#so the fact that i am so frequently so tired and listless i start crying from frustration must just be normal right .

[cloudstrifing]

im both happy and saddened that on the rare occasions when i do have energy it's so natural for me to work on projects and do things i enjoy. happy bc it turns out maybe it wasn't just a discipline problem or laziness that kept me from my hobbies for so long, but saddened bc so much of my adult life has been swallowed up by inexplicable fatigue and the associated self hatred ahah :') because surely i couldn't really be that exhausted ALL the time, surely it was in my head , surely my attitude was the problem -- and then id get a flash of not being tired and its actually fucking groundbreaking how much i can get done (and enjoy doing) when I am not constantly an inch from crashing onto my desk

[2moonhabitat1-blog]

W1

Monochrome

It's my last winter here. I landed on this unknown city in hopes to capture every bit of its beauty and mysteries.

Amongst everything I've got to learn from this place, never in a thousand years I'd have thought about being scared of the dead. The dead that lives in flesh and blood. They live just like the rest of us. They smile, their cheeks reach their eyes but we can never look beyond those eyes. The dead lies within. Unreachable.

I photograph places. I thought, this profession will lead me as far as being able to capture moments that will get me the recognition I crave for. I was wrong. It was not only the recognition that I would receive but also something that will forever be etched into my soul. The thought of which, disturbs me. It leaves me groundless and vulnerable.

After a few months into venturing through the city with no one to guide me, I met a girl at a flower shop.

"Excuse me? Do you know the name of this flower?" I asked her. 

"I don't. Not fond of them." She answered as she picked up a few roses to examine them. She hadn't even looked at me yet.

"Why are you here then?" I asked trying to gain her attention.

"I could ask you the same. I know you're not fond of them either.” Her prominent emerald orbs finally reflected my image.

We smiled looking at each other. Her smile drew me to hold more meaningless conversation with her.

She was very typical I would say. She drank, smoked, cracked the finest jokes. Very, very ordinary.

We would meet up frequently. Took us just a month to be good friends and drinking buddies. She insisted on lighting my cigarettes every time, then took it from my lips to smoke it up herself. Sometimes she didn't. I trusted her every time.

She invited me to her place one day. At night time, after we drank a little too much at a local bar. I didn't refuse. That night, we let each other cross boundaries. We let it out. I'm not sure how we put up with the sexual tension that was between us all this time. It was obvious, that I wanted to touch her beautiful thighs and run my thumb over her pretty tattoos while kissing her senselessly. I thought I was very good at hiding my emotions but so was she. Because there was no way she could have touched me like that if she hadn't thought about it over and over and over again. 

I was sure, we wouldn't have any ounce of regret.

I woke up first, naked; our bodies tangled. Her sweet smell engulfing my senses. My eyes at that moment were definitely filled with unexplained affection, I could tell. I'm never sure about love but somethings remain inexplicable. I felt an unimaginable urge. I felt a newfound love of photographing her. Not that I didn't have it before, but there was something so, so sensitive about this girl. I could swear that I'd be able to live the rest of my life just by capturing her in frames. I bring out my camera wasting no time in clicking photos silently as she sleeps in peace. I capture her vulnerability. I gaze at her dried disarrayed traces of tears from last night. I notice the mild bruises on her lips from kissing her too hard. I notice her slightly parted lips taking in air ever so gracefully. I notice her beautiful chest heaving up and down in slow motion. I photograph the raw details of her essence. 

I decided to leave the colors out of these pictures.

There were only a handful of times when I left a photo completely unedited. She was one of them. All of her.

For the next few months, I would randomly bring out my camera and take her photos. I always caught her off guard. She didn't seem to mind it.

"Do you feel bothered by this?"

"I feel special."

I only smiled back and kissed her. We weren't dating. I don't think any of us thought about promising ourselves to each other. We both knew we were incapable of uttering the sacred word 'love'.

Everything was magical with her. We would spend countless of nights together with no questions asked. She would make me breakfast the next day. I would make her a joint at night. We hardly ever had a fight. Whatever, we had, we'd go round and round tirelessly. It was pure to me. This was more than just voicing those three words to each other. 

I went out of town for a couple of weeks for work purposes. None of us bothered to call each other. It felt like, we'd connect as soon as we met so I didn't deem it necessary to call her. 

I came home after a while. Our home. I found her laying on the bed staring up ahead. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed in her scent that I missed so much. I leisurely got on top of her to give her slow kisses. She only stared back at me through her lashes, unresponsive.

"What's wrong?" I looked up at her beautiful pale face, only to end up placing soft kisses on both of her eyes and cheeks. She snaked her slim hands up my neck and pulled me into a sloppy kiss that drove me insane. My hands frantically searched for hers so I could pin them down and take her in with my mouth, all of her. My teeth tugging at her lower lip momentarily that was sure to form a bruise the next day. My heavy breath fanning over her rosy lips as she moaned. She was breathing just as hard. At that moment, I couldn't get enough of her. I love her. I love her so much. This felt real. I wanted to tell her something. Something I'd never say, to anyone. I wanted to break the vow I made to myself.

"I want to tell you-" I was cut off mid sentence by her.

The next thing she said had me thinking for the rest of my life.

"Why do you photograph the dead?" She asked with her eyes closed. 

I'm not sure what she was talking about.

"When did I do that?" I whispered, still heavily aroused, before I go down on her neck to nibble softly.

"All those times, you did." She muttered under her breath.

"Explain." I looked up at her.

"I saw the photos you took of me while you were gone."

"You're not dead." I laughed to lighten up the mood.

"You'll see." 

She said as she turned away from me to lay on her side. She pretended to sleep while I went back to hugging her intimately from the back.

"Don't leave me. Please." I said, before losing myself to sleep.

And maybe if I wasn't so intimate with her, with my words that I whispered unapologetically into her ears, she probably wouldn't.

The next and the last picture I took of her had her staring at my camera lenses head-on fearlessly. She sat on the wooden chair, curled up, with her head resting on her knees. Her pitch black wavy hair cascading down her bare legs. Her tiredness engraved on her face that spoke volumes about what was going on inside her. Beyond her. She looked breathtakingly beautiful.

I found her in the most ordinary of ways and lost her in a breath. 

She left. She never told me why.

The rest of the days that I spent at home which we once called ours was comprised of me going through all the black and white photos I've captured of her. My head replayed every moment we spent together questioning where we went wrong. The pictures only drove me to near insanity as I kept staring at her eyes, trying to perceive beyond them and failing each time. The last photo, always spooked me to my core. Her listless stare felt like a cry for help, it spoke to me but I could never answer.

She was insane and I never once understood her reasons and why she did the things she did. That was my conclusion.

She left me questioning things. The answers to which I was terrified of. I was terrified of myself. Because every time I looked at her eyes in all those pictures, I slowly started to see my own reflection. My own self in somebody else. I didn't want to be whoever she was. I couldn't escape either. She was turning me into the living dead that she was. I was blind. I failed to look beyond her facade and this is my punishment. The hell that I created in myself in the name of love.

Love, was in fact, never there. It was madness.

She's gone away but left her ghost with me. I could feel her staring at me with her tired eyes peeking through the curtains. I'd often feel someone sitting on that chair unmoving. I was haunted, just by the thought of her.

I'm leaving this place. This place, that, once again gave me reasons to never break the promises made to myself.

It was hard for me to realize, that, I failed to see her true color; for someone who is fond of capturing the raw colors of nature and people, it was hard for me to realize that she had none. I painted her black and white, so that's what she became. The monochrome part of my life.

I am leaving. I can run as far as I can from this place, from myself, but not from her. In this spectrum of colors that I vision, those two will always be there hiding in the corner.