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[slytherin-girl-thoughts]

The Enemy of Human Relationships

With everything that has been happening, I find myself bit challenged in traversing each day. Nobody has a blinking sign above their faces saying ‘This person wants to be your friend’ — no, they never do. And the only way to know is to take the risk and plunge. I just wished I didn't plunged this deep.

In all my self-reliant diaries, I have always thought of what my mother told me the day I had to leave house for college. “Make everyone your friend. Be kind.”, she said. So each new face I get to be a roommate, I start good. I let their personalities and impressions bloom before me and then I show mine. This way, I will have lesser problems dealing with such people. Oh how I deluded myself thinking this is a golden rule of life and adulthood.

I let my guards down and told myself to trust people who I get to see everyday. It is inevitable. I laid my emotions, trusting them to not judge me based on what I felt — and frankly, my time with them was spent obsessing about my love life. See, I have a habit of storytelling to people. I find it hard to articulate my own feelings so I opt for the talkative route. My averagely wide knowledge in vocabulary fails me everytime I have to say my thoughts out loud. I often find myself confused as to how to speak the right words in order for the other person to understand my point of view.

Most people aim for the kill — listening intently and entertaining interesting stories so they would have rich material to talk with their diaper friends. It's no big deal and I don't mind that. Those diaper friends do not know me after all. A good decade of the typical rite of passage to adulthood, we foster bonds with people and learn valuable lessons from each we make. People can form their own opinions about me and I still get to breathe oxygen. I wouldn't die from their presumptuous thoughts. And frankly, sometimes I love the attention. It's nice to know you're some kind of good gossip material. In a twisted way, it makes me feel important like the uppermost members of the echelon. People either hate you or wish to be you.

My tendency to over-intellectualize my emotions and say them out loud has been my signature. I had known myself to feel validated when I speak my feelings, even at times when I am alone. It might sound absurd to talk alone but come on, we all do that sometimes.

Friendships are fucking difficult. The people who know me allow me to intectualize my feelings until things become clear to me. Sadly, everyone is not like that. It's the nature of humans to be different from one another and you cannot expect people to understand you. In all my defense, I know how to handle criticism if communicated properly — you know, like a normal person. My friends sometimes do not respond to my messages and I don't hold that against them. We all have our own races after all. Our communication has always been a two-way. At times, they would tell me that they've reached the limit for the day, and it would take them time before responding. We don't hold that against each other.

In my life, that doesn't work out all the time. More often than not, people would refuse to communicate their boundaries. Not everyone has learned the lesson yet. But as stupid as this might sound, it irates me to know when people suddenly stop talking to you then alienate you from everyone in the room. And the cause of this spark? They chose not to assert boundaries and held that against me.. and so resentment grew each day. Nothing in life is ever fair. But as human beings, it is our responsibility to know our limits and communicate them with the people around us—

Oh, no. That only applies if we want to keep the relationship, right? If we think that this human bond is something we want to have when we're older, we do the work. We communicate... which isn't the easiest of tasks, by the way. However, if we choose not to, I do think it would be wrong for us to put blame on the other person who hadn't been informed. It is not their burden to carry alone, as we are the only ones responsible of ourselves.

Jumping into conclusions without opening the matter for discussion... ah, that's one of the most problematic things we do. We fear confrontation, so we push it down until we are but a ticking time bomb ready to explode in the face of the enemy we labelled for our own benefit. Are they really the enemy... or is it actually our own selves that prevent us from having long lasting friendships? So tell me, how do you conclude that someone did not ever treat you like a friend? Does this presumptuous thought only occur when we are already ticking against time? Tick, tock, tick, tock. Then, boom. We finally managed to drove ammunitions down our enemies' throat. Maybe this way they would suffer, as well — in the same way we did when we jumped into conclusions.

It is such a pity that human relationships seem to be fleeting. We focus on things that we could actually control while refusing to take action. Our minds tell us, "Oh, but this is justice for us." And so I ask you once again...

Who is your real enemy?

[slytherin-girl-thoughts]

The Ghost That Died Behind A Closed Door

We meet a lot of people and sooner or later, we forget them. Is it ever possible to account every individual we meet in one lifetime? Can we do that? Maybe not, unless one of our parents started a list and we just live day by day to continue.

I've read somewhere online — that humans are haunted houses of the trauma kept behind closed doors and skeletons hidden in closets. Doing the best to never let light see the worst of it, little by little we are consumed by these darkest thoughts we ought not to share. Some people are small, damp, and dingy empty barn house you meet in the thickest of grasses and wettest of stormy nights. Some are just as big as mansions where ghosts of the past linger, tied down by secrets that latch onto your skin.

I have met you a few years back. You were a small abandoned house in the middle of the road. I almost missed your façade, as it is unassuming as you would have liked it. Steady on my wheels, I just drove by the road, never stopping for haunted houses because my own haunts me in the quietest of my nights. But your simplicity was something. In this world where people seem to make a competition whose house is more haunted, you keep your quiet being afraid of scaring visitors with your ghosts of the deepest scars.

But I stopped.

I didn't have to — I knew that. I could continue on the road, forgetting I ever laid eyes on your house. But something called on me, whispering little words and nudging me to knock on your door.

Your house seemed empty. I wondered what kind of ghouls linger inside. Were they too scary that people refused to spend the night here? Were they as headless and bloody like mine? What would your ghosts do when they meet mine?

Sometimes, in life, we meet deep people from the get go. We just take one look and we instantly know whether they speak in common tongue or a foreign language. But sometimes, small haunted houses deceive you. They might look small and simple, probably with a few ghouls speaking the common tongue. They open their jaws and latch onto your skin, carving their very being, dragging you down the black hole that leads to the underground. And in there, you'd realize houses can look tiny from outside but dig deep in a cavern six feet under where you meet the same spirits that haunt you.

Tell me, how can two people from different backgrounds share most, if not all, skeletons that they hide?

Sure, some might not be the very same, but they share distinct similarities that sometimes it's hard to tell one from the other. Diving into the ground, I realized this was how I use to keep my haunted house. It was like looking at a mirror but a few years younger and dumber. A vintage one that I never thought I'd look upon again.

And yet, there you were.

You're still struggling how to tend to your house and let the ivy cover you from end to end. You're still not proud of yourself — still scared of people knowing how much of a sad person you are. That's why you keep it underground, digging six feet of soil each time ghouls try to see the light. You are afraid of spooking strangers with one look at your door.

But one day, you told me I am the light shining through your dark cavern as I lock my eyes with yours. They're big and chocolate brown melting under the warm sunlight. They are a lighter shade than mine, but they lost the spark that was once there when all was good and innocent. I searched for the resemblance of a kid waandering around shyly that you've tried your hardest to hide. The innocence was lifted from you with that big, fat ghost standing guard on a locked door that leads to a deeper tunnel down. Who was that? Would it be alright if I touched its pale skin? Would it be icy cold that my fingers would catch frostbite?

You were hesitant to visit it once again, even when you held my hand for warmth. But one day, you opened its door and carefully let its remains spilled. It wasn't just cold. It was harsh and biting and more than icy I ever thought it would be. I did not know how to navigate even though I had a similar room in my house. Yours were more cruel and sharp than the dullest knife that stabbed my heart. You told me you don't visit this room and avoid your fewer than few visitors unlock the door. It was like Bluebeard's basement door. The ground rattled beneath our feet but we stayed close together, huddled in the cold and dark night of a cave. Sometimes we would stop and rest. Sometimes you would drag me back to the entrance because it still hurts to walk backwards in the same path that led you to where you are now. I would have to admit that claw marks have met my arms, spiderwebbing their way to the heart. Something about this ghost made your skin crawl and I hate seeing you like this. If only I could be the light to guide you through this tunnel, but baby, we already lost the map. For the last time, we ran back to the door to escape the icy grip that tears you apart. This journey is only yours to make. You have to walk down this path and reach the ghost that abandoned you when you were young. Even the smallest possibility that I might be able to hold your hand through it, you couldn't drag me along as it would shatter me too. I might dissolve into thin air if I tried to walk along with you, and become one of the ghosts that haunt you each night.

But, alas! One day, when I was facing the ghouls of mine, I heard it. It reverberated through my walls of ivy and bricks. I stepped behind you, to make bread with the demons that I've trapped in my own mind, and you continued to trudged down the narrow tunnel behind that door. You were chasing this ghost little by little, but it came straight crashing on your face. Its once empty husk became bloody and dragged you along, deep down and down. I tried to reach out for you, shooting my hand in the air hoping you'd catch it, but you're already buried next to it. You've spent your entire conscious life dismissing this ghost, and suddenly it caught you never to let go. Now the icy started crawling up your walls and strangers passing by bid the deepest condolences thay could muster. But these would never be as deep as the ghost buried you, and I could never interrupt. This is your natural process of decaying and bursting into flames, before you soar up and embrace the thick vines that wrap around your house.

I could never help you out there, not with this particular ghost. It would be the next impossible feat that we would never win together, for I have my own skeletons to water. Someday, when flowers start to grow from cracks on my skulls, maybe I could be that light once again. A light that would help your vines grow beautifully. But not now; it is your fight and not mine.

When you've dugged out yourself successfully, I'll be by the door holding it open for you. There, I will hold your hand and help you feel alive once again. I will let you kiss my knuckles again and again, while we slowly trace the floor with small but sure steps, swaying to the music that unites as together.