conversations

a knife & tantrums

e: ayan, ian, pag uwi mong batangas, bilhan mo kong balisong ha?
ian: sige, anong size?
e: yung maliit, basta yung special yung handle, may naka engrave na lighthouse, wolf at mermaid. (wow, and i had the nerve to ask for a small one.)
ian: paano yon?
e: basta, bahala ka na.
upper: wag ka na bumili ng balisong…
e: bakit?!
upper: eh kasi pag uminit ulo mo, nakakatakot. para kang bata eh.
e: eh, eh, bakit, bakit? hindi naman ako mananakit ah..
upper: baka kasi lumilipad na lang yan sa office pag bad mood ka.

*end of conversation, with the train of thought drifting to bread, cocoa, champorado, more food, more inane stuff. and i still don’t have a balisong up until now.

just another movie

“One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.” brokeback mountain, annie proulx >>
sorry just had to stash this in this blog for posterity. i really really like these lines.

another movie having a bit of myself part 2
ghost world – enid says, “you know what my # 1 fantasy is? i used to think that one day, just not telling anyone, i could go off to some random place, and i just disapper, like you’ll never see me again.” i watched this movie on apr 28, and when i heard her remarks, they hit me with such force. i’ve toyed with this idea since college, even coming up with a mental list of places to house myself. i fear that one day, i’ll really do this. it’s like having a tornado inside me that’s raging to escape.

a huge wrinkle in time

i am single again after so many years. thank you to rare true friends who are a comfort to me. you will never know how much your catching me means to me. i haven’t told my high school friends yet; they’d be devastated. that’s how they love me. i’m not comfortable telling it to some college “friends”. i imagine myself a wolf, sensing for a rise and fall of raw smells. i can catch whiffs of insincerity, that’s why. if i have the liberty, i would have bitten some people on their necks and leave them to wallow in their stench.

i don’t need pity, i don’t need sarcasm, i don’t need snide remarks, i just need to feel real. to feel a hand on my back, get a quick hug, receive a short note. all those are fleeting, but they make me buoyant in this sea of sadness.

for those wondering if it can be saved, it can’t be. that’s the reality. for those wondering whose fault, it’s mostly mine. for those wondering how i feel, i feel really rotten for hurting one of the most beautiful, true persons on earth. for those still willing to welcome me back with open arms, thank you. i haven’t cried about this. somebody who’s just wonderful and sweet wondered aloud: “maybe you’re cold inside.” seems nobody can thaw me after all.

side note: it’s interesting to note people’s reactions to this news. most people are endearing, their reactions leave a catch in my throat. but some are just fucking insincere i can almost see their sneers behind their smiles. they seem to be the ones who celebrate wantonly inside when there’s a tragedy. this type of person i want to poke, see if they still feel anything. sickening. >> yep, upper, strike 3 na. 🙂

this poem i gave to a dear friend when her boyfriend and herself parted ways. it’s my turn to live and breathe this poem.

Love after Love

by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

****update: yesterday (may 22), he tried to contact me. there’s a “missed call” notification on my phone; i wasn’t able to answer his call. i don’t know what he wants, but i sure hope that everything’s really over between us. we’re both tired, but he’s gotten beaten up more. sometimes, love ain’t enough. remember the lyrics? >> But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much/ And it’s sad when you know its your heart you cant trust/ There’s a reason why people dont stay where they are/Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough….

((thanks, sir adel, for listening to me. ))

curtain call

freefall is a section in weight of words for masturbatory, practice writing, random quotes and pieces of poetry. similar to a tattoo where an artist sketches an outline first before the very illustration, freefall is an outline of either beautiful or monstrous sets of words to come.

“I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible, and how it can actually ache in places you didn’t know you had inside you, and it doesn’t matter how many new haircuts you get, or gyms you join, or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with your girlfriends… you still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong, or how you could have misunderstood, and how in the hell for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy. And sometimes you can even convince yourself that he’ll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that, however long all that may be, you’ll go somewhere new, and you’ll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again, and little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all that fuzzy stuff, those years of your life that you wasted, that will eventually begin to fade.” – Iris (“The Holiday”)

i’m writing an article about 18th cent. Italian architecture, and i am crying. my colleague must think me crazy for crying over 18th cent. Italian architecture.

i don’t know if this is a test or a technical dress rehearsal. whatever the case, i think i’m messing up my performance, i don’t think i am aceing this—this absence of yours that is finally happening. i went diving, felt how it is to have my throat too dry to even miss moisture, felt how water weighs me down, felt corals scraping my knees. with you, or to be more exact, without you, i feel only how my throat constricts. i asked for a sign about what all your silence means, and the sign didn’t come. so the trip back to the house was agonizing—thinking about you, feeling the start of your absence’s weight and feeling a snag in my throat. i was in the car, and i couldn’t shout your name, not even once.

with all the absence of signals from you, for the first time, i am being selfless. whatever you are doing—jogging, napping, dating, serving, teaching, living, writing, loving—do them all with that one feeling you’ve never had in those years spent with me: release from my hold. it’s amazing “how it can actually ache in places you didn’t know you had inside you.”

respite from words

my imprisonment and redemption

destined to be a writer (see photo 1)

girl talk

a sweet escape

i can live here

land, mates!

my dream has come true

a walk

my lourd, nang dahil sa iyo, gusto kong makakuha ng astro cigarette para masubukan

at peace

‘I watched you sigh/with the dipping of clouds. /The sound goes deeper where/no hands can reach it.’

persistence (don’t read this if you hate sad entries)

May 9, Wednesday

4PM: i met a nice dog adopted from PAWS. all dark and cuddly, shadow gave me a loving welcome. he kept pushing his large, ink-black body towards my legs, and i kept crooning at him.

5PM: my brother sent me a text message, with a warning that i ought not to cry too much. my pet turtle died today. oh man. no more i love you’s. oh annie lennox, why does love have to be this way? i am a bad parent. fuck.

6PM, xavier hall, with the initially giddy girl in white: all i wanna do is leave, go someplace and hide there for years. i’d build a little house with sticks of rainmakers in every nook, teach lonely kids to dance and write, hug trees, pet a wolf, get some tattoos, write on loose sheets of brown paper. “Listen to my nervous laughter/sunken deep inside my heart/My lips are dry I’m teary eyed…/Harken all you fallen angels. /Help me find a place to rest. /My head is pounding here / beneath the weight of this….” — wishing that, jann arden
people say i overread. i do. at this very moment, i am thinking of cinema paradiso and of the story of the soldier who waited for 100 days for his girl to open her window as a sign.

9PM: “One map west of this map is less crowded, but has fewer geographers as well.” editing articles on gaming. trying to forget. trying to stay grounded.

gifts

i’ve saved in my phone the birthday gifts i would like to give myself: the book everything is illuminated, to sponsor a party with kids, to enroll in a class for drum-playing and swimming lessons.

for the book, i am on the lookout… ok, fine, i haven’t found the time to scour book stores. my bad.

for the lessons, i’ve started my first swimming class yesterday. i realized that i really deserved that 80 in swimming when i was in high school. i also realized how lousy i am in relearning the freestyle stroke. i can never get it right, the breathing, the rhythm, how you should tilt your head to catch air. there i was, a lost seal gulping air and water at the same time. my instructor is blessed with tremendous amount of patience. i can only imagine his frustration. hello breathing. it’s like my problem in walking. they’re so simple, and yet i can’t even do them right.

for the party with kids, i was very fortunate to spend it with the kids of GK Concepcion. i can’t put into words my experiences right now, but let’s just say i had a catch in my throat when i thanked the volunteers in GK Concepcion. it was really one blessed time, and i am immensely happy for that humbling experience. the sound of endless “ate!” “ate!” was the most beautiful music i’ve ever heard.

ohmygoddess

my goddess has a new album, her 9th to be exact. with this album, she lashes out at how male-centered her world has become. she’s let out five personas to serve as her voice in this album, and she really lets her resentments and vile anger out. i am listening to her single, “big wheel” and i am drowning in her angelic yet claw-sharp lilts, and her guitar riffs and piano-bashing are ecstatic. i can’t wait to hear the rest of what she has to sing. hold fast, she’s coming to seize you.

(cue: all subjects kneel now in homage)