the real meanie

it never stops.

2012-01-21T13:51:00.000+08:00

maybe i spend too much time locked up in my room alone. but it doesn't end, this fear of the world, of people. my parents are beginning to harass me into getting a new job; they keep sending me writing prospects and whatnot. what they don't understand is that i don't want to write like that. i cannot write like that. it's not because of any issues i may have encountered, or that i'm being picky. i'm saying i'm not a writer.

it is this realization that has caused me to uproot myself from the ok job i had going, more than anything. i write here, and on facebook every now and then, but these are entries only meant for myself. anybody who reads this won't really take too much stock from what i write here, because it's about me, and i'm just a regular person with a computer and an internet connection. but i cannot say things about what is unfamiliar to me, something i am uninterested in. i'm uncomfortable when my parents and their friends refer me to other people they know, when in reality they don't know what they're saying. they've never read my work. nobody does, other than you, every now and then. and even if you're the type to keep tabs once in a while, only i can see everything i've said. i write in code sometimes, or keep entries to myself.

so i'm not a writer. i'm just someone who can't keep her thoughts to herself.

but still the waves of worry and disappointment and constant "aren't you looking for a job yet?"s come and i don't know what to say or do about it.

and i'm so afraid. of what, i don't know.

the obituary writer

2012-01-20T13:36:00.000+08:00

i would write for you
any time
any day
from the white noise in my head
and the silence of my night
with the quick scratching sounds of my pen
and the sure clicking of typing keys
after screams
a bang
a crackling blaze
a breath.

and only i would know
how it came to be
this writing
of sadness
and of pain
in the brief time it takes
when you pick up the paper
see the names on the dirty gray page
my words smudging the tips of your fingers.

it's time i start doing this again.

2011-11-30T18:04:00.000+08:00

it's been so long since i wrote anything in a remotely creative fashion. this is a desperate (and rather sad) attempt to get that ball rolling.
***************************************************************************************************************
i'm so tired of your face
always stretched just so
in a smirk
never quite a smile
like you've got a secret i can
never know

and with that smug expression
you make a sound
in the back of your throat
like a clicking tongue
ticking
that makes my skin crawl
my blood race

so i'm sick of your face
as you count down to nothing
waving your hands
telling me
without really saying
that there's something
i must be doing

and you look down on me
smirking
clicking
waving
always looking down
on me from your spot on the wall.

- The Clock

and they said, "do that on your own time"

2011-11-29T17:34:00.000+08:00

how presumptuous to think that anyone's time is their own, or anybody else's.

nothing as precious as time can ever be owned, and nothing as precious as a person can ever be claimed.

just sayin.

tip your barista

2011-11-09T12:25:00.000+08:00

is today's friendly mental note, brought about by the realization that i won't be here next week.

at every major turning point in my life, i've had to leave a place that has become a comforting haunt, and a bunch of people who know my nickname and how i like my coffee. i don't know how many starbucks branches i no longer frequent. seems like a lot for someone who hasn't been drinking coffee regularly all that long.

and isn't it a damn shame to leave your friendly neighborhood comfort zone behind? sure there will be other places, but it's never the same. maybe the barista used to memorize your food order, as well as your usual coffee. maybe they used to write little notes on your cup, like "have a nice day!" and "cheer up!" maybe they threw in extra butter to go with your monday breakfast bagel. maybe they gave you a free cookie on your birthday. it seems like such a minute part of your routine, getting coffee or tea. but that there's someone out there who recognizes your face and knows how you drink your coffee can be a huge thing. hey, even my parents don't remember how i like my coffee.

you probably haven't thought about it that much, but the people who can tell you're having a bad day because you just ordered a huge slice of cake, even though they don't know much else around you, have this strange insight into your world, your self, in a way that most of your nearest and dearest don't. never mind that they are trained and paid to be friendly and to strike up a conversation every now and then, or to remember what you always order on wednesday afternoons. you don't know them, and they don't know you, but a familiar face anywhere can do wonders when it comes to lightening up your day.

today, i went to starbucks for tea. it had been months since i last encountered this particular barista, but he remembered my name, and despite the long line, asked why i wasn't getting my usual. the barista who handed me my drink, the girl who was always chatty and friendly, answered for me, saying i probably already had coffee today, and that i probably had a sore throat, like the last time i ordered tea. these weren't my only reasons for buying tea today instead of coffee, but goddamn it, she was right. and then they both said, "planner season na. see you tomorrow!"

i don't know anything about these two people, but they're staples in the scene that i'm about to exit from, and since they always made me feel better about my day somehow, i am actually going to miss them.

so here are your tips, friendly coffee people. you've made the humdrum chained-to-my-desk days loads better. thanks for that.

i have so many lists that all say the same thing.

2011-11-08T17:29:00.000+08:00

i'm trying not to sound dramatic, but here it goes.

everything i thought was true about myself was disproved when i came here. it was a terrible shock for me, and it felt even worse because i no longer knew anything.

i still don't know which way is up.

hungry and exhausted, so don't give me that shit.

2011-09-16T19:17:00.000+08:00

my condition, my ailment. i won't go into detail anymore, it isn't the point. besides i'm tired of having to explain it to everyone who asks when i don't quite understand it myself.

it's awful. not so much the sickness, but the strange looks, the pity pats, the you-can't-eat-that's. i'm sick of it. i'm no different than before. but suddenly i'm the sick girl who has to be lectured about vegetables and exercise.

sure, i used to have the occasional mcdo meal, and i always had dessert, but never have i been accused of not eating my veggies, because i like veggies. i eat right. i only consume an entire cup of rice when i'm famished. otherwise, i have less. i have salad whenever i can, and i cut out the fat from meat. perhaps i don't exercise all that much, but live a life like mine and you'll see why finding time to do so is such a feat. it's not like i don't ride my stationary bike while watching tv, or do my stretches in the morning. i walk whenever i can. i stand and sit and stand and sit lie down stand kneel lie down sit up stand (don't know what you call that exercise). i do crunches and squats and a round of jumping jacks. maybe i don't go to a gym to lift weights and whatnot. it doesn't mean i lie in bed stuffing my face all day. i just don't like being all sweaty and gross with other people around. is that wrong?

it could be that the hormones are starting to adjust, or maybe it's the food deprivation. but all the same, i don't appreciate the lectures on health, especially while you're washing down a pastry with a bottle of iced tea or helping yourself to seconds of pasta drowning in processed tomato sauce.

21

2011-09-11T18:02:00.001+08:00

more than anything, this has been a year of change.

and as challenging as it has been,
i am grateful.

21

2011-09-11T18:02:00.000+08:00

more than anything, this has been a year of change.

and has challenging as it has been,
i am grateful.

a collapse in my resolve

2011-08-15T09:56:00.000+08:00

there has been a battle going on in my head for months now. and today, somebody won. i don't know if this is the good side or bad side, as i drew no such lines when this entire conflict began. today, i snuck away from my friends on the pretense of buying coffee (which i really did anyway) to smoke. after over a year of not buying my own pack of cigarettes, i bought me a big ol' pack of blacks, found the lighter i had stashed in my office cubby, and went down to the smoking area, wedged myself in between to thick groups of people, and did what i have been wanting (but not wanting) to do for months. there was the quick feeling of relief accompanied by immediate guilt and a more-than-warranted dose of self-hatred. fuck it.

the first thing that came to mind was "are you crazy?" the answer being yes. the next was "why?" and--this is taking me time to articulate as once i do it will become real--the answer is "because this is shit and i don't know why i'm even taking it." and then of course i remember why i'm taking this shit--because i need money. the little money that i earn ensures me a tiny amount of freedom that is the only thing keeping me functional.

and so i let this eat up little bits and pieces of my soul, telling myself all the while that this is just a test of character, a test of strength, that if i get through this alive i will be a better person. maybe it's not a lie. but i sure as hell know that it is the whole truth. there's always a catch. fuck it.

finding rhythm.

2011-08-10T12:42:00.000+08:00

today time is moving especially slow
suddenly i'm thinking bout you
cause of a song playing on the radio
i find it strange you came to mind
since we haven't spoken
for such a long, long time

i remember our last day
running through the trees in the park
chasing down the summer
staying out til dark

the reasons for quitting

2011-08-08T15:47:00.000+08:00

the icing on the cake was that it was my own doing. i went ahead and spewed the words out of my own volition, treading, not lightly, but rather, blundering through a plaster wall at a speed i'd get pulled over by a cop for. and it has brought me nothing but trouble.

yet here i am again, writing. so many things have changed in the past year and a half--i've learned to choose my words and speak carefully. i've been doing this long enough to know that while it is no fun at all, it has become necessary. anyone can take your words--and even your actions--and twist and misinterpret them in such a way that you had never intended.

so as much as possible, i don't upload photos, or write anything personal anymore. everything i send out to the world now is accompanied by this cautious, almost robotic voice that has recently begun to sound off in my head. it makes me wonder if i have lost my me-ness because of this voice.

i used to be noisy. i still am sometimes. and while i am glad for it, i can feel myself cringing in horror every time the old me manages to escape from her padded cell every now and then, blurting out cusses and haphazard statements every which way until i manage to rein her back in.

i miss the people who understand her, who enjoyed her presence for all that was wrong with her. but they are far and few, and there are many more yet who wouldn't get it. and while i fought long and hard to keep things the way they were, i got tired and couldn't do it anymore.

so i quit.

you know that i'm no good.

2011-07-26T13:11:00.000+08:00

i don't know if it's the weather or if it's because i've got amy winehouse's back to black album on loop but all i want right now is to light a cigarette and smoke for the first time in months. i've already got the lighter in my pocket, and it's taking all my concentration not to go downstairs for a smoke.

she tells our story like no other...

did i ever talk about my winehouse phase? it was during the time that i had begun to believe i could make it all on my own, that i had grown up, that no person could ever hurt me like i had believed to have been hurt before. i had three amy winehouse songs on loop all day for weeks while i sat locked up in my room. at the end of that period, i had decided to move out of our house and go off to live with friends.

"and i tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked

it was the time i started hiding cigarette boxes in my sock drawer and later exchanging the contents with crayons because i knew i had to stop smoking and storing stale cigarettes where our maid would find them.

we only said goodbye with words
i died a hundred times

that was also the time i started my collection of lighters, keeping them in all my makeup kits and tissue holders so that i always had one in my bag. i started unfolding metal paper clips and burning my fingers trying to melt them straight. summer was hot and high outside, but i kept the blinds down and the lights off.

you go back to her
and i go back to black."

harry potter: it ain't over 'til it's over.

2011-07-18T07:59:00.000+08:00

i cannot bring myself to accept that this is the end of it all. maybe it's because there's still pottermore to look forward to, though i hardly think that it will be the same. friends jokingly say that this is the end of my/our childhood. but i refuse to part with this bit that has consumed a very large part of my life and opened so many doors, broke windows when there were no doors, and tore down walls when there were no windows, leading me to a place that i know will always be safe, where despite in fogginess of the future, i will know how to proceed.

literature has always been my guide through life. the books i've read have taken me through paths i never thought i would ever walk, gotten me across ravines and out of ruts and have brought me, safely, here. dreams will always be my constant companion, and i am not ashamed of it because i know i have something to look forward to. despite the escape my books have provided me, all the comfort, wisdom, and knowledge i have gained from them (whether i consciously remember them or not) have given me a foothold in this reality, one i know i would never have been able to face otherwise.

and maybe i am too old (biologically) to still be leafing through newberry-award winners, but narnia and hogwarts and middle earth and the underground world of the People are, i feel, the most solid ground i've ever felt beneath my feet. besides i honestly believe that "ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan."

i've always known that words have the power to take people places, and whether it be the words i've read, or the ones that i've written (or will be writing in the future), i know they will take me where i need to go. and maybe i won't be visiting hogwarts again any time soon, but like the actual schools i've attended, i've learned more (and loved more) than i ever knew i could from there, and it is this that keeps me moving--not away, but forward.

...

2011-06-30T12:00:00.000+08:00

i have lost all faith in words it seems.

perhaps this is something worth exploring

2011-06-22T12:06:00.000+08:00

i've been quite the recluse lately.

my reasons for being absent almost anywhere are always true, though they are not my only reasons. it isn't that i'm lazy, or that i do not care (the latter being what most people tend to assume); it's really that i do not feel like being seen by anyone at the moment.

maybe years of feeling invisible and sudden visibility afterward have traumatized me, or it could be that the ties i naively believed would exist forever were suddenly broken. i'm not trying to understand it. i just don't feel like i should be seen right now, like the me that i know i am is not in at the moment, and therefore the me that is here is just a temporary substitute. i feel like i'm not actually here.

which is why i choose to spend my free time in hibernation, or lost in the comfort of a game, a tv show, a movie, or a good book. i seem to be in the smudges between letters, floating in the quick static that appears in between two television channels, in the pixelated grains of sand inside a virtual hourglass that turns when waiting for a page to load.

it could be that i've stopped documenting most of my thoughts, leading me to feel i've lost the ability to think at all. or maybe i'm a zombie that's been shot dead by a flower.

check your post-its, proof that you're not listening to the call your life's been issuing.

2011-06-13T15:58:00.000+08:00

perhaps it was a something that most people would never understand, or even bother to, but the bond between the girl and her guitar was no different than the bond between a flat surface and glue.

she didn't play it, that was the strange thing. she just hauled it along, everywhere she went, a strange burden on her back that kept her from looking people in the eye. but no matter, she said to herself, it must be there because that's the way things are supposed to be. and she believed that no matter how things can be meant to happen, it isn't always so. the universe is tricky, and things don't always go the way they should. but she wanted them to anyway, and she held on to that belief despite the stares and the scowls.

the stars aren't kind, but she thought that if she carried her fate on her back then it was bound to get her closer to making it come true.

one day, while sitting idly on a curb, a little boy eating an ice cream cone stopped to admire the guitar. he asked her to play. she told him she didn't know how. he asked her why she had the guitar, and she replied, telling him that it was her fate to be a musician.

and then he said, "how will that ever happen if you never try and learn?"

writing in a dark room.

2011-05-16T08:19:00.000+08:00

the ink is the color
of everything else
here in this dark room.

the pen makes scratching
sounds on the paper,
possibly overlapping
with the other marks
already etched into it.
maybe, because i can't see it.

my eyes are no good here,
in this dark room,
only my imagination
and the familiarity
between hand and pen
over the years
guides my words to their own spaces
on the blank page in my notebook.

but it is easier writing here
in a dark room
where no one but myself can see
the letters
the doodles
the indecipherable blotches
that i've decided to keep,
invisible to all but myself.

it will be a while yet
before i turn the light on.

keeping notes.

2011-05-02T15:28:00.000+08:00

i listen to her and know i could never leave you behind.

maybe the cards could be wrong.

when in doubt, turn around.

2011-04-27T20:05:00.000+08:00

i found my old michelle branch hotel paper cd. i stuck into my laptop and pressed play.

today was not good. so i'm sitting here, listening to michelle branch, wondering where the girl who tried to sing like that went. she definitely isn't in this room. if she had, i'd probably be curled up in the corner, having a good cry, instead of blogging and wondering about the ifs and whys and hows.

i've been feeling more remote than usual lately. and i know more than anything else that the only thing that's keeping me here is myself.

it's not that i don't know what to do, because i do. it's because i can't bring myself to move.

on kulasas, lit majors, and pretty much the women in my life.

2011-04-14T07:56:00.000+08:00

we're a spunky, spitfire little bunch, aren't we?

loveyouforit.

on plans and color motifs

2011-04-08T11:47:00.000+08:00

i've been quite occupied with planning this wedding.

i'm beginning to doubt my styling skills, and am wondering about the limited resources.

this is challenging, and my mind is swimming with ideas. to think, it's not even my wedding.

truth: churches freak me out.

2011-03-30T08:03:00.000+08:00

especially given the frequency of the churches and other such religious institutions appearing in dreams before some psycho starts chasing me with a knife or a gun or something equally lethal. and i remember them, vividly.

at first it was distant, just the echo of misa de gallo bells in the distance as i was chased by a madman in a ski mask down a fire escape that looked kind of like the one in the Sega Michael Jackson video game that kept playing Smooth Criminal over and over again. this was when i was about seven, and played that game a lot. where the church bells and the madman came from, i don't know.

and then, around a year or so later, i had a dream of running past notre dame cathedral in paris, with a thirsty vampire at my heels. i loved disney's version of the hunchback, so maybe that's why notre dame was there. don't ask me about the vampire though.

then again, last year, i had a dream where i was in a church with some sort of celebration dedicated to san isidro (this is getting specific) and the interior looked like a cross between the malate church and st. james' church in alabang. (side note: i used to attend mass at the former with my mom and my lola when we lived in malate, and my maternal grandfather's ashes are in the columbarium--is that what you call it?--below the latter.) but this church in my dream was different. it was inside an unfamiliar gated community, somewhere in the province supposedly, and there was a vegetable garden and nipa hut on the grounds, right next to a covered garage/driveway. and i was sitting in the church alone, but left when the mass began. it was getting dark, and i hailed a blue taxi with a dented plate number. i rode the cab, but there was something wrong with the driver and he started to attack me without stopping the car. i punched him in the face, scratched his eyes, and kicked him where it hurts guys most, and managed to fall out of the moving vehicle. i got up and ran like the dickens, screaming for help, but all the houses on that strange street were unoccupied. the driver stopped the cab and was limping (really fast) after me, one of his eyes all bloody and his nose crooked. and he had a crowbar in his hand, shouting at me "hindi ka lalayo!" i ran some more and found myself at a cul de sac of empty townhouses. i don't remember much after that, except for the sinking feeling that he was going to catch up.

and then again, last night, by far the scariest church dream i've ever had, that it kept me up for two hours before i could close my eyes again.

i was living in some sort of monastery-church-house place in another country. this man i knew (but now cannot place) was escorting a group of people somewhere nearby. the monastery-church-house was in a well-lit residential area, save for a gaudy pink, orange, and blue castle-ugly-beach-resort-looking house on the dark end of the road. the man i knew could speak tagalog, and he told me that the people in the weird gaudy house were pagan fanatics who didn't pay the homeowners dues and had strange sacrifice rituals. next thing i know, we're standing right outside that house, and the owners, two white guys and a black guy all wearing pastel-colored long-sleeved shirts (the same colors as their house) and white pants, were standing behind me, telling me and the guy i knew (who was dressed as a monk all of a sudden) to go away because they were having an event. we apologized, and i made my way back to the monastery-church-house place without the monk. suddenly the street started filling up with people and the spilled into the lawn of the monastery-church-house place. the people were all holding silver and white trinkets, some rattles, some weird spinning pendants, as they walked towards the ugly house. then i realized that eldest of the three men from the gaudy house (he had wrinkles and white hair) was following me. he was wearing monk's robes over his clothes, and was holding a silver and white rattle with a very sharp blade on one end. i slipped into the monastery-church-house place, slipped into a corridor, grabbed a candle, and headed quietly and quickly up the stairs. i went inside a room, which turned out to be my bedroom there (kinda big, nice bay windows, rich wood furniture, private bathroom) took off my slippers, changed into a sparkly top and grabbed my heels, and wrote a note on the white board on the door "Dear Fathers, Out with Friends. Don't wait up. Don't worry, not driving. Be back tomorrow." But then i went back inside the room, turned off my ipod, computer, and cellphone, grabbed a tiny sparkly bag, a bottle of water, and my candle, and crawled under the huge wooden bed. there was a wood panel near the wall, which i slid open. it was full of books, but there was space enough for me to crouch in. i squeezed into the space and closed the panel. i was there for what felt like hours, and i could hear the ritual going on down the street. then i heard voices outside my room. Whoever was taking care of me--the monks or some people--were arguing. I heard the freaky man's voice saying the sacrifice must be made, and that I was still here. I could hear them going inside the room, and upon seeing my t-shirt and slippers on the floor and the sparkly bag missing, the actual monks were saying things like, "See, she's out. Her fancy bag is gone, and her house clothes are on the bed." then they left, but not without the freaky guy repeating that i was still there and that there would be a sacrifice. then i woke up, curled up in one corner of the bed, scared out of my wits.

wth, right?

but what does this mean?

moon garden daydreams

2011-03-24T12:10:00.000+08:00

i was editing and uploading photos of this place for work and everything was taking so long to load. so i started to daydream...

it looked like the kind of place you took your lover during the few times you would meet--you the spontaneous prima donna who sticks out like a sore thumb anywhere, and your brooding, jaded lover with a deep-seated heartache you so long to fix and a Messiah complex that keeps you two apart. you stay in your room, spend most of your time curled up together between the sheets, like war-torn lovers in a Gabriel Garcia-Marquez novel. and when the moon comes out, its borrowed light casting tree shadows over your faces and backs, he looks deep into your eyes as if it was the last time he'd ever look at you, because you don't know when you'll see each other again...

and then of course the pages finally load and it's time to get on with my work.

...whatever gets me through the day...

well well well

2011-03-17T14:16:00.000+08:00

aren't you quite the little fictionist? you spin your tales pretty well. what you lack in research you make up for in spectacle and argumentum ad hominem.

you're a real pollock. of course it's the way you've painted my portrait. you should be an abstract artist.

maybe it's a secret.

2011-03-17T07:54:00.000+08:00

psych test. my three words were crush, fool, and made. it was, unfortunately, quite apt.

and maybe it's a secret, but like juancho says, "when you leave tomorrow, i'll miss you."

i didn't think friends could come and go, quite literally, this fast. how sad to ever have to learn that.

there is no one here and for the moment i am safe

2011-03-09T10:28:00.000+08:00

i never thought i could ever be this happy about aunt rose.

around this time last year, i didn't even dream of sitting where i am now, much less imagine how much i would be sitting here wondering what else there is.

and then of course there's you.

watery regret

2011-03-03T11:27:00.000+08:00

i drank from the mouth
of an idol
a saint bastardized by your name
and only because of the lack
of anything absolute in life
because i could not reach the peaks
i had once aimed for.

no amount of beautiful presentation
can deny the fact that you
unholy thing
are plain and simple
but for some reason caught my eye
and had suddenly become
a source of life
to quench the thirst in the otherwise
empty and parched wasteland that is myself.

but i drank from the mouth
of an idol
a saint bastardized by your name
and had i been given the chance to choose
i would have chosen the same.

***************************************************************************************
blahblahblah getting this shit out of my system because i'm supposed to be finishing my prework.

on tattoos and louie armstrong

2011-03-02T12:03:00.000+08:00

today youtube is open in several tabs, and i'm listening to different louie armstrong songs as i work... a kiss to build a dream on...

today i figured out what tattoo i'd want to get, but not where. something with meaning, but with none at the same time. a painful reminder about pain. the epitome of something, and yet a paradox. some sort of spiraling irony. a mobius strip.

but where to put it? where shall i leave my reminder of pain, of paradox and irony? or do i not need reminding?

i don't think we ever had a lazy day.

2011-03-01T09:01:00.000+08:00

it's just one of those days when all i want to do is stay under the covers with a book and my playlist on repeat.

after two bits of news, one disturbing and the other daunting, i feel the need to retreat into my den and never come out. of course, the other impulse was to give you a call and pour my heart out, but that's not been an option for a good long while now.

oh look, it's march.

because today was a good day, like most of my valentine's days have been.

2011-02-14T13:56:00.000+08:00

today we celebrate hearts, not only those linked to another, but the hearts that have been untouched, hearts that have been broken once or twice, hearts that have been worse for wear, hearts that are healing, and hearts that have the power to heal.

it's not about couplehood, or singlehood, or relationship status(es) and whatnot.

today we celebrate hearts and their capacity to love.

i hope you all had a good one :)

it's too early for life on my planet.

2011-02-09T03:08:00.000+08:00

some time last week, i dreamt that i was drowning. not in the way that most people dream they're underwater, with their hair floating eerily about their faces, and a steady stream of bubbles coming from their mouths.

no, here i was blue in the face, thrashing in the water and trying to break the surface i could not seem to find. and i woke up choking, coughing, spluttering, and gasping for breath. vomited water i don't remember drinking.

but after brushing my teeth again i fell back into bed only to be roused out of a slightly more restful slumber by jason mraz singing, "drink from the half of a broken bottle--lately we're running out of time, aren't we?"

today i found a note on my keyboard from maggie, our new intern who happened to be my classmate in preschool. she had finished the stuff i asked her to do yesterday, and i sat staring in front of my computer for a good five minutes trying to figure out what i needed to do next.

i woke up today after a night in a black hole, where i could see and hear nothing, but i was still awake somehow. my eyes felt like they'd pop out of their sockets when the lights came on in the office. i spent the car trip on the way to work having conversations with various people in my head. i tried to sing, but still can't do it properly.

is this how it's always going to be, or is it just too early for life on my planet?

paved with good intentions

2011-02-01T18:45:00.000+08:00

i don't know what i'm doing.

i do what i'm told, only thinking up until a certain point ahead.

grant me the foresight (and insight) to know what i need, where i must go, what i must do.

i think the reason for this discontent and confusion stems from my lack of knowing who i am, what, where, when, how, why i am.

i feel like a painting where outlines were disregarded and random spaces and shadows were put on canvas with indelible ink, but with no definite form.

i feel like an essay full of incoherent (but actually rather insightful) ramblings, with content scattered all over the paragraphs, teeming with misspelled words, run-on sentences, overflowing with ellipses and semi colons, pages and pages of a story with no plot.

i hate grammatical errors because i feel like one.

on love and playlists and guitar riffs

2011-01-31T17:42:00.000+08:00

love.
sometimes i forget the spaces it can occupy and the little blossoms of electricity it can ignite in the veins and make flourish in the darkest little knots inside you. warmth has been anything but a near comfort, and peace is such a long way away. but love's unexpectedness makes it all seem nearer somehow. and how sad to forget it, because the only way that happens is when despair, hatred, and fear get it the way. today i remembered it. but i may still forget it again tomorrow.

playlists.
i was searching through my files and youtube for fresh music to listen to. only then did i realize my dependence on others, on how the one thing i always believed to be dearest to my heart was really a million tiny pieces of other people, every note a nanogram of soul willingly shared between us. but rifts and unfortunate circumstances, plus of course the inevitable cutting of ties, have caused me to lose custody of that which i hold most dear. i still find the odd bits here and there, though reluctantly given or not fully accepted. it is both painful and frustrating to know that i had little to no control over the events that led to such a loss.

guitar riffs.
i listen to the song and hear us all over again, an echo of the harmonies we had planned but never got to play. it reminded me of the piece of you i refuse to throw away, because that one nanogram of soul you had willingly shared with me had ignited thousands of sparks of electricity and unraveled the knots in the spaces i no longer dared to think about. and every note i had ever lost to gain that bit of shared music sometimes feels like it was worth finding and losing the warmth i have always associated with love.

withdrawal

2011-01-17T18:10:00.000+08:00

i taste fear
as my blue-veined transparency
opens its mouth
and swallows me whole
rocking me back and forth
covered in goo or sweat
or both
and blood but i can't see
but i smell tears tears tears
from nowhere
the hurt is everywhere
and the noise
of paper and car horns
and birds flying past windows
before thunder claps.

********************************************************************************************************
i've been reading kurt cobain again, can't you tell? i am constantly afraid of losing my life or work, trying to understand which will cause my downfall. and the one thing i promised not to lose is lost forever, mirror girl. because you ran away and i destroyed you. come back come back come back. come back and take me with you.

when the clock strikes twelve

2011-01-17T12:06:00.000+08:00

before the boy and i could understand what was going on, it was inevitable that his transformation take place. i didn't know what was happening, but the dear creature before me had turned into something other than itself, into something i had the ability to love--not the soft fondness i was so familiar with that made me want to hold his hand or make him laugh, but a passion that bordered on cruelty, one that wanted to own him, for him to fall to his knees and worship me. he changed, right before my eyes, the smooth corners of his face turned sharp, his voice became gruff, and the gentle care he used to choose his words was no more--he spoke with reckless abandon. and when it was over, beside me was the boy, all smooth gentleness again. i caught a glimpse of myself on the broken glass of the television and realized it was i who had changed.

**************************************************************************************************************
practicing, practicing. i'm at work, but still i practice. copyright bmg 2011.

a good book

2011-01-14T12:07:00.000+08:00

maybe i'm tired from only
two hours or so of sleep
or maybe i'm still dreaming.

today a haze surrounds my sight
images from last night's read
still in my line of vision--
the black and white screams
and blood on the pavement bright red
because of unrequited love;
an arrow here,
a fancy dress there,
and whatever happens next
is enshrouded in the same mystery
that a lottery would have.
and the tears,
they come but only inside me.

i come home and the pages
of the book
on my nightstand
are no longer marked.

truth

2011-01-13T15:07:00.000+08:00

she's a master at hiding
at disguising herself.
a chameleon in her own right.
she can tiptoe through crowds
unnoticed
and disappear right in front of your face
she changes color as she hangs from lips
slips through fingers
dances around you in dizzying circles til
you don't know which way is up.

her unbridled,
untamed self is nearly
impossible to catch.
but in anybody's grasp
she is not herself.

then she comes willingly
long after messes have been made
and a confetti of tears and the shredded remains
of beautiful things are all
scattered on the floor.

and then there were four.

2011-01-12T11:15:00.000+08:00

hurts to look at these photos.

it's like forever ago, but it was really just a yesterday that couldn't last.

jaywalking.

2011-01-12T09:08:00.000+08:00

Rise on pointe
Back straight
Eyes looking ahead
Battement en avant--ready, set, go
Bourree through the crowd
Piroutte to avoid a passing cyclist
Jete over a puddle
And a final chasse
Before another light turns red.

i don't want to end up like that.

2011-01-03T19:15:00.000+08:00

dear universe, please please please.

i need real time to mourn, a space to disappear into, a tear to choke on--something to make me not become so incurably unhappy the way they are.

tonight i am listening to sad songs. it's cleaning time.

i refuse i refuse i refuse.

before glasses clink at the end of the toast.

2010-12-28T19:08:00.000+08:00

being with you was like harry potter and the sorcerer's stone all over again. the discovery of something new and comforting that pulled me through a hard time, that threw me out of a terrible funk.

i remember that time clearly, many years ago. it's difficult to forget that kind of pain, especially when it's the first time you feel it. i couldn't understand where all my friends had gone, and why those left with me didn't get me at all. i felt that i had no one and nothing. i had just quit ballet and pretty much had nothing left to distract me from the fact that i was alone. i was ten, and the girls on the school bus thought i was a freak because i liked to read, i spoke english more often than not, and i didn't bother trying to act like anything other than a ten-year old. they were only slightly older than i, but they pretended to be mature (at least as mature as the highschool girls). i was ten, and aside from moving away from them and having to take a different bus to school, my best friends were put in a separate class. they were all together, all the time. i saw nothing of them that year. i was ten, and already i needed a training bra, which i got teased for a lot. and then one quarter, when i did pretty well and got good grades, my mom gave me the first harry potter book as a reward. after that i didn't care if people thought i was a freak, if they teased me because i was different. i knew then that they only acted that way because of their own insecurities. after that, things started to change. i made friends with the girls in my bus. i made it a point to visit my friends in their classroom every once in a while, and it turned out they hadn't forgotten me at all. i paid no attention those who teased me about the training bra, because it wasn't my fault that my body had started to change a bit earlier than theirs. all of a sudden it was ok to be me.

fastforward almost ten years later. i was living away from home, i felt like an idiot in all of my classes, i loved my friends even if i knew i didn't exactly fit in with them even if they tried to include me. it was a time where i slept alone in a dark room in a strange house almost every night. i never took my things out of the bag in the closet, always ready to leave and go home. i didn't bother trying to do better in school, because i knew it would be no use. there were days i couldn't get out of bed, for sheer lack of motive. all i wanted to do was close my eyes and make it all disappear. i felt like a triangle being forced to fit in a round space, and no amount of twisting and distortion could make me fit. i was lost, and there was nobody who could grasp that kind of loneliness. and then you showed up, really just driving me nuts, me bouncing back and forth from sheer hatred and pure affection and i had no idea what was going on until that moment with you. suddenly things were clearer. i wasn't alone. this was just a phase and it would pass and things would get better. i wasn't alone and i wasn't a failure and it was ok to feel like crap from time to time. and again being me wasn't so bad.

but revelations only matter until things get muddied up again. and people change, so being me is no longer the same thing as it was when we first met. so i'm not sorry. i'm grateful that you led me to some semblance of clarity during a particularly difficult time. i'm even grateful you took advantage of my weaknesses, because now i know what i need to do to be stronger.

this is me sending away the hatred and pain of 2010, so that there will room for love and forgiveness and friendship in 2011.

oh i almost forgot. almost.

2010-11-25T13:07:00.000+08:00

there is a reason why i decided to get my hair chopped off last saturday.

yesterday--there was a reason why coming back was so fortunate-- (would i really have been able to concentrate in the office yesterday?)

this pain is 3 years old. happy birthday. happy holidays. happy fuckin anniversary to me.

and tomorrow. well. tomorrow is friday.

humming switchfoot. meant to live.

2010-11-24T18:12:00.000+08:00

truth: to say the words out loud or even to write them out will make them real. so i won't even think it.

i feel like i'm going about this blind, groping on the floor of an empty room with no light whatsoever. it feels as though the only reason why i even tolerate this is because it doesn't matter either way. i will be lost no matter what i do.

while doubt was scary, it is the certainty of this that terrifies me. and the worst part is, i can't really explain it to anyone, though to me it's all too clear. not heart-breaking, but enough to crush the spirit, which to me is worse.

and for the life of me i cannot make you understand what it is i'm going on about, because putting it into words will pull it down to earth from the limbo in my head, and then gravity will take its toll on me and its all downhill from there.

1336. does this even get read?

2010-10-29T19:33:00.000+08:00

i really don't know what to make of this. there are times when your random messages catch me off guard, hitting a spot i didn't even know existed in my brain.

we draw lines, and day by day we move inch by inch until we don't know we've crossed them. and then we reach a point where we stop to draw new lines and wonder what the point is.

when the need to write outweights the need for rest

2010-10-04T18:56:00.000+08:00

i never belonged to you. even when you named me, the name you chose was not the name i took. instead, i bear the name you so reluctantly "allowed", simply because the name you wanted didn't sound quite as nice without it. and true to my nature, passive aggressive rebellion, i do not answer to the name that you have given.

i do not belong to you. all your attempts to find some sort of foothold in bridging the gap between us are in vain. i don't choose to be apart from you--on the contrary, i try just as you do to know you, and for you to know me. but i know this cannot happen.

because i will never belong to you. as much as you want to have me tied to you, like a pet on a leash, i refuse to be so. what you might have forgotten is that the girl you raised was born with wings and taught that it is not a crime to want to fly.

tomorrow night.

2010-09-30T17:32:00.000+08:00

this is it.

tomorrow night, and then i can die happy.

i'm sick today, and i'll still be sick tomorrow, but who gives a shit about that? i am going and that's that. i have waited too long for this to not go.

on the other hand.

men are boys and boys are girls. girls are really the only ones with balls.

2010-09-27T18:21:00.000+08:00

there's a pin on my headboard that says "BRIDE." oh the irony.

you and i are not. i miss him the same way i miss my hair every time i get it cut, but we are not. and i miss you, not quite as often, but enough to disappoint me every time we speak because i envy the fullness by which you embrace your new world and detest my own lack of conviction.

am i your friend at all?

you say destiny brought us together, but i know nothing about you. or is that just because i'm selfish and have the tendency to talk about myself a lot? to me, it's only partly selfishness. the rest of it is me wanting to let you into my world, so that you've got a firsthand account of the insanity i can cook up in my mind, so that you never feel left out. it would be nice, if every so often, you gimme a little nudge and say 'hey bee, shut up, it's my turn to talk.' i need a little help in not making it about me, as that's been a bad habit that's proving most difficult to break.

i would like you to know--and by you i speak in the plural--that i have never believed in destiny, but for your sake, i would like to. i used to feel like this a lot, and it was years before i finally broke down and went nuts. now i'm back to the exact same place i was 4, 5 years ago, complete with curfew. complete with clipped wings and a crippling fear of hurting feelings.

sometimes i think you'll get it, but i hear from you and i realize you never will.

illin. or God, are you there? i need a clean slate and my voice back.

2010-09-22T19:44:00.000+08:00

while i tried blogging in my facebook account for some time, i have no trust in the privacy settings of facebook. it's fine that not too many people check their multiply accounts anymore-- i write for myself anyway.

i've been feeling like shit lately. i've gained weight, lost my voice, my skin's gotten all weird. i don't read, i don't write (at least not unless it's for work). there was a time i felt like a mermaid. lately, i've been feeling like a walrus. goo goo gjoob.

i feel trapped. ever since i moved back i've felt caged in. sometimes i think about going on leave for a good long while to just be alone and everywhere. get to do the things i haven't gotten around to doing before i head back to my desk job. i like my job, but maybe i don't love it. i want to be a writer, but not as much as i want to know what it is that makes my heart beatbox in my chest, what pushes me forward, what will make me feel less like a homo sapien and more like a person. i need to feel less disjointed from myself than i do now. i need love.

because there is love here, somewhere. something that will make me feel that what i do makes me worthy of whatever space i occupy in the world. it exists. and so does certainty, which, i have learned, is not quite as abundant as love. love can be multiplied. certainty, not so much. you can love something or someone all you want, but without certainty, happiness is bound to be shortlived.

i need to know that i'm not just wandering aimlessly, that what i'm working for will make me happy when i get it.

and right now, feeling like shit makes finding any kind of certainty anywhere so much more difficult. sucking it up does not make it feel any better, it's just a way of getting by.

a friend wrote me a note on facebook for my birthday. she wrote about how i was different, how i didn't fit in because i don't try to (and don't really want to) and how that makes me who i am. she also wrote about friendship. what she didn't really say outright was that while i didn't actually fit in, it is this friendship that made me feel i belonged somewhere, even if i wasn't exactly the perfectly cut puzzle piece.

and where i am now, even with new friendships forming, there doesn't seem to be a space i can jam myself into, even if just temporarily. sometimes, even old friendships seem like they cannot accommodate me as much anymore.

now the one friend whom i felt was most like me in the sense that he didn't actually fit in but still kind of belonged, this friend might be leaving for good. and really, i don't know where that puts me. at least with him around, there was somebody who got it somehow, who knew what it felt like to be flitting from here to there (well maybe not flitting, it might sound gay for him, but you get what i mean). but there.

i need to start afresh. to be somewhere nobody knows me so i can try new things and be me without hurting or inconveniencing anyone. and maybe there i will find love and certainty because i won't have to jam myself into any kind of space.

21

2010-09-11T21:05:00.000+08:00

today was very different from the 20 other days like it, at least those i remember.

it began with an incredibly real and strange dream.

it went on like most saturdays.

it ended with a realization. not so much about myself, but things in general.

i'm confused. ok, i'm always confused, but this is a different kind of confused.

why now?

i don't remember how to sing, how to write poetry, how to ride a bike.

2010-08-18T20:34:00.000+08:00

i haven't written a poem in so long. i'm afraid i've forgotten how.

************************************************************************
How Much Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Measure, Add, and Multiply the Ways....

the proximity
between myself
and the biting teeth
of cold and bitterness
of anger and frustration
of callousness and the absence of the will to forgive

is inversely proportional to the inches of skin
his lips have touched,
to the seconds he stopped
and just breathed in the smell of my shampoo,
to the beats per minute my pulse started pounding
whenever he held my hand,

to the pounds i lost and gained back with a vengeance
when he came and disappeared, respectively,
to all the gigahertz-es of music
and lies and whining and sweet nothings
(a.k.a. BULLSHIT)
i ever had to listen to,
to every newton that hit me every time i stumbled, tripped or
bumped into things when he made me nervous,

to the liters of angry tears i cried every time we fought,
to every kilogram per cubic fucking meter of his thick stupid head
my thoughts and ideas had to get through for him
to understand-- which by the way
he never did,

multiplied by the freakishly overpriced
Meralco amperes,
plus the government's metric tons of wasted rice,

raised to the power of 568 misleading sunrises
in addition to the hundreds of degrees proof i'd drunk
before ever getting fooled.

you do the fucking math.

yesterday would have been 5.

2010-08-13T16:48:00.000+08:00

and as 5 is my lucky number, maybe next month (oh well would you look at that it's right after my birthday!) things will finally change.

i think i've left too many cobwebs behind for that trunk of junk i buried in that tiny backyard of universe i can call mine for pandora to not coming sweeping out of nowhere unearthing it all.

is that why illness and a brief battle with delirium overcame me yesterday? thank god i was alone in my room before anybody left in the house was awake when it happened. i was alright after shaking it off a few minutes later, when i was rescued by the familiar, sultry tones of jason mraz's voice singing to me "take off both your shoes and clothes i'll follow..." snapped me back to reality he did.

i was watching grey's anatomy while getting ready for work this morning. this whacked me on the head with a metal baseball bat.

"One thing is certain, whatever it is we're trying to hide, we're never ready for when the truth gets naked. That's the problem with secrets... Like misery, they love company. They pile up and up until they take over everything, until you don't have room for anything else. Until you're so full of secrets you feel like you're going to burst. The thing people forget is how good it can feel when you finally set secrets free. Whether good or bad, at least they're out in the open. Like it or not. And once your secrets are out in the open, you don't have to hide behind them. But the problem with secrets is, even when you think you're in control... You're not."

i think i need to go somewhere nobody knows me, somewhere i can become someone else so i don't have to keep making up shit to cover up other shit that wasn't really my problem to begin with in the first place.

i need a clean slate, because mine is not only dirty, it's broken.

recent developments in what i thought was in the past have surfaced, as now this past has returned to haunt me.

2010-08-02T13:17:00.000+08:00

really. is this not yet over?

just when i thought it was done, just when i had forgotten all about it, it just comes rolling back to me, like the last, angry, long-delayed, unwanted waves of a tsunami.

i refuse to be a part of this. i refuse to have you bring me into it. i'm sorry that now you're the one caught up in it, but i have done my time, i believe, and this now goes beyond me. it feels like i've dodged a bullet, though, hearing what they're telling me now. it's possible that what they say is an exaggerated version of the truth, as the source tends to blow things out of proportion. but still, i believe that what you say does have some merit. i was blind in more ways that one, i know that now. at the same time, i cannot help but feel like i'm being drawn back into it against my will. this isn't my problem. it never was, except that fingers would point to me when they had no one else to blame. people cannot help how they feel, so no matter what i did a long time ago, it does not change the fact that he feels a certain way. you all have to realize that my actions were with regard to something else; it has nothing to do with how he feels--how anyone feels--about this situation. IT IS/WAS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MATTER ENTIRELY.

i do not agree that anyone deserves to be treated in such a fashion, but neither shall i take responsibility for something i haven't done.

i know you're miserable, but it's just not my problem. i'm happy where i am, and that's not a crime. deal with it.

i'm afraid to fall asleep because of the insane realness of these dreams.

2010-07-30T20:29:00.000+08:00

the part i remember clearest was slapping him in the face. it was the most real part of the dream-- the place looked like glorietta, near bo's coffee, the rowdy group of friends who faces i had never seen but whose names i had heard quite often, the snide remarks he was making under his breath, the shock and anger and hurt i felt when i ran into him, the awkwardness at first when he said hello, the pure hatred when he said something offensive, the loud PLACK! that echoed when the back of my open hand (yes folks, it was a back paddle) hit his rough, pore-y skin, the way his face distorted in pain, the way he tried to apologize before i hit him, me just leaving in the middle of his last sentence feeling both embarassment and a strange sense of accomplishment.

then there was something about monsters (or just some weird bad people) trying to take my youngest brother and my siblings and i and all the toys in our house had to protect him. i was scared and fierce at the same time--probably how i'd really feel if anyone tried to hurt my family in real life. and there was something about this piece of paper i had to give to my boss, which came from our DIY stylist. and i had to run after the paper because it kept flying away, making me panic incessantly because i was afraid that if i didn't get the paper to her, the entire company would be in jeopardy. i was in a mall that resembled a cross between shangrila, glorietta and makati shang hotel, and there was a mezzanine with a glass floor covered in mud.

at one point i got up, shut off my alarm, went downstairs and lay down and fell asleep on the couch. it must have been so, otherwise i don't know how i got from my bed to the couch. i don't remember getting up-- or maybe it was interwoven with the details of the dream.

i woke up in the living room, not wondering how i got there, nor wondering where the strange mall-hotel place with the mud-caked glass floor went, or thinking about what was in that piece of paper, or asking why did anyone want to steal my brother but overwhelmed at having had the courage to slap anyone (especially HIM) in the face in public. i woke up believing i had actually been in that place, that those things had actually happened.

worst of all, i woke up exhausted.

not at all what it seems.

2010-07-17T19:31:00.000+08:00

someone i used to know once asked me why i loved taking a bath so much. it sounds like a strange question out of context, but then we were talking about the things that made it hard for us to fall asleep. for him, it was sleeping in an unfamiliar place. for me, it was not having taken a bath before going to bed. he knew that i spend quite a while in the shower, because he once asked me why girls always take long to get ready to go anywhere. i told him it was different for every girl, and in my case, i like taking long showers.

so today, i decided to take longer than usual. i stood there for a while, thinking about things before i threw a tabo-ful of cold water over my head. after that, i refrained from thinking about certain matters. i refuse to grieve over things that upset me. i only allow those things to occupy my mind in that brief moment before i wake myself up and wash it all away.

that isn't to say those things ever really go away. once in a while they pop up in my mind, only long enough for me to brush them aside in favor of more urgent matters, like work.

it makes me wonder whether my methods are healthy or not. but there are just some things that you can't face head on.

lately i've been trying to write a song. it's been a while since, but i can't seem to be able to anymore. either that or i never really could write songs to begin with, and just always thought that i could, even if they weren't any good. and then of course there's trying to reconcile myself with this "new" life that feels like it's gotten old so quickly.

and try as i might, i can't escape mourning the loss of my freedom.

truth be told, i knew it hurt my family's feelings when i moved two years ago. but they were supportive, especially since the reason i gave them was school. now though, they can't seem to understand why i want to leave. and it's unfortunate, because i have no idea how to explain it to them. i just need to.

on deaf ears.

2010-07-16T15:02:00.000+08:00

there are no words.

missing mischief

2010-07-08T17:48:00.000+08:00

jumping fences to be with you and climbing walls to not be seen. throwing paper planes and aiming laser pointers and tossing cigarette butts from 10 floors up. staying out until the most ungodly hours only to witness sunrise over the city before falling fast asleep and missing class in the process. purposely putting off reading mountains of paper and them climbing them at top speed hurriedly going through them in a matter of hours. stealing away into the night for walks alone on a dangerous road. sudden spur-of-the-moment trips to quench a thirst that's only satisfied for a second and waking up feeling all banged-up in the morning.

earlier this evening i had a vision of you and me sneaking away into some dark corner, laughing at some crazy mission we had just been on. it was a glorious victory and we celebrated by gulping down our laughter and holding hands in the dark, glow-in-the-dark chuck taylors and all.

i am self-proclaimed queen of attention to detail.

2010-07-07T17:34:00.000+08:00

when it comes to such matters anyway.

the way he stares at the floor and then at the ceiling.

how he presses the Open button in the elevator until he gets out.

his shoes.

his strange romance with plaid.

but it isn't the same.

i don't know if he holds the top of the passenger seat's backrest when he puts the car in reverse.

i don't know if he sings John Mayer out loud to himself, but mumbles when someone notices.

i don't know if he downloads obscure movies and forces people to watch them.

Or if he collects sports action figures. or if he can't live without potatoes.

if you can read this, i want to know what's going on. i always know when something's up. something's up and i'm worried.

the constancy of things. or nine lives.

2010-06-27T17:28:00.000+08:00

do you ever feel like you're lost? like you don't know where you are or where you're going, or even where you've been?

it's like before again. waking up is painful, like your head being plunged into a bucket of icy water, or keeping your fingers over a flame until the skin starts turning black.

you avoid the sadness by absorbing all the rage. there's anger, but you manage to sidestep the pain. normally, every little movement would hurt like hell, but instead you take it all in to numb yourself. and it's exhausting.

i wanted to tell him my secret, but then thought better of it. i don't want him to think there's anything wrong with me, or he'll not want to have anything to do with me. why i care what he thinks, i'm not sure. why i tell myself he doesn't know my secret even when he clearly does, i'm not sure about that either. it's the only reason everyone's been avoiding me. it's only natural to try to stay away from someone who's just thrown herself off a building and whose head is cracked open and bleeding. of course, i only mean that metaphorically. otherwise, i wouldn't be writing this.

i've figured it out. i have died a million times before -- it's why i'm always thinking about death. every time an era ends, i die. every time i realize it, it's too late to go back. but last night i realized this last death could have been avoided.

you killed her. you saw to it that she would destroy herself and she did. now i am paying for her mistakes. now i have to go and figure things out all over again.

at church today i asked God if it's all my fault, if it's karma because i've been reckless with myself, with my feelings. i know he hurts like this, but not because of me. so why is it i'm being punished? he killed her. she's dead. and i don't know what to do with what's left of her in me.

this is the constancy of things. we have several little lives, like cats do. and in the course of our stay in this world, we die many, many times, only to be reborn like phoenixes (i'm not sure if that's the correct plural form of phoenix, and neither do i care). and birth is painful and scary-- more so than death could ever be. life is harsh, starting with a painful slap on the ass. the only thing cruel about death is being reborn only to make new mistakes, to experience new pain, to losing the old life to which you had already grown accustomed. and it happens so often. i don't quite like this new life, only because the end of the last one came so abruptly.

you killed her and wasted one of my lives. i cannot tell you how many i might have left. she died so young, and i was reborn old.

but i always have to be strong, no matter how many times things are ruined. she is dead and i cannot mourn for her, because i have to be strong. and it's what makes waking up painful, because i am forced to take it all in. be strong; be numb. and it's fucking exhausting.

on pretension. clarifications. letter in the dark. writing on rocks.

2010-06-18T08:56:00.000+08:00

1. i never asked you to be the kind of person you convinced yourself i should be with. the reason i liked you was because you were you, and no one else. at the same time, i never pretended to be someone other than myself. so please stop kidding yourself. we both know the reason you never trusted me is because you don't trust anyone, not even yourself.

2. i didn't tell you because i knew you didn't want to know.

3. i don't tell lies about you. so fuck off and mind your own business. this has nothing to do with you. it never did and never will.

4. i'm sorry i couldn't like you more.

5. wish you were still here. i felt a little bit lost when you left, even if by then i knew that people always leave, even if i didn't really pay much attention when you were still around. i hope you'll still be you when you come back. i say "when", not "if".

6. you are a line on my palm. you are the poems i scribbled long before i knew what i was writing. you are a doodle in my destiny.

7. please stop telling yourself you know how i feel. you don't.

8. get a grip; it's just a crush. quit flattering yourself.

9. i don't know you. i wonder when that started.

10. love knows no distance. no wonder you're still the ones i run to. i miss you my dears.

cringing.

2010-06-07T13:05:00.000+08:00

i'm tired of you giving yourself airs.

you aren't steady; you're just slow.

this is, in fact, in reference to you darlin.

2010-06-04T15:26:00.000+08:00

sometimes you've got to listen to that part of you that you always thought was deaf. the only reason why you believed so in the first place was because you never bothered to listen.

P.S. i want to write my own iwrotethisforyou blog. i just need someone to take the pictures...

the things i find about the things i've lost.

2010-06-02T13:37:00.000+08:00

i was looking for this link i posted a long time ago and came across an old entry where i was all troubled (but then again i always am) and you were the first person to reply, consoling me.

where did you go? where did i go?

it's incredibly sad that the people we used to be exist no more, because those two girls were great friends. in the true spirit of friendship, i would have gone anywhere for you, and i know you would have done the same for me.

i am sorry for how things turned out. i don't quite understand how i hurt you, and it's possible you also didn't really get why i was so offended either. but whatever. that's long been over and it's obvious that our friendship, weakened by distance, miscommunication, and guys, was not strong enough to withstand an argument that was petty on the surface but really dug down deeper than it seemed. and it's also obvious that things won't be the way they were anymore.

for what it's worth, you were a good friend at the time. we were the hold-your-hair-back-when-you-puke-make-anyone-who-hurts-you-cry kind.

but who knows? maybe those two girls we were before might just come back one day.

and all for the love of you...

2010-06-02T11:33:00.000+08:00

i commuted to and fro, and came back a tad bit late after lunch.

it was so worth it.

you are my new vice.

clandestine

2010-05-31T11:02:00.001+08:00

it's the only way to describe it. nobody knew. or nobody knows. i'm not sure who you've told.

but all the same it was done with all the secrecy of other such affairs.

and i'm pretty sure that you think you know me because of everything i write here, there and everywhere.

what you didn't know that elsewhere held and lingered was my reality, and that the book i had opened for you to see went unseen because of your stubborn bias against the literature of my history. and while i dared to tiptoe on the waves and concaves of your unsolvable equations you never bothered to peek over all that i had penned for you.

and so nobody knows. not even you.

clandestine

2010-05-31T11:02:00.000+08:00

canto nuestras canciones y pienso en usted a menudo.

2010-05-28T13:01:00.000+08:00

grey day. i much prefer my sepia-colored memories of grade school and high school, and my hi-res recollections of college. here, my thoughts about this place are the color of glass and steel and cement, lit under flourescence with a hazy cold presence. i didn't mean to rhyme.

i think happy thoughts of you today. and i look to the future, possibly with a someone my magic pendant keeps telling me will be there for a good long while. i sing our songs, remember our jokes, wear the jacket you once wanted to keep. now i have washed it, and i've got new arrangements for the songs, and i have a lot of new jokes with new people. today i am ok, despite the grey sky, the coldness of steel and wires. and whenever the static grounds me (which it does quite often here), i think of electricity-- the kind i thought we once had. forgive my poor spanish, i am out of practice and relying on my fuzzy memory and yahoo babel fish.

ella nunca entendera la manera era con nosotros. y usted nunca sabra como habria sido.

on shared grief.

2010-05-27T13:51:00.000+08:00

an uncle of mine died this morning. i wasn't particularly close to him, but he was always around, at lunch every sunday, at noche buena every Christmas, at reunions. sometimes he went to hear mass with us, most times he didn't. he was my father's cousin. he loved cooking and he loved eating (like most members of my family). there was a time that he, my tito (my father's brother), and my dad ran a restaurant. that was about all i knew about him. still, he was family.

my dad found out several hours later about his cousin's passing on because his phone was off when the message came through (which was around 3 am). i found out a little while after. my dad was driving us to work when he told me in the car. he had said it without much ado, simply saying he had some sad news and that my uncle had passed on. i wasn't quite sure what to do. i was shocked for the most part, because even if my uncle had been ill, i didn't realize that it had gotten to that point. i sat there, not really saying anything because it hadn't sunk in. my dad looked a little strange, and i could tell he was terribly sad. i felt like crying almost, but i really don't cry, so it didn't happen. i wanted to comfort my dad, but he was driving and we don't really do the whole sharing feelings stuff. i was trying to think of something to say when i got this weird feeling in my stomach and my own sadness settled in.

so we sat in the car. at one point my dad started talking about random everyday things, but the atmosphere in the car wasn't the same sleepy atmosphere like on most mornings.

so this is shared grief. it doesn't happen often (and thank goodness for that) but when it's there, there's no way to dodge the overall heaviness. and while my own sadness was there, i wish i could have done something to lessen that of my dad's...

but what does one say?

3:48 pm, countdown to later.

2010-05-26T12:05:00.000+08:00

copied from my notebook. been writing this for some time. truth be told i've been wanting to write a film. i just don't know how. and i don't really have much time....
***********************************************************************************************************
dearest,

do you ever hear sounds alone? sometimes i do. the background noises fade out and all i hear is one sound-- the crackling of foil, the ticking of keys as i type, the creaking of a chair as someone nearby shifts his weight. i listen for those lonely sounds sometimes, when i'm bored. it's a challenge when i'm preoccupied; tuning everything out is a science all its own. but i've learned how to separate one sound from a symphony, one sight from a myriad of images, one scent from a cloud of aromas.

at the same time, i also sometimes see things as though i were looking through a camera lens. i manage to focus on one thing alone, and everything else turns out blurred. i manage to pan a scene with only my eyes, wishing there were some way to record everything i'm taking in.

yesterday, i saw a crumpled piece of paper on the sidewalk. nobody minded it. it was just there. i picked it up gingerly and smoothed it out. it was torn from somewhere, and it there were large wet patches on it. there was only one sentence i could make out from the paper's sorry state: "I'm leaving you." so i guessed that the wet patches were tears that had dropped onto the paper as that letter (i assume it was a letter) was being read. i felt bad for the poor soul it had been addressed to.

then this morning i woke up. there was no tapping in the bathroom as you finished brushing your teeth, no glimpse of your soap-covered face in the mirror from when you leave the bathroom door slightly ajar, no smell of your shampoo because you always use too much. in fact, i woke up to find you had left no traces of ever being here. no pictures, no clothes, no toothbrush, no guitar, no children's cereal. no wonder i found that letter on the street.

love,

the art of doing nothing.

2010-05-25T14:59:00.000+08:00

every little thing seems trivial to me lately. and sometimes i can't help but think that it's all so silly. that they are all so so so silly. those things you like to talk about don't matter.

i've been not doing anything all day. i sit here and pretend to do something when i'm really not doing anything. it's been like this for a while now. and i come home dead tired from doing what? NOTHING. instead i sit and think about things. the usual things i used to think about when i'd be stuck staying up late doing a godforsaken paper my teacher wasn't even really going to read anyway.

and then it hit me.

in my entire life, all i have ever done is nothing.

do you understand what i mean?

i wrote this for you. read it in all the ways only you can.

2010-05-24T11:28:00.000+08:00

i walk
everyday surrounded by
four walls that touch the sky
endless closing
spaces that are just enough for breathing through.
but
the limitations of my world
speak volumes about
the infinite
possibilities of
my heart.

camping

2010-05-24T08:11:00.000+08:00

the heat's been unbearable lately. i don't have an aircon in my room (since usually it gets cold there at night) so i've been camping out on my parents' bedroom floor, like i used to when i was little. for the past four nights, i've fallen asleep to the sound of the evening news and my siblings coming in to say goodnight. it's kind of fun, since it reminds me of sleeping in my trundle bed in 1006, falling asleep to the music (or videos) my roommates were playing in the living room.

right now i'm sitting in the office, where my fingers are beginning to grow numb as i type. i have to stop every few sentences to sit on my hands and warm them.

last night, my sister and i were talking and i told her that sometimes friends come and go, and that sometimes people can actually stop being your friends.

and when i went to bed on my sleeping bag/cushion on the floor, i thought of how i had to learn that the hard way. i hope she will never have to. then my mom came in and turned on the news, and soon i was dreaming.

bite down hard to pretend the pain isn't really there.

2010-05-20T09:01:00.000+08:00

the veins in my hands are popping out. green, blue, purple... it's a strange cold the surrounds, but an entirely different one that seems to emanate from me...

sometimes in the middle of the day i wonder what i could have done differently but wouldn't matter because i'd end up here anyway. it's an alternative to thinking the usual "what if". even in my thoughts i try not to conform. conform to the way it's been for the longest time.

lately i've been thinking about tolerance. i can't abide stupid people, and even more so doing stupid things myself. doesn't stop it from happening, nor me from meeting stupid people. and sometimes it's those same people who have the most useful (in my context anyway) insights about the way things are. another one of life's strange ironies.

see, recently i've discovered a new fear that i have: the fear of becoming stupid. while i do learn new things here everyday, i'm scared that it's only because i'm new here.it's possible that i only feel this way because after being a student and getting so much information crammed into my brain day after day, the lack of information overload is making me feel less intelligent. there's math involved in explaining what i mean, but since it's math please don't make me have to say.

of elevators and missed introductions.

2010-05-19T08:39:00.000+08:00

i don't know where you are, but i'm sending this out into the universe so that maybe it will reach you through some sort of understanding of yourself and the world.

what happened was not anyone's fault, but i still think that i owe you an apology. the reason why anything happened in the first place was because i was trying to prove something to myself. i used you to prove a point, and that, in my opinion, is unforgivable. i hope you find it in you to forgive me anyway.

there's also something else you need to understand. i disappeared without leaving you with so much as a name-- the reason for this is because it's better this way. it's better that we don't know each other, especially that you don't know me now, because this is not the best time to meet me, and by introducing myself i would have done you a disservice. i didn't bother to ask for your name, since, given the circumstances, i would not have remembered it anyway.

but i'm sorry for whatever unpleasantness i may have caused you. i shouldn't have used you as a means to my incredibly screwed ends.

i hope you are well, whoever you are, wherever you are.

you want the truth? you can't handle the truth!

2010-05-17T06:26:00.000+08:00

i swear.

some of the things one hears.

grabe lang.

my little brother has a bit of a lisp and he often mispronounces words. other times, he hears words wrong and he says them the way he hears them. so yesterday, he kept saying "we have to run and find a safe place to hide before the BAKING SALTED volcano explodes!!!!"

he meant BAKING SODA volcano (as in the kind people use for science projects.)

last week, when i came home from voting, i showed him my indelible-ink-ed fingernail and i asked him what he thought it was. at first he said "Ate, you have a disease!" but yesterday he decided it wasn't, in fact, a disease, but a bitemark from this very specific dinosaur.. some tetrathidiblahblah-saurus that i can neither remember nor pronounce.

and it just cracks me up. especially the time when out of the blue he goes up to me, looking really serious and says, "you want the truf? you can't handle the truf!"

before i realized that he was quoting jack nicholson (tama ba?) i had to first decipher what "truf" was.

what was this "truf" that he spoke of? and where on earth did he hear that line?

but i've gone too far from the real reason for this entry.

today is the 17th.

thank you.

you aren't alone. for tara.

2010-05-13T12:12:00.000+08:00

my only communication with you is through this blog. and so i tell you, like that night over a year ago when we sat outside starbucks, both feeling like fungi, that again, you are not alone.

my friend said you reminded him of Death. later when you left he told me i was like Delirium, having known me before and thinking i was sort of like Delight.

i wanted to post my own FYVM post, but decided i didn't need to. it wasn't worth the time it took to type.

so when Death comes back to Manila, she and Delirium will have coffee and cigarettes like the fungus friends they are. deal?

let's not waste time or breath. ktnxbye.

2010-05-11T06:03:00.000+08:00

"people always leave," she said, staring out the window.

i don't know how she maintained her balance on the train, but she wasn't even holding the rail. she clutched her bag to her side and sighed.

we hadn't known each other for very long, maybe just a couple of months or so. and had she been the affectionate sort, i probably would have reached out and given her a pat on the back or something. i'm not the affectionate sort, either, but still. she looked so miserable.

i turned to look and maybe see what it was she was staring at outside, but all i saw was a blur of buildings and people and cars. but i could tell she was looking at something else. she saw things differently.

the train car jolted and i held tight to the safety handles dangling from the ceiling. she didn't even budge. "how are you doing that?" i asked her.

"basic physics. center of gravity and all that crap..." -- a pause for silence and then -- "maybe i should leave too."

"where will you go?"

she shrugged. "dunno."

cricket moment. in fact, it was more than just a moment. it was the kind of awkward silence that spanned the length of time it took to get to 3 different train stations.

"i read your poems," i said, desperately trying to make some sort of conversation.

"let me guess," she said, finally looking away from the window and facing me. "you think i'm suicidal too? i don't know how many of my teachers suggested i go see a guidance counselor when they read my stuff."

"no, of course not." i replied. "i enjoyed reading them." and i did. besides, i didn't need to read her poems to know she had bouts of depression severe enough to want to take her own life. the scars on her arms, the bloodshot eyes, the faint smell of smoke and despair hanging about her told me enough.

finally, we reached our stop and got ready to step out of the train. as the doors opened, i could see her eyeing the gap between the edge of the platform and the floor of the train. a vision of anna karenina stepping into the path of an oncoming train flashed in my mind. i nudged her elbow and she carefully stepped out of the car, though i knew she had other ideas in mind. instead of heading towards the turnstiles, she sat down on a bench.

"let's go," i said, pointing to the exit.

she nodded and waved me away. "go ahead. i just want to sit for a while."

i stood there, not wanting to leave her alone. the entire platform started rattling as another train approached.

"go on now."

she gave me a look and i knew there was no arguing her. slowly, i turned toward the direction of the turnstiles. the posts and rails starting shaking, and a long, low horn sounded. the rattling got stronger and the horn grew louder as the train approached. when i got to the turnstiles, i turned to see if she was still just sitting there or if she had gotten up to leave yet. but she wasn't sitting at the bench anymore.

i looked around, wondering where she could have gone. the headlights of the train cast shadows around the station and as it screeched to a halt, i caught sight of her, standing on the edge of the platform, balancing on her tip toes, leaning over to look at the train tracks. i ran toward her, afraid she'd lean too far and fall in the way of the oncoming train.

and all of a sudden the train was there. the doors whooshed open and people poured out of the train. when the platform cleared, i saw her seated on the bench again, staring at the floor.

i walked up to her and stood beside her.

"fine. let's go," she said, getting up.

that was the first time she nearly killed herself in front of me.

Staying alive: choose a heart attack.

2010-04-26T15:26:00.000+08:00

had skydiving been an option, i would have done it.

not many people know this, but i am a huge scaredy-cat. i've got phobias and fears that range from reasonable to just plain stupid. i'm scared of frogs and exploding electric fans and falling out of amusement park rides. of drowning and suffocating and dying of incurable diseases and getting impaled by random sharp objects. of being useless, of being forgotten, of being numb.

by far the greatest is the last one, which, to me, is a fate worse than death. to be living but not to be alive. so to negate that, i go ahead and try to scare the hell out of myself. something to almost give me a heart attack that i come out of it barely able to stand, but feeling enough to ride on the high for at least another couple of days.

i let myself be borderline reckless lest i find myself dying of boredom in my own uneventful existence.

so no, i am not brave. half the time i'm more scared than normal people are. and the only way to divert my attention away from the bigger phobias is to concentrate on the little ones.

another screwed up thing about this is, while some people tend to think i sound suicidal, it is precisely these thoughts that make me not suicidal. the fact that i ponder over existence and life and death so much, as well as endangering myself (whether on purpose or not), says that i do not, in fact, have any desire to die. it is precisely these things that remind me of my fear of ceasing to exist, and it is what keeps me going.

i would rather have sad and angry days where i feel pain (or just those days i fell down the stairs or got hit by a bike) than those days when i wake up in the morning and feel nothing, want nothing. it is those days i fear most, the days when i lose the drive to get out of bed, when all i want is to close my eyes and just not be.

so forgive my recklessness. forgive my lack of caution. forgive my constant attempts at self-mutilation, and sometimes even humiliation.

it's what reminds me that i need to keep going.

a letter.

2010-04-21T20:31:00.000+08:00

i'm sorry i'm not better at this. i'm sorry i can't bring myself to forget, to forgive, to let everything go, to let everything be. this isn't an excuse, but it's the truth: this isn't easy.

i'm sorry i can't stop talking about it. you know it's a disease with me. i overthink and i'm permanently angry at the world and you've been so great just listening to my overly emotional rantings day after day. i'm sorry i've pushed you away, along with any chance we might have had. now you're off chasing a dream that i can't possibly compete with. i'm sorry i didn't listen to you, and that i got upset when you said you told me so. that i was hasty and rash and that i didn't stop to consider that you were only looking out for me. i'm sorry i want hugs but act disgusted when you finally give me one. i'm sorry i don't laugh when you try to joke about it. i even got mad, and wouldn't shut up about it even after you'd apologized. i'm sorry i kept things from you, didn't keep you in the loop, and then got upset when you heard wrong. i was afraid you wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt. but you did. i should have trusted you enough to know that you wouldn't judge me like that. i'm sorry i promised i'd give up my vices. i can't; not like this. i'm sorry i still owe you that drink, the one i promised almost a year ago. i'm sorry i don't thank you enough for always being there, even if i need you at moment's notice. i'm sorry i lied. i was ashamed and afraid and i didn't want to upset you. the lying made it worse.

i don't really know what else to say, or what to do now. i feel as if i'd been poisoned. i know this is an overshare, but i get sick before breakfast, so i don't eat that, then again after dinner, so when i get home from work i pretend to have had a late heavy snack. i still throw up anyway. bye lunch, you were the only nutrients i may have received today. i feel like my rib cage is shrinking, closing in on my lungs til i wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air. my brain goes into auto half the time -- i nearly got hit by a taxi crossing the road in makati. and i couldn't remember how i had gotten from the train to that street at all. i've written so many articles but i have no idea what's in them. i've learned how to regulate my breathing even without a paper bag -- it's been necessary lately, as i tend to start hyperventilating in the most unexpected places, like in the car as we're driving down the highway, or in front of my little brother. i have no drive to do anything. i haven't touched my guitar ever since that day, nor have i sung a whole song. there's a strange pain in my gut that i can't tell where it originated from, and it makes me want to stay in bed all day and not move. i drank paracetamol and my dad's allergy pills by mistake, because i just picked up the pills that were on the table without checking to see whether they were my vitamins or not. i found a syringe and a needle in our medicine cabinet. it was supposed to be for one of my brother's old science experiments. i used it to see if i could learn how to give myself a blood test. i found out that i couldn't, and a blood test, if done wrong, can be very messy. i tempted one of the new stray cats my tita adopted to scratch or bite me by yanking its tail. but it didn't care so i am cat-scratch free. i did, however, trip over a tree root and scrape my knee. i took a shot of rubbing alcohol. it's nasty. i swallowed my gum. that's pretty nasty as well. i tasted castor oil because my lola's old cook thought i was sick with something and gave me a teaspoon of it. aside from it being horrible on its own, it didn't help that the bottle she owned looked older than i am. i ran into a former neighbor in church and she thought my little brother was my son. i told her he was. he was more than happy to play along. i told my lola's dog all my secrets, which he then barked out to all the dogs in the neighborhood. they all probably think i'm a bitch.

i was going to blog about something totally different...

2010-04-19T18:11:00.000+08:00

...but then i realized it wasn't even worth it.

so instead, i'm blogging about this.

i think i got hit on at work today. caveat: by a girl.

i honestly thought this kind of thing would end once highschool was over. guess not. it might sound mean, but it was so awkward and strange that i had to try so hard not to laugh. when keish and i finally went down for break, we just laughed.

it was RIDICULOUS i swear. i couldn't tell if it was a real hit or if it was in jest. but whatever. shock of my life. :))

just practice.

2010-04-09T18:09:00.000+08:00

always

the sense of the sounds
that trickle down your lips
and into mine
does not escape my knowing.
for i remember that night
of drunken abandon.
the memory hits
like a punch to the gut,
a repeated stabbing at my pride.

always

you say the words like honey
dripping in between kisses
and sometimes i think
you actually believe what you say.
but i know better, as i should.
so the taste of your lips on mine
isn't as sweet as you think it to be.

always

i pretend not to see the poison
when our lips meet
and we part as though your words were truth.

always

i ask myself why i swallow
this false sweetness
until the venom settles in
and i am helpless.
i make the mistake every time
of giving you chances you no longer deserve.

just practice.

2010-04-09T18:08:00.000+08:00

return to the motherboard.

2010-04-06T15:52:00.000+08:00

i'm back. i'm not sure why i stopped blogging, aside from the fact that the internet connection here is seriously whacked. but i'm back. i think it's mainly because i need something familiar, something that's been there for a long time but that i can still hold on to, even if everything has changed.

and indeed, everything HAS changed. college is over, i'm about to start work, i moved back into my family's house in paranaque, i actually have a lovelife now (and it's nothing like the crap i used to whine about really).

i'm sitting on my bed and feeling like this room hasn't been my room for the past year. it's become an extension den/storage room. tv, computer, dvd player, bookshelves. the girl who used to live here is dead and gone, i'm afraid, because i'm not her anymore. i remember promising myself i wouldn't change, and i'm sorry i couldn't help it, but in retrospect, i think the changes that college has brought me have been for the better. and like always, just as i'm getting comfortable in my own skin, it is the end of an era, and i have to start all over again. the thing is, i really only let the changes happen in the past year and a half. (You of all people should know why.) and now, standing on the threshold of a new phase in my life while still desperately clinging to the remnants of what was, i can honestly say that one of the most important things i've learned in the past four years is that life is a series of rebirths. taking into account the death dreams (which have finally stopped) and what ma'am rica told me about them, i understood it. i can recall that afternoon when i asked her what it could possibly mean to have so many dreams where i die in different ways. and everybody thought it was a bad omen. but ma'am rica said that maybe it wasn't about death, but about rebirth. and so, i made my mistakes, crashed and burned more than i would have liked, and emerged out of the ashes, slightly bent here, a little dented there, but alive, and definitely stronger and hopefully wiser.

yesterday, keish and i bumped into our friends at the mall. they were going to watch a movie, but i couldn't stay. they walked me to the door that leads to the train statio. once i got out the doors i looked back. i guess i'm overreading but who cares...but i saw it as a metaphor for the kind of person i am. i don't like saying goodbye, but when i know it's time to leave, i will leave. at the same time, i always remember to look back.

so now i'm back. back where i started. back to waiting for my friends to go online so i don't have to leave my room to have a social interaction. back to blogging alone in my bedroom, listening to 42 hours worth of music that still isn't enough. back to trying to come to terms with the way i am at present, and the way things are and will probably be for a while.

and the momewraths outgrabe.

2010-03-14T21:26:00.000+08:00

it's been a while since i've written about anything, really.

everything's been a blur, and right now, i can't quite get things straight yet. this is really happening.

today at lunch i was surprised at the sudden emergence of expectations from my relations whom, while i love them dearly, clearly know nothing about me and have no intentions of knowing. it was made quite clear that i was merely a means to an end, someone to follow in their footsteps, remember them in the clearest, most flattering form -- imitation. one insisted that i sign up for a scholarship program in spain (masters in spanish, when i can barely speak 2 sentences in spanish). another presumed that i would be taking a master's degree. i might in the future, but right now, given the current financial crisis and the fact that neither of my parents are working, i don't think i would have the means to pursue further studies at present, until i found a way of paying for it myself, which i have not. and it could just be that they were excited for me, but it came off more as them telling me what i should do with my life. and while i don't know exactly what it is i want yet, i do know that i will not be happy if i simply do as i am told. obedience may be a virtue, but ignorance, cowardice, and a lack of zeal for life are not.

i've been going online window shopping for jobs that sound like i'll be able to do them well enough and without too much suffering on my part, but nothing has really caught my eye just yet, except for this one job i still have yet to apply for. i sent an application through a friend to another company, and i really feel as though it's the kind of work i'd like to be doing. and so now, all i am doing is waiting.

speaking of waiting, i have learned that there is always more of it to be done. i can never see the end of having things/people/events to wait for, and quite frankly, i've given up waiting for the end of waiting. for as long as there are questions to be answered, places to go, things to line up and sign up for, people to meet, people to talk to, events in a person's life, then there will always be something to wait for.

and while i'm waiting for the rest of my life to begin, i feel that this new chapter has bled into the old one, thankfully giving me a sense of transition so far, since i know i'm not the only one sitting at home waiting for that call.

confuzzled on a whole new level.

2010-02-26T18:09:00.000+08:00

wondering why i feel like this. i actually miss you. and it sucks. but what about... no, that shouldn't be an issue. but it is. but it isn't. what?

this reversal of roles has reversed my head. FOIL kung FOIL. anong klase? aluminum.

My Last Last Day of School

2010-02-20T10:11:00.000+08:00

i told myself before going to bed on thursday night that i had to wake up early to catch up on the last report i'd be giving as a student. i set my alarm for 7 am, and i told myself 3 times before dozing off that i needed to be up at 7.

i woke up at 9, and i had a meeting at 930. so like i have been doing for the past couple of months, i scrambled out of bed, showered hurriedly and brisk-walked to school.

i spent the morning in a terrible mood, annoyed at myself for not having gotten up early, as well as stressed about my report, which i didn't feel at all prepared for. i didn't have time for lunch, so when i met up with my blockmates in the zen garden, we went straight to third world lit class.

like always, i sat up front (where i hated sitting), only half-listening to sir dm's lecture, which sounded nothing like a last day's lecture. it was just our usual lesson, with guidelines for the final paper we're going to submit next week. then the bell rang, and it was time for my report. polsci didn't feel like a last class either, because we rushed through our report, and class ended a little late. our group had a quick meeting about our finals, and then i went to dela costa.

keish was sitting on the benches with jo, and the delacoscat lay sunning itself beside them. i went and bought myself a tuna apple wrap and a small red c2 (my staple food in freshman year), fed the scraps of my wrap to Delacoscat, and saw andro. he told me it felt nothing like a last day. it was so normal.

the bell rang at 330 and i rushed off to theo class. again, another regular class. dr. rosana returned our very low long tests, and attempted to make a final lecture about love for God, but i was too busy worrying about my grade to really pay attention. i don't even remember thanking her at the end of the class before rushing out the door.

and that was officially the end of my last day of school ever. (my friends and i still had LitSoc activities and then we watched a play, but that's not regular school stuff anymore).

it was surreal in that it wasn't at all. nothing was out of the ordinary. stress levels were still high, i was still running all over school in shoes that were anything but sensible. it was hot but i was too preoccupied to bother tying my hair back, so i was sweating like anything. andy and alessi had disappeared into the library during my break, and keish wasn't feeling well. there were hardly any people in the acmg room when i wasn't in class.

at first i was disappointed that my last day was so.

but in hindsight, i realized that there's a reason for that ordinariness. i'll get to remember being a student the way it really was, hanging out with friends, stressing about acads, balancing extra-curriculars, sitting in unairconditioned classrooms, stewing in your own sweat, being annoyed at profs who've been giving you hell all sem, trying to protect your lunch from the forces of nature (i.e., persistent cats, falling leaves and higads).

a little over a month from now, i will no longer be a studet. i will be unemployed (unless i'm lucky). i will be grown up.

if i wanted to steal him from you i would have done it a long time ago.

2010-02-17T16:56:00.000+08:00

just give it a rest.

i have better things to do than have to deal with you.

friends, lovers or nothing. it's not that simple.

2010-01-10T19:34:00.000+08:00

i don't know where i stand with you. lately, you've been my friend. once, we were more than that, and sometimes it seems as that might still happen. and then most of the time, we're nothing. for the longest time, we were nothing. and right now, you are the friend i love to whom i mean nothing. am i right? yes, of course, i'm always right.

i wish things could be as simple as that john mayer song. but they aren't, because i'm the confused one here. you seem to know what you want.

i'm sorry that you're the only one who feels like home.

someone told me that it wouldn't fare well with my family and i agree. and while i love them, i can actually imagine going against them to be with you. but imagination can only take you so far. i don't think i would actually have the strength to do it.

you tell me i'm strong. but i'm not not not. you of all people have seen my weakness, but you continue to tell me i'm strong, continue to nudge and push me and convince me that i can do it.and stubborn as i am, it takes so much work to get me there, but you do anyway (not alone, though, i assure you).

i need to get out of this rut, to get my mind focused on the things that i should be focusing on. but life just keeps throwing lemons at me right now, and i don't have enough sugar to make lemonade.

video killed the radiostar. thesis killed the rockstar in me.

2010-01-06T20:47:00.000+08:00

i'm supposed to be working on my thesis, but i'm so annoyed at the incosiderate-ness (is that a word? whatever, i don't care anymore.) we were shown by being surprised with a thesis deadline today. due on friday at the latest. it's not as though i can work on it all day tomorrow, i have class and homework for other classes too. i've been staring at the same paragraph for half an hour now, i think i have to get this out of my system so that i can get on with my life and do this stupid thesis.

i find that i've forgotten how to enjoy literature, art, culture in the simplest way. i can't appreciate anything that isn't complex or profound. i watch a movie and automatically my brain goes into the "form, function, plot, characters, symbolisms, etc." of it. i can't read a book without expecting a supposedly unexpected twist. sometimes its fun to know that my knowledge of certain things has become deeper and more complex than it would have been had i not been a lit major. but not when i can no longer appreciate simplicity nor simply appreciate (those are two different things, lol).

writing used to be fun. playing the guitar used to be fun. singing and dancing used to be fun. not so anymore. now it has to be right; it has to be a certain way for it to be good. and while it means i'm thinking critically and challenging myself to be better, since i cannot abide sucking at anything, i just give up instead. or i get annoyed. the last three stories i tried starting have ended up in my recycle bin after the first two paragraphs. nothing is good enough now. even food doesn't taste as good as it used to.

i'm not happy here, i find. my studying literature (and i'm not blaming the system or the cirriculum) has shown me the more scientific, formulaic side of literature which i do not like. i don't like formulas. i don't like math. i don't like rules and limits and clear delineations. i prefer it when things just blend into each other, or at least seem to. but what with studying theory and excessive critical thinking and just plain obsessive-compulsiveness(?

) it feels as though everything's down to a science. or better yet, it feels like geometry, where each problem may not have a clear solution at the beginning but there are theorems and whatnot that are supposed to get you to the solution if you sequence them in the proper way. i know life is like that, but that's precisely why i used to like art and literature -- because the rules were broken more often than not, because the limitations of things weren't always so damn clear, because there was no Box.

Study has put my love into a BOX. that is the worst thing.

kill or be killed.

2010-01-04T20:10:00.000+08:00

i'm tired of having to deal with two-faced, backstabbing bitches who have nothing better to do than spread lies about the long-forgotten past, reawakening them and letting idle gossip wreak its havoc on the future.

you don't understand what you have destroyed.

and while it was something that was bound to end with exploding bombs and doused out with ice, the sudden onset of the whole thing had begun to make me happen again.

i ran into him over the break, and it was awkward and sad. sitting there, slowly sipping his grande frappe, my starbucks man looked at me with eyes glazed over, mechanically apologizing about his rashness. he explained his behavior and the rumors that had led him to act so. neither of us could say "let's be friends again" because we never were to begin with, but i felt bad about losing the one person whose presence was finally getting me out of this half-year slump. i wanted him to tag along with us on our trip so maybe we could talk some more and get some sort of fresh start, but he still had class (damn that school of his).

sitting in the back of my friend's van, i thought about that week i had disappeared from my usual world. instead of being in school during my long breaks, i found myself on spontaneous trips to all sorts of places, having lunch or coffee or dinner with someone whose company i not only enjoyed, but found comforting. i can't remember the last time i was surprised by the same person so many times in the span of 5 days. impromptu breakfast at his house, meeting his mom, sudden lunch and dinner trips to makati, stealing away between classes, hour long conversationson the phone, me out on the balcony so that no one would hear my shrieks or laughter.

in case you didn't know, i was in this depressive slump for half a year, barely making it out of bed in the mornings, if at all. and then he called up one fine monday afternoon. it marked the start of when i started feeling less sorry for myself. but that's over and done now.

today i heard another rumor about myself. how many people are hearing this? as opposed to how many people know the truth about me -- even know me at all?

i'm tired of having to deal with them, because i can't take things lying down. i need to get even, make them feel so bad that they're sobbing helplessly on the floor unable to function at all. and so i fight these two-faced, backstabbing bitches until, at the end of the day, i am one.

on blogging.

2009-12-31T11:58:00.000+08:00

right now, i am watching Julie and Julia. and in the scene where Amy Adams' character makes bruschetta (for those who were at the litsoc party and in the antipolo trip, it was that bread and tomato thing that i brought...) and she was talking about writing/blogging. and her husband says that the thing about a blog is that you don't have to be published. you press enter and bam! there it is. and then in a scene much later on, she describes how she's blogging and how she feels she's just sending things out into this giant void.

so here i am, doing exactly that, sending all my nonsense into this cybervoid for all of nothingness to devour.

in doing this, i realize that i have neglected my commitment to feeding nothingness this past year, ignoring my blog for the most part, ignoring so many things that have made me who i am in the past 20 years. i still fear the onset of the dreams that have been haunting me, death, pain, UNWANTED PREGNANCY (a nightmare, indeed, though i would like to be a mother someday -- in the far future of course). i inted to be rid of these nightmares.

tonight, a few hours from now, it will be a brand new year. and the nightmares will have to stop, because it will be the year i turn 21 and the year i enter the so-called "real world" and after the emotional stew surprise that was 2009 i proclaim 2010 to be a good year. i just has to be.

and this year, hopefully, my blog, my marriage to nothingness will not lack for comapany, even if my life suddenly goes off into full swing, even if i am thrown into a whirlwind of events.

God wants me to know what's on my playlist.

2009-12-26T14:36:00.000+08:00

john mayer never fails to articulate how i'm feeling. maybe that's why i never have to say anything myself. i could put together a list of john mayer songs and come up with a list that tells our story and yes, despite what you say, we do have one. don't bother to deny it. it's caused us enough trouble to at least merit the title of "plottable" (haha, i just laughed a little at my own wordplay which i'm sure nobody but me understands...plottable, palatable..hahaha. pathetic. but anyway...)

i was listening to battle studies, which i happen to have in the computer because mike sent it to me (what a good friend), and i decided to load some of my favorites into my newly resurrected phone. and while i was listening to it, i heard the lyrics for the first time (because the first couple of times i listened to it i was writing my thesis so i wasn't really paying attention to the words).

and, like so many times already, i began to choke up and wanted to cry. but, like always, i only managed to cough and sigh and look sad, because i don't know how to cry properly. annoyed at myself, i switched the music player on my phone to shuffle and then it landed on friggin eliot morris and the song we used to sing. i stared at the ceiling and rolled my eyes at God, who was clearly telling me "I told you so" like the annoying but always right kind of friend he/she is. irate and frustrated, i actually said out loud, "look Boss, i know it's your birthday, but really, why bring this up now? can't we just enjoy the festivities first and then you can make my head spin all you want later." my mom heard me and knocked on my door. i let her in and she was all "who're you talking to?" and i was all, "i wasn't talking to anyone, i'm just watching youtube."

then, i think the Big Guy decided to let me off the hook for a bit, so Somebody texted me and i got all giddy and that cheered me up for a while. but while getting ready for the next party that night, i was jumping around into my pants and i realized that the last time i had worn that pair was the last time i was with you. it's unfortunate how i remember stupid details like that. i frowned at myself in the mirror, standing there with only my pants and a bra on, holding out 4 different tops, trying to decide which one would allow me enough room to eat as much as i could possibly want without looking like Free Willy on a bad day. my phone was still playing music and the next song that came up was Michelle Branch's If Only She Knew. i mean, c'mon, will the cosmos not give me a break? or was it some sort of Freudian-slip that i put all those songs in there? but then i have Disturbia and Pokerface in there too and that doesn't really mean anything related to you. but just to be safe, i turned off the music player on my phone and turned on MTV instead. Lo and behold, the first video that came on was Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. luckily, i had my make up on by then and i just slapped a headband on and had to leave before the video ended.

on the ride to my tito's place, i decided to play my phone again, since there was nothing on the radio. the first song: All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye by John Mayer.

watch out for the playlists i'll be posting soon. it's that or i'm writing a novel. so if you don't want to be immortalized as the feckless, yellow-bellied, unfortunate being that you've appeared to be lately, then say So.

caught off guard. dishwalla makes me cry.

2009-11-23T20:50:00.000+08:00

seems my own arrogance has knocked me off my feet again, like in the lifehouse song Fool.

i've been so sure of myself and everything related to this, to us, lately, that i thought all the misericordia blah blah i've got going on was finally gone and that it was all ok again.

not totally true.

today i realized that i do, or did, truly feel that way. someone else noticed the unmistakable signs of chemistry between us today. that just means they aren't altogether gone. meanwhile, the way you look at me still hasn't changed. you still have the ability to make me feel as though i were the only person in the room.

but now things are different. i've got my mind occupied with thoughts of someone new, only occasionally interrupted by you still wandering around in my head. he makes me feel new and good and sunny for a good long while. he makes me laugh too, and it's nice to learn something new about him everyday. he's the only person who can make me forget about you long enough to stop being miserable all the time.

i am moving on; i was right about that. but i was wrong in assuming that it meant i would ever forget you.

so many things i can't touch; i'm torn.

2009-11-22T18:55:00.000+08:00

had time with my dad today. he asked me about my plans for the future. to be honest, i've been too busy trying to get past the present to think about the future. but i told him about the things i was considering, and when he heard that i was interested in advertising, he got all excited and started giving me tips and telling me which books to read and to join workshops and the parts of it he enjoyed the most.

thing is, it's in my options because i don't feel like i have a shot at doing what i really want. i knew that when i chose my course that i'd have to give up the silly notions i had in high school, never for once realizing that i might actually really want it. lately i've come to see that i am going to have to give it up, these dreams of mine. i've always known it, but for me to actually do it. and now, of all times, i'm beginning to rediscover my passion for the performing arts.

i wonder how it is for most people, where you see yourself doing something in the future. how come when i think about my future, i can't see anything?

waiting for a miracle.

2009-11-16T21:04:00.000+08:00

brash
immanence
imminent ends
random words
i flesh out
from somewhere.

stirring in my soul.

i've come to realize, a little too late i might add, that i'm in the wrong course. i have no business being in literature. dissecting literary works is, to my mind, like dissecting human cadavers. i could never bring myself to approach something that once had a soul and cut it up and look at it part by part. it feels like desecration. it's unholy, ungodly. and while i believe we do learn much from the practice (both of dissecting cadavers for science and dissecting literary works for the humanities), it doesn't feel right that i be the one to do such a thing.

i once dissected a bee. it wasn't very pleasant. at the end of it all, my friends and i gave it a proper burial, digging it a little grave and showering it's marker with flower petals.

while i say that i hate most of what i write, it doesn't stop me from putting a little bit of myself into each poem, each essay, each random blog entry, each story. and while it may not be true for every writer, that is how i see things; that is what i know. so to take that piece of someone apart as though it were parts of a machine seems to me like taking the essence out of something. i don't like playing with dead things.

i was sitting around, trying to make heads or tails of my thesis, trying to find some way to get me started, but apart from being lost and my initial lack of expertise in doing a critical reading of a work, i began to want to write something again, something that was not born out of the remains of one work like a literary frankenstein, but to create something all my own. in a world where i feel i'm just a puppet dancing in the background, i find that i do have a chance to make things go my way, albeit fictiously. it isn't "things are so, which is why i write about it." i write about it and it is so.

so why am i in lit? why am i bothering with this thesis? why am i bothering with college at all?

i'm floating around with my head in the clouds; i'm not cut out for this so-called real world. it's easy to play tough though i've got nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep me around.

i say to myself, "girl, what the eff are you doing?" and i answer right back, "i don't have a clue."

and i run right back into the old question "what is there to live for?" i still don't have an answer to that one. this is a problem. i keep asking questions that don't have answers, but i'm looking for answers anyway.

someone asked me "what's your goal in life?" i honestly didn't have an answer. then we got to talking and i realized that i'm living my life only to please other people, so as not to disappoint other people. what kind of a loser existence is that? who stays alive so that other people don't get disappointed. i'm such an idiot.

someone get me onto firm ground, because i'm so tired of trying to keep afloat. i'm not a fucking zeppelin.

on overload in my head. run for cover.

2009-11-07T10:17:00.000+08:00

there are just some people who think they're important. but in the long run, they are useless.

haven't done anything for thesis. completely lost. scared shitless. i'm beginning to see what my mentor when she said i might be doing too much. at this point i'm hoping i'm lucky enough to suddenly die or something so i don't have to do it anymore.

haven't written anything. nothing much has happened lately; it's all same old, same old, so now i'm just slugging it out, trying to find some new material.

as for people, really i'm not into people right now. i'd rather just be alone. all i've gotten out of people are bad vibes and stress. friends, i've got enough real ones to make up for all the fake ones i've come across. but honestly, i don't feel as though it would be wise to even be with my real friends right now. i'm just all party pooper and debbie downer and i'm in a place where i need a crutch to keep me going, be it ingested, inhaled, etc. i've been clean for almost a month now, but i can't really see myself avoiding the bottles and packs i've gone without anymore. developing bad habits. too late to get em out of my system.

i used to think i was tough, but it's pretty obvious that i'm not. how does one learn to trust someone again? i've been known to hold a grudge, so that's probably out of the question now. in fairness, it takes a lot to lose my trust. but oh well. your loss.

people like to talk about things they don't understand. if i can't even understand myself, then what makes you think you do? you can go around telling people about me, but you can't be one to judge, because you've done worse things (and don't pretend to be the victim, because you're not).

i'm tired all the time. some days i sleep in, i don't bother to get up, except to use the bathroom, maybe to get a drink of water or a snack. but i don't have much of an appetite on days like those. i dream of people hurting me and i wake up curled up under the blanket, afraid to peek out in case it's real. i wake up with bruises and scratches and i don't know where they came from. i wake up wishing the last 3 years of my life was just a nightmare and i can start over. i wake up wishing i wouldn't have to wake up anymore ever again. sometimes when i'm alone i imagine a needle going into the crook of my arm, or jumping off the balcony of my apartment so i'd know what it felt like to fly. sometimes i wonder if i'm really alive or if i'm just in the background of somebody's imagination, just a character passing by in somebody else's story.

last night i dreamt of someone i know giving me a black eye. i kneed him in the crotch and punched him hard enough to break his nose. the next day i went to this building that looked like my old school and his rumor-mongering girlfriend started picking a fight with me. i gave her the coldest stare i could muster and her tongue fell out of her mouth, black blood and shit gushing and she was screaming and i stood there and told her it was karma, and to go try and glue her boyfriend's broken thing (and his ego) back together. then i went to another room and another person i knew was there, kissing someone with the head of a crocodile and tentacles instead of arms. i took a picture of them and showed it to her once they separated and she cried and begged me not to tell. i deleted the file, but as i did so, all her hair fell out. i just told her it was karma. then i left the building and found myself lying on the floor of the apartment. i still had the black eye, and there were more bruises all over me and my hair was a strange color because there was blood seeping out of a crack in my skull. i looked in the mirror and i couldn't see my reflection and all of a sudden i was inside the body lying on the floor. somebody came in, someone i don't know, and then i was outside on the street and people were just stepping over me. and then the ground was gone and i was falling somewhere.

i don't know how i got up after a dream like that.

days go by and i don't remember them at all.

maybe something's wrong.

if ellipses and a comma had a child, that kid would be you.

2009-09-25T22:03:00.000+08:00

he took the guitar in his arms and started to play. i looked on as he tilted his head to the side, listening to make sure all the strings were still in tune, while his left hand turned the knobs to adjust the sound, making me think of his hands running through my hair as he listened to the stories i whispered in his ear. i watched his hands; his fingers sliding up and down the guitar's neck, each string singing out suddenly, which, once plucked, was left suspended in vibrato. i sat there, remembering the times i used to feel as though it was me he cradled in his arms, his face leaning near mine, as he hummed sad songs. he strummed a chord gently, and started to sing, his head thrown back as he faced the sky, slowly shutting his eyes. and as he sang, i thought of last time i had seen him this way, his head thrown back and his eyes closed -- it was the last time we kissed. he opened his eyes and found my gaze. i looked away but awkward situations tend to gravitate towards me it seems, so out of curiosity and a tendency for sadism, i glanced toward him again. he was still playing, but his eyes were on me, drawing an invisible line from my forehead to my nose to my lips to my ears, to the hollow of my neck to my collarbone to my shoulders to the crook of my arm to my chest to my stomach to my hips to my thighs to my calves to my feet -- a long line being drawn so slowly i could feel it trickling down my body like honey. he kept singing, his voice clear and soft at the same time. i stared at the floor, feeling the blood rushing to my face because as he played i could almost feel his hands around my waist and his breath on my neck, the way things used to be. someone cleared her throat and he stopped in mid-note, standing up so quickly that the last string he had plucked was still vibrating, loud and clear, taking a while before its echo finally died out.

goodbye phone.

2009-08-29T16:32:00.000+08:00

effin immersion.

and while my heart reaches out to those kids, i DO NOT feel as though this immersion is doing me any good.

it's a live out immersion, see, since it's in manila and in an institution where there is no room for us (kasi government. imagine, people who hardly have room for their own families still can accomodate us, but a government institution can't. tsk tsk). so we had to commute there. nans and i were running late due to confusion and slow trains, etc. we were finally at the lrt 1, our last ride to the area and the train had just arrived. my phone was in my pocket, under nanie's jacket which was tied around my waist. then somebody pushed everyone forward into the train, even while there were still other people trying to get out. then when we were finally able to breathe i realized the phone was no longer in my pocket. i had made sure when i put it in there that it wouldn't just slide out of the pocket, and i was wearing fitted pants to boot.

so there.

my phone, my wonderful music player/camera/alarm clock/planner/notebook phone, is no longer with me. hopefully the fucktard who stole it gets his.

goodbye phone.

2009-08-29T16:30:00.000+08:00

it doesn't help to know.

2009-08-23T20:41:00.000+08:00

nanie's got bamboo and up dharma down playing.

how does one say "we should talk" when one doesn't really know what else there is left to say?

now i am sure that everything was a joke to you. that the whole time it was a lie. and as much as i want to push you around and scream and shout and all that, a part of me keeps saying, "don't waste your energy. it isn't worth it."

at the same time, the other part of me says that i do not deserve to be treated in such a fashion and that i'd better let you know so.

someone said i should cry a few tears, say "you hurt me", say it all. someone said i should talk to you and try to find closure. someone said i should say "OH NO YOU DIDN'T."

someone said this, someone said that.

but what do i say? i say nothing. i have no idea. the way i am, i'll just let it fester and boil inside me until the hate is just too much to bear and i end up taking it out on someone else, or on myself.

i need someone to tell me what to do.