i can't believe i get drunk so easily. what, dizzy with two bottles. i need practice. i've lost my skills.

i'm dizzy already. i want to stop for damage control but i have to go on. because every time i drink, it's with him. every time i drink with him, i feel this tremendous hurt i've buried coming back to haunt me. i go on rewind and the scars turn back into the gaping wounds i thought i've covered up. the heart i've pieced together after 6 years is falling apart again. i have to drink more. maybe if i do, this hurt will go away. maybe if i do, i'd forget all over again. maybe if i do, i'd be too dizzy to feel anything else, and too sick to care.

if only i could.

my eyes mist, my heart swells, yet contract at the same time as i read and reread his latest blog entry. he's the same as always, although so different from before. down to earth yet full of bravado. arrogant, yet he makes it seem reasonable, and yes, he can make you believe that it's required. that it's simply part of him, and it is.

he's right beside me. but he's still light years away.

this is what a jumbled post is. but isn't jumbled up how we all feel when we experience that heady rush of that thing we call love.

she was my oldest friend. she was my confidant. she was best friend. i don't remember when my life started to revolve around her. i don't know when i realized it.

i don't remember when i came to hate her either.

she grew up, i grew up. we grew apart perhaps. or maybe the only reason i stayed by her side all those years was because i was too blind to see what she was becoming. and i was too naive to see what she was turning me into.

and after all those years of trying in vain to make other people see what i do in her she did it all by herself. she's not the sweet person i used to know. she has turned into a popularity machine with a pretty face and without priorities. i just can't deal with her anymore.

maybe it's time we went our own ways. this time for good.

third wheel, there was none. it was simply a dinner of thee friends who lived next doo to each other. sometimes i wish something better would develop, but with my luck it would probably be fo the worst, and i don't want to beak the fragile balance we finally got.

still.

he doesn't love me.

i know he didn't, but maybe a little, stupid part of me wanted to believe that somehow, in anyway at all i could be special to him. that maybe, just maybe, if i stayed long enough he eventually would love me too. i guess i was wrong.

i'm not pretty. i'm not perky. i'm not popular. i'm exactly the kind of girl he would never ever love. not in a million years. even if i beat him in academics. even if i let him borrow my notes. even if i join the same org. even if i get drunk with him a million times, he never would. i've been such a fool.

but maybe the most foolish thing about this is that i'm still so very much in love with him. yes, even though he's ugly and awkward, and annoying at times. even if he's arrogant and sexist and superficial. even though he's a flirt and a pervert. i'm still in love with him.

because women are not as superficial as men.

the cold night wind sweeps through the almost empty streets, blowing my hair all over. the night is not so young anymore, yet the peace i feel must indicate the relative un-late-ness of the hour. or perhaps time has no relation to it whatsoever. perhaps it's all because of this person sitting next to me, his eyes scanning the empty road, waiting.

i could have waited the whole night if only he'd stay with me.

she said "if he doesn't make you happy, let go." it sounded so simple, such a simple solution to this, but it really isn't. because I. DON'T. WANT. TO. HURT. HIM.

i know i'm the girl, so she thinks it's all up to me to decide, and it's all up to him to please me so that i'll favor him. yes, because that's how it works when it comes to her. she's happy that way. and i don't blame her. blame sexist culture. blame the patriarchal system. blame the "dalagang filipina" notion they put in our heads from the time we were born. blame everyone else. blame everyone else but us.

i loved him for a long time. maybe all that love for him made me think he was some sort of demi-god, perfect in my eyes. yes, even though he was ugly, even though his butt was too big, even though he can't play either DotA or basketball well, even though he was arrogant, lazy, unpredictable, shallow. even if he was a player. i loved him. even though i know he never did. yes, for all 6 years that i loved him.

i was disappointed that he smoked. i knew he did, but when i saw him do it, a little part of his pedestal crumbled, a little of the perfection wore away. but still, he stayed. yes, he stayed on that pedestal i put him on, and i looked up to him as this smart, funny, cool, interesting, sensible, amazing, perfect guy who had dreams and the means to achieve them he was always my competition, and in my eyes, i never measured up. and maybe i liked it that way because it drove me further, further than i thought i could.

but one night he got drunk. WE got drunk. and he went and flirted--rather, molested--someone i really value. so they were drunk. maybe it doesn't count. she says it shouldn't count. in my heart it did. he was a pervert after all. before my very eyes, his perfection crumbled. or perhaps that was my heart.

yes, i think that was my heart.

why did it hurt so much? because i never thought he was capable of doing something so utterly disgusting and despicable? because he wasn't what i thought he was? or perhaps it's something else..

i don't want to love him anymore. i don't love him anymore.

i try not to. but i guess that's how he is. inescapable.

i guess that's part of his so-called perfection.

it was only for two weeks. less even. we were only apart for that long. so tell me, how is it that you managed to get yourself another girl that quickly? it wasn't even completely over yet. we were simply spending a little time apart.

i saw her. she's so pretty. maybe that's why. maybe that's the reason you forgot so quickly. maybe all men are like that. they forget just as soon as a better choice comes along. men are such pigs sometimes.

then again, what could i do? you still tell me you love me. you still hold me the way you always do. you tell me i'm wrong, that there's nothing between you to. i ought to believe you. i ought to. but i can't help wondering what would have happened if i didn't come back to you when i did.

naaalala mo ba nung sinabi ko kay rovel na madali lang matutong magmahal? nagkamali pala ako. dapat pala ang sinabi ko, madaling lokohin ang sarili at paniwalaan ang sarili mo na mahal mo nga siya. kahit hindi talaga. dahil ang puso mo ay pagmamay-ari pa rin ng iba.

sana mapatawad mo ko kapag nalaman mo na ang mga ito. sana mapatawad mo ko kapag napag-desisyunan ko nang sabihin sa iyo. kung sakaling mapag-desisyonan ko nga. ayoko naman talagang saktan ka. akala ko talaga, mahal na kita.

mahal naman talaga kita. mahal na mahal. pero ang problema lang talaga, mas mahal ko siya. siguro dahil nauna siyang dumating sa buhay ko. siguro dahil hindi siya magiging akin kahit kailan.

ayokong saktan ka kaya hindi ko sinasabi ang mga ito sa'yo. ayokong masaktan ka, pero kapag dumating ang panahon na kailangan na talaga, sana talaga mapatawad mo ko. dahil kung hindi lang naiwan sa kanya ang puso ko, ibibigay ko yun ng buo sa'yo.