Everyone was enjoying the cheap booze I prepared. I used to listen a lot to Hale those days and that probably their melody was filling the arid air of that night of June.

I opened the doors several times that night. You and your partner then were the last to arrive. I found you cute but that was all. I was too busy juggling work and study to think about liking you or any other person. Nothing mattered to me except that that moment was for making toasts with friends. Your partner puked just beside a welcoming potted fortune plant. He missed his fortune.

It was seven years ago and I was turning twenty.

Ah, twenty. I had my share of U-belt boys and nothing really profound. Who has figured out things about themselves at that age?

The next time I saw you was last year, you appeared in my social media accounts. I added you and thought it would be a good idea to reconnect. I simply had to.

And we talked. I shared my experiences inside the seminary and you would tell me about your daily stuff and how your love for family brought you to the Middle East. You were not difficult to like, I affirmed.

There were times when I feel that we talked like how lovers would, how you deeply cared about the tiny details of my stories. But it somehow stopped there, in that point between desire and fear, the fear of distance, the fear of how distance may affect the both of us.

So whenever you leave little crumbs of yourself in your poetry, I can’t help but think how much of those little crumbs are about me and my coward dispositions.

Maybe you like me. Maybe you really do. How will I know?

I planned to see you for Christmas but family obligations kept me from spending the holidays with you. Perhaps, some other time. Some other circumstance. But if that day comes, I’d read a nice novel until you sleep beside me.

If only you are nearer.

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

"After all this time?"

"Always," said Snape.

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.

Hiniling ko na magrereply ka.

Malamig noon, hindi ako makasandal sa upuan gawa ng matigas ang aking utong.

Umaawit si ate ng porque contigo yo ya escoji

saliw sa pagtugtog ng gitara ni kuya.

11:11 noon at sa layo natin

at sa pagkaimposible na rin ng request

request na dapat sa mga santo dineretso

partikular sa panot na santong patron ng mga nawawala, si San Antonio

Ikaw ang hiniling.

Dalawang taong singkad, ikaw pa rin ang pinipili.

Sige pa rin sa awit si ateng maputla

at harabas pa rin si kuya sa pagkalabit sa gitara

jusko kaunting segundo na lang –

Masyado bang mabigat ang hiling ko?

Alas onse onse.

titigil ko na sana ang mangarap

Tapos umilaw ang cellphone na pangmayaman

Totoo nga pala ang pamahiin.

Pucha, ngumiti ang langit.

When I started working for disaster victims, I thought it is just about providing food, constructing houses, and repairing faucets and latrines. Later on, I realized my faith drove me to uphold the humanitarian imperative that every life is sacred and must be protected.

Soon I realized that behind a newly repaired faucet is a story of dignity. That behind a newly constructed bridge is a story of hope. And in listening to the stories and company of the distress, my own longing for attention becomes insignificant.

I am an instrument, a medium. Like a flute waiting for its musician's breath to give it its meaning, its life, I let my self ready to be used. And I fearfully hope I am a flute like I always want to be.

Tell me which is not applicable.

Let’s hook up and be the couple I always longed for. Let’s be the couple that everyone enviously looks at as we pass them by the corridors. Let’s write poems screaming our undying love for each other; prose to explain why our complications bother us, to vaguely explain why we sometimes settle at agreeing to disagree for the sake of ending the discussion. Let’s hold each other’s hand, and feel each other’s warmth. Let’s read together while lying on your bed, engulfing ourselves in words that dare not bore. Let’s make videos when we miss each other, poetry slam, of words on top of words, of raging emotions and longing for each other. Let’s not let each other eat dinner alone, or walk on cemented pavements in solitude. Let’s not go through sleepless nights feeling the emptiness of conforming to what others have established as a requirement for a life that has meaning.

Dahil ang tunay na lalaki, magaling magsulat, umiinom ng alak sa trabaho, nagbo-blog at nangangako ng habang buhay.

Grabe, level up ka na. Saludo, Reb. Utoy! 


"Grant that I may commit my whole life to the service of Christ and my fellow human being."

Sabay tayong tumingin sa unang aurora
sumilong sa payong na yupi
iwan ang takot
at sandaling bumalik sa mundong
gawa sa usok at mga kwento.


Ayoko ang naiiwan.
Isama mo ko
kahit parang sa isang bayaran.
Takot ako sa mga parirala't pangungusap
lalo kung malakas ang buhos ng ulan.


Di mo to alam.
Pero alam mong meron nito.
Pwede tayong umibig-
sapat, sobra, marahas, banayad
at sakto lang.


Bumalik ka dito.
Basahan mo muli ako ng mga tula
Samahan mo akong maghintay ng hinahanap.
H'wag mo kong iwan.


Lima limang guhit, pira-pirasong sulyap.
mga eksena sa kwadradong binabalikan,
mga patagong pangangarap.
Madalas, kailangan sakto lang
ang paghihintay at paghahanap.




(tula sa sinoman.)

Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.

-Nastoya, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

It was May of 2007 when fourteen boys got their first experience of mops and wheel barrow. They had all the enthusiam of a neophyte; excited, pretentious and diligent. Three were from the plains of Luzon, eleven came from the countrysides of Mindanao and two were from the metro. The first weeks were terrible, everyone hardly speak in Filipino. There were only five boys who could not understand the rapid french that automatically made them the minority. I was one of the five boys. And at this moment of writing, only two were left to carry on the mopping of floors, sweeping the paths and dreaming to join the order.

We were a promising class according to the upperclassmen. We are musicians, orators, dean's listers, sports champions and craftsmen. We also are rule breakers, late comers and escapists. We practically excelled. Ours was an ambiguous motto: One batch, one promise.

Three years ago, we were boys full of idealism and dedication to persevere. We faced the challenge of sacrifing regular teenage for something greater than ourselves. We want to set the world on fire and illumine it. To live with the lumads in the mountains, to celebrate diversity with the lake people, to pass the parcel to a more hopeful generation. Dreams. They were so powerful that we forgot life is transit. I am sure they'd also miss class debates, cursing in Ilonggo, dragging feet to attend the 6AM mass, study hours, the long silences in the chapel. May of 2007 seems like a day ago.

Year after year, our group got smaller. Some are forced to leave, asked to return after a year and some just don't feel the need to stay anymore. Practically, everyone who left went back home. Including me. My stay was cut short when I was asked to leave for a year, that is to adjust. They said I am not mature enough to continue. A year passed and I got the invitation to return but I did not. T'was the year I began to take other calls.

Where are the boys now?

Patrick is graduating from Ateneo de Naga as Richard, Ryan, Erus, Vince and Keepee from Notre Dame University. Erique has returned to his mother's flowershop in Malolos and does occasional guitar gig. The last time I checked on Ronnel and Aduana, they were helping in their respective plantations while studying. Rey was accepted this year to Don Bosco Seminary. Leroy and I are still undergraduates of Diliman. Only Galilee and Sisoy are graduating next year as seminarians. The plan to set the world on fire together is now an impossibility. We now face different paths. But I always believe that somewhere, beyond horizons after horizons, paths converge.

Most of memories are fireworks; beautiful, mesmerizing, ephemeral.  But some memories are stars; however distant and ancient, they would appear every night, to influence us, to make us remember some more or to dream some more. Nature has no room for forevers because in its very sense, all would pass. But stars don't blind that is why life stories continue after heart breaks and disasters.

Our dream to become missionaries was cut short. But that does not mean we stopped pursuing to be arsonists someday. I have burned some people's photographs before. I am sure I will be a fine one.

Today, I pondered about my own mortality. Hmm. Blame it to the rainy days.

Realizing that one day I will die gives me more reason not to fret over little things that fuck my days. See, nothing saves anyone's life. Even science and horcux can only postpone it. Ultimately, the same night awaits us all.

But come to think of it, what kind of person you like see in your dying day?

(Why should a nineteen year older would ponder on dying in the first place? Blame it to the gloomy weather. LOL)

There are moments that I would think about me dying in many different scenarios; either a car crash along the expressway, maybe by multiple organ failure, or by stroke at three in the morning. I would feel a little worried but after a while, the focus of my thoughts turns on the drum beats inside my chest. I would feel more alive. Death thoughts would pop usually during my down days, when I feel so empty or on days when life is just so bland that things seem so routinary.

I'd like to see myself welcoming death faithfully performing a duty, if not of old age waiting for my turn to pass. Since I was seventeen, I was resolved to live a lifetime consecrated to an ideal. See, I cannot ensure a continued heartbeat. I may quit smoking, stop drinking and eat grass all my life yet my days are still numbered and I am left at the mercy of the grand design of invountary muscles working in my body. I, we, will all die. But to die without trying to really live is very boring. The best moment to die is when you are really been doing the things you feel so good at.

If I am going to die one day (or one night), why bother these working and studying and dreaming? Because I know am not born just to die (because believing on that is a redundancy). I am born to have time and to own it. To plant a tree, to inspire friends, to become a brother, to live for a great desire. I'd like to die standing in the spot where I am supposed to be standing, that is to live giving meaning to the definition and extensions of my happiness.

Why to worry death in the first place? Because I do not understand what is around the bend. Because I am leaving things and fame. Or friends. Because in passing, I am like returning to womb again; naked and bold nonetheless.

I've seen death many times. I was seventeen when I signed the waiver to pull out my mother's life support. My sister was sobbing when I told her it's enough, that mama had a full life dedicated to her ideals. She died simply as how she have lived now its our turn to do likewise. She had enough and without assertion. I like that thought.

I am not afraid of dying because nature dictates that I should die and be some part of something else when this body decays. My atoms will separate and scatter. If that so happens, I'd wish to become part of a fishing boat or an eagle. Because I want to roam again.

What is it in there after we die? I think that question would spring more confusing questions ergo, it is invalid. When I ponder about death, I would also question how far I have lived my life and how better I am becoming. Because with death, I think, the most important is where it would catch us. And someday, somewhere, I wish to meet death like an old friend. Excited and smiling.

'Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on.'

-Hector, History Boys (2006)

Sa mga panahong andami mong iniisip at wala ka pa namang nasisimulan, minsan, masaya magphoto-shop. :D

Pramis, mamaya ako magsusulat ng mga kwentong espanya. Wee!

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.

Someday, I will get out of this mad loop of waking up in the dead of night and emphatizing on foolish customer complaints. One day, I can go back to pursue what I really want to do with my life. Yes, it will take me some time to get out of here but eventually I can get out of this limbo. Maybe not now. But eventually I would.

.

Someone said that you made the right decision when you pick the hard choice but your heart is at peace. In work or in relationship. In study or in desire. The formula applies to all. Fate is random and dependent on our actions. I will follow my bliss though it may take me to nowhere.

.

Afterall, I am no stargazer. I chase the stars.

.

.

(haha. epekto to ng dvd marathon. :D)

.

“You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ 'Has your life brought joy to others?"

- The Bucket List