I went and took refuge in science fiction and children's books, it was a good idea. For the first 10 pages at least; then everything went, more or less, downhill from there. But I continued reading and plowed on through a dozen books before I realized I was driving myself into a reading stupor again and only felt alive when I was flickering through the pages, and into the fictional lives of the characters I was reading.
Fiction, fiction... just fiction, I kept telling myself that after I finished one book after another. But then it was not hard to read about my life, in the brief snatches and sudden sentences that meant something or someone that hit me one way or rather hit me emotionally six ways from Sunday. Then it was non-fiction, and there were excerpts of my life there. Even when the part had a zombie in it, or a witch or an armored bear; or an eight-legged alien. I had to put the book down and stare somewhere else before I feel the pull of my memories, which would defeat the entire reason of why I started on my reading binge.
Sometimes I start reading another book entirely.
A week ago I knew there was no way that I would be able to stop reading until something stopped me and broke me down. Something to break me down into reality again. It took the last three books to finally do it and I caved in and just let myself go; I was untethered and adrift again, and hurting bad as the emotions came hurtling back and like demons were there again.
Then this morning Haruki Murakami fell out of my cabinet as I was looking for a pen. I know this is a really bad time for his stories but...
Jun 24, 2009
Jun 20, 2009
images.
I still felt warm and dry as I went out of the house and braved the rain, and cherished the little jabs of cold on my face, raindrops that also blurred my glasses. I stopped near the gate and out from the rain for a moment then watched it fall, it had been falling intermittently since yesterday. I saw it running around my shoes, falling from the faded tarpaulin eaves of the carinderia across the street and I saw it hitting the canvas covers of the tricycles, yearning for passengers in this cold and at this time, and I saw rain dripping down and slowly disintegrated some dog shit into dark brown pieces, and mixed in with the rainbow colors that the leaking diesel made as it went from tricycle to street. I stepped out and into that rain, hitting me fully as it gained strength and added chill, but I felt warm. It was okay again to remember because it was cold and there was you inside me again. There was no sky, only grayness and falling cold.
This was how the rain fell, as I made my way through the wet street going to EDSA, littered with discarded pieces of vegetable and uncollected trash, and the morning reluctantly and ever so slowly woke up.
The golden arches of the McDonald's across the street turned a dull yellow as its lights were turned off, and I looked up beside me and saw the green and orange colors of 7-11 still brightly lit up. Everything outside the taxi was gray, drained of color and desolate that I lost myself as I looked over the haze and horizon of Guadalupe Bridge and Pasig River. I lost myself, in the colors of memory and of summer from ages ago. Then I was looking at the LEDs of our building's elevator changing and I stepped off into the dimness of our floor, punctuated only by the bright green blink of the sensor near the door. I waved my proximity card and heard the sharp ping of the sensor and involuntary took a deep breath entered into another gray world, where cyberspace is the most often the only source of color. It was still raining outside but the sound wasn't there as I sat on my chair, and the gray outside had hues and shades more varied than the whole floor of my workplace. Then I got lost again, staring at the rain.
I miss our colors. I miss the rainbows that were there when were together. I miss our own
psychedelic world. I miss you.
This was how the rain fell, as I made my way through the wet street going to EDSA, littered with discarded pieces of vegetable and uncollected trash, and the morning reluctantly and ever so slowly woke up.
The golden arches of the McDonald's across the street turned a dull yellow as its lights were turned off, and I looked up beside me and saw the green and orange colors of 7-11 still brightly lit up. Everything outside the taxi was gray, drained of color and desolate that I lost myself as I looked over the haze and horizon of Guadalupe Bridge and Pasig River. I lost myself, in the colors of memory and of summer from ages ago. Then I was looking at the LEDs of our building's elevator changing and I stepped off into the dimness of our floor, punctuated only by the bright green blink of the sensor near the door. I waved my proximity card and heard the sharp ping of the sensor and involuntary took a deep breath entered into another gray world, where cyberspace is the most often the only source of color. It was still raining outside but the sound wasn't there as I sat on my chair, and the gray outside had hues and shades more varied than the whole floor of my workplace. Then I got lost again, staring at the rain.
I miss our colors. I miss the rainbows that were there when were together. I miss our own
psychedelic world. I miss you.
May 30, 2009
balcony.
us kissing in the darkness of a theater
slipping from the fiction playing in front of us,
sliding into the reality of the heat
that the absence of light was giving us
as Hannibal Lecter's voice lost its chill
as the violence on screen meant nothing
and vanished in the thunder of blood
running through us
running us through
then
we left
before the credits went and told
how everything was an illusion,
and before the darkness revealed.
we left
and fled into our reality
spontaneous and true
physical and warm.
slipping from the fiction playing in front of us,
sliding into the reality of the heat
that the absence of light was giving us
as Hannibal Lecter's voice lost its chill
as the violence on screen meant nothing
and vanished in the thunder of blood
running through us
running us through
then
we left
before the credits went and told
how everything was an illusion,
and before the darkness revealed.
we left
and fled into our reality
spontaneous and true
physical and warm.
May 29, 2009
may is a hurting month.
Like before, like no other else and like nothing can ever be, will ever be.
The rains that fall are double edged and soothes in remembrance but then also leaves you so deeply bemired and bleeding that there is no thought possible, but they are better than the expanse of heat and strangeness that is Manila, though they don't fall every day.
Walking on the way to the bus stop, as dead dry grass gets blown in my path, their scent hits me some moments later and there is a strange realization that my mind has forgotten about this month, but my body hasn't.
As I look on, at the few days that are left for this month, despite everything it means, I am more than a bit reluctant to see it go. And I admit, I would want it to last a bit longer; when hope at this time produces emotions that are not exactly warm and fuzzy; because in fact it borders more on the bleaker and the blacker and biler side of the four humors. It is also summer and there is no escape when sleep is uneasy and shallow, and the dreams vivid, and real until you wake up, taking so long to fade and they become a solid memory instead of an impossible reality.
In those dreams, your scent is true, and lingers even as I wake alone in a bed for one, and sleep once past cannot easily be embraced again. This is May, and it is ending, and there never is another instance for recognizing that time is passing... that after living for so long finally grasp how time really works, and that there is no loophole, and it cannot be fooled.
Perhaps May might bleed into June, perhaps I would get to miss you more as the months go on.
The rains that fall are double edged and soothes in remembrance but then also leaves you so deeply bemired and bleeding that there is no thought possible, but they are better than the expanse of heat and strangeness that is Manila, though they don't fall every day.
Walking on the way to the bus stop, as dead dry grass gets blown in my path, their scent hits me some moments later and there is a strange realization that my mind has forgotten about this month, but my body hasn't.
As I look on, at the few days that are left for this month, despite everything it means, I am more than a bit reluctant to see it go. And I admit, I would want it to last a bit longer; when hope at this time produces emotions that are not exactly warm and fuzzy; because in fact it borders more on the bleaker and the blacker and biler side of the four humors. It is also summer and there is no escape when sleep is uneasy and shallow, and the dreams vivid, and real until you wake up, taking so long to fade and they become a solid memory instead of an impossible reality.
In those dreams, your scent is true, and lingers even as I wake alone in a bed for one, and sleep once past cannot easily be embraced again. This is May, and it is ending, and there never is another instance for recognizing that time is passing... that after living for so long finally grasp how time really works, and that there is no loophole, and it cannot be fooled.
Perhaps May might bleed into June, perhaps I would get to miss you more as the months go on.
May 19, 2009
where do we go from here.
You just told me it would take a little silence. for now. with no apparent hint of a consequence within a timeframe and nary a clue if that statement was already intimate with forever. or perhaps I just didn't understand then. I don't know if gave in too soon, and used logic to decide. But I guessed not, only wanting you to be beautiful and I did not want rain in your face. Not to trouble, not to disturb and to just let you be. Even if I wanted your embrace. At that time.
And at this time. And
Everyday now.
And mostly at night. And just after I come home from work.
I do understand, my mind does. Entirely. My mind, my mind does...
But the other part though surreal is even more real, and only wants you.
I just have been to the cold and back again; and being there I still kept crossing out the passing days, keeping time, keeping count, that... that it would mean my life if I didn't; if I didn't keep the faith; if I didn't think slash feel about you.
And that is the easy part, mostly effortless. It was stepping on the brakes that was problematic.
Now, I am all twisted up as I can ever be.
and even just reading the wiki summary of the The Science of Sleep can make me cry.
And at this time. And
Everyday now.
And mostly at night. And just after I come home from work.
I do understand, my mind does. Entirely. My mind, my mind does...
But the other part though surreal is even more real, and only wants you.
I just have been to the cold and back again; and being there I still kept crossing out the passing days, keeping time, keeping count, that... that it would mean my life if I didn't; if I didn't keep the faith; if I didn't think slash feel about you.
And that is the easy part, mostly effortless. It was stepping on the brakes that was problematic.
Now, I am all twisted up as I can ever be.
and even just reading the wiki summary of the The Science of Sleep can make me cry.
May 12, 2009
dream catcher.
perhaps you fart whole galaxies
a whole slew of star systems
every time, after every meal
of someone else's dreams;
of dreams fed nightly
on a steady diet of falling stars
and fervent wishes,
of imaginations now slowly
measured by logic and reason.
no need for a fork, or a knife
to carve, to cut them in manageable pieces.
whole, they are eaten whole
and the sound that they make as they...
as they go in your darkness
cannot be described
cannot be painted
and they light up like fireworks
as they bravely go on their last hurrah
but only another feast for you.
a whole slew of star systems
every time, after every meal
of someone else's dreams;
of dreams fed nightly
on a steady diet of falling stars
and fervent wishes,
of imaginations now slowly
measured by logic and reason.
no need for a fork, or a knife
to carve, to cut them in manageable pieces.
whole, they are eaten whole
and the sound that they make as they...
as they go in your darkness
cannot be described
cannot be painted
and they light up like fireworks
as they bravely go on their last hurrah
but only another feast for you.
May 8, 2009
love me like a monster.
You asked me to do another one of those impossible things, and I said a reluctant yes, with no intention of doing whatsoever what you asked, even if I could help it.
Stop worrying about me.
I mean how could I... when this kind of things concerning you is like breathing, involuntary and needed to live.
Stop looking at me.
I know what you meant by saying these things, and besides I also know the reasons why you continually say them almost as an afterthought, but your voice trembles ever so slightly, almost imperciptible that sometimes I think it's all in my mind. Then you turn away, as I continue go on looking.
Stop thinking about me.
When sometimes it's all I have; and when, during my days off it's all I do. Lack of sleep is also beautiful sometimes.
I wonder if you say these things because sometimes you have nothing else to say. I know I have those kind of moments too. Or perhaps it is just that mild kind of exasperation, with things that we sometimes imagine to be possible.
These are just the everyday things, everyday affairs that take me back and the daily order of
circumstances that I cannot find my way out of, and I'd always want to be lost, always; while I'm in the longest meantime that you are not here. Shampoo scent and all. Not here. At All.
I sometimes I take a lot coffee breaks but not for the coffee. Restrooms are okay too, more so during graveyard shifts and there is small window there where I can see the darkness and between the neon and the few cars wandering below, I wonder where the horizon ends or where the sky begins. Then it all comes back to you as I see my reflection on the double glass window, hazy in the dim light of the restroom.
Stop being this way.
Don't you see, it's futile; besides your smile after is always a dead giveaway.
You are like the smell of cotton candy that has permanently stuck in my memory, I guess.
Stop worrying about me.
I mean how could I... when this kind of things concerning you is like breathing, involuntary and needed to live.
Stop looking at me.
I know what you meant by saying these things, and besides I also know the reasons why you continually say them almost as an afterthought, but your voice trembles ever so slightly, almost imperciptible that sometimes I think it's all in my mind. Then you turn away, as I continue go on looking.
Stop thinking about me.
When sometimes it's all I have; and when, during my days off it's all I do. Lack of sleep is also beautiful sometimes.
I wonder if you say these things because sometimes you have nothing else to say. I know I have those kind of moments too. Or perhaps it is just that mild kind of exasperation, with things that we sometimes imagine to be possible.
These are just the everyday things, everyday affairs that take me back and the daily order of
circumstances that I cannot find my way out of, and I'd always want to be lost, always; while I'm in the longest meantime that you are not here. Shampoo scent and all. Not here. At All.
I sometimes I take a lot coffee breaks but not for the coffee. Restrooms are okay too, more so during graveyard shifts and there is small window there where I can see the darkness and between the neon and the few cars wandering below, I wonder where the horizon ends or where the sky begins. Then it all comes back to you as I see my reflection on the double glass window, hazy in the dim light of the restroom.
Stop being this way.
Don't you see, it's futile; besides your smile after is always a dead giveaway.
You are like the smell of cotton candy that has permanently stuck in my memory, I guess.
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