I am a crooked soul trying to straight up. No words really come close to what i feel and think. I am now vulnerable and inch by inch cull and failures start creeping in again just like the first time. I am swallowed by fear and entanglement. I want to drown my emotions into definite form. I try to build myself again with words and maybe, just maybe, when i put everything into my paperback notebook i won’t feel worthless anymore and i will forget. And more likely remember only the things that make me feel like walking on air. If i couldn’t sleep i would pick it up again where i left it and would relive the beautiful things that would make my heart swell and my bones shake. Don’t believe into the things i tell so late at night. But when nothing lasts how can you believe again? When everything else is broken, how can you trust once more? And maybe that’s what’s wrong with me now that makes me erratic. I always think and i am prudent about everything. I don’t feel anymore. I don’t feel alive. I don’t want to delude myself anymore. I don’t want to get used to something i can live without either. Because i don’t want to immerse myself with things and feelings that are wide of the point at the moment. I don’t want to settle, i want to live. I don’t want to give up. Help me feel the light.

Written last August 12, 2011.

I made this months ago and was planning to give it to you on your birthday. But since i can’t do it now, i’ll just be keeping it here. This is not really meant to be seen. Not even meant to be finished. But whenever i hear a memory, those strong emotions and dragging thoughts kept crawling back. Those feelings i used to have when creating this in a coffee shop almost midnight were consuming me. Those questions that never seem to have a clear answer. I always end up writing half-hearted songs and passionate poems about lost love and fragmented dreams. It conjures every fiber of me and plunder my sleep leaving me into a state of oblivion.

“Life is like photography, you develop from the negatives.”

Thick or thin. Good times or bad. Up or down. That’s life. Either you dwell on it or turn it around. All we want is to be happy and feel loved. I know it is cliche to say that things happen because there is some purpose behind it. But there really is. And people come and go for a reason. We have our own flaws and we make mistakes too. So i guess we either learn and grow from them or dwell on it and let it eat us alive. Indeed i’d like to capture memories through photography. I feel this glorious feeling whenever someone tells me that i can tell a story through it and appreciates each of my photos. As i click the shutter, i have frozen a moment in time by recording the visible light reflected from the objects in the camera’s field of view. The chemical record is very stable and can be subsequently developed, amplified and modified to produce a representation of that moment.

We all want beautiful images that’s why we should live in the moment and take a snapshot of life, whether it depicts a candid laugh or a magnificent place. Every photo tells a story. Maybe those negatives refer to my shortcomings and failures. I will learn and develop from them. I will become better each and everyday. I will develop from my faults. In time i would be able to grow beautifully inside and out. Just like a picture.

If there is one important thing that i get the hang of, it is staying true to yourself. In this world full of deceit, hypocrisy, lies and pretenses, it is so hard to find to find what and who is real. Society’s all f*cked up. They tell you how to act, how to think and how to change into their liking. Some people do things just to make themselves look or feel good not knowing they are just making a fool out of themselves or worse they downplay the good of others just to illuminate themselves. Some tell you to ‘be yourself’ then they judge you. Don’t apologize or make excuses for being real. Some tell you to accept and love yourself, but still ads and media overpower the strive to perfection and thinspiration. Their image of normalcy? Skinny and fair-skinned ladies. No one looks like those models in print and commercials, not even themselves. Stop blending and drowning into the mainstream of things. Fitting in won’t make you stand out in the crowd. You are not born to be a copy of someone else. You can resist the persuasive influence of peer pressures and advertisers if you just look within. Be original by knowing who you are, what you want and creatively expressing yourself from your heart’s content.

Secondly, Don’t fall into the trap of believing right away other’s twisted opinions and making it your own. People will always have something to say and it’s up to you to weigh what is more important. You cannot always agree as well. Stand up for something or you’ll fall for anything. More often than not, some people have disparaging motives. Stay truthful above the opinionated rumble of other people with nothing to hide and nothing to defend. No if’s or but’s. If all your life you’ve lived is just to please others and to compromise your dreams and values to theirs, you’ll never be happy. Each person sees the world as they can see it but this doesn’t mean they are right, smarter or better than you. Judging other people as well doesn’t define them rather it defines you. Set boundaries from naysayers, toxic people and those who actually care for you. Have a few great friends that value your idiosyncrasies rather than a mass of acquaintances who don’t know your depth.

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