On Solitude: Untitled (1)
From where I’m at, it’s not so easy to buy chocolate milk in the middle of the night. This is not Taiwan, where you can buy pretty much everything 24/7. So I picked up a peach juice that says “KIDS” with a straw on it; I wanted to be a kid but also get super drunk so I went around the counter and picked up a Zytnia.
Hard liquor is something I’ve picked up after I had made my move. It’s a way of integrating into this new country or simply serves as an excuse to drink. Either way, it doesn’t matter much; I was never a big drinker. I poured a sip down my throat thinking how it would look like for a foreign woman, more specifically an Asian, sipping vodka by herself on a bus at midnight. I sat at the rear end of the bus; approximately the same seat where a guy was jerking off publicly facing me a few months ago. I read flashers get their needs from startling others and devouring from their reactions. From the measurement he had pulled out from his pants, that guy didn’t seem to be very excited. Once you have learned that first impression is very manipulative, you stop caring what others think about you since people can’t really tell shit about you. You can easily create an image that is as wrong as it can. I have two crosses on my boobs and I supposed that has made me a Virgin Mary.
My plan was not to pay for the taxi, meaning dancing from 12 to 5 in the morning. I thought about Tom, our roommate when we were partying in Thailand. He said he has lost four phones while partying on the island so he only went out with condoms. Tom is half Thai, half Burmese; where the war is still ongoing. A coup, as they called it and the rest of the world seems to be okay about it. People are dying unjustly and we seem to be okay about it. I put one Durex in my right pocket just in case.
There’s another very important realization: there’s no such a thing as “you have to” because you don’t even have to be alive. Why are you avoiding life with “have to”? The only thing that matters is what you want to do and what you choose to do. Once you have made your choices, you stick with your choices till death do us apart.
I left the crosses which were made from black electrical tape in a trash bin at a boy’s flat. He said he doesn’t care if I write his name or simply refer him as “a guy.” I told me that I write. I went to the party with a feeling that I might meet my true love and I think I did. After the sky has lit up, a girl came to me before I left and told me she’s a fan now simply from watching me dance. I thanked her, ruminating if it’s possible to make my name from raving 5 hours in a foreign city. I think there’s a great power in fame and I thought these words can serve as my power. He caressed my face with his calloused palm so I showed him my calloused palm. I told him he touched well with his calloused hands.
The truth is I couldn’t finish that Zytnia because I needed to take myself home. Who cares what it does since you broke my heart was playing while we stood facing each other without layers. A few days before all of this happened was the first time I felt like I can really stay here. I’ve always wanted to know what makes people stay and what makes them leave. Until now I still don’t have a clue. Yet life is clear; life is clear once you realized you don’t even have to be alive if you don’t want to. Then what’s there to grasp? What’s left you want to hold on to? Life is clear in this sense; like the liquor swirling in the bottle. Everything can be left behind. What’s left there when everything can be left behind? What’s left there in you, you as a human? I stepped down the stairs thinking freedom is too expensive to be traded off with anything mediocre once you’ve tasted it down the throat.
I pushed the door opened and the sun splashed on my face. Who loves the sun. Who loves the sun once you’ve tasted it down your throat.
