Over-Obsessing.

I want to keep writing.

I want to keep writing until I'm out of words

Until my blood runs and my mouth implodes with silence.

I want to keep writing

I want to keep writing until I've translated the seas into pages

Of worlds that swallow people up

And swell with meaning and ebb with the tides.

The moon be contained on a shelf

Heavy words rendered weightless

Pulling you in,

Enchanting.

I want to keep writing.

A section of my wall about the intricacies of your lashes.

Under my bed you'd find tomes about the moment I met you.

I want to keep writing

So I don't have to think.

Mental Graffiti.

Broken things have a way of catching me.

A breath, a beat always escape.

I can never write as smoothly as you.

Words flowing like I can't even explain.

Clutching at my heart until I feel my breath flicker.

You make me want to look at the sky forever,

Where the world is far more than what I see

Where there might be a chance you actually remember me

And where I can forget myself, even though I don't know who that is.

Strangeness is beyond my grasp.

I meld into the shapes of people I hardly understand.

My thoughts stumble into one another

Creating landscapes I have never seen.

But in all of them, there is always you.

On Being Nice.

I’ve always carried around this great fear of offending people. Sometimes, when I’m looking at the mirror or looking at my photographs, I see it staring cautiously back.

Today, driving my sister to work, I carelessly decided to make left turn at the intersection (to clarify things, it’s perfectly legal to do so whatever color the stoplight’s flashing, just be sure the road is open) and ended up pissing off an oncoming taxi. His eyes popped out at me through the window and his mouth started moving rapidly and I didn’t bother to decipher what he was saying, as at the same time my ears were being assaulted by his perpetual horn. All throughout, I was lifting my left hand (an international sign for pardon, at least in my neighborhood), which was making it difficult to turn the wheel, that I didn’t even notice that the stoplight has already turned in my favor and had given me official rights to actually make this turn without offending anybody.

The point is, you can just imagine how my lips were quivering—well, almost. I managed to suck it up and bravely thought about how funny he looked (a flaring nostrilled hippo) and that for all I know that man might have been driving all night and going through all sorts of stress as a taxi driver who, based on a vague calculation I made a few years back, don’t really earn a lot on bad days, which is probably one of these (at which point I was actually glad for a moment that he had a chance to vent out all that horrible domestic or otherwise thwarted-dreams related stress he might have been bottling in, just too bad it was at me).

I told my sister so (not about the hippo part, or the glad about it part, just the he might have been driving all night bit) and she told me how nice I was to people, that I had even thought of that. I didn’t tell her I just didn’t want to offend people.

Wait, is that all nice is? Not offending people? Because that kind of makes me a doormat.

Well, okay, actually I just posed that question to make you think I had only realized that now, but really I’ve been trying to deal with it for years and still I think I haven’t progressed. I hate doormats (the people kind) because they remind me of me. I tend to have an unhealthy response to them, and it’s a part of me that I still have a bit of trouble accepting.

But then I figured that not everybody has this almost-neurotic need to be nice. If only to stop the viral chain that makes people look like enraged birthing mammals, this nice-ness might even be worth mastering. (Note to self- look up: diplomacy)

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.