I am selfish, private and easily bored.

Ten years.

Yeah, ten years. That’s how long I’ve known some of these acquaintances, comrades, fellows, confederates and cronies.

JH spread his life all over the hard concrete at the bottom of his apartment, a decision that was made 16 stories up. (For a moment you had a chance, yeah you really did.)

AB is on the lam, an illegal alien in the country he fled to after skipping bail and having his passport impounded for a stupid (violent) decision.

K’s living it up on the coast where the sun always shines but it’s real hard to see his smile when he’s 4374 kilometres away and banned from entering Singapore.

M’s doing two fucking dimes for shifting product. He’ll be at least 40 when he gets out and that’s after subtracting good behaviour, holidays and whatnot. We’re 27 now. 

Was a time when we sat round a table at dusk smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap whiskey and laughing at crude jokes made mostly at the expense of one another.

Table seems pretty quiet and empty now.

This may feel kinda weird to you but yeah, it’s a letter written by your dad 10 years before you were born. It may be hard to believe but I was a cool dude then ( forgive me for using such outdated slang ), what with me still smoking cigarettes and sporting tattoos.

Now you’re thinking, ’ oh here we go again, another one of his life lessons about how I should keep myself on the straight and narrow lest I lose myself. ’ ( yeah you’re gonna be a smart kid who reads plenty and talks like a prick )

When you read this you probably should be past the entire ’ oh my dad is superman ’ phase and have entered the murky waters of teenhood. You should also probably be arguing with your mom why you can’t have a tattoo or have been grounded for smoking a couple of cigarettes.

Now I don’t mind you have a few drinks or scuffles with your mates. After all, I’m gonna raise you up to be a real man, the old way. You’re gonna be a person who understands the importance of the loyalty of your brothers, respecting women and treating people who are serving you right. Oh yeah, don’t forget dogs. Dogs are man’s best friend for a reason because I’m gonna get you one. Never forget that anyone who hurts animals without a legitimate reason like survival is a scumbag who deserves a good sock on the jaw.

With that said, your dad used to be a bad man who used to do bad shit. I wasn’t particularly a vicious or sadistic individual, just that I had a crude awakening about the way this big bad world works.

You’re gonna have times when you don’t want to tell me or mom anything, even when you’re having a rough time at school. That’s okay, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Just remember that gangs aren’t the way to solve your problems. 10 years down the road from the age you currently are now, I learnt that the hard way through the butterfly effect.

I’m not saying that I don’t miss it. That electric surge through your forearms to your hands when a rumble is about to start. The feeling of invincibility when you’re facing off against overwhelming odds but you have your brothers at your back, palms sweaty but glances exchanged show that you’re ready.

Blood is honestly thicker than water. Do not give your respect and trust freely, for these things are the hardest to be earned. Protect your family always and never betray your ideals. Lord knows I’ve had my innumerable regrets.

Always remember, it’s all the live fast die young lifestyle until you find that you have something to lose.

Look at your mom, she should be smirking right now. It hits you like a ton of bricks when you realise that everything you’ve been doing is trivial when you get what you really want.

I was young and dangerous once.

Drink, drugs, sex, violence. 

Rinse and fucking repeat.

Blood, brotherhood, money, respect. 

Every night, I’d go home feeling unsure and shaken about who I was, what I was, where I was going. I’m guilty about what I had done but I’m not denouncing what it meant to me. I’m rebuking the tools that I used to get the end result, but I’m not denying that I came off the better for it, I did ( mostly ) what I had to do and survived. 

I’m not saying that it’s the best road travelled ( best I can put it without sounding holier-than-thou ) but it was the best that a lonely young boy who enjoyed reading and taking care of animals could do in a cruel world that valued reputation and the facade of false machismo.

My decisions and events out of my control were the catalyst for who I am today, the butterfly in full effect. The young boy learnt that sometimes books were not only meant to be read, but also to be snatched out of your hands and trod upon. Further down the bramble-thorned road, he also learnt that sometimes he favoured hardcover books over paperbacks because paperbacks weren’t as effective at causing minor concussions and nosebleeds when the need for the application of force arose. And later on, he became well traversed in the gypsy roads of life and literature and learnt that certain books taught him the faith in the knife among other things.

Baby steps to the murder of conscience and the temperature needed to create ice in the veins.  

At the tender age of fifteen, it opened a whole new dimension of experience for me. Practical exploitation of other human beings came naturally to me: how to use people’s weaknesses for your own profit. Be it gambling, women or drugs. It also taught me the value of notoriety ( I won’t call it fame ) but it also mentored me in the subjects of consistency and strength of character. 

I’m trying my best not to sound like a cliche but even then, armed with the knowledge of the street and its strength at my back, a part of me still felt empty. Every night, I’d go home either drunk enough to forget that I didn’t know myself or lay awake till sunlight wondering who I was. ( Aside from being a violent, hedonistic cunt. ) 

It changed with her. ( Sorry for more cliches, I know right, fuck you, it’s my blog. )

She didn’t try to change me according to her rules, her ideals of what a perfect man should be. Instead, she accepted what I was, every dark and dirty corner of me ( she’ll agree because she says I’m smelly ) and surprise, surprise, never spoke a negative word against the lifestyle I led.

But she inspired me to evolve, to fulfill who I could be, although I’m still taking stumbling steps to the way there. 

“ The way where? “, as natural human curiousity should inquire. 

The way to being a better partner, husband, father and person for her, my ( future, but not so near future ) children and myself. 

I still struggle with the demons that tell me I should live for myself and let the world and everyone in it burn but if I did that, I wouldn’t be living at all.

I still don’t know what I am, I’m still trying to find my rightful place in the world but what I do know is that when I lay down to rest, slide my arm under the crook of her neck and breathe in the scent of the nape of her neck, I know that I’ve come home. 

Ironically, the etymology of her name traces back to a certain Greek god of hedonism ( Wiki reference: wine, of ritual madness, fertility ). The very stuff I used to indulge in before she gave me so much more to live for.

No more will I bow my head and allow myself to be cowed into submission by the forces both in sight and unseen. I'll stick to my guns and give the world something to think about when it comes armed and pounding at my door. If the bastards are determined on taking me down I'd might as well give them the god-damned hardest fight of their lives right?

I know what I lacked before, and that was purpose.

" Hey no offense, I know it’s none of my business but this doesn’t seem healthy for you man. I mean, how much more can the heart and soul take? "

" I’ll go on until I break. "

" Okay, if you’re sure then. It’s your call after all. I just don’t wanna see you an alcohol-addled burning pile of train wreckage again. "

I was honestly scared deep down inside while I was drowning under the sea of blows but the thought of death kept me going, the thought of death held me under my arms and whispered to me: ” Jonan, I know you’re not afraid of my kiss but imagine the possibility of never seeing her smile again or the smell of her hair or the touch of her skin. Imagine that. “ 

That was the reason why I grit my teeth and felt the scrape of the tarmac on my palms as I stood up and smiled a grim, bloody smile as I put my fists up and told myself that I would survive the night no matter what.

One day the reaper would come to claim me and I would take it by the hand and follow it into the dark but not tonight.

Dear God, 

I know that we haven't spoken in a while and I don't think that you'd want to listen to what I have to say but this isn't for myself. I know that I've been a paragon of the seven deadlies for a long time now but if you help me out just this once I'll try to do something good this week. 

I strike a pretty hard bargain eh? 

Alright, I'll begin then. I know she's scared about what she'll have to go through tomorrow even though she doesn't show it and tries to put on an unfazed nonchalant front. 

If you could just help me allay her fears and give her some divine assurance that everything will turn out okay I'd be ever so grateful; I'll even tithe this time. Just let me know whether the source of the money is an issue with you. Ha, ha. Yeah fine, that was in pretty bad taste. It doesn't have to be something like a ray of hallowed light shining down from parted clouds or anything like that but just a simple feeling of serenity to calm her heart before it commences would be fine. I'm not a greedy man.

I can solve, fix and troubleshoot all kinds of messy situations but this one I think I'll leave in your hands since I can't do much stop short of injecting her with an antidepressant cocktail before it happens. 

Don't let me down like I've did you for so many times man. 

Amen.  

" God and the devil are raging inside of me. "

He spoke aloud to no one in particular as he exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, luminous under the incandescent gaze of the full moon.

More like the whiskey and the cognac are.

He thought to himself, silently this time and gave a short hollow chuckle before giving the snifter another sipping gulp that only veteran drinkers are capable of with a neat pour.

He knew that he was some sort of an alcoholic, no, not those self-professed ones who did keg stands or chugged foul-tasting solo cups of sugar-laden soft drink cut with the cheapest liquor they could get their hands on. It was simply because he ran to the bottle every time he felt hurt or scared or lost despite the fact that there were never any answers found at the bottom.

His eyes started to glaze over as he felt the familiar numbing warmth creep to his head and his heart. Its slow crawl up his chest and to his face felt like the embrace of an abusive ex-lover, both comforting and insidious at the same time.

He needed this though, he admitted to himself. He needed a certain impairment of the brain and with it, a temporary reprieve from the paranoia and pain that wracked his self.

He knew that it wasn’t her fault, after all, if someone had found a way to dismantle the mechanics of emotion, he would have made a killing. The heart goes where it wants to go. Yet at the same time, that was the very exact reason he was in this predicament in the first place.

Fuck that guy.

He wanted her to be solely his so badly that it hurt. What hurt even more was the fact that even with him around, there was still space for another. And what hurt and frightened him the most was that he’d never be able to fill that gap.

He didn’t want to be the sun, with all the planets in the solar system revolving and bowing to his feet, she’d already filled that spot a long time ago.

All he wanted was to be the one that she ran to when she was scared, to be the one that she could feel completely at ease with and shoulder the secrets that burdened her soul, the one that she thought about maybe just at least a couple of times a day.

That dark whisper came over his left shoulder again, the seductive draw of the identical other that resided somewhere within him. It promised that he would never have to undergo any more torment or vulnerability if he’d just submit himself to it and let it take over.

Why not you sit back and relax, it said, let me do the driving while you watch the pretty scenery.

It was the cold, selfsure twin that was and wasn’t him simultaneously. Yeah, he knew what was the score, he knew what it enticed. He’d let it pull the strings over the past few years before regaining some semblance of control anyways. It was the aborted foetus of his personality that knew how to lie to the ones you cared about straight in the face, the obsidian shard that knew how to hurt people in an infinitely more ways than one, the oil slick that others slipped upon and swallowed them whole.

Oh the things that he’d seen himself do.

He didn’t want to be like that again. He liked the way he felt, he liked the way that she made him feel, do things that he’d never done. He felt a sense of redemption in a way, not a selfish sort, but instead a sacrificial one. He never thought that he’d love showing the soft parts of himself to anyone, the ones that came in a box marked fragile and were ironically already broken, but he did.

All of the others took every opportunity to trample and jab and stab at the tender chinks in his armour everytime they were exposed but she had never done that, not intentionally anyways.

He was a walking corpse once but she made him feel alive.

But pain is always part of life and many sorts of pain he could handle, he just didn’t like the ones that struck too close to home, to the core.

And so yet again began the eternal(?) dance of the yin and the yang, the ruthless cabaret of sentimental dancers within him.

He only hoped that home beat away, he only hoped that she was rooting for him.