Man Up

What is the purpose of life? We look for partners to share it with, and we desperately pursue empty dreams of hollow chalk. We devote ourselves to blind faiths and call them ‘salvation’ but pay no rendition to our acts. Shame is what we feel when we know we are wrong. When you are sure that whatever unfolded, did so because of you, for good or for bad.

We make bad decisions and live a life running away from responsibilities, ties, and chains that keep us to a base. We suffer as we ponder on the abstract, completely overlooking the mundane. Why did I leave her? because she could see right through me if I gave her time. Why did I betray her? because I’m a traitor. Why did I run away? Because I'm a coward. Truth hurts when its fist, solid as a gauntlet of tempered steel, lays its weight on us. I know that I have wronged many people before, but my heart pours every night as my mind just stabs me in the back every time I turn.

I regret so many things, I can’t even admit it to myself. I love, but I don’t know what love feels like. I have been shown it all my life, but I still can’t understand it. Do I just love what I can’t get? people give me their trust and I just throw it away like a rag after I’m done? The answer is yes and no. Yes because I do, and I keep on doing it even though I wish I didn’t. No, because I have met one person with whom the idea of lying just seemed so bizarre, far-fetched, and absurd that not being able to do so scared me. So I left. I left to avoid getting hurt. I left to stop my heart from draining into my fragile mind's endless pit of darkness. I ran away from the only light I’d seen to plunge into nothingness. I was lost.

Time went by and new people came. Some who I even managed to love. But it was never the same. My rock-hard heart was now crumbling to pieces as I found myself struggling to run again. I got tied up and suddenly, I was living in a lie. Respect, fame, privileges. All those luxuries meant nothing when solitude came to my bed to embrace me with her freezing spell. She made love to me every night and I wept in her bust after. I looked for an answer but never found one. Until one day, I realized. I wasn’t ready to let you go. I didn’t want to let you go, I still don’t but there’s nothing I can do. I have locked you in my golden box and carry you with me everywhere. You are a part of me, so deep that my very essence smells like your perfume. Wherever I go, your shadow follows me, pointing the finger of shame towards my naked back and scratching with all your might to breach it. You aim for my heart, and I’m scared you’ll reach it.

I am ashamed of who I’ve been, and how I treated you. I am ashamed of this very writing I compose while all that's good sleeps. The pervasive thoughts of an unhinged soul, guided only by a broken compass, are all I have left at this hour where nothing but my desk light shines. I repent of the words I have spoken and the cuts I’ve made, but nothing will compare to the loose dirt that falls from my eyes, so tired from holding back tears that they have dried. For this I beg forgiveness, I have sinned. I have committed grave crimes and I have never let one of them change me, but now I can’t. I’ve faced the consequences of my actions and I have no option left but to take responsibility.

Why must I do this?

Because for once, you fucking coward, for once you have a chance to do the right thing. Do it, don’t let yourself be stopped. Solve it and move on. You don’t owe it to yourself, fuck you. You owe to everyone you’ve hurt. Everyone you’ve betrayed and everyone you’ve lied to. You owe it to everyone but yourself.

Man up.