The State of My Mind at the Moment

is a calm chaos

nothing driftwood on a dark raging sea,
moonlight streaming through a crumbling haunted house,
a long-ago promise of Love churning inside this broken Heart

On What Makes One Possessive

Kurt: What makes one possessive?
Jeprox: Belief in all the good things makes one possessive.

Ugly Truth Be Told

--whoever said Love begets forever suns was kidding alright

--what do i do with this heart refusing to die the easy way?

--pins of Hope i pull out of my chest as i sing your name tri-syllabic melodic catastrophic... the lifetimes pass by the minute and i had lost count

--it's only a matter of time before i convince myself that i hate you fiercely and irrevocably and to remain in your life like this is to despise the power and magic and logic of what i am meant to be

--i must not give in to that vulnerable voice inside asking whether you love me or not; i must smother that voice 'til it can cry no more

--how do i remain as your friend when my core is crumbling in pain which mere friendship could not heal?

--one more bridge to burn, one more Regret to live life by

--i do not know how long i can hold on to you

--the e-mails will stop; the poetry will run out; the void will awaken for so long

--the choices that we make no matter how messed up are the choices that define who we are and what we want to be

--i want to be: scarred soul resigned to Pain

You, Romantic One

You, romantic one. You are made of fire, silver and pure and raging and vulnerable to rain. The gods of Love will have their wrath raining on you. They despise you so for being true and defiant and eternally hopeful against all odds. Though you know for a fact that Hope can kill you as easily as a waterfall's brutal kiss, you welcome it, bed with it, waken to find the stark cold mornings with it. Though you know you are doomed to a life of painful questions and the even more painful seeking for the answers, you go on with each awful minute stepping into the hurting little hour of need, and want, to be heard, to be seen and felt, to be loved as truly and deeply as the ways of the Universe could ever allow. But this is all that there is to you--this multifacetedness birthed by Pain and Bliss of being so gloriously different in a way that makes you relate to almost anything that exists in the realm of the human condition. No conditions necessary, you brave the world, even if your courage comes across as cowardice to most of its people, because right from the beginning that's the only thing they deemed you capable of manifesting. For all your beauty, you will be seen as broken. For all your Love you will be considered ungrateful. For all your innocence, you will be sentenced gulity. And beyond any shadow of doubt, yours will be the last and hardest and sweetest of tears. Amen.

Sa Laot ng Kaluluwang Desperado

nais kung matanto
ang lalim ng pusong ito
na pinuno mo
ng mga nanaginip na talang

magigising at magigising din
sa katotohanang
hindi sapat ang pagsisinungaling
sa sarili't sapilitang paglimot
sa iyo upang puksain

ang kaluluwang nagmamahal
kahit na nasasakal

May 10th Mindmesh

--you are keen on misunderstanding me, aren't you? i resent that.

--the way you behave towards me sometimes, the words you speak, leaves me wondering if my efforts to be near you are unnecessarily stressing you out. i know you are burdened enough by your life's concerns; i do not want to add more to that.

--do i give the impression that i'm out to hold you liable for the friendship that we have now and the 'responsibilities' that might go with it? i don't want you to feel like being my friend is a full time job. i don't want to be in the way of what you hope to achieve or how you want to live your life.

--people are noticing there's something different in the way we treat each other. something is there than mere platonic friendship, they say. although it bothers me not, i am bothered for you. i do not want to be in any way predisposing your "ill repute" in this place. i reckon, i should see you less and be more conscientiously on guard.

--it irks me to know that back in then you had duly expressed that we keep things as professional as possible at work and that it always escapes me. what can i do? i am consumed by you. but that is not the point, i know. the point is: i can't risk your plans by being too 'dumbed' by love.

--there are so many things to say. things i haven't even broken down for the most part, much less sort out. i'm not hoping for the time when i could tell you about them. i only wish i'd understand somehow what they're all about in my own time.

--play it cool, Jeff. don't give yourself away. hold yourself together.

--as if hating you for what you unconsciously make me do is powerful enough to douse these devoted flames.

Silent Cry

Courage, and something else--i summoned within
as fiercely as dragon-embattled knights pray for life
as steadfastly as lilies anticipate death by winter

as hopelessly as i wade through the space between us--
twenty yards of carpeted floor and a lifetime of regrets
over thoughts unsaid and stubbornly remaining within

within this heart resonates a multimedia reminder of you
vivid colors like your boyish blush, the blonde hairs on your arms
luminescent in half-light, the chocolate-chip-like freckles on your back

tortuous sounds--your hearty laughter, your sneeze, your song-bursts,
your potent Freudian slips lingering at the back of my mind
they follow me to the next empty minute, the yet-to-be-understood lifetime

that lies awake in tomorrow's twilight
there is courage in holding back tears, braving the days
without you by my side, without the feel of you leaving me inside

though i know crying is for cowards and weeping is for heroes
i hold on to my woes--the exquisite ribbons of pain
suspending me in space, making me suffer the unbearable lightness

of being so carnally in love, so spiritually in lust with you who
can't feel me through my words, my hemorrhaging poetics,
my thirst, my muted sighs, my yawning scars, my idle hours,

my not touching you,
my not kissing you,
my not asking why

i'm making my silent cry...

(my silent cry)

A Pound for Ponderings

funny how i felt something's different when i went to your station last night akin, to what you felt the other day when you saw our mutual friend. i felt shunned by directional default. it is not like me to demand reciprocation of devotion in equal measure. nay, i for one do not believe reciprocal love is something we can expect from this life.

it is most difficult to forego the kind of life you'd rather lead when the beginning is marred by a looming presence akin to alienation. no friendship is ever inalienable in that converged paths always find ways to part. one is meant to pursue the forlorn road.

there is nothing that stays in this life. nothing you can carry with you for all your pained journey of learning more pain, learning how to deal with it simply because it is there.

why is he not coming over here? doesn't he see me? feel me? how interestingly annoying it is, to know that here i am, getting through every protracted second with the thought of seeing him. and there he is, staying at their bay. what's this in between, separating us, anyway? 30-40 yards and an ocean of thoughts and feelings locked up, building in pressure that makes for devastating consequences. maybe it's just me being too sensitive. maybe it is me being smart in figuring out things that should've been figured out long ago. maybe it's just me making mountains of shit-hills out of molehills.

i do not know. i do not know what think anymore.

resolved: just get the hell on with what is there in front, to keep from slacking off by matters of consequence beyond my control.

the problem with me is i am extremely jealous. which is why i don't make an effort to care and love and hope because when i do, i get ever so jealous over trifles. now, this is not something that is generally destructive; for the most part, it is i who suffers from that.
now i'm cold. my lips are chapped. my fingers numb. my eyes needing to close. i am tired. i've had enough of my daily complications.

i don't see any point in doing so. i don't see any point in all this, being someone i am not. living for something that i cannot ever be.

marty has a point. i AM more responsible than this. i have more respect for myself than what i'm exhibiting now. life is more than who we are. how does one deal with the unbearable lightness of being anyway?

don't give yourself away. don't give yourself away.

scarred soul hiding from the world, hide thyself once more.


as of this writing, Jeprox G. Lingamen, 23, is writhing silently on his work station, gazing longingly at the object of his heart-complications, valiantly ignoring the stark lonely seconds drenching him cold like unannounced sleet does to a weeping willow. he'll be alright though, as he so fiercely professes all the time.

A Way to Keep to Myself Somehow

i'm in the pantry at the moment, e-mailing those who are dear to me, trying to forget the thoughts swirling ever so deliciously in my mind like melting double dutch ice cream. delicious is Love, no matter how difficult everything seems to be, one can still somehow relish the heady delights it brings into an otherwise famished life. it does not make sense, this thing i'm doing--hiding behind words never guarantees the coming of Change. nothing returns, every act of kindness not done, every sob of grief unreleased, every little thing that does magic unacknowledged, they all do not return. they fade, as multi-colored skies fade in the face of the endlessness covering us. now that forgiveness is out of reach, everyday feels endless in that i go on thinking and pretending not to hope that things would make a turn for happiness and reconciliation and peace, or even a semblance of these. nay, nothing gold stays. as much as i want to believe the power of words, such as those bled by a famed romantic--"Two men can defy the world," i cannot, for the life of me, i cannot succumb to such weakness. the unfulfilled kind of love is for the stronger sort like me. and that had better remain as such. for what do i know of Love, what do i know of Love--

--a waterfall of hearts shunned?

grazie per sentendo a me...

May 7th Shards

i finally convinced myself that no matter the many love letters i write you, however beautifully crafted they may be, whatever they may awaken inside you, these things do not mean a thing. they do not mean a thing because you are not here in this heart. you never had and you never will because you never can love me back in that special way. it does not matter even if you choose to stay or be captured and imprisoned in this dungeon heart that i have filled of you for the longest time in the short time i decide to be yours. it does not matter because i am not one to hold you against my will, to tie myself with bonds that are too frail to last and are repulsive for my self-respect. and should i succumb to the pathetic urges of my soul, it would not matter still because you'd break free. it is so you to shatter through the crumbling resolve of my love. it is so you to hurt someone like me as anyone who loves truly knows, as any romantic knows. you are the stuff that unfulfilled dreams are made of and destroyed for. and so be it.

Of Drag Moments and Fragments

There's little known of the drag moments of one's life insomuch as these tend to remain in the long shadows of shame, discontent, regret, simple confusion, or complex grief--far too secret items in the agenda that is a person's existence, for the most part, that is.

What fragmented soul would not revere the sun cascading down the silver sea in little multiple sparks of tangible energy forming a path of light, swaying but tenacious, draining through the horizon into a world beyond our grasp?

There's the Sea Again

why change your colors, dear one? i bet you're not doing it for me. yet, i partake of what you so carelessly throw my way, those colors, ever changing. one moment you are of the tempestuous silver, so unruly, boisterous, challenging. the next, you are calm, detached, the color of molten steel tinged with the softest hint of blue. is it this heart you're mirroring with your unconcerned gaze? i didn't think so. i pass you by and hope i have the expanse of your shores, yellow and fine and littered with death--cracked empty shells, dead sea grass, disillusioned jellyfish, stories of footprints wiped off by the waves--beneath my palms, i want to feel the sun in your touch, perhaps it would take a second meaning that way. perhaps, you will see, now that you are an olive mask of temerity beneath an angry sky, how gaze at your wonder without me knowing why i'm drawn i'm drawn ever so strongly as your current tosses fragments of the sea against the sea wall and over it where the wind awaits to carry its scent and magic and fleeting glory to yet another enamored mind that dies in the saltine flavors of Love.

I Looked Out of the WIndow of the Bus and Said

Well, if crimson is meant for death-telling then there isn't much to tell about the unmourned world I feel beneath my feet, within my heart, beyond what my mind can grasp, with a sun like this, a sun like this... a sun like this...

I Do Not Know

i do not know anymore what to think so i freewrite hoping the words would take me where structures of thought never could only could confuse me what is there anyway than a mere glimpse of sanity so utterly convinced by itself of defensibility whatever that means i always end up babbling a bubbling repertoire of thought bubbles pierced by answers only half-men can give or retrieve or grieve about ah the snout the snout of such frenzied creatures saying over and over again the merits of free association in speech what the hell does that mean the relief of naming things beyond lacklustered words denies the fact that words grow out of thought in order to bear thought i thought i saw a pussy cat had never quite meant like that to whoever traverses the complexity of feline mystery i dare say i am both inept and adept in equal measures where sensitivity to what bothers me is concerned the rest is up for the auction of a lifetime: gentleman's bid goes right up to sixty billion just for mere stone griffins smiling that Mona Lisa smile is warmth something that something as cold and hard can achieve or is it just the imagination rolling on the floor of the Universe laughing out loud who knows who's to say there nary is a wary soul befitting such indulgence of innocence gilded as heresy to be plundered by the growing darkness within every sun-bearing heart ah such tart commentaries rivaling the harpies of old grow cold like turkey in a haunted closet of a fridge like the skull of Dolores Umbridge

High Avail at Two in the Morning

horizon silver sea lonely moon orange trees the smell of rats the smell of cats the death of caramel frap on a naughty little girl's lap the sap of all wonderful things memories hairbrushes little touches of paint impasto intaglio whatever is the matter with Vincent Van Gogh when he cut his ears and painted on and on who cares is what most people say most people know nothing else to say in this instance of prejudice taking over the serenity of the day i say nay give me thy worst and nothing less the rain glistening on Rushmore's multiple personalities four seasons in a bottle lies in a medicine cabinet frantic fish breathing in an aquarium george and harriet george and harriet always taking turns with the hatchet i bet i bet nothing is sweeter than the day we met and let the hours pass unnoticed why tales of the past of kingdoms cruel and vast of longed for clouds in half mast on the sky of stolen aquamarine tears when mermaids cry the end is nigh nay the end is this nothing more than this hurting little space choking words letting blood flow unceasingly onto plains of white white white space again it births the same old story of people needing lies for every little sin commited every act of repentance not given due credit like a dusty book of psalms open like a hand begging for alms the qualms the qualms of a life begrudged of every fragile breath taken every moment of grief unearthed from the too frozen castle of a heart now who's smart? who's to say the least of all my worries is worth the drama of words etching thought on marbled faces akin to abandoned spaces no one cared for at all at all hear the echos roar roar this space is not this space as free is not as it claims as free as it claims to be to be

I Babble Myself to Death

To live in the present moment. How does one really live in the present moment? Here. Now. I am: soul churning words that can never truly convey what I feel, and how, and why. Somehow, I feel I must quit drifting in The Flux, in a semi-Oblivion of not understanding why I feel like a jar that doesn't have a hollow. Somehow, Here, Now I want to be: soul seeking the boundaries of my hollowness--and figuring out what to fill it with.

Destiny

for Pipit

the fish in all it glory flies
with fins for wings and brine for skies
not trapped in Hope nor weighed by Lies
its trove horizon--Paradise

That One Day Will Not Come

i will find out
that the wind does not listen
the moon doesn't really give a damn
the stars deceive

all i've known
all my life

the songs that roused me from the dead
the dreams i've kept
the tears i've shed

the wonder of everything
falling into the sky

all that is Everything
is a Lie

told to myself
by myself
told by those who couldn't help
playing along with the way things are

i'll reach that far
and find out

there's no beauty
no madness in living
and people are just hollow bodies
being filled with Pain
'til they're full enough
to be swallowed by Darkness
and digested into the Unknown

i shall have known

that children will remain to be children
only older and worn
miracles gone awry
waiting in vain
for that one day that will not come

it will not come

in the noise of tens of thousand chariots of fire
in the chorus of all mourning mothers so dire
i'll find myself in silence

bereft of poetry to bleed
too proud to pray
too hurt to plead

finding my way
through the maze of my heart
where all this starts
where all this is made up and believed
where all this must be renounced

i will find out

that the days coming to life then dying
will give me nothing but Space
in which to lose myself

and Time to make me resentful
of counting the days
coming to life then dying

or the nights leaving
as soon as i get used to them

a victim of their whim
vengeful and mad
a promise gone bad

for that one day will not come
it will not come

and you as well

you won't be there
to sit with me
in the sunset of my dreams

you'll be somewhere else
worshiping the same
eternal sunrise
holding it close
when it can burn no more
when it has reached its final score

i'll be here
reading this
absorbed by how starkly the words burn
across the void which is all we ever had
all that we'll ever be

because that one day will not come
that day will not come
that day will not come

it will not

it is nothing but the illusion
of that one day when
everything will rise after The Fall

all that bull

all i know is
there will be me

empty of Hate
tainted no more with Love

unburdened by bliss
which is not mine to make
unnamed by some God
who is mine to forsake

neither disowned by Heaven
nor claimed by Hell

never needing to tell
the difference between

rising and falling
living and being alive
loving and not hoping at all

or recall the essence of you trapped
in the now closed spaces of my soul

ever whole
in the brokenness of what
i can never truly be

Thus

Valiantly, I fill my days with what used to be. What I used to do. The people I used to share the days with. I'm having myself caught in a swirl of things that used to make me think I'm whole. Make me think that everything deserves to be everything. But the days feel so hollow. They're hollow and they want you. You who can only fill them with so much.

I know it's never enough. I wish I know better than hanging on to something that is less than what I deserve.

Hence

Keep it that way. At least there is no need for words now. Not when words could only mess things up. I'm talking about you and how you wield them. How you make and break with them. Especially yourself.

There is a difference between Love and Fondness. The first one burns to death; the other fades away like a whisper.

That's where our difference lies. You burn me to death while I'll fade away in your memory like the whisper you once heard but cannot anymore recall.

This is The Fall. And there is no turning back.

EOLV Definitely is ISCOFUNO

This is me. For sure. Saying every little thing about you, every little thing you do, your platonic touch, your smile (even the misdirected ones), your Freudian slips, I trap them here, in this frail little chest of a heart, where they're kept away from the world, away from those who see only with judgment and ignorance.

They are all here. Every sensory detail true and tortuous. Every single one of them cutting me deep.

What does one do when there's only fondness and curiosity on one side of the equation and love on the other?

So, What's the Point?

Shut it all out of your life. Fade away from it all. There's nothing left to do, to be. All paths lead to suffering.

Respite is There for the Taking

Too bad I choose to live.

It's Me Stuck With The Who That I Can Only Ever Be

I'm not likely to change. I'll be trapped in this hurting force field forever. It'll be the same messed up choice that I would make over and over. It'd be the same twisted tale braving it all while it lasts. However it last.

Yes, it's me stuck with the who that I can only ever be.

Reproach

You see how a sliver of Hope
--even an imagined one--
can disillusion you?

You now see what a mess
it has wrought out of you?

Bored Inner Dialogue of the Bored

(Training Room 1, way past midnight, I sit bored in front of the computer while my co-trainees doze off to the sound of one of our kind being killed on the hot seat by our pretty trainer. This is a bored me talking to a bored me.)

the tie fails.

yeah, fails big time to make a festive air out of the world's general mood tonight.

what do you plan on doing next, then?

strip the tie off, i guess. would make breathing a whole lot easier.

when was the last time you had your forecfield checked?

i can't remember. i'm ashamed to say i haven't been too conscientious in updating it these days.

i thought it's got one of those internal update schemes.

sometimes i let third party updates handle that. especially when i'm feeling
particularly god-fearing.

ah, Silence. punctuated by taps on the keyboard by fingers flexed by thoughts the mouth wishes not to free.

are you into making sense out of the unverifiable, again?

uhuh.

nothing much. that's what you wanna say, isn't it?

what i really want to say is i need to have my troubleshooting skills heated and hammered and polished.

suddenly, this predilection for metallurgy!

well, i like to think i'm made of steel.

megatron is made of steel.

well, i'm made of a different kind of steel.

i dare say how dare the heavens cry tonight, when you're wearing white slacks.

i don't think i can handle commiseration tonight, fratello.

oh, you've never handled commiseration well all your life, caro. how's that for nice-sounding?

very nice-sounding. i wish life is more than just sarcasm thrown and lost.

you know for a fact that indeed it is more than your ego thrown and lost.

i'm talking about the scheme of catching falling things mostly surrendered by those who held out the longest.

ah, there's the catch! what good is a pair of hands when all there is to hold is a rotten heart?

or a rotten cabbage.

would pair nicely with rotten eggs.

so, how do you keep this stream of consciousness captured by mere mere words?
i will it.

why will it when you can just let it take its course. consciousness weighing down a patch of history the way a rock keeps a territory of earth from being swept by flighty zephyrs?

quit being such an ass and talk to me in the simplest way, please.

there is no simple way. the only way to truly listen is to accept what kind of filter you are. and you are a complicated filter, amico mio.

i glance at the clock. 10:25 PM. 35 minutes to 11 PM. 35 minutes to yet another episode of TWC Wave 15 PST: The Rise of That Which Is Yet To Be Known.

Sigh.

bearings, dear one. bearings. and never lose sight of the monsters lurking in the shadows.

i know what you're talking about. i submit.

perimeter fence?

yes.

extra barbed?

that can be arranged.

smoke screen humor?

yes.

suicide pellet?

yes.

only for dire circumstances.

only for dire circumstances.

check radar asap.

foreign eyes, retinal radiation detected, scanning properties.
scan result: unknown

if you care enough to tune in your audio receptors for a moment please?

yes.

you failed the initial test.

how so?

refer to code of self sustenance, under The Ideal of Absolute Hermetics.

i get the point.

i know. i just wish you'd point that to yourself.

anyway, i'm changing some settings in your psycho-social processing unit.
...
...
ahem, shouldn't i be informed a bit more on that--say, some well-deserved specifics?
in due time.

sigh.

configuration initiated.

(silence)

unit prepared for standby mode.

psycho-social receptors black out confirmed

I Mutter Myself To Death

Don't absorb your little pains too much. They can't do anything to you anyway. They'll be just scars. Scars that would define who you are.

Courage. To live in the present moment is Courage. To return every grace and curse received in full measure. To rise above the ills weighing you down.

It's okay to hope so long as it's internal. Hope is not for all the world to see. It's best to keep it to yourself, especially when it dies.

Status Message

i'm thinking eternal sunrise unmarred by frail clouds
i'm thinking of me facing the Light with not a shroud

of Doubt

that the hobbit indeed was right
when his heart said with all its might

"there's some good in this world
and it's worth fighting for"

This Heart is Mine

take heart just one more time
for one more time

(it'll take you to the next)

this world is not
what you wanted it to be

what you hoped all your life to be
i know it pains you

to have to say farewell
to the Morning that won't come

ever, as you need it to, the way
you hoped all your life it would

the heart is a curse that
many take but few ever realize

the heart is meant to be broken
and pieced together until that one last time

the heart is what
i've been trying to call mine

What Networking Comes To When You're Bored

wireless computer - e-child no longer connected to mom thru umbilical cord
no bloc sync - singer's faulty lip-sync
windows vista – redundant; window is already a vista (Sp. to see)
power cycle - EDSA 1, 2, and 3
Tier 3 - more crying involved
bypass router - snobbery among network equipment
disabled nic - person named nic maimed, decapitated, unmanned
FLAP - the sound your ears make when you try to understand the concept
of ranging hits (and failing)
Windows XP - the expert among all windows
Outage - state of Oblivion
Modem lights - in pedestrian/motorist
parlance: traffic lights
ip configuration - making sense
out of yourself peeing
blind troubleshooting – troubleshooting with the sightless

*with contributions from Nate Lane and Kyaji Eronico

From Norman Mailer

There are two kinds of brave men. Those who are brave by the grace of nature and those who are brave by an act of will.

Welcome Baby Shyanne

Joy is the universe-incinerating twinkle in a father's eye upon learning it's a girl (as he'd hoped it'd be)

Gagging in Escape

Take hold of your bearings. Summon up the forcefield. Leave people out. Breathe Solitude. Don't hold on to things. Life is a flux of colliding souls letting each other go the second the fever Human Touch burns itself off.

Reiteration

I am silver sea draining into the horizon.
I am sun broken into fragments, shivering in the mountain shadows.
I am child of Mother Earth, witnessing it all, weathering it all, with nothing but my soul-filled heart.
I can't afford to be more consequential than that.

Puerile Points

I feel a flaming anvil in the pit of my stomach, pinning down all hope of Relief.
/
My heart grows and hardens each day like oyster shells in the embrace of the ocean.
/
We hold the thread of our dreams. It is spun in the spindle of our minds.
/
Wishes can only take you as far as the outskirts of your nail beds.
/
There are people worth befriending, or so, until the 'crunch' says so.

Crab Song

it's been like this always--me, coming here to watch the waves roll pebbles and shells onto this wide white stretch of sand, forming constellations that glitter beneath daylight's golden touch

and always i wonder, if some secret message from you lies encrypted in those jeweled patterns, all too soon snatched away by the imperious sea, as if begrudging me of such beauty and the day when i'd figure out the secret and find a new direction to pursue--other than this realm of sand, sun, and sea

and you: elusive in the circle of my reach like brine in the breeze, the moon spilled on the pitch-black waters, the foamy tongue of the sea kissing the beach

here i am, trapped in your silence, a crab sentenced to a shell. i know i shall bear the weight of this lover Solitude, of this protection and incarceration, of forever wishing these crimson shards would never again form the sun as leaving me to myself in this place leaves me with nothing but darkness and space and chasms falling into themselves

i shall dwell in the tales spun of what could have been us, written by a grieving hand and a dreaming heart on this wide white stretch of sand

what must i do to rouse you from your sleep? i am nothing but the script that scars this shore, droning of how the wind endlessly ruffles the leaves of the trees, how the wild geese keeps screaming in search of home

when will the unseen hand draw over all of this the roaring blanket of sea and hush the cries of my soul to sleep?

Faux Pax at 2:00 AM

I was dozing off in training, when suddenly I saw Martin (or Gabby, as he seems to be better known now in here) in the training room. Good to see him. He said he wanted us guys to join the cheerdance team for TWC. We guys just sat there, very quiet, very noncommital. That's when he singled me out. It's so Martin to single me out, I believe that's our way of recognizing each other's worth. But I think I made a mistake when I hurled a dry quip at him. We might be "close," I know, but I should have taken into consideration the context. I must have appeared as a "social slasher," arrogant and uncaring to have said something like that, in that tone (which was simply too Jeprox) to him--a Team Leader.

I should say sorry to him, and put things in perspective with my sarcastic self. I hope I'll get to do that later.

Che Sono Io?

I'm just any other guy
finding What I Am About
taking hold of Myself

in The Flux

Day 1 in the Life of a Product-Specific Trainee

Waited 2 hours at the pantry with my wavemates. I realized conversation's not a problem with these guys.
/
Talked about basic computer hardware components and their respective functionalities for 6 hours. Dext jokingly referred to the pimple on my left cheek as a CMOS chip. I just smiled, when I should have said his mouth looks like a PCI slot. But all in all, Dext is a good guy, so I did the right thing, bridling my tongue.
/
At lunch, Chinese-looking boy from Zambia, D, quipped at me, "Are you gonna get sweets again?" I said, "Uhuh, gotta have all the sugar I can get whenever I can get them."

I sat on the table with a slice of day-old Swiss cake, a bottle of commercial orange juice, and a bar of chocolate. Fair fare for lunch at 2:00 AM, right?
/
We were made to count off to four for the regrouping. Kyaji, Denny, Sarah, and Marvi found themselves in the same group. Being the odd one out, I walked up to them and said, "T'is a mean trick that Fate played on me. And how could you guys play along with it? Is this what you're gonna repay me for everything I did for Team Venom before?"

They just smirked.

Guess I'm just that bad at feigning bitterness.

Audaciously Anticipating

In exactly, one hour and eighteen minutes, I'll step into Time Warner Road Runner's Product Specific Training. I'm not a technically-inclined person,that I know for sure. But I am a fast learner, and I know that for sure too. I think that makes me a well-balanced not-too-complicated not-too-easy person. Whatever that means.

I still can't get over the fact that Team Venom (our team) won by thirty bucks over tight competitor Team Joker in yesterday's CCT Graduation Rites. Whew! We sure did put up one hell of a fight there. I'm proud of us five.

Do You Know What You're Drinking?

Baileys
People who pay their way out of jail

Red Horse
A stallion crossed with a cherry tomato

Tequila
Opening line of a letter to a murderer

San Mig Light
What you say to another if you want your cigarette lit

Vino Kulafu
Simply denatured alcohol

Auto Empathy Virus

What would you feel if I punch you hard on the back? You’d be hurt, right? You’d feel Pain, both physical and emotional, especially when you see me carefreely walking away, leaving you with a bruise on your shoulder and perhaps, a question in the depths of your soul which goes, “Why is Life so unjust?”

It’s a fact: people around the world breathe injustice and violence. The Black Eyed Peas even made money out of that by singing “People killin’ people dyin’, children hurt, can you hear them crying?”

Well, we can’t keep looking for love forever as an answer to that. Injustice and violence, such as the one I demonstrated earlier, (and the fact that they happen to everyone almost everyday) inspired me to think that if I were to come up with something that would contribute to the well being of the world, I would develop this--AEV or the Auto Empathy Virus.

AEV would be an airborne viral strain that compulsorily enables human beings to feel the pain that they inflict on other human beings as soon as they cause it. It means that aggressors would find themselves in the other person’s shoes, whether they like it or not—as the term Auto Empathy so sincerely suggests.

The rationale behind AEV is simple: the culture of violence is growing in staggering proportions worldwide, while The Law is seriously failing to control that. The apprehension of perpetrators in the current justice and law enforcement system more often than not takes months, years, even a lifetime (if you talk about our country’s case.) I feel sorry for the cliché “Justice delayed is Justice denied,” it can’t help dying multiple and prolonged deaths out of sheer fatigue. I mean, I can actually feel how badly it wants to go on retirement but with the way things are, fat chance! AEV would change that.

Let me show you how: I punch you on the face, in an instant I’m reeling from the same intensity of pain I gave him. I say some terrible things to you which made you feel demeaned and discriminated and I’ll end up feeling the same way. I steal your wallet and you go hungry, I’ll end up hungry as well, no matter how many meals I buy myself with your money. That’s how it works. That’s justice served.

But you might ask: “What if I killed Mr. Lane in self-defense? Will that kill me too? No, it won’t. AEV only works when the harmful act is driven by a vicious will or cruel intentions. That’s how cleverly created AEV would be, connecting human consciousness, utilizing human biochemistry, hurdling even moral dilemmas.

Amazing as it would be, there’d be those who’d say AEV goes against Nature, AEV is about “playing God,” AEV is against human rights.

Nevertheless, I’d go for it because it would make people think twice about hurting others, it’d be like having an efficient justice and law enforcement mechanism in every person, one that has teeth that cuts faster than you can “I’m sorry.” It would be like the change that comes from within. And trust me on this one: we need that.

Denial

Today, the sun is nothing but splinters of gold on the afternoon sea.

I don’t think you have me in the horizon of your mind.

I don’t think you feel me breaking into a thousand fragments of light.

I can’t remember the last time I asked your shadow if it feels my warmth.

I don’t remember many things about the one thing I wanted but never came true.

10 Surefire Tips to Finding True Love

by Team Venom (Kiaji, Jeprox, Sarah, Marvi,Denny)

1. Get a frog and kiss it. If something happens, it's true love. If not, well, the frog population is rather big.

2. Burn yourself charred and have yourself auctioned for an exorbitant price. Who ever buys you is your true love. Rest assured, the population of buyers worldwide is rather big.

3. Commission a witch to cast a spell on your target. If your target is a witch herself, make sure to commission a witch way more skilled than her.

4. Think of something you haven't tried before, something very self-sacrificing like... DON'T LOVE YOURSELF TOO MUCH. LEAVE SOME LOVE FOR OTHERS. QUIT BEING SUCH AN ASS.

5. Try your luck with chatrooms, texting, and eyeballs. Type in random numbers on your phone and text. The person who replies is your true love. If more than one people reply, then you have many "true loves". Lucky you.

6. Be very keen to the workings of the Law of Action-Reaction. Give true love and it will be given to you. (Sometimes you get slaps in return though.)

7. If you're goodlooking, listen to Andrew E. If you're ugly, have the other person listen to Andrew E.

8. Leap off a building and hope somebody catches you, literally and figuratively. (If nobody does, there'e nothing to worry about anymore--let alone True Love.

9. Search the civil registries around the world for someone named True Love, and...

10. if even that fails, get a pet and call him/her True Love.

Soliloquy of the Moonlight Trapper

in the throng of human bodies
grinding their way toward
imagined Happiness, I stand
overwhelmed by how starkly

I burn

from the rest of the blur
the fire of Truth in me
making love with realities
the harshest of the most harsh

I am charred

from the inside out
like a charcoal stick leaving
dark lines on snow white pages
the way the moon writes poetry

in the dreaming mind

Soliloquy of the Moon Worshipper

the moon need not wait for Night this time
it burns fully now, so fiercely white
through the frail gray tapestry of clouds

it's the defiant third eye of those who
love silently, yearn secretly, rising
to meet the ruthless face of Tomorrow

Just a Messed Up Rhyme

for Aly-cat

the heart's a dandelion made of glass
and love is the breeze that blows it away
into frail little pieces seeking what once was
before in the what will be it can stay

Day 4

(Day 4 of the Communications and Culture Training)

Ham and eggs for breakfast. Mom yakking at the breakfast table about how thin I look. I didn’t feel like eating anymore.
/
Even with hot water, I was shivering throughout my morning bath. So I hummed the BeeGees’ Staying Alive to fight the cold while bathing.
/
I dressed in mean-chocolate slacks, mocha long-sleeved shirt, brown square-toed shoes, and a brick-red jacket. I looked wistfully at the silver-striped coffee brown tie. I thought I couldn’t have it around my neck today, when I’m feeling suicidal.
/
Rode the bus to Bacolod City. I slouched in my seat and tried to get some more sleep. But my phone kept vibrating. I saw a kid on the seat right across me staring at me. I stared back. We exchanged stares for nearly 45 minutes, until he surrendered and got off the bus at Sum-ag.
/
Traffic at Sum-ag drove me crazy. I was literally hitting the bus’ window with my head. The hell I care about the woman sitting beside me, looking at me as if I’m harassing her. Why, have I ever questioned her revolutionary ideas about exercise, granting she has the brain to think them up?
/
I arrived at the contact center, went straight to the Men’s Room, and dabbed cold water on my face. I snatched a paper towel from the dispenser and blurted to the other person in the room, a stranger: Is it just me, or does this paper towel smell like chicken hotdog? He just gave a vague nod and went out. Why did I ask him that anyway? He looked every bit the guy who hasn’t seen a chicken hotdog all his life, let alone smelt it.
/
In a world where a mere click can cost you your job, I get easily rattled. I have a hang-up with accuracy, you see. Lunchtime came and my computer hung. I logged in again on the timekeeping tool and in my haste I made the wrong time punch on my PC. Damn! I’m getting a love letter from my trainer tomorrow for it. Well, there is always a first. And Ivy writes such nice love letters, so I’ve heard.
/
My team, Team Venom, fought hard to win the Grammar Quiz Bee but Team Joker hauled the 500 bucks by answering the final question worth 10 points. Damn! Oh well, no matter, I got to know more my teammates and appreciate their qualities: Kiaji is smart and experienced in Technical Support; Denny is quiet but talented and active; Sarah is a little unsure of herself but systematic and inquisitive; Marvi is a little off tangent at times but he speaks his mind and takes note of important things the rest of us so easily forgets; and of course, me—a talkie, bright enough to contribute a couple of bucks to our team’s pot money. You bet our team’s a great mix. Team Venom: Better Predator Than Prey!
/
Rode in a jeep with the American, Nate, all the way to the bus terminal. For someone who spent years in the US Army, he sure is kind, friendly, and non-combative. I hope he succeeds in polishing his typing skills before the two weeks is over.
/
Rode the bus home. Fell asleep. My supposedly spill-proof mug leaked water in my bag, soaking my notebook and organizer. I took them out and spread them on my lap, their sheets flapping in the wind, and went back to sleep. Was that girl beside me scoffing like an idiot or what? The hell I care. I don’t think I’d envy her for her brain-drying methods anyway.

What's in a Name?

Jester
Experiencing
Pain
Reminiscent
Of
X'mas morning

Jeopardizes
Every
Possible
Reputation
Of
Xcellence

Just an
Earthling
Plotting
Revenge
On the
X-men

Jist:
Even
Pinoys
Repent
On
X'mas

10 Things About Me

1. My first ever Technicolor dream was a nightmare. In it, I was surrounded by countless skyscrapers made of solid gold brown shit. The more I trembled, the more they shook, until they collapsed one by one with such thick splatters. I wanted to run away from it all, but my legs felt so heavy, they won't let me. So I did what I could--I screamed. And that wrung me out of those nasty REM cycles.

It's a recurring nightmare, though, until now that I'm 23. And it never fails to scare me.

2. When I was eleven months old, my parents kind of overlooked the fact that I'd been running high temperatures for 2-3 days already. When they took me to the hospital, the doctor said I'm going to die. But bad weeds don't die easily, so I survived, though I did get something out of that deal: now I have myopia, astigmatism, and cataract on both eyes.

3. As a 16-year old, I was a little curious about death. I took 2 packs of naphthalene balls and scattered the cute little spheres on the bottom of the closet. The following day, I took a can of Coca Cola with me and locked myself in that closet. Nothing happened. I just fell asleep. I woke up, got out of the closet and thought, "What a stupid plan to kill oneself."

4. Speaking of Coca Cola, I'm an addict to soda. I got it from my ex-boss Yayen who used to be a soda addict too. On an empty stomach I can consume a litre-and-a-half of soda in the morning, half-a-litre for lunch, and another litre for supper, not including indulgences on out-of-the-blue urges to drink soda. I'm also an addict to table salt. I can consume a bowl of salt in a day, paired with green mangoes, ripe mangoes, rice, SkyFlakes, Chippy, apples etc... I used to hoard red chiamoy in glass jars in my room but my parents confiscated them as I would finish off a jar-full in one sitting and end up lying in bed with high blood pressure.

5. I had a big chance to be First Honor when I was in grade school. Sometime towards the end of the school year when I was in first grade, I wrote a very obscene (and untrue) story about two of my classmates, something about them banging against the wall. I gave the note to them, which they gave to the teacher, for which the teacher summoned my parents to school. I stood in front of the class while my dad apologized and promised to give me the whacking I deserved. That incident killed my chances of being "First Honor" for my entire stay in grade school. That's when I became "Honor Unconscious" which I'm thankful for.

6. I wore a skirt for two weeks when I was circumcised.

7. I experienced flying when I was a kid. My dad used to have a big cherry red Honda motorcycle which he rode everyday to work. One day, as he was waiting for our gate to be opened, revving the engine furiously, I sneaked behind him and held on to some steel rods at the back of his bike. He zoomed away, laying 50 feet of rubber on half the length of Cardinal Street, while I held on, flying. Aghast bystanders yelled for him to stop and that was the end of my amazing joyride.

8. The first time I fell in love, I was soul-struck. I held on to it for six years, without the object of my affections not knowing a thing about it.

9. In senior year in high school, I wrote a song in a language I didn't understand. I was so proud of it that my parents seriously considered taking me to a psychiatrist.

10. I've never completely filled a notebook with notes all my life. I was working on one, lately, with barely 10 blank pages to go, until the notebook ran away. (I must have driven it away, considering all the stuff I filled it with.)

Ako, Wordy

(Hits the 'period' key.)

Where There is Government, Let Me Sow Temperance

Last night was a long night for me and my PDEPeers, Jo, Sandy, Lanoy, and Gadz. We evaluated last weekend’s Self Transformation course from 7:00 PM to 11:50 PM, discussing a range of relevant issues, from each facilitator’s self-assessment of the way he or she handled the session assigned to him or her, to the overall logistics of the weekend, to the question of what the participants really have in mind as the end-goal of their undertaking this formation vis-à-vis the attitude and action they exhibit during the course, among others. Suffice to say, we found it in ourselves to go home, so we did.

Sandy drove us to our preferred drop-off spots as Gadz was off to work (as a technical support representative) at 4:00 AM while I needed to get a clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation in the morning, something my new job requires.

I had made arrangements to pass the night at my friend Jay’s flat in Taculing, so I told Sandy to just drop me at Police Station 6, from which Jay’s place is just one tryke ride away. When I got off the van, I suddenly didn’t want to take a tryke, remembering how a tryke driver of these parts once overcharged me 30 pesos for a point-five kilometer ride that’s only 7 pesos on a jeepney. Hindi na ako magpapa-isa ngayon, I resolved. So, I ignored the tryke driver beckoning me over and just walked away, with stupid vengeance, to the other side of the street.

Some 70 strides away and I began to realize what was happening. I realized I could hope all I want for a Taculing PUV to come my way, but that’s unlikely, the time being half past midnight. Feeling sheepish for how I acted and anxious because of the stories of mugging in the area, I trudged along Libertad Road to Jollibee Libertad Branch, nearly a twenty-minute walk past night clubs and KTV bars, closed shops reeking of fish, and people sleeping wherever they could, like carton lined sidewalks, wooden tables that hold market produce during the day, and the meager seats of their pedicabs. I hung out for about 7 minutes with other bystanders at the City Vet-Mercury Drug junction, straining my eye for a determinedly old and outmoded PUV which could rightfully be a Taculing jeep, but, tough luck. Nagtatampo ata sila sakin.

In the end, I asked for a tryke driver to take me to Jay’s place, costing me 30 pesos. Alangan namang lakarin ko pa yun. At least, malayo-layo ang biya-biyahiin nitong tryke na ‘to, worth it ang pera ko, sambit ko sa sarili nang ma-soothe naman ang mga hinanakit ko sa buhay.

I arrived at Jay’s and we chatted for a while, mostly about living on your own, a state I’ll find myself in barely a week from now. I was hoping to glean some helpful tips, particularly on meals: how to save money without sacrificing one’s health or how not to feel hungry when one hasn’t eaten due to budget constraints or budget nonexistence.

Jay must have droned about his years of living alone, for I dozed off. I woke up at 7:00 AM and the face of the guy at the NBI office telling me I must be back there by 7:00 AM swam into my head. Off to the bathroom to wash. No time for breakfast. A little problem with the extra shirt I brought; it was a tad too small, making me look like a bloke with a serious developmental regression, who was left unchecked at the some mall’s Kids’ Garments Section. Pero, hindi ako natinag. My focus was to get the clearance. I bid Jay goodbye and took two jeepney rides.

I was there at the NBI office by 7:50 AM. The queue was not for the faint-hearted, snaking out some yards from the main door. I ignored it and walked past all the people to the entrance. Priority customer yata ako today. A uniformed girl at the entrance was asking me too many questions, which I didn’t answer because I was already holding to her face my expired clearance with her boss’ signature on it. She clearly wasn’t looking and when I made sure she did, she’s obviously unconvinced that I had obtained a “priority treatment seal” from her boss the day before and tenaciously held me up. Thank heavens, I saw the man and went up to him. Without a fuss, he gave me Priority Number 8, with which I proceeded to the cashier.

Over 200 hundred people were there, waiting, asking each other about something they needed to fill out on their respective forms. There was this girl who exclaimed she lost her Priority Number 42. An NBI officer yelled for whoever chanced upon it and a man came forward, albeit reluctantly. Ibalik na sa iya ‘to kay iya na, said the officer, ari imo ya ho, 242. Chuckles rose as did that guy’s hackles. Kahit di pa niya aminin, nanghihinayang talaga siya. With my lucky number 8, I could really care less, so I took out The Spectrum mag and began to read. Tick-tock… tick-tock… Ba’t parang walang development sa paligid. I looked at the cashier’s window. Cerrado. Ganito nga talaga pag gobiyerno, wika ng katabi ko.

Mag-aalas nwebe na. Hindi pa rin bumubukas ang bintana ng cashier. Baka na-flush niya ang sarili sa inodoro. Huwag naman sana. Sana hindi ganun ka tanga ang NBI para mag-hire ng ganun ka tanga na cashier. Sa inis ko, napailing ako sa likod, wanting to check how things are going there. I met the shocked gaze of a woman who blurted, “Ano? Ano ka?” Clearly she took offense. Ale, ganito lang talaga ako makatingin, parang mangangain. If I meant to offend you, I’d have made sure hindi ka na buhay ngayon, you’d have expired on the spot. “For renewal ba kayo o new applicant,” I smiled, using my graciously charming high-IQ-ako-pero-pinahahalagahan-kita tone. “New applicant kami,” she thawed. Ah, kaya pala praning.

An hour past, at last, nakabayad na rin ako sa cashier and was given a receipt. Anong gagawin ko dito? Nagtanong-tanong ako sa mga tatlong katao yata, hanggang sa umabot ako sa opisina nitong babaeng boss din sa lugar na yun. She looked at my receipt. Hindi ‘to pwede, 2006 pa ‘to, kunot noo niyang sinabi. Eh, yan ang binigay sakin ng cashier, depensa ko naman. Basta, ang dami niya pang tanong. Then I realized resibo pala yun ng dati kong clearance na binalik sakin ng cashier. Tange!

The procedure pala is: After paying, one waits for his/her name to be called for ID picture-taking. Next, he/she again waits for the clearance to be printed. Once done, the person’s name is called and the clearance together with the receipt is released at the counter. Malay ko bang ganyan ang proseso, ni wala ngang directiba, visual or verbal, to guide the people around. At ang cashier naman, so unwilling to spew a couple of words to inform the person what’s the next big task, kahit simpleng “Hoy gago, upo ka dun, tatawagin ka namin pag kelangan ka na namin” man lang. Wala, tikom-bibig lang siya sa bigat ng kinikimkim niyang galit sa sangkatauhan. Parang gusto kong sabihin sa kanya, Ale, I think you should look for another job, you’re clearly not happy here eh. Mag-operate ka na lang kaya ng traktorang pangwasak ng lumang highway, tiyak kong angkop na angkop ka para dun. Instead, in the name of Love, pinatawad ko siya. Yup, ganun lang ka simple yun.

Finally, I got my clearance; ngunit, kelangan ko pa ng thumbmark. Kaisa-isahang thumbmark. Naghanap ako ng ink pad. Wala. Turns out, kelangan ko pa palang pumila sa isang kwarto kasama ang mga new applicants na nagpapa-thumbmark for their application forms. Eh, sampung daliri kaya ang kelangan nilang iprenta sa forms nila, whereas I, I NEED ONLY A THUMBMARK. When my turn came, I smiled charmingly at the fingerprinting technician and said, Wala na ba kayong extra ink pad dito? (Wala.) Ah, medyo inutil din pala ang sistema niyo dito ano? (Oo.) Yup, ganun lang ka simple sa kanya ang lahat.

Di ako makatagal sa ganung atmosphere ng inefficiency. Buti na lang, when I had my thumbmark na, binigyan nila ako ng ¼ sheet ng wet tissue. I thought they’d charge me for it, they were charging people 5 pesos for a wet rag to clean their inked fingers with. Kung ganun, pag inked finger lang, libre ang wet wipe. May hustisya din pala sa NBI.

Kahit na, kumaripas pa rin ako palabas, sa pagmamadali kong makalanghap ng hindi gobiyernong hangin. Ano pa’t ako’y buhay na buhay magpasahanggang ngayon.

Saturday Morning Praise with Phoebe

I worked on my PDEP (Peace and Development Educators Program, wherein I volunteer as facilitator) session guides until 5:30 AM, all the while listening to Tim’s laptop repeatedly and unrelentingly belting Air Supply’s Lonely is the Night (with him fast asleep in one of the single twin beds, and me left to surf the Net for the interpretation of The Levels of Consciousness across various cultures, the night sure was lonely.) I wasn’t at all sleepy, but I felt a kind of heaviness in my head and shoulders, as if my brain has turned to tons and tons of metal junk, which made carrying my head such an enormous amount of strain for my too thin shoulders. Moreover, the air conditioning was set to “freezing cool” that my (spare) ribs seemed to rattle the way jinxed snake bones never could. Thus, I spread the thick purple blanket on the narrow bed, stretched my long body onto one end of it, held the blanket’s edge, and rolled over to the other end of the bed, wrapping myself shanghai rolls-like with the synthetic wool-like fabric. I closed my eyes and imagined the tons and tons of metal junk that was my brain to be an ocean of the clearest morning blue, reflecting the image of a solitary vinta and a wistful white bird gliding equally serenely away from each other, in an effort to get some sleep.

But I couldn’t sleep. My stomach felt like it was digesting itself. I got up, hopped to the dressing table where my bag was, rummaged for one of the two antacid tablets I filched from the PDEP medicine kit last night, and took it, downing the water in large hurried gulps, as if it would hasten the coming of Relief. I went back to bed, knowing it’s puerile to hope for Sleep and instead tried to think of something more consequential than hyperacidity. I glanced at my cellphone—5:59 AM, it beamed. Why, we have Morning Praise today, I sighed. Morning Praise is a meditative-reflective, usually at seven in the morning, activity that we religiously observe in the PDEP weekends. I got up again and headed for the bathroom.

I looked at the undressed waif in the mirror—so physically tired but so mentally awake. You can do this, I soothed him, you can make this day great. Then I turned the hot shower on.

I didn’t have a towel in my bag, didn’t want to use Tim’s or deplete our toilet paper supply, so I air-dried myself, which took some time in the tiled bathroom. I got dressed in yesterday’s faded plum jeans, yellow patent shoes, and a fresh mercuric oxide tee shirt, then tiptoed to a sleeping Tim and patted his shoulder to wake him up, so he could make me a slide presentation on Levels of Consciousness while I was away. Ever obliging, Tim got up, still soft and flushed from sleep, and pulled up MS PowerPoint on his laptop. He looked like the stuffed toy version of Winnie the Pooh’s Piglet; it made my heart go out to him. “I wish the time would come that you would need my help, so I could oblige you, and reciprocate the sacrifices you made for me,” I melodrama-tized, feeling a rush of guilt (for waking him up) and gratitude (for him waking up) within. He just smiled that Timothy smile. I sort of hugged him and walked out the door.

The other rooms were already empty; everyone was already in the Prayer Garden for the Morning Praise. For the dyadic activity, I got for my partner, Phoebe, a middle-aged grassroots community worker and headmistress of a little orphanage, who filled me up on what to do. I was to look for an object that represents who I am at the moment and tell her about it. I looked down and found a flower lying on the ground, “My heart crunched when I saw this; this must be the thing I’m meant to pick up today,” I grinned at her. We strolled down the wet and mossy footpath of the garden and settled on an old concrete bench.

“Look at this closely, Phoebe,” I whispered, holding the flower high between us, “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? A passionate blend of red and orange, like a flame. But, see the edges of the corolla; they’re brown and frayed from the kiss of Time and the harsh elements.”

I held the flower to my cheek, it felt cool and smelt faintly of morning dew. “I got up this morning and said to myself everything is okay,” I began to share to her, “but at this moment, I feel fallen, and withered, and frayed around the edges. I feel left alone on the ground, not more than a fire of fading colors, burning until it lasts.”

Her face was a study in earnestness, the more she seemed to accommodate the weight of my words, the more wide-eyed she looked. “I believe though that I will be found,” I went on, my voice sounding unusually husky. “I will be lifted from the dirt and ignominy of having fallen. I will be deemed as representing something profound inside another living soul. For before we become all that we are in this life, we are all elements of Hope.”

“That makes two of us,” Phoebe intimated, opening her hand to reveal a large earth-covered seed with many tiny root protrusions lying still on her palm. “The shock of everything falling apart and falling upon us could sometimes leave us so overwhelmed, like this seed, half-dead or half-alive. But like this seed, which I intend to bury in the earth later, we can still grow. Though it’s dirty and dead-looking, it still holds a promise of change, a change for the better.”

“I’m bearing a lot of trials in my life now,” she continued, her lilting child-like voice permeating my life sphere in a determined crescendo, “and sometimes I feel I’ve had much too much. But here I am, still fighting, still believing that all this is part of the incomprehensible wonderful work of God. And I’m thankful for that.”

The lines on her face ceased to be just years of tries and toils; they now glistened with an outlook of faith beneath the sparkle of her unshed tears. Not a breeze ruffled the leaves hanging above us, not a heavy cloud trapped the sunlight from cascading freely to where we sat, two souls brewing such drama out of words, a dried red flower, a dirty seed, and Life.

As if to lighten the moment, Phoebe exclaimed, “I love this time of day—don’t you?—when the sun is full and generous, and I can breathe in its light, feel it renewing my spirit.”

“Hmm, so the sun not only activates Vitamin D in your body, it also recharges your soul,” I quipped.

“Yeah,” she said, almost to herself as she’s drinking the glory of dewy green foliage sparkling silver in the embrace of soft morning light.

I joined her in what she was doing, breathed in the warm light, felt the warm quiet glow inside, and together, this time not needing any more human words, we let our morning praises soar, higher than the reach of those sturdy tall trees, beyond the gauzy canopy of clouds, towards the sun.

My Real-ization

After fifteen days of waiting, the company I applied for a job in informed me that I could go there tomorrow to sign my job contract. Once I sign it, I’ll officially be a call center agent once more (I had worked for thirteen months at another customer management center in Bacolod from August 2006 to September 2007.) Now that I’m about to do it again, I remember the reasons why I left the so-called call center life (or what I used to call as The Pits) sixteen months ago and even vowed never to go back. Here they are:

• An opportunity to participate in a nationwide foreign-funded research was offered to me. Taking it meant I’ll be doing something that I really love, working around a time-flexible output-basis setup which would make going to school less stressful, and earning 2,000 pesos more than what I was earning as an agent. So I took it;
• The work became too clerical and toxic for me. I’ve had too much of processing payments and explaining bills to more often than not irate customers;
• I was earning only 10,000 pesos per month. Though it’s considerably higher than most other monthly income rates in the city in those times (competition in the city’s call center industry wasn’t at all steep then), it was hardly commensurate to the nature of the job and the stress of working graveyard shifts; and,
• (The heaviest of them all being) my life seemed to pass me by in a blur. The days turned to weeks, then months, and at the end of it I find myself asking what’s been happening to me, what have I been doing with my life, and the answer I got was: I’ve been answering calls from people in America who needed help with their cable accounts. That just couldn’t go on anymore. So, I quit.

Last January 7th, during my 45-minute final job interview, the Hiring Specialist asked me why I want to work in a call center again. Indeed, why am I going back this time? I told her that I don’t see why not. I’m sure I lacked auxiliary detail and congruence when I gave her my reasons then so I’m making up for that here, now (as I had time to really think them out.) Here they are:

• I’m currently out of a job. My contract for the research project ended in mid-December, and I just can’t pass the time being economically unproductive. Interestingly, along that line, my job prospect promises an income (in a per month scale) higher than my previous salary item by 41.6 per cent, as start up pay. In six months’ time, it’ll top what I used to get every month on my previous job by 54.1 per cent. Can you imagine I did the math? Money motivates in many splendid ways.
• I don’t attend regular classes anymore. I’m In my thesis-making year in graduate school, and although time and energy management is going to be more challenging for me as I’d be working and making a master’s thesis at the same time, I’m positive I can, and will, handle it;
• Though it’s still going to be the same job, that of a call center agent, I’ll be in a new account, with a myriad of new things to learn and new people to learn with. My call center experience should also give me an edge in adjusting at work, managing the job’s inherent stresses, and getting ahead. You read it right, because unlike before, wherein I determinedly stayed at the bottom of the ladder as an agent, which aggravated the ennui of thirteen months a great deal, I’m going to aim for The Promotion. This time, I’m climbing up and steering those big bucks into my bank account; and,
• I’ve learned better than to live a come-and-go life. Working in a call center shouldn’t make ones life utterly dull or keep one from pursuing his passions. I’ve seen friends prove those words to be true and livable. (Marty juggles technical support work, law school, an internship at a law firm, and coffee dates with friends.) I know I can too. I know, given the toll that this job would take on my mind and body, it won’t be easy. But I find I don’t care for easy anymore. Ambition is the propensity to take on difficult things, and it’s time for me to have it. So I’ll be a call center agent, post graduate student, peace educator, and writer in one.

I want to be many things in my lifetime. And I mean great things. Great things that would only and ultimately call for one thing: that I, for myself and others, become the truest and fullest measure of my humanity and happiness. I remember one time, it was dawn then, and I was unable to sleep, I asked my best friend Pipit this question: How does one become great? And is this a question that one’s heart can answer on its own? She said that one becomes great when one understands what one is all about, and when one wields that knowledge to make all the wonder of being a reality that holds truth and meaning, causality and inspiration for even just something or someone in some life. She went on to say that the heart, whoever it may belong to, can tell how it is to be great. The heart, is still the best, most rightful thing to define what greatness, or happiness, or whatever else is.

In my heart I know that going back to The Pits is a dignified means to an end. It’s neither a waste of my so-called gifts nor a self-condemnation to a life smaller than what others say I’m meant to live. I am by no means diminished by it but rather, it gets me real. As real as the joy I feel with the thought of being able to extend a helping hand to my family and friends in a practical way. As real as any need that one desires to fulfill through good, hard, and honest labor. As real as not too many people can get.


*For me, and for the people who appreciate the wisdom of what I do, without requiring explanations.

Bewinged, One Afternoon

I look at what I came up with from last night to the wee hours of the morning: one thousand three hundred seventy-four words drained from a heart that basically wants to say one thing: it is in love. I’ve reread it for the umpteenth time and each time (you don’t know how relieved I am to say) my cheeks burn a little less and I’m more able to finish an entire paragraph without stopping somewhere to bury my face on the pillow, curl up in a fetal position, and twitch like crazy.

Yeah, this thing I wrote last night sounds crazy, alright. Crazy in love. I know I tend to overdo things whenever I profess romantic love for another to myself (I haven’t gotten to professing love to another yet) but isn’t it suppose to be like that when you’re in love and just bursting to proclaim it (even if it’s just to yourself and, well, the Listening Universe?) I don’t know, but it seems so. It feels so. I guess what one doesn’t know one just feels somehow.

Somehow, I’m a little clear-headed today, which is a good thing as I really have to finish a great number of things for this weekend’s Self-Transformation course which I will be helping in, as co-facilitator. Today, there’s not going to be any of the cerebral existential lamentations and the grave get-by mechanisms that my previous loves have made me come to know and do so well so many times, in so many ways. None of that suppression and forced oblivion that hardly make me and things better. Today, I’m going to be aware that I’m in love, put all that energy to good use, get down to business, and focus.

I’m a step to winging it.

A Visit to the Police Station

A Sworn Duty

When I visited the Police Office in San Enrique to get my police clearance, I was amused by the fact that the Police Officer’s Creed actually includes this:

“I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the respect for the rights of women.”

In this country, police officers have a reputation for womanizing and polygamy, which isn’t fair for those loyal to their wives and delightfully affirming for the chauvinist pigs. Maybe we can check some helpful statistics, say the incidence and prevalence of infidelity and spousal abuse among police officers in the Philippines in the last ten years and see what’s the real score in this matter (score being an operatively quantitative word.)

Plus, was the abovementioned line added to the Police Officer’s Creed in light of the rising notoriety of policemen where disrespect for marriage and women’s rights is concerned? If it was, is it honored by those duly bound by a sworn duty in words, thoughts, and deeds? And what do drivers have to say to this, when they are known nationwide to be such sweet lovers?

I’m just curious to know.

Paste and Furious

After half-an hour of working on my clearance, the police officer who processed it told me to paste my photo on the paper’s upper right-hand box, indicating the tub of paste at the edge of the table. I opened the lid of the tub and was surprised to find it practically empty, save for dregs of dry paste at the bottom. They reminded me of dried week-old booger. I did what I could; wet the pads of my thumb and index fingers with my tongue, placed a scraped bit of the dry paste between them and kneaded it for a moment, then spread it on the back the photo for posting. Wow, I got perfect adhesion!

I presented the clearance (now showing my picture) to the officer, waiting for whatever he still needs to do with it, stamp it with something, sign it, whatever. He only said, “You can now take it home.”

You made me go through all that trouble with the booger paste to tell me I can take it home where I have not less than 3 bottles of Elmer’s Glue?

As I went out of the police office, into the municipal office’s courtyard, I could only think: The Municipality of San Enrique can afford to choke almost all of the trees and shrubs in the public plaza with Christmas lights, but it can’t buy its police office a decent tub of paste? Life here in San Enrique is full of surprises that aren’t pleasant surprises.

Another Day in the Life of the Unemployed

4:45 AM My daily Wake Up! alarm woke me to a chilly Tuesday morning. I found myself buried beneath ten autumn colored pillows and somehow my earphones got tangled alugbati-like around my neck. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. It’s lazy day today, for all the world cares.

9:03 AM I texted my friend Toty, who’s recuperating in a hospital in Iloilo. I wanted to make sure I congratulate him for making it through the operation. He is now minus one very ugly gall bladder. He thanked me, and lamented the fact that he’s in for a strictly organic fiber diet for life. Well, what can I say to that? Not a cute thought at all, especially before breakfast.

Off to eat breakfast. I would have wanted the eggs to be soft boiled yet I smiled to Mom and said they’re just fine. I chopped some green tomatoes and bell peppers to go with the eggs. Not too bad. I ate everything except the whites. I don’t fancy the whites too much, you see.

I saw ham and luncheon meat slices, fried bangus, and mashed squash too. I would have gone solely for the squash, but I remembered the doctor telling me during my physical exam four days ago that I’m two kilos underweight. So, I took a deep breath, piled more than my usual serving of rice and forked five slices of ham and luncheon meat onto my plate. In honor of Toty who couldn’t have meat from this day on, I murmured to myself, as I proceeded to do my noble duty.

10:11 AM I hummed Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You in the bathroom for the third time already. I must have done it subconsciously. What can I do against that charmingly sad there’s-always- someone-leaving-someone song?

Yeah, twice in all my 23 years have I loved and let go. Not exactly record-breaking, but heartbreaking they sure were. Yet, Love remains; it all remains in the heart. And I’d have to agree, letting go is not absolutely letting go. Ah, such drama.

I reached for the soap dish. Nothing there. My left hand holding the salmon pink puff, my right scratching an imagined itch on my nape, I checked one by one all the ablution items in sight: Head and Shoulders sachets, a Cream Silk conditioner bottle, some Peach and Wheat Germ lotion by Asda, PH Care, Palmolive Botani—P-H C-a-r-e… Hmm, ma-try kaya ‘to!

Resolved: If available, PH Care makes a good substitute for bath soap in the event that the latter suddenly goes missing. Just don’t go telling your little sister about it.

1:00 PM I had lunch with James Bond. I had: 10 packs of Nissin’s Creamy Butter Wafers, nakahilera on the plate and smothered with apple jam; plus, a tumbler filled with finely crushed ice and lemon soda. Quite a good fair it was, while the sleek, suave Pierce Brosnan does a great and incredible job tumbling and diving his way through two hours of violence and pyrotechnics in The World Is Not Enough.

He did all that with a broken clavicle, mind you.

3:45 PM I’m thinking as I’m writing this: Is this a kind of giving in to the urge to document one’s life for the heck of it? A friend of mine, Tim, once told me he used to keep a diary wherein he dutifully and meticulously recorded the happenings of the day as well as his personal expenditures and savings. However, he soon got tired of it. It became too taxing a task for him. I said he must have done it too mechanically, which usually takes most of the fun out of it.

Now I ask myself: Am I doing this right? Are these words the hues my soul takes at this moment in time? What I do know is that I don’t feel tired at all, or futilely taxed, doing this. Somehow, though, I feel that is not enough.

It’s hard, chronicling one’s heart; it’s even harder trying to be truthful about it.

4:01 PM I saw my dad clad in stonewashed denim heading for the door. He said he’s going to the drugstore. “Would you get me a large pack of barbecue Chippy at a sari-sari store, please dad?” I asked. “Copy,” he said (like most other dads, he has slight delusions of military life.)

He came back with two packs of Pee Wee Pizza. To the politely disdainful look on my face, he quipped: “The girl at the sari-sari store said they didn’t have any Chippy left. I asked her what junk food is closest to Chippy and she said Pee Wee.

I pointed out that Chippy is made out of ground corn, like Mr. Chips, Tortillos, or the now rarely available Humpty Dumpty, whereas Pee Wee is made from cassava starch.

“Teh, better luck another time. And make sure then that you’re the one making the actual purchase,” he winked.

“Copy” I countered. It was him alright who made the trip and bought the chips with his money. All I did was make the request. It’s not only beggars who can’t be choosers, sometimes.

I made an attempt at diplomacy, “Dad, I’m putting on Golden Eye this second. Care for agent double-O-seven?”

“Sure. And maybe some Pee Wee too.”

That junk hadn’t been a problem to me at all.

7:21 PM I’m all set for a prayer meeting at Grandma’s. I’m going to it on my new polka dot—red with white dots—slippers just to give me a kind of festive feel. Prayer meetings, in my meager experience, are usually a somber affair.

When was the last time that I really prayed, pray tell? When was it that I truly let my heart speak, make my soul reach for the Supreme Being?

Whenever I really pray, I become too self-conscious and I end up not uttering a word, verbally or mentally. If God knows everything, God must know what’s in my heart even before I say it. What are words anyway but mere inert symbols: they can’t really convey what we truly feel. I’ll pray in whatever way I can, for all the world cares. I’m not praying to the world anyway.

Mom called for me. It was time to go. I grabbed my cherry red jacket, turned off the light, and went out.

7:55 PM Tita Rosie came looking for my sister Mot. She’s giving Mot the third of four Hepa B vaccine injections. I told her that Mot’s still in school and that I haven’t had that shot before and I’d like to find out what it’s like. She asked me to get a cotton ball and some alcohol.

“It’s going to be an intramuscular shot, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Uhuh, right on your shoulder,” she replied swabbing the said body part with the alcohol-soaked cotton.

The shot was a bit painful, especially when the minute stream of vaccine came in contact with my deltoids. The length of my left arm suddenly felt fatigued, as if I shook and waved it around nonstop the whole day. I went back to my room and passed by Dad’s. I found him there, blinking the sleep off his eyes.

“I took an anti-Hepa B shot dad.”

“I see, but where’d you get it? Who gave you?”

“Tita Rosie. It hurt a bit but it’s something you don’t get to do everyday, isn’t it? You should try it.”

I didn’t hear what he said because I was trudging back to my room. Taking that shot was a fast, on-the-spot decision on my part—one which I relished immensely. As for the other decisions I’ve been making in my life, particularly those which were made too quickly with little prior thinking, I wonder when I would get the time to sit down and think through their various ramifications.

Then Mot appeared and asked me how I’ve been. Brimming with a ridiculous boyish pride I told her how I braved a Hepa B vaccine shot. “It hurt, you know,” I bragged, raising my brows for emphasis.

“You should try an intramuscular shot of distilled water. It’s cheaper but it hurts more,” she replied, her smile emitting just the right wattage of condescension.

9:02 PM TV time again. I whipped up a fast snack. Here’s how:

Slowly pour half of the contents of a litro-pack of Eight O’ Clock Orange-Mango powdered juice into your favorite glass tumbler. Make sure the powder forms a decent mound at the bottom.

With a heavy steel mallet, crush some ice. Make sure you get really finely disintegrated ice. Thinking of your worst enemy guarantees excellent results.

Fill the tumbler to the brim with crushed ice. Pour cold water into the tumbler and slip the cap to seal the brim. Shake as James Bond would have liked his drink to be shaken.

(Oh, the tumbler needs to be made of glass to ensure a more interesting aftermath should it slip out of your hand when you’re shaking it.)

On your most favorite plate, arrange a bed of saltine crackers. Next, top it with chopped bananas and smear some white cheese on the bananas. Then, trickle some grapefruit jam over everything (the messier the pattern, the better.)

Finally, be sure to pat dry your face from all the exertion before serving.

On Pinoy Fear Factor Argentina, South America, I saw the stand up comedienne Janna hanging by her foot which was trapped in a net suspended from the base of the helicopter. A staff hurriedly jetskied to where she was but untangling Janna took sometime, for the rescuer couldn’t get a secure foothold in the chest high water and the chopper couldn’t stay put in midair. Poor Janna had to hang on for several excruciating seconds before falling, as a general rule of nature, into the water.

Accidents. They happen when they want to. As much as we want to prevent them from happening, we should hope to get lucky too.

10:02 PM Speaking of accidents, my friend Christine texted me that she stepped on a protruding nail yesterday and that she feels a little ill tonight.

“Get a shot of anti-tetanus toxoid fast,” I told her.

“I’m fine. The nail wasn’t rusty at all,” she replied.

Either she’s superbly uncaring or I’m too easily agitated, whatever, pwede ba ang rason na iyon? I told her to inform me ASAP when she begins to feel that her condition is a matter of serious consequence worth any sane human being’s anxiety. Her “okay” made me feel I’d be waiting a long time for an update of that nature.

Another friend, Bem-Bem from Cebu, who works as a Quality Assurance specialist in a call center that does political surveys in America tells me she’s feeling lonely and homesick.

“It’s different being home, where you can simply run to some real friends anytime for anything,” she imparted.

“Makes one of us then,” I replied.

What I really want now is to get away, somewhere really faraway where everyone is yet to know who I am. It would be like starting anew in a new place. I want to get away from all the things I’ve become so used to. Life can’t be made up only of all the things that we’re used to.

11:50 PM The night is old, dying. I can hear the trucks speeding along the highway. The dialogue with the Self, however, rings loud and clear, every word precise and sonorous, every thought determinedly aglow.

What is it that you most fear?

The murder of my soul by myself.

When do you hurt the most?

It matters to me that I’m something, an entity that counts in the grand scheme of things. I hurt the most when I’m reduced to nothing, when I know for a fact that I let that injustice happen to me. Self-inflicted violence cuts deep, you know.

What about unrequited love?

They never knew about it. Who could be so sure they were both unrequited?

Whether they knew or not is immaterial. We’re looking at the act of them loving you back in that special way, which never happened.

Yeah, I guess you have a point there. But did you have to sharpen it so?

I thought you welcome pain. Weren’t you the one who proclaimed it to be your, uh, what was that, Protector?

Yes. It still is like that. And I’m well aware that it’s turned just a tad too overprotective for my own good.

There’s the rub. I see you’re beginning to get the hang of all this.

What’s ‘all this,’ huh? What’s so damn important about ‘all this?’ Why can’t ‘all this’ simply not matter?

Keep that yarn of questions spinning, fratello, because somewhere in the intersection of your mind and heart you know the answer. Until you stop pretending to be asleep, that yarn will be spun, and no one, not even the blades of Fate, would cut it for you.

Give me a break! I need to think, and you’re making it impossible for me to do so.

Do you ever get enough room in your mind to really think?

I don’t need room. What I need is a respite from harpies like you.

I wonder where you get all this resentment from.

I generate it!

Ah, like a nice tough reactor of resentment.

At least make an effort to make an effort to be more picturesque in speech.

I see you risk an overdose of Juvenalian sarcasm yourself. Sadly, even that won’t save you from the less mighty part of yourself. And you know it.

(A knowing silence ensues.)

A Day in the Life of the Unemployed

11:13 AM Been warming this wrought iron bench with my gluteus maximus for almost an hour now. I sit alone in this tiny park in the heart of the city, staring hard at what they call as the Fountain of Justice, a collection of steel protrusions resembling a bicycle wheel’s radius. Not a spray of water from any of its spouts, it makes a mute dismal picture that perfectly highlights what a drag all this waiting for nothing has been.

What am I doing here anyway?

You’re trying to feel your way through the minutes of an unemployed day, said me.

A well articulated point my dear, but must I do this in a turtleneck? The forecast said today’s going to be cloudy with a bit of rain and really strong winds; now it’s sweltering!

Surely, you know better than to blame the damn forecast. You feel hot, you take it off. Plain and simple.

Nah, I think I’d keep this on. It makes me feel a bit more in a writing mood. Besides, the doctor said I need to sweat every chance I get.

And I thought you were one to neglect professional medical opinion (nods his head, grinning lopsidedly.)

I smile back, a smile of shared fondness for the queer stuff that alternative lives are made of, may it be watered down cynicism, a weak ray of bleakness, the ridiculous pleasure borne of mundane banter, or the simple magic of stretching one’s gaze to see.

Just beyond my forlorn lifesphere, the city is a constant stream of movement and color in the form of jeepneys and people. Movement and color aren’t exactly life. I feel a grim grin working its way around my face. I look up to see the Monday overcast stretching endlessly like a fluffy bed of smoke. I feel a change coming. My deliverance is going to fall upon me any minute now.

11:18 AM Everywhere I look, I see concrete as dull as the clouds outside. When will banks break free from the neutral-color scheme? Still, there’s a steady trickle of people entering and leaving the Philippine National Bank-Luzuriaga Branch. I had better let them be, these people who have a legitimate business being here because I, on the other hand, am here—to escape the rain.

As a gesture of good will, let me say at least that the place is pretty conducive for scribbling—cool and really nice and quiet, with an air of reverence and tacit mind-your-own-damn-business understanding enfolding all folks to the point of social asphyxia. I guess money does that to everyone at some unfortunate point in time.

Plus, I try to be unobtrusive and non-threatening, blending really well with the brick red leather couch here, as I am clothed in four different shades of brown, the color I favor the most. If I attract too much attention, God knows what others would think of the guy-who-clearly-doesn’t-have-a-business-to-be-here.

Tick-tock tick… I can feel my sepia camouflage failing me; I feel all the more like some sort of reconnaissance man, looking around surreptitiously and jotting down copious notes. The security guard is beginning to notice me with an evil eye, looking like a bulldog chewing on a wasp (however unsavory that is.) It must have dawned on him that I’ve been sitting here way too long to be devoid, beyond reasonable doubt, of any cruel intentions. Don’t panic. Sit up straight and look normal. Shrug. Calmly! Do it again, calmly. Now summon that will-I-deposit-half-a-million-or-two-million-look. There, you look so above suspicion. Now check on the guard from the corner of your eye.

He’s handing out numbers to middle aged women.

Allora, the reconnaissance man moves on to the next subject: a creature (I’m uncertain as to its sex; it has boobs but they look incredible to me so I remain on the safe side) across the aisle wearing a checked pleated mini skirt, furry calf-high boots, and an ominous Apocalypto belt. Its dark hair has some seriously deadly Viking highlights and its bodily composition rivals that of the Venus of Wilendorf. Discreet stares from all over the PNB house are currently flying to this creature’s direction, motivating it to stand, shake its hair, and strut its stuff down the aisle. I close my eyes and wish the stares were all daggers, really sharp but rusty.

It was precise, tactile, clean, and over in a matter of seconds—the perfect crime in the mind.

3:13 PM I’m on a red bus now with six other passengers, giving the usually jam-packed vehicle a hollow feel. I feel sorry for harping to my best friend on the phone about how she should get a job fast (because she’s somebody who can do it but just wouldn’t because she finds meaning in what she’s doing with her time, even if it’s reading Spanish chicklit at home, without pay.) What was I thinking? I’m out of a job myself! So I sent her a text message:

I’m sorry for sounding like a prodder-nagger kanina. What really matters to me is that you are following your bliss and I am at your side to support you. I can’t live your life for you naman di ba?

Pipit texted me back: It’s okay. Please, understand my crankiness too (translation: stubborn lang talaga ako.)

Not a bad attempt at amnesty, huh? Somehow it makes me feel I hold considerable promise as a conflict and reconciliation worker. I lean on the window pane and hum Que Sera Sera, one of Pipit’s favorite get-by songs, hoping to nap all the possibilities away.

3:55 PM I feel like a pebble of Truth has just been dropped into the pool of Emptiness that is me. The Will searches for that pebble in vain; it will only discover though that vast and deep is the emptiness that this one soul could carry.

They say the jar’s emptiness is what holds the water, that a jar without a hollow is not a jar. That a jar that is full must be emptied before it can be filled. I remember a time when I got so full of myself. I had to drain out a great deal of Pride, mostly by weeping, which felt awful at first but really light and liberating in the end. But that’s historic stuff of months ago. Today, talking about emptiness, I’m wondering whether or not the things I devote my life to do hold water in the grand stream of things. I couldn’t be definitely sure of that, could I?

“Wisest is he who knows he knows nothing.”

I free my gaze through the window of the now filled bus. I see a gnomish old man in faded tattered clothes smoking a cigarette. I look at his brown feet. They look relaxed and at home in the electric pink crocs cradling them.

Socrates is right. I know nothing really. And I’m quite happy about that.

With not a minimum of smoke, turbulence, and noise, the bus moves out, taking me home.

10:11 PM Just finished off two Fugi apples and nine Hiro sandwiches with a vengeance. My only witnesses: the folks on CS9’s HEROES and Fringe.

The night is cold for mid-January in this country. The cold seeps through my blanket, right through my low-fat body. I’m trying to think of yet another self-discovery, hoping it would somehow warm me up, even just a little—

You know why you always fall for someone who’s unlikely to love you back?

Because I’ve mastered it and it makes me feel in control and I’m unwilling to risk plunging into the Unknown, where I won’t be able to calculate my reactions and no amount of intellectualizing can put up the so-called ‘comfort zone’ I’ve always locked myself in.

There is a consistency to your candor which is truly beautiful!

And may I say so about your sarcasm?

Why don’t you leaf through your old journals and look up what you had written, say, exactly three years to today? You might find something that would help you make some sense out the abovementioned ‘realizations.’

Hmm, right! Here… we have it: (Reading aloud) January 12, 2006—

Yes. Just keep moving. Keep moving no matter how every harsh unuttered word weighs you down. I know they do. I know you are what your peers do not speak of you. You are weak. At this point, you have no choice but to be.

It’s because you think too much. You are caught in the crises of a world too big and too small for you. You are scourged by your humanity, that part of yourself that gives so much, too much, to a benign promise, a sacrifice sine qua non. You need to detach yourself from these things, find out who you truly are by yourself, unshackled by any outer faith, burning only from within—an entity very much of itself. You have only yourself. And it is all you need to begin with.

Hmm, back then you were penning a resolve to break free. Now it seems you’re caving yourself in a, uh, I don’t know—your comfort zone, perhaps.

Does this mean the real me is a prisoner of himself and is content being so? Am I being too hard on myself and actually liking it? Is splitting hairs all I’ll ever do as a means of getting by in the glorious flux that is Life?

Figures we’ll have to find out how Jeprox finds out about the find he thinks he’s finally going to be fine with, won’t we?

(Sigh) That lacks a great deal of musicality. Though, I think we’d better give it a rest, for now.

Vero. Buona notte e sogni dolce, fratello.

No Birthday Gift Too Late

Margaux gave me a bag for my birthday. My birthday’s in November but she said her gift could still catch up. Besides, we weren’t too far away from the New Year yet.

I knew Margaux back in college when she did photojournalism for The Spectrum. She was a welcome ingredient to the creatively delicious pot of talent in the student publication.

Tall and ruthless with a pair of high heels, Margaux walks taller than most other girls in school, but she’s way more quiet than most of them. Or so, people usually observe, for I have had the privilege of really talking, or cyber chatting, with her to know that she too can talk nonstop.

She does talk nonstop, but seldom nonsense. In the event that she resorts to nonsensicality, it’s for a cause.

Before, I used to call her the princess in the stone castle, willing an entire household with an iron hand. Now, I fancy calling her the willful girl behind the concealing geisha makeup.

In giving me a gift, the act and the object both I utterly did not expect, she just sort of came out of the blue with it, Margaux revealed one thing about herself to me—she gives, even to people like me, who are too stingy to give her something in return. By stingy, I mean, materially. I am not stingy in spirit, and this entry is my way of saying thank you for the nice black and gold Nike I got. She’s right, there’s no birthday gift too late. And there no thank you too late either.

Suicide

i see myself drown in the pools of your eyes
their cold Unknowing pricking me awake, alive

in this dead-blackness

i drift unable to sleep
or accept the gravity of The Fall

(My Fall)

where into
i know not at all

unchartered Hell or
abandoned Heaven

i do not care

i am fine

i am able to float above my head
where sanity crashes loud and proud

against the inside of my cracked skull

curiously, Love has shown no such violence
none of the strong pained thrashing

in the porous, crumbling catacombs of the heart

has it come to know that like a common leaf
in the tree of your existence

it is browned by Time, cracked by the Seasons?

though surviving your unfeeling caress
so like condescending breaths of a fleeting summer breeze,

is as much a half-hearted victory i barely deserve
as the way you witness my recurring suicide

At Bay With The Sentinels of Eros

what does it take to fly out of one's mind,

break free from the confines of too sane thoughts that

had revolved for so long around you--your mere existence

anchoring pieces of stained glass memories of

a past otherwise diluted in dark liquid Pain.

Pain, so i've learned,

begets the indomitable consciousness of the soul,

no matter how broken and scattered it is by directional default.

how curse i the lips that set free the words

weaving the jist of all enamored tales

spun under the softest most wicked smiles of the moon,

when mine own tongue too is grown

in the welling fullness of the heart?

Believe

there is more to sunsets than thinking of Love, thinking of the brokenness you can only imagine. for what's left of the heart is a numb sense of reality--a particle of being that refuses to wake up from and never ceases to hold on to a bad dream.

Madonna I Forsake Thee

unhand me silver moon
i am not your own

let loose your garish straps
wrapping me mummy-like

to be kept in
the tomb of your praises

yes, they grow like
giant weeds blooming daggers

hugging themselves
in blind supplication

dying at the behest of your
unfeeling pride to which

many had lied, professing
to be your very own

children waxing cold with
every kiss of the serpentine wind

nay, stay in the luminescence
of your only vanity, your beauty

but leave me alone
in this clear-cut knowledge that

i am not your own
i never was, i never will

(here, everything is still)