There are only two options when you're down.
Stay down
Or get up
Neither of them are easy,
But i promise down the line,
You'll be glad if you chose to get up.

Falling down
Is not an excuse
To stay down

They may remember my breakup because it kept coming up. Kept coming back. Some may think that my breakup was the thing that hurt the most last year. It wasn’t.

It hurt more to get my heart broken by somebody else.
It hurt more that I had to see her around every time I was around my friends.
It hurt that her name came up everywhere I went, as obscure as it was.
It hurt more that my fondest memories of last year weren’t with my former love, but with her.
It hurt more that I considered my masterpiece of a song to be one about her, and not about my former love.
It hurt more that gazing into her eyes I saw a myriad of puzzles to be solved and a seemingly endless, impossible maze that I wanted to travel in, but never got to.
It hurt more that I bottled these feelings in because I was in a relationship.
It hurt more, the nights I kept up, thinking about what if I gave it just a little more time.
It hurt more to think that maybe I made the wrong decision about who I loved.
It hurt more to rush into love like I did, and miss out on the one thing that may have been better.
It hurt more never to see her again.
It hurt more to forget her smile than my former love.
It hurt more that her laugh was one of the most beautiful sounds that I’ve forgotten.
It hurt more that I stayed up all night thinking more about her than my former love.
It hurt more to know maybe I fell in love with her more than I did my former love.
It hurt more to think about how much it must have hurt my former love to find out.
It hurt more to think how much I took from my former love, and how I threw her away in the end.
It hurt more to use the word threw away instead of broke up in that last sentence.
It hurt more that maybe a part of me still wishes things went differently
It hurt more to feel that wave of anguish to know she didn’t love me back
It hurt more to feel that feeling of defeat to think I tried so hard
It hurt more to feel nothing for my former love, and how guilty I should have felt but didn’t.
It hurt more to realize though, that through all of it, I wasn’t blameless. I had fault.
It hurt more than a thousand papercuts, cutting away, slowly at me. Taking bit by bit of myself.
It hurts most that my break up didn’t hurt me at all. It was her breaking my heart that hurt the most.

It stings now to know
That there’s a part of me that may still love her, wondering if she loved me back.
But now I’ll never know.

I miss home.
Maybe it’s the feeling of quiet in the night, how the air seemingly stands still, the silent cricketing of… crickets singing their symphony of the night
Maybe it’s the gentle breeze that graces you through the hot endless summer of the tropics
Maybe it’s nothing more than the endless stream of tricycles drag racing down city streets.
Regardless I miss home.
This place is beautiful.
This place, with the massive stream of culture flowing from every part of the world
This place, with it’s beautiful, clean air, and tap water so clean you could drink directly from it
This place, with the promise of something better - a life full of opportunity
Honestly, this place is amazing. This place to one may seem like paradise.
I’m not one to disregard my blessings, and living here, it is one, but this place lacks one thing.
It lacks family.
This place, in all it’s beauty and it’s cultural mish mash, lacks all the people I wish I could explore it with.
This place, with all it’s opportunity and promises, lacks the people I wish could have a part of it.
This place, though bewildering, endless, and… different, lacks the people i wish to share it with.

Often my heart goes home.
Often my heart flutters off of my chest as I lay face up at night, and takes me to another life.
A life full of what ifs.
What if I didn’t leave.
What if things turned out differently
What if they came with us
What if. What if. What if.

My mind drifts into this hulking chasm, one which the end of it stretches farther than the echo in which I use, curiously trying to finding the end.
The friends I would have made. The bonds I would have connected, severed, connected, and perhaps severed again.
The lessons I would have learned. The mistakes, shortcomings, failures, and perhaps even the way I dealt with them. How different it would have been.
My hair style. My taste in music. Hell, even my skin color.

And as I lie in that bed I start to miss something. Something that was never mine in the first place. I start to miss that life that I never led, the path that has long closed itself to me.

I desperately want it, but desperately don’t. Caught in a cycle of would have been, should have been, never was, and never ever will be.

Nevertheless, though the memories were never made, the bonds that were meant to be are still there, and I’ll cherish them until the day both paths converge again.
I miss home.

I hate airports.
I hate the vibrant colours, the staff who work happily, even through the mass of sadness that countless others are experiencing around them.
I hate the food, which is good, but sometimes, the bitterness of leaving sinks to the taste.
But most of all, i hate the the idea of parting, the idea of saying goodbye.
No matter how near or how far I may go, just knowing that I’ll be away from your grasp is painful enough.
I hate waking up on that day. The surrealness of it. To know that in a mere 24 hours, this won’t be home anymore. My last day on that bed. My last day with those people. My last day on that ground. My last day breathing this air, until well… god knows when.
I hate seeing you. I love you so much, but seeing your dead eyes, and seeing how your inner pain is so great that it’s affecting you physically, affects me too. I hate seeing you struggle to be strong, even though the pain is evident.
I hate hearing the plans for our trip.
The bags and boxes that served as my storage unit and dumping grounds, all neatly packed up, just like the day we landed. The only tie I have to the place that serves as my “home”. Really, “home” to me is a home away from my real home.
I hate the feeling of guilt, knowing YOU are the one who’s leaving a hole behind. That though it’s hard, it’s always being left behind that hurts more.
The voices and extra noise that I made. The late night guitar playing or the early morning screaming. In 24 hours, gone.
All of it parts on a metal tube in the sky. Planes….
I hate that "back to normal" feeling, that lack of presence that we leave behind. I hurt them, even though I don’t want to.
Then there’s the ride going to the airport
Please, come with me. I need you here. Just a few more minutes. Just another second. Anything.
Every little inch closer to the airport, I have to look out the window, act like I can’t see your eyes through the reflection. Act like I don’t know what you want to say. Act like I’m just giving this place “one final look”. Holding back the tears.
Mess up my ticket. Burn the plane. Pop the tires. I don’t want to go.
I wish I didn’t know these streets, but I do. I know the ride. I know the locations. I can tell we’re getting closer.
I know you don’t want to be here. But please stay with me.
I want to know how much time we have together until I have to leave.
i can already imagine, during that ride back...
The black stain of absence that I left. The emptiness of everything, and the pain you’re facing.
I wonder why you seem like you can barely move. Like you’re wearing shoes made of -
Oh.
It’s the weight.
I’m sorry.
I look back at the spot on the bed that I used to take up.
I hate taking these photographs.
The smiles I give are always fake, and I know yours is too. We pretend, because at the end of the day, there is no happy family. Not today. Not while we have to separate.
Please don't capture this moment.
Please give me a hug.
Don’t let go. A part of me prays something inside you goes berserk, like in those supernatural movies
That maybe you’re keeping some sort of secret power or trump card that you’re waiting to use.
That maybe you might grow wings and take me away from here so we miss the flight.
That maybe you just whisper “run” and for some strange reason, we just run away, buying even just a few moments. A few fleeting moments.
It'll be awhile before i get another one of your hugs, so please, hold me like it’s your last because god forbid if I die on that plane I’ll never get to hug you again so please.
Even though you’ll feel empty after, please. It’s so selfish but god, do it for me.
Thing is, I know deep in my heart I’m not the only one feeling this sadness
Right and left there are goodbyes
There are couples who are a few goodbyes away from a long distance relationship
There is a kid who is clinging to her dad's leg telling me to stay or take her along because he's working abroad
There are people sharing words to family members who live far away
There's so many people feeling the same, but... it doesn’t take away from the pain.
“Have a safe trip!”
I want to die.
“Call us when you’re home!”
I am home.
“Don’t cry”
You’re lucky you can’t see into my soul, because I’m not crying. I'm bleeding.
“Come back soon!”
I don’t need to leave.
“Bye”
I don’t want to go
"Bye"
Don’t push me away
"Bye"
Why did you make me leave this place.
"Bye"
I don’t want to go…

bye.

I hate airports

Love isn’t perfect or flawless, it’s messy and real.
And honestly, that’s the beauty of it.
Love can be like coffee; bitter and denying you of rest.
Love can bring down your mood without the intention to,
And affect your emotions with every action of theirs.
It stays with you and drags you down but it also lifts you up.

Love is cruel. Love is a disease that is ridded through countless operations, with you as the doctor, and even then, love leaves a scar. A scar. A permanent reminder of your experience.
But... love is reckless. It's exciting. Love is an opportunity. Love is an adventure - and not the same adventure that you find walking in a new city... no... love is the sort of adventure you find when you open a book for the first time. Love is the feeling of hearing the song that for a small time, or a long time, you will call your favorite.

Love is as punishing as fire, and as deep as the ocean. Love well bruise, bend, and kick you while you're down. Love hurts, and love makes you stronger. But you know what's the most ironic thing about love? Through all the agony and pain it may put us through...

We need it.

Exist

I am a whisper in the current of time.
I am a lonely voice in a choir of billions.
I am a single note in the symphony of the universe.

The Aztecs believed that one died 3 times.
Once, when their body stopped functioning, another, when one’s body is laid in the ground, and finally, when the last person on Earth passes, or forgets one’s story.

One day, my story will fade like a breath on a cold day.
One day, my story will be buried under the infinite amount of stories to come.
One day, my story, like the final note of a song, will cease to ring.

But even though my story will eventually come to pass, it existed.

We existed.

Our joys, our struggles, our smiles, our tears - our experiences; existed.
Though there are many stories happening at the present moment, and you have a story of your own, in my story, you play a lead role.

So maybe in the grand scheme of the universe, we are small and insignificant,
But never, for a single second, doubt that you matter in someone’s life.

In my own, you will, and will always be, a part of it.