Thursday, September 22, 2011

Harlequin's Arrest

What happened to the girl who can fight the urge to cry?

What happened to the girl who can remain still as a stone even if the people around her are shivering with silent sobs and sadness?

What happened to the girl who can manipulate her mind and emotions to stimulate nothing that will push her to feel something?

What happened to her?

Just what happened to her?

Now, she finds herself crying over lame things that are shallow enough to be thought of. She felt repulsed by what she had done to herself, felt repulsed and disgusted by the sensitivity she had recently developed for allowing herself to feel even the lightest feeling there is.

What made her change so easily?

What made her realize that it's okay to cry after all?

She felt like she's hanging on the edge of the cliff with the most unbelievable thick stream of salt-water cruising down her cheeks. She felt ashamed of herself that she actually broke down. Nothing significant happened to her, nothing tragic either and this confused her to bits, trying to remember what took place inside her mind before the tears flowed out from her brown orbs. She's shaking, mentally, heart heavy and breaths uneven. She needs a plan.

The world is no longer safe for her yet she suddenly felt that crying is addicting. She wants to cry long enough that it will lull her to sleep tonight but then she found it completely nonsensical. She must not cry, ever again. She must not cry, if that is utterly possible.

Stone walls.
Red bricks.
Heavy boulders.
Thick wood.

Decidedly, she started to act passive, eyes fixed and batting. With full determination she started to work and built several layers of defense around her heart. She blocked everything there is. Nothing can perforate whatever it is that she's trying to do right now. Nobody can stop her from the decision she have irrevocably made. Nothing. No one.

As world turned halfway to greet the moon's full potential, she went inside the cage and bolted the strong iron doors lock. Out from a small hole she inserted her hand. It was greeted by a harsh cold wind.She opened her hands, palm flat and facing up the dark sky, she blew the key that could only open the cage that she will permanently live in.

The key flew up into nowhere, traveled through thousands of miles into unknown lands. It landed somewhere. Somewhere for someone.

Lurking and sulking, she waited. She sat, cold and dim, heartless, lifeless.

She's waiting.

Waiting.

For someone.

Waiting.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Just Because...

One plain fact and truth hit me like a slap on my right cheek all of a sudden, although I would very much like to offer my left cheek as well but I don't think that it is no longer necessary. It wasn't really like a light bulb moment but it's brightness is like the same amount of light emitted by the fluorescent bulb above my head: I can never really write perfectly about love- yes, love- because love and I aren't in good terms for maybe a little longer than three years.

I have been in love, of course, since I myself is a human being and like everyone else around me, I'm capable of thinking, reasoning, defending myself, laughing, crying, and of course- feeling. But that was a long time ago, considering the fact the time runs fast, that I was actually in love with someone of my opposite sex and given that it was only brief, I daresay, and full of grief, it was still love. I was never good at handling matters that are related to love because I tend to get overrun by my emotions. What scares me right now is the idea and the "what if" feeling that I will never be in good terms with love. If this is to happen, oh by god, I hope not, I would be very sad and frustrated with myself. Tragic, really.

It would be a backlash for me, calling myself a writer of the inner sort, for lacking the ability to utter and write words and testimonies about love that were only generated from poems, pictures, songs, books, movies, and stories of the people I know of around me. What defeats my purpose as a writer, although not that good, is that I cannot dutifully finish writing about love, even with visible passion, with pleasantness or an upbeat motivation on such course of topic without being vague, redundant, and gloomy.

Right now I can feel that perplexity is creeping over me while I am pursuing my head to think and write with my trembling left hand and not to mention the tightness of my chest due to constant and heavy smoking of Marlboro. Anyway, with perplexity at hand, I am sure of the fact that I currently am not in love but just adjusting myself to like someone that I know a small detail about who happens to have the same interests as I do and as much as I can swallow, the vain proceedings of my feelings happen to be just some sort of admiration for him with the barring and borrowed line from a move- just because he likes the same bizzaro crap I do doesn't mean he's my soulmate.

Admiration, infatuation, and love are three different things, although they tend to blend and par as one in the center- an invisible sort of electric energy with crazy colors and neon lights that enables a human being to feel, do, and say silly things. They differ in levels as in comparison to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have to openly admit that I would very much like to actually finish one good and sensible piece of literature about love, all it's chains and knots, while being in love with someone, for all I have written about are woeful laments about angst, dark clouds, bitter and spiteful experiences, perceptions, and insights. The soft curls and sharp corners of my calligraphy would present an appropriate proof for all of it.

Just because I'm not good in writing about love doesn't mean that I can never will succeed in doing so. At least I know that I'm trying and maybe if I do try again, then the whole point of my piece would go in a different direction, in a different manner, and hopeful insight. Maybe I should try again, sometime soon, and remember the span of time wherein I was in love but then that would mean that I have to travel back in time and remove the white and dusty sheets covering my forgotten emotions that I wasn't able to understand before and unlock the treasure boxes containing the files of the decisions that I made with the ripeness of my mind from long ago.

No, I am not that old. I'm not even in the halfway of my life yet and I guess that is one of the reasons that I cannot write about love. Maybe love is simple and I am the one trying to confuse myself thinking that it is impossible to dice and slice like how the wrong knight with the wrong fate and heart tried to remove the Excalibur from the rock. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I will have to give it my shot although I know for a fact that I will struggle in this project, wishfully thinking about when will love come to me and shake my hands so that we could be friends again and start over like it's New Year's day. I know it's utterly confusing and it would entail a person who knows how and what he feels to easily write about love with the exactness of words and sentences to make a lovely accolade to love.

Just because love is tricky, love is blind, love is a game, love is mysterious, love is deadly, and just because it's basis varies from one person to another, from one relationship to another, from one situation foundation to other doesn't mean that I will never fall in love again.

*char! :D

Monday, September 12, 2011

Unleashing The Freak

Cassandra.

She looked at the starless sky above her, sad brown eyes wandered slowly at the large mantle covering the wonderful things that the naked eye holds no capacity to see more than what's available for it so see. She allowed herself to relax and drummed her long delicate fingers on the concrete flat floor supporting her weight and resting beneath her as it breathes together with the rolling of car wheels and people walking, running, and jumping. She shivered as the wind passed by, making some strands of her long brown hair dance lightly before dropping back to her shoulder in a new placement and position.

Judging from the look of her face, one can conclude that she is at peace with everything there is. One can say that there is no amount of sadness residing inside her body. It's a big shame for her because what lies beneath her is the mad flickering of thoughts and unknown emotions waiting for her to be deciphered, comprehended, and accepted.

As the dark clouds glide by, she felt her heart gain more weight while doing its job to keep her alive as it pumps the very red fluid that is responsible for her biological existence. She made herself think that she is the very core of her own biased understanding about the world and its revolution around the dark universe that is the abode of innumerable magnificent wonders that are yet to be discovered.

As age traces down her body, Cassandra delights and resents the obvious and hidden changes that are taking place around and inside of her while at the same time she discovers and experience both the shameful and humiliating activities of a human being.

As the sky works to make itself look dark with the passing of time, she sighed to herself, unable to organize the sequence of her thoughts while summoning them ignorantly. She kept confusing the past with the present and so she stood up, ran her fingers through her hair and went inside her bedroom,  feeling the cold floor beneath her naked feet. She found her bed and collapsed in it while sobbing quietly with her eyes open wide and gaze fixed on the ceiling above her. Her mind started to make a short film for her, of what she had hope would happen, of what she hoped herself to be. Cassandra felt the cold and sharp pangs of loneliness biting her. It slowly ripped and damaged the skin on her chest, tore her flesh, and made their way to her heart causing its beating to falter.

The only visible light of sound she can hear is her slow and heavy breathing. As the little things go, so did her tears. They came out bold like gallant and shimmering pearls of perplexity and naivety. She savored the moment of crying, remembering the feeling when she was about to do so. Her chest would usually tighten and the amount of blood that her heart could pump would be enough to fill 6 empty Coca-Cola bottles. Her jaw would then ache as if she's teething her Wisdom Tooth while trying to resent and consume the unknown and pleasurable feeling of different kinds of amusing emotions present at the moment.

Thick emotions veiled around her body like a new skin growing and she can feel herself choke down into the obscurity of vast deepness and stillness. For a moment she wished herself dead right now and she shifted the course of her mind to the silly idea of dying. She flicked off the movie and pictured herself lying still on the ground, her chest ceasing the activity of rising and falling.

Then a new wave of thoughts washed away the dirt inside her mind and the big ball of fire stood up above the sky. That was the end of the fall and the freak was unleashed out from her chest, passing through her eyes, rolling down her cheeks with clarity and transparency. That was the main purpose of crying, of breaking down, of crumbling and shaking.

She was happy when things were lighter, when things where brighter. She was happy once and it's not hard to be happy again.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

His Blind Side

Holding out a blue cup containing the hearts of those who have passed by and noticed his soul, he was situated under a post with his back leaning on its pole. Nestled between his tired legs is his little kid with big brown eyes, innocent by age, devouring a small cob of corn while wishing that it could sustain and fill his empty basket in the middle of his fragile and young body.

The old man, skin dark and wrinkled with age, portrayed a face that speaks a life lived with love and content amidst the mishaps that have shattered his being. “Ang bulag, gapangita tawo. Tawo man kita, gamiton ta ang ulo ta.” Mang Ernesto Inocencio, 59, said.

On 1977, his world blacked out, at the young age of 22. He was fishing on that fateful day in Carles, his hometown. Under the scorching heat of the sun, salt-aired ambience, and the pangs of misfortune, he met his Waterloo. Mang Ernesto was eager to bring home a good catch but instead, he brought home his body- minus his sense of sight. He released the dynamite into the open sea but tragic as it is, the dynamite backfired and left him a remembrance embedded in his face for all throughout his life. But mang Ernesto is bulletproof and God has other plans for him.

During his lightless manhood, he married Remedios who bore him 5 children. After she died, he married Linda and they were blessed with 4 children. After Linda died, unable to bear the loneliness and losses in his heart, he married again! Fearing that his heart would go stale, he found Ninette and together they promised eternity. She bore him 5 children to take care of but eventually, God took her away. “Tanan sila masanag kag ambot kun ngaa nagkalamatay sila.” Mang Ernesto humored the air with his way of words describing those who could see as “masanag”.

It was 1992 when he married Criselda. Together they raised 9 children; one of them is still finishing the cob of corn in his hands. “Ah, si Criselda, dulom to siya iya. Pareho kami.” Together they live in La Paz, contented with the simple life that they have as long as they can eat three meals a day, no longer minding what the food is or how little is available. “Love is blind.” He quoted, thankful about the past love affairs he has, with all of his 3 desceased wives accepting him as what he is. “Siling sang Diyos, go and multiply. Gina sunod ko man lang ang Bibliya.” Mang Erenesto’s youth may have stayed with him.

            For a few moments, Mang Ernesto would pause as the passersby would look at him, battling inside their minds whether to give or not to give him a little of the rattling coins inside their purse. He is thinking, perhaps, about the life that he is living in, thinking about what would happen the moment he leaves this place to pick up his children from school so that they could go home together, bringing with him his bag full of things like a clock and a flash light.

            How would he manage to do that, given that he is a handicap? Perhaps 37 years of a life deprived from light have taught him things that people who can see are blind enough to learn and realize? Maybe Mang Ernesto’s blind side had made him understand that the priceless and beautiful things in this world are not for the eyes to see but only for the heart to be felt. 

Other World

Traveling in the Other World is something that I always look forward to. It is an open space, secluded in secrets, and a place that can shell me with full-fledged possibility that I no longer necessitate for a ticket, a passport, or even a single dime just to crossover.

I can travel there.

Yeah, no doubt that I can.

In almost any time of any day, in any week and in whatever month and year, I can always reach the Other World. Without any restraints or the need for me to bring along my identification card or traveling permit, I can enter the portal to the Other World. I can even stay there as long as I want to, feel like home, without having to face reality based limitations and drawings of law from This World. I can do almost anything there, live a life full of freedom, and say anything that I want to say.

I love living in the Other World.

I love the wind that splits through my salt-skinned body like how I love the wind when it blows my dark brown mass of hair which covers my head and as it flows, windswept, I can breathe.
I love how my stale heart can feel deeply every single sense of emotion present around me, heightening my six senses and allowing me to feel even the strangest feeling there is.
I love how my pale lips can utter the words that I cannot even hear by my own ears, how I can speak without even realizing that I am talking to a complete stranger or someone from This World that I haven't even spoken to before.

Today, however, I have been trying hard summon my sense of sagacity for me to remember even the darkest and unpleasant experiences that I have from the Other World. Right now, I just can't. I cannot fathom even to think all those mishaps and sad occurrences, not to mention that I will have to find a way to best describe them and put them out to words and this would entail the sharp bottles of my memory to recover even the nearest emotion that I have felt during those times of trouble. I cannot bear to think of facing them and looking them in their eyes once more, reminding me that I have never even tried to face and defeat them instead of surfacing into the portal, succumbing my body to return to This World with my eyes wide open, shocked.

I feel that I can no longer share the darkest of my stays in the Other World for these are the still events of chaos and loneliness deep inside me. The Other World have failed to deliver the things that I wish would happen to This World. It is a disappointing truth, a sad trail of reality, echoing with my footsteps, in the dark of the doom.

--from Two Lives. part 2

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Two Lives

I am salt skinned. My eyes are big, brown and expressive. Sometimes they would look like they are shinning, so light and full of bliss but most of the time they would look dark and black, utterly indifferent of what is happening around me and when my eyes are in the state of wonder, then anyone would know that I am currently living in the Other World.

My hair is brown as well, short but straight with uneven lengths. Sometimes my hair is soft, smooth, and shiny. Sometimes my hair is damp, dull, and dry, depending on the occurrence of the humid and on how I have combed it before going out of my house in This World.


I live and breathe in both worlds simultaneously. I legally exist in both, not considered an alien who got dropped out by a clan from another nowhere. I speak the same language used in both worlds. I live by the rules within the community I'm currently in.

Both worlds exist.

They do.

They Just do.

THE OTHER WORLD
I like living in the Other World. Life is crazy, perfect, scary, and most of the time life is enigmatic and confusing. My life here would usually appear blurry and quite hard to comprehend. Sometimes I would meet strangers and feel as if I have know them all my life. I am with them, interacting and living life as if I really know each of them. Sometimes, I would meet my friends from This World in the Other World. It's comforting to be with them somehow, knowing that they can still exist and live in the Other World. I know it's very difficult for them to crossover just to be with me while it is also hard for me to be with them all throughout my stay in the Other world.

One life in the Other World that I could best remember is the one where I was in an unknown place, sitting on a high rock. I can still remember the splashing of the waves from the ocean, crashing into the stone, spraying salt water into my face. I can still remember how the wind blew that day as well as the color of the sky. I can still remember how hidden the place i was in was, the position of the rocks and how big they are. That day, my life appeared in gray, blue, and white and it was something I could somehow remember whenever I feel sad. I can still remember how I felt after I have traveled back to This World, how my longing to return to the island swelled into my soul for a couple of days, leaving me restless as I toss and turn in my bed each night, how I struggled within as I hope to return to the place. I have been there for only once and I don't have any idea if one day I might find myself there again even just for a moment.

When i was in that marvelous place I was with someone. He was with me, sitting on a rock. I never got to see his face but we were talking about something serious. We talked and it was blurry. I know what was going on but I cannot seem to comprehend what we were talking about. It's not that I have forgotten what have we talked about on that fateful moment but I can remember that I do not actually know what we were talking about. I'm confused all the way but all I know is that we were together, happy, and alive. All I know is that it was one of the best days of my life in the Other World that even after more than four years I can still remember it, I can still remember him. He was wearing white and if only I got the chance to remember or see his face clearly. If only I got to hear how his voice and laughter sound like. If only I can see and draw in my heart how he smiles and the color of his eyes. If only...

Life appears in black, gray, white, dark blue, and blood red whenever I am in the Other World.

--part 1.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Bang Bang: Apostacy

Faith is a rational weapon, more powerful than any implement of war ever made by man. A mass of dead people are walking in this Earth, eating with me, living with me, laughing with me, conversing with me. My thoughts about this matter are beyond words. I am an apostate.

I believed. I yielded. I learned. I deviated. Am I to be considered dead as well? i was raised as a Catholic, papers and act. I came from a family of devout Catholic believers. I was educated in Catholic institutions. I went to Catholic events and took part in its religious practices. I saw the Redeemer in my dreams. I talked to saints in my dreams. Then I became an apostate, a turn-coated rat.

Now I find myself extremely liable for my own accounts on whatsoever that is veiling this huge and revolving breathing sphere. Noticeably, I just earned myself a label that will soon provide no significant memory as each day would pass and die. As an apostate, what will become of me? A quisling capable of ruining my own youth?

Rotting in hell is a rational and sensible thought to give me the creeps for a moment but then, what comes next? If faith is rational, then so is fear. A biological being I may be, wandering this world with auras of things and emotions that my eyes cannot see, am I still subject to feel fear? Am I not exempted t be saved when the so called Rapture is transparently roving the face of this momentarily living planet? 

I am an apostate, self-proclaimed. I lie. I laugh. I trick. I fool mt own self, utterly lacking the beliefs that was presented to me by my family, my alma matter, my mentors, and the last priest who heard my awful deviation during my last desireless and regurgitated confession on the holy grounds of a sacred and antiquated Catholic colony.

I looked up, today, at the crying sky and saw a big man looking at me. He had a gun and he pointed the weapon at me. Bang. Bang.