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April 8, 2008 10:12 am – 4:00 pm

It’s 10:27: I’ve been staring at this screen for 15 minutes, wondering how I can begin to put into words what has happened, what has been happening, how it all feels, how to write it. I want it difficult to read because only the patient would read it. Last night I dreamt that I had cancer on my right foot and I could see the gray and they needed to cut it off but I wouldn’t let them. “Emotionally tired ka beh. You need to rest,” Joey said at 9:54. The first time I heard “You’re emotionally tired” was from Dawn in 1998. Dawn... She and I were ex-girlfriends of CHK men. My relationship with that CHK man 10 years older than I was ended just after the Christmas of 1997; we just stopped talking when I returned to Manila from Naga on the New Year of 1998. I had said to Adam last Saturday night in Cubao X, “Ever thought about just not talking? That one day you just don’t want to talk?” He said no and asked why I was thinking that. I didn’t elaborate: that’s how it feels when you just don’t want to talk anymore. It feels as if you had said all that needed to be said and no one listened, no one understood. So, why talk? The man ten years older than I was didn’t fight with me and I didn’t fight with him. We just stopped talking, tired from our own lives, and that’s how love and our relationship ended for us. We just stopped talking and because we did there was no more reason to see each other or to be with each other. He was a kind man: I was 18 and he was 28 and he never forced himself on me, even though I was drunk most of the time. In fact, he and I were not sexually intimate (that means no penetration and no blowjobs because for the longest time I hate both) but he had been the first to make me feel what an orgasm is. Such kindness. He had once picked me up from Club Dredd along Edsa and took me home with him. I was drunk on Adios Motherfucker and I had come to watch this band, Hole, because they did covers of Korn and Marilyn Manson. I was there with Chip, my best friend at that time, five years older than I was in UP, six years older than I was when it came to shooting pistols and rifles. He took me home with him because I was too drunk and I knew I couldn’t go home and wake up to my Ate’s “talk.” That time, my Ate would bolt the door to our apartment in Kalayaan, purposely locking me out. Once I was so drunk and I had enough of sitting outside the door, failing to sleep while the mosquitoes were draining me. I had finally kicked the door open and stumbled onto the sofa. Nobody woke up. I was woken up later by Ate’s “Change the bolt today.” Talk can be a pinch, a slap, a kick, a punch or words that are a pinch, a slap, a kick, a punch. He had taken me home and stripped me and dressed me in his shirt and boxer shorts. I was running a fever from Adios Motherfucker. He had the aircon and the electric fan on and he was still fanning me with a fan. I was burning. He had placed a cold compress on my forehead. I had finally fallen asleep and would wake up now and then feeling his erection behind me but he never touched me. He would just kiss my forehead and “Shhh, sleep, you’re safe.” At 28, he was asked, “Isn’t she too young for you?” He had just laughed. When I was being goaded and teased while his friends and I would talk, someone would say, “Pare, defend your girlfriend.” He would just laugh and say, “She can take care of herself. Look at how she’s running circles around you.” He would look at me proudly when I would stump his friends with this and that talk. I would laugh then and hug him, with the exuberance of the young. Now and then when I would see his friends, they would say that sometimes when I am remembered he would ask if anyone knew where I was or how I was. When I would see his friends now and then, I would say, “Tell him I’m okay. Maybe we’ll see each other someday and talk.” And look how small the world is: Basha said that that man was one of those who had initiated him into their brotherhood. Look at how I can disappear in this very small world: I cannot be seen when I don’t want to be seen to talk. Talk. Like last Tuesday when I saw a poet in Mag:net, I had asked him, “Galit ka raw sa ‘kin?” because I heard that I had offended him. I regard him enough to ask him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have. He had said something like “Pag-usapan natin yan next time.” I had laughingly stamped my foot in exasperation, thinking, This shouldn’t be a problem or an issue. The offense? A drunken argumentation about the Bata-Bata-System in the Palanca weeks, months ago. It was just drunken argumentation and I had wanted to find out how true it is. The other poet I was having the conversation with and I were laughing about it that night, weeks, months ago. Drunken Argumentation: it wasn’t even about the poet who took offense. When it was later on called to my attention by a friend, I had laughed, “What’s the problem? He won. I like his poetry. So what’s the problem?” Because even if politics and poetics are involved, if your work is that good, you will win. Mathematics is the perfect language, arguments can be won or lost, and some win and some lose out. I had thought, everything is falling apart and this “offense” shouldn’t be a problem. Two Sundays ago, I had received a message saying another poet had died. I didn’t know him personally but my friend does, the friend who sent me the message. That poet’s last journal entry was I tried to cross the river but the current was too strong. And I--- I found myself crying for her, thinking that this death would break her heart that has already broken by another poet’s death last year. Last year, on the dawn of November 1, I had promised her as I hugged her goodbye, “Don’t worry. I will not break your heart.” Promising her that I will not kill myself or die while she is still alive. That Sunday when I found out about the poet’s death, I had been talking to another friend about how her heart was broken. How was it broken? She loved this man, loved him even after he ended their almost seven-year-relationship with words like “I don’t like you” while she begged him with “What can I do? Is there anything I can do? I want to marry you. I want to have your children. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” She who never thought of being a wife or a mother. Then he continued to fuck her, even after...when he was already in love with my friend’s sister. It seemed for a time now, my friend had found out when he chose to tell her. And in front of my friend, he had told my friend’s sister that he wanted to marry her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, loves her...because he loves what my friend is not: her sister. Love. Is this love? Is that what “I love you” means? That was on the night of March 10 and I had come that night (even when I couldn’t move because it was the first day of another month of empty and bloody birth) because as friends you come to your friends and hold them, hold them together when you see them crying and not even caring who would see, feeling hot tears soak your shirt and singe your skin, telling them to breathe as they sob “I can’t...I can’t...” Four nights later, he had asked to see and talk to me. I had come too because I wanted to make him understand what he had done, because as friends that’s what you do. “I wanted to be honest,” he said. Ah, truths. And what good did telling this “truth” about “love” do? There are some truths you keep to yourself and some truths are told because you were only thinking of yourself. I had asked him, “Have you tried killing yourself already?” He said yes but he couldn’t go on with it. I nodded and just said, “When it’s your time to die, you die. It doesn’t matter if you kill yourself or die of an illness or from an accident. When it’s your time to die, you die, and no one can do anything about it.” In the meantime, you live with what you’ve done and what you’ve done was you made them feel dirty. He asked, “Among all of us, whom do you consider your truest friend?” Us--- these boys who grew up blue and together. I said, “He died. He’s dead.” He died last February 25. The next morning he calls Joey, waking him. Woken, Joey had asked frantically, “What? What is it? She killed herself? What? You tried to kill yourself?” He tells Joey he couldn’t breathe. Joey rushed him to Medical City. Even before the doctor came, I had told Joey, “That’s an anxiety attack.” Then the doctor said so. I told our friend, “Anxiety attacks are always a bitch. Breathe into a paper bag. Or walk it off. Or write it down to weather it all out. Or text me or Joey when you feel like you’re going to explode. We’ll come and stay with you.” Living life as holy fucking shit is just a matter of inhaling and exhaling. Last Wednesday, some of our friends had finally found out what happened to him and my friend and this love. After all, she had cut them all off and they only realized it that day. “He didn’t say anything when we were at the despedida the other day,” one said. Of course he won’t, I said, he hates himself already; he doesn’t want to be hated by his friends too. And did you even ask him what was wrong? One said, “Why did he tell her pa? Sana nagpakalayo na lang siya.” Another said, “Come on Friday. I need help with this. A lot of talk has been flying around and I don’t know what to say.” Friday, Budoy’s 40^th death day, my deadline for Sam Seen’s comic. I woke up Friday and started hacking it. Hacking it. I couldn’t write a single word about it or on it since I received it last March 13. It had refused to be written until I woke up that day, Friday. Hacking it. I wrote in the prologue scroll down/up time to find what time means is a loop you understand in time, on time when you want to (forget) remember what life has led you to become an answer: a click of a clock that locks to a scroll up/down time to find what time means is a loop you understand in time, on time when you want to (remember) forget what life has led you to become a question: a click of a clock that locks to a scroll down/up time to find what time means is a loop. “I hacked it,” I said to Adam. Adam said that “puede pa yan ikumpuni” since he would be the one doing the layout. “Kaya yan!” he and Mervo said. I had asked Mervo, “Is that the new writing chant nowadays?” He said, “It’s better than I heart Neil Gaiman/ Workshops/ New Criticism/ Dead Frenchmen.” I laughed. Hacking it. That Friday night, Joey and I went to Budoy’s 40^th and there we were asked What happened? What happened? What happened? On and on and I sighed, “Can’t we just say what we witnessed once?” And of course they all had something to say about it. One wife shrilled, “He decided! We should respect his decision!” And I said, “No, I can’t respect that.” I understood why he did what he did but I couldn’t respect it--- not with what it has done to my friend, her sister, or to him. “She had cut off even Joey? Why didn’t she cut you off?” they asked. I said because she never saw me as one of you, because I have always been seen independent from you, because I am not a “girlfriend” or a “wife” and she sees me as me, because she and I are friends, because she loves me, because she is my Dolphin and I love her, and I will always choose her and she doesn’t even make me choose her. She stopped being my psychologist March last year. After all, she needed me as her friend at that time. I was relieved, in a way, because it had saved our friendship. I had stopped seeing her as my friend before then, simply as my psychologist. Boundaries. I am relieved because March this year, she needed her friend and I am her friend. Then pictures, these slides of Budoy when he was alive were being shown. I stood up, went outside, and smoked. Smoking outside, MJ followed us. I asked her, “How are you coping with it?” She mumbled something. I said, “You must be getting tired from people asking you this.” Then I laughed and turned to Joey, “If and when I or you die, nobody is allowed to talk about it unless you or I want to or say so.” He nodded. MJ laughed. Then three other friends arrived and all said what everyone was saying to Joey and me the whole night, “Long time ah!” And two of them said, “We read your story. We love it! We laughed so much!” I said “Thank you” and smiled. I turned to go inside again and then saw that they were still showing pictures of Budoy when he was alive. I turned back to Joey and said, “I’m going to the car.” When I reached the car, I saw that there was a bar across the road. The watch-your-car-man asked, “Alis na po kayo Ma’am?” I said, “Okay ba yun bar na yan?” He said, “Ok po ma’am, acoustic and tugtog, gimikan yan dito.” Blue Ginger. The watch-your-car-man had helped me cross the road and deposited me in front of the bar. I thanked him, asked if he wanted to drink with me. He was so surprised and stammered a “Ma’am? Ay, hindi na po. Pero salamat Ma’am! Salamat!” I wondered then how many would see him and expect him to watch over their cars and see a person who may need to be asked if he wanted a drink at the end of the day. I started drinking. I need him dead in my head. I need my head to get that he’s dead. I don’t need to see pictures of him alive. That’s not going to help. He’s alive in my head. I need him dead in my head. I need my head to get that he’s dead. Why was he the truest friend among the blue who grew up together? Because I could talk to him. Talk. Because Joey could talk to him. Budoy listens. See? Budoy listened. Then Joey followed me, then Oso came too to Blue Ginger. Then we find out that some are angry at Joey. One friend said, “You were judging him.” See? Why even bother to talk? You think? Look at what happened to your blue friend. That happened because he felt that he couldn’t talk to you or anyone of you. Now why is that? Angry and exasperated, I had sent a screaming message at one: You dare to think that Joey’s judging him? When he was the one saying that your friend needs his friends now? Because none of you could be bothered to find out what’s happening to your friend or couldn’t even make time when your friend had asked “Want to have a drink tonight?” He felt that he couldn’t talk to any of you about it. If that’s the case, then I will take Joey away from you. Because, really, I don’t let anybody get away with attacking Joey and my family or my loved ones. And to him, our blue friend, I said: Fix this! Get this one right! But see, when someone talks, you listen. Sometimes, people just need to talk. Let the person talk. You listen. Were any of them even willing to listen? How can you want to talk to a person who doesn’t listen? Like this other friend, only comes when he wants to, not when I actually need him to be there for me, expecting me to listen to him. I have stopped talking to him. I don’t even reply when he sends me text messages at almost 5 am like Hi my friend. I hope this doesn’t wake you. Just wanted to say hi. Talk. What for? Or like last night, I had called a friend and I realized that I couldn’t talk to that friend too. After all, I wasn’t allowed to talk anymore. I feel that I couldn’t talk anymore because I wasn’t allowed to be myself. This friend has been talking to me for a while now the way my Ma and Dad (or sometimes Ate and Gnomie) talked to me before, before when they used to be very angry people: so angry, biting, grating on the nerves, drives me to cry every time. Silencing me more. They used to say “What? What! Speak! Talk! Nothing to say?! WHY WON’T YOU TALK? WHAT!?” and I just couldn’t talk. After all, they weren’t willing to listen. They stopped talking to me like that when that kind of talk, that kind of tone, that kind of voice had driven me to be completely silent and so they couldn’t understand why in the summer of 1999 they found me one morning in the backyard of our home, unconscious, almost lifeless from an overdose of Zoloft and Rivotril. They had stopped talking that kind of talk and I was allowed to talk and they listened (when they can, when I allow myself to talk to them). But my being found unconscious, almost lifeless didn’t stop. After all, being allowed to talk came too late. “I am a can of worms, beh,” I said last night. You know what you can do with a can of worms? Go fishing, Joey said and I started laughing then I began crying. This lifetime is not even enough to say what I want to say, what I couldn’t say, what I struggle to say. But I only have this lifetime for now and I cannot have people who will not let me talk. Talk. This morning, a message: Sorry about last night...I don’t want to fight anymore. So am I, so do I but talking to you ends in fighting because you don’t listen. You keep on interrupting with bites and snaps. You told me to shut up so I’m not talking anymore. I told you to “stop talking to me that way”--- the way my Ma and Dad (or sometimes Ate or Gnomie) used to talk to me. That silences me. See? You didn’t listen. I can’t even bring myself to talk most of the time that’s why I write; I have been programmed since I was six years old to be silent. And what do I get? Personal attacks. Ayn, Jeff, and I laughed about that last Saturday in Cubao X when they asked me how I was: Eto, I have pimples masquerading as boobs and Cebu Pacific legs pero matalino ako! They laughed, “Ay oo, nakita and natawa nga kami eh!” I told them that Twiggy laughingly said to me, “Wag kang mag-alala, maganda ka! Cno man yun punyetang yun, tubuan sana ng testicles sa mukha!” Really, I am vain and I like looking good but I’m the last person who would value the physical beauty of bodies. It’s the inside that interests me. Later on I teased the two because they were laughing so much, “Ginagawa niyo kong payaso eh. Tawa kayo ng tawa.” And Jeff laughed, “Eh ikaw eh!” Ah, but getting personal attacks is the risk one takes when you say what people don’t (want to or want you to) say. That’s writing nonfiction for you, the least of what bothers me for a while now. That’s nothing compared to being molested, raped, beaten, bullied, betrayed, having loved ones die, watching someone’s heart break, watching someone break, and all the other things that make life really holy fucking shit...And so being told this--Tama nga na napaka-double standard mo. Ikaw puedeng magsalita tapos ako hindi? Ano pala tahimik na lang ako?-- that’s not even it. People talk, you listen. You talk, people listen. Or you talk without being angry, biting, grating on the nerves, driving me to cry (in pain, exasperation) so that I would listen. Mario, a friend, had talked that way before, always angry and nobody wanted to listen to him. One afternoon, I had held his arm and asked, “Why are you so angry when you talk?” He suddenly went quiet and started telling me his life stories in a very quiet tone. (Because really I had enough of being talked to like shit and my family does not even talk to me that way anymore, nine years now.) He just needed to talk and have someone listen to him. How can a person understand you when you don’t talk? And how can you understand a person when you don’t listen? Sometimes when I talk I am like that woman in Jeffrey Ford’s new novel “Shadow Year”: when she drinks and talks, the husband would just listen to her raging, just taking in everything with his silence; because he understands that that’s how she was able to get up everyday, to be a wife and a mother, to be able to work, to be able... because he loves her and she needed to be loved that way. Loved ones had died, loved ones are away, loved ones are in pain, I am drained, and I have stopped wanting to talk. Just like when I stopped talking in 2004, for a year or so, until one night drinking in Big Sky with friends I finally said, “All right, let’s talk.” And Joachim said, “Hay salamat! Tagal mong di nagsalita!” I’m very good at listening and so good at being silent that you would barely notice that I don’t talk to you and I’m no longer the person you know. Just like with that 28-year-old CHK man whom I just stopped talking to one day and that’s how love ended for us. Emotionally tired, Dawn had said ten years ago and I had nodded: everything becomes a matter of so what, so what if he loves me, so what if I love him, so what if love ends, so what if I lose this and that, so what if everyone and everything is gone. “Emotionally tired,” Joey tells me ten years later and “You need to step back.” I am stepping back...before it’s too late and I cut everyone off because I can’t talk anymore (not through text messages or phone calls or even face-to-face). I am a creature of conversation, of words, who can’t talk anymore: holy fucking shit. And then what will happen to “you”? (And did you even have the patience to read this?) And after this, what can make me talk to “you”? If I can’t talk to “you” what will make me see “you”? If I can’t see “you”, what will make me want to be with “you”? You forget that I would I see you because you wanted to talk to me, I talked to you, you wanted to listen to me, I listened to you and that’s how I was with you and that’s how it always has been and will always be with me. The more time passes because we all think we have tomorrow or the next tomorrows to set things right, the more that things cannot be set right, even with talking. Talk. Because what can make me talk now when I am stepping