thought patterns.

When we were never twenty, tripping over words and class schedules, we thought big and moved small. College and all the things that fell into place; as I look back, like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles that never really fit. Then I think of Jackson Pollock. A smile. The colors were good next to each other.

The two score or more paradigms for life that back then we named and believed and the number often increasing when were drinking, I can't really remember now. Rather, our own kind of twisted ethos that we never thought about consciously but we now call our own here in this city. A shift every time we come home to Naga, or spend some time with anyone other than the five of us. Shift. Shift. Our very own dogma.

With my face just a little more than an inch from the doors of the MRT, I am looking at the familiar and always strange sight of EDSA. I am nearly thirty now, and looking outside I am conscious again of the strange sort of tiredness I feel, that has been there a few years now.
Some sort of decadence. As much as I like how that word sounds, it is not a likeable word in definition. Stagnancy. Then I get off the train and make another promise in the cold air of morning, something about tomorrow and the coming tomorrows after that. Wishes, tinged with a light shade of frustration desperation. It is hard to move through the detritus but it still feels good to move.

In the darkness of the apartment I see the four sleeping and lying in the refuge that is sleep. I think now, everything is just a matter of waiting. Even death. These are all just fabulous moments in between; all those conversations and fights and silences, the time spent looking for a semblance of permanence and companionship with or without the added help of chemicals. Sometimes just that small talk to help tide the day over.

Not long now before I also turn to the refuge of sleep, I quietly understand that we have our own paradigms. Then unconsciousness now, an inward dream of my life companion and daughter.

Gestalt.

- for my friends and roommates.