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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

entry arrow7:46 PM | I Know That Man

I still feel for that man who mourned. Looking at him, from this distance defined by time, I can see that his heart was so big. So big, I understand why he felt it needed filling. I can understand why he thought he had found the very thing to fill it -- there was lightness, there was laughter, there were the silly promises of kisses, all things we mistake for love. I understand the dark days, where they come from. I understand the swift belief in madness: it was the only available kind of logic. Or so it seemed. I understand. And I understand the mourning, most of all. He mourned for the longest time, that man I see. I can come closer now, see how he deflected all that with rehearsed nonchalance; he wanted the world to know nothing; and so it knew nothing. But his eyes. Look at his eyes. There's a language there that's a cross between deadness and a scream. I see him. Somehow I know though that he knew I'd be here, my own eyes keen on retrospection, a little more grounded, removed beyond mere increments from knowledge of pain. How do I know? Because I look at him now, and he stares straight at me with that tiny dark glow of knowledge. He does not "see" me of course, not from behind that glaze of what should be falling tears -- oh, but he would not cry, that man, not that common drama. Everything surged beneath, all quiet rage, that searching hollowness that screamed, those unanswered questions streaming through his head that began with "Why?" and ended only with echoes, that bitter prayer that demanded a definition of love and loving and was answered only with a certainty of loss. I know that man. But I do not pity him. He would weather all that, I know. I know.

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