Letter to Hanna

It’s Thursday, Hanna. Days after I got your letter in the mail. I’m writing this again in that little coffee shop I always go to. I have to leave for work soon but I wanted to maybe get in a few words. I saw a photo of you by Jenny and I’ve always loved her photos. I thought of what you wrote me. I had a date last Thursday and I thought it went so well. I had such a good time. I was laughing, dancing in front of this beautiful boy with lashes so long. I don’t understand how he changed his mind between Thursday night and Friday. He’s a ghost now, and in a big-small city like this, I don’t think I will ever see him again. I don’t understand people. I don’t understand men. I wonder if they are heartless. I wonder when falling in love became a weakness. I wonder when vulnerability will stop failing me. Is it so toxic for me to want love? For me to expose myself in this way?

He was holding me and we were laughing. We were both high. He was so impressed with the way I smoked, even though I told him I almost never smoked out of bongs. I felt almost carefree. I hate that every time I feel this way, it inevitably gets stripped away from me. I don’t want to feel bad for being vulnerable. I don’t want to feel weak for wanting love, but that’s how I feel. I want love, for me and for you. I want something great. I believe in something great. I don’t want lacklustre. I want something so bright and powerful that it might consume me but I wouldn’t care. I want good.

I can’t believe I’m still thinking about this boy I went on one date with. I’m not sure why I’m still bothered. He bit my lip as he kissed me, and I wanted so badly to know how he would bite the rest of my body.

A Lesson in Honesty

My friend Hanna once writes about how we need to save these moments of vulnerability. I can't remember what she said anymore, but it was about how important it was to document our sadness, our frustration, our breaking down.

I never let people see me cry. I never cry in public. I don't like appearing vulnerable or weak. I have issues with being vulnerable and the concept of vulnerability in general. I'm not sure how I come off to others, but I'm not that open of a person. This was May 13th around 7pm; I was crying.

Disposable Project, part II

These are the final photos from the Disposable Project.

The flash on this camera broke and the camera could only be taken out in the sun. With so many things and so few things happening in the past year since these photos were taken (ASUS Formal 2015), photography and creativity have been sitting on the back burner. I haven't forgotten about my personal endeavours and the things I'm still very passionate about, but it's regrettable to say that I haven't been spending as much time as I should on these things.

If I am honest with myself, I don't think I'm happy. I'm not satisfied. I don't know where the self from a year ago thought I would be now, but I can't imagine that this is the place. I feel tired all the time, I feel overworked and suffocated. The exhaustion sinks so deeply that I feel little to no energy to pursue personal projects or creative projects. My life has become a sad routine. The happiness, the joy I feel is brief and far in between. I do not feel overwhelming joy, I do not feel like the bright eyed child I want to become. I am not living the way I want to be living, not achieving the things I want, the feelings and moments I want. I don't feel as if I am living at all.

They have this saying, something like- surviving instead of living, living to work instead of working to live. I don't want to just survive. I would never be happy with survival. My friends have always told me that I'm not someone meant to just survive. Too idealistic, too flighty to merely survive. Imagine the sick dread and disgust at the thought of survival.

Looking at the photos of yesteryear, thinking back to the moments I've had of pure happiness, excitement, ecstasy, I know something has to give. Something has to change. Those like us, we're not meant to live in cages, feet bound, cemented to the ground. Flighty creatures are meant to fly, meant to explore. Something has to give. So, it's time to start imagining a storm brewing.

Pictured above: Mishi, Sammy, Charlotte, Sarah, and myself.

Philip Da Silva

Because more than a year later, you've left me with so many deeply seeded insecurities, I don't know how to be myself anymore. It's been more than a year since it ended, since our final words to each other, but I still can't forget you. The way it hurt, the way it strung, it still hurts. It still rings so loudly and so clearly in every relationship I have today. I'm scared.

We don't talk anymore so you'll never know how much you hurt me. You'll never know how you destroyed me, how you managed to cement my insecurities. How even though those text messages are gone, the tone still sinks into my memory, into my current reality.

It doesn't, you don't hurt me the same way anymore, but it still does. I'm still not OK. The way you hurt me, it is still echoed in every relationship I have, in every missing trust, in every frightened jolt and defence. I'm defensive, always ready to bolt, to arm myself against something else. I don't know how to enjoy myself without waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm scared. I feel like an animal waiting to be caught to be slaughtered.

I don't know how to forget you. I don't know how to stop letting you haunt me today. You destroyed me. I drifted for so long, I was so lost after you. I was hurt. I didn't know what I was doing, and for much of it, I didn't care. I just wanted to forget you. Any way I could convince myself, even for a second, that you were forgotten, that was good. I wanted another one of you. You, who once brought me so much peace and then brought me so much chaos and struggle. You haunt me. I look for you and I see you everywhere. Every time I seem to have forgotten you, you come back to me in another way. Tonight, I have an issue with a guy and you are what clutches at my heart, you are what punches me in the gut, leaves me for dead. You are why I am crying again. You are why I feel hurt, in pain, abandoned. You've been gone for so long, but the way you haunt me, it's like you never left. Your hurt still rings loudly, clearly, deeply.

You destroyed me, but you'll never know that.