken and bruised, seems relatively intact, egging me on to live my life, her frivolous heart be damned. Times like those come a lot easier when I’m with friends, when their concerned questions of “How’re you taking it?” demands a cool, composed “Eh. I’ll get over it.” Times when the olde swagger in my step harkens back in my footfalls, when my disdainful eyes cast passing judgement on all I see, times when I walk, tall, proud, and unyielding to all. Times when I think “Fine. She’s chosen her path, and my path was decided by me a long time ago”, and I work actively, decisively in bringing that path to fruition.

And then there are times that just creep up behind me, on feather-fleet tiptoe. Gently, softly, so it goes, until the knife is thrust deep into my heart, and I feel the blade turn, and twist, carving its bloody, messy path whichever way it pleases. Times when I can physically feel the pain of loss, times when the agony climaxes in a pulsing crescendo, and I am bent over, unable to speak, unable to do naught but hurt.

Times like today.

——————-

-Stranger

Here’s some more whiny-ass bitching for your reading pleasure! XD At least you can read this and think “Thank gawd I’m not as much of a loser as this guy is”. ^_^

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(Originally written around November 4th or so)

2 weeks now.

How long can you miss someone who’s no longer there?

How long can you wait for a phonecall that never comes?

How long can you lie to yourself thinking there’s still a chance she’ll turn back?

Keep on missing, though you know she’s moved on.

Keep on waiting, though you know she’ll never call.

Keep on lying, though you you know she’s going to keep walking on.
Keep on lying. You know that’s what you’re good at. Lie to yourself, to others, long enough, well enough, and you’ll be ok, just like how you tell everyone else you are.

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(Originally written around November 11th or so)

3 weeks.

Nothing’s changed.

Not my feelings, nor my pain. Not my clingy attachment to past days, nor my stubborn unwillingness to forget.

I still wake up thinking about you. I still ache when I realise you won’t be there anymore.
———————

-Stranger

So anyway, I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years + recently. It was a horribly messy affair, really, with ditherings and wistful half-reversals of positions, and of course, me being a dumb-ass sentimental clingy fool.

Long time readers of this blog might remember an old piece I wrote complaining about how I couldn’t write anything interesting anymore since I got together with my girlfriend. I had attributed that to writing being a form of therapy of some sorts for me, some way to vent my frustrations of the world, but since I had gotten together with her, I had been so happy that I really couldn’t find anything to complain about. I’m happy to report that that theory seems to hold water since I’ve written far too many angsty pieces since then. T_T

One part of me thinks there doesn’t seem to be a need for me to post those pieces here, since surely the world doesn’t need another whiny-ass bitch begging for sympathy while screaming “WHY DOESN’T SHE LOVE ME ANYMORE T_T”. However, I’ve always regarded Waxin’ Lyrical as a record of everything I’ve ever felt worth recording for posterity since it was founded. This here site, fouded as a way for Xephyris and me to kill time/improve our Japanese, became also the place where I would not be afraid to say anything that came to my mind and I thought was important enough to take down. And while much of this will surely come across as angsty OMG GET OVER IT whining, there is little doubt for me that this *is* an important part of my life. This is who I am, now, and will surely affect who I become in the future, and years from now, I’d like to look back on this and say “Yes, that was exactly how I felt”.

To cut back on the angst overdose however, I’m going to post the pieces in installments.

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(Originally written on Oct 28 2006, a week after I had tried to fly back to America to save the relationship and ended up failing utterly)

It’s been a week.

The thing about life, cliche as it may be, is that it does indeed go on. The world marches to its own beat, carried forth by the momentum of ages past. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Precisely timed and unrelenting in its advance. The days move on, one after the next. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It has to do so, after all - no one person, nor all the people that ever were and ever will be, can stop the world from moving on. The world moves on, but I, I find myself dragged along despite myself.

It’s been a week, and it’s been a lifetime.

As I’m often fond of saying: Things change. People change. Time flows on, and the world changes in its wake. I, however, find myself unable to change along with it. Call it force of habit, persistent stubborness, or even just pure laziness, but I think I can say, deep down inside, I’ve been pretty much the same person since I was 14. The same hopelessly naive ideals, the same outdated sense of chivalrism, romanticism, chauvinism, elitism, racism, atheism, mixed into a unseemly goo and labelled as my personality. Things change, and people change, but I don’t change.

She has, however.

Exactly as I feared, back when I first dared let myself dream of forever. She’s changed, despite me trying my best and giving it all I had, she’s changed, and the promise of the tomorrow we had lies in pieces around us. Yet on she walks, to her own bright future, while I try feebly to pick up the pieces, all the while cursing my inability to do the same. Unable to let go of past attachments, unable to reconcile my head screaming at me to GET THE FUCK OVER IT YOU WHINY PIECE OF SHITE with my heart whispering “Maybe one day she’ll look back…”. Unable to give vent to all my sorrow and all my rage, I play sad love song after love song, trying to find that one song that gives voice to my unique and oh-so common brand of heartbreak, forcefully fitting meanings where there are none so as to better explain my grief in someone else’s song.

I don’t want to Fall to Pieces, says Avril Lavigne. Stay, begs Lisa Loeb. Happy Break Up, or so Fish Leong wishes me. I’ve fallen off Love’s Cliff, laments Jay Chou, while Stella Ng pleads for some time to Think. Sometimes, Love Just Ain’t Enough, or so Patti Smyth and Don Henley remind me. Def Leppard know how it is When Love and Hate Collide, and Sakamoto Maaya describes Another Grey Day In The Big Blue World. Yuna Ito spins a tale of heartbreak and loss in Endless Story. Mariah Carey and the boys of Westlife come together to tell me that her coming back to me is Against All Odds, and the lads of Mayday wrap it all up with a “And yeah, I know”. All so tantalisingly close to my own vein of hurt, yet all a million miles away.

I can’t look back once we’ve crossed the line, I told her. I can’t look back once she’s decided we’re better apart than together, I told myself.

I can’t look back. Once you know I’m not the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, that’s it. No second chances, no “Maybe this time it’ll work out differently”. I’ve loved you with all I had, given you all I could, and still I was found wanting. Still you’ve chosen to leave, certain that it’s better this way. I can’t look back, because no matter how much I still care for you, no matter how I still think of you when I close my eyes, no matter how the phantom of your smile flits away from me at the edge of my consciousness, no matter how much I scream to myself “STOP THINKING ABOUT HER!”, there’s no guarantee that a second try will turn out any different. No, what IS different, is that the love itself has become tainted, poisoned with the knowledge that what you once thought was forever only lasts so long. You can’t believe in her anymore, because when you did, she took your trust and shattered it with her own conviction that you weren’t the one for her.

I can’t look back, I say, but it’s her who turns away as I watch her leave.

I can’t look back, I say. But is it only to cover the hurt I feel when I realises she’s the one who won’t look back at me?

It’s been a week. And my life is now irrevocably changed.

It’s been a week.