Disclaimer: Misleading title. If you are disappointed that
this is, yet again, another chapter of my breakup banters, and expected
something a little more yosi related, here’s a good read: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/cigarettes
(Get it? Good reads? Hehe. NO.)
ANYWAY.
I spent my Friday night stuck inside the mind-numbing walls
of DBM, encoding national budget to accomplish my JEEP requirements. I felt
like the center agents I frequently see in Eastwood, rushing out in their
corporate attires eager to have a smoke. I ran to the nearest convenience store
just to lose my mind and enforce my
long standing theory that I am, indeed, an unlucky mofo who seems to have captured
the liking of Lemony Snicket. In short, they were out of reds.
It’s been almost four months since I’ve last bought myself a
pack of menthol lights. This is my first time since, since, since, since
everything was right.
For my first puff I expected nothing more than that menthol
throat torture that red smokers usually get. But I surprised myself with my own
set of thoughts.
“This tastes like the
past.”
(Shet. Ang drama)
Because it did, it does. Suddenly I was back in my porch at
4:30 am cramming a paper—and you were there beside me. Your attention was bound
towards your laptop screen, browsing for updates on Kobe’s new injury, or
perhaps trying to understand mathematic formulas or something. And I’d secretly
be matter-loading for your English 12 paper just to surprise you with very
important data that might actually fuel up or turn your research around.
Suddenly I was half-drunk with you in Metrowalk pooling in what’s left of our
baon to buy DVDs to marathon. For you, I set my weak heart on alert mode every
single time I had to endure a horror movie. I always hated horror but for you I
did. Suddenly I was down the park watching you give my brother a crash course
on basketball, math and picking up girls. Suddenly it was five am and we were
on my roof, having pseudo political discussions on why your peninsula of origin
devolved into two ideologically contrasting nations. You were a citizen and I
was a polsci student; our contributions synergized a surprisingly fruitful discourse.
Suddenly we were at a Sushi bar with my dad and my brother, and I didn’t know if it was the food or the
fact that I was surrounded by the three men I loved the most, but I just knew
at that time I was at my happiest. Everything happened with a pack of menthol
lights.
It took me to a time before everything fell apart. To the
time before you first screwed up, And then I screwed up. And then we kept
screwing up so bad forgiveness became inconceivable. We both screwed up so much
that we could no longer find it in our hearts to be together. Sometimes I still
miss you. Sometimes I miss you so much that I feel its illegal. There’s no way
I could’ve screwed up so bad and still be allowed to miss you without going to
jail for it. And vice versa—mostly vice
versa, actually.
All is different now. Now we smoke reds. Now we’re far apart.
It’s been three months so if you’re the type to play by the dating rule books,
you’d probably know that it’s, uhm, okay (if not, encouraged) for you to date
now. Sometimes I wonder where you are. Or who you’re with. Or what you’re
doing. Or who you’re doing. Or if you knew that a Guidon photographer
accidentally photographed you in a restaurant with a girl who looked like me
from behind? I wonder if she really looked like me. Is she nicer than me?
Prettier? Smarter? Skinnier? Better? Or is she just new? She’s probably just
new. Novelty can take you to places. But once it fades you realize… I dunno. It
was never really that great? Retrospect skews up even the best of memories.
Please don’t play by the game. Or if you do, this may sound
a little (or a whole lot) selfish but please, just please, don’t let me know. I am weaker than you. But if there’s anything
I’m sure of, it’s that I think of you less and less everyday now.
I will not frequent this cigarette. The last thing I want is
to familiarize myself with the taste and associate it with experiences of the present.
This cigarette, I guess, is the closest I have to a time machine. I will
preserve it. Or maybe it’s because you
were a bad memory and I just really hate menthols now.
And for a little dramatic effect:
