What use is life, when you can't see the colors you paint. If one holds a brush, one has the urge to create worlds upon worlds of imagery, layers upon layers of intricacy. Oh, a fool I was to believe my hands would create an image worthy of show. In a world full of marvelous and wonderful paintings, my art has left me rotten like fish, stinky and repulsive to the sight of many.

Yet I dare not lose hope. I recalibrated my faculties and inspire to paint again. Though my ability hinders me to create art, I believe that it only heightens my senses, my passion for the paint. I wish no longer to waste time; I long to pick the brush and paint the canvas and tell the world the story: a story that a color blinded minstrel can only dare see and sing! A world devoid of color yet full of whimsy and delight!

However, as time has passed and the long hours of the day became weeks to months to years, I slowly lost again my will to perform my craft. I saw countless other beauts on ordinary roads, seeing themselves as artisans or protégés to the craft made me realized that I have only faltered in my art- that I not only become weaker and older in painting. Yet all these people lavish themselves to the public like wine or cheese, with time and education they have matured enough to become the better version, the marketable version, the acceptable version of the craft. No. I dare not tempt myself again in this road. I have myself an art which belongs to the greatest of greats, one that transcends beauty even the Queen herself would personally visit to marvel at the thing I have created. Yes. It is only a matter of time, I have to work for my craft.

And after a long agonizing month, I have finished my work- the work which would astound everyone! I have to hurry. I remember a fair nearby, but I don't know what time and don't know where but I know it's there. I just have to hurry.

At long last, I got into my corner, with all the exhibits being cloaked with a bold red color, something marvelous yet something intriguing. And in there, the fair, I can finally reveal the world my art- something that is worth showing the world. A story which only painting can comply, only the cues of color can decipher it's meaning. Yes. I can let go of these agonizing chains of anxiety and reveal how I am as an artist! An artist!

And now the judging phase approaches. The judges are going through the displays one by one

And one

and one

and one

one

by

one

My confidence wavered at the sight of the others, with colors and imagery beyond expectation. As more and more paintings were revealed, the applause from the audience grew louder and louder and louder AND LOUDER.

No, it's almost my turn. I am almost done.

Thus, when the judges arrive at my corner, I breath a strong breath, and pulled the bright red cloak.

And there is was, my painting. Enriched with the beauty of a minstrel, with colors popping out of every inch of the painting. I knew, I was content with this lot.

Yet, I hear no applause

even a little

What's wrong? I thought it was supposed to be amazing? I thought it was supposed to transcend human imagination? Where are those cheers? those applauses?

Then one laughed. And another. And another. AND ANOTHER. AND ANOTHER.

The whole crowd, laughing in delight at my painting, and I, dazed and confused, with the events that transpired this. I didn't understand. I don't understand. Why!? Why is everyone laughing at it?! I was supposed to be receiving applauses?! WHY!?

Then someone scream out loud, with his voice distinctly so, "is that even a painting? The colors are all cluttered!" Then someone followed up, "I don't even see the thing we are supposed to be seeing!"

And there, I felt dread. Dread that, after all those years of working my art, those days which I worked myself into the bond creating this work of mine, were mere illusions I tell myself. All this time, I fooled myself into believing that I did, that I was better, that at the end of the day I was able to create something breathtaking, something inspiring.

Oh, what fool I was. I was blinded by ambition, and now it brought me to rot. Maybe I knew it, maybe I knew I didn't have the chance to, all along. I just kept fooling myself into believing that I could, just so that I can make something out of my pitiful career. Maybe, after all these years wasted into nothing, I was singing happily to my deaf muted tune, like the minstrel I so happily painted then. I didn't realize that I had gone somewhere I cannot go back from.

You know, there is that question which lingers throughout our lives and that is the question of our morality. We often question ourselves on whether our actions are good or bad, whether they have desired or undesirable consequences. And this I believe is what made the human race what it is.

We often see the concept of morality as a scale or a division. If one sees something unfit, we brand it as negative. Same it true if we see something we like. But in that pretense, isn't morality bias based on who founded it. I ask now "how can we be sure that what we believe and perceive is right or wrong is absolute?"

Human race depends on this idea to sustain society and hence it becomes tied to it. Cultures and religions become enamored with the idea of shaping morality that at the end of the day it only becomes biased and loses it's absolute value.

My time's up hehehe. I really wanna elaborate more but I wasn't using my keyboard so I can't use my 70 wpm hahaha

This is my IG's name. I didn't it up by myself. I was at church and my friend was like "hey, why don't you have an IG?" I told her that I am fine with using facebook and I don't need another application to show my pictures. But as the past days went (during debate competition), my friends kept on posting pictures in their IG and asked me if I have one. I said no of course but that was the time when I thought to myself that I should have an IG account and my friend was there to help me make it.

Unfortunately my original ign for everything I use (PatayAngPusa) is already taken so I have to think of something as a username. It was here that the randomizer suggested me the word "TravelingCat" and I was like, yeah I liked that. It has the same weight as my original ign (PatayAngPusa is filipino for 'the cat is dead or dead cat') while also having a cool ring that devoids of the negative connotation of my ign. Hence, TravelingKat.

PS. My IG is ._travelingkat_. so it's not exactly the same thing but I kinda like the ring for it so I kinda used it for everything else that followed

Its annoying.

The noise from the changing room,

Changing with time, changing with the heart,

Blurring the sound within the room henceforth.

And not only that, I can feel the change

Growing larger and larger with each passing day.

Its resonating outside; Its going to get louder.

Yet what am I to do, what am I to say?

The noise will only grow louder and louder than before.

I can feel it gnawing my skin, piercing my mind,

The static notion possessing my senses,

The collision of sounds, the juxtaposition of ideas,

The sight of nothing and everything at once.

Until all the sounds of the mind continues to decrease,

Giving my mind back to itself

And seeing the light beyond the noise,

I will continue to do what the noise tells me to do.

the erratic nature of the noise; its slow and poisonous nature of the noise

Still, I walk away from the noise, and others look at me

And all that I can say to them is

"I'm really fine."

Euphoric, it may seem,

Of the prospect of leaving to

become someone else to a growing mind.

Wishing that we could have sooner.

With the energy I have built up,

after all those years of yearning,

I have finally have the chance to do it

without the silly repercussions that follow

without the barriers that bar me to doing so.

Yet, as I finished packing

and the bags are at the door

and the sight of the summer air lingers,

I hesitated. I stopped.

Why? After all those years of longing

to move out and escape,

why must I hesitate.

And there, I looked behind

A woman and man, faces stern with passion

Yet I saw the tears, masked and uncontrollable

I knew that I was going to miss home. A lot.

I like the painting up on the wall 'cuz many people would like to see it too. I like how many people would come about and look at the painting as if it was the perfect masterpiece, as it conveys the brightest of images and the most spectacular colors of all the arts.

Yet as the years pass and I grew older and wiser, I reminisce the time when I look upon the same wall and saw the painting. I remember how crowded the place was when they came, when they arrived just to look at one single painting. Now, it has faded to grey like the halls that carried it. The museum has only one visitor per month and the paintings and sculptures all decay and rot.

Yet, I don't remember any difference. It has been the same museum, the same people who resided here, the same memories. However, like the paintings that changed hues, times have changed without them saying so. You wither and turn grey without no one telling you that you are so...

and yet, I long to go back to the day, the day when I first met the painting, all before everything changed color

Some nights, you get the feeling of loneliness, of the silence of night take your breath away like million moments in life do.

And then you jerk off to something and the night wouldn't matter anymore.

But it is that weird cycle of masturbation that I have come upon the realization of my infatuations, of what I long for sexual interactions with. For most nights I would prefer to stay up late and work on whatever needed work, but on some nights I get the "flash" of an image. Not a holy image but a human one. Someone I long to see again.

It may have been a consequence of interaction of the lack thereof but the longer I bathe within the silence of the coming nights the longer I seek for forgiveness in other means. The start of a euphoric desire, the longing in one's heart, the moon that lit us both into the same world. Desires like these can remain oppressed however as the nights went by, oppression does not mean the end of such desire.

By days when I take my quiet hours back I glance at a portrait of a person I admire, not of a person I love; I kept to myself to never use these people as initiation of sexual desire, to keep these people free from the dangers of my mind and the temptation that comes with it. And for months, maybe years, I have succeeded in my accomplishment. I was able to contain my emotions whilst participating in every interaction that would give me the chance of romance.

But like the moon, it's light brings dangers and temptation. Like a werewolf which longs for the night light, the light of the moon shone upon the idea, the fantasy, of such thoughts and I succumbed to it. Like euphoria, the temptation was satisfying and encouraging. The passion which was brought along with the idea of sex has awaken by the mere suggestion of the other: the person whom I have longed for a long time.

Yet like all things that give life, it also brought death. As the time passed by, I realized I am more dependent on sexualizing him, dependent on using him, treating him as a sex object, something to satisfy oneself but not the other. This was not love, it was lust. The dangers of the temptations have pierced my thoughts and now has driven me mad with passion. I kept fighting against it, but every time the night came to its silent intermission the thoughts came upon me like water from the waterfall, always flowing and never stopping. It was then I knew, I was doing something horribly wrong to myself.

Thus, I came upon my realizations during the morning, where the night can't steal my thoughts away from me. I came to realized my vice in love, that everything that has happened, bore from mere infatuation and only has manifested itself as the lust we known today. It was dangerous. The promise to keep these people away from the dangers of my mind have now been violated by the same person imposing them. A hypocrite in terms of everything love stands for.

Therefore, when the moon returned to me once more I came not with thoughts of the idea of sex but rather the longing of the person of interest. I return myself to the concepts which made me infatuated with these people in the first place. Thus, I release my temptation one last time and delivered it to the moon where the thoughts will never entertain me again.

However, my vice comes from making it into a cycle, for anyone I fall infatuated with has now fallen the same trap in my mind that I wish not repeat again. All over again for how many men I have fallen again in that deep well of fantasizing our mere romance as something more, as something more. As long as the moon hovers it's temptation over me in it's long and silent nights, the cycling of falling in love and falling out of love will continue, sexual or not. My promise of keeping them away from the dangers of my mind have not wavered as time passed by however these temptations will no longer affect me as much as the mere start of the sexual infatuations that have brought me pain and torture in the long and silent nights.