catching the duma virus

If You’re Filipino And You Want To Publish A Novel (and maybe your other stuff) In The International Market Send Them To:

2011-12-28T11:51:00.004+08:00

Jayapriya Vasudevan

Literary Agent

+65 9362 4559

jay@jacaranda-press.com

331 River Valley Road

09-03 Angsana Lobby 1

Yong An Park

Singapore 238363

Priya Doraswamy

Literary Agent

+1 973 379 4185

priya@jacaranda-press.com

39 Delwick Lane

Short Hills, NJ 07078. USA

These two ladies from Jacaranda are hands-on and pretty sweet. They were the ones who signed FH Batacan for her next novel. They like crime/suspense/adventure thrillers but they’ll read anything.

You can also send your other obras to the dude who found and edited “House of Sand and Fog” (yes it’s a book where that movie with the same title starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly is based, excellent depressing stuff):

Ravi Mirchandani

Editor-In-Chief

Direct Line: (+44)- (0)20 7438 1202

Fax: 020 7430 0916

ravimirchandani@atlantic-books.co.uk

Ormond House, 26-27 Boswell Street, London WC1N 3JZ

Ravi’s inclined towards immigrant stories but he also reads everything. And yes, he passed on Miguel “Chuck” Syjuco’s Masturbatory Illustrado.

Onto the Next Great Philippine Novel Without The Writer/Artist/Musician As The Protagonist!

And this portion is brought to you by The Caring Is Sharing Bears and especially dedicated to Katrina Stuart Santiago and all the those who would have wanted to attend the Great Philippine Book Café (Manila International Literary Festival) but could not afford the 2000/3days php package.

And especially to all the Filipino writers who did not get the endorsements from the Filipino literary /publishing (Grand)Papas and (Grand)Mamas therefore did not get to meet/greet the folks above.

And to those who did: BAT AYAW NIYONG MAG-SHARE NG INFO? AYSUS! SO SELF-NAMAN YOU!

[Better late than never, ano ba chica, I have a life and I didn’t move to facebook, so Merry Patawad!]

It’s Sunday and I dance to Faderhead’s “The Way To Fuck God”

2011-11-27T11:46:00.003+08:00

Wondered

what would break the space here

a song of course

dancing to the dark heart

Beating

the aging mares, one with a slash

now a scar, another with a cigarette burn to the wrist

now a scab, Pandora opening her box

this decade of brokenness returning to “living”

she says it feels like

drowning, to breathe

a gift, remember ‘domestic danger’

and Dove, you are my best miracle

Honeybunch

almost 33, making this cry for high school

two friends lost to the States--- my Mahal--- and Down Under

heavier with husband and children

we talked while she was on the train

to home from the job to jobs

of wife and mother, woman

too young to be a sexless husk

writing another invisible letter

Wife, Mr. Imperfect

is maybe that sock we’ll tie on doorknobs

in that future compound of cool spinsters,

full-time aunts and nannies, randy

the Bust-a-man-‘teh who said in ’99 that it’s not Perfect

mister to our miss to become missus accepting the man

of imperfections, the argument between “is” and “should be”

Chico Cher

counsel, the affidavit of loss

the police reports, the crime scene, the autopsy

of that narrative will trickle like guilty blood

into your honor, that laughter

of your generous unscarred tissue

Did not fuck Wao

fucked my brain

the blood of Sto. Domingo

calling to the blood of Santiago, San Roque, San Nicolas

unto the monsters visible in the mirror

the triggers of “fuck you” and the dirty finger

of childhood cheated, the cheaters

Babe, You want Me

in the light

sure there is the light and the light is good

but this will never be all good

and there is always the dark

and this tap dances in the dark

around the light, through the light

Baby, We Fuck

the forms, the norms

the rage, the war

against the machines that we have

become

Turning Jesus, Chagrin

in older and screwed over

isn’t it all better and happier

remember the dozen (was) over and (is) over

–ch, a grin

Geek’s Tragic Spine

Kurt Cobain apologizes

for disappearing like vaporized chicken

into the book of assholes

Slow, That Hello

when “independent” is displaced in “indie”

by the egos of “aesthetics”, goes the flow

of cliques and clicks of flashes uploaded,

downgrading the songs of the soul

into this boogie of mayday! mayday!

singing the blues of the future

or Eeeric the Penguin’s Opera

rapping tarushbigongmama

Butterfly, now Colleen

searched and searched and found

in songs for a child now nine

my first godchild, wearing yellow

(that abomination I too would burn)

missed you and cried for missing years

understanding the silence of the heart’s

courtesy, a lady is a matter of changing

Paul to Paula, the chromosomes of “i” to “ee”

So, Jarek Nahir Esquela

if you would pause from nursing boys

and older dudes who want to clip your bullet wings,

come dance with this Jesus Mama and let my flytrap eat

you

(i’m hearing your cackling Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!)

run, you little bi/tch all grown up now

and around those bloody sugarcane fields

Levi

run. back. to mom-me.

In The News

2011-10-08T17:58:00.000+08:00

I don’t look at the news.

Perhaps it was because for years and years I was with the human filter of the news, my own newspaper man. And one of our daily conversation pieces--- back when we used to talk--- was the news that would be uploaded for the day. There was no need for the newspaper for the newspaper was picking me up everyday from school or from wherever I was. My newspaper got tired of the news and they simply became the 5 W’s and How of factoids.

I remember though one instance wherein we were somewhere--- probably dinner in some restaurant or my house--- when 9/11 happened. There we were speeding back to the newspaper headquarters…I fell asleep in the car while waiting. It was hours, after midnight, almost dawn, there was class the next day.

I hated the news. It was a mistress of some sort that could take my daily newspaper man away from me. And the news took almost 8 years of his life, a life that he was only vicariously living even as life was happening and he was only reporting it.

And for 2.5 years I did not have time to even skim through the news online or whatever else people were goggling online. They were all like bullets just bouncing off an exhausted body that had become impervious to “news”:

Who: PING!

What: PING!

When: PING!

Where: PING!

Why: PING!

How: PING!

I would instead ask randomly the people I was teaching the top 3 national and international news for yesterday or the day (which was part of their daily assignment). I listened. I was just tired of the same shit of news on a different day of news.

Weeks ago while it was Father’s turn to be my companion, I would ask him if he was going to watch the 6:OO news on TV everyday while I would be preparing dinner. He would just say no and continue to read whatever book while lying down on the brown couch. One night he said, “What’s the point? It’s the same thing.”

I had laughed, “Exactly my point.”

The same point I had raised when my own Flower Man had berated me about being ignorant of the news months ago. Everyday for years I would see Father, Mother, and then Brother reading the newspaper. When I was younger I would automatically pick up the newspaper when Father’s done reading it. Nowadays the news is only for weekends. It’s still Brother who would read it cover to cover, including The Economist.

Yesterday while waiting for the affidavit of loss to be done I had asked the girl by the counter if they had a newspaper. She handed me one in Filipino. I sat down and read it:

P-NOY and the new ship for the Spratly Islands dispute… More corruption… Ah, July 3 was the day of La Liga Filipina… More bible quotes… More advice about love… Same old…Shit.

The girl was wondering if Madam could actually understand the language. I said, “Tang ina naman oo.” Yes, Madam was not in a good mood obviously. Yes, because Madam could not be away from her Mother’s side for so long, reduced again to a child, fretting.

So what’s in the news?

One of my little brothers happily relayed with an exclamation mark that he finally has a job and that we will see each other on his payday with an exclamation mark…

Most, if not all, husbands are really philandering bastards…

My devout Catholic Mother has said, “There should be divorce in this country…”

We are so grateful that I did not get married…

There are still a lot of asshole thesis advisers in the University of the Philippines…

How did a girl survive elementary, high school, and life with a last name such as Supsup…

And in Barili thin ropes are effective:

13-year-old honor pupil hangs self

I slept to that opened tab.

I woke to that opened tab.

Look at that.

That’s just fucked up.

And that’s the trending news.

Rilke, Sparta, Women, Warriors, False Prophetess on “Losing Everything”, Saturation Babe

2011-10-05T19:59:00.002+08:00

Drown, you say.

I tell my mother today that it was only yesterday that I understood what “let go” means since I began hearing it 12 years ago. In rehab, it’s followed by “Let God”. And I would always say “Fuck that shit.” I needed to be in control because if I weren’t I would have spent everyday killing myself. And when I lost control 12 years ago, there I was killing myself everyday. That was Hell. I lived it. And I didn’t want to return to it.

As for God

I killed God. I killed the one I loved the most. He said, “Really now?” when he found out that I was once a very devout catholic. Oh yes, I laughed, so devout that you’d find me in church almost every afternoon, praying. That first Thursday of the month for confessions. That first Friday mass. That First Saturday of Obligation. And all the Sundays. Everyday was a Sunday.

And What Did I Pray For

I prayed everyday for all my loved ones, I said to my sister the other day when we talked about prayers being read in Fatima when our other sister was in Europe. And in my heart, unsaid, I would pray for God to end it all. Yet I hoped.

When Did You Want To Die

At 6 years old. Since then. Still, there was hope. And faith in God that it would all be all right. I died just before I turned 21.

And You’ve Been Dead Since

He says, “What do you call that again--- That thing that you---” and points to his own heart and mimes the shock.

I say, “That. Electric Shock? Uhmm… What the hell do you call that again…” With the paddles…

He says, “Yeah, that.”

I ask, “Why?”

He nods, smiles, “Let’s go…Let’s get your heart shocked…Because it’s dead. You don’t have a fucking heart.”

I laugh, “My, my, when the fuck did you figure that out? Because nobody really could.”

He smiles, “A long time ago, Babe. You’re dead… A zombie…”

I do not say, “Nah…Perhaps an automaton.”

I smile, “It’s not dead.”

He mimes a minute regular heartbeat with his forefinger and thumb, “Not even enough for circulation.”

I once had written that I felt it cut out of me a long time ago.

And maybe…I was the one that did the cutting.

Saturation, Babe, he says.

“Your mind, Babe, I wouldn’t even want or dare to take a crack at it. That’s where they all made a mistake. Nobody can fuck with your mind. Everything’s a mental exercise with you after all…But your heart…You have to let your heart feel…Just feel… Let go… You cannot control everything…”

And so there it was--- I have not allowed myself to feel the past year. Perhaps for a long time. Unnatural, inhuman, and admirable, they said. Biting me right in the ass now.

I smile, “Will you be my heart?”

He smiles, “No, you gotta have your own.”

One Deep Red Cut

It was not so much as I want to kill myself. It was hate at myself. It was pain--- here in my heart--- that I did not want to feel so the pulse bled instead. I know knives. And so there is a cut that’s deep and it would be one’s choice to get it sewn together or not.

He said, “Hi Babe…” and kissed that red line and kissed it again, like kissing a child’s wound to make it better. He hissed. It had hurt to see him more hurt.

Never again, Never again.

Bit and Lost it

So one night I lost my bag. No, I walked out on my bag. Then ran from it. Then walked. Then ran. Then walked. Away. Nothing left--- no wallet, ID’s, passport, phones, journal, books, flash drives with everything from work since jobs began, music player… Too tired to make a list.

And it all doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like it’s a disaster. I simply let go. And I feel like such a newborn. And this morning once I woke up and saw my Mother I cried.

I cry as I smile, “Mommy, I’m allowing myself to feel. It hurts.”

3, Talking To Picasso

2011-09-03T21:52:00.002+08:00

The simmering day had become a wind bringing chill.

I had woken nauseated and so the departure had yet again been postponed.

Moving like an old woman, bent and slow and with each step the world spins.

Mimicked by Sister, I laughed as I stumbled.

I was asked to lie down in bed, coaxed to nap here and there, unable to sleep

In the heat, saying no to air-conditioned oxygen, flipping the channels instead, the nausea

Is like the sweat that mixes with water seconds after another shower.

I say “I love you” to Mother as she cares for me the way she does for her mother.

I think that this reversal of roles once again is always.

I had woken weeping about the dead.

Remembered more so this month, the days counted.

Talked to Mother about it as she rubbed my back and gave me a white wash cloth

For my tears running unchecked down my cheeks like the shower.

She said “I wish I could take your pain”

While I hiccupped about what would cure a heart that understands why it’s broken.

That was this morning.

That was this afternoon.

That was before this evening.

Now I move without sound.

My back straight once more.

Frail as the old.

Forlorn as the young.

I stand up now and ask Father “Do you have Scotch?”

As I look at his rows of bottles

He says “There, my Chivas.”

I say as I pull out a liter “I’ll take this.”

He says “That’s brandy. La na ka uban.”

I say “Even better.”

I take out the special brandy glasses and ask the nanny for ice for the Coke.

I pour for the dead and the just dead.

I sip.

I would offer you a sip but it might kill you.

Notice how the simmering day had become a night that is chill.

Do you notice that one smells the rain before it comes?

You and I are looking at the night sky, watching dark become darker

The wind now coming and the air becomes biting

There is lightning but no thunder.

Unlike earthquakes that sound like thunder before they come.

There are beeps of messages and the phone finally rings.

From the news.

They speak as if I can’t hear them--- Nagpaparabura---

They say that I am crying and crying.

Now there is thunder.

You and I are waiting for the rain.

Maybe then the tears would stop.

They all tell me that I have to hush and to stop crying.

It hurts them.

You sit on my feet.

70 years old and the baby.

I never had to worry about walking with you when you were a baby.

I would even drive with you to school and you and your brothers would walk with me

In the halls of UP, Mang Manny giving you bottled water for free.

You were the last to be taken out of our home and taken to this home.

I could not easily part with you.

You were always trying to escape from here.

They say to return to me and I was very far away.

Mother had to bail you out of jail here almost everyday when you were younger.

Driving you home, you in the backseat, being given a litany.

Then she would call me and say “Your son!”

Mother and Father would call me about your brothers “Your sons!”

You sit on my feet.

Your weight leaning on my leg.

Guarding always.

They look at us.

We are unmoving.

Except for my hand on your head.

Except for the tears.

Do you remember Mo?

Big head, saucer paws.

Christened Monet, passed away when Iman was just born.

It was Christmas when I returned and found out.

I had gathered you and your brothers close to me in the garage.

And it was just like this.

Do you remember Whiner?

The runt and liked taking bread from the hands of Malachai and Iman.

He was really Da Vinci and we tried calling him Davi.

It never took.

He was your Uncle Emil’s baby and favorite of Mommy, even Ate.

He just disappeared not so long ago.

Kidnapped and Father was sighing and kept looking.

Sister had kept on searching, knowing how it would end in this.

Exactly again like this.

And now your brother Van.

Christened Van Gogh.

Father’s favorite.

He had once jumped out of the van en route to Santiago.

Father was upset and searched and searched until he found him near the fire station.

Or was that Mo?

Maybe. Van also once went missing, following one of the cars and unnoticed.

Father went so quietly angry. Got drunk that night. Angrier when Van returned the next morning while he hugged him. Your brother was a chicken shit when it came to the sound of fireworks. The only one who would have to be brought inside the house during holidays. Last new year’s eve, he was all over me on the bench in the garden. I had laughed and he seemed to be laughing too. There was a picture.

A couple of nights ago he sat with me.

Just like you are doing so now.

We had talked.

Father had said his name just after Angelus…

There is something about how a name is said like a question hesitant

And you know that the name is dead.

I heard and I ran and said “No…No…No…”

He looked like he was just asleep.

I called his name.

Your brother just died.

And I want to tell your father.

Van was his favorite, too.

But I can’t.

My boy is dead.

It’s just you and me now.

Just you and me.

2, of Gray Sun

2011-09-02T11:49:00.002+08:00

Awakened, the green snakes all over the body---

Which have become like knotted wires from exhaustion that only now while on pause the body begins to feel as if it were a comforter over it in this humidity. Robbed of strength from all the grown babies that had suckled blood unto its decay---

Robbed of strength? No, no, given up like when one feels that knife on the side and the knife asking for the wallet and the cell phone. The body thinks “This is to help this motherfucker” instead of fighting and risking more pain than just that prick.

The soul though knows that what would kill the body would enrich it and perhaps set it free. Foolery. What the body wanted was for the knife to go deeper, dared it every time in an elaborate suicide.

On the second time, that finger deep in the navel three times---

Each time, the body bowed down and up and down.

Each time, deeper.

Each time, the body sinking into the bed to escape.

The breath gasping, panting, swallowing the guttural groans.

It tells itself to take shallow breaths for the breath inhaled from the pelvis that would last six seconds would grant entry to that finger. And it can pierce the button and pull the intestines out--- that one, long, red snake.

The manghihilot clucks and clucks and then nods, telling the body to go limp and to trust… Relax…To feel the spine being ripped to the sound of cracks…Relax… To the neck being snapped…Relax…The body laughed in shock.

Relieved from the arguments with that mad room---

Grief soaked in gin, these two bodies in a vacuum for whom this body in the South frets and frets--- the green snakes coiling tighter--- that room of air and light now in mourning.

The vacuum has become a black hole that snarls, “You do not understand for you have not experienced this kind of loss”. The body raises its eyebrows at the fallacy of experiential truth. And somewhere there is a memory of a magazine that said that dynamites to arguments would be sentences like those.

The body is then called Hitler. It is being backhanded with slaps for its calls for restraint--- for finally unto snapping to a warrior The dead has been dead for two years and how long will you keep on crying like a watusi pussy and drive all who love you away in your teenage college angst--- for its absence.

Two bodies drowning in gin and they want to take this body with them. Onto grace, the body apologizes, owns up to the hurt words have caused, says that pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice, and so withdraws its presence and keeps its silence.

It is September and the body refuses to be a punching bag of love. And it is no longer Catholic after all.

And the tornado relents----

The body sends a poem from Saturday which is received with “It is fucking depressing.” The tornado is in a black mood, had cursed its mother, sick of everything, feeling like wanting to get drunk and screwing the ugliest whore.

The body mirrors the language, that matter-of-fact tone about drunken fucking with condoms and driving safely, surfacing in the radar once more in the single market---a word in German--- Weltschmerz--- the tornado then thinking of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--- and so there is accord.

And so in the black mood there is laughter as they speak of plain tickets to places where they don’t want to be and remember September from 30 years ago, 25 years ago, a year ago, and then September now.

These reminders of the first loves, the first marriages and look at where it has all ended--- life now. The tornado then tells the body that it misses it, even if it’s an absolute pain in the neck. The body laughs--- pain in the ass, neck, balls--- your friend.

The green snakes all over the body warm---

To the gray sun, the body sits and watches the sky from between Santol leaves, so close to it when it is seen from the ground here and not from a tower there. The scattered nimbus clouds are almost pearl white and the light does not make the eyes squint.

The body wonders if it would just experience it or would remember it then as it happens in ink. The body sits, the green snakes all over warming, and reads what was sent to it---

I don’t want to tame you at all

But I need some calm

Or you will bring chaos

Reigning down on your head…

And the body laughs, sends the Sonnet 121 of a dead man as a letter

At exactly 3:10 of Peter Gabriel’s My Body Is A Cage.

1, of Dreams

2011-09-01T09:50:00.004+08:00

Today the note “La” woke up and said that it had the strangest dream---

What has been dead had returned and I had welcomed it home.

The note “La” does not know what to think, gives me a hug.

I say--- It is the first day of September and the countdown is leaking.

Cheers.

Last night there was a vigil for hair.

And somewhere was a vigil for a mother who’s been dead for five days.

And somewhere was a vigil for a wife who’s been dead for 10 months.

And somewhere was a vigil for a father who’s been dead for 2 years.

The vigils await my return.

The womb is still in pain from their grief, waiting to bleed it all out.

Cheers.

Last night there was a vigil for hair that has kept memories.

Cut and cut and cut, a bottle of light for each cut.

And I circled the house the way I had the night I first died.

And Mother was following me around just like that night.

I say “I’m fine” just like that night.

I say “I accept that I will be alone” last night.

Cheers.

Circles and sips of memories calling the Devil.

The Devil had come and watched me.

I said “What a twisted way to be reminded to say hello…Hello.”

The Devil said “It’s because you kissed me (t)here…Hello.”

I laughed “It was the other way around.”

The Devil said “Liar.”

I laughed “I’m not the lawyer here. I only speak the truth.”

And the dwarf from Moulin Rouge then was singing, with elephants.

I thought “I want to toke the joke.”

Cheers.

I said to Mother and Child “The money has to go somewhere. See I don’t have plans.”

I will work and work and work.

I will spend and spend and spend.

Never on myself except perhaps on the nails cut and the hair cut and the skin cut.

The Child said “What about life plans?”

I said “Not now. Too soon. Not now.”

The Child said “You are Father’s youngest now.”

I said “And you he loves the most. Now your children.”

Cheers.

The Devil had the same dream for two nights not so long ago.

The Devil said “What are you doing in my dreams?”

It is not a good place for you, get out, for both times you did not make it.

I said “When it is time, my time, you do know that you have to let me go?”

The Devil said that it knows.

Cheers.

The Dolphin had a dream not so long ago.

It said “We were on a pick-up. He was there. He left a finger mark on your back. I was wiping it in the rain.”

Then another dream of another ‘he’ “We were drinking, laughing, talking.”

Triangles.

Cheers.

The Sign “D” had a dream not so long ago.

It said “Don’t freak out but the other night I dreamt that you were married.”

I said “The fuck is it with you folks and the universe that you all have been dreaming?”

Cheers.

I said to the Child “You were always meant to stay here.”

The Child said “The City scares me.”

I said “I told Mother that I would have been content to stay here but who I am, what I am, is meant for the outside.”

I heard the children and smiled.

I saw the children and laughed.

I said to the Child “Your children saved you.”

Cheers.

The Warrior had a dream that began a long time ago.

It has begun to come true.

The Warrior said “Cheers. No more cryptic messages please. I don’t want to spend what little energy I have deciphering them.”

Cheers.

Last night and today awake the scales say that it had a dream.

It said “How then can you trust another ‘I love you’ again?”

There was an old woman with the touch who said to Mother while she had her finger deep in my navel “If she will bear a child then the man has to be of the same blood.”

Mother said “Same blood type?”

I said “No, Mother, blood of this land.”

It was just a dream.

I wake up humming Grace.

And cheers.

More Than A Year From A Dated Corridor

2011-08-15T22:58:00.002+08:00

- 5 Chills and Sore

Was it two our four am? She was feeling chilled--- sweat cooled and the wind was cold. Shivering, the fan off and huddling under the blanket, she felt her body complain--- It was just sex--- The body reaching for an orgasm, almost refusing entry; It had hurt and its protests were unheard. The body found itself responding more to mouth and hands.

I shake my head--- What foolery. While I--- I refuse to divulge my secrets, silent once more.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking…”

The body is there but I am not; the mind thinking of the end, here it is, at last, the last. Her womb recoils, stretched, and now moans its soreness. But, but, there was a moment--- clothed and curled into each other, she had felt like being home, returning.

Still, it was stolen time--- I said: A sunset that lasts through the night. Before, she had wished that they could stay in that room and they would be happier people. Still, the morning always comes--- I said--- This time, nostalgic and poignant, the end.

Her body protests and my heart is saddened.

+2 Courtship

On rum, finally, I spin and do not recognize the scribbles of the pen. Half-naked, I spin, like the fan in the ceiling. I am watching my heart spin and my heart spins, connecting tangents, mouth numb. I snap the fingers that become numb--- I snap ligaments and muscles--- These, my flesh.

I am watching--- witnessing--- my ligaments break. I watch mouths talk. Fuck--- Verbal---Not even a dance, just tiptoes, a damned tip.

“When I’m drunk,” she says, “I’m in another world.”

+7 Ticking

A back held--- over a name uttered by a loner in this room, “Allan,” I say. And hands open--- still, I think about honor. I think about honor in the past 12 years—You--- Who could have been (and whom I could have taught many things, you said). I am here, alone as if I weren’t. And now I think of you. I would like to thrum--- like a string--- and I wait. I have been waiting for 12 years--- time, in your time. I count back always what you don’t remember. But I do. I drink as if my other half is not here, as if I weren’t alone--- as always:

A juvenile singing of thwarted love.

+ 8 Non-membership

Another baptism, another vicarious stint as a godparent, I rekindle ties and smiles that have gone stale in time. Still there is that cord connecting 12 years and after. Now we are the only ones without wedding or honeymoon or pregnancy or birth or baptism or birthdays.

There is two, as always, in our pictures; the unlikeliest ones combined. I begin to feel like the lone bachelor in this group of letters. I think about other lone letters and names--- Do they feel this? Do they even feel… I remember how cold we had seemed for years: oblivious except to our paths and arrows. I now remember my wishes and why there are always bubbles.

I---

Think about promises made and unmade by time, broken in time. Yet, in silence, keep mine. There are so many--- like the unspoken vow I made at 10 years old onwards. This friendship rendered impossible except when we’re in bubbles--- What has become of us, dear friend? That we cannot even be friends…

Or---

That when friends marry or have families, I cease to exist, becoming foregone matter unless the real becomes hell. I piece you all together and I open my palms to set you free. They remain open for your coming, now and then, when I am remembered--- usually when your pain almost becomes a shadow that has a heartbeat.

Then---

Someone always comes: a boy or a woman in the cusp of what would mould the soul, wreaking these stings. Like this boy lost--- young Brutus becoming a brute to his wife. Or a goddess feeling the mortality of love, another fatality. Or what once was a stunted woman now blooming like a flower in her sculptures.

Then time interrupts.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking…”

Each time I wanted to say, “I no longer want to love you.”

++Now

It is but just a dance, hola Chico mi amigo. I wield the ligaments of my fingers so well, thank you. They were rapped by books and rulers and teachers since I was 10. I counted thirteen times I broke them. Just thirteen in almost 5 years and yet remembered.

Understand that when I look at the dance floor now, in paper or visible space, I want to make the cha-cha into a tango and the mambo into the samba until two-left feet can dance.

So that if one scorpion that is a mirror-image of my tornado says to my You’re a Black Gigantor , “No such robot. There’s only one Gigantor.”

I say, “I’ll write using a Black Gigantor and that makes it real/factual according to Mr. Google.”

I stick my tongue out and then there’s laughter (while the tornado is pissed).

5CJ&ODDZ

2011-07-15T22:02:00.001+08:00

When I was in Grade 1 we had a white fluffy puppy. His name was Yen, just a couple of months old and born on New Year. A dog from the neighborhood bit his forehead. Perhaps it was rabies or just infection but the wound had become a puncture of pus. Yen kept on crying the way babies would cry when sick. Only difference is these were animal cries…The way sometimes we see people crying like animals. That sound. I had lifted his forehead and tried to make him drink a Wyeth antibiotic.

In the province, in Naga in the ‘80s, there were really no animal clinics…Animal clinics like children’s clinics… So there I was crying, a child crying like an animal. Mommy had come out into the backyard and looked at me, asked, “Why are you crying?” I had ignored her, thinking that she was a cold-hearted idiot the way I had always thought of her at that age and even years after. She knew, felt, that her alien child--- too intelligent and knowing--- thought that.

She left me alone. I watched and stayed with Yen until he died. He was screaming and then the scream was just cut off. And after I never touched another animal again. Though I had buried Ribbon--- our cat--- in our backyard when she died years after. I don’t remember if she was run over or a snake had bitten her. I would put flowers I would pick from the subdivision on her grave everyday. I had buried her and she was still soft. I had buried Yen, too. He had still felt soft.

When Brownie, my dad’s dog, died years later of old age, Daddy was the one who buried him. I had watched Brownie die and sat by him as he was dying--- made him drink water when he could no longer move and was gasping. One day I woke up and he was no longer there. They did not say but Daddy took care of the body. Brownie whom I had cradled and kept calm in that jeepney when we moved to Naga from Iriga. Brownie whom I and my siblings had resented when he would get home faster than we did when Daddy would whistle for us to come home from playtime with the neighborhood kids. Daddy would beat us if were late. Brownie who had recognized Daddy first before we did when he finally came home from the States just after the ’86 Revolution.

We stopped having pets after... After Mel-May died and there was even a Blackie. No cats either, those cats that would sleep on top of the TV and swing their tails in front of the screen. We stopped having pets and those were the most violent of years and the violence is still remembered by me.

Until 2001 in our apartment in Masikap and it was a Saturday and there was a stray mix Spitz dog whom nobody seemed to own. Daddy had knocked on doors down the street onto the next and the next blocks looking for her owner. She stayed with us and it took a while before I even petted her. It was storming then and we took her inside. She made everyone in the family kinder: we are of fierce and angry blood, gentled then by her and hence more forgiving now.

Daddy, ever the realist, named her Saturday and Saturday’s second litter was born with congenital diseases. This was in 2004: we took them all to the animal clinic in Kalayaan, like children. They were my children--- the children of a young woman whom the doctors said should have children to be saved from cancer, whom could not conceive. One by one we took them to the clinic, hoping they would be saved. Hope. It took time. No one left the clinic and one by one they died. I was thinking that they died alone and I was not there to sit by them. No one should die alone. One by one they were taken home and we buried them in the yard. They were all stiff. One by one they made me accept grief from genetics.

Mommy had said then that if they could, then the family should bury them without my knowing. Mig paratangis naman. Like she had with Yen. And I would go farther away and may never come back. Mommy had fretted and had been a comforting strength when I had called her weeping.

The last ones who died had yet to be claimed. I did not have the money and I was waiting for my salary from my first full-time job. It had paid 10 000 pesos gross from teaching almost 8 straight hours a day these desperate nurses and employees and children and high school kids and college kids and parents and all kinds of students in 48 hours a week. The money came but I had learned that the bodies had already been claimed and were already buried.

The young man who had loved me had done that. And I had hated him for his love that had wanted to shield me from more pain, wept with the futility of enduring those painful hours of teaching. I had asked where the bodies were buried. None of them knew that I dug them up one night to see them. To see as a fact that they were dead.

And on October 16 2009, my cat Thirdy, just past one year, fell from our home on the 12^th floor. I thought that he would already be dead as I was accompanied by the guard who had informed me that a cat fell and was taking me to where he was. He was still alive, thrashing and “clawing for air” was right there and I was seeing it.

I was told not to touch him but I did. Only then did he become still. I had stroked him, murmured soothing sounds the way you would to an ill child--- no hope they said and the cold core in me knew it but still I hoped--- until he began bleeding out and stopped breathing. I watched and felt that last breath. It all only took seconds, maybe 3-5 minutes. I had wiped the blood from his nose and white fur with my daster before my sisters and brother could come and see him. Before his daddy could see him.

There were 9 people I was supposed to post-test that morning and I did: not all were certified but all were eventually hired. I lost my wallet inside the office too that day. Persevered that day. And hated that I could for what I wanted was to be given time to bury my baby. And be there with his daddy who would be burying him. No one should bury a loved one alone. I had waited until he was already beginning to be stiff and only then did I let him go and leave for work. The punctuality of time has always been relative.

It is silly to most people, loving animals as if they were your children. Or giving your self to strangers the way people like me do so in teaching. But I have accepted the pain of the duty in teaching, the obligation of seeing people through the end. The pain as focus, impetus, energy--- it is like breathing to me. Until it becomes choking, like watching somebody die.

It is like that every time I have to let go of somebody I’m teaching after five days. Policy says I have to. It is like that and worse for I am watching somebody-- a person reduced to an animal--- I hold in my heart like my dead children, dying and being buried alive. And my hand that is forced to let go is that hand choking the breath of hope, my hand with the soil that says they are a failure, that consent.

There were two this time and so I had told them before they faced that panel--- They want to let you go. Fight. Stay with me. Let’s finish this. Don’t you goddamn dare give up. Fight. I will be fighting with you. All the way. For life. Fight.

I had not wanted to let go and I was told that I was being greedy and too ambitious. Because I wanted them to be given time to learn and turn into their possibilities? Fuck you. Watch it. Watch them turn, the way stories would turn and poems would turn to all fall and stop spinning unto place.

Mommy had said during the last days of May and the first days of June this year that I should go back to that seminar in UST for a re-learning of why people teach language and literature. I told her that in this business it’s called “recalibration”. The first time she sent me to that seminar was in 2007: I had stopped teaching and thought that I could never return to teaching again. And I had re-learned with the help of Cirilo Bautista and Ophelia Dimalanta--- Ma’am Ophie who had stopped writing a long time ago because she chose teaching. And teaching, if one really understands it, is writing on minds, these hearts, of bodies, in souls. She died last year, told me to keep on writing poetry and that one day I would be finally ready to let other eyes read it.

Last night I felt like I had betrayed my vows. Those two were released but I had not let go. Humans are never the lifeless numbers or phonemes--- which this business has tried to make me forget. So I will not let go. Junior said that we could not save everyone. I told her that I never wanted to save everyone, just one would be enough, and one within my reach. Last night there were two. And I will not let go. It is Dickinson whom I had read again and again in my vein: If I could stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain… So I will not let go.

Today my teachers would be happy that I am writing words again as plainly as my language can, as tears can. Count: there are 1740 for those two.

So you tell me:

What did we teach the present last night?

What are we teaching the future now?

Out Rice Shower

2011-06-11T23:53:00.000+08:00

Because each message wakes up the younger, boozers of red towers, no longer knowing what’s happening but it’s good, asleep like ducks and about to crash as soon as that lank hits the bed---

(There’s the Jeffrey.)

That says that it is the middle-aged (self)grounded like a teenager on a Saturday because the watchers had given it the “talk”. What talk? The sanctity of the bedroom and the home and how one asserts the personal in shared space--- the economics of rooms.

Understandable.

Malice--- What. Fuck.

And hackles--- If that were a woman inside it would be no problem. So what’s the difference. CHOICE. Ah, here come frameworks being imposed, the virus of the conservative. It’s protective. Suddenly there, the feeling of dirty. Thanks. Thanks a lot oh ye free from the nightmares that plague sleep. Rant.

(There’s the feared sex, drugs, and gothic roll AWOL.)

LAWYERED: Let it pass.

Never tried jumping off a balcony as suicide.

(That has got to be acid.)

There was that dream the other night of being lost somewhere between the streets of inner Manila and Bangkok. Not knowing how to get home.

Charles was there. He was upset about being included in a book though grateful, says that one has to go that mile of hoopla. There was that hug given to all mentored. He hugged back, tight around the green daster softened and tattered by years.

Riding a child’s red bike in that dream around this neighborhood. To wake up with the news that the niece has just learned to ride the bike without training wheels. Her kuya taught her. Just like the children in the 1980’s.

Tradition now.

And the youngest in a call, ordering the second mothers to come home for she misses loving. The little man was told by a little girl that he is cute and that he smells nice. Laugh a scream, “Nooooooo! He’s just a baby!”

(The room is a tomb without them.)

Just like the prototype who’s asked this to be the best woman. Marrying at 20? Is she pregnant? No? Then you and me kid will have to talk about that. Impulse control of smart adrenalin junkies: Sigh.

Sister #3 finally read “Wishes” after all these years, says it made her sad and even knowing that it would she finished it. It was good, she said. Thank you so much. Don’t read the newest one that will come out. Divorced and onto fucking around in Vegas finally with 38 words. It needs gritty motels and divine strippers.

(When one becomes a standard, it is isolation.)

Now the Lady was funny. And the Lady is now poisoning noisy dogs. No shit? Yep, try being a virgin dude who is taking female hormonal pills.

And Phoenix--- according to the False Prophetess--- we are, they say, uncanny rising from the ashes of hell. Introduce ourselves to Professor X. He can fuck our brains out.

We look happier.

Nothing to give.

Wine is the blood of liars, the break of Truth Sayers. That was the vortex of evil wanting your soul and balls. The wave--- Ride.

Sing.

There was that dream that the bed was a coffin. There was the younger who is now the watcher beside the bed. The same younger who would chide the middle-age for getting hammered, the same taunt from senior boozers. Keep the monsters away, the dead sleeper says.

(There’s Colt 45.)

So here is the rice shower on filters flipping a cold and rapping a cough, tapping to hip-hop, Mark Twain a chanting: DO SOMETHING THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO DO EVERYDAY; THIS IS THE GOLDEN RULE FOR ACQUIRING THE HABIT OF DOING YOUR DUTY WITHOUT PAIN.

(There is that haunt again from Satan: Duty is branded on the forehead.)

The ducks are on the way home, a mami stop first before bed.

Really, what’s with you younger dudes and mami after boozing.

It baffles.

(Kanye West Can you guys tell me why…The way we mow the ride?)

Tangna Diablo na lang raw of Cavite yo.

Tone.

Ted & Sylvia Case 41004852

2011-05-09T18:54:00.000+08:00

That Sylvia was reading a note that morning written by That Ted that night.

That Ted said:

I’m sorry baby.

I do miss you, you know. It’s funny, the difference between the past month and the past two days is that all the worries are there but you’re not around. Thinking about stuff, about my life, about you. I do love you. And I do want to marry you. At the same time, I want to give you a better life than this but not at the cost of always being at the office or somewhere working and you being the home maker. I want a life with you.

I wish I was a rich old man.

Maybe that’s why I want to be a commercial writer. Bring in the dough without losing you. But then again, I always figured you to be the writer between the two of us. Not that I think you should go commercial. But you’re an artist. I’m just a hack. Did I ever tell you that you write beautifully? You do.

And reading That Ted’s words made That Sylvia sad. It made That Sylvia want to weep. But That Sylvia did not. That Sylvia nodded, inhaled, exhaled--- Life with you, Our life--- and resolved to write only in notebooks for That Ted needed That Sylvia to believe That Ted could wield words the way That Sylvia could. All That Sylvia really wanted was for those words in the notebooks to be read by That Ted. But That Ted would have hated That Sylvia. And so That Sylvia preferred to be in the background of public words. That Sylvia loved That Ted more than That Sylvia loved words.

GIRL # 35041153

2011-05-08T00:25:00.000+08:00

And I thought it would be something significant, something really big. Yeah,big…Like he cheated on me or something. Or something really shocking or disgusting. Horrifying earwax is disgusting and he had tons of it. I had to remove it. He disgusted me. I am still shuddering. The disgust was so overwhelming that I asked him to leave. I do not regret telling him the things I said. They were the truth after all. It’s supposed to hurt. But my god, do I have to tell him to be clean? Hygienic even? It reflects so much of his personality and I’ll be damned if I would tolerate that throughout marriage. I suppose this is why we don’t have a sex life: I want things to be perfect. Impossible, of course, but at least I shouldn’t worry about hygiene. I have a problem with his irregular bowel movement, his nails, his pubic hair… Now his ears (and not to mention the teeth). Jesus, I’m not asking for the moon. Just that he, at least, be clean! He wouldn’t even wash his hands. Or really look at himself in the mirror and see how baduy he is. Such is the price of love, comfort, and being comfortable. While cleaning his ears, I really thought of breaking up with him. Just like that. Something more than earwax will definitely be the end of this relationship. But tonight it almost ended. I refuse to soothe him, or his ego. I wonder what he would do.

OH-HO-PING!

2011-04-26T23:47:00.002+08:00

TABULARASADOESNOTWORK MOTHERFUCKINGIDIOTRETARDED STILL...Okay, I'm done Dr.Stronzo. On with the Program.

The Incorrigible Child

2011-04-25T22:31:00.005+08:00

Had cuddled like the salamander that she was as a child and asks, “You love me?”

At 29 and with three children of her own, she is still and always the baby among her sisters and over simple things now like wanting a Big Mac meal. (Her fourth sister lambasting the crew and the supervisor once reaching the counter You should have said while were on line and ordering that there’s no damn Big Mac because that was the whole point of coming here. )

Her wanting these gray flats from Parisian and waiting for the sale which made her fourth sister wince and nod Next time you tell me when you want something for yourself and we’ll get it. The incorrigible child looking sad for the flats were gone; she shrugs, smiles, says, “Next time. The children’s shoes are more important.”

Now the child says she’s afraid and her fourth sister says I understand--- What do you want to know? She tells the child that they would put her to sleep, that she would count one to ten and she’ll be asleep before the end.

“Good,” she says, “I don’t want to hear the---” steel on steel basins.

It will be cold and she will tremble but just breathe steadily. And when you wake up you will feel that soreness there; Don’t talk; Don’t move so much; We’ll be there. It is nothing compared to the pain of childbirth and you’ve gone through that three times.

And now the child is taking care of their senior citizen parents--- even her Nanoy’s things like a bus ticket--- and the house of their childhood; the childhood absent of hugs and I-love-you’s.

The fourth sister cradles this child as if she were a baby who does not weigh 55 kilos, “I love you…I love you…I love you…”

The child chuckles, “Dad used to say You’re an incorrigible child… I didn’t know what that word meant.”

The fourth sister laughs, “Daddy’s fault then that he wasn’t understood.”

And so with the children, words used are known and shown and if unknown are explained.

Calling Astro Waps

2011-04-24T23:40:00.000+08:00

You spoke of the soul a year later while my clock says it’s been half that. We measure time with our words and time rambles. It is Sunday and the night is barking, the rattle of spoons in the kitchen, the chatter of a three year old about Mama Mary punctuated by laughter and hugs, even the waiting cursor seems to make a sound in what is silence. The past three days my baby sister would sometimes gently say Inay…Inay…Where are you? Because I have been silent and would go far away, would talk to the sky, finding corners in the kitchen or promised chairs or hammocks in houses. I would just say I’m here and point to this. You have forgotten that this silence would sometimes disturb those who love us. They are waiting and waiting for us to come back from the horizon where we are on the verge of knowing what is ineffable. At times catapulted into that black hole where letters become a storm and you feel as if you are falling, suspended in space. Grounded on the material, when will our feet touch Wonderland? Inay…Inay…Where are you? Sunday and the Easter Mass never happened. Always irreverent, the spinsters and their Father joke about the priest being somewhere else, perhaps the beach, drinking and whoring. Waiting, the children ask about the meaning of INRI, what are jews, where human beings came from and what was the first country, taking turns on my lap for their answers. And what is a democrat, I point them to sit on their uncle’s lap. I watch Mother’s lips and almost hear her prayers. That tomorrow her daughter who is a mother would be safe after steel would cut and pull mass out of her. And I, always the surrogate mother, would stay with the children. You they listen to, You they adore and fear, You with the love that has become patient through the years. Hours later I say out loud to Mother as I take off my new white heels how someone loved could say that I would be a bad mother. A second of the falling unto suspended space spoken. Ika kaya su pig-aalagaan. I nod and say that I do know how that could have been said, remembering seeing anger in women and grown men’s tears at my shrugging face when that was gutted out of my gritted lips. Ninang! We had our ultrasound earlier. Baby girl magiging inaanak mo. Kailangan kasing fashionista ng ninang ha! I say that I remember that whenever I see the children, when our boy asks about the why of the world. I say that I live with my faults. Mother says that she prays for the next time. But it will take a while, I say, for the heart has become a husk. I do understand and that has always been the weight scaled by the gift. Do you? Yes and that’s why the confounding come to me and feel like they have come home to that hidden planet of Cavafy. And if I look happier then it is because for years now there is acceptance of the daring madness in me without apologia, without wanting to kill its host. The mothers and the children ask as it is time to sleep Inay…Inay…Where are you? The end of each beginning is seen through. There is always courage to be the self no matter the toll and dues have been paid by the soul. There is now air and there is the horizon. There is that journey to gravity that keeps its silence about pillars becoming plagiarists and the politics of penitence. And time, like the future that we see, that we can put in words can make us speak of the year later now.

When You Wake

2011-04-23T11:43:00.008+08:00

Hours later, of the root word, from a dream about seeing dinosaurs flying outside your night window. Flying dark hard skin and red eyes--- invisible to the world. And the rain had come, the wind a storm that tore out the windows, the rain tearing books and the room no longer a shelter.

The Metro Moves

On cars towards fast food, breakfast on Maundy, Lent now a vacation and no longer suffering solemnity. Look at your children, Father. The morning wind is cool gray. You wonder about these shaded ants and rats, the beaches that would be swarmed. Questions interrupt--- Questions about vows to love and now occupied by fucks. There, There, Right, There, Learn.

Spore S and this spoke of boxes and wonder if it sees that they are cages and coffins. This language now for the higher brow.

Filling

There is this hunger that you feel that you fill with tastes--- sweet and salty inverted and reversed. Happiness is those first seconds of seeing the children, their smiles and squeals as they run to you. The hugs despite the dust of the nine hours on the road. Those two pictures then taken of home--- the smiles and the hugs. Perhaps you will be happier when you have a child, who knows. You want to cry with happiness.

In the shower, you were talking to your mother in your head; about how sometimes you could not tell what was left from the right--- questions about marriage and how a woman survives being left behind by years. How it is to be this old and married to the same man. Why one stayed and held on even when the other wanted to leave. How is it that husbands can simply choose to walk away from wives and children just with a shrug.

Searching Space

Like falling asleep on the couch and sinking finally into the safety of long and dreamless sleep. On that sofa, a little boy snuggles close to you, talks about his graduation and how he likes Math and National Geographic and Discovery, munching on corn bits like a man munches on tidbits while watching TV. He remarks about Mr. Bean shaving his head and that his father is like that, isn’t he?

It’s been months and children are not the fools the world thinks who easily forget. You tell him that his father is gone, left, no longer coming back--- the same words from half a year ago. You ask him--- because you’ve always talked to this boy as an adult even when he was just a baby--- if he wants to see his father, to talk to him. He says yes.

In your head you reply, He has no rights to you. He relinquished it. He ran away from it. There is anger once again and you call that Kubarde that son of a bitch.

Spore S cautions, “Be careful with your adjectives. You did not really say that to the boy, did you?” You say that you are careful, that at least that s.o.b. has not been declared dead and gone to hell in this reality.

Instead you caution the boy to not be like the usual man, to not run away when life calls you to be a man even when you’re not ready. Just a boy, really, even with aging skin and brittle hair and bones.

Dying Father

While speaking of surrender, the first daughter asks, “Who is your sister?” and what is surrender. You tell her that all her mothers are your sisters and her Mommy is your baby sister. You tell her that it depends on what surrender means and at 5 years old this daughter is introduced to the intricacies of usage and affect in meaning.

Now you listen to the Siete Palabras of Jesus who will die in a couple of minutes and people’s life stories interpreting these words. You listen to the sixth-word-story--- the story of a woman who got married three times: 1) Husband had a hard time being the man and stayed the Mommy’s boy; 2) Husband said after a time that “There is no longer a spark”; 3) Husband was a rebound…

That search for completion in love, its worth, in an equation.You laugh: IsolatIon Is The PoInt and completion means you marry yourself or God.

Panning For Spoons

You tell your baby sister that her two elder children have different thinking constructs: Our boy pans for gold; he would not simply accept explanations but would question them. But make no mistake: he does absorb everything and would make use of what you thought he’d foregone when it suits him. Want to make a bet that he will be an architect of future computer programs? While our little lady is a sponge but mind her obsessive-compulsive tendencies. That one will be in the business of words. The little lady had cried when she found out that her Mommy is going to the hospital, said, I don’t want you to die.

Spores say you speak in riddles and they have no patience for it: you are running on 100 mph while they are only on 60. They try to make you blink and you just end up laughing. You tell them that you don’t spoon-feed when it comes to thinking.

You tell them “Ketchup” and “Peace” and “I love you.” The latter is questioned and you sigh your reply, Ah shit…It means unconditional--- which is “ambivalent” to vocabularies that use the word “nice”.

“God is dead,” the youngest daughter at 3 years old then morosely say to you adults. You wonder if God ever got tired of this annual dying and rising up from the dead and being born at the end of the year cycle that human beings put him through.

You laugh and say to the youngest, “Don’t worry baby, God will come back to life on Sunday… He’ll be reborn as the Easter Bunny Wunny.”

Turning The Clock

2011-04-22T14:50:00.011+08:00

Perhaps leather pages are doomed to witness love stories that die in a scream. No matter the color, black or the more benign brown, always the ink written as tears or bitten lips endeavoring to utter what is beating the heart. The Panda 757 RP cannot see beyond the swimming vision telling it to sleep--- eyes that should open at 3:30 AM to return home, to fly to the South like the strange and sometimes lost bird that it is, to come home to the present of the aging and the young.

Spore B tells it now at past 1:27 AM that he’s in the beach. Panda 757 RP replies, “Is there a moon?” Spore B says yes and Panda 757 RP remembers the last times it was in that time and space--- whom the soul would call to. Like that July in a beach too and Panda 757 RP had seen the moon become yellow then orange, like the sun going cold, setting. Panda 757 RP had thought of sunshine then which was far away and six hours behind: And just like that, sunshine drops off the horizon, like so many travelers before, the horizon unknowing where or how it is--- lost to language, like sunshine. This moon has dreamed of this before, it realized the other night as it was writing another letter--- stopped--- remembering that it was not a happy ending. It is fortune.

It re-reads its own words, wondering at the gaping distance that will be the future. The what-now and where-to-go except home…Where it is simple enough, like the young girl who always just wanted to be a housewife but life turned her and kept turning her. Panda 757 RP says that suicide was not merciful and death would be cruel. How it feels the latter coming closer, feared, yet in the end would be a welcomed friend who’s been shunned. And love, the Death Cabs say, is watching someone die.

Panda 757 RP thinks about that clock which Spore T says is occupied. Of course--- the weak do not have the courage to face regret and four years from now fortune says would feel that remorse. For now just this silence--- like thin skin notebooks being carried around--- light and not as thick as leather. Ah, who will be those manly eyes that will finally read the idiolect?

Like Spore S finally waking up after a dozen hands had rounded that clock and sees what should have been. It could have been…Except that spores always need time to bloom like the thorns in roses. In compartments and segregated, this is how they live the Real. It has all become a cycle of leaving and returning.

A last cigarette, Panda 757 RP says to the one singing of love, this black machine of memento mori. It looks at the first and remaining captured smile of itself and sunshine--- they were happy… And it had avoided being frozen in the same frame since. Perhaps when Panda 757 RP returns home there will be a remedy.

Out Of The Flat and Onto The Spikes

2011-03-03T23:31:00.000+08:00

From the stirring----There--- The beating upon reading a letter on skydivers. There--- The joy after eight months of flinging about and searching for signs in the sky of where one could rest. The epiphany from regret and now remorse: The choice to stay with the ground who endures. And see--- That one will no longer look at the sky, puts away the wings, and begins. The wings are screaming. Hushed. This is necessary. There--- The spikes. The heart is screaming. It is being hushed. Retreat--- Cutting out--- The noise---Time lapse--- [Negotiate this…]:

0 began

With Sunday’s assessing look while holding the child that was no longer a heathen, You look unnaturally composed. The reply was laughter, Unnatural always. It must be all that young sex that I’m getting. I’m kidding. O said, You’re not grieving. Bitch, have you even had self-destructive sex?! Joe! Get her number! Laughter as Good New Joe gamely mimed. The reply was a smile and coolly Self-destructive sex has been regulated. I have a guy I fuck every month. Which reminds me: Time to fuck. Lose all this self-control. Somebody threatened with a joke that he will put it as fb status message that I’ll fuck a different guy every month. Hilarious. Not even anger. Just good and bad laughter.

.5 began

With Red Monday. All that red is a flag to the bull and all those hearty greetings are answered with a saccharine “I hate you.” Let’s get it on with the show--- the fractured dirty finger a happy trigger and no pictures please. Stage fright again. Performance of an appropriate break. Because the sunshine said that it is expected not to speak of love. Because if the sons of bitches were articulate then this is what they would have said. And that night--- the triangles are all exposed, broken egos, these left hearts scraping the skin like fingernails when inside one is already raked and raked raw. Awkweird, Mr. Bond said. Three grimaces were kissed that night. To one--- It will be all right and here’s the promised smack. To two---- You’re my girl and to hell with these little fuckers including the douche bag of the dude. To three--- I don’t want to screw you up but if you want to give them a show then we can give them one. One can never screw up another if one is upfront. The game of flakes is for the young. One has aged.

1 began

With the Fathers asking questions about the retreat. The answer was silence and the fractured finger held up, pointed to the laptop, the two mobile phones buzzing and ringing, tapping away the frenzy of the spiking in between movies and compliance with disobeyed orders for immobility. The spiking ranting--- the ensuing cutting from the mess of life’s curve balls--- being halted by Mr. Bond’s declaration of vows… The maker asks, Did you have premarital sex with him? Snorting laughter. Well, there you go. He was not getting it so he looked for it. Go out with one of these guys hanging around you like bees for years. The man has to fuck and be fucked: What a man, What a man, What a man, What a mighty good man… Those left would have absurd speculations. Another snort. To be alone. How was last night, my Princess? It was awful and it’s all spiking.

1.5 began

With an invitation to retreat into a cave and laughing admonitions--- Don’t wreck the room. You threw away sheets? What else are you throwing away now? It’s all goddamn spiking and the flat line is needed to do what must be done. It is a process, Fathers, and one that must run its course. The way time was not cut off, every time for a long time, so as to let the dying die. This is burial, Fathers, and your helplessness is understandable. One is not supposed to drive with a drugged fractured finger. There, a bump, distracted by a beep. One calmly gets out of the car, looks, smiles, shrugs, asks how much. There is no panic. And finally laughter. Mr. Bond asks, What? You got into an accident? What? What happened? The other driver had a problem and one solves problems. And what was his problem? His wife. There, laughter unto the clown’s cave. The clown says, You are out of center Princess. The finger, the accident just now… Because of the stirring and now the spiking. From the broken frozen for it would have destroyed one then. And now it is thawing, the spikes. The rage must be put to sleep and make way for grace: the dance of the clowns.

2 began

With the clown saying What a coincidence meeting him here. One laughs at coincidences manipulated for lips and the carnal aborted. That spinning. That knowing that alteration is upon time when one leaves for the sea and sky. It vanishes, is let go, returning to when it all began---- The Damned ‘99 Children gathered with their Mama and Papa. Mama says How long since I last saw you? A decade? Good that you have filled out. You no longer look like a junkie. Still insane though. More controlled, Mama. And Brother Fucker looking at his special sister Well hello Brother. I heard you got hitched twice. What the fuck Brother? Once isn’t enough?! Brother Fucker stutters into laughter and dazed unto silence. Terse Papa says to Brother Fucker Your sister is a hanger, you know… And Mama and Papa say And she is the favorite of Satan. Temperamental bastard. Can’t kill the whole world you know and oh be sweet. Brother Fucker says Sister, you look like a kid and you will never marry. The unicorn exists and Brother Fucker you need to change that old dude wardrobe. Now, try fucking your second wife this way…Laughter. The moon…Howl.

2.5 began

With tears at sunrise: Fathers, the mind is unlearning the lies believed. Surely you understand why the heart is spiking and spiking to be still. One is Beloved, Fathers. It survives what would have killed. It fights to live every hour until the eleventh hour. Look, the sun. It is the moon cold once more.

3 began

With the return to purpose, its work. Here! Peace! Cease that panic my children! Let us cook you! Back now and rolling Comrades! The next seeing a man self-destroyed with love. Now the man dreams of what the past says cannot be the future. She will not come back to you. The man says that he knows it will not happen now. Says he has an uncle who had separated from his wife for a decade and they reunited living happily ever after. Says it can happen. Says he can dream. One respects the resolve of doom in misused prepositions. And you have been cursed. You think there is escape from silenced raging gutted out of a heart bleeding into itself and holding the blood of witches. The heart always in triangles, the dream from the time of triangles--- Love--- How clear to one while the blind remains wordless. […Motherfucker]

Moving/Found: The Fellows of 2007 Dumaguete National Writers Workshop

2011-02-16T11:44:00.003+08:00

A laugh amid black garbage bags.The audience thought the program had gone crazier.

Hat-tips / Curtsies. Paging Martin Villanueva! Paging Martin Villanueva! Where are the prints and prints of that summer? Introducing, the un-declamation by the Minotaurs:

THIS IS NOT A POEM The riffs of the man at the station: Of all the people she had to sit next to, It had to be a freak. “Thought you might need a wizard,” he said. “Kever! You’re a loser,” she said. Blessed is the bird, a dead poetess’ song. It’s odd: I speaks to the clouds and rivers Like a half-used whore, naked, almost young Another go-round in the air, sweeping over.I am the bete noire: the pulchritude, ephemeral; Extirpate this unwashed brain! I was born in parts--- my legs fell in front Of me: a girl with a pink smile. I’ll shoot you, you fool! Nananananana…PATAY! And they all agreed it was good Television when men stroke Water with hands and feet. You black suit, black shoes, Black looks woman. Thank God I didn’t think Of studying in Russian. Kever! He is prey in the middle of an orgasm; Float like a dandelion, I am air: (Real editorials are made on the street. Real editorial are made on the street. Real editorials are made on the street.) Know this love, you will never be rid of me. Joy-Joy Juice, Joy-Joy-Shake (Shake it baby!) with your purple---Penitensiya--- Venus is dead! Happiness is a warm gun…Pointless narrow-minded elitist crap. P.S. Five minutes later: A perky rack with a hardened Lick of heaven--- seamless erotica as punctuation. How dare you put decaf in my red mug? (You put a whore in a whorehouse, How many moves have you got?) How must I love everything Tunneling into the deep? It’s not just done. Who’s the charlatan? I am a virgin, I am free, I don’t Comply with patriarchy. Everyone else was happy--- And that’s the Minotaur! Queen Mother’s dicklit of the prodigal son Of the gutters: the royal eye-roll. (My brother pees On your Money Tree.) A spasm then a quiver: “Voyadores! Voyadores! Viva La Virgen!” It’s raining inside you. He’s the hippo in the rain. But break-up, grudge, comfort, mercy, closure, free--- It’s ALL GOOD… In the space allotted for birds. Always portents who stepped on a cloud: Stella the goat, vague as a veil. The hole in the wall, chunk Of belly, blood, What looked like a tail. Poor lover of the trivial; Finally, it becomes a thing that was A key but prefers to break down doors. Who will forgive the survivor?

Fucking A Fellows:

Who the fuck is still paying the price of surviving?

Fucking Kryptonite

2011-02-14T14:18:00.002+08:00

For the doorknob, today began never once upon a time with a mash-up of younger Vincenz Serrano’s I walking away from the you and immortal Ophelia Dimalanta’s I flinging arrows: Read this idiolect, read well, decode, detect and for the you to love the I when it seems to hate.

Mash-ups… It’s so…Glee.

To which the doorknob said “Fuck this shit” and up it went with the elevator, the world just muzak, and got off--- the door opening to a brain--- this white telegram screen of fast forward birds. To the brain, the doorknob was a bird plucked from that Hitchcock flock (the doorknob supposes, it didn’t ask). The doorknob was sweating in the humidity--- it was raining somewhere but not there--- straightening this and that to see the corners of rooms, there, space.

The brain said for it to sit down and relax--- here, the arr-pirates’ found gold in the Philippines, here shake Mr. Jack’s hand from Tennessee, here is St. Michael, here again is pyrite, oh the fool’s piss gold in the Philippines.

The doorknob took the brain around its rooms--- here is some dude who likes overpricing the color orange named Ascalan--- here is Norman Isaac with his big heads, here is Anita Magsaysay Ho--- pronounce it as Ho not Ho--- here is Nuni Alvarado who likes his sugar canes bloody--- Here is Paz Abad Santos, no that was Pacita Abad it last saw as a bridge of Trapunto in Singapore, and here is Onib Olmedo who did not die poor for his widow drives a BMW. That? That is Arturo Luz, a paperweight. Art.

They are birds to the brain--- But what the hell is that doing there? That was Twilight. Well, someone there was a fan of mash-ups of love stories. Ah, ah, but see--- And there it was the VHS Star Wars trilogy. But A New Hope is better watched in Betamax. Oh Luke, that almost twin-sister-fucker. And yeah, the doorknob wishes too sometimes that 1-2-3 (remembering cackling in the cinema to Revenge of The Sith because it was really just a love story) weren’t made but it’s done. And so there now exists Star Wars 1 to 6 like the seconds the yogi says for the doorknob to take before breathing shit out.

The doorknob opened to a half-Japanese flower who likes taking photos of vaginas in non-Ikebana and it spoke to the brain in Nihonggo while the brain replies in Chinese, like Hong Kong action villain flicks. The brain remembers Ondoy and this 18-year-old construction worker who saved 30 strangers. And drowned after. And so what is a hero?

The doorknob rattled, “That’s…That’s holy fucking shit.” Life, the doorknob was being called by these two old queens like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, “Our beloved Princess, where are you?” The doorknob said, “I’m in my tower, growing my hair. And you?” We’re waiting for our Princess, like aswangs or warlocks or like good old fairies.

The doorknob opened to a bottle of Sangria who brought songs unsung in the airwaves, the sound of the younger and “You’re gonna frea-king laaaahvet!” discussed skating the line between Self-Affirmation and Self-Absorption. To be new age Jesus babies, self-help junkies. Oh just stick to Self-Awareness. And what of Carnal Sincerity? It does not exist, the Sangria said, “I want to fuck you with sincerity?” It does though as a paradox.

Into the blue room: The brain said, “I want to repaint it.” Do whatever you want with it, the doorknob said. Posters there, light saber here, Yoda’s head there, Delorian here, Scarface would be too much, and have you seen a Death Star somewhere? Why don’t we just make it.

The brain stroked the doorknob like the cat it has always wanted. Both stared through the windows, the city, the horizon. Spoke of bus stops and trains and yes--- the night rises and does not fall, the brain said this makes sense. A day has passed.

“I am your kryptonite,” the brain drawled, smelling like a wry rainbow, wanting to smell like unicorn droppings or the musk of a centaur or anything from the myth shit list.

The doorknob giggled like a high school girl, “Fuck you.” And there it was again, Cee Lo Green caroling “Fuck you” since December.

Again, gluck to gleek. Onto the elevator, the brain said to the doorknob, “Not dead. Just dormant. Something unexpected on Monday.”

The doorknob felt it--- the beating, several seconds, held it--- the door closed and it returned to the way it was before, the way it has been for months, is.

One of the old queens then said, “Dead as a doorknob sucks.”

The doorknob said, “And the dead is stirring.”

It is Monday.

Management of Dada

2011-02-03T00:08:00.002+08:00

The equation begins with D

Only it was not D

----Supernova---

The fierce belatedly called

Reality looking at the clock, yes, it was

Kind of… How else would you call those

Swollen eyes made up by dark eye-shadow, liner, mascara the morning after

Or that first Friday silent night lighting up to shots after bottles

Talking business with white folks while

Wearing grunge and spinning charm on that orange chair

Swivel eyes widening to that rare sight

--- Our Mama Mary flirts---

Oh children you haven’t seen

Nothing

Yet

Watch it

Turned on

--- See that burning---

Rummaging through that rabble of brain

----Buck Stand That Cock’s---

Watch it

Turned off

---Just business this of---

Whatever

Whoever

You get

----It has been turned off---

For along time and only on to the insanity of the brave

That exclusivity the aged and dying said

Only the hunger for warmth would break

---And the hungry are many---

That laughter as it watches the songs and dances refused

Irreverent as always

---White folks can’t dance---

Being hauled by big hands

That should not have been smoking with

---This white boy can dance---

Dance the old bossa nova

And after feeling the ripping

Walking out of the drumming noise of bodies on foreplay

Leaving Jack on the floor

Walking away straight into a cab

Leaving the car behind to the following concerned feet

---- Hey I know I don’t understand---

---- How it all feels hey---

---- Hey what about your---

---- I’m coming with you hey---

---- No I don’t care burn it for all I care---

Just had to go home where it’s safe does not make sense

Sleeps to wake up to messages stating a hotel room number

Simply puts on clothes and stuff

Some in a bag does not shower

Goes to the hotel and leaves the baggage behind

Walks around to here and there with a watcher waiting for it to explode

---Two stuffed cats, takes a picture, wanting to send---

Stops

Knows it is gift unwanted

Sits in UCC for coffee laughs

---Ah shit I forgot to put on underwear---

The watcher laughs

---Crazy kid…Listen, anything but don’t fuck around---

It won’t snorts

---Of course not that’s just fucking stupid----

Be calm to the screams and wails it was hearing

--- Those gutted ----

Does not feel anything except the supernova inside it

Has been muted

Made so by the absence of

---Consent---

Gets up, does, smiles, absorbs the tears of the bereaved, sits beside those surviving

Autopsies of dying of loved ones

----It is one of its skills---

Clowns reports the why now and then of

----The supernova as if it were weather----

This laughing DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADA Pulsing Flat line

---Distance is the same---

--- No matter what does the leaving---

The absurd is living

Understandable burst

---Disconsolate made ---

Ah, son of a bitch

---Forever is a city with limits and love---

Turned out to be

--- A canned good that has an expiration date----

This sighing

---It is as it is not but not should be----

There be war then Laughing DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADA Not linear to one without boxes is

Wings and spirals into the binary of good days

Twirls bad days the cold prepared still

Felt the shock clicking to the drill of surviving

--- Practice on being Job---

D is not blind to what happens one day

---Supernova leaves without a word----

Love goes to that store in the corner to buy cigarettes

And never comes back

The He's And I's of Friday's

2011-01-08T18:19:00.000+08:00

The laugh---

He, I have something to tell you.

I, Let me guess…

The nod---

He, You seem to already know.

I, Please, I wrote the book on that shit.

The slip---

He, How did you know?

I, Language + Circumstances +History = Predictable.

The idiosyncrasy---

He, describes.

I, laugh.

The balls---

He, Oh the courage…

I, Sometimes it takes being with a mother to grow …

The straight---

He said that it was face-to-face.

I laugh.

The beginnings---

He, Is it a matter of opposites?

I, Sometimes it’s simply a matter of being with someone who doesn’t know you.

The news---

They, roar… about… protocol.

I, sigh… nod… laugh some more.

The provisions---

He, Protocol? There is no protocol… To his/her own time&MO.

I, Oh you guys…What little you know…There is.

The in-betweens---

He, And you?

I, Not interested in inflicting that kind of baggage on someone. Just having fun. Not taking anything seriously.

On options---

He, I envy you…

I, Having somebody has never been a problem. Just a matter of choice.

The some of protocol---

He, How long then?

I, Six months to a year. Otherwise you’ll be more of a mess and you’re gonna take someone with you. A matter of habits. Haven’t you boys learned?

The love---

He shrugs, Maybe it’s love.

I smile, Is it? I hope it’s all happier.

The Dominoes---

He, Doesn’t know much…

I, Been trying to prevent division of people and properties.

The Middle---

I, It comes, you know. Most of the time you don’t want to be with anybody who will be a tie to the previous one.

He, I can handle it.

The lines---

He, I will not condone violence.

I, You don’t fuck with me.

He, I don’t fucking care who…

I, Again, anything can be done with a snap. It depends on how I react. But she hurts him and I’ll fucking kill her. That guy doesn’t deserve more hurts. Then again, it’s no longer my business, is it.

The shrug---

He, You’re taking it well

I, We all try to be gracious.

The bug---

He, I’m glad.

I, All part of the process: it passes.

The question on and on---

He, Would you like to have sex with me tonight?

I, Geez, get some finesse or some game, man.

The call---

I, asking where he is.

He, answering and asking what is.

The text---

I, saying what is.

He, asking where and with whom.

The presence---

I, surprised every time, always unexpecting.

He, cool and sweet, always coming.

The business of cool---

He sits, Isn’t it his right.

I smile, It is.

Up to you----

He, Are we going home or going somewhere else.

I, Not yet. One for the road.

Something else---

He says, Let’s give you something else to think about.

I laugh, Let’s ride.

This mind---

He says, You dwell.

I say, There are some things I try to forget but I can’t. I learn from mistakes by remembering.

He and I---

I, smoking with my feet propped on the banister, drinking iced tea.

He, smoking with his feet propped on the table, drinking water.

On control---

He, You can’t control everything.

I, I know. But she says nothing happens to me that I don’t allow. Again, choice, even the hurtful ones.

He, And when something does?

I, I feel raped.

On Feeling---

He, Do you feel as if you’ve been duped.

I, Nope.

How then---

He, It’s understandable if you feel hurt. That was a long time.

I, It’s like you have a bandaged scab and you ripped the bandage in one go. Nothing first. Then just a sting. The scab holds.

The agreement---

He, Whatever any of those I get involved with does before, during, after, it’s nothing compared to what I’ve done. I let it go.

I, Courtesy. And you’ve done everything. And that’s why.

The some of protocol---

He, I gave her a ring---

I hold out two fingers.

He laughs, No shit? That’s fucking true?! Really?! Two years to get married?! Shit!

I nod and laugh--- It’s protocol.

On sweetness---

He, With women, I can be bad, worse, worst but I can be sweet.

I, Yes you are.

On Fidelity---

He, It’s for marriage.

I, It is. And before?

He says, Fucking unrealistic that. The stag party alone.

I laugh.

On the question---

He laughs, Doesn’t he have any sort of game?!

I scoff, Precisely.

The basics of base----

He, The collarbone.

I, And?

And----

He smiles, That’s just the collarbone. And the fucking idiot has to ask? So base.

I laugh, Thanks. I sure will keep that in mind next time I fuck a woman.

The friendship---

He laughs, shakes his head, Why the hell am I telling you all these things??

I laugh, You taught me a lot of things, hello. And I know you’re not at talker but we’re friends.

What will---

I ask, And just what will you do if I cry?

He laughs, I have a hanky. But don’t.

I laugh, Drive you nuts, huh? Don’t you worry.

He answers, Yeah. Can’t stand to see you cry.

What one wants---

He asks, What do you want?

I answer, I like this. I’d like to be alone for a while.

On Beso---

He kisses, Good morning.

I kiss, Good morning.

He asks, Who’s that?

I answer, My sisters, telling them I’m with you

On sleep---

He asks, Did you sleep?

I answer, Yes. You?

He answers, Not really.

I laugh, Right. You didn’t move much. Thanks for not rolling over me. Woke up one time and your head was on my pillow.

He shrugs, Did I snore?

I laugh, Nope.

.Resolved---

He asks, Anything else on that mind?

I laugh, None actually.

He laughs, Problem solved.

I laugh more.

On Thanks---

I smile, Make sure your next text is better. Make it good.

He laughs, makes it better, makes it good.

He sends a message.

I laugh.

Eliot Blurbs

2011-01-07T18:34:00.003+08:00

It came on the 31-----The white flag of those snarling pained shoulders suing for peace after the taunts to one of being one---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One------------------------------ something about being a young woman sitting sadly on a throne, this angry crone------------------------------------------------------had replied with laughter----Whoa---- Then that frown---- What The Fuck------as those invalid shoulders continued to bully------ One understands the pain in explaining what was absurd to a mind gone rabid----- You Dare To Lecture Me On What Is----- You------------- Enough----------You--------------- Asshole---------- Bravo------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The snarls cut------

Nothing after-------- Words cauterized----- By I will take whatever shit you dish out because I love you and I understand. And I will keep on calling your bluffs-----------------------------------------

---------------Like “It’s all understandable” or “It’s all right” or all those words of shrugs----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will never leave you. You’re stuck with my unconditional love, bitch------------------

Or from----- Cry! Grieve those many deaths! Cry for all the lies you’re called--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Believed

To the sigh of---- What for? Para que? Tangna bakit pa? Buray ni ina niya--------------------------

-------------------------------------- One had survived limbos, what more the chosen

hells----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yeah

------- All Hail The Queen Of Hell Back On--------Cower, Bow, En Guard the brains, Brace those hearts, Cover the balls, Sheath them dicks motherfuckers---------------------------------------

Laughter after, here and there like drizzles ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking at Junior becoming nerves and no longer able to crawl the end of the year---- Tsk, Tsk, Fucking Finish What You Start, Look at them, To The Death If Necessary------------------

Courage-------Junior says But…But…It…This… is so lonely---------------------------------------- One

supposes that unless one does what it does with words, that Isolation, then one does not understand singularity, like that digitus impudicus----------Flip the I--------------------------------------

------- Ditching simulated merriment for tourist strolls instead---------------------------------------------

---------A conversation of tears with that womb that birthed after lunch, explaining and reiterating to children about alterations, witnessing how children remind each other of these like adults-------One becomes the cook and the drug-pusher and sergeant of wacky children, back in high school again and off to college of life ----------------------------------------------------------

Until the 31------- One did not reply to Elliot declaring that last year’s language was last year’s language, all those many angry words-------------------------------------------------------Silence

Amused by technicality----- It was not yet last year---------------------------------------------------------

------ An early start to kicking that motherfucker in the ass---- With two buckets of laughter with the skinhead and goat’s chin limping from a removed cyst in the foot------------------Scooby Doo----------------------------------------------The question on the quality of life, how by this return a ghost now more distinct becomes an inclined plane wrapped helically around a fulcrum----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------A what?---------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------- ------------------------------You are an idiot--------------------------------------------------------------

1---------- Unable to sleep, waking to run and walk, leaving home, returning to Holy Grail land, Mr. Bond sings Devendra----------------------------------------------------

2------------ Walking to fraps, driving to half a Jack------Jacking off that motherfucker in the isle of lesbos--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3-------One calls in peace those shoulders-----Stupid laughter-----Rum and barley with the Bride of January bawling and blowing after----------------------------------------------------------------------

4-------Timely calls as cold night comes home-------Comrades in cold-------Sleep--------------------

5--------------------Grounding------------- To deal with CEOs in boyfriend jeans and men’s dress shirts--------------- Wanting to get out------ Cheering to Jello’s Blurbs-----Reunited with Wednesday, Friends-------The calls and texts of Where are you-----------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------From-----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------Grieving The Dead-------------------------------------------------------

Scoffing at how one repeating magical realism can be so obtuse so as to speak of somebody’s mother’s wake as a high school reunion------Iyan naman eh-------------- To remembering how one despises the primitive herd and being with one someday who would never be a number in the many

--------------------------The sunshine at night says Have I texted you today-------Miss

you

6---------------------------------Now here------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------Now space----------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------Now possible-----------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------Now---------------------------------------------------------What?

-------Pink Robots and how the man from the future says there is only-------Now.

B and A

2010-12-28T17:52:00.008+08:00

Before ---

That night, she was still alive just turned 40 and it was her estranged husband’s (my weird doting uncle) 51^st birthday. I did not speak to her, already heavy with the souls transforming inside me, except for the pleasantries. I did not wish to intrude on the date between a separated couple: I was there but I was somewhere else in one vein of the mind, like the veins in mines from where you could at times unsurface but would lead to gold.

In that parallel--- Uncle and I would later recall at dawn days before the X in the penthouse of Pacific Plaza, as I danced to Miles Davis after--- she and the other were the saints of loving patience and my uncle and I were the divas of damaged weirdness. Like the trip he was supposed to take last November: ten years of her having to pack his suitcase and he didn’t know where anything was. He chose not to leave then. The parallels got along.

It was the tenth of December, two years before, a Saturday when she said what needed to be said. Two years to grow older and assume the presence required by the husband her death would leave behind. I loved her, knew so well what wounded her life. And while mine was a wormed wound that I had uncanned, hers had festered. I shied away from our living rots but I loved her because she was my friend--- her sullied warmth my surviving cold kept distant--- and because she loved him. People like us are always uneasy to love.

That night onto his 51st, drunk, she had shushed the others and declared, “Let him do what he wants! Let him do what he wants! If you don’t I’ll kill you!” She was laughing. She meant it

The clock---

That night:

Hello Mary…

It is this heaviness that feels light---

My eyes flutter slowly…like…a…

…b…

…l…

…i…

…n…

…k…

It will be the 51^st---

The old man threw away ten months of dry---

I throw away eight and some years---

For one night…I am not floating…I am afloat…

My heart had pounded…Wanting the smoke…

The blues of the opiates…

Women and trains, these suitcases.

Hello…

Mary does take the old…To the blues…

My Girl…

I got a serious song…

And so puffs and exhales…Puffs…Exhales…Puffs---

I watch the old throw away ten months with each inhale---

That smoke--- I am watching whom I love and what I hate---

I eat it, smoke it…

This is what you want--- Oh yellow mellow--- To be afloat----

The heavy head flies and the old become possessed

By the smoke god, the finger goddess…One song for the night:

“My girl!”

And next week?

“Dancing queen!”

Sunshine laughs, misunderstanding the monstrosity of this…

It’s back on the train…

Gin is blues juice…

No more puffing…

Uncle says to me, “No more!”

The old forgets and forgets rules and plays covers…

They play with E and other corded letters

Broke---

That night:

She was alive.

That night:

12 later said.

That night:

Indecision snapped into the unhappy explosion.

That night:

Nobody could pretend After---

MX RL

2010-12-27T23:50:00.006+08:00

[Number] 1 Ago

Hey

A name and blink like an owl through my vodka frames.

You still remember me?

Oh shit. Wow.

(Of course, last name).

Scram.

(Smile, Have to go, Excuse me.)

Hey, I’m going.

Polite smile.

(Bye)

Hey, is someone taking you home?

Yeah, a barber and a gnome, haha.

(Yepyep, look let me make it easier for you: give me your number. Let’s catch up one of these days, yeah? Drive safely.)

[Number] Back here

God is telling me via the X priest that to be happy I have to return to the fold. Mama was there so I could not tell X priest that Modest Mouse’s Bukowski was calling God an asshole--- I said instead You should read Ophelia Dimalanta’s Melancholia--- Go fuck yourself

You believe in priests? What fold?

The Bicol Catholic fold. You forgot my Mama’s super catholic. Sorry, was driving; my parking skills suck. Went out with the local meth-rock-fuck golden boy. Solid fun.

Rock I can imagine. I don’t remember issuing permits for meth and fucking.

You just make me sputter&laugh at the same time: I need permits from you? There was no meth nor fucking. Is a kiss permitted?

Kiss?Ok.

Was driving,now home. Kiss is ok then? Good, coz I got kissed. You told me to have fun. Do I have that permit to date?

Have fun

Fun dates then: no fucking, no drugs, music is ok, kiss is ok, boozing is ok. This is like a Nicanor Parra poem.

[Number] Practice

…Go practice driving.

…I fucking hate seeing just how many habits I need to scramble. I feel like a damn infant.

...Lol really? Then u btter start working on it. When was the last tym u did something for the 1^st time?

[Number] Meeting

Nah, that was a long time ago. He told me the story of how it all came to that when we boozed out last year. All that business is done. Nah, I’m safe. Tabs.

[Number] Going Where

Pretty. I call him by his last name sometimes. Nobody calls him by his first name but I do. It makes everyone blink. Heckles. I say it’s the privilege of knowing him as a kid. Pretty digs At least I was already circumcised. Were your friends? Pretty took my news with a nod, just like that and some that made me wince out laughter--- You were too busy…Fucking small…Coño… Then took me back to the elementary of things.

[Number] Solid Eddie Vedder

Pretty says No English. Speak our language. Practice.

I stutter and fumble and keep on switching---

All right, all right, I’m trying, I’m sucking.

Pretty declares This is our second date.

I laugh---

Didn’t know we had a first one. Man, you are tall.

Pretty says Like the dress. Next time wear slippers. Heels, they hurt.

I laugh again---

Told you I was wearing church clothes.

Pretty laughs You went to church like that?

I smile---

Brace yourself. The tongues.

I am asked, told, as seen You’ve been gone too long…And they see Pretty. He ignores, when he knows the folks he nods, and we move.

I laugh---

You’re the first I’ve been seen with since I left.

[Number] We sure grow them

And so there was this young husband who told his young wife he’s bringing her pizza for some honey. Problem was it was the holidays--- you swing by one corner and end up into a boozing goner. Young wife was so mad, thought he was a philandering fucker. There he was passed out in bed in his briefs---- woke to his nuts burning. Young wife put hot sauce on his happiness stick. There he was jumping around. It was 3:00 am and they were fighting. Make-up sex was great, days later of course. It was still stinging, understand.

[Number] Form

No holding of hands, unless it’s to cross the street or climb up and down stairs. Or unless some fucker is eyeing her. Let her open her own car door. Get the big-assed-bag if she’s going to the ladies’ room. Put your hand on the small of her back when she passes by. Lean into her now and then but don’t touch. Block her from everybody with your body, in fact corner her. Take her hand just once and stroke. Don’t ignore her but go about with the man’s business. If she pulls you away form business with a smile, just go. Careful, listen, you don’t mess with the smart one or you’ll run in circles. Make sure your friends entertain her but not with your bad boy tricks. Hold her face instead or chuck her chin when you want to kiss her. If she allows you to fuck her the first time out or the second time out, Padi, Madiris says that’s not a nice girl.

[Number] Flashes

Pretty says Want that coke?

I look.

Pretty says I know.

Pretty asks Want to try the Red?

I shake my head---

I’ll get wasted.

Pretty says You won’t. Try one. I got you.

Later on Pretty says Want to check out music?

I smile.

Pretty teases You’ll talk later. C’mon, let’s go.

I laugh---

Your Mama did a good job on you.

[Number] Child’s Play

This is the sound of prom and high school---- the drums and the bass. And now it is the sound of our youth--- punk and grunge. Three guitars, fingers sure over the cords, what sync in rage restrained.

I ask, pointing to the notebook and pen---

You know I do this?

Pretty nods.

I ask---

That ok?

Pretty nods again.

I see that he’s lost in the music.

I smile.

[Number] Blues The Milk

Blues on heavy guitars and snares always make me swing my head side-to-side. I’m surprised at what the younger ones know. I ask for names and I say---

Ah, I know your brother.

And the younger ones say---

And we know you.

I’m happy listening to cock-fighting-fuckers and on the sound system: Ugly Kid Joe. I smile--- at Pretty--- as he speaks of music.

Somebody asks---

Are you his girlfriend?

I laugh---

We’ve known each other since Grade 5.

I laugh at Pretty---

Geez, just how many chicks did you fuck while I was away?

Pretty laughs.

[Number] 6

Pretty remembers Man I always had to do better when you would watch our baseball practice.

I laugh---

I did not watch you practice, excuse me!

Pretty laughs Oh yes you did!

His cousin says you did.

I shake my head---

I wasn’t watching you: I wanted to play baseball!

Pretty laughs again Well why didn’t you say so? I would have taught you. Brainy kids. You played chess.

I groan.

[Number] Did…Did?

Pretty laughs That was puppy love.

I laugh---

No way!

Pretty says You don’t remember, do you?

I ask---

What?

Pretty says You’re my first kiss.

I say---

Your what?!

Pretty says You gave me a kiss on our graduation.

I ask---

I did? No shit I did? Motherfuck…

[Number] Match 92

I say---

I told you that we’re going home but you still had to get another beer.

Pretty laughs We all had to be drunk together.

I laugh---

I’m not drunk.

Pretty says Sorry. When it gets like that then stop me.

I say---

Ah, you’re like that too, huh?

Pretty sighs, laughs Yeah. You tell me and I’ll stop.

I laugh---

I understand. No drinks for you tomorrow then.

Pretty laughs What took you so long?

I laugh---

Had to talk to Pops. Told you he was waiting.

Pretty asks Everything all right? Need me to talk to him?

I say---

It’s all good, no problem, told him I had fun.

Pretty laughs again Man they kept on saying I found my match.

I laugh again---

Gago.

Pretty says Let’s sleep. Let me know when you wake up.

MX 666

2010-12-26T15:27:00.003+08:00

I slept

Unlike how the devil wanted.

I dreamt

That I woke up seeing the devil sitting by my bed.

Mother saw the devil, us, and he just said, “I watched over her while she sleeps.” Mother said that this kind of conversation is still done outside the bedroom. He stood, walked the hallway following her into the living room where Father was waiting. The devil is unafraid of Father’s silence--- they are men who understand men.

There

The devil said to me I could not leave you.

Yes So the Devil stole into my bedroom:

The how do not matter in dreams. Except the night is real.

We spoke Of dissolution of marriages

How Only the insane would understand the crazy Our hearts--- though courteous---- are cruel dragons Cruel we are with those we love

There Yet we are not there but in the trances of our minds

Where There Are Smiles

In Torture Of How

Love feels that we are pushing them away when

We only want them To be

What is real The balls

The devil said that he left in hell so that I would not be able to cut them.

What is real My nipples

The devil wants to cut and take with him.

What is real That game,

your game, the devil played and bet his suicide and lost.

The solution was to convert to Islam

So that he could marry and I would still have my freedom.

What is real It was never a problem with us when there, beside each other,

You would go away. Because you do that, the devil said.

I understood that, knew that. And when I wanted you to come back, I stab you

Or simply demand your return. And you return.

Laughter Now How does it feel to be finally free and yet you are not free?

How does it feel to know that I am finally free?

And now within every cluster fuck’s reach. The devil and I laugh.

Night A kiss was asked. Just a kiss. And more kisses.

I tell the devil to shave the goat’s hoof.

The devil says it’s done.

Another kiss before goodbye was asked.

I give that.

And another, because I chose. I draw blood.

I turn away after, walking out, climbing stairs, a door opened for me--- without looking back. And that, you know, is cruelty.

You and I know that I am the only torture in hell that keeps you Alive

And no matter how many times I unmark myself with chosen markings, I am marked until the death we wish for

by you.

You sleep With the gun beside you: me

I sleep With the knife beside me: you

Real Time I hit you. You laugh.

I hit you again. You laugh again.

I hit you for the last time.

The devil laughs Now that’s going to leave a mark.

You really think I would not keep track--- The devil said

And your people suck, by the way.

I retort,

My people have their uses.

As if I didn’t know that you’re keeping tabs.

That courtesy

There are some things we chose not to know.

A year We say.

I say, “Shorter, actually.” Look

At the board: which pieces would move.

Quietly You seem well ainsi a body is not riddled by bullets.

And the devil always speaks in French.

(MX DJA)

2010-12-25T02:48:00.005+08:00

Hunter S watches him

looking at her: He looked always fresh and this fresh out of the shower, rushed to where she was, this bar in October. He didn’t mind his sore ankle, twisted it in this basketball game of trash-talkers. Basketball made his hot ass iron and those shoulders--- not from talking trash through smashing shuttle cocks, no, no, from pumping

watches him looking at her, incredulous that Why… then that smile. Hunter S watches him looking at her meat, yes, yes, this one, can finally eat

watches him fuck her for hours, he’s about to come she pushes him away, he drags her back to hammer her, asks permission on and on and no and no sweating thrusts

watches him pull out and come on her belly, come for a long time like years, wipes her after tenderly, leaves her alone to dress quietly

watches him rub her back, soothing her shaking thighs, hugging her from behind for a long time. Hunter S watches him looking at her: She didn’t come

Hunter S watches her

watching him

looking at her: He could not read her cool as she smiles and speaks to the women he has over and will screw in this hall in November

watches him watt that smile, sit beside her to charm his way but fail through her gracious pussy, become red frustrated as she says goodbye to go home

watches him real talky, hounds her Why she is not her usual cold self--- there goes the ruling judgments, her refusing to have a parade of fucks with consent, takes his messages and calls in drawls

watches him call and call where and taken where that November, her head on his chest as they talk of never after…Hunter S watches her watching him looking at her: She comes while riding him, pushes up as she leans down to kiss that smile, watches him turn her over and under

Hunter S

is watched: He turns around to go to her in that bugging bar of December. There again he looked like he just came out of the shower

watches her shake her head and laugh at him---- you fucked her ---- laughs as he charms with drinks the loving boozers, these single jokers, hecklers of fuckers

watches him watching her enjoying laughter, tells her about the same sloshers, stays far longer, waits for her, the choice a ball passed between him and her

watches her say Home, watches him say My home, watches her No that sputter, watches him pass by October--- Sure--- watches her laughter--- watches him pass over November--- You sure--- watchers her nod sober---Last chance--- watches her asking him to pull over

watches her asking him What do you want, watches him answering her You and I are the same: We don’t say what we want

watches him breathing harsher, taking her hand to put over his heart, watches her feel the unconquerable beating harder

watches him ask Consent, otherwise it will be rape, watches her answer I know what that is, watches him bend If I didn’t want you--- not just anybody--- I will not be pulling over

watches her bend her head to answer, that kiss, watches it all take longer, rattling closed doors between him and her, the answers to the Why, the freedom of When you’re with me the past does not matter

watches him and her over and under and over, watches him struggle not to bury himself deeper into her, even as the hunger drives his spine harder, to not spend himself into her but onto her

watches that wrenching from clenching thighs, that tenderness after, the sleep of two cold cores for hearts facing each other, palms together, awakening: Watching Hunter S looking at them. Hunters S is watching them watching as they look at each other.

Picture The Rope

2010-12-12T20:09:00.000+08:00

On top of that rock, I look down as bodies rappel down, calculating. Hamed says it’s my turn, sees I am unsmiling, “Nervous?”

First time--- I answer with an inch measured by thumb and forefinger. Hamed asks for the rope around my neck, the knots tied by my own hand, “You don’t trust your own work?”

I laugh as I hand him the rope, “I don’t know.”

I lost trust in---

Hamed asks, “You don’t trust the work you do at work?”

I laugh again, I hold lives everyday and the lives that depend on them for the rest of their lives and I can’t fuck up no matter how fucked up things are, “Of course I do.”

Hamed says, “There’s no difference between that and this---” holding out my rope.

I shrug--- It’s been a while since I tied knots. I return to tying knots--- done in one, twice for memory--- The life-and-death-knot, Hamed says, is useless. After all, pull the wrong knot and the rope unravels and you fall.

I laugh, “Now why the hell would someone make that knot? And why the hell should I learn that?”

“Beautiful,” Hamed says as I tie knots and shows the double fisherman knot that he did and I did, “What’s the difference between your knot and mine?”

I smile, “None.”

Hamed asks, “You trust me?”

I nod, I’ve got to, don’t I risk, “I trust you.” But everything in the clock, now lies.

Hamed says, “Now sit on the harness…You are strong…Now let go…”

This---This is one month of the clock--- I rappel down, steady, moving speed. On the ground once more, I look up the rock face, studying how to romance it, to reach that tree on the top and tap into it the heart’s quickly whispered story, and rappel down once more.

I am told that I don’t move like a first-timer. The rock tells me---This is real. I am told that I move fast. The wall tells me---- Fail and fall. I am told by Hamed, “You are intelligent...One can see it in your footing…You learn quickly…You are strong.” I am not afraid to fall.

I return to climbing rocks, scaling walls, dirt in between my manicured nails, sweat, the sun smell on my hair and skin, now the smell of rain. And then to hike and keep on walking…To climb a mountain…To return to the physics of nature…Nine months to be re-born.

There is solace in the simple matter of putting one hand and foot after another, this foregone pleasure in feeling crags on my hands, to return to what is before and beyond the trappings of mechanized life--- like artificial walls and simulated rocks--- limited by fear for a valued life in fear of heights and water, the clock that proved to be false, and no longer burying the sounds of Sunday in a room that has become a tomb of words and the step-child of death.

Today I breathe again and feel alive: The sound of this Sunday--- roosters crowing at 2:00 pm, this shade of tress, and as I look--- the sun, the sun--- I reach for my sunshine--- Fearless once more--- And from the rock our bodies from ropes sliding down like feathers and leaves.

Normal...

2010-12-06T12:14:00.005+08:00

normal-spells-honeyboola

You’ve forgotten

this opulent kingdom through the years---that you had even once made the lobby of this place your own private study---because of the preferences of the bodies you’ve been with. Your first time here was that summer when kind but kupalog-somebody told you to pack a swimsuit, just like that. But it was not just like that: kupalog-somebody had to be reminded by familiar-bodies about those secret remedies you had to take, the allergies you could not take, and that swimming could be drowning for suicidal-you.

You say

to Happy-Pixie now while looking at this kingdom’s pool that none of you could understand why that kupalog-somebody sought you out and was always there at that crazy time. After all, your regular-normal-friends had already abandoned suddenly-abnormal-you, and kupalog-somebody was normal and not even your friend but one of your beau-friend’s friends you had only recently met. But kupalog-somebody promised familiar-bodies to take care with unwell-you and lonely-you were then entrusted to kind-kupalog.

Your first time

in this forgotten place was the spontaneity of being silly like children in the pool because kupalog-somebody knew that depressing-seriousness was killing depressed-you. You had dinner and watched a movie with kupalog-somebody after. You could not remember the movie but you remember freezing and eating ice cream.

You remember

that kupalog-somebody was a good friend to you at that time. Though in time kupalog-friend became confusing and recovering-you got confused. Retarded-you told your beau-friend about your confusion because your normal-manual said so.

Your kupalog-friend played the gentleman in the falling-out-scandal that had happened

and denied what was felt for labeled-hallucinating-you in a duel for your sanity-virtue with your beau-friend so that there would be peace; disappeared; and left already-messed-you to clean up that kupalog-friend’s left mess alone in your already-messed-up-life, made by the regular-normal to accept that it was all your fault and thereon you kept your silence. All that mess and

You didn’t even fuck

that kupalog.

You are asked

by Happy-Pixie now if that was the time you also met this geeky-somebody.

You laugh again

for you have forgotten in your silence about that somebody too and nodded. After all, kupalog-somebody and geeky-somebody were cousins, and geeky-somebody was a skinny-puppy you did not even bother to give the scary-crazy-look when introduced that day you went swimming with that kupalog.

You were a drugged-out-zombie

anyway and didn’t have to do that. But

You were at the same place and time

for a narrative-time with the geeky-somebody again two years later--- then two years older--- whom you did not even recognize nor acknowledge for snooty-you disliked geeky-somebody’s snootier-balls. But from snooty-aggregates you became bitching-archates during and after merry-drinking and geeky-somebody reminded you that you already met via cousin-kupalog.

You remembered

and wondered how much geeky-cousin knew about kupalog-cousin but discerned that they weren’t close.

You didn’t say anything more

about that kupalog and geeky-somebody began telling you about life-and-far-away-girlfriend.

You really liked

the geeky-somebody for being a geeky-sweetie. You became secretly infatuated with that geeky-wit over more merry-drinking and that surprised you. But what surprised, that is, disturbed a lot of blind-somebody was that geeky-somebody was becoming more obvious in being intoxicated by you. After all, you both hated each other’s snooty-guts.

You didn’t even do anything

out of the trying-to-be-ordinary-you and what was really a surprise was when on the concluding night of your aggregation, squeaky-geeky-somebody sneaked a hug to allergic-to-hugs-you then kissed known-out-of-geeks-league you. That courage: geeky-somebody was tipsy, of course.

You reacted with *whoa*

that *what are you doing?!* horror and stopped your Ogre from punching kinky-geek in time for you to push kinky-geek away. Then you smiled a just-forget-it shrug. Minutes later, you laughed at kinky-geeky-somebody’s secret-text-wooing.

Your laugh made

geeky-somebody think and feel like a geeky-loser and geeky-somebody snapped “Are you laughing at me?!” like a delicate-neurotic. You felt bad and shook your head in you’re-not-a-loser-reassurance. But

Your Honey says,

You always laugh at Dutch Balls.

You shake your head

at moments…have a life-span of at the moment.

You don’t make moments

live into the next-mess. However, the geeky-somebody began to dance a tango from that kinky-kiss but fondly-called-chicken-legged-geek was really dancing the chicken-dance. And

Your Honey said,

Tsk, tsk, it takes two to tango, three to cha-cha, four to samba and chicken-legs suck because they dance combo-mess.

You said,

Yo chicken-legs, stop, do you know what you’re getting into, you really want to do this dance, with me, you sure, last chance, fine, partner you---

You boogied

geeky-somebody into chickening out of combo-mess so that you can be just friends like you wanted and finally sighed in relief because then you could stop role-playing-boogeywoman.

You and geeky-somebody would talk like friends now and then after

but then geeky-somebody suddenly pulled silent-treatment.

You asked why now and then

but geeky-somebody wasn’t answering so you shrugged and tended to your busy schedule of ordering the universe. Then

Your elves told you that you got sold as rejected-stalker-you out.

Geeky-somebody already became all running-mouth-wink-wink about you to geeky-friends.

Then

You text-snapped to geeky-somebody: How dare youyadayada have the decency at least to talk to me so that your lies could be responded to accordingly.

And

Geeky-somebody snap-replied in an indignant-wash that geeky-somebody found out geeky-person was talked about as played-by-youyadayada.

You were sifting through while reeling from the geeky-somebody’s-catharsis for the who-talked-play because it couldn’t be your three in-the-gray-narrative-time-friends. And you all knew that breaking confidentiality-clause was punishable by death-of-life-as-you-all-know-it.

Then

Somebody broke the confidentiality-clause.

And

That was the narrative-authority who was geeky-somebody’s friend you consulted secretly and in good faith about the combo-havoc geeky-somebody was dancing in your love-lives and that if your saintly-but-asshole-beau-friend found out it would be the end of the geek’s world and maybe yours, too.

Your Ogre lost its temper

for that narrative-authority that you consulted should have kept a thinking-all-knowing mouth shut. In fact,

You were labeled

by this archaic-authority in early-narrative-time as (1) “freak” for having disorders but that was retracted with an apology. Then in middle-narrative-time while in geeky-somebody’s-presence as (2) “Ohmygod, you are the *gasp* urban-legend Malcolm-Kingdom-Gossip says the King was chasing!” which you denied but denial was discounted. And finally after-narrative-time as (3) “….loves ineffable-boyfriend; impossible to care or even *snort* fall in with or love somebody like geeky-you because you know this one didn’t even go for the King therefore playing you…” which what had really hurt the geeky-heart-ego. So

Your Ogre confronted the narrative-authority

and you found yourself crying in between asking this narrative-authority why say lies as truths on behalf of you: why say that you didn’t care and that you were simply toying with one heart, two hearts, three hearts, your heart---

You were sobbing out

that you didn’t want to lose that sweetie-archate, or hurt that neurotic-ego, or break that geeky-achy-heart because you did feel something-troubling which might even possibly be in-love-with-geeky-person and the confusion was not going anywhere because you didn’t want to hurt anybody--- And then

You were ranting

for didn’t the stupid-authority know that it’s possible to love more than one person and that you and geeky-somebody couldn’t even be friends now since the tourette-authority messed that up because this non-prom-dance between you and the geeky-somebody was being settled for geeky-somebody (among other things like trying but failing to articulate the meaning of life) was already marching brain and balls for bygones-strength in order to deal with having horny-confusing-feelings for allergic-to-horny-confusing-feelings-you and it really didn’t need authority-you to mess it up more, thank authority-you-don’t-know-shit-very-much for the authority-unsolicited-mess.

You hiccupped a shake of the head at the apology of the debunked-authority

and that was, “But…Why didn’t you tell me everything…I didn’t know… My intentions were good…”

You shrieked at the useless-authority’s-apology,

“To Hell with that! That doesn’t excuse your breaking an act of good faith! You’re an authority and I trusted you! Of course whatever I say now would not be believed because you’re the authority-friend and you said those things! And of course I would not tell you everything! Nobody knows everything! And why would I tell you how I feel?! You are not even my friend!”

You were asked by writhing-authority,

“What can I do to make this right? What do you want me to do?”

You screamed,

“You shouldn’t fucking teach because you’re not trustworthy! Don’t tell me you tell other people too about what we wrote in our journals?! At least you didn’t go behind my back again and then tell lies to my boyfriend too! So nothing! The damage is done so stay the hell out of it like you should have! Just leave it alone!” And

You shouted that you didn’t give a fuck

if you got a narrative-failing-grade for screaming at narrative-meddling-authority.

You wanted to die

from the pain of losing geeky-somebody and escape from the coming life-spinning-absurd-storm and so you killed yourself: NOT. Though

You hoped that was the end

of it, struggled to keep the storm under secret-control, and went about with your then-more-than-ever-allergic-to-narrating-life. But what

You imagined would not happen

would then happen. That is,

Your elves reported that the paranoid-of-being-found-out-naughty-geeky-somebody

decided to be squeaky-clean and confess before dying of guilt or ratted out by gossipmongers to--- be forgiven and found faultless with confession by---the far-away-girlfriend.

Your Honey said,

Stupid.

You shook your head,

What for? Nothing happened. But you’ve got to admire the balls.

Your Honey said,

That’s good they say for the soul but would cause a mess. And that is,

Your elves reported that geeky-somebody pointed the fault-finger

at Jezebel-you.

Your Ogre growled,

Going to kill this screwmag.

You calmed your Ogre with a sad laugh,

Man, not the first time a nasty-scared-hurt-ego is acting out. Let them sort out their relationship problems. Then

Your elves told you

that the far-away-girlfriend was coming back with hurt threatening the squeaky-geeky-boyfriend with talk, and anger swearing to find-that-bitch-and-slap-that-whore-you.

Your Ogre went

into apoplectic shock.

Your Dwarf-friend said,

“That ain’t right” and shrugged “What can you do?”

Your Honey said,

Ah shit. You might as well have fucked the geek but

You didn’t even fuck

that geek.

Your Honey said,

Life got you so trained to shut up and your empathy for the hurting-geek is making you cover the chicken-ass’s ass so that your beau-friend wouldn’t know therefore this shit he just pulled doesn’t happen to him but then it’s just your ass going to be kicked? Tsk, tsk.

You were quaking in your metaphorical-steel-toe-boots and died

because you took the girlfriend’s ambush-bitch-slapping like a guilty-catholic-whore and it shamed your cowering-scarlet-ass to death: NOT. But

You almost died from exasperation

because the girlfriend should really slap the boyfriend, not you. But the girlfriend was welcome to try to slap you and then you would hate your Ogre for defacing a girl. Then what the girlfriend would find out from your Honey would only hurt girlfriend more and then you would hate yourself more for that, too. Though

Your Maria-Clara-J-Lo transgender friend you called Butterfly morphed into Kicking Pinay and was getting ready to kick-box that chicken-ass to fatality and “That girlfriend too if one finger is laid on you! I don’t care whose chuvaness daughter she is!” But

You said,

“Knight-In-Shiva-Ganda ka pala. Nakakatakot pala temper mo ha. Thanks Butterfly, but no need…” Because

You knew your being bitch-and-whore-slapped would never happen

for that’s just more-scandal-causing-fantasy, and geeky-somebody probably made sure through some conciliatory-tactic that you and the truth wouldn’t be confronted by the technically-betrayed-girlfriend.

Your Honey says,

And the truth was--- well, the consequential version of it is geeky-somebody became cool-balls to all those geeky-eyes and precious-balls to the girlfriend-eyes, didn’t he. And the missed-perceived-neglecting-far-way-girlfriend came back pronto, didn’t she. Then they’re then more in love together the second time around after, weren’t they. Finally forever-branded-stalker-bitch-whore-you were left in peace like you wanted, weren’t you.

You did say to geeky-somebody,

You’re just like your cousin-kupalog.

Your Honey says,

At least kupalog didn’t have stalker-branding-avenging-girlfriend-episode.

You say

to Happy-Pixie now that these two somebody came from a good-looking-brood. That you see the once-kupalog-somebody in some friendly shindigs now and then. And that you air-kiss this now-committed-somebody’s hangdog-cheek every time in deference to bygones-etiquette. But you keep your distance. Because

You were tacitly crucified as an unfaithful-friendship-wrecking-whore

by this kupalog-somebody’s friends for a year following kupalog-disappearance in friendly shindigs and you just took it in the name of love and peace. And that was not enough so censuring-consensus was represented by guerilla-somebody to an accounting-ambush-you for what happened even a year after, a year before geeky-somebody happened.

Your Honey said,

You really should say your fuck-off-piece this time when it comes to this. And so

You had smiled then to the guerilla-representative,

“I’m not like you blue gentlemen pricks who would actually fuck around on your girlfriends and then pot-calling-kettle-call all those you fucked as sluts and whores. And by the way, does your girlfriend know you do that? Oh don’t you worry, I’m not going to tell. It’s none of my business after all. And I’m not going to tell my boyfriend about this because then he would go berserk and cut you off too. You know, your friend who was my friend is a coward who doesn’t even have the balls to face me ’til now but he just wanted to live up in a way to your cool and macho tradition of screwing around with your friends’ girlfriends. But I did love him as my friend. He didn’t get to fuck me, by the way. Or do you want to settle this is in a square-dance outside like men? I sure can do that dance and probably kill you. That would set back my Ogre-management-program but what the heck. No? Anything else? Okeydokey.”

Your Honey clapped a laugh,

Bitch-slapped!

You learned to laugh

at your painful kupalog-somebody-naiveté which you found out in between those two years from your Honey results in geeky-somebody-stupidity.

Your Honey said,

You already made that mistake. And so

You kept your mouth shut and really just boogied that geeky-somebody

into combo-mess-stop with tangchambaBOO!

You did want to say sorry for hurting the geek

and for the messed-with-mess-with-more-mess after because, hell, it’s just sick to scare geeks to realizations-to-the-reality-of-relationships and you liked the geek-before-becoming-chicken-ass, and your mania-for-harmony wanted clarity-and-peace-for-posterity. Also

You didn’t want the reaching-maximum-residency-rule-geek from running to AWOL

just to get away from scary-pissed-you and delay overdue-diploma and get blamed for that too. After all, geeky-somebody already ditched a critical-class with would-be-classmate-you. So

You wrote this letter

to clarify the quagmire. But

You were still pissed off

and you have an abnormal conscience. Therefore

You put your fictional writing skills

to non-academic-use and wrote a letter crafted to assuage geeky-achy-believing-to-have-been-played-heart-and-ego with freaky-besotted-sap and a bouquet then had them delivered to that chicken-ass’s class. And

Your elves reported that your hoping-for-guilt-into-guts-into-facing-you-goodies

were then delivered by a coin-operated-delivery-boy to the class’s T.S.Eliot-authority who thought it was for authority-self. So

You laughed,

Holy fucking shit. Then

You made sure you were never under T.S.Eliot-authority after

because your elves reported that the authority read the recounting-letter. But the T.S.Eliot-authority gave the letter with a finger-wagging-tsk-tsk to the-delivery-day-absent-geek after and stayed out of it like authority-should. And

Your elves reported that the bouquet was kept alive-in-water

by T.S.Eliot-authority. Then kept it because geeky-somebody offered it to T.S.Eliot-authority like a sweetie-elementary-schoolboy. Anyway

You disliked writing

letters more especially after. In fact, you were traumatized because

You fucker-betted-possibility-into-probability-into-reality

that geeky-somebody would talk about the quasi-fictionalized-letter among geeky-friends to be wow-stalker-really-fell-for-you-are-the-man-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk over.

Your Honey sighed,

There’s your Sorry. And

Your letter’s haunting-bemoaning-longing sure as hell allergy-scared you

so that would have surely stalker-scared the geek, too.

Your Honey smiled,

Then there’s your Fuck You.

You wondered if it would have been better if you just

ambushed the geek.

Your Honey said,

Oh, right, the chicken-ass was a Dutch Ball who kept on running from your “let’s talk” to begin with and would likely run farther screaming “stalker” if you’re within touching-range to geeky-person and have his girlfriend slap you for “stalking” her boyfriend. Or drop dead-in-mortification if ever and as if you would even acknowledge chicken-person with “hi”.

You also wanted to be nice

and prevent your Ogre from committing chicken-murder. And

You didn’t want to create more mess

from a mess that would not have happened if the un-messed was not messed with. Especially for Happy-pixie now who was then trapped-in-the-middle-new-girlfriend of the chicken-ass’s-best-friend. So

You left the geeky-somebody to bygones

minus etiquette after.

You shake your head

while laughing at “to talk things out like adults so that mess would be resolved instead of running away like chickens to hide in your caves in Mars and I’m the one who gets screwed over” being remembered as “stalking” by Dutch Balls.

Your Honey says that you can be really stupid sometimes

but that’s what college was for and sometimes life. And you can be smart sometimes too, huh? And so

You did make sure that none from your planet would know about geeky-screwmag-story

like the homicidal-homies you were rolling with and especially your temperamental-beau-friend because they would really have taken turns turning geeky-somebody into denotation-geek for what was-nothing-would-be-bygone-anyway. And

You never saw geeky-somebody again.

Ever. But who knows, maybe after these years you would.

You ask Happy-Pixie now as you stare at the pool if

the geeky-somebody whom you heard from your elves grew up to be a legal-liar is still scared shitless of you. Happy-Pixie laughs which means who wouldn’t have been so “Oh yeah.”

Your Ogre laughs,

Hope the chicken-shit got over being a chicken-shit.

You sigh,

Oh well.

Your Honey says that you know this shit just happens

all the time, then sometimes to you. And that this is really just

Your useless side of the story.

You laugh while shaking your head,

La.

zOMBIEyoRk

2010-11-29T08:26:00.005+08:00

AND WAS

BORN I sit here and wonder what I am waiting for, perhaps a glimpse of a dream, this nightmare awakened---

LIKE SITTING IN THE BACK OF BOXES FOR CHAIRS

OF BUS STATIONS--- This articulation, this wired and tired babbling of psycho gizmo talk. I rap my fingers for being stiff and unwilling to break even as I pound my fist against glasses, walls, dashboards, these hearts---

I’m running on half a battery of acid and bile and this bitterness over imagined people. I am waiting for Eleanor Rigby: It is this zombie who visits my dreams. Last night it was inside me. I am waiting in the back of an empty waiting.

HELLO

MISTRESS I reply to the seminal flirt, and I wonder how long it could stay faithful to vows. I am thrumming, waiting, ticking: SPEAK

OF CLUBS AND PROSTITUTES ARE NOW KNOWN AS PUBLIC WOMEN---

Like sitting in the back of boxy buses, waiting for the clock to tick the bundy tock. I am waiting for the nine’s clock. I listen to old songs and I wait for the right time, just the right time to stand up and move, stand and move and I wait, waiting, wait. I am sitting up and I’m asleep. I’m still asleep and I am duck

AT 11:32, SEE

A SLUT

FOR LOVE LEAN TOWARDS ANOTHER ARM I wonder why

there is a twinge: this manic tapping of the heart, beating and beating the breath. I wonder about the dream and what it means to the sex between: IT WAS BORN

A 5’9” FETUS

UNDER A DESK ON A LUNCH BREAK It is curled,

It says, just like that so that no one could see it---

----especially the---

----sshhh, don’t-make-a-sound----

---and that it is very warm---

---like in the monster’s mother’s womb it could never remember--- IT IS THE QUESTION

ON THE SEX OF DREAMS THAT BAFFLE THE BREATHS OF REALITY Like the chair

in the corner of this room. I wait for that face I do not look at to return. It is a----‘s

and I wonder about this puzzling. Such confusion in the flow of words to be captured, I tap blindly and unthinking. It is as if I am in a spiral of circles and I am spinning. I look at the book that is a list of the words of words. In a blank floating floor, strobe lights, there is the superstar that used to make me sad---- the sonic of the youth of decades, what is constant, love, that muck this curse. I had missed the tapping of this affliction…

I was afraid, last night, that you were losing me. You---

3- N-FINITY

This half I ate and vomit and I serenade. The distance is a blinking cursor waiting to fill the space with what could shorten this silence with just words…

AND ALL THE WORDS ARE

SENSELESS

It is as if the blood is calling me to play and dance the macabre: a zombie for a lover. Perhaps it is the sparkle of a puzzle and there was no love in the dream but just the pulse of impulse. The zombie can easily become infatuated and obsessed. I am building another reality and I spin in prisons as I marvel at patience that graces the turning of years. I looked at our frozen faces from ten years ago, counting backwards and more--- how what was close has become distant with time.

ZOMBIE OF

SEX was in the middle of a kiss that was hard and full of tongue, sneaked. The panic and rush, the Zombie found itself wet and naked under cloth, there, then, just slipping inside, seeing a huge head and heat.

What does it mean?

Psycho 1: You want to have sex

Psycho 2: Your unconscious is telling you that you want to have sex

Psycho 3: You hate the fucker

Psycho 4: You hate that sex

DOES ZOMBIE SEX this weirdness, it says,

And you just see and know what is weird and fucked up. And you like it how it fascinates. I am waiting in a room that feels emptier as each word comes and comes leaving the page unreplete but stinging from not knowing the hands of this loneliness. Whose nails are lingering over this untouched skin. Whose body was it really that had wanted to mate with this corpse. This body has become sleepless and listless--- a ghost becoming its patience.

OR IS IT THE GAME THE WHORES OF TRAFFIC

PLAY--- the minutes of waiting and blinking cursors--- the clock of this is real; it is waiting. I am inside my desiring and I am murdering it in the clinic that is my words, this logic of the probable being made impossible, an aborted fetus of fucks. The laugh revolts: to wonder why a corpse wants to make love to a zombie. Ah, to be human.

AND IT CAN’T STAY

To stay a crippling blow, this blow of woo and whoa, a woe to count these one, two, three unto the maker of pupils. It is the language, it says, we do not speak the same. Yes, yes, to still wonder what a lepton is. And what of those letter n particles that make up energy from the sun, the stuff of the stuff of the universal stuff. The letter n particle is the bone and marrow of the bone marrow. Oh harrow, what has come to us--- the satellite Obstacle 1 and behind it, believed to be lost is Obstacle 2.

NOW THIS PRISON

Where there are corners where ghosts and corpses could hide with just shades or darkened eyes.