The Aftertaste

Your absence caused rain
Your reason pulsated hurt and disappointment through my vessels
'I'm missing you' you utter
Yet everything isn't the same

You kept talking despite the rain
'Maybe it's my fault', you grappled
But you never brought an umbrella
Clarity was elusive and I came home sick and in pain

Our plans faded along with false charms
We got to savor the sweetness even if it didn't last long
I want to shake your hands
Whisper to you my fears and my hearts demands

Yet I sealed my sentiment with a stamp
You chose not to respond
No regrets, no wishful thinking,
We both just became bland

A Pig in a Poke

At the dining table, across a voracious reader animatedly relaying his book conquests, words abound with learning about that culture, the plot-twists, that man, the woman, and that creature.

I am looking down, staring at my food, fiddling with my spoon. Lifting my head, meeting his eyes, unbeknownst to him that my mind wandered elsewhere, my eyes intent, successful in seeming they care. I abhor doing this but It can't be helped, I would also like to give as much as take.

I pause. I wouldn't want someone adrift whilst I talk.

New to the land, to the office and me, that afternoon what separated him and me was a table, our food and hot green tea.

He majors in Finance and I couldn't even properly compute the division of the tab at hand. A natural klutz I even spilled the tea I was pouring unto his cup. The waitress feeling embarrassed for me, looked at me gently and I felt reassured thinking that it can't go any more bad.

I took an abortive pause. Steeped in what could be a date disaster, I quickly engaged him in a light dialogue.

I initiated it as a favor. Confused with how I felt at the time, dining was replete with rants and vents and this wasn't the first occasion. He's the intermediary between my thoughts and the guy in question. We both know what we have is platonic and for that I'm grateful.

I paused. I thought you can have males as friends after all.

Fairly new to me, I expressed interest in the proposition. Indiscriminate of the intention, I said, how can it hurt, it's spectating, talking and eating though can be done alone, I answered in the affirmative without hesitation.

Expressing hostility is not something I want to do but it was due to a provocation. I'm not cut to play games and that was the resolution.

I took a pause during the listening and I hesitated with what I saw.

An eminent rejector and an occasional rejectee, this is the attempt, an openness to what could be. I abjure the high probability that it might be time-wasted but I won't ever abrogate the chance, though small that a lasting connection is formed.

The Breakable Fortress

'You should stop talking about he-who-must-not-be-named', my sister says, her eyes gravely addressing mine like a child reprimanded for breaking the living room vase.

'Are you trying to tell me that I'm an annoying-ass-person?' I ask, even if I know that the answer is yes. I've gotten too many eye rolls from friends, 'wasting-your-time-on-him' advice from my mom every time I bring him up. I can't blame them. He is the political unrest in Syria of international news, and the bombings in Mindanao of national news - nothing but negative and retrogressive.

'It's not for us, it's for you. This is so unhealthy. You're living in the past,' she asserts. I look at her and think to myself that she's more the adult than myself.

I told her, 'I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with the idea of him. Actually no. He is this fortress I've built around myself, like a turtle shell. I conveniently hide under my shell for fear of what is to come. The downside of it is that I've successfully tricked myself into thinking that I'm in love with my shell when logically, it can't feel, it can't love me back.

With a clear mind now, I ponder at the reason of why I liked him in the first place. He does not seem interested in what I have to say. He talks about other women in front of me, he even went to mention 'beauty and brains' women that he is interested in and he does it nonchalantly too, as if I'm not there.

Then I realized, there are plenty of people who are genuinely interested in what I have to say, I know of someone who sweetly asked me about my blog. The idea that someone is interested in my thoughts, my ideas help me in chiseling the sturdy fortress I've been suffocating in.

A Monday

The significantly low temperature made me think twice about getting out of bed. Wrapped up in my wool blanket curled in a fetal position with my cheek against my pillow, my bed was the ultimate temptation for sleeping in. I still had to get up though. It's the first Monday of the new year after all.

The sun was behind an array of grey clouds. As if that wasn't gloomy enough, my call time at work is at 9am and only at exactly 9am sharp do I leave the house. What an utter disregard for the cliche 'new year, new me' anthem. I was never one to draft new year's resolutions anyhow.

I bid my lola good bye and kiss her cheek as is the usual routine every morning before I leave work.
She watches by our gate until I get a pedicab. As the pedicab makes a u-turn headed towards the gate of our village I wave and smile at her.

I am now left to myself and this is how it is every five days a week for an hour or so of commute. An hour of contemplation if not reading in between commutes -the latest conquest being Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.

The pedicab ride to get to our subdivision's gate takes around five minutes in one straight street as our house's. The wind was blowing strongly that day. The driver was silent. I usually look ahead, breathing in whatever oxygen the assortment of trees on our street can offer before the pollution whacked at me by pujs.

I then see a police officer questioning the newspaper vendor at the right side of the street. I look left and see another police officer questioning three residents outside their home. The pedicab continue to drive past and I see a group of people crowded at the left side of the street. They had blank faces that expressed solemnity. I look right and a fewer number of people were looking at the other side and some at me having the same blank faces. I look left again and then I immediately got goosebumps at what I saw.

In front of the bakery was a corpse under a tan colored sheet. There was a motorcycle three meters left of the corpse and it between the motorcycle and the corpse was a middle-aged woman of Middle Eastern descent crying and a Middle-aged man kneeling by her knees facing her, crying as well. I look at the corpse again and I see bright red blood oozing from his head. Splattered on the floor are brain meat.

Looking away, I felt disgust at how humanity can be so cruel. A witness to a violation of what separates man from animal, though shocked, a surprising calmness blanketed my fear. Selfish as it might seem, a bit detached I must admit, I had to be calm and not entertain thoughts of fear. I have got to get used to a world where man has the capacity to either be pure or evil. I had to be ready, I still had to go to work, I still have to live and it's just the beginning of the week.

A Principle

I woke up to screams in the middle of the night. I was six years old vacationing in Brunei where my parents worked. I got up from the comfortable queen-sized bed I was sleeping in. I saw my dad standing by the door of the walk-in closet. He was pointing aggressively at my mother with his devil-like face shouting angrily at my mom. I walked past him and saw my mom seated at the floor of the walk-in closet, her eyes all swollen. I sat at her lap. I didn't know what to do, It was difficult to understand. I just knew that I had to remember to make light of it someday.

I climbed up to the second story of my Lola's house in Bicol. I was still six. I climbed up to tears. My mothers'. She was sitting on a cushion at the hallway. My Lola, along with my Titas and Titos surrounded her sympathetically. My dad was standing in the middle, once again with his devilish face, roughly pressing his point-finger at my mom and angrily uttering hurtful things. I forgot what I did, I forgot what was said, but I remember the sad, concerned faces. I remember my mom's reddish face from her continious crying. That I could remember.

I was in first grade and woke up one day to news of my dad to be deported from Brunei because he beat up my mom again but someone had to the courage to report it to authorities. Only then did I understand.

Upon comprehension are emotions I strongly felt; I felt relief and anger. At least he can't hurt her anymore. At least she won't cry anymore. She can cry of other reasons but not from pain caused by someone who was supposed to love her.This was was relief. I also felt a nagging feeling of anger towards my dad. Maybe because I wanted to understand why he did those things. I wanted to know why he was capable of doing hurtful things to my own mom and his own love. I wanted to know why a thinking human being would be so adamant and primitive to be able to inflict physical and verbal pain on someone he is supposed to love. I felt anger and shame at the fact that he is my dad. Why did he have to be my dad I remember recalling.

I grew up to a dysfunctional family. I have five half siblings and one full sibling. We all grew up together at my Lola's on my mother's side. All our dads were absent up to a certain point that is. My eldest kuya seperated from his wife. His wife cheated on him and now has another family. He on the otherhand is with a girlfriend right now. Second to our eldest, another kuya also seperated. He cheated on his wife and is currently building a different family now.

I used to believe in forever. I used to believe in the ideal. When I say I don't believe in marriage, it's not because I don't want to be tied-up. It's not because I want to sleep around but it is because I don't believe in forever. Nobody respects the sanctity of marriage anymore at the rate of people getting legally seperated, annulled and divorced. So let's save the money, the time and effort. Let's save the heartache and not commit in forever because there is no such thing.

If a person is willing to stick it out with me forever that'll be a gem. If the idea of dating me forever doesn't appeal to you, I won't stop you. If you want to have kids, build a family, don't let me stop you from your dream. I just don't ever want to wake up and be the one crying and be the object of screams.