everybody wants to rule the world

the world, well our world over here, has gone mad (again). 30-50 military officers undergoing trial for failed coup attempts in the last couple of years (yep, one of them has just been elected senator) walked out of court and holed themselves up in one of the most posh hotels in this country's commercial district. they are trying to enjoin everybody else to join their cause- which honestly, is a lost one. even the weather is not cooperating. for most of us corporate slaves it just means work is suspended for most of the afternoon. and some of us now need to contend with possible crisis situation and save at any cost our business operations.

tumultuous times of our lives, dear ian. this is the country you have gone back to and which you will soon leave. but i do not envy you. earlier, as we were discussing contingencies- even when we know on the other side of this city and other parts of luzon, visayas and mindanao people are plotting (reds, black & white, greens, oranges, and the whole fuckin rainbow coalition)- we laughed at this. it seems a military uprising is just another one of them things that make us pinoys. people who can laugh at dead ideals and the lives that have been given us.

would i choose to be someone else? maybe a european perhaps or even japanese, if i had a chance? most probably not. i have done crazy stuff just because i could say "hey, i'm from the third world, what do you care?" or met crazy people like me just because i'm interesting with my stories of pasig river overflowing or eating large snakes cooked in pineapple or thumbing my nose at smelly expats or losing myself into a trance at car taillights during the rush hour.

dear ian, you will not forget me. unlike this mutiny in makati today, i won't be just a passing disturbance in your everyday. i will be like the first EDSA revolution - forever remembered as the one true thing. the nostalgia of it drive people like trillanes to relive it and believe it can't be right to just have one moment of a beautiful thing. but you only do get to have just one. what do you do then if you find yourself in that moment? i would like to believe you will drown yourself in every second, gorge its every detail, and live like you will never be the same again.

for her, if you want to...

sunflower

missing a smile and a few thousand kisses

my hand warm against your cheek

brown eyes burn with the last of the afternoon sun

a look drilled into memory and a couple of dreams

amused at the small details-

the timbre of your laugh

and how you squint when a thought bothers your mind

but lovely you brighten my day

I have waited before for you- not minding sleep

I wait and wait, and will wait more

till once more you know you’re the only one

wander

Today, a man washes soot from his face- his house burned to the ground. His children lost. His wife still does not know.

Somewhere in the world a woman puts on a veil to hide from the world. Learning how to forget and be forgotten. Sadness overflows and as if her body is about to tear out of its skin, she bends over and surrender to the tide- drowning herself in a pool of regret.

A child begs for a few coins- dodging this and that car. His big brown eyes burn from the oncoming headlights. His tiny feet tired from walking the length of the boulevard. Back and forth. In an endless cycle of dreamless existence handed down from his bastard father’s father.

Everyday you feel like a beat-up truck stuck in a pothole. You used to be in an all-time favorite champion team. A superstar in an all-star selection. Rockstar. Starter. Captain. Now you pull over to a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes when you don’t even want to smoke. Just imagining the lit end to be a firefly drowsy with sleep, breaking the dark of your room.

alright, here goes love for the uninitiated

Does it mean love when his scent lingers in the air for you. You breathe in and smell his skin, the mixture of sweat and the soap used on his shirt.

Is it love that ignites the desire to always have his arms wrapped around you? Missing the way his warm hands rubbing against the length of your legs the moment he leaves for the night? The way he bends and kisses your knee and buries his nose, tantalized with the thought he can suck in your very essence and live off of it.

Is it love when you laugh at the same things- off-color jokes and stupid juvenile pranks? Of fat little kids cussing and tormenting stupid adults? Drinking beer to good times. Coffee in the guise of breaking the monotony of work but in truth, just another excuse to get him alone.

Is it love when there is regret he met you too late? And all that’s left- because you choose to take the high road- is hope that this devastating physical attraction will not put a strain on this deeper connection you both feel. What is it when you cannot be in the same room when he talks to her softly and with a little strain because he misses her so much too?

Where does love reside? In the one he has committed to be with for the rest of friggin forever or in the one who makes him feel alive again? Because we are too young to define life as one strong line, paved with our plans for the future, how can one moment decide what we do with the rest of it?

Or is love really just a fickle bastard, pulling and shoving us whichever way it chooses because there are more than three billion people in the world and it is statistically incredulous that it is one person to one. So which one is it? Destiny or just damn luck- being in the right place at the right time, being the best girl at the moment when he decides you are the one?

Is love about quitting smoking- or at least trying to? Or getting the first drag from her after years of repulsing it? Because she chain smokes like a crazy chimney?

Is it planning for the three-day weekend because you know time flies when you’re together. But that no plans at all is also good enough? It does not matter what movie or where you’re driving to. Because being together is all you need.

Does it mean you love him when you respect his boundaries and decisions? Holding back your 113 reasons why you should be together, or hinder your hands from wandering too far? Because you only have one life to live. And what is it to you if you gain all the happiness in the world with him if you forfeit your soul- and consequently drag him down, down in a spiral of guilt?

Is it love when you choose to just take in these fleeting moments and mine them for every good thing you can take with you in your old age- where not even the snow can dampen the warmth in your chest where she used to lay her head? Or the din of the crowded streets of New York can drown her voice in your ear. Or wherever she finds herself in whatever corner of the world- when she sleeps, she’ll always imagine when her incubus frightens her in her sleep- you’re there to comfort her, stroking her back, enticing her vivid dreams.

coffee breaks

all the waiting over cups of coffee- black

And the lingering taste of caramel melting

In the heat, and even in the cold of this well-lighted place

The sweet kiss goodnight

Of not knowing when

The next time you will reach for my hand

Over paper table mats

And tiny puddles of ice water

bridging moments

two people on a bridge- a picture of many metaphors. the girl looks at him intently while he talks of another lifetime or is it a parallel universe? she smiles thinking how easy really it is for her to let people open up to her about their fears and loves and dreams. But how it is only now that she finds herself sharing the same intimate things- thoughts and feelings and yes, fears and loves lost and hopes flowing out to him like the brook under the bridge. sharing not only in words but in gestures and looks and touch and in the moments where some truths are left silent.

he revels at how the hours quickly dissolve into picturesque moments in their heads. nights into early mornings and afternoons into dusks of fireflies and soft light. if life is only a composition of finite moments- from one breath to another- do we live for the future or for the now? and in which little corner in your head do you fit the battle between commitment and regret- and their spawn, guilt?

what if we don’t have any notions of right and wrong? we are only aware of happiness and sadness and the things in between? and we just cross bridges and on some, linger a bit longer than the day allows?