Drought

So this is what dying of thirst meant. Even with the faucet turned on, and despite the rivulets of water spouting from it, enough to satiate one’s need to alleviate the caustic pain of accidentally swallowing boiling milk or a shot of pure Johnnie Walker[1] or cooling down a deprived and parched throat surviving on stale saliva, there is still the unquenched parchness of something more than my throat.

No, that is not the thirst that I am talking about, but I wish it were. The kind of thirst that can be quenched by a swig of San Miguel Strong Ice (always the beer of my choice), or a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice or maybe even my tongue slipped out of my mouth to taste the first few drops of the rain as they fall.

I wished that this thirst could easily be slaked just like that. A can of cherry cola that stings the throat or the alcohol laced with the chocolate-y sweetness of Bailey’s[2] that, when allowed to permeate the slumbering senses, could induce sexual yearnings. I had hoped that the tears that used to stream out of my ducts would be enough as they splashed on my cheek, slides down to my corner of my mouth, pain tasting salty pain.

I wish that a space on the bed would be filled up to accommodate this craving. The dent on the rumpled sheets is noticeable now more than ever. How long has it been since it was warmed by flesh? How long since the bed springs creaked not just for a mere fraction of 24 hours in a rented room.

Some nights I would just wake up and mutter at the emptiness. These are the days when a cretin friend starts to look attractive or days when I consider answering those ‘wanted: pen pals’ regardless of their age and I get scared.

The pang for companionship never ceases instead it settles into my gut and it is nothing like an antacid can cure. I can tuck it inside my newly washed linen sheets and keep it in my drawer, but for how long? Soon someone would spread it open and even the folds would not be enough to keep it.

I used to wake up from nightmarish dreams and scream then a hand would snake out form under the covers, patting me on the back or cradling me into the crook of her arms, while murmuring some comforting gibberish and incantations of reassurance. I have never felt so copious during those times.

I should’ve known that after the abundance, famine and drought would follow. Now it makes biblical sense. Seven years of superfluity, to prepare for the next seven years of wanting.

I should not have wasted the plethora of love you had given me, I wish I had the prudence to have them stored like grains of wheat on granaries for these years that follow, like what Joseph the Dreamer did. I would have had something to survive on now that I am on my second year of drought. But it has run out, just like everything, everyone else. Damn hindsight.

Five years left. Five years. By then, I would have had drank about a tank of beer but the thirst will linger at the base of my throat. Mixing with the alcohols’ bitterness is the sour bile that had settled there a year and a half ago. That does not sound too bad. At all.

Here. I’ll drink to that.

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Endnotes:
Why is it so hard to write when one is happy?
[1] A popular brand of scotch, sold in different flavors.
[2] The original Irish Cream