Graduation Livestream

I'm finally graduating tomorrow! Yay! Click the video at 8am to view the livestream of our commencement exercises. Ipalakpak nyo na lang ako sa harap ng mga desktop/laptop/tablet ninyo. :)

The Scavengers

We feed on each other’s insecurities 

like scavengers devouring a putrid meal 

in a symbiosis to fulfill each other’s ego,

we live, feasting on our carcasses

Photo from here

Dulcinea

I

fell

in love

with the person

who spoke my phrases

I longed to hear; poignant,

sincere,  and romantic words. In

perfect timing, or at my own signal

        She,

                who I

        can own in

                                                                  a  passage and she,

                                                     who possessed remnants of   

                                            me from the day I  first breathed

                I

                          loved her

                  deeply but she

           was no more alive

than in my sappy fictions

Royal H

Nurse Doherty shook his head, looking disappointed, but still in full countenance as he checked the monitor in one of the beds in the unit. Attached to the end of the device’s leads is a girl, aged less than a decade; limp, cold, and pale, swaddled in the blue sheets that smelled of a mixture of cornstarch and phenolic compounds. She was afflicted with the disease of the royalties - the one birthed from Queen Elizabeth herself, monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - long before she took her first cry. 

“I understand that you do not approve of this kind of therapeutic. But she currently losing blood so she needs a form of blood replacement immediately…”, the nurse said tacitly, breaking the crass cacophony of the beeping of the monitors in the room.

The parents, both medical doctors by profession, didn’t need further explanation. They were very well informed of the urgency of it and the slim chance of survival if they choose not to do so. Their religion compels them not go with the procedure in fear for the consequences in the afterlife, they say. 

 The nurse handed them a clipboard, in it contains a document which may, if signed, signify that they had refused the treatment. “For legal purposes,” the nurse said. As the parents took hold of the nurse’s clipboard, the girl who seemed to hear the non-consent, partly opened her eyes and looked at her parents who were torn between having their daughter live or being faithful to their church’s teachings. 

“I still want to live, Dad.” she said wryly with a throaty voice, mouthed from her pale, dry lips. 

And the father became more miserably undecided.

Photo from here 

J&M

I used to remind him, “It’s okay, I still like you…imperfections and all,” as my fingers threaded over his brown wavy hair. I said such in the hope of salvaging the minute, hardly sensible, amount of self esteem his recent lover repeatedly chipped. I want to free him from the constricting bondage of his insecurities, which may finally allow him to see the goodness in himself. He tends to under appreciate himself too much, that’s why.

Insert a whirlwind romance here which lasted for a couple of weeks, and he left.

We passed by each other a day ago. “What happened to you? You got fatter now,” I tactlessly blurted out in front of his face with a smile, hoping for a quick, casual talk. For a moment, those words that I used to say to him two weeks ago resounded to me in the voice of good ol’ conscience. Guilt took over; those words were all I need to compensate for the pains that he had caused. Vendetta starts in finding the subtle pleasure in a simple act revenge, they say. I happen to be a hedonist.

As he walked nearer, he smiled and replied nonchalantly with his usual “Hi!” and walked right past me. 

I wish he didn’t have those earphones on. I wish he didn't have them at all.

Photo from here

A&P

I

miss you,

he whispered,

quite too casually,

those words onto my ear.

I refused to believe

something that I‘m certain

is  but another lie.

I wonder how he mustered to say

that he did miss me

if all along

I had never left.

The Autumn Note

I wrote a hundred letters under the scarlet oak tree whose branches are billowed by the afternoon gust. Whose dried up leaves surrender inevitably in a graceful separation from the tree's majestic branches, jostling with the wind as each piece parachute to the ground.

The warm hues of the leaves fall softly like flares around where I sat. I write my letters dated September the 8th.

In these thin yellow stationaries, I find myself writing random phrases and words devoid of all the rules of grammar and syntax. I wrote notes about those moments inside the park which give me a nostalgic feeling and somewhat, a sense of longing for those times we'll never live to see once more. I wrote about those quiet infinitesimal moments inside our room, uneventful yet all seem to be far from being dull. I wrote them so they may not be forgotten by my memory who fails me often or by my senses who deceive me. I would like to remember how I experienced those moments through my own unspoken and written words. I wrote my own version. Or how I just wanted to remember them. Blissful yet biased.

I was mute and you were blind. Pity me for not having the gift of speech, to enunciate the polarity between the most beautiful and painful words. Still I try to write the words I cannot speak of even if your eyes wouldn't permit my little letters to be read.

"What had love done to its two greatest slaves?", I would always ask.

I shower you with kisses and hugs, our only means of affection, as drops of salty liquid trace my face until they evaporate like the tears never did fall. But still, amid your poor sight, I handed my letters in one autumn afternoon, wishing that your new found love will read them for me.