idlak

11/23/09

*

 

 image by Tin Lorico

 

 

reminders that the ocean and the sky are one.

 

that’s why we always cling to dreams because one day, we’ll be stars that can turn into wide-eyed sea creatures. nights ago, we revisited our fears. the fear of carousels,your fear of holding infants because they feel too small and fragile as wine glasses. my fear of marriage and the way how choreographed weddings are. erotic art for you spells d-is-c-om-for-t. i always jot down notes about the difference between nude and naked—tell random strangers that looking at themselves without any fabric infront of the mirror is a life coach’s way of self-esteem. you fear mascots, and i have been looking for the phobia term for that. i fear stray dogs but you know by heart that i think there is a need to get astray sometimes.

 when we press our hands against each other we think of wishing stars.(also) the waning moon that has been watching us walk under it, its cape flowing and twirling around our thighs, so soft and silky. we feel like walking on clouds. you told me once that you love your mother that much. i nodded. i reckon if most people in the world feels the same way, oh what a better world this could have been. i wrote your name next to Efren Penaflorida’s an afternoon ago. it was just something i thought of that made me smile. i guess, i am glad and flat-awed like that.

i bought a world map when i visited the old novelty store near our house. i used to like Geography that much. i was 8 when i spent hours thinking why the Libyan flag is all-green. well, i’ll take you to Nicaragua though you have been so vocal about your want to breathe autumn. we’ll shine each other’s combat boots, and at night we’ll drive around the vast soil of wilderness. silently, we’ll feel the flowing river beside the highway. i’ll pass you the bottle of vodka. and for once, the stars will look like carps and mudfishes. 

 

we’re fearless. and in the morning, we’ll bathe with clothes on, drive home with the same clothes and never feel alone without even saying i love you.

 

 

because the only moment we were alone made us complete though not whole. at least.

 

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piphi

11/19/09

*

 

 

 Kath’s  capture

 

we can talk about breasts that sag, an old woman bathing at 3pm and she touches her nipples like dimples of her grandchild. old and hopeful. we can, talk about, lust. lust for departures and rolling stores. rock and roll damnation and the artsy feeling you have when you urinate. we may not agree on a lot of things. like Vonnegut and Amelia Earhart, bananaque and lasagna, atheism and thrift shops. sometimes, you feel like the city where you grow up. you brace change so fast that sometimes the ancestral houses and the attics weep on your toes. most of the time you, call me beautiful especially when i open my eyes, rub them like a little boy and grin with my hair erecting like morning stalls on the sidewalks. one day, we promised to live by the sea. we will visit the capital on Sundays and teach kids. You promised to cook arroz caldo, i pledged to boil the eggs. as you know, i am great at boiling…eggs. 

 

there is politics in your sleep. i stare at you for hours and walk around greek city states, touching the bricks with my hands. when i told you about how i really like looking back, you answered me:

 

“it is because you cried when you felt like crying, 

when you felt like falling in-love, you did too.

you left when you had to.

you danced and leaped in the rain.”

 

 

 

you smiled when i told you that i sobbed over that defeated boxer. i sobbed when his son hugged him, he was beaten and wounded. then you whispered, “it’s like that.”

 

maybe, the world does not know you that well. for the rest, you are a secret that tickles their fancy. but i am glad i know you. you are alive and you believe in love.

 

 

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alsa

11/16/09

*

 

 

because Kimay’s beautiful

 

“when was last time it was toughest for you to let go?”, you asked, your eyebrows were ebonies, eyeballs shivered like you wanted to hear something that could hurt you.  i am fond of how composed you are. you are no god and i like you that way. when you are jealous and intimidated, the colors of your cheeks mimic snowfall. the kind of pale that i haven’t seen for real but i have felt—always. there is truth in your timid hands, like how you wanted to wrap them on my shoulder but you’d settle to touch my sleeve a bit and smile oh-so-sweet-and-beaming, walk me under lamp posts. i am so into your cowardice. it is the kind that flips everything then suddenly, feels brave.

 

perhaps, you’re the boldest thing that life has offered me. simply skin-wrapped, real, scarred by the years. life with you is not the worm wiggling-dangling in a fish hook, it is the toes that dangle- waiting, wailing, then the sun sets and i no longer look forward to the biggest catch. (fatter or fattest)

 

and to answer your question, i never had trouble with letting go. i admit, these solemarks i carry were caused by the struggle i had with some half-shut knobless doors. but be reminded that i have remained defiant and mighty because i know you’d arrive and that the moment you are right beside me, it will be against gravity. a rise rather than a downfall. blown dandelions. evaporation. unseen mist—  

 

  

fallen Isaac Newton and a line of growing wild weeds holding their heels up dancing for the wind.

 

 

ξ 

gugma

11/4/09

*

I’ll write about LOVE in the forms of these:

 

* that I need not go to an expensive resort to feel wealthy. look at this, this is my view of wealth:  

 

 

* that to enrich my self, i need to: listen more. appreciate more. plant a vegetable or a tree. laugh with my self more instead of whining OR blogging about what i ate for bfast-lunch-dinner, blogging about my fancy clothes and how i campaign for beauty and wellness by being so superficial.

 

* that pinoy music is beautfiul like this 

 

 

* that not being able to speak English as slang as you can does not make you stupid. that bringing out the best in you does not necessarily mean racing with the social stigma of “sosyal”, “kikay”, “class” and “pllloooweent”

 

* that you can always earn a life and a living all at the same time. that you are dignified because you create. that you can be the best farmer, the best policeman, the best teacher, the best balut vendor in your own mighty right.

  

 

 

 

*  that i have to make the best out of who i am not just for my self and for now but also for them

 

photo from Definitely Pinoy

 

 

* that you need not cry over failed whitening creams and formulas because you are not your complexion.

that you can always convert your social networking energies into something that does not make the rest feel ugly, fat, feeble-minded and S T R E S S E D.  oh and that there is no redemption in self-righteousness. haha.

 

* that 

 

 

* that today is a beautiful day. that my family keeps me both sane and madly alive. that i am thankful to the panadero for my breakfast. that i am still here, i am going to sit near the jetmatic pump, listen to the sound of asayte between its joints as someone gets water and  that today, i have no heaviness in my heart. that don’t mind if i have no alarm clock. that there is someone who makes me feel like parasols, kites, black and white movies and train rides.

 

* that you remind me of stories and the beauty in reading randomly.

.

buskag

10/26/09

 

*

the beautiful things that surround me:

 

1)

 

 

2)

 

manong alog

who does not mind the pierce of the sun at the terminal as a dispatser-drayber

who sends all his kids to school

who loves his wife as if they fell in-love for the first time, yesterday

who does not fail to smile at strangers

who reminds me the dignity of man. the dignity of a pinoy.

 

3)

  

 

4)

 

Mel and other ilonggo literary artists who are keeping the madness and magic flaming.

November 6th is going to be the Spoken Word Gig.

I’d be reading a poem. I’d be freeing feathers and view of the sky from puddles.

 

5)

Helping Ondoy victims by Tian

   

RockEd and Singgit

 

6)

 

lives that fell in your way, touch yours, touch theirs

 

unguarded laughters that make you smile in solitary reminiscence

 

7)

“There’s Tin who bikes around town and kicks tire swings for a living. She communes with the stars and the sea, and writes the most amazing things ever.”

- Chin, the Nevergirl

“Tin’s words will accompany my photos during the exhibit. Thank you, Tin. You know how much I love your soulful writing.”

-Aileen, the lightchaser

 

8)

 

 

 

 

 

9)

 

wedding songs.

 

 

10)

Nanay’s hip sms and the way she shortcut words like wer kna and miz u

Tatay’s semi-hang shirts and his Taylor Swift whistles

Lolo and Lola at 80 plus, still smiling together. him,  sharp though deaf. her, adorable though blind.

sincere hugs. bus seatmates. streetfood. catching up after years. 

 

and

 

this, that when glanced at, you’ll see the most beautiful person i know ♥

(pls click)

 

 

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