through the looking glass.. and back..

I always say that I have the friends I need and will ever need in my life. I welcome new ones yet, I find myself an ossuary in letting anything new in. As though any light or air will only hasten a decomposition of such friendship.
Earlier today, someone from work told me: "I know you're here for me but you dont allow people to be there for you. I can never tell if you are happy or sad."
One can be both emotions at the same time. Blissful melancholia.
Strangely enough, I realized that before I came back to Cebu, the only person I had lucid conversations was Ros; and that coffee moments with her was one part of Manila I will always regret leaving. And in the past four months or so, I had ciggie-break-talks with Katrina that belied the opaque mist we exhale from our pursed lips. It was always easy to just be unguarded -- to have my defenses ajar -- and to allow vulnerability even behind a guise of impermeability. A heroine in distress. I dont think I ever gave them much credit for that... for being the cinnamon hazelnut in my black coffee.. the piquancy of my otherwise mundane existence. Thank you for holding my pieces together despite the fact that I erratically percolate your genuine camaraderie.
And, I feel the loss always a little too late. I almost always just become driftwood... or linger at the horizon as I slowly lose sight of it.
Katrina, my former colleague, left for California last week. They said I was the only one who didnt cry. Tearless tears are of inconsolable bereavement. I miss her terribly. On deafeningly quiet cigarette breaks, I'd miss her. She would've saved me my sanity by letting me be totally insane. I will continue to shed no tears for friendships I never thought I needed but were the only ones I had been looking for...

And then, there was none...

Here I am. Like an old refrain,

Alone again, naturally.