– Here’s the thing, the story of this piece is about my love for the night. Before the pandemic happened, I always make time to put my earphones on, listen to my favorite songs, and walk all over the city for an hour. – Such thing was my way of finding peace in the midst of the noise from college and even when I started working. – The title is based upon the film “where the wild things are” and the film “nightcrawler”. Although, the ideas of the story is not that close to the films mentioned. – The story is more about the things that only stays during the night, and chosen to be forgotten the next day. It is not necessarily talking about a one night stand, but more about getting lost with someone’s thoughts, maybe even having the idea that it’s just the two of you in the world. – But at the end of it all, it just doesn’t work out well. Like the night, where the night crawlers are tells the story of a life seen during the moonlight, beautiful, but not all the time.
Okay, can I be really honest for a moment? Kasi, I do not have any idea on what the poem means for hue. – Here’s the thing, all of my works, the meanings of them are literally changing especially when I get questions every now and then. – The very reason is that, I simply forgot. I mean, I’m no “writer” compared to those who have published their poems, but I’ve written thousands of poems in almost ten years that I just can’t help but forget things. – In a way, that became the idea for the re imagining of hue. Hue is of course referring to colors, and at the same time the mood of a person. In this case, hue is one of the three artworks in melancholia that has colors other than black and white. It’s an artistic decision that I made that probably will be unnoticed. But the point is, in the midst of the dark, we can find color. 🙂
– Among the poems in this upcoming re imagination of the magazine, longing is one of my stories that was barely changed yet with the use of different words, it may be dealing with different topics and what not. – One of my main reason for remaking my magazines is the dream of sharing thru an actual magazine one day. That’s why I had to make sure that everything looks decent and is me. – Two years ago, what I have been longing for is a person to save me from what I have been feeling. But now, I do feel like the one I’m longing for may or may not be someone else. Maybe all these years, what I have been truly longing for is myself.
The last part of the first chapter deals with questions. Questions that I will never know what the answers are.
One of the most difficult thing that I have ever done with my life is cutting ties with a lot of people. It is something that’s been really difficult to me.
I have always been the person who gets pointed at every time such thing happened. Labelling me as someone who leaves once he gets what he wants.
A lie that was truth the eyes of those who don’t know me. I lived with it, didn’t fought any of it. It was a difficult situation for me as such events haunted me for years. I was trying to move forward, yet the past won’t let me.
That was the case before. Now, I finally understand that I have to let go of things or people that are not healthy for me. There are times that such people even have parts of them in me, but such parts won’t matter if it keeps falling apart. That’s why I have to hold on to them, move on, and be the man I am supposed to be.
It’s been a difficult journey for me to connect with others, I get frustrated and even hate myself for always being alone. Yet in the midst of all that, I realized that it wasn’t bad after all.
Yes, I still wonder about those people that aren’t here with me anymore. But in such thoughts, there is no negative emotions left, but of gratitude.
I do hope that the light, no matter how dim or strong, will lead them to a life that they dream of.
As for me, I may have lost my spark in communicating with others, but I am grateful and blessed to have a handful of people who stayed and without them even knowing, helping me become the best version of myself.
As for love? I do not know if there will be another chapter for it in my life. I do have someone that I admire, but I do not know how to connect. Maybe one day I will, maybe one day I won’t.
– Lose myself tells a story about two people who thought that they found what they are looking for in each other. – The artwork is a digitalized version of my sketch based on the indie-film “Ang kuwento nating dalawa”. – To say the least, it is based on my struggles with past relationships that I could barely understand at the time that I wrote the poem. – The main reason as to why I decided to re tell Melancholia, is for me to fully understand where I was, where I am now, and where I should go. – One of the common themes of the whole zine is all about heart breaks, and longing for something. – I have to admit, it’s been three years since I last dated someone, two years since I last tried to go ask someone out. In those years in between, I hated myself and even lost the drive to move forward. But it was through all that pain that I realized maybe the reason why such relationships didn’t work is because we are not meant to be, and we are just preparing each other for the next step. – I joked around that maybe it was all me, since the people that got out of my life are now doing better. That was a sad way of looking at it before. – But now, one thing is for sure. If God will let me have another shot to fall in love again, I can guarantee that I will no longer lose myself.
the view in the afternoon after a long bike ride towards Manila
Is everyone still here? I’m sorry but I really don’t know how to open this blog after months of being missing in action. To those who might be wondering, let me share my story from July to today.
July has, and still is the most melancholic month for me. During this month, I lost my uncle, and I almost lost my dad who spent one month and a week confined in the hospital alone. At the same time, half of my family members who live in the same space as us (including my mom and my sister) got the virus.
I was really broken, bothered, and lost. July started what I could possibly consider as the time for me to have no choice but be an adult and take responsibility in order for our family to keep going.
What makes this month grueling is the fact that it also was the beginning of our school year.
I really had no other choice but to be someone else from being a 20 year old man, who is afraid to wake up every day, into someone who is strong and optimistic so I could make ends meet.
All of that led to the making of my second zine entitled as HUMAN. It was something that I cannot really finish at that time due to the lack of motivation and inspiration. But once I felt like falling apart, I finally understood what it is to be human. And I decided to put all of that in my art, in my life.
I started studying Digital Art back in April and fully committed to it by August
What started out as a random hobby, became a means to help out my family. By august, we really needed to save funds in order to help pay my dad’s hospital bills.
It was an outstanding amount even if there were already a lot of discounts from various cards subtracted to the outstanding amount.
With the help of family, friends, colleagues, and strangers, we managed to pay most of the balance to get my dad out of the hospital after a month and week of stay there.
August was really long, it felt like July and August lasted for two years instead of just two months.
I rarely sleep enough, so I could grind artwork commissions and school works.
I pushed myself to be the best version of myself every single time for my kids while deep inside I really felt like quitting at times. But man, I survived.
the view during the evening of my 21st birthday
By mid September, I already managed to finish all the artwork commissions and started working on my yearly journey of making a short film.
It was a frustrating, grueling, yet rewarding process of over thinking and putting it in the simplest way possible in order to tell a compelling story even with a minimal dialogue.
My brother told me that making it seem like it was inspired by a silent film would be pretty cool, so I decided to make it filtered by blue and the others will be black and white to tell a story represented by three colors.
I really pushed myself to have a mindset that is more positive and less toxic than I used to. And to be honest, it’s been a wild ride.
Struggling due to not finding the connection that I used to have, the freedom to feel better by going out, and all that are forever gone.
It will never be like what it used to be.
I understand, even though it really took me a while to get myself into this position of accepting what’s at hand while still pushing myself to excel even with the limitations that is the pandemic.
all will be alright, in time.
Whenever there is a chance for me to cycle in the afternoon, I always make sure that it will be worth all the troubles.
Most days, I just stare at myself thinking how can I do better. A handful of days show a much better view of who I am now.
To the point that I had a couple of successive breakdowns that no one really know.
I feel insecure, I feel unwanted, I feel alone, and I feel like I have nothing left to do.
Until…
my uncle’s bike
I’m currently writing this after “asking for help”, after sending a message to one of my close friends, and she randomly started a video call and even though I didn’t say what’s really happening, our random chat managed to bring me out of another night where I can’t breathe.
My heart was beating so fast as my anxiety kicks in.
For the first time in my life, I managed to really talk myself down to seek professional help in the near future.
Today is World Mental Health Day.
And I am not going to be that guy who will say that “You can do it, because you can”.
I will say, that “You can do it, you are not alone”.
It’s hard man, I decided to lose most of my social media accounts so I could really learn how to compose myself better.
At the same time, I left group chats where I felt invisible. To be honest, that was the reason why my heart raced earlier. I was always opening topics to talk about and all that, but no one bothers to continue talking to me. And I saw that after I left, they were more active than before. It’s tough man, I wanted to cry. But I really don’t know how. It is by that instant, after months of pretending it was okay for me, that it wasn’t.
I still love them, I still do. They were there for me before when I was barely there for myself. I wish I could have told them that I need help, but yeah, I actually said I’m struggling. But that’s that.
–
This leads me to you, whoever you are. Thank you.
My story is about a man, who is struggling, who feels alone, a man from manila.
I know for a fact that we all have stories we wish to say, or tell. Stories that we can barely speak of.
“life finds a way”
With all my heart, I want you to know that you need to rest your heart. To take it step by step. What’s happening is ugly, and it can get uglier. But that doesn’t mean that we can be a little pretty every now and then.
For I believe that all these flaws that we get to see about ourselves will soon wash away, as soon as we learn to accept it.
Because if we continue to look for the end of the rainbow after every rain, we forget to see and appreciate how wonderful and life-changing those colors in the sky are.
We are already asked to wear masks, no need to put on another one.
This is quite a different entry to all of my blog posts ever since I created this page.
If you managed to see some of my work, all of them, or even one of them, I just want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
All throughout my year as someone who fully committed to his art, I really feel grateful. Even when it takes a lot of time where I just hate myself so much to the point that I decide to stop doing things that I used to love.
I’m writing this one, to speak about something that I really want to talk about for so long.
I feel empty, and sometimes, like today, I feel so terrible to the point that I could barely stand or sit up straight. My hands were shaking, and I just wish to be gone, even just for a minute.
The world right now is falling apart. The pandemic, the deaths, the corrupt leaders, and the community as a whole are not in the same page.
It’s been almost three months since the last time that I managed to go out and take my usual quiet time at my favorite coffee shop.
At this point, there are times where I tell myself that the world is bigger than what is happening with me. But then I realized, if I keep pushing myself out, and pretend that I’m alright while everything else falls apart, I’m going to lose myself again.
I just had a random chat with someone earlier, and I got the usual “don’t you have any friends? lol”.
Yes, I do have friends. I didn’t judge that person, because we barely know each other. It woke me up to the fact that, yes I do have friends, but that’s it.
Hear me out, there’s a reason for this different kind of blog from me. And the very reason is that, I do have friends. And I tried, tried a lot of times to be heard.
But like I said, everything is falling apart. That’s why even if I really can’t keep myself together, I understand why I could barely express myself with them.
At a time where I needed to be with someone, I truly feel that I need to be alone.
I wish and hope I could still go quiet in the night. Sipping my favorite coffee, staring at the moon and stars, far from where I am now.
But I’m here, stuck in a situation no one asked for, trying to figure out what else to do in order to heal myself.
It sucks that I cannot read a book anymore, no matter how hard I try.
It sucks that I cannot write a poem anymore, no matter how hard I try.
It sucks that I cannot go for a night walk anymore, no matter how hard I wish.
But I have to keep going. I need to. I need to save myself.
The world may be a million times bigger than me, the world could care less about where I’m at.
But I will still keep going.
I will crumble
I will fall apart
but one day
just not today
I will pick up the pieces
one by one
I will return
as someone better.
And hey, for those who feel something similar, I just want to tell you, you are not alone.
We may not know each other, but remember that I understand you.
We will figure this out. Let’s take a break.
We are not stopping. We are just taking a pause.
Stop neglecting what is inside you, no more pretending.
All will be alright, in time.
Until we all meet again, in poetry, in art, or in person.
IllegalBroTV 