Of what I could gather from my elders as to how was I during my early years as a baby, they are in unison in describing me as a wailer. Inay, my grandmother as I used to call her, would pacify me by lugging me at her side, catching me by her hips, yet I still would wail incessantly as if I had seen a ghost or the small universe I perceived around me were a chaotic phantom irritating my mood. Though the earliest memory I could rummage pertaining to my childhood was my quiet attempt to distinguish which among the pair of rubber slippers in front of me corresponded to my right and left foot.
Unknowingly, these opposite qualities of my younger years would merge to define and mold me as to what I would want myself to be. Probably, the first time I wailed was not for the reason that my lampin soaked in urine made me uncomfortable, but my pristine effort to narrate the story I had dreamt of. While the silence I practiced learning how to wear my slippers foretold of the virtue I would need in order to pursue my goal of self-actualization.
Still the perception of a chaotic universe around me prevails. It remains unchanged by time, though instead of tacit wailings brought by this overwhelming observation, the need to put an order and form to this so as to appease my senses has pushed me to grab a pen and there on the blank sheet of paper I would attempt to construct an ordered universe through words, by which as a baby I wailed due to my inability to perform the task. It is during those first tries that occurred the formation of my dreams.
Though the initial concrete steps I made happened years ago during my grade-school years when instead of staring at the idiot box, like the rest of my family, I would slouch in a corner and devour reading The Reader’s Digest, illustrated Gospel books, and the book Science in Everyday Living.
These efforts, unfortunately, would come to a grinding halt when I reached my secondary schooling, putting more importance on gaining an actual experience on my immediate world by hanging out most of the time with my school buddies.
Tracing the path that I used to tread would only happen during college days. Though by that time, the previous four years that had been wasted wantonly took a heavy toll on my ability to deliver on what I should by then had learned to do: write.
It was a humbling experience then to see my contemporaries composing several pages of essays and articles while I miserably struggled to avoid getting stuck with my first sentence. Like the quiet tot I used to be then, silently discerning which is which among the pair of slippers belonged to what foot, I played low-profile, diligent and with the determination of ten bulls reading contemporary works of master storytellers like those from Latin America who grow dinosaurs from iguanas.
Now, a decade after I left the university, the education continues, excruciatingly slow at some point in time but not as slow as a snail in tranquilizers. That path is rough and a challenging one which I expected from the very start.
Nevertheless, my wailings has metamorphosed into a decent reconstruction of the universe around me with deft combination of words. The wailing I only have to do now is how to find someone who would be willing to pay me work on something I love to do.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
A Short Unfinished Autobiography of a Writer in Oblivion
The day I realized I wanted to be a writer, the ember of this ambition continuously burns since then, steadily casting a reddish glow in the depths of my soul. It was then that I decided loitering in the streets, hanging out to kill time with friends whose only vision of the future was an alien world they could not define with their notion of perpetual present, had to end. The circumstances called for a hermetic life, dedicated on reading books and writing the whole day. I saw no other path leading toward the life I knew destined for me other than this.
I was in the middle of my college studies then. I would spend most of my time browsing and scanning the books on the shelves of Humanity Section of our library and would read for hours. And usually during the afternoons, I hung around with writers and poets classmates in the campus field, talking about books, stories, writers and about life until the sky changed hues from psychedelic orange to dark blue and the guards had to tell us that the campus was already closed.
My best buddies Alex Capiz and Emmanuel Edu, who shocked our innocent and devout Catholic classmates with his introduction of himself during our first day in class with his audacious pronouncement that he was not a religious person with a religious name, helped me see what fate had destined of what I should be. Alex, as a brotherly act, taught me the lesson of investing in books, an inevitable part of pursuing what the future had stored for us as wannabe writers. They introduced me to the best and basic writers one ought to read: James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges and other slew of masters in literature.
So, it was James Joyce Dubliners that I would devour in solitude, dissecting and studying the narrative mechanisms of his prose. Then came the powerful, simple prose of Hemingway overwhelming me. Though years later, when the English language remained a monster I could not tame, I spotted the cause of the infantilization of my dream short of killing the individual writer in me; it was the wrong way how to work as an apprentice under the tutelage of Hemingway. There hangs a thin line in knowing the distinction between a teacher that would address your needs from the one that could hurt you in the end.
I failed to notice that Hemingway knocked me out in my attempt to assume my fate. Hemingway is the lone writer who can send every writer of this modern time straight on the canvas during the first round. It would take several years before I could shake the beatings that I received and spar again, and undo the wrong lessons I learned.
I should have had taken a serious look on my deficiency at its first apparition so I could have had avoided the trap I walked into when Hemingway overwhelmed me with his prose. When I uttered “I also want to won” in fighting gesture to equal the feat Alex achieved in winning the top prize of Ustetika, University of Santo Tomas’ university-wide literary competition, I should by then realized that basic English grammar was on the frontline of tasks I ought to work on.
I consider this my first failure as a writer. The assumption that I was already a writer by mere wanting to be one but not taking the responsibility that the language with which I would use as the vehicle for my work was as foreign as what Chinese language is to me started the history of my writerly journey straight to the Dark Age.
The exorcism of Hemingway’s ghost from my fledging writing wisdom happened with my introduction to the works of Thomas Pynchon, and later of Italo Calvino and the Beat prose of Jack Kerouac.
The stories I wrote after my acquaintance with these writers, though mediocre and peppered with literary flaws, seemed to have opened the reservoir of creative juice I had been trying to control, and in a way set loose the rein that tied my narrative voice, freeing it to become gregarious, free-flowing, experimental and inhibited.
When I realized I wanted to be a writer, I barely knew how to write, or pour into the blank sheet of paper my thoughts.
I remember during those early days when I struggled learning how to write when I would spend long time staring at the first unfinished sentence, stuck and stammering and groping how to continue. Those days were also trying times to stay awake and avoid succumbing to the languor creeping from my feet and calves upward as the lethargy of intense staring at the white sheet of paper hypnotized me.
Several years later, with nothing to show as a proof that I had become the writer I wanted to be, I stood among young people like myself discussing during that time community organization in our place when I looked passed them, into the darkness of the evening and tried to denounce that I wanted to be one. The illusion of becoming a writer was a product of my association with those who wanted to be one, I said to myself.
A void suddenly swirled centrifugally in my chest, consuming the meaning and purpose of everything around me. I muttered: “So, what I am now?”
Then there came the quick realization, more fix and surer than before, concrete and the only thing I knew with absolute certainty. This is no more an illusion, I said to myself. There is only one thing I know what I want to be. And it is to become a writer.
I was in the middle of my college studies then. I would spend most of my time browsing and scanning the books on the shelves of Humanity Section of our library and would read for hours. And usually during the afternoons, I hung around with writers and poets classmates in the campus field, talking about books, stories, writers and about life until the sky changed hues from psychedelic orange to dark blue and the guards had to tell us that the campus was already closed.
My best buddies Alex Capiz and Emmanuel Edu, who shocked our innocent and devout Catholic classmates with his introduction of himself during our first day in class with his audacious pronouncement that he was not a religious person with a religious name, helped me see what fate had destined of what I should be. Alex, as a brotherly act, taught me the lesson of investing in books, an inevitable part of pursuing what the future had stored for us as wannabe writers. They introduced me to the best and basic writers one ought to read: James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges and other slew of masters in literature.
So, it was James Joyce Dubliners that I would devour in solitude, dissecting and studying the narrative mechanisms of his prose. Then came the powerful, simple prose of Hemingway overwhelming me. Though years later, when the English language remained a monster I could not tame, I spotted the cause of the infantilization of my dream short of killing the individual writer in me; it was the wrong way how to work as an apprentice under the tutelage of Hemingway. There hangs a thin line in knowing the distinction between a teacher that would address your needs from the one that could hurt you in the end.
I failed to notice that Hemingway knocked me out in my attempt to assume my fate. Hemingway is the lone writer who can send every writer of this modern time straight on the canvas during the first round. It would take several years before I could shake the beatings that I received and spar again, and undo the wrong lessons I learned.
I should have had taken a serious look on my deficiency at its first apparition so I could have had avoided the trap I walked into when Hemingway overwhelmed me with his prose. When I uttered “I also want to won” in fighting gesture to equal the feat Alex achieved in winning the top prize of Ustetika, University of Santo Tomas’ university-wide literary competition, I should by then realized that basic English grammar was on the frontline of tasks I ought to work on.
I consider this my first failure as a writer. The assumption that I was already a writer by mere wanting to be one but not taking the responsibility that the language with which I would use as the vehicle for my work was as foreign as what Chinese language is to me started the history of my writerly journey straight to the Dark Age.
The exorcism of Hemingway’s ghost from my fledging writing wisdom happened with my introduction to the works of Thomas Pynchon, and later of Italo Calvino and the Beat prose of Jack Kerouac.
The stories I wrote after my acquaintance with these writers, though mediocre and peppered with literary flaws, seemed to have opened the reservoir of creative juice I had been trying to control, and in a way set loose the rein that tied my narrative voice, freeing it to become gregarious, free-flowing, experimental and inhibited.
When I realized I wanted to be a writer, I barely knew how to write, or pour into the blank sheet of paper my thoughts.
I remember during those early days when I struggled learning how to write when I would spend long time staring at the first unfinished sentence, stuck and stammering and groping how to continue. Those days were also trying times to stay awake and avoid succumbing to the languor creeping from my feet and calves upward as the lethargy of intense staring at the white sheet of paper hypnotized me.
Several years later, with nothing to show as a proof that I had become the writer I wanted to be, I stood among young people like myself discussing during that time community organization in our place when I looked passed them, into the darkness of the evening and tried to denounce that I wanted to be one. The illusion of becoming a writer was a product of my association with those who wanted to be one, I said to myself.
A void suddenly swirled centrifugally in my chest, consuming the meaning and purpose of everything around me. I muttered: “So, what I am now?”
Then there came the quick realization, more fix and surer than before, concrete and the only thing I knew with absolute certainty. This is no more an illusion, I said to myself. There is only one thing I know what I want to be. And it is to become a writer.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Civilize My Writing
There are times when I feel that my writing style does not conform to the 'civilized' form of writing as general readers define what is good writing and interesting to read. One possible reason is I write without any consideration whether the reader gets my point or not.
Most of my writing, or the posts I make here in my blog, are labyrinth ramblings of a soul trying to find his voice. So if a roaming blogger landed on the pages of my blog and read several posts I made here, he might find them uninteresting, vague, even to the point that he might say to himself: What the hell is he talking about ?
My posts are usually notes (lately written haphazardly due to the lack of time to concentrate, in spite of a good whole free day enough for me to compose a decent pseudo-article.) That is the problem when you have lots of time in your hands; it gives you more reason to procrastinate and delay the things you ought to do.
Well, this degradation on my writing can be also attributed to the fact that I have no computer in the house, and the place I use to write in long hand (the next door beside our house) is under renovation. I would not say that I succumbed to the blows of circumstances, but I'll just consider myself reeling from its blows. It is hard when circumstances, plus my being a natural lazy person, push me to pass the days just jotting down notes and desperately call them 'writings.'
One of these days, I will sit again in front of a blank sheet of paper, take my time, write decently, clear and true as I can, then alot a good time for rewriting, then, finally, finally, I can then call it a good writing.
For now, these little notes would be enough.
Most of my writing, or the posts I make here in my blog, are labyrinth ramblings of a soul trying to find his voice. So if a roaming blogger landed on the pages of my blog and read several posts I made here, he might find them uninteresting, vague, even to the point that he might say to himself: What the hell is he talking about ?
My posts are usually notes (lately written haphazardly due to the lack of time to concentrate, in spite of a good whole free day enough for me to compose a decent pseudo-article.) That is the problem when you have lots of time in your hands; it gives you more reason to procrastinate and delay the things you ought to do.
Well, this degradation on my writing can be also attributed to the fact that I have no computer in the house, and the place I use to write in long hand (the next door beside our house) is under renovation. I would not say that I succumbed to the blows of circumstances, but I'll just consider myself reeling from its blows. It is hard when circumstances, plus my being a natural lazy person, push me to pass the days just jotting down notes and desperately call them 'writings.'
One of these days, I will sit again in front of a blank sheet of paper, take my time, write decently, clear and true as I can, then alot a good time for rewriting, then, finally, finally, I can then call it a good writing.
For now, these little notes would be enough.
Notes
What if you struggle in oblivion, trying to interpret the world according to the color of lens of your perception? When you talk to the people around you, they cannot understand the things that you say or you sense that they have no idea what it is that you are trying to relay. Nobody gets you. You see a different world. Even if you and them live in the same neighborhood, it is as if you’re from a different galaxy, light years apart.
What is more difficult when you are in a struggle to something sensible and nobody appreciate it?
Yet, as I think now, it is not important when you are in the early part of your struggle to be noticed by the world. Or it is important that they promptly understand you. For everything that you will say, if you knew it is the truest of what you see, the time will come when they will be clear.
And it is during this time when the world will notice you. It is also during this time that they will notice that everything that you have said is something they would have had in thoughts, something that is true as if it came from them.
The only difference is you are the one who took the time to look at these things they ignored. And they falsely call you talented and gifted.
Thinking
How do you know if you’re still thinking right? How can you say you’re drowning in your own world, reading the world like a newspaper so intent and close that your face kisses the pages and the black ink looms larger and a blur and drowning you?
Logical check and balance in our pursuit of reality:
1) Challenge your views by talking to the people around you. They may have a good insight of what is the real or better world.
2) Do something and stop staring at the nothingness, sitting on your ass all day. Swim to the surface, probably you’re drowning.
* * * * *
Sometimes, there is one question that repeatedly bugs me: Why do I write this way? Why can’t I civilized my writing?
What is more difficult when you are in a struggle to something sensible and nobody appreciate it?
Yet, as I think now, it is not important when you are in the early part of your struggle to be noticed by the world. Or it is important that they promptly understand you. For everything that you will say, if you knew it is the truest of what you see, the time will come when they will be clear.
And it is during this time when the world will notice you. It is also during this time that they will notice that everything that you have said is something they would have had in thoughts, something that is true as if it came from them.
The only difference is you are the one who took the time to look at these things they ignored. And they falsely call you talented and gifted.
Thinking
How do you know if you’re still thinking right? How can you say you’re drowning in your own world, reading the world like a newspaper so intent and close that your face kisses the pages and the black ink looms larger and a blur and drowning you?
Logical check and balance in our pursuit of reality:
1) Challenge your views by talking to the people around you. They may have a good insight of what is the real or better world.
2) Do something and stop staring at the nothingness, sitting on your ass all day. Swim to the surface, probably you’re drowning.
* * * * *
Sometimes, there is one question that repeatedly bugs me: Why do I write this way? Why can’t I civilized my writing?
Friday, May 13, 2005
Seaching for the Book: Live to Tell the Tale
I could not help myself to slap my forehead at what stupidity I've done this early evening at Powerbooks. I was planning to buy the recent published autobiography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What stuck in my mind as the title of the book was Live to Tell the Tale.
Now, roaming around the bookstore, resisting the short-cut to approach the sales personnels, I looked for the book by myself. I was also killing time and browsing for other interesting book so roaming aimslessly around was a nice thing to do.
But I soon found myself asking a sales personnel for an assistance. I told myself that I would roam around after my purchase. And then, as the readers expect what happened, the sales personnel had a hard time searching their database for the book. Drat! How could the sales personnel find the book when the title was wrong.
After half an hour, standing at the counter and the poor sales personnel twisting her search style and even calling the nearby branch for that book, I was told that probably the book was already sold out.
"Would you want to make a reservation, sir," the sales personnel told me.
"No, it's okay," I replied. "I would try National Bookstore."
Then, there it happened. The discovery of what a bummer I did there in Powerbooks.
In National Bookstore, I was still saying to the sales ladies that I was looking for the book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez Live to Tell the Tale.
I only got to my right senses when a sales lady handed me the book and reading the title, I could not help but shrugged. It was Living to Tell the Tale.
I paid for the book, grinning from ear to ear at what an obvious lapse of memory I had in recalling the title of the book.
Now, roaming around the bookstore, resisting the short-cut to approach the sales personnels, I looked for the book by myself. I was also killing time and browsing for other interesting book so roaming aimslessly around was a nice thing to do.
But I soon found myself asking a sales personnel for an assistance. I told myself that I would roam around after my purchase. And then, as the readers expect what happened, the sales personnel had a hard time searching their database for the book. Drat! How could the sales personnel find the book when the title was wrong.
After half an hour, standing at the counter and the poor sales personnel twisting her search style and even calling the nearby branch for that book, I was told that probably the book was already sold out.
"Would you want to make a reservation, sir," the sales personnel told me.
"No, it's okay," I replied. "I would try National Bookstore."
Then, there it happened. The discovery of what a bummer I did there in Powerbooks.
In National Bookstore, I was still saying to the sales ladies that I was looking for the book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez Live to Tell the Tale.
I only got to my right senses when a sales lady handed me the book and reading the title, I could not help but shrugged. It was Living to Tell the Tale.
I paid for the book, grinning from ear to ear at what an obvious lapse of memory I had in recalling the title of the book.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Delivery Boy Attempting to Write
It took me several minutes to prepare the coffee, boiling first a mug of water and when it seemed hot enough, poured it into the cup. I rummaged in my piles of papers for something to write on. All bond papers had been scribbled on and I knew then that I had to get a fresh supply of papers; available in the store and I could get several pieces so I could start.
Pens and papers were ready, and yes the coffee. It was time already to go to the adjacent house and write the narration that had been playing in my head.
Then the phone rang, as I was about to get out of the house. It was a client. It was an order for cases of strong beer and pale pilsen. Promptly, I had to drop the things that I would have to do, and hurriedly put on a shirt, grabbed my cap and asked the receiver of the call where would I deliver the orders. After much fussing about the exact location of the store, I dumped the cases of beer on the service tri-bike and sort out for myself where was the store from the vague direction that was given to me. The coffee would be cold by the time I returned for sure but it did not matter.
When you have set your mind on something to do and there are distraction like errands and chores to fulfill, you just have to understand that these are necessary delays. These errands are only momentary. After fulfilling them, there would be a lull in time, enough to retrace your steps as to what your mind was weaving earlier.
So after the delivery, I bid my time again, repeating the rituals, wiping the sweat from my brows and arms. This was the time of reconstructing the narrative that flowed in my head earlier; my head searching for that glimpse of the gist of the narrative, the rhythm, the juice. A cigarette or two would do the trick, I thought.
Then, as I got myself halfway back to the path (I could already feel the narrative beginning to flow again) moseying in the house as if trying to find something, another order came in. For the second time, it did not matter again. I got a good hold of the narrative in my head and nothing could erase it.
After all the distractions, finally, I was able to sit. It was already time to pour the narrative that had been bugging me into the blank pages of the paper.
It was near noon when he woke up. He stumbled from his cot and went straight to the kitchen. He boiled a mug of water. When he saw that there were little bubbles hissing on the casserole, he poured the water into a cup and made himself a coffee. He sat on the patio in front of the house, sipping the coffee. He fished for a cigarette in his jeans and lit it. He puffed hard, feeling the smoke went into his lungs.
The street was deserted. The sun was high over the sky, cloudless. The street was blanched white by the fury of the heat. Gabo could feel his heartbeat slowed down into hard, strong throb. He would squint his eyes as he stared at the street. He had many things in his mind yet he could not focus. All he could think was nothing. For a long time he was staring at the street until he could no longer see the baked cement pavement, the quiet prefab row of houses in front of him, until what he saw and felt was the fury flowing in his veins, the actions he had formed in his mind.
His coffee had become cold and he took it in one gulped. Then he puffed harder this time. It was time, he thought. He got his cap in his room, then put on a shirt and went into the street.
The heat of the sun was singeing his arms. His face sweated. But he was oblivious to it. He clenched his knuckles and jaw, easing down the tension in his limbs. He felt his face had been soiled and wet that he had to squint, and he squinted sharper and hard. He knew that he ought to do this. He knew it was the right thing to do. It was the most right thing he had ever to do in his life.
He still could not tell what changed him. But he knew something had changed in him since last night. He had been changed no doubt about it. This is already not the story he reads from books. No amount of reading can make you tough. It may give you the insight to face Death, but it can only reach up to that point. And Gabo knew about it. As he walked under the blistering heat of the sun, he could feel he was stepping out from the books he had read about courage. This time, he could breathe the air of fear that was making his knees wobbly. Yet the only thing that made them firm were his knowledge that it was the right thing to do for him. Live on your knees, or die in your feet. He repeated this mantra like it was the truest words that he knew. It was no longer a courage that you get from impulse. This was courage coming from a deliberate will, tougher, every second ticked with the motion of the will pushing him. This was the courage that he knew all along.
He was near the end of the block, and in his mind he could see that his foe stood behind the bend, probably talking to somebody like it was any ordinary day. He knew the other had a knife tucked in his pants, ready to stab his guts. And Gabo knew he had to be ready for it. They knew when they see each other that they would have to kill each other. He could smell the trouble waiting for him around the bend. And he was ready for it.
Pens and papers were ready, and yes the coffee. It was time already to go to the adjacent house and write the narration that had been playing in my head.
Then the phone rang, as I was about to get out of the house. It was a client. It was an order for cases of strong beer and pale pilsen. Promptly, I had to drop the things that I would have to do, and hurriedly put on a shirt, grabbed my cap and asked the receiver of the call where would I deliver the orders. After much fussing about the exact location of the store, I dumped the cases of beer on the service tri-bike and sort out for myself where was the store from the vague direction that was given to me. The coffee would be cold by the time I returned for sure but it did not matter.
When you have set your mind on something to do and there are distraction like errands and chores to fulfill, you just have to understand that these are necessary delays. These errands are only momentary. After fulfilling them, there would be a lull in time, enough to retrace your steps as to what your mind was weaving earlier.
So after the delivery, I bid my time again, repeating the rituals, wiping the sweat from my brows and arms. This was the time of reconstructing the narrative that flowed in my head earlier; my head searching for that glimpse of the gist of the narrative, the rhythm, the juice. A cigarette or two would do the trick, I thought.
Then, as I got myself halfway back to the path (I could already feel the narrative beginning to flow again) moseying in the house as if trying to find something, another order came in. For the second time, it did not matter again. I got a good hold of the narrative in my head and nothing could erase it.
After all the distractions, finally, I was able to sit. It was already time to pour the narrative that had been bugging me into the blank pages of the paper.
It was near noon when he woke up. He stumbled from his cot and went straight to the kitchen. He boiled a mug of water. When he saw that there were little bubbles hissing on the casserole, he poured the water into a cup and made himself a coffee. He sat on the patio in front of the house, sipping the coffee. He fished for a cigarette in his jeans and lit it. He puffed hard, feeling the smoke went into his lungs.
The street was deserted. The sun was high over the sky, cloudless. The street was blanched white by the fury of the heat. Gabo could feel his heartbeat slowed down into hard, strong throb. He would squint his eyes as he stared at the street. He had many things in his mind yet he could not focus. All he could think was nothing. For a long time he was staring at the street until he could no longer see the baked cement pavement, the quiet prefab row of houses in front of him, until what he saw and felt was the fury flowing in his veins, the actions he had formed in his mind.
His coffee had become cold and he took it in one gulped. Then he puffed harder this time. It was time, he thought. He got his cap in his room, then put on a shirt and went into the street.
The heat of the sun was singeing his arms. His face sweated. But he was oblivious to it. He clenched his knuckles and jaw, easing down the tension in his limbs. He felt his face had been soiled and wet that he had to squint, and he squinted sharper and hard. He knew that he ought to do this. He knew it was the right thing to do. It was the most right thing he had ever to do in his life.
He still could not tell what changed him. But he knew something had changed in him since last night. He had been changed no doubt about it. This is already not the story he reads from books. No amount of reading can make you tough. It may give you the insight to face Death, but it can only reach up to that point. And Gabo knew about it. As he walked under the blistering heat of the sun, he could feel he was stepping out from the books he had read about courage. This time, he could breathe the air of fear that was making his knees wobbly. Yet the only thing that made them firm were his knowledge that it was the right thing to do for him. Live on your knees, or die in your feet. He repeated this mantra like it was the truest words that he knew. It was no longer a courage that you get from impulse. This was courage coming from a deliberate will, tougher, every second ticked with the motion of the will pushing him. This was the courage that he knew all along.
He was near the end of the block, and in his mind he could see that his foe stood behind the bend, probably talking to somebody like it was any ordinary day. He knew the other had a knife tucked in his pants, ready to stab his guts. And Gabo knew he had to be ready for it. They knew when they see each other that they would have to kill each other. He could smell the trouble waiting for him around the bend. And he was ready for it.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Thinking Slow
For the past two days, all he did was to sleep. It seemed he had slept for a long time and been tired so bad that he could afford to slept all that time. He had been awake only for several hours then yet it seemed he was still asleep during that time that he concluded that he had been asleep all those times. He had been thinking hard prior before he slept, thinking so hard and so fast he felt he had been running to keep abreast with what he was thinking and how he thought that he felt his mind was about to blow, or if not, he would start running with only his jockey on out in his room into the living room or maybe into the street, begging everybody to make him stop thinking. He had wanted to stop thinking so when he was able to sleep two days ago, he slept continuously even if there were times when he was awake to light a cigarette and smoke and had a good drag. Now, he is awake and thinking, though he thinks clear and slow now and can keep abreast with his thoughts that it feels fine. It feels fine to think clear and slow. It is a good feeling.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Hard Way to Love
You try to be cool but to no avail. Unknowingly you are cool when you least know it. You are cool when you strut in the street caring nothing about the world. You are cool when you light your cigarette without care, just thinking about having a drag and staring at nothingness, past the world around you because your mind is somewhere; you care about nothing, you are detached and nothing can hurt you.
You are invisible. Nothing binds you to something. You are tied not to a single soul; everybody is just a face, a name, a character to you that exists as mere subject of your observation. You watch them and that is it; they cannot reach you.
Everything you do is for the kick of doing it. You are studying, you tell yourself as you grin your way out of unscrupulous acts and violence. It is as if you were shielded by this mindset from getting killed, shot or stabbed, or from dying. You grin and smirk because you always get out intact, with physical bruises, yet still spiritually intact.
You care nothing about your women. There are there within reach. You are tied not to a single soul, do you remember? What the hell if they cried because of you. They are just women craving for your attention because they see that you are cool, that you have potentials, and you say a lot of crap about life, about the real life that you think you know a lot about. When something wrong happens, you tell them that you just gave and let them live the love story they endeared themselves. “It’s all in your mind, honey.”
Then suddenly, you lose your cool, sign that you begin now to care and you will get hurt. Indeed, you are already hurt, somebody has penetrated your shield; you are bind unconsciously to somebody. Now you see how she had had let herself fall from the heaven of innocence, how she had had fought her way to reach you.
Now you are wrecked. You are hurt and could feel the pain. You are wrecked in the marrow of your soul. Your angel of innocence has swept down into the maw of the monster that you are a part of, and you saw how her soul beaten up, her pretty, innocent face muddied to know your world.
And now you are wrecked; wrecked and in pain. You light your cigarette with trembling hands. Each drag intensifies the depth of pain you are going through.
Then, finally, you cry.
And you know from then on that you are bind to somebody; that you are no longer cool, that you can get hurt because you care, that you no longer just see to observe but to feel.
And it is Love.
You are invisible. Nothing binds you to something. You are tied not to a single soul; everybody is just a face, a name, a character to you that exists as mere subject of your observation. You watch them and that is it; they cannot reach you.
Everything you do is for the kick of doing it. You are studying, you tell yourself as you grin your way out of unscrupulous acts and violence. It is as if you were shielded by this mindset from getting killed, shot or stabbed, or from dying. You grin and smirk because you always get out intact, with physical bruises, yet still spiritually intact.
You care nothing about your women. There are there within reach. You are tied not to a single soul, do you remember? What the hell if they cried because of you. They are just women craving for your attention because they see that you are cool, that you have potentials, and you say a lot of crap about life, about the real life that you think you know a lot about. When something wrong happens, you tell them that you just gave and let them live the love story they endeared themselves. “It’s all in your mind, honey.”
Then suddenly, you lose your cool, sign that you begin now to care and you will get hurt. Indeed, you are already hurt, somebody has penetrated your shield; you are bind unconsciously to somebody. Now you see how she had had let herself fall from the heaven of innocence, how she had had fought her way to reach you.
Now you are wrecked. You are hurt and could feel the pain. You are wrecked in the marrow of your soul. Your angel of innocence has swept down into the maw of the monster that you are a part of, and you saw how her soul beaten up, her pretty, innocent face muddied to know your world.
And now you are wrecked; wrecked and in pain. You light your cigarette with trembling hands. Each drag intensifies the depth of pain you are going through.
Then, finally, you cry.
And you know from then on that you are bind to somebody; that you are no longer cool, that you can get hurt because you care, that you no longer just see to observe but to feel.
And it is Love.
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