When there is no time,

make time for what you do want to do.

–

[5/02]

I do a lot of things I don’t really want to do.

If cooking for oneself is a necessity and cooking for family is a chore, then only cooking for people who are neither is truly out of love.

Out of perhaps, misguided devotion.

“You’re like family to me,” we say it like it’s the highest honour.

But the question is: if one does not like the actual person with the actual title – is it a blessing or a curse to give someone else that title?

I both await and dread some questions.

How would I begin to explain that our friendship/relationship (neither romantic nor platonic, just the relationship as it is) is complicated by how I view other people?

Our friendship does not exist in a vacuum.

How does one remain friends with the enemy of another friend?

(I also love how I write and melt a hundred scenarios into a string of words that make sense in fewer than a hundred ways. Writing reminds me of events that have passed too long ago. These are like wounds, we open them over and over; what is it about humans that we ruminate like this?)

–

If you were to ask, me that question that floats only in my head, I will dread the words that will leave me.

I hope that the reply stuns you.

Because I will not lie.

My heart sings to reply and burns to pour out my vitriol; I keep it bottled up so carefully in an amber glass, the dropper cap screwed so tight.

It’s not labelled but that it is hidden should be enough warning, right?

I expect a single drop to eat through everything, but the truth is that I… have never put it out.

Without testing, how could I make a claim like that?

My answer will be warm and cold all the same.

And before or after, I will feel that same customary rush of exhaustion and remorse.

So, it’s best for me to not be asked.

I keep my hands on the bottle, but if you were to poke me, I would leave the bottle in your grasp. I would not be able to stop you if you were to open that bottle and douse yourself in it.

And I would have been relieved – you will be burning.

The moment you stop burning, I will have the bottle in my grasp again, with the same volume of vitriol mingled with more bitterness.

So, of course, it’s better for everyone if you do not ask.

And yet – humans still crave that momentary release.

I do know, I do accept that emotions cannot be gotten rid off, but I write to drain myself of these things.

They are inconvenient – a huge inconvenience.

Vitriol is said to be sour.

Maybe that’s why I like sweet things. A natural imbalance sought to correct itself.

But what is the opposite of sourness – remind me again.

It’s not sweetness.

–

I have made time to write.

I have also made time to cook for people – the obligations, the necessities and the misguided devotion and obligations yet again.

(The truth is, there are only a few I really do wish to cook for. When do all of them blend together? Do I not love myself enough to want to cook for myself?)

At the same time, I take the time to think, I must, make time to think.

Between writing study guide, helping with friend projects and engaging friends in conversations there’s also my academics (that I ought to take care) and…

My question (that no one will understand is): How is it possible that someone else would know my index number better than me? Honestly, is it just a test? Another mind game?

It’s not too unlike them to test me like this, but I’m begging (oh beginning I think) to think that I’m being gaslit.

I hope, that, if nothing else (since I’m not enjoying this) that they are enjoying themselves thoroughly.

I will break for them to see – just wait a little longer; I will then, using my sanity as a test, watch for their reaction.

Promise, I’m not trying to test them on purpose. I do not yield because I promised myself that if I could not find a good topic then I would not do an H3.

I promised myself – and they never encouraged me to take it up anyway.

Yes, we don’t take H3s to pass, we take them to do well.

But the truth is, I am beyond caring about the paper; I am beyond caring about if it is H3 something or H3 everything it’s taken so long to get to this topic and get past the readings and the sheer heartache that resulted from ditching topics I loved that now I am saddled with a topic that I want to do but drains me emotionally and now you say that it’s ‘potentially tricky’ I’m so sick.

I’m so sick and tired of running into a wall that tells me, “It’s your choice.”

It’s not.

It’s not my choice.

Can’t believe I’m yelling this into the expanse of the internet.

I made my choice, I’m running into the wall now please, please,

please (I’m breaking)

wall, just, fall over or

kill me.

You are a deceptively short wall.

(please tell me and be honest. If you wanted me to stop, why did you tell me to keep trying?

please.

Stop this (my) madness.

Stop this baiting and just tell me ‘no’.

I want it – you can see so easily that I want to – you know I can be obstinate and dense.

(Maybe, I am expecting too much of you. Maybe you do not know. Alright. I will give you that BOD. When I ask you next; this is my plea. Answer me simply.)

–

(At the same time, you will know like I know, that I want to hear a certain answer.)

Humans are fickle and contradictory.

What… can I do about that?

–

Oh, and how do I reconcile this with the distance I want to put between us? This idea that there is an ‘us’ it makes me feel uncomfortable.

The truth is that I do not think that you consider there to be an ‘us’ relationship. And because of that, I do not want to give more than necessary.

–

Today is our anniversary.

Our relationship is okay, but yours with other’s makes others concerned.

(You are not the same you, nor do any of the yous have to be necessarily the same)

–

(In the background M is yelling at the little one. F yells all the time. They yell only when they panic. They panic only because they require us to sustain them. F’s family gathers feel nothing like family meetings. I am nothing more but a chef. There is hardly any ‘family’. What is a family, anyway?)

They plead.

They ask then

threaten and yell

and everything in between as and how-so-ever

it suits them.

Humans are like this.

We act the way that will help us

but our morals our values are fluid in the face of our

goals.

We’re liars, cheaters and monsters but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t

human.

–

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