What is there?

What is there

that

holds?

What is there

that

keeps?

Nothing.

Nothing holds nothing and nothing keeps nothing.

I am nothing.

I hold nothing.

I keep nothing.

A void.

endless.

To mean what you say takes a lot of courage. And takes a lot of getting used to, when everything else fails and you want your words to fail too. I take lightly what comes out of my mouth once in a while and yet after close inspection, will find that even the briefest, most immediate words that slip out my mouth holds truth in my heart. They may be masks of that truth, a shadow or reflection.

I have been angry at the world. I still am.

Sometimes the bowl that holds the fire inside gets overwhelmed by the very simplest of things. Sometime the bowl holds the coldest, it burns. It burns and sometimes I hold it with my bare hands, as if to cup all of that heat, to feel my flesh melt, slowly and into the fire.

Sometimes I am the fire.

Most times I just step back and watch it burn into embers. It leaves the darkest of coals. They are lumps at my throat. A reminder of the choking sounds I make when I plead.

This is a fault I have been made to accept a thousand times over. I was taught never to be me, always what was right. To burn , to be that fire, was to offend.

And so I dampen it with my own saline solution. And remind myself in every drop I take, to keep to myself and a s a reward, not fringe anyone that comes my way.

I am repulsive. When they see ME, they recoil. And I wonder how I was able to bear it, a hundred times over. And over. An over.

Sometimes I know what winter feels like.

Sometimes, I am winter.

I am cold as ice. I am winter and I am cold as ice.

As someone once wrote, are we not all but the words?

and lesser and lesser until i feel nothing at all

i have a winter inside of me

i will feed everything to that winter

i will feed every feeling there till there is no more

i will be ice

i am ice

i am stone

and ice

until only cold dark winter remains

to build a platform,

to start with a hammer and nails and wood. good wood.

to measure, to hammer, to decide which and where and how

to choose and discard

and finally

see it stand.

but why build a platform

where one puts the hangman’s rope?

when you can hang from a tree?

shall i throw away the hammer?

and hang from the tree?

i shall throw away the hammer

so i have both hands free

to hang from the tree

To disappear and never to return again is an escapists dream. Holding the same logic at hand, I stumbled towards you in my wish to forget. And in the process of forgetting, I found out that I can be something else than the haze that I’ve become. Suddenly, I was a solid matter. With form and substance. I was no longer a concept or an idea. I was. In that brief space and time, I truly believed that I can descend from dreaming onto steady earth. To disappear and never to return again, I saw an old part of myself detaching. It was slowly saying its goodbyes and I welcomed the change. I embraced the freedom from the fears I’ve held for so long. It was a lifetime. It was then. It was when you held my hand. In that brief space and time, I was.
I’m not afraid to fall out of grace. I can never return to my fears. I have become something less and more.
In that space and time. However short, Nothing will change, nothing will remain.

Wala. Wala namnag kwenta. walan namang nakikinig.
Wala namnag gusto maka-alam. walang patutunguhan dahil walang
papapuntahan. Nahuhulog sa mga tengang ayaw makinig.
Wala na ring paparuonan.

Wala. wala. wala.

At sa kawalan, marami kang maririnig
Sa bingit ng kamalayan
masisilayan ang sarili

Tumatawa ng walang pakundangan
sa pagka-aliw
Dahil mistulang isang malaking
katangahan ang ginagawa sa sarili

Alam nya ito pero sige parin ng sige

gustong saktan ang sarili ng paulit ulit
palulit ulit. Ulit. Ulit.

Di na nahabag sa pusong puno na ng
galos at pasa
sa mga katangahang di nya iniinda

Tuwing papabitiw na
bumabalik-balik pa

paulit ulit na lamang
kang sinasaktan

paulit ulit kang bumabalik
umaasa nanaman

In the geography of gorges

explored by wanting hands

and eyes

and mouth

there I quiver

the pulse run amok

beneath blankets of hope and dream and woven truths

as gently as the breeze that brushed your hair this morning

i rest my head

on your soft firm body that eases my raging

#feelerlang

I manifest in the things that I wish I did not do. And so my list of wishes go on and on into the things that I say. And when I say that I love you, I really meant “please love me too.” But that’s not what I want to show you. I want you to believe that I can handle whatever the universes throws at me. I want everyone to think I’m being smart about my affairs.

There are things I wish I kept hidden, and there are wars that I wish I did not wage. There was never a way for me to filter you out.  And then there was never really an honest answer to my questions. I did not want to hear them. I did not really care about how it will go with my heart. As if being reckless with it makes me invincible.

I want everybody to believe that I am rational. I want to believe that I am beyond my emotions. I am a master of my fickle musings. I am. If I say it over and over again, I might believe it. I shall count my blessings. I will smile and pretend that I can make it.

When all my hopes and wishes were of you and the concept of YOU.

So when I told you that  you do not deserve to be treated like you were less than who you are.  When I told you you deserve better, and that you should love yourself first. In earnest prayer, I begged you to stop. I was begging you to stop.

I was begging myself to stop. I was begging myself to stop.

My words manifest in the things I wish I did not do. For what was natural to us this concept of self preservation, was lost in translation when I told you I love you and I will endure.  Right then and there, my words manifested the wars I wish I did not wage. There and then, the rational was thrown out and what was left was the wishes. Wishes of ghosts. Wishes of acceptance and yearnings that kept themselves hidden, awaken with the sudden jolt of lightning that was your smile, sacred and immortal. A scar on my heart.

the impossibilities are cleared, in the minds eye. where we see only limitations and walls, we build the muscles for climbing up and taking what chances we have.

 

Today, we shall not be overrun by our weaknesses. Today, we shall do what we were set out to do and more! Today is Bloody Monday! We bear our burdens and fight the good fight!

I need my second cup o’ coffee. Thank you very much.

 

We could be hiding beneath our sheets, roll over and let another hour or two pass before we wake up to another day of routine. Could be enjoying breakfast. Coffee to warm the stomach. Read the morning paper and such. But as it seems, there are things worth moving about at 4 am and start the day being kissed by the sun all salty. All is well. 

 

Hiraya MInokawa! Dabaw!