ELO'CIN. A GIFT FOR A FRIEND.

ELO’CIN
for.

Biting, you are another gale of the frosty eve come down to smite me,
You are a burning upon my naked skin,
A few hours of reprieve from the endless drown.


Jikan, you are another undressing of shame,
You are a burning upon my tired, so tired eyes
And the dying that is my existence from day to day.

Breathe, you are another hammer pounding on my chest,
You are a burning, burning the blood that traces my despair,
This daily torture, street vendors and children laughing in Kiyosumi

And I am this laughable ghost, another of Kiyosumi’s many secrets,
Burnt by my own blood that despaired at who I am,
Another breathe that escapes is another second to live.


And I am dragged underneath by the cruel hands of everyday,
Burnt by their eyes, seared by the lies turned truths turned lies
Another undressing and yet another and yet another and yet

For I am the hours that surged forth from my endless drowning,
Still burning, I stand firm and scream no more,
And I am, living.

HALF-LIFE capitolo 1 (for joshua,old friend)

There was fire.
It lived and breathed and ate everything in its path.
There was a loud thumping noise and a shadow. Lond-eared.
He was falling -
-
and-
falling,

He jolted, woken by an impossible fall and an even more impossible flight. A giant bunny in red tights had come to save him from the fires of hell.

No worries there, he thought, scratching his head. I was meant to burn, anyway.

Looking at the clock on his bedside table, he saw it still had twenty minutes before the alarm was supposed to wake him up.

I could have used twenty more minutes of sleep.
Or a month.
Yeah, give me a month.

He turned on his back, putting his left arm behind his head.

The afternoon sun gave off an alien-like orange, vibrant through the blue gauze curtains that hid him from the world. His bare skin glowed under its light, his white boxers almost yellow.

Outside seeped into the quiet room in a continuous grumble; overlapping orchestras of angry drivers trapped in the after-five traffic, young 'uns speaking incorrigible street lingo into insanely priced mobile phones, street vendors shouting their remaining, unsold goods, and the latest Pinoypop music blasting from jeepneys - the lyrics, melody and dance moves all capable of making him cringe as the vivid photos of the exposed internals of last night's slasher murder victim in the news.

Inside, however, was a settled kind of noise, a chaos that clung silently onto every ordered space, every meticulously thought-of arranging and re-arranging.

A mini-kitchen, blue plates, green tumblers, flea market silverware. Copper-framed snapshots scattered and hung. These jut out from the entire room like marbles in sand, each smiling couplet stranger than the next. A lemony-detergent-cigarette-hangover-leftover lunch-smelling bathroom. Vinyl-covered main table with three wooden chairs and a steel one.
Everywhere he looked, he saw layers upon layers.

There was passion, heaps of it now buried so deep it's a wonder one can sense it at all. A layer of blame. A layer of lies. A layer of regrets. A later of hate. A layer of forgiveness. And a thick, almost suffocating layer of silence.

They stayed there like dirt, they attached themselves so strong and stubborn even if one were to scrub at them from morn til night, a skin will remain. They are our unpaying tenants, coinhabitants of a world built by two people who have lived together too long that it seems neither one knows anymorewhat keeps them together still, aside from a blanket of comfort and an idealized and falsified sense of commitment.

This place has a life. We bred in it a breath of deep and steadily growing indifference.

Nowhere more so than in this very bed.

He looked at the sheets, crumpled and undone. They are white, blinding witnesses to the facade that we live, and spiteful reminders of where we are.

What am i doing? he asked himself, for what seemed to be the millionth time. The millionth, for today, at least. Everyday, every simple, freakin' day, I wake up to an empty, stifling hot room, wait until i have to go to work, work nocturnal hours for measly pay, and hours later, go home to a lover rushing off to workall our couple-y actions automatic and pressured, wait again until sleep comes, cycle after cycle, day after day.

Does any part of my life make sense? Is it even a life?

Have to call home, he reminded himself. It's Tuesday and i have to call home.

He sighed. I WILL call home. After all, it's Tuesday.

The alarm went off. Every inch, every corner of the apartment stopped and listened as it screeched and waited for the inevitable. They know the routine. They know what will happen. They await his bustle, his hurrying into his semi-conscious existence.

Instead he closed his eyes.

He did not sleep.

He did not stir.

He just laid there, heart beating and blood pumping.

Half-alive. Half-dead.
--

------------------------------------------

OUtside, a little boy hears an alarm beeping, the sound getting louder and louder, more insistent.
The boy wonders why no one turns it off.

written.

cris garing

(image by Anthony Gayton)

HALF-LIFE capitolo 2

Only connect.

Only.

Lines and traces and shadows and trails. Where do we end up amidst all these twists, these intertwining chains? Where do the beginnings take form and the endings end it all? Where does He find himself, in his daily torture of khaki and cotton, ties and leather belts, fake smiles and real smiles, and alien thoughts and more alien sentiments?

I hate it, he thinks. I hate this. And i hate even more that I can't get out of it.

Look at me, all dressed up and ready with my earphones and my spiels.

Good morning. Can I offer? ---- Let me get the supervisor who can better assist you ---- Thank you ! Have a great day! ---

I used to be anti-social, but with the skills to appear socially cultured when need dictated it. This is slowly beaten out of my system with this grating monotony of hello's and may I's.

The devil is feeding. He feeds, and feeds and he is hungry. more. everyday.

Two o' clock. Bitch. Struts into the common room like she's the ice princess or Madonna. Not the, but the 'papa, don't preach me' one. And she does act preach-needy, her and her slutty lips and slutty hips and slutty walk and slutty ankles.

Love the strap sandals, honey, but come near me and i'll trip you, watch you fall and sing a happy song.

She comes and every sperm cell in the room automatically swims in her direction, fighting for release. Let us out, Let us out.

Five o'clock. Supervisor watching. Careful, all i need is another probation. Better do good, make sales, close deals. Better, be better.

Ten o'clock. Beefcake. Does he have to sit there, looking like he does? Smelling as he does (in my mind, I can smell him, I love his smell)? I watch his muscles, I imagine how they'd wrap around me, push me back, play rough. And that tongue, thick and wet. I see it when he wets his lips after a call, I see it and I see him, lios on mine, smell on mine, taste on mine, him on me.

Buddy. Call time.

Shit. I hope the supervisor didn't catch me drooling. Wipe your mouth, asshole.

And the hours pass.

I go out, i smoke. The nightwind is blowing, dark velvet is the sky and there is laughter and there are voices. They are female, they are male, and everything in between, under and over and across and all around it. The human stain. God, bleach us all bare and naked, peel our skins and maybe, just maybe, we see better who we are, what we are.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

That afternoon.

He on the bed, eyes closed. He let the alarm go on and on. It rang and it shrilled and it bore the marks of my life's disappointments. It rang, ten, twenty times.

Twentyfifth, he heard another noise. Keys. Door slamming. Bag thrown on sofa. Water drunk.

He kept his eyes closed.

You're awake, I know you are. Why not turn the damn thing off?

I don't want to.

You set the alarm, you turn it off.

You turned it off-

because i came.

It would have turned itself off anyway. It's not the end of the world.

silence.

Clothes are taken off. His smell brings back the smell of the outside world, just when he thought the dark and the space would keep all memory of it out.

Come here.

No.

He kisses my ears. He kisses them , knowing full well that i get worked up this way. Then his tongue It brushes. He bites, he knows. He knows. He kisses and kisses. The neck. Never strayin too close to lips, never too much.

It is kindling fire.

I said, No!. I said no, even as i felt my cock growing inside my white boxers.

His naked body came closer. He wrapped his right legs over my body, feeling my skin, feeling me hardening, tightening, giving in.

The boxers get taken off. He entered this time, he entered and he violated, he cursed and I cursed and nasty words, dirty words get thrown into the air, they cling to the walls like dust, thickening the layers and layers upon them. He straightened up and I took my cock and beat it, beat it hard and fast. I screamed for him to to do it harder , to fuck me you fucker give it to me do it fuck! And he screamed and we screamed and we both laid silent for an eternity. He fell on top of me, still inside of me. PArt of me wanted more. Part of me wanted him hard again and to keep on thrusting, his heavy hips hurting my skin, slapping my flesh burning and ripping. Instead he kissed and caressed. And cum, all over us, our bellies, our chests, our hands.

I asked. Please get off.

He did.

I stood up and took a bath. Half an hour later, I went out, leaving him atop the spoilt sheets, already asleep.

The hours pass.

It is all i know.

The passing of hours.

Something i read once.

It was either the wind or the spirit of the house itself, briefly unsettled by our nocturnal absence but too old to be surprised by the errands borne from the hap between what we can imagine and what we, in our hidden realities, in fact, create.

I still feel his smell. I still hear the ringing of the clock. I still taste the soup my sister-in-law made for me last time I went for a visit.

This is me. I accept it. I neither imagined nor created it.

I do my best. I live. I breathe.

There is a letter to be written. There is a story to be read. There is life to be hoped for.

There are no halflives. There is only the life that we live now, and we know it, it is ours. The life I will live, the life i hope to live. It will come. We just have to be ready for it when it does.

There are deals made, things accomplished. Work is done.

The bitch says hi when we pass each other going to the rest rooms. I say hi back. Once she's out of hearing range, I gagged. She's nice.

Bitch.

I sweat at the thought of seeing Beefcake tomorrow. He should wear his fit white shirt with the superman mark. His nipples show right through when caught by light.

A jeep ride. A walk. A fumbling of keys.

A sigh.

I unbutton my shirt strip it off work the zippers down my pants push it down take it off throw my socks on the floor the boxers stay water is cold I splash it on my face rub soap with hands lather massage it on face rinse rinse well turn on the stereo put on john mayer lower the volume put it on repeat mode the music will play on and on lie down reach for the alarm clock set it to five a.m. set the volume on high put it back on the bedside table fluff my pillow put left arm behind head close my eyes and be

still

written. there is peace to be had, in any form. cris garing.

( images are by Anthony Gayton : www.anthonygayton.com )