If

In cartoons, there's that moment when the cartoon character realises he's two steps off the cliff.

In relationships, there's an exact moment when the breakdown begins.

And from that point on, it looms like a time bomb—

unsure when it'll combust

but certain in its aftermath. 

Some of these moments are so blatant you can't miss them. 

You see it coming, you know you'll be hurting. 

But then there are moments that at first seem "sudden" or "unexpected",

only to reveal themselves crystal clearly in retrospect. 

These are the ones that hurt the most,

not because of their magnitude,

but due to the sheer surprise of it all.

These are the ones you didn't mean to end. 

These are the ones you replay in your head as you lie on your bed at night,

the ones you watch over and over again,

seeing the hundreds of ways it could've played out,

if only you did that differently,

if only you phrased that better,

if only you

if only 

if
...

Truth Behind the Lie

It's been the longest while since I've been able to plaster on my face a smile that touches the very edges of my eyes. I had a first day of work describable only as drastically fantastic, and the best weekday ever post-work with my favourite darling sister. 

I guess when the closest relative you've had is the most unfathomable of lows, the slightest of buoyancy can feel like the utmost peak of all highs. 

It's almost like I'm actually happy. 

But a post-dinner walk at our local mall where Jerome and I spent shared so many dinners and coffees and conversations and feelings, backed by the most tragically appropriate of coincidental soundtracks blurred existence into clear illusion. 

My perfect delusion of "okay" shatters into countless, question-mark shaped shards of play-pretend. In its wake is but a stinging truthfulness.

And the truth...

The truth is that it hurts more than it doesn't. The truth is that every dazzling smile is but an semi-automatic call to arms, an increasingly firm grip on that reality falling away into an infinity of drops from the saltiest ocean, depths unknown but shaded with darkness as certain as the endless abyss standing below.

I'm sorry. I know it's all on me, and I know it in my feels. It's almost laughable, but...

You're a world away

Somewhere in the crowd

In a foreign place

Are you happy now? 

The Beginning of The End.

The long-drawn path to betterment has found a climax. So tantalising in the way it excited my every emotional nerve, it didn't disappoint.

You see, I've been seeing the therapist for close to a year now, once a week. And the final piece of the puzzle emerged with my cousin's wedding last December, where she revealed that it all started before I could even remember.

Then after, we spoke about the Rapes. To utmost unconscious reluctance, I suppose. But we spoke about them, nonetheless.

So in a way, if this path to recovery was structured like a narrative—then the climax has drawn its final conclusion, and what we have now is the beginning of the end.

What I have now is the beginning of the end.

Because there is no we as I near the finish of my story. No Jeromes, Jians or Jazzes to hold my hand as I cry. No Daryl to break brunch and drink wine with in celebration of triumph against adversity.

Because with every touch of my clumsy, stubby fingers, I destroy. I guess they had more foresight than I wanted to believe when they dubbed me the "Hands of Destruction" back in high school.

If a tree cries "Eureka!" in the woods and no one hears it, did it even cry?

As monumental as it is supposed to be, my cries go out across the endless void of nothingness. And even the loudest sound needs a wall to echo back from.

But there is nothingness. And there is nothing.

In the end, it's nothing more than just much ado about nothing.