Up California St. With Love. 1.

I’m at Trader Joe’s. I’m grocery shopping.

Walking through the aisles and picking stuff.

I learnt about Trader Joe’s just recently. My American roommate told me about it.

I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

I previously used to do all of my grocery shopping at Walgreens. A few blocks down Powell.

I go down Powell on my way to a number of places. The college HQ, events – a lot of places. And the Walgreens logo is pretty conspicuous, so I learnt of the location pretty quickly.

I learnt about Trader Joe’s later. I think it was during Halloween. I was roaming around the city – it was me, a Spanish classmate, and my roommate. We were trying to get costumes. We hadn’t even made up our minds on what we wanted to dress as.

My roommate said he wanted to go get some sushi somewhere.

We said alright.

And then we all went to into this grocery store on California street that I never even knew existed.

I was just walking around like Ohh wait what, there’s this place? Whatt?? All this while I’ve been shopping like Walgreens is the only place to buy stuff – Whattt?

So now I shop at Trader Joe’s every now and then. More frequently than Walgreens actually.

Well not really.

Usually when I shop at Trader Joes I get more stuff, and so there’s a longer span of time before I have to go grocery shopping again.

So I don’t know.

There’s this other store my roommate talks about. Costco.

He says his whole family shops there.

There was this day he came to the room with like two whole suitcases full of groceries. In fact I think they were more than two.

He says at Costco you can get membership cards and this gives you some huge discounts on stuff you buy. So his parents do like family-sized grocery shopping at solid discounts.

Shopping at Costco. Hm. Now I’m curious.

Sounds like such an American thing.

Oh hey look at me shopping at Costco with my membership card and getting huge family-sized discounts.

Such USA, so American ooh.

---

I also recently learnt about 7-Eleven pizza.

I was in the room of a Kenyan classmate. I probably stopped by to chat about something. He had one of his friends around. Also Kenyan. Was studying at UC Berkeley.

As we all chatted and shared laughs, something they were eating caught my eye.

It was pizza.

But the smell though, the smell. Oh man.

It had a very distinct smell.

I asked if I could have a slice. They said sure why not.

Next thing I knew I was asking for a precise description of where they got the pizza.

Wait, so the place is called 7-Eleven right?

Oh there’s a 7-Eleven around Battery street?

Mm, and they’re open twenty-four hours?

Wait, it’s just like ten dollars for the largest size?

Oh there’s another one on Powell?

That evening I became a staunch believer in 7-Eleven pizza.

On a random evening you can find me puffing my way up Powell street, with like two cartons of 7-Eleven pizza in my arms – the largest size of pizza they have.

Sometimes I even get three at once.

The pepperoni pizza is wonderful, the BBQ is okay, and there’s this one that has all sorts of meat stuff ohh.

The hill on Powell is funny.

Sometimes I think about how many calories I could possibly gain from eating three largest-size 7-Eleven pizzas – People think about calories a lot in this place – And I’m pretty convinced I burn pretty much the same amount of calories just getting the pizzas up to my dorm room.

---

I’m in the “Bread” section of Trader Joe’s.

There’s this thing my American roommate introduced me to.

Cinnamon Raisin bread.

Jesus. Jesus Christ.

That thing. That freaking thing.

I mean, initially I had doubts when he suggested I try out some that he bought.

The bread looked weird and mouldy and damp.

I was like ehhh I don’t know, it looks sketchy, I don’t know….

I took one bite and became a convert.

So yeah, on a random day at Trader Joe’s you’ll probably find me stocking my trolley with a customary loaf of Cinnamon raisin bread.

---

I’m at the Cereal section.

I’m making up my mind on some options.

A hand touches me from behind, and slowly snakes its way around my waist.

Very surprised, I turn around to see a cheeky face smiling up at me.

Oh heyyy. Hey you.

---

Image: Somewhere along the Embarcadero.

Ocean Eyes

I’m sitting on a raft.

It’s a plastic raft- It’s made of a number of buoyant plastic cuboids strung together somehow.

The raft bobs gently atop the water.

The night’s air is entrancingly tranquil.

---

The raft bobs gently atop the water.

I’m listening to Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes”.

I’ve got these Motorola Bluetooth headphones I bought online over the winter with the appreciable student-internship money that came in over the holidays.

December was chill. Very chill. I think I discovered Imogen Heap in December. Through Spotify.

It was a very stimulating experience- Having the atmospheric electrification of her robotic music reverberate through the dimly-lit room while I sat at my computer, doing some data-processing internship work against the backdrop of downtown San Francisco’s shimmering night-time skyline.

I think I bought the headphones from some site an Indian classmate told me about. I had never heard of the site before. They had some pretty solid deals.

I like the headphones. Rather than go over my head from ear to ear, they go around the back of my head. I find that really appealing, because other headphones leave this like cuboidal crater across the top of my head whenever I take them off. Because they compress the hair.

The Motorola headphones are cool.

---

The raft bobs gently atop the water.

I’m listening to Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes”.

At this point in time, I don’t know Billie Eilish by name. She’s one of the artists whose cool songs Spotify recently recommended for me. Or put together in a playlist. Something like that.

“Ocean Eyes” by Billie Eilish.

Along with “Slip” by Elliot Moss.

Haha. I also really like that one. I really like it.

At this point in time, I’m aware of these artists more by the enigmatic communal identity given them by their general genre, than by their names.

---

The raft bobs gently atop the water.

I’m falling in love.

I don’t know it yet though. I don’t know it yet.

I was at this seminar earlier. At the Nervana HQ. Nervana is this Deep Learning library I recently learnt about. They held a seminar to publicize their library and familiarize people with its workings.

I don’t know anything about Deep Learning. I just know I’m very interested in it.

I got to the seminar late. Everyone was seated and listening intently to what some Indian guy was saying. That was when I walked into the room. I strolled in and found a seat for myself at the back.

---

“I’m going to make you late for your seminar.”

It was something of a concerned whisper.

An anxious wisp of a voice that floated its way out of an entanglement of smudged lipstick and sensual gasps and intertwined limbs and an unhooked brassiere.

“Don’t worry, the seminar isn’t all that important.”

The intertwined limbs kept at whatever it was they were doing, relatively uninterrupted.

---

I’m falling in love.

I don’t know it yet though.

I don’t know it yet.

---

The people at the seminar probably saw me stride regally across the room, looking very esteemed and cool and untroubled and confident.

What they probably didn’t know was that my otherworldly chill and dreamy tranquility at the time, came from engagement in a completely different kind of activity. I new next to nothing about the technical topics being discussed in the room.

---

General view from the floating plastic raft

The raft bobs gently atop the water.

“Ocean Eyes” by Billie Eilish keeps playing.

I don’t know how much time passes before I get off the raft. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. I get off, and on to the small pier leading back to the road.

I keep walking along the bay.

At some point I come across this guy. He’s standing right in front of the railings by the sidewalk. He’s facing the water.

I think he’s fishing.

Yes. Yes, he’s fishing.

He’s got this fishing rod in his hands.

Somehow, we begin to converse.

He is from the Dominican Republic.

I think.

Some Latin American country.

We talk about general things for a bit.

He works construction in the US.

At some point he tells me about his girlfriend:

---

He used to have a girlfriend. Back in his country of origin.

They lost touch when he moved to the US for work.

Her mother never liked him.

Hated him actually. For some reason.

Hated him so much that she prevented him from ever knowing he had a daughter.

Something like that.

His girlfriend was pregnant at the time he moved to the US.

But he never got to know.

He just recently found out.

He reunited with his girlfriend the year before. They spent the holidays together somewhere in Latin America.

He shows me pictures and videos.

His daughter is like six years old.

Or seven.

Or eight even, I don’t know.

I’m shocked he could have been deprived of news of her existence for that long.

He smiles as he scrolls through the pictures, his face gleaming with immense fondness for the both of them. He says he’s planning towards having them join him in the US.

We keep talking.

At some point he asks for my story.

“What’s your own story?” He asks, curious.

I tell him I’m studying in the US on a scholarship.

He seems very wowed. Very very wowed. Immensely impressed.

We keep talking.

At some point I try my hand at his fishing rod.

I’ve never done anything of the sort before.

He gives me some instructions: Do this, do this, after that do this and do this…

He lists like seven different steps.

I find myself repeating the steps after him, but I know only like the first one actually made it into my head.

I swing the rod to send the bait and hook thing into the water.

There is an unnerving “CRACK!” somewhere along the equipment.

I think I just broke something.

I begin to apologize profusely.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry, that was so clumsy of me I’m so sorry I hope it’s not something so serious”

He says there’s no problem. That I shouldn’t worry about it.

His reaction gives me some relief.

We keep talking.

At some point he asks where I was headed.

I point in the general direction to the right.

He says okay.

He says okay, but that I shouldn’t go too much further down that path.

He says there’s a very dangerous area there- Third street.

Says the place is very unsafe, especially at night. I should avoid it at all costs.

I thank him for his concern.

We keep talking.

---

A number of weeks later, I’ll find myself skateboarding down the infamous Third Street.

At night.

I never planned it- I was just skateboarding along the bay, and then somehow I found myself there.

As I cruise down the sidewalk on my skateboard, I’ll take my time to observe the people I come across. They’re all black. They look like the sorts of people you’ll come across walking through the Tenderloin district- the sorts of people the Terderloin is kinda known for, but they don’t look particularly menacing.

Some of them look vaguely sketchy- not exactly the type you’d think of walking up to and striking up a conversation with.

I don’t know- Maybe they look particularly unnerving precisely because of the pronounced warning of the Latin American fishing guy.

I don’t know.

Thoughts of getting some fast food at a road-side restaurant will cross my mind.

I’ll be concerned about the time. It’ll be pretty late.

Usually I’m out at midnight in San Francisco and don’t feel uneasy at all.

But this is Third Street.

I’ve only ever heard one thing about this place. And that, is that I should not do exactly what I’m doing right now.

I won’t buy food.

I’ll skateboard down Third Street some more.

I’ll come across a MUNI stop.

Ah, a train goes back towards the Ferry building from here.

I’ll wait at the stop- skateboard in hand. Wondering what my fate will be, surrounded by all of the suspicious Third street people.

The train will take forever to come.

---

Image: View of Downtown San Francisco’s shimmering night-time skyline from one of the dorm room windows.

Of Summer Rendezvous and Stolen Wine.

Mister Wang is on the balcony.

I’m not quite sure what he’s doing. I think he’s just taking in the view. Or maybe he’s having a phone call- I’m not quite sure.

I am in the kitchen section of the college HQ. There is a stash of wine bottles by my right.

I never really used to pay attention to the wine. In my head, it was in the same category with the like shoulder-high rack of wine bottles in one of the meeting rooms. The one with a table and an iMac and bookshelves and sofas.

I had that room to myself on a recent afternoon. Reclining in the extremely comfortable chair, reading about a newly-popular deep learning library called Keras on the iMac screen. Thinking about neural networks and activation functions and feeling like some grey-haired Stanford professor.

In my head, the assortment of wine bottles to my left were not for consumption by mere mortals like myself. The wine was arranged there for a different species- one I had never encountered before.

In my head, the bottles by my left were not wine, they were art. To be protected from contact with my inquisitive epidermis, lest those invaluable vessels dripping with rich history, instantly crumble into regrettable dust upon contact with my lowly Homo Sapien skin.

But the bottles of wine in the kitchen- the bottles of wine here by my right? These ones are different.

Like a few weeks ago I walked into the HQ kitchen and saw a half-full bottle. I paused mid-stride to make sense of what I was seeing.

Wait, this wine is for drinking? This wine is to be drunk? By human beings?

Ohhhhhh.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Okay. Okay. Okay I get it now. I get it now.

I think there had been some sort of a celebration at the HQ a number of hours before. Hence the wine.

---

Mister Wang is on the balcony.

I intend to transport one of the wine bottles into my backpack.

I do not know if that is stealing. I know chocolates and general snacks are accessible to all, but I just don’t know about the wine.

I don’t know if it’s expensive wine. To be honest I have no idea how to identify expensive wine, either by the bottle or by the taste. I think confirmation bias could make otherwise unremarkable wine taste expensive. To like me the uninitiated, it definitely would. It probably would have much less of an effect on expert tasters and stuff though.

I wonder if Mister Wang on the balcony can hear my thoughts.

I wonder if he has already perceived my intentions. He gave me a brief glance a few seconds ago.

I don’t know. He seems to be very engrossed in whatever he is doing.

I don’t know. Or maybe he is just being disingenuous.

The wine bottle is in my bag.

In my head I am coming up with explanations for my actions. I am advocating my innocence to the skeptical college-faculty superego in my brain. I can see myself in front of a disciplinary council, drawing on ethical frameworks and logical arguments to exonerate my very pitiable self from impending doom and desolation.

The school administration has been expelling people in recent times. I wonder if I could get expelled for stealing wine from the HQ. I don’t know.

But wait, I don’t even know if this is stealing. The wine is definitely accessible to general staff. I think. For students? I don’t know. For a student sneaking a bottle into his bag to drink back at the dorms with his girlfriend? I have no idea.

The wine bottle is in my bag.

My head keeps dancing about in a web of ethical conundrums as I head out to Market Street and begin to skateboard down to Powell.

---

A Kenyan classmate just helped me with a wine-opener. She says something about having some sort of share in the wine.

I’m not quite sure what she’s talking about. There’s only room for two this night.

I head down the stairs. About ninety percent of the class is home for summer break- and so the building in Nob Hill which functions as our dorms, is largely empty. The girlfriend and I have been making use of a number of different rooms in the building, in addition to our assigned rooms for the summer.

I call one the “flute room”, because during the session one of the occupants used to play the flute.

It was somewhat ticklish for me being in that room with the girlfriend, and thinking about the relatively innocent conversations I had had right there, with the occupants of the room a number of months before.

Hm, if only these people knew what we’re doing in their room now. What we’re doing with their beds.

Today it’s a different room. This one has a view of California street. Like my room.

I’m heading downstairs, wine-opener in hand.

The stolen wine should set a very stimulating mood for the night.

This night should be a very interesting one.

---

It’s a number of days later.

I am having a conversation with a resident assistant- a classmate from Malaysia. She is telling me about a strange discovery she made while locking up one of the rooms in the building for the summer.

The room was supposed to have already been cleared out, and so she was surprised to find an unempty bottle of wine in the wardrobe. Along with a blanket. And a number of other things which had very tenuous strings to their consequently ambiguous owners.

Hm. I wonder where the wine came from. I wonder how it got there. I wonder how it got opened, and I wonder what activities the beings who drank from the bottle intended to engage in.

Hm. I wonder.

This life is a mystery.

---

Image: Drinking (unjustifiably?) expensive wine at Shiro- an interesting Pan Asian restaurant in Lagos Nigeria.

Timeslice.

Er, hello. We’d like to take a look at the inside of this building, is that alright?

Er, no. Visitors are not allowed.

Oh okay. Ugh. And we’d really love to take a look.

I’m sorry. Sorry about that. It’s just that we do not allow visitors, sorry.

It’s fine, it’s fine.

*Turns to go*

I think we have to go. Go check out other buildings.

Er wait, by the way I’m pretty pressed and I’d like to ease myself. Is there a bathroom close by I can make use of?

Oh sure. Just go down this hallway.

*Points*

It’s at the end by the left.

Ah great, thanks!

—————————–

We are in the building. For some reason we’re not allowed entry if we’re here for sightseeing, but it’s perfectly fine if we want to use the bathroom. Haha.

This was what I used to dream my university building would look like. Arches and apses and grey mossy stone and gargoyles. Haha.

Some man is walking by. He walks with the air of an instructor. He is probably a lecturer in this place. I stop kissing you and squeezing your ass and generally behave myself while he passes by.

——————————–

We’re done at the bathroom. There’s graffiti like everywhere.

Oh there’s another door that leads outside from here.

Ah great.

I am on the BART to Berkeley/“Black Virgins are Not for Hipsters”.

 

 

I am on the BART to Berkeley.

Lapsley’s “Hurt Me” is playing on my Spotify.

Spotify has this “Save offline” functionality with which you can save songs for offline listening.

That’s what I do whenever I go skateboarding at Potrero Hill. Potrero is so picturesque though. And relaxing. I love skateboarding there to just chill on the lush green hill in front of the very colorful high school.

I have this Spotify playlist I curated over the past few months. Plus, there was this playlist my roommate introduced me to: “Lush + Atmospheric”.

He is from Southern California, my roommate. He is so cool though. I got to learn about Spotify’s Lush+Atmospheric playlist one night when we were both very high in the room and listening to Spotify playlists. I think he actually had a “High” playlist. Or maybe it was an official Spotify playlist. That Spotify thing is pretty crazy.

That night I ran out of synonyms for “high”, because he kept coming up with new ones I had never heard before, every two minutes.

”Oh Mayowa, I’m so baked right now.”

I couldn’t even contain my laughter. I was like rolling all over the rug in the room.

”Baked.” What the fuck.

“Oh Mayowa, I’m so packed right now.”

”Jesus Christ hahaha! Packed! What the fuck bro, You just keep bringing it hahaha!”

 

I am on the BART to Berkeley.

I am going to see a show.

“Black Virgins are not for Hipsters”, that’s the title of the show. I found out about it on Eventbrite. Eventbrite is so cool. Plus there is just so much happening in the Bay area all the time, it’s so exciting. Although sometimes it feels like you’re always missing out on something. That can sometimes be an uncomfortable feeling.

Lapsley’s voice is really nice. I like this song. The lyrics are pretty gripping.

Under the overly bright lights of the BART this evening, I realize that I am experiencing a new feeling. I am currently experiencing a feeling I have never experienced before: The feeling of having someone waiting back at home for me. The feeling of having a romantic partner waiting back at home for me. This is new. This is a completely new feeling.

Some context: I recently got a girlfriend. I recently fell in love. And believe me, it’s crazy- I’m being introduced to this side of myself I never knew existed. This soft mushy irrational Mayowa I don’t understand at all.

It’s an interesting feeling- having someone waiting back at home for you. There’s the excitement that comes with liberty- being free to do whatever you want- being free to stay out as late as you want- That’s something I have been enjoying immensely over the past few months. But this is different. I have someone I love waiting back at home for me in San Francisco. For some reason, staying out as late as possible just doesn’t seem as appealing anymore.

Lapsley’s “Hurt Me” keeps playing.

 

I am skateboarding around the campus of UC Berkeley.

It seems like a cool school. Not as cool as my school though. Haha. Nowhere as cool as my school.

I am early for the show. I don’t know how that happened. I am usually late for everything.

I keep skateboarding. There’s a Frat House building thing by the left. Alpha Beta Gamma Zeus or something like that. Sounds like something Tyler and Zach would be extremely excited by. I myself am curious about what goes on in the building though.

I keep skateboarding. Some woman is doing a garage sale. I’m interested in a fairly used snowboard. I spend the next like twenty minutes in a discussion with the woman, while negotiating on a price for the snowboard at the same time. I’m not quite sure how much she agreed to sell it for- I think it was thirty dollars. I didn’t know if that was a good deal or not. I had no idea how much snowboards cost.

“I could ask Omar, my Israeli classmate. He’s a snowboarding guy.”

When we eventually agree on a price, I realize I have nowhere to keep the snowboard. My classmates and I will be moving to Berlin soon. How the hell am I supposed to transport a snowboard all the way to Europe? Who is going to pay for the extra baggage?

 

Black Virgins are not for Hipsters.

Echo Brown’s performance is impressive. Very moving. Her tears are so compelling. She is such a bad person and dating her will making you very disoriented and miserable in life and she is so open and honest and straightforward about that. It’s very admirable. At the end of the show she takes questions. I ask a few.

I really like my school. I genuinely feel like the experience I’m getting there is perceptibly improving the quality of my questions/contributions in general social situations. Echo Brown responds to my questions from her seat on the stage. This is so exciting.

After the show I’m talking with this girl from Ethiopia. She seems somewhat nervous. Come on pretty looking girl, open your mouth and respond to my questions. I don’t bite you know.

 

I am on the BART back to San Francisco.

It has been a very enjoyable night. There is just one thing on my mind right now- getting back to my girlfriend. I love her so much. I have never experienced this much affection and desire for a human being in my life.

I’ve missed her so much just in the last few hours. Right now I am in a Subway train under the ocean, pining to get back to get back to my girlfriend in San Francisco.

 

Something from my Spotify “Saved for Offline” playlist is playing.

 

Now Playing: Memories by Petit Biscuit.

 

Images:

1. In the MUNI, on a different night. I think I was on the way back from buying a new skateboard at Haight/Ashbury.

2. San Francisco. Probably also on a different night.

Time Has Passed.

Time has passed.

 

I look at your face, but what I see is something else.

I see the face of the person I was in love with.

 

I listen to your voice, but what I hear is something else.

I hear the voice of the person I was in love with.

 

I am disoriented, because the person before me is different- starkly, different, from the person I perceive.

 

Who are you?

 

Who are you really?

I am not sure.

I really am not sure.

 

You look like her. You look exactly like her. You bear her name and you appear to exist in what I perceive to be her physical body.

And trust me, I know what her body is like.

 

But who the hell are you?

 

You look like her.

You speak with her voice.

But the words coming out of your mouth give me no choice but to conclude you are somebody else.

 

Do you even remember me?

Do you remember us?

All of the time we spent together? All of the places we went? All of the things we did?

Do you even remember any of that?

 

Do you actually remember, or are you just pretending?

 

Evidently everything that happened, is now nothing to you but a faded memory.

 

I, am now nothing to you but a faded memory.

Nothing.

I am now nothing.

Nothing but a faded memory.

 

I guess this is my plight.

To live the rest of my life constantly enshrouded by the poignant nostalgia and searing frustration of loving someone who no longer exists.

 

Image Credits: https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/teardrop?mediatype=photography&phrase=teardrop&sort=mostpopular

A Dead Man’s Exasperation.

It is yet another day in the middle of nowhere.

No one has found me yet.

It has been about three years since I got here.

Three years since my plane crashed here while I was flying over this stretching expanse of prickly brown sand.

Here in the middle of nowhere.

No one has found me yet.

My skin is long gone. I am all bones now. Formerly-white bones gradually turned dusty brown by years of enmeshing interaction with exuberant particles of desert sand.

It has been about three years since I got here.

It has mostly been quiet, just the waves crashing into the nearby shore and squabbling birds squawking up ahead every once in a while.

————————

One of the birds brought me some devastating news this morning.

Some severely debilitating news.

It is news about my wife. And my children.

I heard she just re-married.

I heard Nelida just re-married.

That is not such terrible news.

No, not really. That is not such terrible news.

What makes me want to marshal my dry brown bones back into action and charge back into the land of the living, is who she got married to.

 

Paulo.

Nelida got married to Paulo.

Paulo.

Of all people.

Of all people in the world Nelida!! Of all the men in the world?!

 

And that’s not all. That is not all at all.

She agreed to be his second wife.

 

Second. Wife.

 

Not his second wife because he and his first wife were estranged, no.

Not even his second wife because Paulo’s first wife died. That would have been better. I honestly do not care what happens to that repugnant human being and his family, but at least that would have been better than what I heard this morning.

Nelida is his second wife, in addition to his first wife. Paulo has two wives now.

Paulo has two wives.

And the human being who used to be MY wife- the most important person in my life, is now the second wife of somebody I viscerally detest, even in death.

 

AH!

 

My chest hurts.

My chest hurts.

My chest hurts and I want to die.

If I was not already dead, such news would make me kill myself right now.

Without a second thought.

I would jump off a cliff.

Without hesitation.

I would dive head first towards the craggy black rocks at the shores of Algodoeiro and let the riotous waves do whatever they wanted with what was left of my physical form.

 

Paulo?

Fucking Paulo?

I want to die.

 

I WANT. TO DIE.

 

HIS SECOND WIFE?

His second wife??

Nelida, you are now somebody’s second wife?? You??

 

AHHHH!!!

 

I need to die now. I do not think I have really been dead for the past three years. Dead people are not supposed to be able to feel this excruciating anguish I am currently experiencing.

 

AHHHH!!!

 

The waves keep crashing against the shore. The black birds up above keep fluttering about. It is evident I am not even making an actual sound because nothing is changing.

The birds keep fluttering about, unconcerned.

The wind keeps blowing inland, bringing along with it the distant bellowing of the ocean in the form of distracting sprays of stinging saltwater.

The wind keeps blowing inland, unconcerned.

Paulo is probably walking into Nelida’s room right now——

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

 

 

Image Credits: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Cape_Verde_Sal_landscape.jpg

On Stoic Hearts and Scar Tissue.

I wonder what my heart looks like.

 

There in my chest, pumping- always pumping. Never for once stopping for air- never for once stopping to catch its breath.

— Pumping. Always pumping.

 

I wonder what my heart looks like.

 

Scarred. Definitely scarred. Very scarred.

Strange: The insulating protection offered my ribcage did absolutely nothing to shield my heart from emotional scarring. Absolutely nothing.

I hope the scars do not affect its pumping. I hope they do not restrict its movement or anything like that. Scar tissue might not stretch as much as normal tissue- could prevent the heart from expanding as much as is needed to adequately pump blood.

No wonder I get lightheaded at times. Not enough blood being pumped. Not enough blood being pumped at all.

 

I wonder what my heart looks like.

 

I wonder what it does with all of that pain from lost love- from love not just lost, but forcefully torn away. Jarringly detached.

My heart is definitely scarred. Definitely.

Hm, I just realised something. These scars are probably going to last forever. Till the end of my life at least. Wounds heal yes, but scars- scars are a different ball game entirely.

I’ll probably always experience this painful throbbing every once in a while. Probably always. Consequence of the scarring. Implications of scar tissue. 

 

Of love lost. Of smiles gone dark. Of little happiness bulbs conclusively detached from electricity.

 

I wonder what my heart looks like.

 

 

 

 

[ Image Credits: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/never-ashamed-scar-4-lessons-self-acceptance-resilience/ ]

Do I Want to Know?

Do I want to know?

How you’re doing?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

I definitely still care about you. The abrasiveness of how it all ended and the resulting scars made me think it’d be pleasant to never think of you again. To never have to entertain the memories of our time together.

Hah.

False. Very, very, false.

I still thought of you today.

And yesterday.

And the day before that.

And the day before that as well.

I get flashbacks of us together and I smile, I don’t know why.

I think I still miss you.

No.

I miss you. I definitely still miss you.

 

Most of the pain is gone now. The pleasant memories are outlasting the painful ones. That’s good. That’s good.

I miss your face. And your smile. And your voice. And your touch.

I should want to know how you’re doing. What life is like for you now. What you’re up to.

It’s so easy with the internet. Social media. And what not.

But I don’t know.

I don’t know how much you’ve moved on. I don’t know how far back in the past all of this is for you.

I don’t know.

And I’m scared. I’m scared you’ve forgotten. I’m scared you no longer even think about those times anymore.

I’m scared you no longer think about me.

I’m scared there’s someone else.

And I don’t want to get hurt. Not again. Not again.

 

So do I want to know?

How you’re doing?

What life is like for you now?

Ehh.

I think I’ll pass.

I think I’ll pass today.

 

PS: Life is about to get considerably annoying. Headed in a direction I do not really want. I don’t know how all of this is going to turn out. I don’t know.

Estrangeiro.

Hey.

Would you like to talk?

Hey.

I enjoyed talking with you. I really enjoyed talking with you.

Hey.

What are you doing this afternoon?

Hey!

I enjoyed this afternoon. I really enjoyed spending time with you.

Hey.

Would you like to come hang out?

Just company. It doesn’t matter if you have work to do. I’ll just hang around and provide company.

You know what? I think we’re soulmates.

Will you be my girlfriend?

We’re doing great, we’re doing so so so so great.

I miss you.

Hey!

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much. Come here.

Hey.

Why did you do that?

Why did you do that to me?

Stop. Stop, I don’t like it.

You’re not listening.

Hey.

I miss you.

Hey.

Would you like to talk?

No?

Hey?

Hey?

…………

. White noise .