April 5, 2026, Around 2 or 3AM.
The need to be someone else, somewhere else, at some other time period sits like a stone in my throat and permeates my sentience. After a seepy Saturday, I offered my Day 4 response to Na/GloPoWriMo and suddenly fell down the rabbit hole of my failed attempts at writing a book, haha. It's too deep, actually; I didn't burrow far enough. I noticed from my "An Upcoming Book???" blog page that I had started writing/ideating the "scream is my father tongue" idea this time last year. Perhaps the effects of Na/GloPoWriMo. I tried redoing the zine. The summer night was windy and soft. It was well past midnight. The windows were open, and my mother was falling into the sweet abyss of sleep. I looked at her and heard some noise. So, I went up to the window. There was a family of four or five. I could see the father and two sons clearly, the mother faintly, and maybe another child. They were playing. I returned to zine editing, where I had left last year. I tried and tried. I thought I had learned the basics of design from my current job and some lateral volunteering work. But, alas! Tiredness overpowered me. So, I shut down my laptop, shut the windows, fixed my mother's blanket, and dipped inside mine. I wanted to complete the zine editing and sit and write this entry at my table, but… Here I am. Under my blanket, typing away on my phone. The idea that was swirling in my mind while I was thinking of writing this at my table was basically a mind dump. A literal dump of all my thoughts and vomit out all the feelings that clutch my skin from beneath and wash my hands of them.
Some nights like tonight, I really struggle between this rock and a hard place, between cowardice and banality, between self-destruction and externally inflicted trauma and abuse called life. All I ever want in these moments is to disappear. Teleport into an unfamiliar existence. Be someone else. Somewhere else. At some other time. Perhaps in some other world. To get rid of all these events, sickly memories, (mis/non)happenings, and lost opportunities just to protect my coating of asocialness. To put an end to this endlessly triggered anxiety. To get out of this sinkhole of a depression once and for all. To erase this regret-laden, thin life where the fantasies rot: the fantasies of all the clothes I wished to wear, all the foods I craved to eat, all the places I itched to be, all the people I cared to talk to, all the books I dreamt of reading, all the jobs I overarchingly applied to do, all the courses I oh-so-passionately thought about studying, all the poems I longed to write, all the love I longed to give, and some love I yearned to receive. They rot in my daily life. Like when my mother leaves the rice in water, and it ferments and starts to smell. The waft hits your nose every second breath, making you wonder where it's coming from, and after rummaging for a good chunk of time, you realise it's that days-old rice in water your mother soaked. I wish I could ask my mother to cull out this rot in me and throw it away.
Reminds me of this:
But, even that's a poetic fantasy. Reality is something you have to burrow through, as if tunnelling through dense, unyielding earth. Each passing day, I try. I wish I had an entity to pray to who would believe me that I try. I try to live. I try to work. I try to care. I try to show up. I try to eat. I try to drink. I try to take my medicines. I try to write. I try to read. I try to feel. I try to experience. I try and try and try. But life is just a wretched mirror, reflecting all the dark nights that have ever come upon you. The rot always riles up. It rises and howls inside me like an animal trapped under my skin. It slithers around beneath my skin and seeps out here and there, leaving me with the stickiness of realisation. Realisation of this thin, malnourished life. How bland and banal and behind and bickered it is. So drought-like. The rot is like a rock sometimes, too hard and unyielding. It drinks up whatever water of life I sporadically get and leaves me dry and thirsty and unquenched and still clenched. Life is too difficult to carry on like this. But the problem with stagnancy is that you are not only not able to move forward, but also not able to actively stop the process altogether. You have to go through the excruciating process of self-deterioration in autopilot. While the world moves on, you keep deluding yourself that you don't need to catch up because it will end soon, but the deterioration slows the ending, and you end up caught up nonconsentingly and all oblivious. The world must have something that I lack, which keeps it going. Even the remaining motivators like a job, or some money, or moving out and going somewhere else have been stoned to death. A different life seems impossible in this economy. More and more money will still not be able to sustain me in this economy. Moving out is a financial emasculation in this economy. Whilst I realised this, my remaining motivators for creating some life once I moved out were also dead. Now, I don't care.
I don't care about all the clothes I wished to wear, all the foods I craved to eat, all the places I itched to be, all the people I cared to talk to, all the books I dreamt of reading, all the jobs I over-archingly applied to do, all the courses I oh-so passionately thought to study, all the poems I longed to write, all the love I longed to give, some love I yearned to recieve.
They are all unnecessary rot to me that I can't get rid of, a cross I will have to bear. This rot has now become the fermentor, like a vessel that breeds and sustains, my ever-growing anxiety and depression. It eats away at my self-esteem, my adult capability, my human dignity.
And yet, this too will have to be carried into morning, not resolved, not redeemed, not erased, not even properly rested, just dragged there by ankle, like everything else I have not managed to kill or become. Perhaps that is the ugliest part of living: not that one suffers, but that one must go on arranging the suffering into a shape that can pass for a day. A body must still be gotten up. Teeth must still be brushed. A face must still be washed and shown to the world as if it belongs there. Maybe that is why I write any of this down at all. No matter how much I procrastinate writing, I still come back to this place. Not because it lightens or soothes or heals anything. But if I do not pin these nights to the page, they spread, become atmosphere, become the weather of my life. At least here, for a few paragraphs, the rot has a border, and I can look it in the face and say: yes, you are still here. Yes, you have eaten through another evening. Yes, you have made a home in me. But you are not the only thing that remains.
Because I remain too. Miserably, thinly, ungloriously, unwantedly, unfortunately, but still. Still the hand under the blanket, still the phone glowed in the dark, still the daughter who fixed her mother’s blanket before crawling back into her own ruin. Still, the person who tries, even when trying, feels like a farce performed for no god at all. Maybe that is not hope. Fine. Let it be something smaller and more humiliating. Let it be mere continuance. Let it be the animal's refusal to vanish. Tonight, that will have to do. Sorry.
~ Oizys.
The need to be someone else, somewhere else, at some other time period sits like a stone in my throat and permeates my sentience. After a seepy Saturday, I offered my Day 4 response to Na/GloPoWriMo and suddenly fell down the rabbit hole of my failed attempts at writing a book, haha. It's too deep, actually; I didn't burrow far enough. I noticed from my "An Upcoming Book???" blog page that I had started writing/ideating the "scream is my father tongue" idea this time last year. Perhaps the effects of Na/GloPoWriMo. I tried redoing the zine. The summer night was windy and soft. It was well past midnight. The windows were open, and my mother was falling into the sweet abyss of sleep. I looked at her and heard some noise. So, I went up to the window. There was a family of four or five. I could see the father and two sons clearly, the mother faintly, and maybe another child. They were playing. I returned to zine editing, where I had left last year. I tried and tried. I thought I had learned the basics of design from my current job and some lateral volunteering work. But, alas! Tiredness overpowered me. So, I shut down my laptop, shut the windows, fixed my mother's blanket, and dipped inside mine. I wanted to complete the zine editing and sit and write this entry at my table, but… Here I am. Under my blanket, typing away on my phone. The idea that was swirling in my mind while I was thinking of writing this at my table was basically a mind dump. A literal dump of all my thoughts and vomit out all the feelings that clutch my skin from beneath and wash my hands of them.
Some nights like tonight, I really struggle between this rock and a hard place, between cowardice and banality, between self-destruction and externally inflicted trauma and abuse called life. All I ever want in these moments is to disappear. Teleport into an unfamiliar existence. Be someone else. Somewhere else. At some other time. Perhaps in some other world. To get rid of all these events, sickly memories, (mis/non)happenings, and lost opportunities just to protect my coating of asocialness. To put an end to this endlessly triggered anxiety. To get out of this sinkhole of a depression once and for all. To erase this regret-laden, thin life where the fantasies rot: the fantasies of all the clothes I wished to wear, all the foods I craved to eat, all the places I itched to be, all the people I cared to talk to, all the books I dreamt of reading, all the jobs I overarchingly applied to do, all the courses I oh-so-passionately thought about studying, all the poems I longed to write, all the love I longed to give, and some love I yearned to receive. They rot in my daily life. Like when my mother leaves the rice in water, and it ferments and starts to smell. The waft hits your nose every second breath, making you wonder where it's coming from, and after rummaging for a good chunk of time, you realise it's that days-old rice in water your mother soaked. I wish I could ask my mother to cull out this rot in me and throw it away.
Reminds me of this:
But, even that's a poetic fantasy. Reality is something you have to burrow through, as if tunnelling through dense, unyielding earth. Each passing day, I try. I wish I had an entity to pray to who would believe me that I try. I try to live. I try to work. I try to care. I try to show up. I try to eat. I try to drink. I try to take my medicines. I try to write. I try to read. I try to feel. I try to experience. I try and try and try. But life is just a wretched mirror, reflecting all the dark nights that have ever come upon you. The rot always riles up. It rises and howls inside me like an animal trapped under my skin. It slithers around beneath my skin and seeps out here and there, leaving me with the stickiness of realisation. Realisation of this thin, malnourished life. How bland and banal and behind and bickered it is. So drought-like. The rot is like a rock sometimes, too hard and unyielding. It drinks up whatever water of life I sporadically get and leaves me dry and thirsty and unquenched and still clenched. Life is too difficult to carry on like this. But the problem with stagnancy is that you are not only not able to move forward, but also not able to actively stop the process altogether. You have to go through the excruciating process of self-deterioration in autopilot. While the world moves on, you keep deluding yourself that you don't need to catch up because it will end soon, but the deterioration slows the ending, and you end up caught up nonconsentingly and all oblivious. The world must have something that I lack, which keeps it going. Even the remaining motivators like a job, or some money, or moving out and going somewhere else have been stoned to death. A different life seems impossible in this economy. More and more money will still not be able to sustain me in this economy. Moving out is a financial emasculation in this economy. Whilst I realised this, my remaining motivators for creating some life once I moved out were also dead. Now, I don't care.
I don't care about all the clothes I wished to wear, all the foods I craved to eat, all the places I itched to be, all the people I cared to talk to, all the books I dreamt of reading, all the jobs I over-archingly applied to do, all the courses I oh-so passionately thought to study, all the poems I longed to write, all the love I longed to give, some love I yearned to recieve.
They are all unnecessary rot to me that I can't get rid of, a cross I will have to bear. This rot has now become the fermentor, like a vessel that breeds and sustains, my ever-growing anxiety and depression. It eats away at my self-esteem, my adult capability, my human dignity.
And yet, this too will have to be carried into morning, not resolved, not redeemed, not erased, not even properly rested, just dragged there by ankle, like everything else I have not managed to kill or become. Perhaps that is the ugliest part of living: not that one suffers, but that one must go on arranging the suffering into a shape that can pass for a day. A body must still be gotten up. Teeth must still be brushed. A face must still be washed and shown to the world as if it belongs there. Maybe that is why I write any of this down at all. No matter how much I procrastinate writing, I still come back to this place. Not because it lightens or soothes or heals anything. But if I do not pin these nights to the page, they spread, become atmosphere, become the weather of my life. At least here, for a few paragraphs, the rot has a border, and I can look it in the face and say: yes, you are still here. Yes, you have eaten through another evening. Yes, you have made a home in me. But you are not the only thing that remains.
Because I remain too. Miserably, thinly, ungloriously, unwantedly, unfortunately, but still. Still the hand under the blanket, still the phone glowed in the dark, still the daughter who fixed her mother’s blanket before crawling back into her own ruin. Still, the person who tries, even when trying, feels like a farce performed for no god at all. Maybe that is not hope. Fine. Let it be something smaller and more humiliating. Let it be mere continuance. Let it be the animal's refusal to vanish. Tonight, that will have to do. Sorry.
~ Oizys.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments for this blog are held for moderation before they are published to the blog.
I will read them and publish them. Be patient and do not fear to pour your heart into it.