Running out on words

.
.
.
I glance at my watch
the straps tightly gripping themselves to my wrist
as if I were crossing the streets with my mother.
Its face is square and unconsenting,
its teeth gritting, a golden tooth pegged inward
like an over-bitten incisor.
I see its hands barely grasp
the son and daughters that lie and wait,
the hours, the dates, the wrinkles on its porcelain face.
They betray the intentful gaze.
.
.
I glance at my watch,
among the three hands, I am the stickly one
that runs around in circles and skips over the studs;
I am the one counting the numbers down
and breathing the stale air within the tempered glass.
The new hour begins
always three point fourteen seconds precise,
the minutes always in advance
the minutes I'm always late.
This timepiece submerged 5 atms under water
its face is denying the distilling degrees of agony.
It will never be immersed, the son and daughters
that keep running in their own little space.
.
.
I glance at my watch
so much for the humid gains and my waiting,
so much since the sweat combines with water, the water
slowly seeping through the tributaries on my palm.
This takes too much of my time.
I'll have to take it off and not be so consenting of this levity.
.
.
.

Sometimes I feel the same ...

.

.

.

It's like me meeting you people for the first time: I sit down with you in class like regular college students, my faded jeans and black rubber Ocean Pacific sandals new to wear, like me gazing around the hallways and familiarizing myself to your names and how you'd like to be called on the first day. I hear the sound of talking in the background, people laughing already acquainted with each other, I suspect, have already been friends since before enrollment. Lounging on the steps of the tattered linoleum stairway to the pre-war Arts and Sciences building with my Form-5 tucked neatly inside an eager folder of other documents. Eager, that is, to get going.

.

I gaze around and say to myself, these are the people I'll be working with for the next 4 years, granted that, none of them would fail calculus or be bludgeoned to death in a fraternity hazing. Granted that, we would become friends in the first place and not get bored talking about communication with each other. Such is the weakpoint of most relationships: COMMUNICATION.

.

We whip out our pagers and pocketbells, mobile phones were too "elite" back then. As kids funded by the government, we weren't supposed to be lavish. But of course, we weren't supposed to be KIDS.

.

Who knew our group of 8 would last for 8 years? I can't even believe it's been that long. We're truly old. Loafers instead of sandals, insurance premiums instead of calculus, corporate slavery as the initiation rite, bosses instead of professors, laptops and cars over cellular phones, governemnt and kids, dreams acquiescing to reality, the boredom ...

.

.

Sometimes it still feels the same. We can never really run out of words.

.

.

.

By any other name ...

.
.
.
Everywhere I walked
the scent of vagueness had been there
in the need to describe
what it was in an overbearing fruit,
what it had been with the weather;
why I always had to repeat myself.
.
.
Even while I slept,
petals kept falling from the ceiling
and I tried shielding myself from this,
the indelible scent of vagueness,
rubbing off on the blankets.
The weather had not been forgiving
so I always had to repeat myself
for the sake of elucidation.
.
.
.

Boredom on a piece of paper

.
.
.
With absolutely nothing to do on a sleepy Monday afternoon, I took my BIC black ballpoint pen and started shading the letters on a printed handout I took from atop the cubicle. At the back portion, seeing a completely blank white page, I felt myself obliged to write something down -- contrived pieces of wisdom, prosaic notations about my feelings, anything that would reconstitute my ennui in a written form to keep me occupied for at least the next three hours.
.
(Forgive my cold fingers. They fail to grasp the enormity of what my ballpoint pen can do on other occasions)
.
.
.
.
1st hour-and-a-half
.
.
I willed it to stop but it wouldn't,
that which coerced an involvement
transcending a physical nature.
.
One cannot occupy space at the same time as another
given a form that needs its own planet.
Even as the Earth shifts its plates
ending the meals of flesh and molten rocks,
the air around thickens with its thoughts
a whisper for every attempt
a ghost for every dead person
reaching out into the vast distance,
a cry for the connections that linger.
.
It is without a doubt that there lives
hope inside the boiling center.
The revolutions that create their creatures,
the tenacity of longing that molds the plantations.
.
And it is here
on top of a misplaced glacier
that the willingness to stop
had been inaccurately personified.
.
.
.
.
2nd hour-and-a-half
.
.
I willed it to stop
how fruits keep their sweetness on the second bite
when their skins had already been peeled off ,
freshly exposing the grainy detail of their tissues.
Without skins, most fruits have the same color, unshapely,
that become brown and mature with the air.
.
I hold on to the seeds that were fastened
to the ovaries, planning
to bury them beside my own grave.
They would live on my hands and grow strong
like my bones,
they would cling to my ribs when the young roots
wrap themselves around the soil below my sternum.
.
A new tree shall bear new fruits
and they will feed on the graves of other men.
.
.
.

My sister can be such a BITCH sometimes ...

2 sides 2 a coin

.
.
.
(Heads)
.
.
I am an indecisive person, imprisoned by my own fears yet at the same time, running amok with the wonderment of curiosity. It’s not so much as living with the regret of making a bad decision, as fulfilling my desire to experience more of life. I have become a shiny coin – irrevocably flat on both faces, yet with a circumference that goes round and round like the earth on its axis. I can say one thing but mean another; I can feel genuinely yet the words can come out all wrong.
.
In fits of confusion, I’ve tossed a coin and let fate decide which route I take. I admit it is pathetic; my freewill gradually lost like the decrescending clinks of a piece of metal. Heads or tails. It wouldn’t matter, my tail would hide between my legs and my head might as well be licking the tarmac of destiny.
.
I don’t toss nor turn anymore, having taken to heart the initiative to accept every invitation that comes my way and live with the things I’ve learned in the process. Everything hands-on versus the mere flick of a finger.
.
.
After lending my pesos, I couldn’t believe I’d keep the pieces returned to me.
.
.
.
.
.
(Tails)
.
.
Since the time I’ve started avoiding Joeboy and Luke a few months ago, all I’ve heard are stories of failure and immaturity. One loses his job over the need for creative control, the other hardly graduated from college and, from what I’ve heard, hasn’t been doing well at work; Stories about constant bickering over issues of fidelity and affection, alienation from their friends who’ve chosen to avoid them, the incontrovertible breakup that’s predicted to happen but has not, all in all, the probable result of an over-stimulated sense of insecurity stemming from the lack of communication between people who like talking about other people when they’re bored. And so it goes, this side of the coin had become tarnished with a one-sided story from people with the privilege of singlehood.
.
Yesterday, I received a text message invite to join these two friends over dinner, nothing fancy, just a bit of catching up and perhaps an attempt on their part to flip the coin towards their favor. They were happy, truly happy. I had observed this from the same room I filmed my movie in. The room was still a mess, which for me, was a symbol of roommates who are comfortable enough with all their dirt out in the open. The mattress was on the floor. The antique chest now had family photos, graduation portraits, and artwork. They had a yellow lamp switched on and while we were talking openly with the chorus of rain in the background. On the side of the wall beside the door, the shelf was neatly stacked with books, mostly on philosophy, from which I borrowed a copy of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. It was a side to them I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a happy side that retained its sense of naïveté, their small refuge from the harsh world. And I wouldn’t have left early, had the rain continued with its refrain.

.

.

I don't know which is worse

.

.

.

My phone line was meant to be cut off. On the day I decided to pay the partial amount, from 5 months' worth of phone bills, my mobile got disconnected. It turns out, the person I had tasked to bring the money to the bank slept thru the day and severed my communication with the outside world. It's perfect timing really coz the next day I was supposed to meet up with my friends to go eat in this hole-in-the-wall Italian casa di pasta in Malate. That evening while eating the first of 3 slices of pizza, a sort of team building activity promoted by the office among all teams, my friend called me up to tell me that the dinner plan was cancelled but we could go hang out in the nearby mall. I was happy to hear that because I was trying my best not to spend too much for the coming weeks. Of course, that didn't happen, no, not in a posh malling district from where I work in.

.

Since she told me she'd take a good 50 minutes getting there because of the traffic, I decided to buy myself some ciggies, got just in time to get them in the grocery where the mall was already closing. I didn't know she was trying to call me the whole time, and since I didn't have any means to reply or call back, I didn't know she's get all pissed off about it. I'm not a bad person and I know how frustrating it can get when you try to call someone on mobile and not get answered. Apparently, the vibration is not strong enough to alert me and it's a thing of mine to always switch my phone to silent mode when I'm in a public place. I'm just mortified when my phone starts ringing and I'm inside the train or bus. I dunno, I just don't like it.

.

We didn't order anything because she wanted to eat dinner. Red meat dinner. I, on the other hand, had 3 slices of pizza and a small cup of Pepsi, I wasn't in the mood to eat anything more. She was obviously pissed.

.

"So ... I'm gonna be eating alone?"

.

"No, I'll order something."

.

I suggested we go to this Persian/Mediterranean resto on the 2nd floor. She had pepper steak and I had Greek salad. She couldn't help it, she was conspicuously preoccupied with her being pissed off at me. She immediately told me about the missed calls, she had me swear to make sure I'm gonna be answering her calls if I continue to put my phone on silent mode. I said yes but of course, I didn't promise anything. I'd rather her get pissed at me than be embarrassed. That's just me. After all was said and done, she proceeded to pull out a bunch of receipts from her back. I mean A BUNCH. It was so thoughtful really and I appreciate it. (I use the receipts to reimburse my food and transport allowance). After that, she talked about her cabbage soup diet. She ate fruits for Monday, veggies on Tuesday, fruits and veggies on Wednesday, milk and bananas on Thursday, and for Friday, all the red meat she can muster! She had 3 steaks that day and was firmly resolved that for her, medium rare was the way to go. I chuckled while I forked up a parcel of feta from my bowl.

.

We transferred to Bizu, which is a posh little dessert place. We talked outside while I nibbled on my raspberry-inspired cheesecake called Babylon.

.

She then proceeded to comment on how she's never seen me clean-shaven, how I always ask her on night outs if it's gonna be only the 2 of us going out, how I keep telling her I want some excitement in my life but I never try anything new, how getting into a relationship isn't gonna solve my problems ... I retreated to my Babylon, my mind furiously analyzing my troubles and unearthing some of those doubts I've been keeping to myself; just a little bit close (try imagining me doing that thing with my hand where I'm estimating the tiny distance between my thumb and my forefinger, as if I were holding an AAA battery between my fingers) to reaching despair.

.

Of course I didn't. I simply have to do things my way.

.

On the way home right before she got down from the cab, she said she wanted to cancel our casa di pasta dinner the next night. Too much of pms getting her bitchy. I said ok and gave her a hug. I know she means well and I really appreciate it and all, but I just can't deal with mood swings. I have my father to thank for that. The thing is, I don't know if if it's true her menstrual syndrome makes her act up or if it's just the familiarity making us realize how different we both are despite all the things that we have in common.

.

.

I don't know which is worse.

.

.

.

"we all need to feel special. this need created the velvet rope."