the sad history of flowers

Letters and Numbers

2008-09-04T19:15:00.000+08:00

I haven't really posted anything public in quite some time, owing to the rather delicate nature of certain topics that only a select few can read. But lo and behold, I post once again. And of course, things will be numbered because I'm too lazy to write connecting paragraphs to each one.

1. So I'm apparently going to the Avril Lavigne Best Damn Tour concert on Sunday. O_o Now, you have to note two things: (a) I am NOT an Avril fan, and (b) I am only doing this because it's someone's birthday and I wanted to give a gift that is more than just the usual cake/ice cream/sweetmeat. I've always believed that part of what makes performances (concerts, musicals, etc.) great is the fact that you are paying for an experience, as opposed to something mechanical, something that can be put on repeat and allowed to go on and on and on until it's almost dead. So I would like to gift the birthday celebrant the experience, since they are just diehard fans of Avril and, despite all protestations, would have really wanted to watch if they had the cash. So tadah! Wish granted.

*pokes fingers through holes in pockets*

2. Yes, I have heard of the Eraserheads reunion concert and the surreal events that happened after. I would have seriously wanted to be there - the Eraserheads was such a defining Pinoy band that forever shaped the direction of Filipino music as well as the musical tastes of a generation. And they're timeless: it's been ten years, give or take, since they were together as a group and yet my younger sister Bea is hopelessly devoted to Ely Buendia and knows more Eraserheads songs than me. And she wasn't even in grade school when the band split up! It's really boggles the mind. And as for myself, there are still a number of Eraserheads songs that I will never get out of my head, including the following:

- my baby brother Louie singing "Overdrive" when I was in fourth grade (so that made him in first grade) during the Dans New Year's Eve celebrations. Do you guys remember that? Louie was in his funny blue shirt and it almost looked like he was eating the mic at Tito Butch's house. Oh yeah, and Cutterpillow was our first album, when they were still selling cassette tapes for something like 60 pesos a pop.

- Lin, Jilly, Kla, and myself singing "Sembreak" and "Pare Ko" in a deserted gym the night of the Turnover Ceremony in fourth year high school. I still remember Kla and Jilly on the stage while Lin held up a video camera and my friends sang to me because I was leaving for college the following schoolyear. Incidentally, this was also the year that Lin broke her ankle because of...certain dance moves which I cannot detail here.

- I remember watching the video of "Ang Huling El Bimbo" and thinking, Oh my God, this video is seriously fucked up and it's FANTASTIC. This was perhaps the first locally made music video that really made the hairs on my arms stand up and a delicious shiver run through my spine.

And because it's the -ber months, this is the song running through my head:

So take a bite. It's all right. ^_^

3. And I'm finally done with Avatar: The Last Airbender (thank you Hiyas!). I've already read the spoilers and even saw "The Ember Island Players" on YouTube, but nothing beats watching "Sozin's Comet" just for the sheer awesomeness that is Aang. Seriously, they delivered what was perhaps one of the best finales for a series ever. Everyone played their parts, were fantastic, and I am so happy that Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko managed to make everything cohere together without truly giving anything away and still retaining the precious balance of humour and emotional resonance that made Avatar more than just a kid's cartoon series, but a true piece of storytelling genius. And I'm sorry Zutara shippers but Kataang will beat you in all their happy, mind-blowingly sappy glory. ^_^

I read somewhere that true shippers will see that the OTP of the entire thing was really Appa/Momo...which disturbs me a lot. O_o

Oh, and here's a teaser clip of Book 4: Air of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's aptly titled "Forbidden Love".

4. Finally: Happy 25th Birthday (tama ba?) Aster! ^_^ I'm sorry I'm not there for the dinner and the sleepover (meron ba?) but know that you're in my heart and in my mind. Thank you for crazy get-togethers in college and for giving us what's now known as "mga kwentong Aster" - for a fuller compilation, please look for Roja - and for sleepovers where you disregard all concepts of personal space and use me as a pillow (which is why no one likes sleeping beside you), for being there to comfort me in CCHQ when I broke up with my first boyfriend and couldn't eat fotr two days and you and Meia and to force-feed me food, and for all the bunny craziness and hoping that your latest pet survives the curse. Thank you for providing us with optimism and hope even during our most Sylvia Plath-like days and for persevering in law school where none of us ever dared finish. May you have everything good that you deserve in this life. ^_^

Believe it or not, wala tayong picture na magkasama, so kayo na lang muna ni Meia dito. Ayan, tingnan mo, nakapikit ka pa. ^_^

Vignette: Oubliette

2006-02-25T14:59:00.000+08:00

The candle flame flickers into the shape of a swan, the tip seemingly darting forward, beak-like, catching an invisible fish. Another gust of wind, and the flame gently bends forward like a bamboo stalk giving way to the breeze, then the outline changes again. This time, it is a silken strand, twisted away from the cloth, floating away on a gust of forgotten summer air. Outside the window, the air is thick with darkness.

She curls up on her pallet beneath the last window of the house, pretending that she is a mouse, a cricket, a small creature not daring to breathe. Around her, she catches sight of an overturned desk, a scattering of books across the dust-carpeted floor. She wants to reach out and touch them, but she knows that one tiny motion could alert them to her. She remembers what her father said before he left to join the men outside their home. “Stay here, Alexa, just stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

She was just twelve back then. That was three years ago.

Water pools in a dark puddle just beside her. Occasionally, she is brave enough to pull herself forward and take a sip of the dank liquid, her tongue slightly burning with the metallic flavor. She remembers the ocean, once, when she is lucid enough to remember anything: the rush of the waves towards the shore, the crash of foam and saltwater against her skin, pushing and pulling her towards the womb of the world. She can remember the sting of the salt and sand in her eyes, the limpid reflection of the setting sun across the horizon bordered by mountains on both ends, the cove seemingly belonging to another universe altogether.

She remembers her mother telling her that she was special, smoothing her dark hair back from her face. Now, she has forgotten that she has hair, that the thin strands of rope that occasionally obscures her vision is really what remains of what people used to say was her crowning glory.

Her body has shrunk to mere bones, her skin paper thin against her skeleton. Her stomach has become a cave, swallowing light. Her eyes have continually deteriorated, moving her away from the pinprick of illumination that was her candle towards the deeper shadows. She has forgotten why her light has remained the way it has for all those years, or if there was really a candle in front of her. She has forgotten where to draw the line between her reality and her memory.

But she remembers the day they came. She relives it every day

Prose Poem # 264

2006-02-15T15:25:00.000+08:00

Without a doubt

there is nothing more difficult to write than a poem about the discovery of love. How, for example, to write about the surface: the regularity of meals, the occassional movie, the long conversations about nothing? Well, not nothing precisely, but then what is so important about this quiet unraveling of history and presence, like a discovering a particularly glittering vein of water from a desert bedrock, the liquid sluicing away the centuries of dust and stone, darkly coloring the ground? We feed each other information in trickles: your birthday, the worst book you’ve read, the greatest rock band in the world. We wait for the ocean to arrive, swallowing the dry land, lapping at our feet. You sip your coffee and stare silently into the black depth, your fingers splayed like sunrays across the polished table. I clink my spoon against the china. Every time, we chip away a little more of the layer, patient for the day when we arrive at the center of the world. This is what we do every Friday night, feeding this constant need to unearth more. Lovers are like archeologists. They are the destroyers of worlds.

On Writing

2006-01-12T10:40:00.000+08:00

In writing, everything resonates. This is one of things I have learned in my four years as a Creative Writing student. A part of me knew that intense emotions fuels the fire of literary passion, that the excess of love, hope, pain, fear finds its way into the words that seemingly bleed from a metaphorical wound slashed across the writer's wrist. I was young then. That is how I wrote before.

Now, I am slowly re-learning how to write again: more care, more distance, more craft. What seemed to flow so naturally before is now a painful process of writing and re-writing. We are never truly satisfied with our art, I've learned, and so now I must be wary of being complacent in what I say, always examining the minutest of details in an effort to fit within the grand scheme of things. This is one of the things I am now struggling with - writing outside the academe, finding a place for an art amidst the chaos of building a career, a life within and yet outside writing. What a paradox, if you think about it.

Another struggle for me is a deviation from genre. I began writing poetry, and ultimately achieved a goal of sorts - publishing a collection of poems, with thanks from a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Poetry has always been my comfort zone, my playground, my four-cornered nook. Everything was familiar then - the air, the metaphors, the language of the unsaid.

But now, I find myself deviating from the path of least resistance, focusing instead on the prose, the fiction of a life, creating worlds out of nothing and pretending that it is something. The difficulty here is wondering where to place myself. Who am I and what do I write. The constant pursuit of identity, of naming something, of defining the unknown, is always a struggle for me. Once I am comfortable within a structure, I find myself wanting to escape the walls of my own making.

Excerpt: Capture

2006-01-12T10:34:00.000+08:00

Epilogue

The three prints that Same took of Lydia that were part of the final exhibit of Sam’s photography class were the ones that received the highest mark for that summer semester. The serpentine shadows that Sam skillfully played with as they slithered across the bare skin of his model was lauded by Professor Alcantara, before shaking his head in regret at the disappearance of Sam’s partner.

In the first photograph, Lydia was seated at an angle on a flat rock inside a cave, her head draped with a sheet of white lace. Sunlight pierced through the gloom of the interior, the shadows of rocks. Her eyes were closed, lashes curling demurely on her cheeks. A hint of a smile danced on her lips. Her tattoo danced across her belly, the head of the dragon just above her pubic mound, the flickering tongue pointing downward.

In the second photograph, Lydia was still inside the cave, standing on the flat rock. Her lace headdress trailed at her feet, an abandoned heirloom. She was facing the camera, her tattooed dragon visibly encircling her torso. In her cupped hands, an offering, she held an apple.

In the third photograph, Lydia was curled up on the flat rock, her back turned towards the camera. Her arms were wrapped around herself, her fingers peeking from where she was gripping her shoulders. A knife seemed to be embedded on her side, and a dark liquid trickled from her prone form onto the sand. The tail of the dragon curled around her lower back, the top half disappearing as it seemingly climbed over the curve of her waist. Her hair was spread over the dark surface of the rock, melding perfectly with the shadows.

Excerpt: The Snow Queen

2006-01-05T12:22:00.000+08:00

In all the stories, she is beautiful.

They say that she lives in a castle of ice, the walls glass-like, minarets and turrets dancing in endless spirals. The walls are like the purest glass, a reflection without ripples, the a mirroring of the true self. She is served by silent bears dressed in white fur, their dark eyes the color of stone.

It is endless winter in her domain. Here, the sun refuses to shine, and so it is the moon that casts its white face across an ocean of dead water. The shadows are long in this land, thin and stretched, mere distortions of a changing land. No mountain here is the same, no hill or mound of snow remains constant. No snowflake ever has the same pattern. The snow here burns, the cold creeping inside the skin, between bone and blood, a deadly sleeping stillness.

Here, she sleeps, her pale curls rippling down goosefeather cushions, her slender body frozen out of time and space.

They say she cannot be awakened until he walks the land again.

Poem: Morphing

2005-12-14T10:13:00.000+08:00

This is the difficulty with love:
its ability to escape permanence,
the morphing from shape to shape,
once a bird now a balloon and later on
a kite released during a dead day.

This is what awareness brings: knowing
that we will be left with clothes scattered
on the floor, debris of another night,
candlewax melting maps across the wood
pockmarked with scalpel scars.

I am reminded of another man,
another field full of grass, taller
than us, another bed. How can love
move from one vessel to another,
like liquid, like leaves blown across the street?

Poem

2005-12-09T11:09:00.000+08:00

Pre Tense

This is another letter addressed to absence.
A shadow in the corner lurks, waiting for the delivery
of the envelope, brown and old, scented with wood shavings,
tears, old cloth. Another pen writes another poem
for a man long gone, left for a colder clime,
a colder woman. This is a cycle we are familiar with -
the shift from light to dark, presence to absence,
another bedspace with the imprint of another body,
the sheets slowly dissolving into its soft and proper shape.

Poem? (Haha)

2005-12-07T12:40:00.000+08:00

This is how memory attempts to eclipse itself:
covering the tattered edges of that which we cannot

accept, as a seamstress runs needle and thread
over the smoother surfaces of satin, silk, cotton

warp and weft, folding edges and tucking corners.
Seamless, we say when there are no corrections,

only a line that stretches from here to here, an attempt
at perfection. Beneath this, we measure everything

else in terms of exactness.

Little Tidibts

2005-11-25T14:37:00.000+08:00

According to an ancient Indian definition, the beautiful is that which from moment to moment is always new.

Poem: Losing Sleep

2005-11-24T22:55:00.000+08:00

I cull poetry like I would
a sheaf of wheat, not that
my hand has ever held a scythe.

This is a pause, heavy
with meaning, a raindrop hanging
at the tip of a leaf, sharply slipping.

Tell me how it feels to hold
a pen, a hand, an hour
and say that perhaps it is nothing.

Some days I wish that it would all
just vanish, and that you are just
a grain of sand, an amber fly in my palm.

Don't you realize that even the sky
is a prisoner? We all want a place
to escape. There are always windows.

Come. Lock the door. Close your eyes.
This is my life line, my heart line - traceries
my skin a web, a map of a life.

Pira-Piraso

2005-11-24T22:51:00.000+08:00

Heto na naman po tayo,
naga-antayan, nagsusulat
ng linya sa daan, kapirasong
puti, porselas, palamuti
sa kalye. Pang-ilang
tapak na ito, yapak,
pakalat-kalat na parang
naghihintay na tamaan
nang 'sang dosenang
karayom or daliri dahil puro
ganito lang naman
ang ating hahantungan:
sinusundan ang turo
ng kamay ng orasan
papunta sa isa't kalahting
kawalan. Pinaglalaruan
lang naman natin ang boses,
salita, marangyang
pasigaw na sinasabi sa mundo,
"Heto! Andito ako!"

Poem: Shelter

2005-11-15T15:37:00.000+08:00

Shelter

I would like to understand this side of raindrops,
how things seem wet and dry, and how in between

you seem to know what I want to say before I even
think of it. Words float like clouds in the blue sky

that separates us. The world is pregnant with rain,
an occassional thunderclap. You lie back and watch

lightning create patterns across the gray canopy,
while I am afraid that we will merely get wet.

(first draft?)

In Rapture - Part 1

2005-11-08T01:21:00.000+08:00

She made the decision one Wednesday evening, just as the clock struck 10:34. She stood on the curb, her shadow lengthening on the sidewalk, caught between lamplight and concrete. She wrapped her jacket around her. It was hard to tell where she began and the sidewalk ended.

We never really understood why she hated mirrors. She never carried one with her, like a proper girl. She hated going to the bathroom. She would break mirrors. She would have cuts on her hands, her arms, thin bloodlines lifelines connections from one edge of her skin to another. She grew them like scales, like armor. Nobody would come near her. She was beautiful.

She smoked in the quad where it was forbidden to smoke. Silver lines, translucent in the cold January sunlight, curled around her like ghosts, the trail of ghosts. She would cup a whorl of smoke in her hands before in vanished, the same way little girls would play with bubbles during summer. Her fingers curved invitingly, ending with the sharp tips of her scarlet fingernails.

The store didn’t have a sign outside, just a rectangular window with the shades drawn and warm white light spilling from between the slats of the blinds. Regular exchanges of light and dark, the balance of the universe, stars hanging in the balance. It was humid for a January evening. She shuffled towards the door, glanced once at the sign that was flipped against the glass, and pushed it open.

Chimes tinkled, signaling her arrival.

She kept trinkets to remind her of the boys who loved her. Scented letters, a heart-shaped necklace, kisses. She had a box decorated with shells and glitter sitting on her dresser. It was only half-filled. One boy brought her flowers. A dozen roses. She plucked a petal from the bouquet every time he kissed her. Before midnight, her floor was covered with the blood of roses. In the morning, she swept them up and threw them out the window. Our street was almost like autumn for a week, rose petals gently swirling in the occasional gust of afternoon wind.

The entrance room was spare, quiet except for the hum of the airconditioning. A small desk was set in the far corner of the room, with a potted plant for company. A middle-aged woman in a plum-colored suit sat in front of a typewriting, click-clacking away as she filled up a stack of yellow cards. She didn’t look up when she entered.

Another door was set opposite the entrance. It was closed.

She cleared her throat. "Excuse me?"

Clack-clack-clack.

"Excuse me?"

Clack-clack-clack.

"EXCUSE ME?"

"You wanted something?" a mild voice inquired.

Another boy brought her a box of chocolates. They sat on the opposite ends of the sofa, each reaching towards the chocolates to take one into their mouths. Her lips were bright red, almost as if she bit them constantly. Plump and ripe and almost eager to be tasted.

They both reached for the last chocolate. His skin touched hers. His eyes widened as he saw the spiderweb of scars across her hand, her wrist, her arms. She met his eyes. They say he didn’t see his reflection in them.

Aren't your eyes the mirror to your soul?

The other door opened and a small man wearing a white lab coat entered the room. "You'll have to pardon my wife - she can't hear very well. Was there anything you wanted in particular, my dear?"

"Oh." The man was at least up to her shoulders. "I...I just wanted to take a look around..."

"Thinking of getting a tattoo?"

"Maybe. How much are they?"

"It depends on the size. Where do you want it to be?"

She touched the bare skin between her collarbone and her left breast. Smooth caramel skin, tasted like sugar and coffee and sunshine. "Here." Her fingers traced a small circle across the surface. "Somewhere here."

The little man smiled at her. "I have just the thing."

NaNoWriMo: Concerning an Old Newspaper Article

2005-11-06T16:28:00.000+08:00

NEW TONDO - The body of heiress Rozario Alcala, 18, was found dead behind a row of potted marijuana with approximately 37 stab wounds around her body. She has been reported missing for two days. Alcala is the only daughter of Senator Dick Alcala and media mogul Jacqueline Matthias. The victim was last seen at the launch of her band The Lost Girls at VH1, a trendy bar in uptown Makari City, where she left the party after a heated argument with boyfriend J Kulas, 19.

Police are investigating the matter. No suspects have been apprehended.

- reported by Huli Angeles

(Page 6A, The Philippine Oracle, December 26, 2010)

Returning to My Roots

2005-11-06T11:01:00.000+08:00

Okay, I'm back. It's been such a long time since I last wrote here that I'm not even sure people remember this little space. Ah well, it's all right, it doesn't really matter. It's nice to have such a quiet little retreat in the madness of the Internet.

So - this is the little "literary" space of The Sundial Girl. Vignettes, short stories, attempts at poetry, poems from poets I admire - all of them go here. Oh, and my attempt at NaNoWriMo also goes here. I'll build the place up as we go along. For the meantime, I just like the fact that it's quiet here. ^_^

Let's see how far along I can take this little niche for a ride.

On Writing #2

2005-05-10T02:23:00.000+08:00

Okay, a confession: it all started with fan fiction.

It was two days before my 13th birthday. I think my father and I had a fight that evening, and in my anger, I grabbed a blank sheet of paper and my ballpen and wrote in my large, round handwriting, "I hate you!" I yelled... It was my first story about a girl with long brown hair and brown eyes who played the guitar. Her name was January Ann McGill and she lived in Florida. My sense of logic and facility of reasoning was still quite raw at that point in time; she had managed to score the $100 million jackpot because she lived with the Backstreet Boys. (Yes, I admit, I was a fan. And that is the understatement of my entire adolescent life.)

I wrote fan fiction about the Backstreet Boys from seventh grade until third year high school. I have about three large folders at home, filled with my handwriting - anywhere from bond paper to ruled yellow paper to intermediate pads - and spanning roughly two and a half "seasons" worth of stories, excluding all the "special episodes" and crossovers. A friend of mine, Karla Manlangit, also wrote these fan fics, and we used to do a lot of collaborations: I still have the ten-peso notebooks we used to write in. During recess and lunch, we would meet and talk about our plots and characters and agree on the direction our stories were taking. And in the manner of secret agents, the notebooks would be passed from one hand to another. Our "fans" - classmates and friends who faithfully followed our series - would stick small Post-It notes on the pages, commenting on the way we wrote the story. Sometimes, we would even do Mary Janes, including ourselves within the plot. Talk about writing metafiction.

After the Backstreet Boys, I became obssessed with The X-Files fan fiction. As far as I'm concerned, X-Philes are still the best fan fiction writers around: smart, intelligent, and strong writers who knew their characters and their storylines. Next are the Harry Potter writers, especially my favorite, Cassandra Claire, who also did the underground phenomena, The Very Secret Diaries of the Lord of the Rings. I bow down to her.

And now, in my hours of boredom and need, I turn to my old comfort, revisiting and re-reading fan fiction of my old fandoms, feeling nostalgic and borderline schizophrenic all at the same time. ^_^

This is a Photograph of Me - Margaret Atwood

2005-05-09T00:58:00.000+08:00

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

On Writing #1

2005-05-08T01:03:00.000+08:00

I miss that sudden rush of things clicking together when I write. Whether it was poetry or fiction, or an article due in the wee hours of the morning, I miss that moment when your heartbeat quickens and you lose all sense of self, of being who you are and just focus on the words that seemingly spill out of your fingers and onto the page. There used to be days when I would just sit down and write, without cause or care, except to release a torrent of words that were clamoring to get out of some obscure and inexplicable part of my body.

Now, I chose my words more carefully, wanting to derieve a certain kind of effect from the reader. I control the torrent, releasing just a mere trickle, enough to satiate the thirst but not enough to drown. For a reader to remember the taste, one must always withhold the best part, the part they most want to know, dangle it above them like a treat that they must work for. This is not cruelty on the part of the writer - this is knowing that, in the end, the satisfaction of the reader must be met.

However, to be in control is to master your own impulses, to be discreet when one appears in print, to realize that words have permanence. Each written word is another chip in the stone of immortality, that cliche that binds sculptors and writers together. I write about myself, but only to a certain degree. The trick is to never let your reader know where the line is between fiction and reality.

Fragment #2

2005-05-06T23:34:00.000+08:00

This is the part where we try not to break hearts.

-- I'm sorry, but I don't think I can talk to you anymore.

She looks at him in amazement, her fingers freezing in the act of curling around the handle of her knife. Her steak was already cold, the sauce congealing like lumps of broken soil around the thick slab of meat.

-- What do you mean?

-- Just that.

He stood up, wobbling slightly from one bottle of San Mig. His napkin dropped on the floor, crumpled white sadness floating gently towards the linoleum. She wanted to pick it up, fold it up properly and place it back on the table, but he was standing in the way.

-- Goodbye.

-- Wait...

Letters Never to be Sent #2

2005-05-05T02:45:00.000+08:00

Somehow, this all saddens me, the finality of things.

I didn't think it would go this far. A friend advised me on silence, and so I will just keep quiet regarding the accusations you throw in my direction. But I thought you knew me better than that.

But I've only given up on three people in my entire life, and it saddens me to think that you're the third person. Because I cannot deal with your issues anymore, because you are hurting everyone who has ever loved you or cared for you by pushing them away. Can't you see that? Can't you see that you're building a wall around yourself, keeping everyone out, that you're climbing the ivory tower of your own making? One by one, people are disappering. Did you notice that? Are you going to claim exclusivity of friendships now? The less friends the better, because you think they're loyal?

You disappointed me. And yes, it was personal, because I put myself on the line to help you. I didn't know you would do that to me. It was a betrayal of sorts, and I don't know if you've ever realized how difficult it was to forgive you because of that. Because not only did you put my reputation and my name in jeopardy, you also delayed an entire publishing company's project. Do you realize how much money and time was wasted on that, or the tempers that flared and the angry words that were thrown in the air? No, you don't. Because you disappeared. You hid from the world while we were busy picking up the shit you left behind. Hell yeah, it was personal.

But that was a long time ago. And yes, that was forgiven already.

What really gets my goat right now is the way you are dealing with people right now. If you want to be exonerated from your accusations, be transparent. Face the people you're accusing right now - harap harapan na dapat ito, kung ganyan ka rin lang katapang mag-akusa ng tao. Because if you don't even have the decency to tell whatever it is to my face, then who are you and what right do you have to tell me that I am wrong and that you are right?

Friends don't do that. Friends never do that. You had my loyalty once, and my life. You had that. You held it in your hands. I trusted you.

I'm just sorry that things had to end this way.

Poetry #2

2005-05-04T17:30:00.000+08:00

Round Robin

This poem will begin with a statement of in
activity within the first two lines. Usually,
I address someone else; it will not do to let
a poet ramble on, like a train chugging beyond
the last station, pretending that there are still railings
beneath its wheels. The tension within the poem,
in this case, is fear – I am afraid to tell you
what I want, because I do not want to drive
past the 24-hour McDonalds’ at the corner
of the highway and the street, wondering why
I never had the courage to go inside.

In other cities, there will always be someone
who looks exactly like you, searching
for the lost lines on his palm, asking the air
why Point A never reached Point B. Somewhere
in this poem, there will also be an image
of the moon: an eye watching over us, omnipotent
and pale, wanting a closer look but never able
to do more than dip an invisible finger
into the saltwater stretches of the world.
You will want to ask me what it all means;
you know I cannot answer questions. Everything
rests on the silence that curls around
each word, carefully chosen, shells
scattered on an abandoned beach.

You tell me that I am contradictory. This
imagined conversation occurs in a coffeeshop,
where I’ve had my heart broken every other month.
You’ve always suspected it was my tears
that made it bitter. That is called a metaphor,
which should have run throughout this entire
poem, in order to fulfill the requirements
of organic unity. But there is nothing unified
about love, that theme repeated by every writer
of every age. All feelings are fragmented,
inexplicable, worn strands of twine connecting
the last boat to the rickety pier, bobbing up and down
on the shallows, where we will sit even after
we have said all that we wanted to say.

Maturity?

2005-05-04T01:42:00.000+08:00

Gyah. I didn't ask for this. I was happy being quiet, without worlds overlapping.

*must be mature*

Like I said, my life is weird. Wild nights are my glory.

Some Thoughts on Romance

2005-05-02T17:34:00.000+08:00

We all want it, and yet we all wonder what to do with it once we get it.

There's this little niggling feeling that we want something so amazing that it's almost an impossibility. We want a love that will last forever. A friend once told me, "Forever isn't that long." But if you think about it, it is. And sometimes you wonder why it takes so long for the enxt one to come along. We are in love with the idea of love itself.

It's almost been a year since we broke up. Like I said, strange patterns - last year, at around this time, I was also away from the city, writing. He was also the one who fetched me from the airport. This time around, when I asked the same favor from him, he said, "Yes, but only because you mean that much to me. That means no dramatics." It was a funny deal, but I agreed. I suppose that means that he realizes it, too.

Before, I used to think that I had closed to book on us. It ended with him falling in love with another man, and me living alone. Somehow, in my mind, I had hammered the first nail on the coffin of spinsterhood. After all, I'm not exactly the girl anyone could fall in love with. Everyone looks for the perfect person. I'm just looking for someone who can make me happy. And that's a difficult thing to ask for in a person. And I'm not quite sure that there's someone out there who's willing to give me that.

So here I am, wondering what will happen, wondering if there's someone else who will come along. There's a certain sort of detachment that comes with putting your heart back together - it makes you more cautious, more wary of people. It makes you distrust the very idea of romantic love, as if it were a farce to be played out, our generation's version of Santa Claus. (Pardon me, but I just watched Kate and Leopold.)

But a part of me doesn't want to be like that. I'm still willing to wait, and I'm willing to hope, and maybe all I want is a happy ending for my heart. It's gone beyond just wanting to get over him because I did get over him without getting into a rebound relationship. And I don't want it as an ego boost. I want to see if I can still believe again, if I can actually go through the motions again and see where we went wrong and we went right. i don't want him to be the beginning and the end of all things. There has to be something more than this.

The Place That Time Forgot

2005-04-30T19:02:00.000+08:00

There is always something permanent about the air that surrounds the city, as if the very space that slips between the buildings refuses to give way to the solidity of the body. The land is still the same: a mixture of emptiness and tall buildings, rivers that meander through the cityscape, unmindful of the concrete bridges and the children playing by its shores. Everything here runs in horizontal lines, leading the eyes across the patterns of sleep.

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here, with the knowledge that I am character in a story and that I am supposed to search for my epiphany here, where everything is rounded and lazy-daisy yellow. Tell me if I am still supposed to find a compass, an arrow wreathed in neon, telling me where I am going next. I am swimming in an unfamiliar dream here, where things never seem to change. See – my name is still engraved on my things, even after three years of absence.

Arriving at tomorrow seems to be a repetition of days. There will still be the same sunrise, the same border of ferns across the window, the same wooden slats that separate the heat from the coolness of the shadow. This a city of black and white, where everything moves five seconds slower, where even the wind prefers to slow down.

Poetry #1

2005-04-29T01:01:00.000+08:00

Some Notes on Being Left Behind

First and foremost, remember that the flower beds
still have to be kept in anticipation of their return.
Some of them like roses, the others daisies.
Never plant them in the same box.
This will make the roots tangle, and you might
have a hard time pulling them up
when the season turns. Secondly, don't forget
to air the beds and mattresses. Especially
the quilted ones: you know the history
of every patch, every stitch sewn from memory
and tradition - this one a wedding wheel, that one
the harvest moon. Sometimes, you invent labels:
lost love, the quiet friend, coffee at three
in the morning, the last movie on TV. Remember
that the world does not center around you.
Keep the house tidy: sweep every morning
before the sunlight hits the floorboards, before you see
the dust motes swirl in the light, dancing upwards
underneath and over you, never to be caught
beneath the rug or behind the door. Everything
has to look the same. Try not to age - your complexion
must be exactly as those in the pictures taken
ten years ago. The clock will not affect the passage
of your time. For you, it is merely a suggestion, never
a fact of life. During sunset, always stand on the porch,
wearing your Sunday best, leaning against the whitewashed
wall. Comb your hair. Wait until the darkness begins.
Then go back inside the house, and prepare
a dinner for one. The nine o'clock news will begin soon.
The welcome will always vary from visitor to visitor.
You, on the other hand, are not allowed to change.

How to be Happy

It's a good question, actually,
wanting to know what can fill you
instead of drain you
of everything you've ever owned:
it begins with your smile being stripped
from your lips, and then the sheen
in your eyes when you see
your favorite flower bobbing
in the afternoon wind. And then
the sound of waves, an ocean
from your childhood memory
the times before your parents
separated. And then it slowly moves
down - your neck refuses to hold
your head up high, and your hands
forget how it feels
to clasp another hand. Your stomach
swells because of all that you refuse
to give up - that last piece of chicken,
the loss of a lover, that last apartment.
And then the feeling travels lower,
to your legs wobbling because of the weight
of permanence and transience
pushing and pulling like insistent
ropes, yanking you from side to side;
your feet weak webbing of bone and flesh,
veins thin blue rivers pretending
to lead somewhere other than here.

Fragment #1

2005-04-28T00:49:00.000+08:00

There are only two reasons why people forget: it’s either because they’ve really forgotten everything, wiped everything from their memories, tabula rasa and all that crap, or, they don’t want to tell you what happened.

We were sitting inside the canteen, Kitty and I. Her head in her hands. Shoulders slumped like the slopes of a mountain. She kept on making small sounds, desperate sounds that ended with either a whimper or a word slowly fading into silence. She’d sit up, lean on the table, her fingers toying with the crumpled wrappers of our lunch, and then fall back against the hard plastic back of her seat. Emotions tumbled across her face like children refusing to sit still: weepy – sad – rollicking-tears-wanting-to-fall-down.

(to be continued)

tapping the microphone and clearing my throat

2005-04-28T00:04:00.000+08:00

So this is supposed to be a blog that separates my "literary" writings from my online journal.

It began as a plan to organize my material and to ensure that there will still be a copy of my writings somewhere -- ever since our hard drive crashed a month ago, I've realized the value of keeping an online copy of my poems and fiction. If not for anything else, I can always shut this down.

I'll still be maintaining my sundial girl journal though.

So -- here's to conquering the blank page!