Imagine this. You walk into a busy street, walk across a person you don't know then turn around, in split seconds thought: Wait. I know that person. I went out with that person before. No. I shared a moment with that person before. What's his name again? Then you spend the next three hours trying to remember the name. Shit it must be either Sam or Dan. Wait, I think it's Glen.

I have made too many strangers. When normally people are supposed to make important connections and relationships, I am out there turning acquaintances and friends into actors in a single appearance.

...

...

Two years. And I thought I have learned enough about keeping people and pleasing them. About choosing right words and right time and right opportunity and right battles.Consequently, I thought I have already acquired the required toughness to face the perennial sadness that comes from barren attempts to be whole, to be belonged, to be accepted. Two years and counting and I have never displayed an adequate semblance of have returned to normal.


Fast forward to the thought I am driving at. Here. On the same ground I stood where we left each other. After my failed attempts to be glad. After my attempts to replace meanings and memories. Here, in this familiar spot that feels like I really belong here and not any step farther. I keep coming back to this spot as if in a videogame where the hero unlimitedly would return to start after a failed mission.

This is where my gladness is found, at the possibility of starting again. At the possibility of a fateful day when God would look down on me and find favor in my persistence. Then I'd remember all the faces and all their names.

Dear solitude. Hello. We meet again.

Pipinid ang gabi at
lalatag ang panibagong araw
dala ang mga ala-ala mo
ng mapulang lansangan ng Plaza Miranda
ng pag-asang hinugot sa Malate
ng masasayang lakarin ng Binondo
at ang matitingkad na kulay
ng dalampasigan ng Bolinao.


Dumating kang dala
ang ulan sa iyong sinapupunan
at lilisan ring madali
katulad ng paghampas ng alon
sa maitim na buhanginan ng Lingayen -
rumaragasang darating kasama ang alon
uuwing banayad, marahang marahan.

In city that shrinks and circles go too interconnected
swells so much that people find it hard
to meet the right people
some boys try their luck and some
just got fucked.
Proposing A fucked B and B fucked C
ergo, A fucked C by default.
simple math, complicated food chain
untangled physics, complicated happiness
music is just black and white with rhythms


But some must stay home

to write poetry, discuss history, dance

and maybe make some weary waiting too

but they do not give up, they simply wait

and get laid

and get wrong scores too.

When roads finally turn and lead back and

wanderers managed to get home with both two hands

left inked, right free and scarred

they are no longer the boys who once 

said wait and I will return to you.

So who's A who fucked C by default?

When will B stop banging around?

and who the hell told C to quit looking around?

I show not your face

but your heart's desire.

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.
(from an ancient Persian poet, Hafiz)

Don't run from loneliness. Don't see it as your enemy. Don't look for another person to cure your loneliness.  See loneliness as a privileged avenue to depth and empathy. 

-Ron Rolheiser, OMI , The Lesson Within Loneliness

Tahimik
nagmamadali
ang puta
sa pagtitipa ng sagot
upang ipambayad
ng matrikula,
kuryente at tubig
bago sumapit ang
alas dose.

Kinabukasan
ay sasapalaran
sa baluktot
na dila ng dayuhan
upang sa martes
at sa susunod pang
mga araw
sya ay mabuhay.

Bitbit
mga pangarap.

The dusk falls quickly
everytime you spend half of your lifetime
upside down.

The stars that make up your vain glory,
And the celestials that joined you
are eternally cursed
along with your self proclaimed beauty-
the heavens are always greater
than the depths of the sea.

So whenever the stargazer points at you
on cold Christmas nights,
she could only wish of seeing the Leonids'-
confused rocks known for their generosity.

Because seeing you upside down,
is seeing her self in the same position as yours.
Unfitting and shameful
somnambulant and weeping.
(oh, but you never weep from now.)
No. No, there are no wailings and loud rages.
Just silent, just serene.
Mute and uncomplaining.

And I know why you are like that.

You always have hope
hope that the day will come.
That the stars will get tired of telling lores and myths
and stop deciding the fate of a man or mankind.

You are positive.

You always point to Polaris.




*Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda, was beautiful, arrogant and vain, and it was these latter two characteristics which were to lead to her downfall. Poseidon placed her in the heavens in such a position that she circles the celestial pole in an upside-down position for half the time.

Written in memory of Josefina, I have not forgetten what you said while lying on that funny hospital bed.

In a vommiting cycle of rants, raves and whatevers,
You live and die everyday.

You live.
Not because you want
but because you need to.
You die.
Because you are not your self.
you are what they think you are.

You heed calls that are not yours.
And you are trying hard to pretend
that your own calling is yet to come.

So again, you live this moment
then you die another all over again.

What guides your path are no longer heavenly bodies.
What drives you is not passion. And
streetlamps are your confidence while
smoke consumes your air.

The truth is this-
you wear an armor
and stopped chasing stars.
You were reduced to a stargazer
contented looking up on those suspended gas balls
that make up the constellations.

You don't mind if you are living or dying.
For you, they all mean the same.




(to Lio, Romeo, Kris and Paul and all others, who find theirselves in the backseat just like me.)

Nagdadabog ako sa mundo.

Madaya sya.

An daming nililihim sa akin.

Ayoko ng ganun.

Masaket.

Nakaka-praning.

Ilang linggo na rin akong ganto-

palaboy ng kawalan,

tambay ng sariling pagkabagot,

alipin ng kinikimkim na problema.

"Malakas ka diba sabi mo dati!??"

Dati yun.

Matagal na kong iniwan ng sarili kong katapangan.

Nagtago sa dilim-

iniwan ako.

Ngayon?

Naguguluhan ako sa mga bagay-bagay na

nagpapa-ikot ng buhay ng sanlibutan.

Sa sarili kong desisyon,

sa mga pagpipilian,

sa mga bagay na gusto kong gawin.

Teka, nasaan ba ako ngayon?

Hindi ko rin alam.

Sa malamang, nasa kawalan ako sa mga oras na ito.

Paikot-ikot.

Papunta sa wala.

Nasaan ako?

Nasa malayong himpapawid,

naglalakbay ang diwa

sa mga nag-uumpugang ideya at mga pagkakataon.

Nahihilo din ako sa mga nangyayare ah..

Akala mo lang na ayos ako.

Pero hinde-

di ko madadaya ang sarili ko.

Praning ka ngayong mga araw na ito elias...

...siguro nga.