takos

03/24/10

*

The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.

 

 

 

 

—

 

mata

03/18/10

*

 

 

tomorrow, i want to wake up in a slow sailboat in Siquijor, speak in a dialect—new.

like the sound of cracking peanuts under the toes and rustling of sugarcane fields.

and when I set foot on the shore,

i’ll just pick shells and make an anklet, walk through a low tide 

and call my self a new name, tell the fisherman’s wife

i’m going to make breakfast for them.

 

tomorrow, i want to wake up right next to:  the first person who told

me “i love you” and meant it.

 

or

a surfer boy from somewhere else, we’ll just share a big fat joint, sing songs

about dogs sleeping under coco trees and how the sun seeps through their fur

and it could mean eternity: dogs and gods.

 

or

a breastfeeding mother to a first born, ask her if it really tickles or if it

feels like touching her own breasts in front of the mirror when everyone

else is sleeping.

 

or

an old woman painter in an open field Explosions in the Sky concert,

just watching her oil her hands with pastel, 

her wrists moving in many directions, palms textured like the paper.

 

or

beside someone i just met because i had no umbrella under the May rain.

then, we just fell in-love like that, and it felt like hea ring this one song

you haven’t heard for ages and when you listened to it again, your lips

just sing it, soft, free, swift. and you know, how someone’s armpit feels–

suddenly, like, h o m e.

 

 

 

tomorrow, i want to wake up and fall asleep on autumn leaves

wake up, yawning in snow globes—molding a lamp-shaped architecture using snow

wake up, knowing how a flower is most beautiful when it buds in spring

wake up—in a Tahiti summer night, fire dancing like forever.

 

but, i, too,

 

 

want to wake up in our backyard, watching my siblings play with

water and paper sailboats. my parents lie on the sala carpet, talking

in quiet voices about how the kids are growing up fast and awesome

and the Beach Boys is playing from the sound box.

 

want to wake up in my week-long bed sheets just rubbing my toes

on my blanket, having this feeling of not wanting to get up

and the whistling of a kettle like mermern’s falsetto.

 

 

tomorrow, i want to wake up surrounded by my all-time favourite friends

having this grill trip, the smell of barbecue and nostalgia,

the taste of laughter. we’ll sleep in hammocks, swim in lakes and 

talk about sex, music, farewells and childhood.

 

 

tomorrow, i want to wake up and be like everyone else

in their comfort zones, nursing homes, secret nooks and solitary holes–

in a deli where the waitress is hot,

in an old train bound for Renaissance and knows no other way to go back.

 

 

 

or maybe, just wake up starving.

then someone hands me a bubble gum

in an overloaded public bus playing

60s pop songs in the FM and in haze,

i’ll sleep back, sweating, smiling.

 

 

 

.

sugod

03/6/10

*

he told me that he was wondering why i was alone in such a crowded city. i told him i was happy like that, like when i am alone, i have this happy thought of phoning my siblings, that i am inside this red telephone booth and that i know from a distance what their shirt colors are. he was holding these packs of photographs and arranged them according to theme on the coffee table we shared. he’s 26. he likes town plazas and he has been to my hometown’s. his mother is a public school teacher. he hums oldies. when he talked, i could feel that thirst down his stomach: wanting to be listened to, wanting to laugh with someone like me: alone, with mall bags of stuffs (a kiddie pool, printed photos and bargain CDs), who writes in a school notebook silently. 

 

he was trigger-happy. take this— strangers have always been kind to me. i can tell you amazing bus seatmate stories, infront of atm machine random conversations, dispatsadora diaries and so forth. so he was no surprise to me. it’s always like that: strangers tell me something cyanic from their lives. and so this guy told me a lot of things. one, he dreamed of this (meeting someone who wears gypsy skirt somewhere in time and she does not have a face), two—he’d be able to climb Mount Kinabalu and get high for hours crying God is alive and God really burps, and three—he’d Father a boy who shall collect Lego toys and they’ll go sunrise swimming all the time.  four, he likes the smell of clothes being ironed, the smell of the after-rain soil and the smell of old refrigerators. fifth, that he likes his older, more un-physical self now and that he wants to plant more trees with his calloused hands. he asked me a lot but i told him a few:

 

 

that i bought a kiddie pool for my siblings, cousins and neighbors. all kids and kids at heart. P799 for summer glee and giggles and that i am dipping-soaking-swaying my self there for some summer nights. or perhaps, bring a friend and just talk about anything, star-lit…opened parasols.

that if he has spare time he can take the bus with me one day and just watch the earth move from the windows, that i like the idea of all the seas and fishponds far from the highway and all you can see when you gaze outside,  is a line of blue and a burst of light.

that we will have classes again. that there are kids wanting to be like him: alive, sad sometimes, sunny, art-inspired,  dreamy, dawning and that there are young people like us who believe that to bring change does not mean to be a complete martyr. you can still be your cool, kick-ass, quirky self while molding better changes for others.

 

that i miss TEY. and that he reminded me of the last day i walked with him in Dumaguete as we exchanged thoughts on walking unfamiliar streets. ah, him, the Incendiary. that they have the same smile, but his is more fragile.

that i work from home. inside this walls that felt so open, un-roofed. that there is a jetmatic pump near where i sleep and i love listening to it guessing who’s fetching water. laughing inside when i make wrong guesses.

 

**

 that i have been listening to them lately before i meet him that day—

 

 

 

***

 

he gave me a pack of Vegetarian chicharon and an old necklace. i gave him a poem from my notebook which he picked by random page scanning. the last message i got from him today is this:

 

“funny how this old woman at the airport reminded me of you, tin. she’s reading this novel turned movie. have you watched Wristcutters?”

 

i told him, yes and that i was inside a pet shop—feeling this tiny guilt of thinking that all the caged animals were so beautiful that very moment.

 

.

pahuway

02/28/10

*

This is you. Eyes closed, out in the rain. You never thought you’d be doing something like this, you never saw yourself as, I don’t know how you’d describe it… Is like one of those people who like looking up at the moon, who spend hours gazing at the waves or the sunset or… I guess you know the kind of people I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t. Anyway, you kind of like being like this, fighting the cold, feeling the water seep through your shirt and getting through your skin. And the feel of the ground growing soft beneath your feet. And the smell. And the sound of the rain hitting the leaves. All the things they talked about in the books you haven’t read. This is you, who would have guessed it? You. 

-Ann, My Life Without Me-

 

 

 

 

Removing my black high-heeled shoes, I stood proud on the old bench, a foot higher than all those shining hair. “The family would like to thank everyone for being with us. The huge number is so overwhelming. We hope that the life of Lola would inspire us all to live simple and meaningful.” It was the shortest speech I have ever spoken. The brevity felt so long and slow between my lips, it felt like a quiet day at the cemetery and hyacinths were tiptoeing, one with the sun. When I wore my shoes back, I felt better. My Lola Eting is the most determined woman I have ever known. Lolo Erning passed away leaving her with 12 children, the youngest was just 9 months young that time. I belong to a happy, hardworking, humble and giving family. This is something I will always cherish about the humanity. Humanity sometimes bore me but my family is one parcel that makes me miss it whenever I withdraw. She’s mother to domestic helpers, public market vendors and a bum. when I was in elementary, Nanay sent me to a Catholic school. One time, a teacher talked about disapproval to Filipinas turning into domestic helpers abroad. I had this raging feeling of rebellion inside my heart. It was a pain I never felt again when I began to understand more. Nanay was a domestic helper for a decade. I am never ashamed of that. Just as much as I proudly recited in class opposing to my teacher’s words. Until now, I could still paint the paleness of her face when I began to tell her how judgmental the society is. I spoke about respect and poverty in the stomach and the spirit. That teacher has never forgotten me. YES.

 

When I got home, I ran to Lola and told her about it. She laughed. She was always like that: industrious, happy, dignified and sarcastic.

 

**

 

When friends ask me who my favorite author is, I cannot give a name. I read randomly and I am not a fan of any book for that matter. This is also the reason why I will never stomach calling my self a poet or a writer. But one thing is certain, all these scribbles here, I wrote because of the many feelings I get when I listen to music. So if in case you’re wondering what moves me, you may try listening to Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, Helios, Mogwai, God is an Astronaut, Hammock, Memphis, Beirut, Bexar Bexar, UnderByen, Eluvium, 65 days of static, Boards of Canada and Mono. These, the sound of nature and the earth, or complete silence make me write (by writing I REALLY mean not merely to impress readers).

 

 

 

**

 

by the way, if you haven’t tried hugging your self or talking to a mute or making a stranger smile, GO DO IT. 

 

.

agbay

02/18/10

*

 

 

 

 Zarraga to Pavia, sublime. Hours ago, i have witnessed the best sunset-to-dusk of my life so far. pink, tangerine and lilac. the crescent was above the colors and i thought i could just freeze there. or maybe, even, yes, d i e at that very moment. there is something painful about the idea of infinity (i have believed it does not exist but i love questioning my own beliefs sometimes). gazing from the window of the moving vehicle made me think of a lot of things, it was a kind of mental rise that felt so high and ecstatic. series of memories ran in haste, some blurry, some selectively distorted and the rest passed by fleeting and foaming. 

 

there were no sighs. no near-to-breathlessness-human-gestures. it was like first breath after a coma— like you’re lying on the hospital bed seeing these vague figures of faces looking down in tears for your return. and then, you are reminded of God and he’s standing near this basket full of oranges and bananas, peeling lemons slowly. and in a wink of an eye, you are stuck with the thought that your body is perfect because your eyebrows hold all the dusts away from your eyes. 

 

–

 

have i ever mentioned about what i do for a living in this blog? suddenly, it occured to me that i never had a post about my jobs. actually, i’ve been having this cute talks with my Nanay lately. she’s been so disheartened about my choices involving career, post-grad and future in-laws. she has been vocal about me seeking greener pastures outside the archipelago, earning a title before my name and ending up with *insert name here*.

 

i have never heard her complain these recent days. when she sees me getting my earphones ready for my morning jog to the greens, highway and the sea, she’d remind me to bring more water. the funny thing is, i told her one time that i am following this to-do list: send my sibs to school for the social experience. share to them what a little achievement of the day is. make my Tatay feel that he is at home. buy the right fresh milk for the corn flakes. live tiny but filling. drink more water.

 

then, humble her like how dead stars are

to this

manygalaxies-bearing sky.

 

 

Nay, it just so happened that i don’t label dreams, that in my own sphere of humanity and imagination, my aspirations have no name tags. sorry if i tend to disappoint you with our differences but my silence about the future does not mean my lack of dreams.

 

.