Muse

Last night, my muse visited and I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote this. My apologies.

I used to write more often, much more proficiently than I do today. I used to do most of my writing during sleepless nights, not unlike this one, usually with some girl on my mind. Although I wrote about this girl on my mind fairly often, what I wrote wasn't necessarily about her all the time. But having her on my mind usually helped a lot, whether it was her I was writing about or not.

Some two or three years ago, there was this girl who was on my mind quite often. In that magical way the silence in the middle of the night brings back memories of the past, I find myself thinking about this girl once again tonight.

She was special to me, in a way I suspect she'll never fully understand. There's the fact that she's, well, almost perfect: she was gorgeous, she was intelligent, she was funny, she was creative, and she was a dear friend to everyone around her. Plus, the way she carried herself, she was every bit the princess.

But that's not the whole of it. After all, I've been fortunate to have met, in my life, a handful of girls who were every bit as gorgeous, intelligent, funny, creative, friendly, and, well, almost-perfect, but I never spent sleepless nights with these girls on my mind the way I spent nights with this girl on my mind. Simply put, there was something about this girl, something extraordinary, something I couldn't quite figure out.

And it showed too. Whenever I was around this girl, I was a train wreck. I wasn't unlike a thirteen-year old who had never interacted with the female population before, making terrible, terrible jokes, that is, if I hadn't been totally tongue-tied yet. All of which would have been understandable, except that I was in my 20s, and that I wasn't really shy at all, and I have had fruitful (and reasonably funny) conversations with every other female in my life (and with ease too), and that there was absolutely no fucking reason to get so fucking daft whenever I was around this girl. And all of that is part of what I couldn't figure out about her.

And so we go back to these sleepless nights, with me churning out words as a sort of way for me to try to figure it all out. And while I never quite did, these words allowed me to be articulate, cool, funny, witty, sweet, and, well, everything I could never quite be whenever I was around this girl. And while I've written tons of other stuff about other girls who were on my mind, the words I ended up writing when this girl was on my mind were among the most beautiful I ever wrote in my life. Or, at the very least, they remain my favorite, my most cherished work.

I don't remember when I stopped writing about this girl. There must have come a time when I didn't think about her as often, followed by a period when I thought about her only from time to time, and then finally a time when she was only on my mind rarely, if at all. I must have stopped writing about her right around that time.

I guess I've moved on. Sure, there were instances that would suggest otherwise, like that Christmas present, or that bouquet of flowers I sent to try to cheer her up because she was sick. But I left the card unsigned for the flowers, hoping they only brought cheers and not thoughts of me, and I swear both gestures were just borne of me trying to be nice. And while I admit that there might have been residual feelings involved during these gestures, they happened some time ago, and I've moved on since, even thinking about some other girl during the occasional sleepless night, although there were no words written, or at least nothing like when I was thinking about this girl. I have, in fact, moved on.

As much as I would like to think that she's moved on as well, I doubt she ever needed to do any moving on in the first place. To be sure, she was never, not in the tiniest bit, affected by my the way I was affected by her. But I could see that since the time when I was thinking about her often, she has grown a lot, and despite a few bumps along the way, I couldn't see any reason whe she should be unhappy, now or in the near future.

Was I in love with her then? No, at least I don't think so, although it wouldn't be unreasonable for any boy to fall completely head over heels with this girl. Today, we don't really talk much, if at all, which brought along with it the sad realization that we never really were particularly close to begin with. If that had dawned on me back when I was still thinking about her constantly, I would probably have been heartbroken, but like I said, I've moved on, and I could live with that.

And I could also live with these rare nights, when I think about her the way I used to think about her back when she was all I could think about. On these nights, I allow myself to think about things I would otherwise never think about, things that, in my mind at least, could have been.

We would have been great. Even if I don't have a car. I would hold every door for her. I would hold her hand and put myself on the danger side when we were crossing the street. I would hold her hand even if we weren't going to cross the street. I would take her to the Bay to watch the sunset, and then I would take her to this place in Mabini where they served the best dimsum in Manila. Then I would make the "To siomai love for you" joke, even if it's corny, just for the cheap smile I would get out of her when I made that joke, and really, how could I ever resist seeing that smile on her face again? And remember that extraordinary something about her that I couldn't figure out? I would have spent my whole life trying to figure it out.

But then as the dawn breaks, these thoughts fade, to be replaced by cruel memories of lame jokes and awkward moments. And the thoughts are soon gone, just like the sleepless night, never to be written or thought about again.

That is, until the next time my muse visits, and she doesn't let me sleep again.

- posted by jaemark @ 5/02/2005 11:56:00 PM