bunk bed blues.

I lay drifting in and out of sleep, waiting for the light of my mobile phone to turn itself off and let the darkness of the room be whole again. I have more quiet moments now, some few stretched spaces for thought and lady Solitude; sometimes she comes unexpected and invited and we talk, about how there might subtle differences of how rain falls there in Naga, as the rain here in Manila even seems rushed when it comes to leaving, or we sometimes compare memories of warm water slowly flowing over our body. Then I after some time I realize I am talking to myself in the dark.

It is raining, and I sit here in the dark, on my bed, looking out from the dirty window screen of our apartment and on to the heavens slowly falling outside. I can feel the cold, and I bury my feet under the comforter, silently wondering if it would be so good to have you here to talk to, though the darkness and cold would conspire for those conversations to turn to dialogues of the body instead. But I'd dearly settle for an embrace at this moment; that embrace to take me home; that place forgotten by space, so far back in time and only visited in memory and unexpected mnemonics of smell and touch. But there is only the darkness and the rain falling outside for now; along with some quiet discourses with my present thoughts and side long glances to the warmth of the past.

That home and familiarity being the ultimate temptress for the lost and broken; the discontented and misplaced; the sensitive and unembraced; the weary and those caught in the web of time.

Having been one or the other at one time or another, I usually give in to temptation for that is the time that I find myself again.

waking the dead.

I was still lost somewhere, replaying Jennifer Connelly's face in my mind, her nose and jawline being central; then I was running late for work and being haunted by some scenes in the movie. The early morning overcast sky embraced everything in its dark, cold endearing arms, and I stopped to stare, finding a weird kind of solace in that grayness before a LRT Leverisa bus came.

Some scenes were still there in my mind, and the movie's accompanying feeling of loss and resulting redemption just became my morning coffee. Perhaps a mild case of seasonal affective disorder. just perhaps, since this kind of season holds its own internal joy for me.

Jennifer Connelly mentioned something about ambition in the film, she said, "Ambition is the ice in the lake of emotion."

a long time coming.

I have watched more than a dozen rains fall and then dry out since, and me even hoping for rain in between. It is still Manila, changing and unchanging, wondering how many lives since then have met, went together or went astray in between those downpours. Friendships and romances, little passions shivering in the strangeness of these cities that is Manila. Some flames spluttering and going out in the cold to black embers hoping for some warmth and raging against the chill, most often ultimately dying. Then there are some passions that burn bright enough for others to read their stories in the dark.

Been home and back again, so much promise there and me wanting only to stay, to hear stories being told instead of me telling them, except when Rain asks me to tell her stories about dragons and their breath of flames. Been home and we burned three nice lovely flames, our own fireplace for warmth against the cold of unexpected downpours. Had to leave again and leave only with the memory of their eyes, warm and expectant for another return. Going back here, I can only burn, and burn still.

Here in Manila I have to cradle my thoughts like babies, the unwritten and the untold for this place is no refuge. And thoughts only find refuge with their own kind, I think sometimes this is the reason for some fortunate lives meeting and melding together and finding solace in each other's thoughts and burn their own kind of flame. We can only hope their flames burn steady and brighter, in whatever shade of passion.