Realizations Day 1

Sometimes, you do things even if you don't know why you're doing it. Sometimes you stop and wonder on how you manage to keep on going even if it takes a whole lot from you: time, energy, money, almost everything.

Sometimes you wish you could just exert the same effort unto other things, but no matter how hard you try, you just can't.

Oh well. I guess it isn't meant to be.

Part of the Family

Today, my family and I went to Bulacan since it was my cousin Diane's birthday last Wednesday. We also took the time to visit since it was like forever since we last ate in our Tita Nene's hut kitchen. Iyhan, a good friend of mine, always visits us during weekends and spends his days in our place until early Tuesday mornings, when he needs to go to work. Meaning Iyhan tagged along to our family's trip back to my ancestral home.

I actually felt uneasy with him going with us. I don't know why, but maybe it was because of the sharp, cynical, but secretive eyes my relatives in Bulacan make when faced with strangers.

While eating lunch fit for a princess, Ate introduced Iyhan to Tita Nene.

Si Iyhan, classmate ni Rudolf. Parang pamilya na namin yan!

That made my day.

In Between

There are some things you really can't understand, no matter how hard you try to. I don't know. Maybe it's just me being afraid and getting worried about something I just imagined. You try to be as neutral as possible, but the truth is, no matter how neutral you think you are, you are still holding onto something you just won't let go.

Friendship is such a fragile thing. But isn't friendship something that will stand the tests of time and the blows of the steel?

I am confused. I am worried that I am confused because I don't know if it is right to be worried.


The complexities of life suck bad. It just rapes face.



Andito lang ako para sa inyong dalawa. I hope both of you know that.

Rains

Up until now, I still can't seem to write nonchalantly as before. I don't know. I guess I'm just too preoccupied with a lot of things. My attention is tossed to and fro with meter-high waves in the stormy seas of my head. I don't know if I'm just overcomplicating things for myself. And if I am, I wish that I'm just complicating things for myself, and not for a whole lot of people.

Things haven't changed, I still think I spread myself too thinly over too many things. But I guess what's keeping me from writing here is the fact that I want to write something substantial; an entry which feelings and emotions will still be recognizable after a year or so.

I write for my own sake. I blog to keep memories alive; like water trickling down ever so slowly to keep a plant alive. Water is the source of all life in this world. Rain is a gift from the heavens for a sunflower that is desperate for water, however



too much water can drown a plant as well.

Tatay, Miss na Kita

Why is it that you'll never know how important a person is to you until they're gone? Even if you know someone is important in your life, you will never really measure, if it is measurable, how valuable a person is to you. Is someone's worth measured by how frequently and how intense your longing is for that person? Is it a sign that a person is most dear to you if you yearn for their presence?

Today is Tatay's 12th death anniversary. He passed away when I was nine years old. He was fondly called Toyo by my family since almost always, he had those unexplainable fits -- toyo. I remember the same spot where I cried when we received the news on his passing. Nanay and I mourned as we gently gave him our flowers as he descended to the earth, to the arms of our loving creator. I remember the cloudy day of August 3, 1997, a day when a light drizzle became a heavy, short shower. It was a day when I saw Nanay cry silently as she looked up the sky and bade Tatay a final, endearing farewell.

Twelve years ago, I lost the person whom I called my father.

I lost the person I sought refuge to after a day full of teases and tears. I lost the person whom I told all my little victories, the small times I conquered the seas of my insecurites in my simple life back then. Twelve years ago, I lost a part of myself, never to be returned forever.

Here I am, standing incomplete under all the realities of life.

Tatay may no longer be here, but he'll be forever the one and only tatay for the rest of my life.


Tatay, masaya ka ba sa kung naging ano ako ngayon?
I love you Tatay. Sana masaya ka na ngayong magkasama na kayo ulit ni Nanay.

Busy Again

Things are getting tougher. Deadlines are getting nearer and nearer. People are getting busier and busier

including me.


Sigh.

How I miss my life free from responsibilities.
How I miss substantial blogging.
How I miss someone.

Busy

One thing I can say: being a senior isn't easy.

I have a lot of things to do. That's all I've been saying for the past two weeks. It's hard to balance academics from org life.

I need to compromise things, and unfortunately, my blog is one of those unlucky little parts of my life which I need to set aside in order to make my dreams of a nice future come to fruition, one small step at a time. Each and every day seems like a whole week. Two weeks have passed, but it feels that a whole semester just elapsed. I lose track of the ideas that come to my mind because I'm too occupied to even just think of something to write. I don't know. Right now, I'm living off the nice feeling whenever you cross out something out of your epic to-do list.

Sigh. Last two semesters to go.

I feel sad that the end is already so visible, but I'm happy because I made friendships that I know will last seven lifetimes.

Tired, so tired. But I'm happy with what I have.

Clock Strikes Twenty One - Late by Forty-Eight

Clock Strikes Twenty - Late by Forty-Eight

It was then that a streak of light different from all the rest appeared. It was a familiar spectacle, at least to my eyes. I kept on trying to remember what that was, and after a moment's pause and a skipped heartbeat, I remembered it. I stood my ground and tried to undo the damage the darkness was dealing me.

I remembered the patch of sunshine made for one.

I remembered the time when two hearts beat as one.

In that star of hope, might, and strength, I saw the one and only truth that I was searching for. The midnight ocean was not the evening sky, but were the windows of my eyes. Deep inside my eyes filled with tears of sadness and strength, I saw everything important in the thing I call life.

The clock struck nineteen. I am still not ready.

The clock struck twenty. I'm slowly getting there.


The clock strikes twenty-one, and everything went wrong. Everything, except one. As I search all that what was left, that single memory that remained precious slipped from my weakened grip, to be lost in the endless wait of forever.

I know I will meet you someday, somewhere, some place.


Please wait for me.

Borrowed Time Still Fabricates Reality (A Prelude to Clock Strikes Twenty One)

Borrowed time fabricates reality.

My heart begins to beat quicker. The heart of the world begins to beat quicker with the harmony of the waves gently crashing into the shores carrying the sands of time. If we could live for an eternity, the meaning of life will not be searched by lost souls. Life, as we know it, is just humans trying to know who they are, what have they become, and what they will become. Life is the infinite tessellation of the relationships of people in search for the meaning of their existence; the reason why time is just lent to them, and not given to them.

Another year passes by. Age doesn't matter, it's how you live your life.



Well at least for me, it still does.

Three Hundred Minus One Hundred Eighty Four

A man is welding an iron rod on the tenth floor of the building adjacent to our office. Before he got there, he precariously lowered his rickety carriage by the complex systems of ropes and pulleys. Even with the semi-soundproof panes of the office and the headset owning my right ear, I still heard the complaints of the pulleys as it stressed itself in its task of lowering the man to safety. The creaks of the wooden planks managed to defy all the obstructions between its lofty, outside position to my ear sitting prettily inside the ninth floor of the opposite building. The sheer height of the tenth floor coupled with the crass battering of the wind to the man's body made me wonder if that man clad in his welder's mask is happy with what he's doing. I wonder if he feels safe in being tied to a safety line which does not look sturdy at all. I wonder if his knees buckle and freeze whenever he is raised to even higher heights. I wonder if he's really willing to risk life and limb in doing his job.

I wonder if all that risk is worth taking. I wonder if he's doing the right thing.



I wonder if I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.



---
Three hundred minus one hundred eighty four equals one hundred sixteen.

The Blind (Leading the Blind)

After failing to accomplish or even start the related literature of our thesis, I went home from the ninth floor with a heavy weight burdening my eyes. My pupils were dilating erratically as I ran along the peaceful street of Upper McKinley. My reaction was to squint my eyes as the dimly lit afternoon was too much a bright spectacle for my sleep-deprived eyes to handle. It was almost half past five, but luckily, I still managed to catch the bus that would bring me back to the bustling station in Ayala. As soon as my back laid rest on my seat at the very rear of the vehicle, all my notions of consciousness went to the gnarled hands of the sandman, even if my lower back complained because of the frigid wisps of air that numbed my upper back.

Awakened by the noisy steps of the other passengers wanting to go home, my eyes suffered another case of photosensitivity. My eyes could not bear how bright the fluorescent lights installed in the bus seemed to be. My forehead wrinkled like poor velvet as I crumpled my eyes to deter any more light from blinding my tired eyes. But after a few minutes, my eyes regained composure. My face slowly straightened out to its normal, expressionless look. All the emotions of my face seemed to have been sapped by the tired appearance of my eyes. I could barely open my eyes to see if the train was packed with people or not. After squinting for the tenth time, it dawned in me that I was already inside the train, standing under another blast of air-conditioning comparable to that of a fourth of how cold it was in the arctic. A friend of mine told me that before. How I wish that he's still my friend until now, but there's no point in sulking on something already in the distant past.

As soon as the doors of the train opened in Cubao, the masses poured out like a tidal wave breaking the most impenetrable door. The people flushed themselves out of the chaos inside to the chaos outside. Sweat saturated the six-thirty air as people drenched in their own and someone else's sweat wiped their faces with whatever they had handy. I slowly treaded the stairs and avoided the weird heat emanating from the people clogging the way.

For the very first time, my eyes breathed a big sigh of relief as the stairs were dark and gloomy. Apparently, the fluorescent lamp died out.

I climbed down and waited for a bus to take me home while keeping the darkness from that flight of stairs with me. I am tired of seeing the same things over and over and over again. I am wearing out of seeing what other people don't see, and from seeing things that I do not want to see.

Sometimes, I just want to get blind and live in the darkness of the night. Sometimes, I want to see nothing else but an infinite ebony sky; without stars, without hopes. Sometimes, I yearn to go back in time and remain under a starless night, forever wishing that my dreams would be carried across the sky.

It was just a short time until I found myself standing to alight the bus. However, the man in front of me was slowly walking his way towards the exit. He didn't look old or lame, but the conductor and the other passengers on board kept assisting him.

He was blind.

I helped him alight the bus since he was in front of me. It was then that he asked me with an unsure voice if I would be willing to be his eyes until he catches a tricycle home.

Opo naman, kuya.

He placed his hands on my tired shoulders. His hand felt distracting, but at the same time relieving. Each and every step of his was a small victory in my sight. Each obstacle we overcame was a deep relief on my part. I held his hand on my shoulder and told him that we were almost there. I did not let go of his calloused hand until he was carefully climbing the tricycle to bring him home.

As I walked another distance, my shoulder felt light. The blind man was no longer holding it. Each and every step I took meant nothing, and each obstacle I avoided gave me no relief. I placed my hand on my shoulder and felt an emptiness: nothing was there but the strap of my bag.

It was about that time that everything became clear. Or did it?



(Three hundred minus eighty-eight equals two hundred twelve.)

Monotony

I have something to say about this, but I'm just not really up to it. I'm tired of all the HR people who schedule you for an interview and not show up on the scheduled date and time.

What a waste of effort.

Kapuso (Part III? Not Really)

My day became boggled when I learned that I needed to call KFC and Mister Donut Philippines to confirm my interest in continuing my application for internship in their comapany. I did not sleep during the night -- my plan was to call as soon as they were available, 9:00am, set my appointment later that day, then go to sleep and wake up a two hours before my scheduled exam and interview. I groggily dialed their number, and after a few rings, a man answered the phone. A series of questions and answers followed, and after a few redirections of the line, I was left with the hassled feeling of the need to come in business attire and the need to aquire Ma'am Jess' signatures for the documents the company was requesting from me. Half past ten, I suddenly became even more pressured as Ma'am Jess announced that the department was only open up until noon. I rushed to print my resume, endorsement, and recommendation. Time was running short, too short that if I failed to arrive at Katipunan at twelve, not only would I fail to get the signatures, but I will probably bomb my chances of entering the company as I will be coming there with incomplete documents. After barely being touched by my soap in a very crude bath, I searched for my slacks, only to find its pockets still stitched after working in Robinsons Supermarket Marikina as a bagger. Getting a sharp object lying in my parent's bedroom, I passed it through the thread that bound the pockets and set them free again to hold my phone, wallet, handkerchief, and rosary. After getting dressed, I fumbled in opening the box of my leather shoes, the same shoes that I wore the previous day. As I wore the shoes, I remembered how cumbersome my feet felt. But the man said to come in business attire, so I didn't have any other choice.

Good thing Mamie was supportive enough that she all the way to Leong Hall, a few meters away where Ma'am Jess was waiting. And the heat started to make my back trickle with beads of sweat as soon as I left the cold air-conditioning provided by our car.

Putang ina naman ang init na 'to. 'Tang ina talaga.

Half past eleven, I was done with my documents. But my schedule was not until three in the afternoon. I went to Gateway and decided to kill time there by spending what was left of my load in Timezone. It was weird to see myself go there and play the games I usually play dressed in my favorite (but I'm not saying I wear this often, it's just that its the best looking one I have) striped long-sleeved polo, black slacks, and leather shoes. I sensed a hidden curiosity in them on why I was dressed like that. I could tell by the way they looked at me the first time they saw me wearing get-up. I can't blame them since not many people come there in sleeves and slacks, let alone someone they are used to seeing wearing just casual clothes and sneakers or canvases. Time moved on quickly, and soon, I was eating a hurried fifty-peso lunch in McDonalds Panay Avenue. It was almost two in the afternoon, and I had to leave as soon as possible since I still had to navigate along uncharted roads in seach for the place of my exam. I tried to fix my appearance and look fresh, but I can't say I managed to do so. The intense heat that bore on me as I travelled has worn me out. Good thing there were cabs waiting outside, and the one I hopped into knew where RAMCOR Building along Roces Avenue was.

The driver had such a pleasing personality. We clicked instantly as soon as he said he knew the place. Each one of us threw half-jokes and kept each other entertained, in some way or the other. He was worried that he might not make the boundary since there wasn't much people on the streets, and I was worried on what was to take place and what I involved myself to.

I arrived at the place half past two. Sir Carl approached me a few minutes after I arrived and said that I was early, and that we had to wait for the other applicant to arrive. The other applicant, a girl whose first impression on me was she was a rich kid, arrived quarter to three. There was a clear separation of people in that hall: the ones dressed in business attire, and the ones who were dressed casually. I don't want to jump into conclusions, but I did not like that division at all.

Nothing happened even an hour after I arrived. My lack of sleep heavily invited my eyes to close and sleep, but before I fell to sleep, Sir Carl gathered the two of us into a room at the end of the reception hall. Inside, we were asked to fill up forms, and it was there that I learned that the other applicant, Geoanna, was also an Atenean. But Sir Carl gave me no time to chat with Geoanna as he administered the test right away. It was difficult, especially the Verbal part.

After squeezing my brains out for over an hour, I was able to chat with Geoanna. I initiated a small talk about her also hailing from Ateneo, which in turn became a long conversation about how difficult it was for us to find a job, when our own friends had their respective job sites already. I forgot how sleepy I was until she was called to another room where Sir Jim was to interview her.

As I sat in the now empty reception hall, I stared to feel anxious. I didn't know what I would tell the good-looking man with a nice smile. I didn't know if I should brag about my achievements or if I would remain true to my humility of heart. Unable to anticipate what his questions were, I started to feel afraid. It was during that moment that a Kuya mopped the floor. Employees did not take notice of what he was doing, and left the mopped tiles printed with dirt again. Kuya, with patience, mopped the floor clean anew. Seeing his tired arms, shoulders, and eyes, I lifted my feet up and stepped on the dark tiles of the floor's simple design.

Kuya, nadudumihan, eh.

Ayos lang yan!

As I looked on my leather shoes, I remembered how uncomfortable it was wearing that pair of shoes. However, during that moment, I felt different. My feet felt light that I was able to move them so that a persevering man's efforts wouldn't be wasted. Fourteen past six, Geoanna came out of the room, which unveiled my moment of truth. Like a thunderbolt in a cloudy but silent night sky, the tall man's voice tore the silence that embraced and protected me. My feet, lifting my small frame, slowly led me inside the room where my prior anxieties would be realized or dispelled.

Kapuso (Part II)

I approached the security guard and told him that I had an appointment with Miss Ali Dedicatoria on the seventh floor. He was unsure whether Miss Ali was already upstairs, so he asked for identification and dialed the local of the seventh floor. As soon as he read my last name, he asked whether Miss Ali and I are related in any way.

Ah, pinsan ko po.

Pareho kasi kayong Nokom, eh.

He told me that she was still not in her office, and asked me to wait in the waiting lounge. I entered the small, air-conditioned room that was almost full of people from different walks of life. The television tuned into channel seven (of course) distracted them from looking at each other, questioning themselves the different reasons why the people waiting in there met in that small, cramped, window-lit room. My eyes tried to wander around and look at the people around me, but the discomfort my feet which have only worn sneakers for the past three years felt in wearing leather shoes stopped me from my attempts. I ended up watching Gelli, Janice, and Carmina cook different sorts of food for almost twenty minutes. But from time to time, people who looked like social workers came in and questioned people sitting beside me and behind me. As it turns out, those people where there because of their lost children, siblings, or relatives. They brought along pictures of their missing loved ones, and all the poeple attending to them could do was to tell them they would do their best to air their grief. What relief would that do, I thought.

I went outside and asked Kuya if Miss Ali is already upstairs. After a few minutes, he gave me a visitor's ID and directed me to the building where all the important people of the Kapuso network is. After almost getting lost several times, I managed to arrive at the lobby and press the call button of the three elevators. An elevator soon opened, and after the surge of people rushing out, I stepped in, along with several other people.

As the elevator paneled with three mirrors hummed and climbed its vertical corridor, I thought how fast life is. As I looked at the man in the mirror staring directly at me, I realized that I'm no longer a kid. In less than a year or so, I will be the ones walking all over the metro for a well-paying job, or at least a job one likes to have. Well, my search for a company for internship is not different, I guess.

As the elevator produced its familiar ding-dong on the seventh floor, I prepared myself for what was to come. As the doors slid open, I was fascinated by what greeted me: there inside glass cabinets were the armors of Danaya, Alena, Pirena, and Amihan; the four Sang'gres of Encantadia, a show which I avidly watched during the time it was aired in the station. That made me build my courage and as I turned and entered the entertainment division, I saw Miss Ali and addressed her that way, even if we were cousins.

I brought my documents, but apparently, they needed the letters from the school. She directed me to Miss Princess, who would forward my application directly to the HR department. Before I left the floor, Miss Ali wrote her number in a small pink piece of Post-it, and handed it to me as she said to update her on my progress. I thanked her plenty, and without further delay, headed to Ateneo and acquired Sir Agloro's signatures for both Endorsement and Recommendation letters. Rushing back to the GMA Complex, I handed over my complete documents to Miss Princess and texted Miss Ali about it.

"Ok, tnx!: )"

For some reason, my size thirteen feet kept bugging me. It kept irritating me that I missed the chance to casually talk to people sitting next beside me. Everyone knows the feeling of everyone looking at you when you enter a room, but not everyone knows the weird atmosphere of people still looking at you fifteen minutes after you have entered the same room.

Trust Issues

I have said this before: I easily trust people.

In my opinion, the cause of this ease of trust is the way I look at people. I instinctively brand the people I meet and have conversations with as good and incapable of doing any kind of harm out of pure malice. Blindly looking at people's true motives and intentions, I seek the small refuge they might offer in their sharing or "sharing" of their self. Things happen over and over again; people enter and leave my life as if it was untouched, unmarred, or without any kind of scars. And the end of each farewell, my tears roll down my cheeks no matter how hard I try to muster everything inside. I readily open my palms in preparation to gently catch and fondly caress what they will throw to me as their own being, but in doing so, they cover a hidden desire which remains cloaked in mystery until the damage is done and the pain is felt.

No matter how heinous or atavistic a person looks, deep inside me a voice lingers saying words that mark the belief that a good person resides inside that appearance. Deception is at work: either me deceiving myself into feel-good and heroic structures, or them putting up a concrete barrier to make the visible be invisible to the eyes of someone gullible like me. It is just that seldom do I interact with people outside my zones, and in that seldom occasion that someone steps into my circle, my hunger for closely-knit ties rumbles my senses and opens my whole in their mercy. But that does not justify everything. It does not support anything.



I have trouble trusting myself, but I have no problem trusting other people.



I guess this is one of my obvious weaknesses,
but I hope someone could look into it as a strength,

so that I may start believing in myself in a way that can ratify my sense of self-perception.

Dreaming

The night sky is clear.

As a gentle breeze blows the fine blanket of fallen leaves, I feel my chest quiver. The faint rustle of leaves sounds like a small wave lapping on a rocky shore. Memories come back like they happened just minutes ago. Patterns emerge out of the darkness: patterns of tears; patterns of emptiness. Everything feels as if each is slowly settling into their proper corners of the sky, but I am still in the same spot, staring at the stars that continue to twinkle amidst the overpowering abyss that surrounds them.

Confusion fills me.
Sadness visits me.
Emotions leave me to a state of nothingness.
Cycles start to turn again.
I don't know what to do anymore.

The pain still throbs up to this very day, and no wonder why: I keep on holding to it, never letting it go, and never giving it time to heal. Time ticks by, and life goes on. The seconds elapse, the minutes pass, hours expire, and days turn into weeks. Months become years, and goes on forever until the end of time.

Life must go on.

Dreams within the still of night
On the wings of hope take flight inside me
There upon some distant shore
We want for nothing more
Than what will be
-- A Bride in Dream

Surrogate Security

With his feelings an utter mess and his thoughts in disarray, he felt more vulnerable than ever. He continued to stare straight at the low ceiling of his room as the bitter cold slowly ate the warmth of his feet and his eyes dried up in the absence of the tears that one flowed down his bony cheeks. Consciously and unconsciously, he was tossing in his bed from side to side every minute or so, like prey writhing to escape with dear life as the fangs of the hunters clamped down its bare neck. Something was stuck in the deepest parts of his being, something that was not there before. It clogged his desire for happiness and warmth. For some reason or another, he just wanted to close his eyes, and enter the world of his dreams. He hoped never to wake up again in the cold and piercing embrace of the nightmares of his confused heart.

But the cold was too painful to bear. The abnormal weather made his self-inflicted wounds throb with an increasing wave of pain that emanated across his entirety. He wished to weep, but his tears were in mourning. His tears were grieving the loss of his precious skies full of aspirations as it broke into the shale storms that were saturated with uncertainty and broken promises. His blanket never seemed to protect him from the cold that was slowly taking his sanity. He kept kicking and shuffling, but his efforts were all for nothing. In a last, desperate attempt to kindle a small flame of hope to provide him the warmth and the light he needed, he reached for his long legs and tucked them close to his body. He yearned for the security of his mother's womb, the kind of devotion where one would protect the other with everything they have.

His sight was slowly growing dark despite the small night light turned on. He thought he was finally falling asleep. But a sharp, invisible pain inside him jolted him into the reality that he was falling into yet another dangerous pit of his emotions. It was one of those instances where he felt the chilling embrace of the most unending darkness one could face.

With the last remaining ounce of his strength, he reached out his hand to hold onto something. He reached out his hand to save himself from another ironically agonizing fall into the world he is so accustomed to. He reached something warm, soft, and pleasant to the touch. As he grabbed the object which seemed to be brimming with affection, he placed his head on it. A subtle warmth calmed his body down, and after a few moments, he regained the sanity which was sapped by the unknown hunters of his night. He felt alive once again.

He realized that all was but a dream forcefully transgressing his sleep.




In his dreams, the pillow was his source of warmth, life, and happiness. It was everything, and it meant everything to him.

But in his waking consciousness, the reality remains that the pillow is nothing more than just a pillow, something that will never return all his yearnings for security. The reality remains that he still stands under the starless sky that he has wrongly wished for himself.


---


ay rai
pede ba kita maging surrogate sister?

meaning?

uh
like
family outside my home
kasi na dedepress na ako sa sarili ko dahil I find my family disfunctional when I know it isn't
ang shits kasi ng mga drama sapaks ko sometimes

you don't find me dysfunctional?

para sa akin hindi

hahaha
ok
i'm just here

sometimes i wonder
am i like selfish or something?
kasi all i ever do is run to you guys kapag namomroblema ako or something

no you're just in need of love and affection
we all do
that's what friends are for

thanks rai>:D<

>:D<

Rain, Rain, Please Go Away

After recovering from the sickness that pinned me inside the house for two full days, my sister finally allowed me to go to school today. I was pretty much excited and all, but as soon as I was ready to leave, the weather started to become unfriendly. A light drizzle was slowly falling down like a fine curtain as I woke up, but it turned into a nasty and violent fall of needles when I was prepped and ready to go.

It made me lose a whole portion of my eagerness. The wet weather doused the flame that once vigorously burned inside me. I indefinitely stared at the street as the countless spears of mercilessness continued to fall. I found myself slowly retreating, as if a terror only I could see was in front of me. I wanted to go back inside and sleep, and dream about that particular embrace that could make a second a lifetime and make the deep, freezing cold a warm and comforting radiance of security.

As I continued to trace back my steps and stare into the raining sky, I felt myself slowly losing my grip on reality. The anxiety of all my twenty years started to knock on my mind. It was weird. I was expecting something tormenting, but what came to me was something illogical. The sheer foolishness of it made me realize that my mind was walking the path towards insanity, or something like that. My anxieties were personified and formed a straight line that vanished in the horizon. As I looked at the place where the sun supposedly sets, I asked myself when would be the time I would be able to leave "here" and reach "there". Sometimes, the awful feeling that I place burden upon myself is far too much to handle. Everything seems to be always beyond the horizon, unreachable to me, but very much accessible to others.

It was one of those instances when my emotions spiral into confusion because of something petty.

But then again, I steeled myself and toughened my courage. I opened my umbrella, and treaded the wet streets as the skies continued to cry in their own sorrow...

...or perhaps weep in joy for my small victory.

Fireworks Once Again

Naisip ko na those fireworks were set off by people who have conquered their own little ebony sky. The flash of light, the drizzle of sparks, the shine of different chromes blazing across the sky came with the bright hopes and dreams for the new year they were happily anticipating. They bid the last few moments of the year with anticipation and welcomed the new year full of optimism and promise. All of these I saw through their eyes. I saw their open hearts ready to embrace new blessings, new opportunities, new hopes, new promises, new, relationships, new challenges, new problems, and new difficulties that 2008 will be bringing them. They were ready to leave the past without forgetting the lessons they have learned and face the new year with faces confident and held up high.

-- Fireworks, January 1, 2008


A year has passed.

And what a year it has been.

Things seem the same, but they are immensely different along the vague and invisible lines of our lives. Strings have been cut, threads have been weaved, and we are all but an infinite piece of cloth, both tattered and finely-spun at the same time...

The beginnings have all but ended, and the endings are starting. Time has clocked its course, and yet here I am, alone and silently standing under each deafening creak and groan of the cogs of fate. Blinded by fury, beguiled by sadness, and hyped by mania, I push on forward, in a negative perspective to keep my sanity saved...

The rain stopped when the clock struck twelve. It was as if the weather joined the celebration for the new year. Inside my room, I heard the ear-splitting vulcan booms of the fireworks that momentarily turned the night into day. The bright lights of the pyrotechnics flashed on the deeply frosted old-style windows of my room. People outside were cheering and was caught in a stupor that everyone was a victim of. The new year has arrived, but there I was inside my room, playing.


Once you've lost something valuable, your life will never ever be the same again.


A year has passed
and a year will pass,

thank you to all the people who became part of my life.

Hopefully, you'll still be the same people I'll share 2009 with.

In Three Days

In three days, a new year will begin.

Right now, I have a mind-splitting headache. I rarely have these things (literally) bothering my mind.

I went to buy some ingredients for my (failed) brownies. I stared at the clouds as the sun scorched my eyes. Up in the heavens I saw a great cat, and after a few moments, it became an enormous white dog, as pure as the fresh blanket of snow that covered the sleeping part of my brain.

A shudder coursed through my body. I chilled to an invisible jet of ice-cold air. My lungs started to cringe as it was slowly being killed by the air that stung my skin. It was as if my ribs would implode as my severely weakened muscles couldn't bear the pressure my body was succumbing to.

It was then I realized that I do not need someone or something to feel the security I'm desperately longing for.





I need to find myself first.







Now what?