escrito antes, escrito otra vez

And so this year,
I needed a new planner…
that one from Starbucks.

I thought, maybe
I could write all thoughts
morbid and all
in those cheerful pages.

Then at least
all my sorrows could drown
or at least pale in comparison
to all that’s glitzy and perky
in there.

Perhaps, on a cold January night
I would write:
     I went for a walk earlier
     I visited a friend I haven’t seen
     for the longest time…
     I paid a visit…perhaps…for the last time…

Or maybe I would write:
     I just stared through a mirror tonight
     For this night another spot grew
     On my thickening tongue

And maybe the night after a Valentine date,
    I’d recount how I actually kissed
    Someone slowly with my eyes shut
    As the music was playing smoothly
    From a lonesome saxophone.

I could do that too on a summer
While on a trip to Boracay
Which my brother paid for
As a benevolent gesture
For a moribund brother.

Or if I am in Kyoto
and Sakura blossoms
dot the damp spring air,
I’d list down all
the new Japanese phrases
I’ve learned to speak.

I could write every melancholous song the DJ played on air.

I could list down all the parties I grudgingly enjoyed.

I could write all the foods I guiltily crammed into my system.

And certainly, I could spare a space
for my growing list of illness.

This is not another rip-off from RENT or any other musical…
It’s just like this:

I’ll count my days while I can.

And if on the third night of Misa De Gallo
I can still count, I’ll count
just the same
wish just the same
feel just the same about
life
and
death

On the last page of the planner, maybe I could write:
Weird that a planner ought to
   get involved with death
But everyone or everything
    serves its purpose
And then they fade…

Kaya ko kaya to?

Malamang hindi…

Kunwari pumunta ka sa isang DIY store…at meron sila lahat ng klase ng DIY.

Tinolang manok-DIY. Aba mahirap yata magluto ng tinola.

Laptop-DIY. How to build a laptop using a matchbox and several yards of wires. Kunwari may ganun.

Bugatti car-DIY. Tipong mga sirang tsinelas kayang gawin ito its wheels. Tapos provided sa DIY kit…kaonting tornilyo, mga pliers…mga batteries. Some corrugated sheets. DIY nga eh…dapat madali.

Loft-DIY. Aba…ang saya mo…may LOFT ka pa na DIY. Tipong pwede mo siya i-set-up kahit di ka magtawag ng architect at structural engineer. DIY eh.

Pero paano kung lahat ay DIY.

Murdering your noisy neighbor-DIY.

Cheating your way to a perfect score in an exam-DIY.

Setting up a bomb that could wipe out Metro Manila-DIY.

Di ata happy. Kaya matuwa tayo kung bakit hindi DIY lahat. Minsan kasi…kailangan talaga i-acknowledge ang mga kahinahan naten…para matuto tayo humingi ng tulong.

Tao lang tayo. Di kakayanin lahat.

Lonely kaya ang DIY. Imagine mo gagawin mo lahat mag-isa mo. Kanya-kanya. Ang selfish ng ganuong mundo.

OOOOooopppsss. Baka isipin mo praning na naman na blog to. Di ah…

Pakiramdam mo ba…sinusumbat sayo ang mga bagay na hindi mo naman hiningi sa umpisa pa lang?

Kunwari, pinanganak ka sa mundong ito. Inalagaan ka ng parents mo. Binigay ang lahat sayo. Best education. You live comfortably in a house. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks…taken care of. You spend vacations outside the country. You have your own yaya and driver. Well, at 18…your own car. Like I said…all the best. What’s the catch?

Nothing. You’re parents love you so much. They’d do anything for you. They really want nothing in return…or at least…that’s how they want it to appear. But sometimes…just sometimes…they expect something.

They expect you to be the best that you could be. At least, in their own standards.

So if they think that a B+ is below their standards. You could actually be disappointing them to some degree. Of course, grades are grades. But what if you actually failed graduating on time…because you got yourself pregnant…and you just broke up with your boyfriend?

Not exactly the best news for your parents.

I can actually hear them sigh. And perhaps your dad will shake his head in disbelief. And he would ask himself loudly, “What have I done to deserve these?”

There goes what you’d call as SUMBAT.

Your mom would say, “Hindi kita pinag-aral sa mga exclusive schools para mabuntis out of wedlock!”

I am just painting a scenario here. SUMBAT…bakit nga ba ang dali sumbatan ng mga taong nagkakamali?

Ang sarap iduldol sa kanilang pagmumukha na mali sila. That they have actually done something stupid. And that they just squandered every chance they have at having a good life.

Actually, everyone can do away with all that “PANUNUMBAT”.

When your girlfriend actually says, “I gave up everything for you. So don’t you dare say I was such a bad girlfriend.”; it does nothing to make things easier.

Bakit mo isusumbat ang isang bagay na supposedly MALUWAG mong binigay. If you gave up something for a person…and that person didn’t ask for it…HUWAG MONG ISUMBAT if time comes and you suddenly realize that what you did wasn’t worth doing.

Honestly…kung ikaw yung dinuduroduro na UNGRATEFUL….how would you actually feel?

Ako alam ko…

I’d feel…flabbergasted…imagine…kunwari kumakain ka na ng favorite ice cream mo, bigay siya as a gift ng friend mo…than pagka-ubos mo ng last bits of the ice cream…sasabihan ka ng friend mo ng, ”ALAM mo yang ice cream na yan ang mahal mahal niyan…naubos nga yung allowance ko dahil binilhan kita niyan…”

Doesn’t that feel so awkward? Nakain mo na yung ice cream…tapos sasabihin sayo na ganun yung circumstances surrounding the ice cream? For what purpose di ba?

Para maguilty siya. Para mapalabas na siya ang mabait.

Oh well…ikaw naman…siyempre ikaw itong matakaw…ganun lang yun…ikaw itong masama.

Yet you didn’t ask for it…di ba? YOU DIDN”T ask for it.

Yan ang point netong blog na to…you didn’t ask for it…kaya talk back…ISUMBAT mo rin..isigaw mo: LECHE KA…I DIDN”T ASK FOR IT…binigay mo siya…kaya huwag mo ko sisihin…

And I thought I could write a very good poem. But whenever I come across one of Neruda’s works…it humbles me and inspires me to write more. Had Neruda been a teenager around this time, he could be one of those hardcore EMO songwriters.

Anyways…today…I feel that this poem best describes what I’ve been feeling the whole day. You, MOKIES, had me thinking.  If I’d have to rewrite this, I would have gone on. But as in the last two lines of this poem…I confess:

One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.

——-

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.

I decided to repost this poem by Wislawa Szymborzka. And while, I still remain doubtful that love at first sight does happen; i’d like to think that it has happened to someone before.
______________

Both are convinced
that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.
Beautiful is such a certainty,
but uncertainty is more beautiful.

Because they didn’t know each other earlier, they suppose that
nothing was happening between them.
What of the streets, stairways and corridors
where they could have passed each other long ago?

I’d like to ask them
whether they remember– perhaps in a revolving door
ever being face to face?
an “excuse me” in a crowd
or a voice “wrong number” in the receiver.
But I know their answer:
no, they don’t remember.

They’d be greatly astonished
to learn that for a long time
chance had been playing with them.

Not yet wholly ready
to transform into fate for them
it approached them, then backed off,
stood in their way
and, suppressing a giggle,
jumped to the side. There were signs, signals:
but what of it if they were illegible.
Perhaps three years ago,
or last Tuesday
did a certain leaflet fly
from shoulder to shoulder?
There was something lost and picked up.
Who knows but what it was a ball
in the bushes of childhood.

There were doorknobs and bells
on which earlier
touch piled on touch.
Bags beside each other in the luggage room.
Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,
suddenly erased after waking.

Every beginning
is but a continuation,
and the book of events
is never more than half open.

I am launching a project that involves me. Me alone. Or you may want to tag along from time to time.

Summer has started and I haven’t had visited any beaches around. Everyone in my friendster list and multiply contacts have been psoting their summer pictures allover and I figured that there are so many beautiful beaches in the Philippines. And though I’ve known it years before, I didn’t realize that there are dozens more waiting for us to discover.

Why 2012? I am setting 2012 as the deadline for me to go through the list of beautiful beaches in my list. I am planning to go study abroad by 2012. I initially wanted to study abroad by 2010 but God knows how difficult it is to get a crack at scholarships for graduate studies abroad. It will be surely be difficult to go through all those beaches in four years time. But I don’t want to settle less for a modest goal.

The project is simple. I’m putting up a list of beautiful beaches in the Philippines. And my goal is to visit all this beaches by 2012. By that let me show the list.

1. Carabao Island, San Jose, Romblon
2. Calicoan Island, Guiuan, Eastern Samar
3. Badian Island, Badian, Cebu
4. Panglao Island, Tagbilaran, Bohol
5. El Nido, Palawan
6. Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte
7. Laiya Beach, San Juan, Batangas
8. Samal Island, Davao
9. Siargao Island, Surigao Del Norte
10. Camiguin Island
11. Punta Del Fuego, Nasugbu, Batangas
12. Camotes Island, Cebu
13. Malapascua island, Cebu
14. Caramoan, Camarines Sur

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pullt it off. But i’ll grab every chance to make this project a reality. First stop: Laiya Beach.