On being a freshman again.

During a drawing session with CD this afternoon, I was lying on my back watching an old Filipino movie when she asked, breaking off from her sketching pad and pen, if this is how I spend most of my days. I said yes, but I wasn't really thinking or meaning it at that time. And she remarked how fun it was. And I casually replied that it isn't. Three or four months ago I would have said yes. But that was because I was putting off something better to do. I was procrastinating. Now that there isn't really anything important to do or anything to delay doing, lazing off seemed like such a chore. And she laughed how I described my recent life as that of being a bryophyte or moss or fungi sticking to a rock. The most basic and useless of lifeforms. But I meant it.

I checked my planner recently and lo and behold, it was clean as a whistle. It seems nothing I've been doing for the past few weeks is worth writing down. I miss the scheduling structure that school provided, giving me something worthwhile to do every hour of the day. I miss doing those worthwhile things so half-assedly not because I didn't want to do them but because I can. It felt so good to do a paper a couple of hours before deadline, just because I watched TV last night. But now, the TV's on and I'm not even watching. It seemed lazing off only felt good if you should be doing something else entirely.

The thing about graduating is that it felt so final. I remember every year, being told what to expect at the start of the sem. There was a predictability that was comforting in knowing what lay ahead (senior year was thesis, practicum was third year,etc). And everything I did built up to something, even hanging out for hours at a coffee shop smoking your lungs out felt like it prepared you for the sleepless of night of cramming. But now, there is nothing, save for some vague goals, that seem too painfully long a time, to be done the next year or so (like studying abroad). Basically, my freshman year in the real world is filled with those nagging goals that I've always wanted to do like write a book, or paint, or make a film, or take up photography, etc. All these goals and an incredibly immense amount of time in proportion to it. But I still can't manage to accomplish them.

I miss having the predictable routine of school, not because I want to go back, but because surprises actually felt like surprises, and not as if you've been expecting them to come (like what I've been doing). All the things I've wanted to do seemed a lot more fun when there was something I didn't want holding me down, as crazy as it may sound.

A Tale of Two Sissies

True to its name, Loyola Heights actually felt like it was situated on top of something as the cool breeze flew past the curiously styled hairdos of the college students out drinking al fresco. The Katipunan traffic was as expected, somehow overflowing with cars without managing to be congested. It was a little past 11:30 at night and after four packs of Marlboro lights and three pitchers of Zombie per table, everyone was feeling the buzz.

A strangely effeminate waiter plopped down two bottles of Red Horse on top of the corner table, the quietest one in the area, amidst the little pockets of unruliness that somehow managed to give the area a paradox of organized chaos.

That particular table was almost a mundane sight: a guy and a girl, who seemingly embodied that tired old cliché of awkward silence between lovers in a rut, though neither one was in a rut and only one was in love with the other. A more apt term would be friends-under-pressure, with just the faintest recognition of a past warmth hovering over them. It wasn’t the comfortable silence bur rather one of nostalgic depression and regret, a silence you’d rather break.

“You look bored,” said the girl with short hair who deserves a prize for doing so.
“You think?” the boy replied as he took a hefty swig from his bottle.
“Ok look. This is not going well. Let me give you two options: Either we A) sit here in a torturous silence or B) we try to small talk our way through it until we hit on something that interests us. Deal?”
Silence.
“Option A then?”

The boy, whose messed up hair and messed up clothes seemingly reflected the messed up situation, took a cigarette in hand and took a drag, trying to suffocate the words of reassurance and hatred stuck inside his throat. He loved the drama and hated it at the same time. He was the poster boy for the sheltered youth who loved to magnify little pockets of excitement and sorrow in their lives just to see if their hearts still work.

But this time, it was different. It wasn’t the drama that silenced him but a realization that for the very first time, there was a lack of one. And it frightened him. As the girl’s stare seared into his memory, the boom of laughter from the other table jolted him out of his pathetic trance.

“If you’re gonna be like that, I’m going to go,” says the girl.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Bye.”

He doesn’t reply. They both stand up, ditching their cigarettes on the floor and parting ways without speaking, without blinking. The girl with short hair enters the car and slams the door, leaving the boy with messed up hair with only his beer bottle and a dreary indication that he no longer matters.

He stared at the mistreated cigarette on the floor as the car sped away, blowing past the refuse and garbage of the day before. And he stood there on the curb not knowing what to do. As morning stars settled down on the now deserted avenue, he fidgets in his place and plops down the pavement, imagining a slender silhouette of a girl with short hair. Speeding away. And the overpowering but rapidly fleeting desire to follow her to the ends of the world.

Light is Like Water

I was told recently that I tend to overuse such big words as “Depression” and “Love” and I like to fool myself into thinking I’m experiencing either. And it was such a good argument that I believed it so I tried to rid myself of both. I think it was in a dizzying whiff of graduation air or during an early morning suicidal drive that I realized how incredibly wrong they were.

I am depressed. And I am in love. I don’t care how recklessly juvenile it sounds.

In love because I remembered why I started this journal in the first place. I remembered the musicals and skipping to class. And how every word of every sentence of every entry was somehow about her.

Depressed because I can never contend with anything that beats inside her chest. Depressed because I want to disappear someplace where I don’t have to think of her. Depressed because it is impossible and because it wouldn’t make a difference.

Depressed because from all the hugs I got last night, hers was the only one that felt like it was going to be the last.

The Alternative to Love

We're past the gripping hate
of yesterday's Heaven.
Today: It's a murky sky
and the impending deluge.

It's a broken vinyl LP
where I lay to rest
all my memories of you.

Like rust
never to be noticed,
never to be made to feel special
ever again.

Along with the words
that were all about you,
which were once poetic
but now pathetic.

I won't even take shelter
as hard as the rain may pour.
I will ask each raindrop
what it feels like to be in heaven.

And if there is a place among the clouds
for a sorry tale such as this
with an ending I wrote down
the minute you wanted one from me.

Years will pass:
We bump into each other.
We don't even say hi.
We won't even force a smile.

You'll just think:
"That looks a lot like
the boy I reduced to tears."

And then I'll whisper in your dreams:
"I just wanted you to see.
I'm now the man you thought I'll never be."

Just for now.

Insomnia hits. I scour the net for beautiful and not-so-beautiful things to use as an excuse not to sleep. They say people who can't sleep are bothered by regrets, guilt and remorse; of things that should have been said or not said; of things that should have been done or not. No amount of blankets or pillows can make the night comfortable enough for some peace. Yet I'm tired. I'm exhausted beyond belief.

I blame the previous year. It haunts me and I'm pretty sure it won't let me sleep. It won't give me rest. Somehow it knows that the past 365 days have been all about running away because I don't have courage to own up to everything I've done and everything I'm feeling. The past is always reason enough to keep you up at night. All the loose ends of the great tapestry are left hanging and sticks out like a sore thumb. It's the second day of the new year. I'm not starting it like a coward.

"I'm sorry. You have no idea how bad I felt. I'm a coward who runs at the slightest bit of complication. Strange that for someone like me who has nothing going for him but his words, it has lost all credibility on you. And I'm a lesser person because of it. I never lied but I never said the truth either. I literally and genuinely meant whatever I said, whatever I did and whatever I felt. I can't fake feelings, that's one thing I'm not good at. But feeling like a coward and acting like one is never an excuse. And I'm sorry."

"I think of you everyday. But I don't want to complicate things because what bothers you bothers me as well. I'm affected when you're affected. And it's sad that it doesn't go the same way on your end. I've made my peace with that. What's ultimately more sad than all this is that I need the comfort of a plastic keyboard and a humming monitor to admit it. The poets had it all wrong when they said that love is blind. Love isn't blind. It makes you blind. To the point that all I could see is you. And all I could do is sigh."

"I could have been a better friend. I should have watched what I was saying. It was hasty and vulgar for me to pick a fight. That is so unlike me. It eats away at me like nothing else has eaten me before. I am sorry."

"You hurt me without even knowing it. What's worse is that I began to think that I deserved it. I hated you for it. But that was half a year ago. And it's not worth thinking about up to now. You will never understand why it affected me so much and it doesn't matter. Only I have to. Personally, I don't really care about it anymore but hey, closure is closure, right?"

"I can't do it. My friend loved you and you loved him back, for crying out loud. You're a great girl and he's a great guy. You deserve each other so much that it's crazy. I like you a lot but it's impossible to just build on that because it will never grow to something more. And I'm pretty sure of that."

"I seldom see you anymore. We don't have a lot in common. Other people won't understand, but you're still the best friend I could ever have."

"I'm glad to have known you. You're a beautiful person inside and out."

"When I said goodbye, I immediately readied myself for how much I will miss you everyday. And I've never been let down since."

That's it for now. There's a lot more to be said but maybe not now. I could get into so much trouble as is. But it's a new year. Everyone gets a second chance. It's true what they say, after all. Salvation lies within.

Now, for pete's sake, 2005, will you let me fucking sleep?

Lux aeterna.

I woke up at 2:40am flustered and terrified. I felt my mind imploding. There was a sudden flurry of images and words that whizzed by my eyes that I couldn't entirely grasp. My brain felt as if it was shrinking, overwhelmed by this moment of medicated clarity that frightened me. The following piece is an attempt to tame that moment. To those who will read this: forgive the incoherent ramblings to follow.

---

You think you're happy but you're not. You think you are alive but you've been a corpse for too long. Too long, in fact. It is not the one life you have that you cling to for sanity but you cling to others as well. Essentially, life is without meaning if not lived for another. In its core substance, the spirit often mistakes happiness for a myriad of things, as far disconnected from reverie and reality as it can possible be. It is merely the vessel or the body that exalts itself to an ethereal form of being which resembles all the misconceptions inhabiting the heart of man: love, family, friendship, grief and being human. The soul remains grounded at all times, as if it is a shard of glass permeating the earth's soil, fragmented, broken and resembling a precious gem at its rawest state. The bottom line is: We never recognize broken glass until we get wounded and bleed because of it.

---

Purple. Candy. Mortar. Withal.

---

How brave is a human being? What lengths is he willing to go to and for what? If there is only one story worth telling and that is redemption, then why do we busy ourselves with retribution and regret instead? We keep working under the presumption that all of us are worthy of sacrifice, yet we keep making less and less of these as we go along. Would it kill us to simply let go?

---

I will remake the 1970 film "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" by age 35.

---

Your writhing body--
Unravels the naked truth:
Semen mixed with blood.

---

Be a child again, angel. Drown yourself with the people you love the most and the things that make you smile. Remember the time when you made decisions quickly. And when you always cried for only the right reasons. And not for anything else. Not for anything else.

---

We're young. We'd like to think we experience romance everyday, as a routine. Just like shopping for deodorant. But, ultimately, we are never sure. It is when we grow old and wither into shadows of our youth that we experience true romance. It is because lust, infatuation, appropriateness, security and other lesser things we usually equate with love are stripped from us. When we have nothing left but the rest of our lives to reflect on how well we aged: whether we turned into wine or to vinegar. When you see old couples caught in an embrace or holding each other's hands, be envious. We have only felt 1/3 of what they are experiencing at that moment.

---

Color is unique to a human being. Of all the creatures on earth, it is only the human who can distinguish and appreciate color. I'd like to think that colors are coded messages from God. Just like after the Great Flood, when God sent Noah a rainbow. Only the humans in the ark understood what it meant. The animals couldn't care less. But the people equated it with hope. So when someone makes your life colorful, they are, in actuality, making you closer to God.

---

Once again. I am sorry for the incoherent ramblings.

Have a nice day.

We all need those lights.

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.

Absolution

Absolution

The grease drips out your lips
like assassin's tears
a welcome rarity

in a place that doesn't stop
not even for us.

We fall into a stupor
of love and MSG

as we climb skyscrapers
so we feel like giants
belittled by our own mortality

and I shiver
because it's freezing,
but mostly
because
you're beside me

watching over
millions of man-made stars
in all colors and sizes.

There is no darkness
to hide our intentions.
Only light.

Yet we still can't see.

In subterranean meeting places
and in underground tunnels
where I exchanged
breaths with a thousand souls,

and it is still freezing.

There is no silence.
There is no warmth
in blank faces of indifference

where they trim their fingernails
all except one
for efficient nose-picking.

There is no quiet here,
where they shout
"Good morning!" as loud as "Fuck off."
precisely because
no one is willing to listen.

And in turn
we scream our lungs out
just to say
"I love you."
or
"Goodbye."

not because we can't hear it
but because we don't want to.

-- 7:23pm Starbucks Coffee, Guangyuan Road, Shanghai, China, Asia, Earth, Solar System, Universe