Whatsapp

I woke up at 3:23 a.m. the other night

and I couldn't put myself back to sleep.

I looked at my phone and I tried to remember when was the last time I felt whole.

I went on Whatsapp, scrolled down a few times until I saw your name.

*tap*

You were online.

Were you having trouble sleeping, again?

Or like me, you woke up to find yourself occupied with a million things in your mind?

I lie in bed, the screen inches away from my face and I stared at the word 'online' under your name.

And I waited. Not really sure of what.

A text.

A phone call.

A hello.

An I-miss-you.

Those things didn't happen.

Maybe you were talking to someone else.

Someone who made you rather spend the whole night awake, to suffer having eyebags the next morning, than to say goodnight.

That person used to be me, I thought.

That person is no longer me, I realized.

And I wondered, maybe at the same time and by chance, you were staring at my name

And you, too, wondered when will I text you again

or when will I finally give in and tell you that I miss you.

*Last seen 3:33 a.m.*

You went offline.

Goodnight, I whispered as I waited for the sheer exhaustion of thinking about you, to lull me back to sleep.

I Deserve You

Here are some things that took me a while to realize, the same things that you should know.

I think, perhaps, there is a 100% chance that I am in love with you.

And I deserve you. Honest to God, I do. I deserve your humour, your weird sense of humour that makes me helplessly smile and all happy inside. I deserve your ability to make me laugh out loud even when I don't even feel like smiling.

I deserve your kind thoughts, your generosity and your passion. I deserve listening to you talk about the things that you love and the things that you hate. I deserve listening to the way you talk about the people you have met, the way you talk about the things that you find beautiful and the way you talk about love. And it amazes me each time you speak and I yearn to see the world as beautifully as you do.

I deserve to be in your presence when you talk about your faith. When you talk about God and makes it seems like all my questions about life are always valid. I deserve your honesty in the things that you don't know and your humility in the things that you do.

I deserve your love, unconditional and unwavering. Selfless and without any ulterior motive. I deserve to be loved by you.

I deserve you.

But here's the catch, the part where I don't think you understand and the part where I hate to admit.

You don't deserve me.

You don't deserve my insecurities and my constant anxiety of whether I am ever going to be good enough. You do not deserve my perpetual fear of being in my own skin.

You do not deserve my violent mood swings and panic attacks. Or how I shut the world out whenever I feel like the whole world is against me. And you certainly do not deserve my temper, my anger and all my pent-up rage.

You do not deserve my hipocrisy, how I judge people for judging me. How I expect the world to treat me fairly when I refuse to ever see the world as fair. How I demand respect and attention, but all for the wrong reasons, using all the wrong ways.

You do not deserve how I will always hurt the people that I love, and the people who are foolish enough to love me. You do not deserve how I will always push you away and how I am constantly afraid of the idea of you leaving. You do not deserve the fact that I am so afraid of getting attached because I am constantly entertaining the thought that one day, slowly but surely, you will fall for someone else.

You don't deserve me. Because you deserve someone much, much better.

So please understand why I walked away. Because it doesn't kill me as much, not being with someone I love. What will truly and surely kill me is the thought that I let you be with me when you deserve something much more. 

I walk away because nobody warned you that when you meet someone like me for the first time, you should have trusted your first instinct...

and run.

How To Break a Person's Heart

Let me teach you how to break a person's heart

It's fairly simple, all you have to do is start.

This thing I'm teaching, it's like online gaming

Once you start the war, there's no room for pausing.

First things first, begin with a casual conversation

lure them into your secret mission.

Proceed with compliments and make them smile,

make them believe that you're worth their while.

Promise them loyalty, kindness and affection

make them feel special with your utmost attention.

Now that you've confirmed, they're attracted to you

it's time to proceed to phase Number Two.

Text them at midnight, your beautiful thoughts

tell them that you like them, you like them a lot.

Text them 'Goodnight beautiful' before you sleep

Once you do this, they'll be in it too deep.

Now comes the fun part, so listen closely

but be careful, my dear, it's going to get messy.

Once or twice, read their text but do not reply

make them wonder what went wrong, make them cry.

Try to act indifferent when they share in their secrets

plunge the knife in deeper, kick them where it hurts.

They are now very fragile, almost broken but not quite

To complete this mission, start an argument, pick a fight.

Tell them you are done with them, you're walking away

Now enjoy the sound they make as they beg you to stay.

Then tell them what they fear the most, tell them with a smile,

that you had never loved them, you're playing a game all these while.

You got what you want now, their lives will never be the same

Congratulations, collect your prize, you have won the game.

Now you may ask me, what do you do

If instead you're the one whose heart got broken into two?

I will teach you now how to mend a broken heart

it's fairly simple, all you have to do is start.

Scars and Bruises

I think this has happened to everyone - you get these small scars or random bruises on your body and you have no idea how you got them.

I guess I never really wonder the how or the when of it, instead I always wonder what was I doing when I got them. What was occupying my mind so much that I didn't register the pain? Which train of thoughts could overpower the pain signal to my brain? What was I thinking?

And more importantly, was I thinking of you?

Bukhari Explains: What Panic Attack Feels Like

"A panic attack goes from a 0 to a 100 in an instant."

"It's halfway between feeling like you'll faint, and feeling like you'll die"

"When you miss a step on the stairs and your stomach lurches, it feels like that... but much, much longer."

"Your entire body is feeling everything, and nothing... all at once."

The first time it happened to me was when I was in high school. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know why it happened. And I never told anybody.

I just remember locking myself in the toilet; I was on the floor, arms around my knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

It ended as immediately as it had started. It probably lasted for five minutes. It felt like hours.

I didn't know what panic attacks were. I'm not even sure whether all these episodes that I have even count as panic attacks.

I can usually tell when it's coming. Like how when a person with asthma can know when he's going to have an asthma attack, or when someone with epilepsy can tell he's going to have one... it's like that.

I know when it's coming. But the sucky part is that... there's nothing I can do to stop it. Which usually leads me to go and find an empty room, lock myself in, and let it all rush in.

It feels like I'm drowning and I'm gasping for air. And with each breath, I sink even deeper and suffocate even more. It feels like a thousand mountains were laid on top of my chest, and with each effort to breathe, I feel like my ribs are cracking and I feel like I am dying.

I feel helpless, and scared and tired. You will never feel as lonely as you were when you're having a panic attack, which makes the panic attack even worse. Because you realize that no one is ever going to be there to help you. You can only help yourself.

What triggers my panic attack?

I wish I knew. It usually happens when a lot of things are happening to me, all at once. And because I tend to ignore them, it accumulates and soon, like a ticking time bomb, I explode.

It sometimes happen in public. I remember being in a mall with a group of friends when I felt like an attack was going to happen. I excused myself to the restroom, locked the doors, sat on the floor and waited for it to end.

Panic attack feels like a heart attack, or a stroke. But the thing with heart attacks or strokes is that you know what is wrong with you.

With panic attack you usually have no clue.

A friend once asked me, "Is it that bad?"

And I answered, "No. Maybe I'm just that weak..."

"But i just keep thinking that this will pass... this will pass... and it usually does."

Bukhari Explains: Why We Fall In Love

I used to believe that the reason we fall in love with a person is solely because of who that person is. Meaning that our love is fully dependent on their personality, their mentality, their humor or how they look like.

But if there's anything I learn being in my 20's is that we also love people because of who WE are. It is also dependent on OUR personality, OUR mentality, OUR humor and OUR self-image. 

You see, I think we accept the love we think we deserve. We are attracted to those that we feel are compatible with us. We fall in love with people that fit in with our personality, that challenge our minds, make us laugh and make us want to be better versions of ourselves.

We don't only love them, we also love the things they do to us. Like how they make us change the way we view the world, the way they make us believe in our own dreams and the way they make it seem that the world isn't such a bad place after all.

We love them, but perhaps more than that, we love their effect on us.

Which is why sometimes, when you stop loving people, you can look back and think, "What the hell was I thinking the whole time?" It's not because they've changed, it's because YOU have changed. They can no longer fit into your life. You, discovering new things about yourself, sometimes means realizing that the new-you deserves more than what the old-them can give.

The people we are in love with and the friends that we have, are all reflections of ourselves. The people we love, in some ways, define ourselves.

Therefore, we love because we are capable of loving, not just because they are lovable. So the only way to fall in love with the right person is to first be the right person. Change how you view yourself and you'll start seeing that you will be attracted to people who are worth being attracted to. ;)

I Am Sorry

Hey. I don't know why am I writing this in the middle of the night. Or who am I writing this for. Maybe I secretly hope that you would read this. Maybe you won't. If that's the case, then this is for my readers and hopefully someone will learn from this. At least I did.

I wasn't looking for you. I wasn't looking for anyone. But I found you, all by accident. I guess you can say that it's fate. I wasn't looking for love. I don't know what I was looking for. But I found you.

And you were perfect in every single way. You like the same things and you hate all the right things. I was deeply attracted to you, even before knowing how you look like. And that has never happened before.

We were moving too fast, I know. But I kept telling myself that it is okay to move that fast because when you feel that it's right, you don't wanna waste even a single second without each other.

But I guess I was wrong.

I tell myself that I love you over and over again in my head because why else would I miss you even after a second you said goodnight? Why else would I wanna spend all my days and all my nights just hearing what you've got to say? And why else would I agree to get a ring and ask you if you'd like to be mine?

I keep telling myself that I love you because you were perfect for me. You say all the right things and made me laugh at all the right times. And you make each and every moment with you feel like the right moment to be alive.

I fell in love with the idea of you. The idea of a relationship. I fell in love with the idea of being someone's. The idea that I can finally tell off someone who flirts with me, "Sorry, but I'm taken."

I love the way you smile. I love the way you laugh. The way you blush when I tell you that you're beautiful and the way you tell me about your hopes and dreams. 

I love the way you're so passionate about your studies and about life in general.

You see, I love a lot of things about you.

But I don't love you.

I tried saying it out loud. I tried telling myself that maybe love isn't falling head over heels for someone. I tried telling myself that what I felt for you is love.

But I can't.

And I tried ignoring the incessant voice inside of my head telling me that it was all a mistake. That I was living a lie and I was telling everyone that I love you because I figured sooner or later I would finally believe in my own lies.

But that voice inside of my head was right.

We had a fight and I got mad at you. We made up. And we fight again... and again. And I finally realize why. I was trying to push you away.

I have no reasons or excuses as to why I did the things I did the other night and for that I am truly sorry.

You deserve someone who loves you will all his heart and that someone isn't me.

You said all the right things, but all to the wrong person.

I still care about you, though. And that will never change. And I don't think I will ever stop caring about you.

And I hate myself for hurting you like that. or like this. 

And I didn't want it to end it like that. Not in a million years. But I did want it to end. I really do.

I thought I could stay and fight for you, fight for us, but when I realize that you, too, were too tired to fight - I realize that I cannot hurt you any longer.

I will always hurt people that I care about and I cannot justify how much of a monster I can be.

I am not perfect. But that isn't an excuse for the way I acted. It's me telling you that it wasn't your fault. It was all me.

Please take care. And the next guy you're falling in love with better treat you right, because if he doesn't then it's his loss.

I know it was mine.

I am sorry and I hope somehow you will able to forgive me. But I would totally understand if you can't.

Thanks for the amazing memories. Go and make new ones :)