“What is the worst feeling in the world?”, I asked Essa last Sunday when she dropped by the pad after a week long vacation from the toxic city life. “Guilt and helplessness”, she replied. I pondered a little and considered her answer, then she flipped the question back to me. “Betrayal”, I said without hesitation as I looked away. “Is that why you haven’t been eating and sleeping for the past days?”. I stared blankly and stayed silent.
Author Archives: poeticnook
Mauled in Makati
Sometimes I do something stupid that makes me still shake my head in disbelief when I recall it a few days, weeks, months or years later. This tale is one of those.
I was heading back to the apartment after watching the last full show with Ri and Gia when it started to rain so I took out the umbrella that Ri lent (I never liked umbrellas). I heard my phone beeping from a text message received, probably my roommate asking what time I’ll be home, but I didn’t want to take it out to check.
Our condominium was just across the street from the mall and I could have crossed it in 2 minutes but some guy put his arm on my shoulder and an ice pick on my side then said:
“Give me your cellphone or I’ll stab you”
I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe I thought it was a joke or a prank by someone I know but I replied:
“Ok, go ahead, stab me”
The guy probably couldn’t believe his ears, maybe he thought I was deaf or stupid or both so he repeated his script:
“I said give me your phone or I’ll stab you!!!”
At this point I knew I was gonna get stabbed for real anyway whether I give up the phone or not, maybe I should have given him the phone, hit him with the umbrella or ran away screening but instead I just said:
“Stab me, what are you waiting for?”
Was it shock or a death wish or my logic just fell off my head? I don’t recall but I saw a policeman on the other side of the street and I started saying:
“Oh there’s a policeman! Help!”
Then the guy and I both started to run in opposite directions. I went inside the condominium and took the elevator straight to my pad. I explained what happened to my roommate and I called my mom and dad. I later realized my hand and my sides were bleeding so I took a shower and decided to sleep it off despite warnings that I should go to the ER and get anti-tetanus shots. I could be extremely stupid and stubborn at the same time I know 🙂
The next day I recounted my story to my workmates and Ri warned me that one of her cousins died of tetanus within 24 hours after his leg was scratched by a metal object while wading in the flood.
I started researching for tetanus symptoms since I was feeling slightly feverish and decided I would make an ugly corpse with a lockjaw so I proceeded to the hospital and lined up at emergency room.
After I told the doctor what happened, she reprimanded me for not going there sooner. I had a few X-rays on my hand to make sure there were no fractures and I also filed a police report which later resulted to more guards and lights in the area.
So the lesson of the story is this: always keep your phone on silent mode. 🙂
brighter than sunshine
“in order to be happy now, I should own myself up to the possibility that I might one day be sad. I should accept the reality that there might not be anyone for me, at least I could get on with the rest of my life without having to think about that *missing* part.”
– the real cancun
wordplay
There is always something to chronicle when there’s absolutely nothing going on in your life. You can ramble on about the mundanity of everyday existence, the lack of things to do, places to go, or people to talk to. The void of not being in a relationship or the nuance in belonging to one, the absence of time or money or energy to accomplish something – these are but a few of the subjects one can use as an excuse to fill up space with more nonsense, as if the world listens or notices. But it doesn’t matter, it’s just a release. Writing something down behind the anonymity of blogs fills this need of expressing yourself and being heard. It deceives you into believing that someone somewhere actually cares.
I’ve read and seen a lot of ways on how to cope up with building frustration, Paulo Coelho suggests that you write it down on paper then let it be swept away by the waves of the River Piedra. I can just imagine the tons of trash filling that site if all people follow his advice. Nicholas Sparks offers that throwing a letter inside an empty wine bottle to the vast ocean would do the trick, this could be a romantic way of finding true love and yet that’s sacrilege to the marine ecosystem. Wong Kar Wai proposes finding a tree with a big hole and shouting all your secrets in there. This sounds like a plan, very environment friendly and all it entails is a map of the hundred acre wood and a pair of trusty hiking boots. But being the lazy lump of lard that I am, I prefer Lilo’s way of screaming everything on a pillow. All my huggable fluffy headrest are now certified deaf from this activity. My throat also aches and all I can do is drink hot tea and whisper to make it more bearable. Why do we punish ourselves like this? Are we addicted to pain?
On and on
She just keeps on trying
And she smiles when she feels like crying
On and on,
– On and On, Stephen Bishop –
Back to reality, I have job interviews left and right, something to stimulate the logic in me. thank God!
the future is bleak
Two years ago I got a heart torn in two, with the intent of giving the other half to someone who wanted to share it with me. I wore it for a month or so till my skin erupted and my body rejected the idea of ever parting with half of my treasure. Last Saturday while Yuck and I were moving things and cleaning up the new flat, I found my rusty heart and decided to use it again. I drowned it in a strong chemical that wiped away all the blackness, it now looks good as new, but it’s still broken, after all, that’s how it always was to begin with.
Tonight, the rain is pouring hard and I’m looking forward to walking home drenched and soaked in heaven’s tears. Why can’t time just stop for a while and take me back to that happy place? The windows at my new room doesn’t have a view of the sky, I can’t seem to hear the laughter of the stars from where I stand, are they still there?
Maybe I should take the Osaka route soon to get away from all this sadness..
the day i lost to shadows
Argh! How could I forget a friend’s birthday? Probably old age hehe =) or I can blame it on the liquor, research says they kill your brain cells, and God knows how much of that potent stuff I’ve consumed this month.
Here’s something I wrote to commemmorate my forgetfulness:
you were forgotten
for a day i lost your name
among the shallow torments
of my wandering mind
it must have been fate
who opted to shroud you
in some distant corner
obscured from my sight
today chance reminded me
of what i’ve overlooked
i unveiled my transgression
yesterday is always too late
08.30.2006.5:43.p.m.
i need answers
how do we measure the distance between raindrops?
how do we draw a line between love and pain?
how do we go one road and then travel another?
how do we cry our hearts out, then smile again?
how do we find what we’ve once lost?
how do we forget what we shouldn’t remember?
how do we see blue skies when the clouds are grey?
how do we say yes when we have to say never?
how do we make an apt end to what we’ve started?
how do we deny to the world what we really feel?
how do we know when to give up and say it’s over?
how do we decide what is and isn’t real?
08.28.2006.5.56.p.m.
maybe tomorrow
There’s a voice that keeps on calling me
Down the road is where I’ll always be
Littlest Hobo was my favorite Saturday morning tv program when i was a kid. It’s a show about an alsatian dog that travels cross country and helps each people he meets along the way. He never lets those people make him their pet, so after each episode you see him running off again to some other place.
Every stop I make, I’ll make a new friend
Can’t stay for long, just turn around and I’m gone again.
This morning I woke up with an urgency to pack my stuff into boxes. I received news that my roommate (who is currently on vacation) may be moving out soon, the lease for our flat is expiring in two months (the owner is selling the unit), the dust under the table is accumulating, the unread books and unwatched dvds are collecting cobwebs – these thoughts cluttered my head until I felt that I had to do something or else I’d go crazy. I don’t know why I had to do it today though, after all I was just lazying around all weekend and I still got eight weeks right? I guess that just proves how obsessive compulsive I can be sometimes.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.
Every time I’m leaving for some place and packing my bags, I can’t help but remember this hobo theme song. I’ve lived in many different houses that were never really home to me, only temporary refuge and parking space for my clothes, but still I haven’t mastered the art of throwing away things that are of no use to me anymore. How did I ever accumulate all these tiny irrelevant trinkets? I moved back to this city two years ago with a trolley bag and a knapsack, now I need more than 5 boxes for all my collected junk.
Down this road, that never seems to end,
Where new adventure, lies just around the bend.
Perhaps there was a time when they used to mean something, but now they’re nothing but nuances to my otherwise hapless existence. I should really stop buying more trash from the store. I’ll just have to remind myself that I’m a wanderer, I should travel light, I can’t have all those baggage weigh me down, or else I’ll just be stuck in one place for so long and grow roots. And I can’t do that.. I tried once, but I just can’t.
So if you want to join me for a while
Just grab your hat, come travel light – that’s hobo style.
Last night I had dinner with an old friend. He’s the kind who comes and goes and never really stays. We’ve been neighbors for 24 months, but we only saw each other yesterday, incidentally, his lease is expiring in a week and he must move out soon too. He doesn’t need to find a new place though since he will be going out of the country for a while, he’ll just leave his personal belongings at his folks’. Now that’s what I call convenience, I wish my parents had a house where I can leave my stuff, but sadly, they’re hobos too, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, the whole world is my home.
– Maybe Tomorrow (Terry Rush) –
sobriety
I first met Jose Cuervo when I was 17, it was my roommate’s 18th birthday and we had a house party going on. Before the night ended, I downed 17 shots, and the rest of the pre-med batch were reduced to blubbering half wits. One was crying her heart out, another was playing the guitar and singing tunes off-key, the rest were either knocked out or puking at the washroom. Peps was still sober, she wanted to go out and buy 2 more liters of our chosen poison, and so we did.
“Why do you drink a lot?”, I think I asked her that in between gulps of fresh air as we searched the town for an open liquor shop.
“I just want to know how it feels to be really really drunk”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know, it’s a license to do something stupid. Maybe I’ll do something stupid then. It’s so overrated to be always in control, you know. Why aren’t you drunk yet?”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m not allowed to do something stupid.”
We do this weird ritual whenever we have a party with JC. We would take small pieces of paper then write anything there – why we wanted to get drunk, who we hated, who we loved, who we wanted to ask forgiveness from, and other things like that. Then we would roll those tiny sheets and drop them inside the empty bottle. We’d write the date and it will be like some time capsule that we would keep for posterity.
August 14. Dear M. This is my initiation to the inebriated society. I might like it here. I might stay a while. Maybe I’ll even earn that license to do something stupid someday, but for now, I just can’t understand, for the life of me, why you left me like that. Please teach me how to let you go, I just can’t do it when I’m sane and sober.
Since then, JC became my best friend. I would find myself lost in a bottle even before sundown. When I’ve had one too many shots, everything becomes more clear. I can’t understand why people say they forget everything, on the contrary, I remember every detail. I can hear even the most minute sound, and sometimes I feel that if I really try, I could get out of my body, look at myself from the outside. and say: “Hey! Why are you doing this to yourself? You can’t let one person affect you that much. There’s a whole unexplored universe out there, get over it already.” Then everything would be calm and quiet, my heart would stop hurting, my stomach would stop that queasy feeling it gets when you learn that someone whom you thought loved you, has betrayed you and walked all over you. Yes, everything stops when the shots start overflowing, the moment is freeze framed and I don’t feel so lost anymore, I could forget that the rest of the world is moving on while I’m stuck in a moment.
Yesterday, Zet and I were talking about sobriety and how I can’t remember when I last drowned myself in tequila and vodka ice. I checked my calendar last night and it was 38 weeks ago, the scars I got from that experience hasn’t completely healed. No, I guess time isn’t that fast a healer, and yes, I did earn my stupidity license, but that’s another story.
independence day
Last week was a series of resets and deletions in my life. I woke up and found out that my nano’s forward button isn’t working, I tried a reset but it wouldn’t respond. So I decided to bring it to the Apple Center for repair or replacement. The attendant took one look then erased everything! In 5 seconds my 2 gb worth of songs, photos, ebooks, and contacts were all gone! I walked out in a state of shock. She should have told me first that all i needed to do was reformat the drive and update the software to fix the problem, I could have done that myself and backup my songs too. what great customer service! She should be hit by a meteor rock from outer space (so Smallville!).
When I arrived home, I took out my Clie from the drawer, intending to update my expenses but lo and behold! It wouldn’t turned on! What is happening to my gadgets?! Turned out the battery went empty and all my data got wiped clean. Boohoo!
I guess this day is teaching me some hard realities about stuff. Sometimes things just disappear without warning, and you can never be fully prepared for that, but you have to accept it. You can’t just stay stuck in the I’m – so – shocked – I – can’t – believe – this – is – happening – to – me – What – have – I – done – to – deserve – this state. Sooner or later you will have to pick up the pieces and rebuild what can still be fixed. Of course, we shouldn’t forget the lessons, that’s the best part about making mistakes, we learn how to prevent making the same ones again.
As for me, I’ll move on, tomorrow I’ll take out all my CDs again and rip all the songs back to my ipod, then I’ll reinstall all the PDA apps that I need, and this time I won’t forget to charge everyday.