In Continuum.

The Taste of Nails

Come all ye lost
Dive into moss
I hope that my sanity covers the cost
To remove the stain of my love
Paper mach?

My elbow leaned against the edge of the plastic sill, where the rain ended beyond the field of my view. This must be how it must look like from the perspective of a wall - I thought. The way the thick paint washes over the old, covering the past up an inch at a time. The rain was exactly like a coat of invisible ink, coming down over the island like the brushes of a hardworking painter. The painter painted in the rain, always painting over the work he created merely a split second ago. It was as if he felt constantly dissatisfied with everything, running his brushes over the windows over and over again. It seems like an odd time to be raining this hard these days, but who do we have but ourselves to blame for the alien weather? I sucked the cold air into my lungs, feeling every inch of my chest expand slowly with every inhale, and breathed everything out again and feeling the rush of air between my lips. There was a smell in the air inside the bus, the kind of smell you get after the air-conditioning has been left on for too long. It was the stale smell of CFC, and in my mouth there was the taste of rusty nails.

I hugged myself close, having my own body as a blanket of warmth. Sitting in a bus on a rainy day, that is all you can ask for in the merciless cold. An empty bus and a rainy August morning is not a good combination, and I tired to distract myself in the hypnotic melodies that rang through my ears. But the rhythm of rain took over the beats of the drums while the gloom in my heart took over the gloom in the morning skies. Unable to defeat what was crawling out of my chest, the skies rained down harder in attempts to conquer my inner demons. But the darkness stood tall in the rain, with his chest braved against the mighty wind. There were thoughts flowing about in my head as I chewed on the nail of my right thumb. It's something that I do sub-consciously, a habit of young I suppose. I remember my mother slapping the back of my hand when I was a child, doing it ever so often even through the broadcast of a cartoon on television. She used to say that only children with mental issues chew on their nails, and the teeth make them look nasty in the future. I curbed that habit, bringing it down like a tamed lion. However, perhaps my mother was right about it after all, the way children chew on their nails because of some mental issues. Perhaps it wasn't so much about the mental aspect of things, but rather the emotional strains on their souls - on my soul. My mother wasn't in the bus that morning, just myself a couple of early commuters sharing the suffocating space. And there, I tasted my nails throughout the journey - and they tasted rusty.

In the cheerless bus I silently cursed her. But of course, I didn't mean a word that I said to myself under my breath. Like the chewing, it seems to have become a habit that I cannot shake from myself. The sight of young couples with their arms interlocked, the boy breathing in the smell of his partner's long dyed hair, while she runs her fingers up his arms ever so gently at the back of the bus. You tell yourself that you've been there before, not the back of the bus but to that warm and comfortable place once before. You remember the sensation of fingers running up your arms as well, and the taste of lips against lips as we traded hot breaths and passion. All that is left now, is that lingering smell of sweat in the air with the taste of rusty nails in my mouth. Strange to think that I have never tasted rust, but I knew how it must taste like in my mouth. Perhaps it was a sign of age, of being too used to the current state.

I breathed in deep and diverted my attention away from the loving couple. I didn't want them to notice me in the corner, sitting with my knees tucked close to my chest. It wasn't so much about the look I had in my eyes then - the way they burned with much resentment and self-admitting envy - but the empty space that filled the seat next to my own. There was something missing in the atmosphere then, something old and rusty, like the feeling that I had, like the taste in my mouth. I tried to remember how it felt like in the past, the way couples do in the back of the bus in much discreet. I failed, and I cursed some more. Like before, I didn't mean a word that I said, the words do not mean anything more than words anymore. Like nails being left out in the rain for months or years, the kind that sticks out from rotting wood in a dump. They are still nails, very much like a rotting carcass of a dog still being a dog. But they are no longer sharp, and they can no longer be used for anything more than a contrast of how bright and shiny brand new nails are. Those words escaped my mouth and were whisked away by the painter outside the bus, and with their blunt ends they pierced no hearts or souls anymore. At least not yours, which must be a thousand miles away now.

I looked only through the reflections, and the painter outside the bus made it easy to see. Envy became resentment, and resentment soon became admiration. It is a phenomenon that happens only in cases like this - or maybe just me - especially when it usually works backwards. I looked through the reflections just so that they wouldn't catch me, or feel me looking at them. But there I was with the corner of my eyes, observing every move there was to observe. It was a public display of affection, playing out like the script of a play on stage. It was Romeo and Juliet on a public bus to an interchange, it was Gone With The Wind in the backseat of a filthy bus. Both of them traded their breaths, their laughter dulled by the sound of the rain falling outside. But still, they were undaunted by the strength of nature outside, who was still trying desperately to dull the gloom that threatened my life. They were happy, and happily happy at that - if there is such a thing. There are happiness you see, that stems from the pain one suffered. But they were happy, and happy because they were happy. And here I am, writing on a blog that has the words "Happily Depressed" written on it. I started to wonder if there is such a thing as being happily depressed, and if it is possible to live a life happily in your own depression. I realized that it was merely a comforting thought, the remnants of the optimistic past. The past - I lost. I cursed, all over again. This time, at myself - and I meant it.

I wanted simple pleasures, the kind of pleasure you commonly associate with the taste of melting chocolate in your mouth. The way it rolls about in the walls of your mouth sends off signals to your brain to feel elated, to feel a lightness in your feet. That is what I went for in the past, the kind of things humans asked in return of their love for others. The way the fingers were cushioned between one another, and the simple words late in the night that brings out the tears of pure joy. Poetry of old came back to haunt me in the afternoon, as I battled with myself the fate of the card. I tried to burn it with a box of matches one day, I came close to doing it once in the sink. It was an abstract way of slitting my wrist, and the broken matchsticks that rolled about in the metal sink were like the blood that could have flowed from the gaping wound. The only thing in between myself and the simple pleasure of burning the past away was the past itself, and I found myself sitting by the edge of my desk as the rain continued to fall in the youthful evening, biting on my nails as usual. It was hard for me to do anything else, to feel anything else more than the numbness inside my chest. That was what I felt before the gloom took over, the same gloom that was crawling through my chest in the bus. It was like the body of a zombie, a living-dead, pacing the streets looking for fresh meat without knowing why. Perhaps a hint of other emotions; anger or hate, nostalgia or melancholia - anything. It was still difficult to feel anything more than nothing. Then of course, I thought of you. The rest was easy.

The virus must have infected my brain then, sending the bus into a blinding spin. Battling a running nose while being on a bus was not an easy thing to deal with. I remember the last time I was sick - the last time I was this sick. I was coughing phlegms out as I ran for the bus that had your wallet in the backseat. I gasped for breath when the driver waved me on and drove on, disappearing into the traffic. I coughed some more, and felt like I was on the verge of death. I came to, and there you were holding me up, breathing me in. I am sick - I told you under my breath. I don't care - you replied, and I didn't care. I stumbled down the narrow stairwell in the bus and came to the first deck of the bus. The rain continued to pour outside, and the school loomed up before me like a giant tombstone. In the veil of the rain, it covered most of the waters drilled and nailed onto the walls, and from the distorted images I could almost see my own name. The taste of my own nails was still in my mouth, now tasting more like iron nails more like anything else. Iron nails, a mouthful of them for my own coffin. The tombstone looks ready for me, a hole needs to be dug. A girl brushed her shoulders against mine at the bus stop as she rushed for shelter, her bare shoulders drenched in rain. I chuckled under my breath and how loud the bells of out rang. Simple pleasures, I have brought myself to a man as pathetic as this. A shoulder brush, the slightest touch.

It was the same on the way home, perhaps a little light of hope in the skies. No couples to stare at in the reflections, the painter gave up and went home. The gloom retreated back into my chest and conjured words of this blog entry you are reading now. He took out a notebook from his pocket and he wrote a couple of lines or two, and there were times when he got stuck after a long paragraph. It was hard to concentrate on the bus home, especially with the eyelids that were forcing themselves down with every passing minute, and the shaky bus that threatened to throw you off with every passing mile. But the words came eventually, not because of a stroke of genius or a light bulb of idea, but the kind of feeling everybody feels when they are alone, anywhere at anytime. To be a writer, you feel. And with the emptiness by my side then, I felt.

Come all ye reborn
Blow off my horn
I'm driving real hard
This is love, this is porn
God will forgive me
But I, I whip myself with scorn, scorn

So I wrote everything down in my notebook, and hoped that it would make it back home onto my blog. It has been a rough day in school, a rougher day on the way to school. It was a quiet day on the way home, and as I wrote the last word in the black notebook, I closed it and stared out in the world baptized by the rain earlier. Everything anew, everything save for me. I was back to square one, biting on my nails. Chewing and tasting, fighting a battle, losing the war.

I wanna hear what you have to say about me
Hear if you're gonna live without me
I wanna hear what you want
I remember December

And I wanna hear what you have to say about me
Hear if you're gonna live without me
I wanna hear what you want
What the hell do you want?