Fish.

There was nothing I could do.

You slipped away into the waters

While I stared down at it

Lapping at my land-bound feet.

I gripped my face instead

And tried to move around the lines

So they'll look different

And maybe you'd come back.

I waited until you never came

Until I grew wings and flew away

I'd search for you, but

I've forgotten what you looked like.

[Egh, crap writing! I am out of love, so even in a weather like this, it was a pain to churn this out.]

Tonight

Tonight was a night of facing of fears. We were required to attend a mysterious event wherein the university isn't liable for any injury / unpleasantries imposed on our person / belongings. I stalled myself, got there 15 minutes late, and found myself locked out with a bunch of other people who I am guessing were mandated to attend and were quite confused as well as to what exactly it was they were attending, and mildly shocked to find themselves unable to do so.

As we looked up the second floor windows of the building, we could see strange figures motioning in dim yellow lights and shadows in the purple lit corridors. It seemed as if the whole building was the stage. I stood outside for a while, trying to understand what I could see from where I was and failing. It seemed fantastic. We rescheduled our reservations for Sunday.

It has been a while since I've last commuted at night. I realize that nothing beats the cold night air, bright yellow lights, and the general suspicion that people cast towards each other.

What happened was I forgot about the traffic and left home about 6.30 in the evening (the play was supposed to start at 7). All the passing buses were full, so I resignedly got in a near-empty jeep instead. Inside was a pretty lady who was headed for the Fairview mall, and I tried to imagine what her date looked like and why she would date such a person (I was desperate for distractions). Eventually, the jeep filled in, among which were a hesitant couple and a band of women who were sharing a big bag of vinegar chips. I did my best to look uninterested.

I got down at Philcoa and weaved my way through the brightly lit street vendors. I got behind a woman in purple with a large sweat spot on her lower back and puzzled over it. Then I tried to forget about it by observing the faces of incoming pedestrians. I hope I won't have sweat spots like that when I get older.

I was on the UP jeep when Gino called to say that the gates were closed and we had to reschedule, which was a relief, because we had the mini-chairs due tomorrow and I wasn't even close to finishing yet. So I got to the building where the play was being held and met him there. After that, we bumped into Hannah and Don who also didn't make it to the play, and they wouldn't believe that my braces were off even though I was standing in front of them and saying that I didn't have them anymore.

Don: Lies! Lies! *peers at me*
Hannah: *peers at me*

Boo! >:O (Well, okay, so it was dark and everything, and I totally caught you off guard.)

All in all, it made my day. And all I could do as I sat on the bus was sigh happily and smile at the lights that whizzed by and wished that the ride wouldn't end so soon.

Mute. || Dengue Delusions.

There was a spot on my lung.
And it so happened that every wheeze made me
Think of you and I tried hard to stop breathing for a while.

All day long the TV antennae outside tipped from
Side to side, trying to catch every signal,
Line, sound, anything.
Against a sun-bleached sky it was the looks of a
City still trying to find its way in the world.

Where the winds cross, that's where I am.
I'm looking down where you might be walking,
Wishing that somehow, you'd want to be holding my hand
At that moment
Flocks of birds pass my floating thoughts
They don't think twice about what they see.

(You are so vague.
So much so that I write poems about you
Just to see what it would look like.
I want to be able to read something I wrote
And see you instead.
Who are you?)

I pick up where I left off, but
I realize that my old shoes no longer fit.

I want to go to where you are and
Sing you a lullaby.
You'll look at me half-lidded and
I'll still be there after you close your eyes.
But I know that you'll be far away
So far away that the stars can't reach you
And my words will simply be whispers that you
Won't be able to understand
Just by looking at my mouth.

I am at the bottom of a well
And that's where you'll wake up to.

The World Breaks Us Every Moment.

Our lives can be so small,
Scrawled out on wind-blown papers.
Each breath we take
Is a breath like infinite others,
But we forget them just as soon as they go.
What have we done,
Muting ourselves like this.
Spending years like they were seconds.
We should know better.

The dreams we had
Can be crushed underfoot,
And nobody would mind.
We didn't realize that
What we thought were the big things
Were actually the small things,
And we thought we've lost everything.

A Slip of Complaint.

Today I had my plates for breakfast,
With leftover black chicken on the side.
Mechanical drafting is trying very hard
To turn my arm into a robot.
Lectures are trying very hard, too,
To turn it into mush.
It feels like robotic mush.
Either I'll paint my nails pink to cheer it up
Or black to help it express itself.

In class my seatmate put on perfume.
I didn't have the heart to tell her I'm allergic.
My breathing tubes are screaming.
They can't see the point of putting perfume on
Twice in the same hour.
(And neither can I.)

On my way home I realized
That I like the smell of smog.
Well, better than what my seatmate had, anyway.

Notes From Yesterday's Green Yellow-Pad.

Yesterday, I saw a lady jeepney driver.
She braided her long hair back, wore a denim jumpsuit, smoked, and drove like a devil.
I saw her orange jeepney from the bus.
One moment she was right outside my window
and a few seconds later she was gone.
(Like, wow.) I've been waiting for this day to come.

I was on my way to school for an unusual meeting thinking I was late,
but I turned out to be the first one there.
I spent a while rereading memorable parts of my inbox when a groupmate tottered up.

Our task was to eat balot and write a poem about it.
Here's mine:

In our hands lay a river stone
Where inside red rivers coursed through like in maps of old.
We are gods
Moving the world with our tongues
Breaking, destroying, engulfing,
Marveling in the iron taste.
Wanting more.

It was edited to go with all the other people's stanzas, and that group output was awesomer.
We presented it today and everybody was impressed (or so I like to think.)
On the way home, I kept chuckling and smiling to myself on the jeep, bus, and tricycle.
Everybody must think that I'm either in love or retarded.

Thanks to Gino for keeping three-fourths of me un-drenched today and sacrificing one-fourths of yourself. You are a darling. I promise to bring my umbrella from now on and repay you one unsuspecting rainy day.


So here I am in an internet store, because the laptop at home has been kept away from me. I'm trying to concentrate on the mysteries of how floating counters came to be, but I'm just itching to be somewhere else.

Where Do We Go?

We walk hand in hand
In a field of time.
Our cat feet crunch
The ice and frozen grass.
We break off a point
And reel at the numbness.

Onwards, onwards.
It's no place to rest.
The wind howls and urges
Pushing with the weight of the sky.
Nothing to be done,
Yet so much to do.

Who knows where we're heading?
All around is more of the same.
Countless trails,
All meandering and lost.
They mean nothing to us.
We find our own path.