Something to End the Year

What you will be reading next is an excerpt from a not-so-long entry I wrote on my long-forgotten-journal this afternoon. (In a way, that handwritten entry is my year-ender special. However, I would only allow myself to publish this particular part.):

If one is to ask me the highlights of the year, I'd simply state things that were happy, events that formed me positively in dealing with the craft of writing, instances when I break certain rules and that I am glad to do so, never regretting any moment of it. But I just realized that all of those happenings occurred during the latter half of the year: I am reviewing myself as a third year college student/striving amateur writer, even if in reality during the first part of the year, there was that sophomore college student who once confessed that she was afraid of liking a certain person - the person who sent her a message last New Year - a text message which she would, after almost a year, realize started the whole thing; who cried during a confession in the college chapel after admitting to the foreign priest that it had been seven years since her last confession (and actually, it was also her first); who had her future told by a kind man with anime inspired tarot cards, the reading took effect that very same evening which caused her to go to school the next morning wearing faux eyeglasses, trying to hide the swelling of her eyes, the constant threat of more tears spilling; who, still wearing the deceptive eyeglasses, cried her heart out to a friend while convincing herself that she had been a fool to hope, an idiot to believe in hope - not caring about the variety of stones that she could pick in the Zen Garden, not noticing the piercing gold rays through the branches of the huge trees, not realizing that a lot of passersby could see her; who, now keeping away the fake eyeglasses, cried again to a different friend- but this time she laughed while sobbing, taking in the shock of the whole dilemma; who, in the evening, shocked another friend by unconsciously letting out a tear when she realized that her friend wrote, in neon pink ink, a name on her arm, on this particular sophomore's untoned arm.

It was the saddest day of 2009: a cold, cold, cold February Thursday.

Happy New Year! :D

Six Word Memoir 3

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"No entry my ass," he said.

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Six Word Memoir 2

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People care too much, too wrong.

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Six Word Memoir 1

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Does not count.

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After a month

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In a Place Called Home

In a place called home, there are no door knobs. Only doors with holes and one takes the risk of being splintered.

In a place called home, there are spaces wanting to be filled: on the couch, on chairs around the dining table, in the shower, on a bed, and under a pillow

is a notebook. Because a place called home feeds itself with secrets - the vintage wine must keep on flowing in a pyramid of dainty glasses.

In a place called home, there is always someone who gets tired of calling it home, of filling its spaces, of watching wine glasses break.

In a place called home, there are no door knobs. Only doors with holes and one takes the risk of being splintered.

(November 24, 2009)

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dating gawi

Dapat yung fiction portfolio ang inaatupag ko ngayon e. Pero, ewan ko ba.

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Lunar Cycle

Every woman loves to be served breakfast

in bed. But the moon does not know time.

She knows no break of dawn,

and only has night to accompany her.

After a period of rest, the moon settles herself

on her blinding corona. She prefers silence

while taking delight in sampling the bittersweet feast

the night has to offer. Her moonbeams

search the lands for sumptuous delicacies:

an empty impression on one side of the bed,

dried traces of tears on a throw pillow,

the hot breath from the searching mouths

of lovers, a whore’s kiss violently smeared

on a shirt’s collar, embers

of what used to be a letter, the dust

between two golden rings neatly

tucked in a velvet cushioned box -

no one knows exactly when the feast will stop.

The moon does not know time.

but she can tell if she is already full and satisfied.

Wrapping herself with thin sheets of clouds,

she sleeps. Bit by bit, she buries herself

in the comfort of the darkness. She hides,

leaving a silhoutte showing off her bedcovers,

intricately designed with constellations

and what else we have yet to discover and discern.

The moon does not know time.

But she wakes up in an instant because of a sound

that she believes to have come from her hunger.

There is no way for her to find out that it is only

the repetitive crumpling of paper from a poet’s room.

A room so concealed that she has been unaware of that space,

her moonbeams do not bend enough to be able to reach it.

And as always, she begins the feast

by reclining on her majestic corona.

(October 7, 2009 - edited October 15, 2009)

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The Sky Is Blue, And

Why? Because all we could think of are reasons. Atoms clashing, chemicals blending, organisms wriggling sandwiched by glass slides: ah, the things we greatly love. It seems like the answers are already in our hands. But our hands are empty - gloved in white plastic, things slip so easily.

We look out from the window and see that it is drizzling even if the sun is still up and bright. Each raindrop looks like a tiny needle, sewing life in the grass-covered ground. Intricately embroidered in the sky is a rainbow in a half-arc, an imitation of the moon's perfect crescent. A shiver crawls up our spines and forces a gasp out of our bodies. Then we begin to ask.

(September 23, 2009)

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Patalastas

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Ngayong Biyernes na ang book launch ng unang regular na issue ng HEIGHTS. Kitakits! :)

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Now

by Morton Marcus

Now is when everything happens, that word I left behind at the beginning of this sentence, and move further away from with each breath.

To get back to it is to become a historian, or a furniture mover in the half-lit warehouse of memory, tossing aside lamps, card tables and bookshelves in a futilè effort to discover the sound ticking beneath stacked sofas and cigarette-scarred armchairs with their insides unrolling like yesterday's clouds.

If I wrote now on the next page, it would squat there like a green frog with glittering gold eyes, waiting, and the moment I touched it with my pen-point, it would jump back to the previous page.

I would have to chant Now Now Now endlessly, if I wanted it to occur now, and I wouldn't have time or space to write or think or do anything else.

I breathe now. I fry an egg now. I put my shoes on now. I walk into the street.... Now you can see my difficulty: I am writing to you this instant; I am always writing to you this instant, writing about this place where I am and you are and how important, trivial, marvelous, terrible, futile, sad, or joyous this place is. But you never get to read my words until now, when it's already later and I'm somewhere else––in fact where I am now.

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Tula

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May poetry assignment ako kay Sir Krip Yuson na kailangang Stone, Papyrus, and Clay ang pamagat.

Ipagpalagay na lang natin na Stone, Papyrus, and Clay ang pamagat nito.

Heto ang Isang Tula

tanggapin mo,

at pitasin

na tila mga talulot

ang bawat taludtod.

At iyong malalaman

na hindi mo mag-isang lilipunin

ang mga nagkalat na salita.

(August 22, 2009 - edited August 23, 2009)

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Poem

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Dahil boring ang Eco102.


Riposte*, I cannot

The wind blew softly
and it brought me
the fragrance of mountains
and freshly-cut grass.
When it stopped, all that's left
was the scent of Lysol
stuck in my fencing mask,
inviting my brain to surrender my soul
to the boy who intended to hurt me
with his bent blade.
A lefty he is, and I was pleased
with the way he twirled
his foil with mine
and with the pain I felt as he thrust
it just above my chest.
Careless, I was.
But all I could think of was his gaze -
pointed directly at me -
and the too many fragile points
on my body
that the breast plate,
the mask, and the fencing jacket
could not hide.

January 2009 (edited August 14, 2009)


*Riposte - a fencing term. An attack with right-of-way following a valid parry. A simple (or direct) riposte goes straight from the parry position to the target. A riposte may attack in any line. Consider its equivalent in a conversation. (from here)
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Patalastas

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Inihahandog ng Heights para sa Buwan ng Wika! Hindi isa, hindi dalawa - at ano ba, hindi rin tatlo! Kundi apat! Apat ang dapat mong abangan ngayong Agosto!

I-click lamang ito para sa mga detalye at larawan ng mga posters. :)

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writing exercise

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Appendages

Dan pees. And gaps gape.

A gasp.

A pen ages.

(June 31, 2009 - isang writing exercise mula kay Adam David (El Bimbo Variations) noong unang gabi ng 15th Ateneo Heights Writers Workshop. Nakakaaliw haha, marami pang susunod.)

Poem

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Mother, Forgive

Mother, forgive. I

set your high school

yearbook on fire. I

watched the flames lick

those faded black and white photographs

of you and your shoulder-padded girlfriends,

you and your guy pals in Ray-Bans,

you and your spray-netted bangs. Now

there is no need for you to stay

up late, mourning for the dawn

to retrace its course.

No more will I

hear you sobbing

in tune with the flipping

of yellowing pages.

Mother, I lost

a button on my uniform.

It is in need of mending.

(June 2009 - edited August 2009)
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Renga - Mayo 15, 2009

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Habang tinitiklop ng kamatayan
ang isang dahon, umuungol ang
tangkay ng usal. Nagdarasal
sa saliw ng hangin. Buhay ang
agos ng tubig sa bukal. Nauuhaw
sa tenga ng dahon ang lupa.
Kung bakit tinatabunan
ng sanlaksang pagtiklop.
Walang nakaaalam
liban sa isang dahon
na tinangay ng hangin. Napadpad,
parang tinig ng huling awit,
pinag-iimbay ang tubig at hangin,
ang lupa at apoy
sa nanlalamig mong palad.

JC Casimiro, Brandon Dollente, Japhet Calupitan, Rachel Marra at EJ bagacina (2009)
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Tula

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Tang

Isang puno ng mangga
ang aking palaruan
sa bakuran ni amang
sa Pangasinan.
Hinog na bunga
ang aking kabataan.
Minsan pumitas
ang hangin -
lumagapak.
Latak na kasama
sa huling patak
ng inuming handog
ng aking paslit na anak.

(2009)
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Tula

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It's Always Hard

to begin
conversations with you.
We both stand on the seashore,
side by side. Silent
waves devour the sand
underneath our feet.
I look down, somehow hoping
that the water will reveal
long-lost things in the sand:
a birthday card, a withered
yellow rose, our friendship
bracelets, a couple of
years' worth of words.
But it didn't. And we'd rather
have ourselves cherish this stillness
than to dwell on the ruins
of our yesterdays.
So we stand on the seashore,
side by side, neither beginning
nor ending.

for a friend

(2009)
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Tula

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Paggising Ko

Isa ka na lamang hubog sa aking tabi.

At sa pagpatag ng iyong hinigaan
ang alaala mo ay gumaan
tulad ng ilang hibla ng iyong buhok
na nananatiling himbing -
at hindi na magigising -
sa kalawakan ng aking kama.

(2008)
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Tula

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Ambroxol

Nanikit sa lababo
ang plemang may bahid ng dugo.

Gaano nga ba kalayo
ang baga sa puso?

(2009)
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bagong-lipat

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Isa na namang bagong blog.

Nga pala, maligayang pagdating.


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