another thursday.

The scene outside is turning to gray, six hours before another day. The feeling of being stuck comes on again like an expected refrain, and as it lingers I wonder if I'll go home singing it, watching the clock tumble digital numbers then it's 3 am again and I have to put the current book I am reading or turn the TV off and try to sleep off the song, thinking that it's another friday.

And that song plays even if I had somehow managed to do something creative, something outside of work, or some other sort of lipputian sources of transcendence. Things just enough to make me feel somehow that this is not all a dream. I have to admire Sisyphus during these times. Though that doesn't really translate to the Myth; Sisyphus happy? really.

Now, if I can just find someone who I can converse with right now, with or without the beer, a little mindfuck for these Sisyphean times. Show of hands, anyone?

the probability of downtime.

Evening again; I can see the nightglow from where I am, masking the stars, of the collective brilliance I haven't seen for a long time and yes, I am wishing for home again. And also the ocean this time, some 30 minutes away from Naga.

I have been gone so long, there's really no probability of coming back again. I guess there's really no coming back to Ixtlan, don Genaro. This is why I need some time down time, even if it is a scheduled defragmentation.

I keep staring outside, but I can't lose myself, because after some moments I see the thick glass again me separating from the little surrealism left. Ideas, emotions, anxieties, frustrations, and a kind of hunger even is crowding me too much right now. I got to go uncork myself.
Everything's going ghostly on me, the real is sort fading at this point in time.

the ghost of downpours talks to me while I stand quietly in the fading rain.

It's still raining, but it seems to fall without purpose this time, or just cleaning up the parts that the downpour a while ago didn't happen to hit, like a lazy afterthought of cruise missiles after a nuclear strike.

inside, this is something about too much rain this time.

and clasping my wet hands together I seem to be looking at failed intromissions of a dream, fading softly in my mind like how i imagine snowflakes would be when they touch my skin. trivial regrets that can only nip and nibble softly, never drawing blood or pain but they have their moments. Stuff of legend those moments. they endear, and cling like leeches in their endearment, at this point they draw blood already and you wish the rain could perhaps fall a little more harder and a little bit more colder that visibility would be lacking and the coldness would numb you more.

and another year just up and went.

For not knowing.

And the many instances of insensitivities are just strange hues and nuances of color, hiding and appearing in my field of vision, it has been too long and I'm back in my world. A sort of eerie consolation that it's good to be here where I can smell things better, instead of just looking at them.
I guess, I'll walk around for some time and acquaint myself with the things I might have long buried or forgotten to gaze into, and also in the off chance that I might find my way to the ocean and hear infinity for some time, to close my eyes in its scent and in remembrance. Somewhere I can hear Duritz sing, music passing through this haze like an old transistor radio but becoming clearer as time passes.
I have forgotten how lovely the lights here are, changing and always familiar. It's easy to remember the late afternoon sun, dappled and revealing that face, or candlelight yellow, showing only what it can, and painting everything else in shadow, and how those eyes in that light forever burned in your memory. Then blue, blue that only early mornings can muster and give like a miser on his deathbed, the perfect color and time to be cold and be alive and how being embraced is being home.

This is knowing again.

---

And remembering when everything threatens to be a jaded yesterday, like only something from a reverie, Enid Blytonesque. This is time to revel again, in some old ways I remember, and there's always the same feeling how Case must have felt, holding that note from Molly. When everything worthwhile and a reason to smile is just "a series of warm blinks strung along a chain of winter". This is decadence, and change at every corner.

I'm so fucking tired of this.

I'm supposed to be reaching new heights of happiness, but I knew vaguely some time or the other that this would happen . Going on a nosedive again as gravity is a matter of urgency and I can feel air enclosing my face, and there's that feeling again, asphyxiation; and being too tired to breath anyway, I welcome the fall, watching contrails from my fingers trailing behind me. I look down and wonder how I have gotten this far --- hearing Smashing Pumpkins play, I wonder no longer. Just fall and wait for the blackness.

...

I just so very badly want to see the ocean today, overcast and cold; everything threatening rain.

...

Dave Matthews, past 3am.

and the heavens just washed things over again and my 12th floor musings are about going home and walking along somewhere during afternoons there, watching the wrinkles time has lovingly etched on my home city, then seeing the new skin sticking out in most places now, and again seeing the way it gets dark here again, suddenly making me feel much cleaner and freer, even if older.

and up here, the buildings are still safe from sight, I can imagine cold mountains beyond the mixed decadence and progress of this city, I guess my thoughts really want to go home along with me, even if they reach my destination first before me, then looking out again, knowing that a few hours from now the dim hazy outlines of these buildings will show, gray and unnatural in the gloom of this continuous drizzle, and it makes more of my thoughts want to be warm in the sheets of my bed and your hands and Rain's diminutive embrace.

but I guess, I'd have to sleep first, and that hint of blue creeping in the black stillness of my 12th floor horizon is just assurance that I'm still here, semi-stuck and wishing, and looking at the gathering rain, consoling my thoughts that at least it's going to rain.

give me a warm embrace anyone
run your fingers along my face.
and perhaps a few stories for my thoughts.

in this rain. keep me company.

the new painful words.

It rained this afternoon, in this dirty city; quick and harsh. It had no grace or subtlety, or grand opening scenes or fade to black happily ever after. I watched and thought about some other place where this rain would fall divinely, but seeing only concrete the wish made me sadder than usual. I slept after the last drop fell, exhausted and depressed and not wanting to go melodramatic at the moment, and just gave in to black, dreamless slumber.

I woke up to fluorescent lights, harsh and sudden yet again, searing my eyes to an early evening. I found out I was cold a few seconds later, and thinking about the water temperature of my bath. I guess it still rained again after I slept, much longer this time and I was still thinking about some other place, where I had blanket and a pillow for wonderfully cold rainy afternoons.

I probably think that the most part of my income would have been spent trying not to go crazy here. the cinema, clothes, shoes, phone bill, etc and food, yes glorious food; these are just avenues for staying sane. But I don't need any extravagance of those things now, I have Rain, and she makes all the difference.

And clutching this tabo, past seven in the evening, wondering how cold it would really be, I came back to her words, the two new painful words here in Manila.

"Hello"

"Papa"

I still have work, and this is as cold as it gets.