writing from the past

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i dont know why i write maybe im just one of those drama students on an impromptu acting assignment, where the world is their stage, and the roles they assume are the ones that fall from the back of their heads when they close their eyes to blink and think of their first line.

maybe i am like that, maybe i am superficial, i wear a mask when i write, i wear different colors, red, blue and black, sometimes i am naked and i let my heart bleed into the pages, sometimes i am ice and i freeze time in between phrases, but since my masks and my skin have become too entangled, i cannot take off my face and know for certain if it is me, if it’s my story, my sadness, my grief..

i only truly write when i am homeless, when i am without roots and nobody holds me down and hugs me and tells me i am theirs, i belong to them and theirs for the keeping, i only truly write when i need to forget, because writing things down removes the burden from my mind, it removes the need to remember, because somewhere, in some obscure corner, it is written, it is immortalized in words, thus there is no need to have it forever stamped in my mind,

there is freedom when i write, i can dream, i can fly, i decide when to go, what to do, who to be with, and who/where/what to stay away from.. i can be real when i write, i can feel, truly feel. it’s like looking at my reflection from a clear running water, it shows the ugliness, and all the sadness i keep behind my eyes.

i write of beauty, i write of pain, sometimes i write of all the ugly that is me, i write everything and nothing at all, because i have no meaning, my words are its own excuse for being. i never write about how it is to be happy, happy is a thought i keep locked away inside my heart, happy is something i dont want to forget, so i never want to write it down.. there are no words to describe great emotions, it is physical pain for me to try to capture moments in words that dont quite fit.. that is why happy stays at that remote place inside my heart, and therein it will stay for a long while more..

summer is almost over, and september is just around the corner… ah september, it will be a month of silence for me.. i will try to look for happiness falling down on side streets, and i will fill my pockets with it, i will not write it down lest i forget how it fills my lungs. i will be in hiatus, i will be looking over a cliff, deciding if i should jump into the chasm, or fly over it.. i will be quiet, i will be invisible, i will be without a voice, nor a footprint, i will stay this way till i find myself homeless again,

thank you for trying to make sense of me, the best that you can.. maybe one of these days you will find me walking beside you, you carrying your canvas, and me carrying my notebooks, i will share with you my words, my stories, and you can show your paintings to me =)

till then, i will be the soft voice at the tip of your tongue, and i will taste you when i close my eyes at night.

08.22.2003.2.38.p.m.j.p.t

kamikaze

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it’s summer here in tamagawa,

and the first thing i did was download this really nice song i first heard at the movie “the real cancun”, it’s simple plan’s i dont wanna grow up. well yeah, I DO NOT WANT TO GROW UP. but s%$t happens, so here i am =p too old for turning back, too deep down the road to look back past the street signs i failed to take note of.,

what’s new with this place? nothing really, just the heat that seems to flow about like trapped mercury in a bottle. it’s 31 degrees celcius outside and the hot air permeates my skin too much that it’s not enough to take a cold shower or drown my head in a bucket full of ice to cool me down.

not much work really yesterday, i just had to reinstall the os for the notebook assigned to be my personal friend for the rest of the 27 days left of my stay here. real grunt work started this morning, i was assigned to setup the solaris machines.. so what did i really miss today except for breakfast? not much, i’m still in denial =p reality sets in more slowly these days, like it takes days for things to finally sink in on me, sometimes i find myself saying “did i really do that?!?!” or “i said that!!!?!?!?”. i’m probably stoned most of the times or they slipped something on my drink, =p

ah,,, pass me another kamikaze please =) life is good.. but please dont let me be just another drunken mistake..

tagalog monolog

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mahal ko sya
pero ewan ko lang
baka hindi ko sya mahal
baka gusto ko lang syang kausap
kasi masaya syang kausap
nakakatuwa
para bang walang problema sa mundo
parang parating puno ang wallet ko
parang di ako nilalagnat pag gabi
parang matataas ang grades ko
parang malaki ang sweldo ko
parang ewan ko ba
mahal ko yata sya
o baka naman hindi ko sya mahal
siguro gusto ko lang syang kasama
masaya kasi syang kasama
para kong lumilipad
parang kaya kong lutasin lahat ng problema
parang mabubuhay na ko kahit titigan ko lang sya
parang di ko na kailangang kumain
matulog, huminga…
siguro nga mahal ko sya
pero.. paano kung hindi ko pala sya mahal?
gusto ko lang siguro syang yakapin
masarap kasi syang yakapin,
tumatalon ang puso ko
nalilimutan kong wala pa kong hapunan
at na marami pa kong utang
o na galit na ang boss ko dahil parati akong late
dahil di ako makatulog kakaisip sa kanya
kakaisip kung nasaan sya
kung kumusta na sya
kumain na kaya sya? may iba kaya syang kayakap?
sino kaya katabi nya?
tulog na ba sya? o baka naman may tinatrabaho pa..
ewan, mahal ko nga ba sya?
hindi ko naman yata sya mahal.
gusto ko lang syang katabing matulog
masarap kasi syang katabi matulog
meron akong tandayan at kayakap,
at parang mabibilang ko lahat ng bituwin sa langit
kahit may bubong ang bahay namin,
nararamdaman kong ligtas ako
yun bang hindi ako tatamaan ng ligaw na bala
pag bagong taon, o ng kidlat pag umuulan
naiisip ko rin na parang swerte ako
yun bang nanalo ng isang daang milyon sa lotto
o ng bagong t.v. sa raffle sa christmas party
mahal ko nga sya!
hindi, hindi totoong mahal ko sya
gusto ko lang na nasa mabuti sya
na masaya sya kahit iba ang kasama nya
na ok lang sa kin na di nya ko mahalin
na ayaw nya kong kausap, kasama,
kayakap, katabing matulog
hindi!
hindi ko sya mahal.,
gusto ko lang ligtas sya
at hindi pinapaiyak ng kung sino sino
gusto ko mahalin sya nung minamahal nya
at na sana lumigaya sya kahit kapiling ng iba
hindi ko naman sya mahal di ba?
handa lang akong ialay ang buhay ko sa kanya
yung pag sinabi nyang talon sa tulay,
tatalon ako talaga,
at kung sabihin nyang ayaw na nya kong makita
at may iba na syang mahal,
kaya kong yumuko, lumayo
lumakad ng dahan dahan at wag lumingon
kasi nga mahal ko sya,
ano ba! ang kulit ko naman
kasi nga di ko sya mahal
hindi ko sya mahal
hindi nga..

07.30.2003.04.48.p.m. 

***Update 05/13/2014***
Almost 11 years have passed since I wrote this piece and I am overwhelmed that a lot of people are still reading it and were able to relate to what I felt back then. To show gratitude to all kindred souls who appreciated this post and kept this alive, I will be doing a giveaway, check out details on my instagram @poeticnook

Maraming salamat po!

siargao

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ok, so let me tell you about siargao.. i have no more time these days to write things down so this entry is a bit delayed,

the boat for surigao left at 8pm friday night, there was a slight drizzle, but the trip was otherwise smooth. the boat docked at surigao port by 4:30a.m. and i proceeded to the hotel to take a shower and charge my soon to be useless mobile phone. the trip to dapa was 3 hours by boat, and by the time we reached the resort, i was exhausted and all i wanted to do was sleep.

but sleep was the last thing on the itenerary, we went island hopping, visited the mangroves, the surf, the yacht building, the sand rifts, we rented bikes and got sunburned, we went swimming at a private island in the middle of the sea.. in between, my glass overflowed of red wine and somebody stole my mule!

i was supposed to be back by monday but there were no boats going back to cebu, so i was reluctantly (yipee!) stranded in surigao. you can actually tour the whole city by tricycle, i went to their airport, which only accomodates 8 seater planes, and their bus station which can take me to the other parts of mindanao.

by tuesday morning i was back to work, sporting a sunburn.. now that’s what i get for not wearing sunscreen =)

on crazy days

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posted at our college yearbook and at peyups

“move to the music of a missing dream, now
slide to the sound of a savage scream, now
the words don’t matter
as long as they scatter
like rain
like rain”

College. One moment you’re waking up at 7:15 so you’ll be just in time for your 7:30 class, dreading the reports, seatworks, exams, homeworks, plays, productions, lab works, programs and what have you that might come pouring down like manna from heaven as you enter the hallowed halls of the campus. The next day you find you’re just a bum. No buzzer beater showers, Good Morning Surprise Quizzes, Hello World 80 pt. Seat works, or 3-hour grueling Debit-Credit b.s. You’re just another graduate; you will be lining up for work the next day or for food rations the week after next. There will be no more wondering if Leibnitz ate lemma for lunch, or if those Greek letters on the formula are actually encoded love letters of Leithold. Life will be boring. You will be working 8 to 5 jobs with 1-hour lunch breaks, while missing those classes you so lovingly scheduled two hours apart so you could still sneak in at the local movie house in between each subject.

Where did all those years go? You start to wonder. How did I let all those years pass by without even so much as a thought? Yes, that time in a bottle song doesn’t sound so melodramatic anymore. What happened to the crazy days — Marching to malls sporting crazy attires and collecting bewildered looks and catcalls from onlookers? Where have all the band fests, mindworks, yearly lantern parades, cookouts and weeklong campus days gone?

You carry a new cell phone to work, a PDA, a laptop, all the latest gadgets. You strut along the business park counting the days till your next trip abroad, but still you dream of waking up on cold mornings during hell week, the org meetings that stretch up to early evenings, the rallies amid the scorching heat, the long and almost endless lines during enrollment, the grouchy looks of some instructors when they’ve had a bad day, the naked man with his arms outstretched looking up to the sky, that crumbling “new building” with no ventilation, and that circled number on those colorful class cards that almost always gives your parents a heart attack.

“once you forget, it’s over,
just start again
once you forget, it’s over,
take what you can
before it’s gone”

Time moves fast, so fast that even the speed of thought can’t capture all the memories you want to keep. You pause for a while. You close your eyes and start thinking of your college years. Those funny turbulent years of experimentations, with undone home works and getting away with it, with not studying for exams and acing them, from collecting ticket booklets of movies to visiting all new food and clothes shops, to attending jam packed, head banging concerts. You remember doing stupid things for what you thought were the right reasons, that one moment of insanity that brought you to the edge of recklessness, the momentary happiness in knowing the rules and breaking them, the misconstrued views you were willing to die for, and those angst filled poems, which used to be fashionable.

You stand in the center of time, ten million lifetimes over and done with and only hinted upon by photographs and souvenirs and words. Every scrap of paper whispered of so much more than you can even begin to remember. Life was there, on that other corner of your mind. And college was more than just a preparation for life. It was life. A big part of life. And its over.

“she runs from the sun of an alien sky
she jumps from the mountain to learn how to fly”

Tonight, my thoughts are collecting; my eyes are wandering over the landscape of the past and thinking of the farewells both real and imagined. Everything in between was something so wonderful that it hurts to write it down. And this was college for me.

thorns

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part 3 Earth

the earth lay still, quiet and waiting
at the tiny drops of blood that flowed

while the wind revolved, unmindful and listening
the hand clasped the thorns with scars that glowed

heaven opened its eyes and looked on
as the palm held on with its last breath

withered, the petals serenaded the coming dawn
knowing too much love and pain brings death.

part 4 Me

i lay for a while dreaming flowers dreams
of thorns and blood that kiss the ground

but i am indoors and nothing is at it seems
so i let the fleeting memories be drowned

if rhyme and reason would wage a war, i thought
i’ll be none the wiser standing in the rain

and if love is suicide, as the sages taught
then i may have lived my life in vain

06.24.2003.2.46.p.m.

fallen angels

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even angels grow tired,
as they go about their merry ways
picking up your broken pieces
trying to make them whole once more

even angels weep,
sometimes they hide behind the clouds
and let the wonderful gloomy rain
wash away their sadness

even angels lose their wings,
they grow weary of waiting for you
to see beyond yourself past the chains
you invent to hide you from what’s true

and yes, even angels have dreams..
they dream of someday finding you
waiting by the door, willing to let them in
free to let them love you..

.
.
.

sometimes, i get tired too…

06.23.2003.7.46.p.m.

tequila nights

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saturday was a drunken soul splitting moment. it was one of those times when you can close your eyes, and hear your heart beating loudly against you chest, and if you breathe real hard, you can feel the stars…

funny how tequila suddenly becomes a hard to find commodity on nights like this =) we had to go to 3 stores and take 2 cab rides just to get a 500ml cuervo, talk about being in demand =)

guitar music and break up songs filled the house while the shot glasses were kept full, guile asked “mahal ka ba nyang talaga?” while matet said: “deep within i’m shaken by the violence of existing for only you,i know i can’t be with you, i do what i have to do”

after much hurling, the show ended, another day was over, four wandering souls looked up to count the artificial stars in my room and fell into the arms of dreamless sleep..

and this is how we make ourselves invincible from pain…

too bright, too fast, too soon

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one last time, hold me
as we watch this crumbling city
fall and become dust beneath our feet
shall we stay? shall we go away?
shall we be the only ones left
standing in this confusion?

we are an epic struggle
six years in the making
we’ve gone past the road signs
onto the wide open fields
where rocks crunch beneath our wheels.
and still we are none the wiser
still lost in between these city streets

and i find myself one more time
calling out to you
but you are nowhere beside me

we are dying embers of a forgotten vision
that once lighted the path of our dreams
we shall go on, as all those who prevail do
but this time on separate roads
the future boundless and magical
as we make more hellos and less goodbyes

tonight, i shall look back one last time
and i shall forget
the feel of your hand
entwined with mine.

06.19.2003.10.05.a.m.

pillow talks

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night shall fall soon
to take you to sleep
bringing you dreams
and whispered promises
cloaked beneath the thin
film of your eyelids

i watch as you lay
so serene, your heart
surrendering to the soft
humming of a light breeze
touching you face
drenched in moonbeams

i love sitting here
beside you as you breathe
for by some lucky chance
you might stretch you arms
and reach for me, and
hold me close to you

tomorrow you’ll leave me
all to soon, without even
a last look, a wave goodbye
i shall lie, a forsaken pillow
waiting for night time
to bring you back to me

6.17.2003.7.51.a.m.