to the indifferent crowd

she is always in some state- you always hear her whine
and yet you haven’t seen, the bleeding scars inside
her rancor is a farce; a play within a play
there’s tragedy in silence, there are words she’ll never say
she is not one to pretend, and she’ll never lie to you,
but she’ll never take the risk, of telling you the truth
you know about her anguish and the sadness on her face
but the rest she’ll keep in shadows, fallen far from grace.

this ode goes out to you, forged from tears she’s shed
quietly, beside you…alone, inside her head.

awake

he sleeps deeply fitfully drowning in dreams
sleeping off the memories that haunt each waking day
for too long she has kept her eyes closed
closed to anything that might resemble 
those things that she no longer has
she does not want to be understood
not like that never because she wants to keep
the damnable memories special
in their painfully permanently finished way
she wants them to be beautiful
she wants them to live forever even if they hurt 
but they no longer hurt like she thought they should
and she tries to be loyal to a dying memory
because she refuses to be wrong again
she refuses to move on again
and she sleeps her deep maddening sleep
until the sound of a smile reaches 
that part of her that still weeps
she stirs she sees she breathes
she sees the light of another day

finally, awake.

paper

this is for the piece of paper that stands 
between me and the semblance of heartbreak 
that has nothing to do with love

the words bleed accross the empty page
more patient with my rancor
than any living soul
this vast, clean slate reminds me
i cannot impose my fragility on your own

forgive me for needing you on account of some familiarity
for a while i forgot that no amount of affinity 
could ever be so close

in the end we all walk alone.

walking back

I am the girl who changes her mind.  My life has taught me that there are many things I cannot change. So I learned to master the art of changing the one thing that I can always be sure of my own power to control; MYSELF.

 

I’m having trouble changing my mind right now. Right when I need to change it quick. I have the tremendous opportunity to reinvent myself, and I can’t. Not where it counts. For the first time in my life, I cannot call upon my split personalities and multitudes of interests, in order to create what the occasion calls for. I cannot become the poster girl for single motherhood, or the bohemian poet or the cold hearted bitch or the damsel in distress (I was never good at this particular role anyway.)

 

I’ve changed my job- but I can’t really change it THAT much because there are certain constraints here. For instance, I can’t suddenly be a brain surgeon. So I settled for changing the company I work for- and changing the city where I work at. And changing the sort of working relationships I have. In short, when people call me ma’m, I no longer insist on buying them beer and showing them we are equals. Likewise, I don’t expect my superiors to invite me to any dinners except the ones which involve papers being signed.

 

I’ve changed the scenery. I moved to another island, and I no longer have to haunt the places that haunt me- like Madrigal Avenue and Alabang Towncenter, the familiarity of which, has bred the sort of contempt that comes from intense love.

 

And I’ve changed the people around me too. While some people take life’s necessary evils with a grain of salt, I took this one with the tequila as well. Even if I HATE tequila. The only thing about the metropolitan Manila is the fact that the people I love are in it. For the sake of change, I let go of that too.

 

I’ve changed my routines. I cut up my Timezone cards. I have breakfast in cute little diners and kiosks and have not set foot on any McDonald’s to satisfy cheeseburger cravings no matter how PROFOUND the cravings are. I have stopped POUTING so much and I chain-smoke unapologetically. I sometimes suspect I chain-smoke as a sign of futile rebellion- I feel the same way when I deliberately use straws that are not wrapped in paper- and when I hold on to elevator railings.  Recently, I have become even pettier: I changed my hair and I packed away my baseball caps. 

 

But I think, once you have found, inside you, the person that you are most HAPPY TO BE, you cannot let it go, and you cannot change it back. Even if it’s not as cool or awesome as the person you have always wanted to be. Even if it means that you would probably never be rich and famous. Even if it means you might spend the rest of your life with your heart on permanent disability mode, and the closest thing you’ll have to “happily ever after” can be no more than a suspended memory.

men,women and friendship

this made me think. hard.

“Are you a slave? If so, you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? If so, you cannot have friends. In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed. For that reason, woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love. In a woman’s love is injustice and blindness towards all that she does not love. And in the enlightened love of a woman, too, there is still the unexpected attack and lightning and night, along with the light. Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or, at best, cows. Woman is not yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, which of you is yet capable of friendship?”

-Nietzsche

a vicious cycle

you wake up to beige-colored days, but you’re happy that your pillows don’t have skid marks of your tears, you’re happy that the days are getting better and better, that you are coherent again, that you can smile again, that you can write again, that the grass is soft underneath your feet again and that you can actually think of a handful of songs that make you SMILE instead of burst into tears. you wake up to weekends with the thrill that there is something else to do aside from WORK, that after spending time with your kid you are can look forward to conversations that shine and shimmer like candles in some dark and dreary place. you welcome the taste of alcohol because it’s no longer diluted with your bitter tears. you welcome the sound of your own laughter, you have missed hearing yourself laugh.

and then TOINK. the rug gets pulled under your feet and you wake up with a concussion, and everything is inexplicably different again.

a dubious peace

is this what they call tabula rasa?
the slate isn’t clean after all.
i am burdened by a torrent of arbitrary non-events
looking for a place in which to collect
memories, stiff, in abeyance

to the principles of unrest
this emptiness is a travesty of peace
i long to make a run for the chaotic outdoors
in which passion is nameless

and love is cruel

i want to pry open my wounds and wander clueless
hopeful, and a fool

forced indifference

with excruciating effort, i close my eyes and will myself to NOT care. because i shouldn’t. because nobody does. because the universe is mean and it has to make complications out of simple things like one-sided endearments, like it’s a fucking crime. like it’s wrong to bask in the sunshine because the sun does not belong to you. like it’s wrong to take a hand, offered in friendship simply because one knows that perhaps the heart would have given itself, had things been different.

the call center subculture

now that i am all alone in a city that i love for it’s comforting strangeness, i have a lot of time to walk around and think about things that have no direct importance on myself.

like, for instance, walking around Asiatown IT Park, where all the avenues are lined with trees and call centers, i begin to realize in awe, that i see the same scene everyday. the various restaurants and coffee shops more or less have the same generic crew of call center people lounging around looking no different from each other. they have the same, predictable haircuts and wear the same predictable style of “personal style” as endorsed by supposed stores that cater to people who want to “stand out.”  they even have the same THINGS in their hands- cellphones, ipods, cigarettes, mainly.

i used to tell people that in call centers you find all sorts of people; artists,lawyers, problem kids, single moms, jocks, con artists, sluts, geniuses, etcetera. i used to in awe of such diversity that one can find under one roof.

maybe being under that one roof, doing the same mundane job, has somehow created a subculture out of these diverse individuals. maybe now they aren’t diverse anymore, and they have evolved into a group that is no less stereotyped than jocks, geeks, rockers etcetera.

sugar high

Sugar-coated melancholy

A bitter pill disguised as candy

The new placebo for this ache-

This emptiness

This sweet escape

It tastes like Sunshine’s

Supposed to taste

It ain’t called Love

But it’s better than Hate.