loneliness knows me by name

Posted by eye_spy | Posted on 9:51 AM

we're all lonely for something we dont know were lonely for. how else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody weve never even met?
-david foster wallace-


they say people can live for days without water, weeks or even months without food and can even withstand a long time of homeless but not loneliness. it has its way of eating you alive. only the brave can go against the greatest torture that is loneliness and remain standing in the end. all of us are lonely to a certain degree and we go out of our way to find the things that can make us a little less lonely.

we go shopping, we meet with friends, we see a lot of people and go to different places but when everything is done and over there's still this feeling at the pit of your being that you just cant ignore. its just there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for that instance to strike and poison your heart. when your guard is down it delivers the coup de grace and incapacitate your soul. before you know it, youre trapped in the darkness, trembling and not knowing what to do. loneliness has its way of sucking the life out of you.

just this morning, i came home to the news that a neighbor just passed away. he was this middle aged man you see everyday holding a bottle of coke in one hand and a pocket-sized tanduay on the other. no glass or a bucket of ice to be seen, he drinks straight from the bottles and "take it like a real man" as they jokingly say it. he just sits at the corner in one of the convenient stores singing old love songs.

he turned alcoholic when his wife packed her bags and left him without a word to elope with this guy she met at a dating site. said she got tired of her life as a poor housewife and so she disappeared without a trace. i wonder where his family is and why they left him in that condition. he got devastated after he lost the love of his life and his kid who was two years old then. he wasnt able to cope with the loss and succumb to alcohol to accompany him in his misery.

i once heard him sang "unchained melody" off key, you know, the usual way drunk people sing. you wouldnt believe that the loud baritone voice is coming from a small framed guy. i guess his body deteriorated as too much alchohol flooded his organs. he looked so serious then and if you know the sad story behind his drinking and singing, your heart would go out to him. today, he was found dead sitting on the same stool, at the same corner of the same sari-sari store which served as his little nook. its on that same place where he licked his wounded heart and sang his heart and soul out to his long lost lover that he never saw again til the day he died.

may you rest in peace manong...

Comments (5)

this is sad.. really...

sad...

Sounds familiar... This is really sad... really sad...

Losing someone you love without a word... really sad...

@anne: for some reason the song keeps on haunting me lately. :`(

@bloiggster: indeed its so sad.

@clipped wings: *sigh* mg-inom nlang ta uy.

Hope is soul rest in peace in heavens ..May god do mercy