at dahil kailangan ko to.

Ninais ko na namang iwan ang double deck ko na minsan ko lang matulugan, tanging mga bag at kumot ko lang ang palaging nakahiga. Iiwan ko lang naman ng pansamantala, siguro mga ilang araw at ilang gabi rin. Bago ako pumunta ng trabaho kanina dumaan ako ng double deck ulit at medyo inayos naman at tinignan si Angel Locsin na para bang mangungulila ako sa mukha o katawan niya, si Angel na 5 feet by 3 feet na poster sa dingding na pinacking tape lamang upang dumikit. Regalo ito ng isang roommate ko isa pa naming roommate, pero parang destiny na makakatabi ko talaga. Hindi ako nag bye bye kay Angel, ini off ko lang yung ilaw. Sa salas, nag bye bye ako sa isa ko pang kasama sa bahay, na nandun lang sa sofa at dinaramdam ang sirang tiyan na daw, sa tingin ko may hinihintay lamang siya.

Ilang araw din namang walang Internet, o computer, pero sa tingin ko di ako makakatakas sa tadhana, dahil kahit saan may computer shop. Kanina habang papasakay ako ng bus, hindi mabaho at malamig ang simoy ng hangin sa EDSA. Weird, kasi kung hindi mainit, may ibang amoy naman ang hangin sa EDSA. At di masyadong trapik, walang pila sa bus papasok ng The Fort kanina. Swerte.

Sasakay na naman ako ng bus mamaya at makakalimutan ko na muna lahat; double deck, EDSA, trabaho, turnaround time at ang poster ni Angel, lahat...lahat na may taktak Manila. Pansamantalang mas maraming puno ang makikita ko kesa sa mga building. Bukas ng gabi makakatulog ako na hindi kailangan ng electric fan, at kung maswerte wala akong maririnig na trapik, sasakyan, busina o trak, siwit ng mapresko at malamig na hangin lang. Di ko muna makikita ang pink saka blue ng MMDA, relax muna ang nearsighted ko na mga mata sa dami ng green dito. Puno at dahon.

At pag nakita ko na naman yung dalawa, at malamang habang tumitili yung maliit, masasabi ko na naman na talagang kailangan ko to.

reunions.

The gray outlines of the city are becoming more defined as morning slowly breaks and the dreams of the sleeping are slowly retreating like the shadows, reality breaking in slowly, intruding without reluctance. Inevitable and slow. My stomach is sour and burning, reminding me to take care of it, and my mind comes back to what I have been thinking about, that I will be going home to be welcomed by the silence of the apartment, I surmise only Christian is sleeping and we will not be seeing each other awake for some days again. Che might have left work, or perhaps still sleeping. I will be the only one trying to sleep in the other room. Don and Budoy having left for Naga both. It will not only be the heat bothering me this time, something else clawing in my mind like a trapped feline. Don, besides wanting to recharge his emotional batteries (his words to that effect) has to go see about Budoy, discharging his emotional batteries in an impromptu family reunion. Budoy's father passed away just yesterday, reality breaking in suddenly. Inevitable and harsh. And this is the silence I will be sleeping in. This would be the silence I would be going home to before I even try to sleep. It will be a few weeks before the apartment have a reunion of sorts again, before then it will mostly be a few weeks of queer, sometimes uncomfortable silence.

Perhaps I should go home also and recharge my emotional batteries. I am counting four days.

it's been so long since I have seen the ocean.

To see infinity again, and have some hope that I'd get to touch base with Solitude again. I'd be sleeping off the harsher part of the day and perhaps wake to mid-afternoon, where it hurts the most. I can see the fading sunlight in my eyes already. Now, I wonder how much of a social obligation do we have about mingling around.

But no bananafish this time, even if I found and played those two songs that I played over and over and over and over again during some past summer. even if sadness permits some sort of introspection. This is another time. I am just looking for a time with myself and my mind. some time enough for looking things over.

Who knows, you'll be in my mind for some time. Yes, you. and just thinking if I could get to know more about you.

everything burning.

Being here until morning is giving me a certain feeling that I should be somewhere, doing something else, thinking about something else. Just hoping that it'd be more of a definitive feeling enough that I can put my hands around it, give it more tangibility, that it would not be a neuron misfire as a result of sleep deprivation. After I go home, it would be a good idea not to space out when the summer heat might be giving me hallucinations.

Still my neural pathways have been busy more than usual and I take it as a good sign, but magis then, so think more.

Methinks, this is still a way of putting things in perspective, it's just that the summer heat is a bitch.

Highway 54.

Going back is a bit a heady, like dark beer after weeks of iced water. By bus, the way here to Manila has been reduced to scents, noise and images, of recollections in between sleep and stopovers:

A fellow passenger was peeling more than 5 cucumbers and eating them right after the other. I can remember the scent, and the way they crunched as he ate them and how small the knife he used in gingerly peeling them. I kept checking the green bag on the overhead rack for signs of its impending fall on my head. The smell of grilled hotdogs waking me up through my empty stomach. I could identify three different languages being spoken and the bus conductor spoke all three of them in his high-pitched singsong voice. The passenger beside me was ingraining his customized message alert tone in my mind, like an aural fingerprint.

With my eyes closed, I kept coming back to my recent memories and unconsciously closing off the impending polluted welcome of Highway 54, I was still beside my daughter, taking in her scent and traces of unscheduled meals on her face. She, in her sleep, seemed undecided whether to embrace me or her mother and didn't keep a single position in the space of an hour. I was watching my world sleeping together, exhaling in different regularities.

And looking out the bus window, Manila was slowly encircling me again. And the traffic of income was suddenly there, obnoxious and noisy. I knew I was back when the first wave of heat hit me when I got down from the bus, when the slickness of garbage was sliding under my shoes.

These are the days.

(I was hoping I could write more, but the thoughts though forming would turn to smoke. I guess those thoughts would be more at home on paper)