Rejection Is The Best Aphrodisiac

I have

at long last

found

the

Kilometer Zero

of my misery.

***

"Full. Tired. Sleepy. I want to teleport myself home."

"No. Teleport to my bed."

Silence

"What about the cats?"

"This will not be a very tought choice."

Of course, I will pick love, warmth and fur. No-brainer.

***

"Rejection is the best aphrodisiac." - Kimmy Go Dong Hae

Oh. This must be the reason why they all coveted me. All of them, save for him.

***

Dried my hair, this time, under the filthy bus a/c vents. In my bag is a copy of "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. I stuff this book into my bag, no fail, for the last two, three weeks. I get to read at best 1 and three-quarters of a page of it only when I'm in bed, after I lotion my feet. I don't have my music player with me. The day is so wrong. I won't be surprised if I'm not wearing any panties.

Bus conductor decides to screw up with my change, and I noticed this only when I was buying boat tarts, realizing that I should have at least 3 P20 peso bills in my jeans pocket and I just had coins. I try to calm myself by remembering the many times that I didn't pay my bus fare. It didn't work. I already had too much sugar.

I keep counting the minutes, no, seconds, to my scheduled breaks. I fight the urge to leave my work station, lock myself up in one of the comfort room cubicles, and just scream, scream, SCREAM until our big bosses (bigger that Queen G, not needing be literally) decide to halt operations as all lighting fixtures in our office get busted.

I scram to the pantry for lunch and for a breath of sanity. There are only peas left in a bin labelled "Chicken Afritada". I end up Jollijeeping with Mikah. It still rains. In a choice between pneumonia and bad food, we pick the former. We share an umbrella, and I learned this - the right half of my body is not waterproof. She was wearing white pants, a bad, bad decision for a rainy day, but somehow, my jeans ended up getting more muddy.

The gym buff chicken I had won't yield to the cheap plastic utenstils. I should've just bought 2 cartons of non-fat milk. I'd have more nourishment. What I had for lunch was essentially just patis, starch and hair.

Dreaded end of the lunch hour. Back to work. So much stress, I felt the need to harm 8 random people. Browsed through the Employee Handbook for the sanctions of assault. Changed my mind. And Besty was resting, I can't mass send messages of frustration to people who love me enough to tolerate my rantings. So I distract myself, with Math, again. I pull up a calculator and compute how much I'll be getting for my final pay if I quit my job right away.

The day ends with me not missing more than 200 strands of hair.

I sit beside two shamefully fat people in the bus. I think to myself, could they be any more lonely than I am? I nap saying, "Fuck, fuck, fuck." They sense my displeasure. They try to keep their bare skins from touching mine.

I get home. I leave the gate agape. I leave my red umbrella open, a tired ballerina.

Adriane made omelette. For dinner. We feasted on it as we feasted on Jay Cuenca and Coco Martin. I was enjoying eggs and, well, eggs, when one of our cats turned on me. My thighs became scratching posts. Betadyne bottle in my hand. What a way to cap my day.

***

Stomp: Yes, you deserve better.

Fiery: We all do

Stomp: You deserve the fire. The carnal worship that makes us alive.

Fiery: There's nothing but embers where a fiery woman used to be.

Stomp: Once can still fan the embers.