ghosts

i.

they say the unexplained sensation from phantom limbs can be quite excruciating. like the ghost of the missing body part, the hacked nerve endings give off confusing signals to the brain, signaling danger. signaling pain.

but how do you handle the danger from a part of you that isn't there anymore? trying to shake it off with involuntary twitches. attempting to use the missing limb. numbing the mind and body with morphine. scratching the itch. denying the loss.

ii.

funny how he puts a ring on another's hand and you take off what's on yours.

iii.

do you call a ghost what should have been there but isn't (wasn't any longer)?

subsisting on digital crumbs, you try to trace the path back to the promise from a decade ago. but the crumbs are sparse and the path almost gone. do you still try to find what refuses to be found?

iv.

Burning bright right 'til the end
Now you'll be missing from the photographs,
missing from the photographs (x)

v.

you never had encounters of the supernatural kind, whereas everybody seems to have a ghostly experience or two. sometimes, you wonder if it's because you have shut your consciousness from the unexplainable. maybe it's your cynicism. maybe it's your unwillingness to concede to what you can't understand, let alone control.

in these experiences, people have different ways to cope. some cry. some scream. some run. some can't wait to tell others. some pray to the divine. some close their eyes and will the bad away.

maybe, some choose to forget, erasing everything from their minds, leaving no trace.

vi.

the phantom limb hurts because the brain is having trouble coping with the loss. the void hurts, but the opposite can also be quite true: suffocating, unnerving. grasping, clutching, hanging by a thread. reaching out for that sliver of rationality–why, why, why?

vii.

without the ring, lighter is the hand. but heavy is the heart.

One, Two: An ode to a Black Saturday

You take a risk, you give it a try. Between the stark moments and the nondescript days in between, you know where everything that has taken place will lead you. Like the penultimate day of the Holy Week, you know you're just one step closer to the crescendo, the proverbial revelation.

In the whirlwind of denials and confusion, loud heartbeats and stolen glances, push and pull, nervous laughters and genuine tears, you let go of the rein and allow yourself to swept by the current. Like the penultimate day of the Holy Week, you are so close to the end, so close to a new beginning. You got this, kid.

Or maybe you don't.

But it doesn't matter. Maybe you don't know all the answers to the questions. The what's nexts, the what ifs. But like Black Saturday, you give way to Easter Sunday, with joy, with hope. With a hand firmly clasped with another, and a promise to not let go. And whereas previously you were full of doubts, you now cast your eyes forward. Towards a new week. Towards a new period of your life. This time, together.

So where could taking a risk and a Saturday lead you? Far, it seems.

30

1. Tanda raw ng pag-ibig ang pagpapakumbaba; sa iyong pagpapaubaya at pagpapatawad ay natututunan ko na hindi ko kailangang paligiang maging tama.

8. Sa bawat haplos, bawat yakap, bawat akbay, nararamdaman ko ang pagkalinga, ang pagsalag mo sa anumang maaaring makasakit sa akin. Para bang sinasabi, "Ako na muna. Ako na lang."

16. Kung maaari sana, nais kong marinig ang lahat ng hinaing at tanong mo sa mundo. Hinding-hindi mo kailangang ilihim o ipagpaliban na malaman ko ang anuman na tungkol sa'yo. Hindi ka perpekto, lalong hindi ako. Kaya bakit pa itatago?

18. Hindi ko alam kung saan nanggagaling ang tila walang hanggan mong kabaitan at malasakit. Sa panahong tila uso ang pagsasarili at pag-iwas sa pagpapakita ng kahit kaunting kahinaan, walang atubili kang nagtitiwala at kumakalinga.

21. Bukas ka sa mga bagong ideya at pananaw. Lagi kang handang unawain ang mga posibilidad, mga kakaibang hinuha. Hindi sa hindi ka humuhusga, kundi bukas ang iyong kaisipan na maraming bagay ang hindi mo alam at handa kang matutunan.

28. Para sa isang taong tulad ko na tila isang diretsong pagkakasunod-sunod ang mga pinagdaanan, ang iyong mga naranasang liko at balikwas, mga hinto at karipas, mga pasulong at paatras, ay patuloy na pupukaw ng aking haraya.

29. Sa gitna ng duda at taranta, ng kawalan ng tiwala sa sarili at pangangamba, nariyan ka lang nagpapaalala at matatag na gabay. "Huwag kang mag-alala," tila iyong bigkas. "Hindi ka nag-iisa."


Tatlumpung Dahilan Kung Bakit Mahal Kita (O Mga Muni-muni sa Pag-ibig) | 20150816

A letter unsent [06]: Alternate universes

20140816

When facing something unprecedented, the instinct is to distrust, to be doubtful, to be cynical, to search for some sort of assurance.

And against better judgment, will into existence a different version of events, stubbornly looking for a way out.

Who is this stranger? What right does he have to demand I change the way I see things? Why should I put my contentment at risk for something I have no idea about, not even an interest in?

In my idealism and inherent dissociation, maybe I have almost thrown you off-track. There were tumbles, skids, falling-outs. Ties almost severed.

What if neither of us persisted? What if the fear and trouble I felt weighed greater than the sincerity you showed?

If we were to subscribe the theory of multiverse, there is a place out there where we would be our same selves but different events would have played out. Hypothetical scenarios would be the reality.

It fascinates me, this alternate universe.

What if we never went through the whole hullabaloo, and instead drifted through placidly in life as mere acquaintances? Maybe have a couple of common friends, remember each other's names, but think no more of it.

Perhaps in that universe, I wouldn't be writing this.

In that universe, would we have become like two parallel lines that co-exist but would never meet?

I wonder.

But as much as I wonder about the what if's, I also wonder, too, about the what now's, the where to's, the should we's.

Maybe I should let the quantum physicists and string theorists fathom the existence of multiple universes.

I have so much to learn and discover in this version of reality just yet.

---

I might reconsider if a parallel universe where alchemy or direwolves exist is put to the table though.

Other people's words, other people's worlds

Tell me a piece of your history
That you're proud to call your own
Speak in words you picked up
As you walked through life alone 

 — Bastille, The Silence

Secondhand pleasures. Secondhand agonies. Secondhand mistakes and realizations.

I looked back at the most recent entries in this blog and they all seem to be excerpts lifted from books, films, and songs. I don't know if I live such a dull life that can not merit such beautiful descriptions, that my experiences will always pale in comparison to the adventures people have in distant lands. Or maybe I just haven't found the right words, because things are still not in place, because what I know now are just disjointed pieces of a great whole. So maybe, maybe, I should just continue learning what I can, take what I can get, from other people's conjured worlds and beautiful words.

A whisper, a sigh. Stolen kisses and tough goodbyes —
When did it begin to be yours? When did it begin to be for you?

Or perhaps, firsthand wonders are beginning to present themselves already. All the universe is asking me to do is notice, and feel.

Lima

Dahil ano pa ba ang maaari nating panghawakan

Kung hindi ang mga taon, mga tao, mga pagkakataon

Na pinagsamahan, na nakasama,

Na pinagdaanan ng sama-sama.

At sa hindi naiwasang paglisan,

Bibilangin sa kamay ang panahong magdadaan.

---

From being scraggy, scraggly high schoolers to being confused yet resolute semi-adults, we have been with each other through the years and have been so used to each other's presence that I, for myself, didn't bother to connect to new people when we separated for college... because I know I have these guys, and they have me. I therefore find it hard to wrap my mind around the idea that one of us will not be as easily reached as always, that he won't be with us during our dinners, our movie night-outs, our out-of-town trips.

Because this is what having your closest friends within one-to-two-kilometer radius of where you live makes you get used to--a sense of constancy, of dependence, of familiarity, of indifference to the changes outside. 

And yet, this is a change that takes place within, so how do we deal? Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we don't need to. Because what's a handful of years and twelve thousand kilometers, compared to every little and big thing that held us together?

And yes, this is me wishing. This is me hoping. This is me willing the universe to make it so.

patlang

kailangan bang punuan
ang napakaraming patlang
o hayaan na lamang
na wala itong laman?

paano ang pag-ibig sa ikatlong daigdig?

[itutuloy]

[Haha]

[This is the title of a poem I've been meaning to write since this year began but I have no idea how I'd proceed. I like how the sentence sounds. Haha. I'll just edit this post once something came up and I get to actually making it a poem. :))]

Untitled [08]

but
will you ever let me in?
right through the hedge,
and past the crimson
picket fence
you've etched
upon your skin?

Untitled [04]

Maybe it's love,
Love at first slightly drunk
Now I'm walking with the sun
In my mouth

Was there no one, no one at all, they'd ask.

You were a different thing entirely, I'd reason in my mind. You are the scribble in green ink at the last page of my notepad, the page I refuse to tear off, the page I refuse to write anything else on. You are behind the wheel of every ashen red car that passes by. You are the first greeting in the morning and the last before bedtime, the pointless volley of text messages that makes idle hours bearable. You are every three-digit number that ends in 4. You are beach campfires and windy nights when the milky orb is waxing and the stars unabashedly glitter in the sky. You are the calm voice trying to instill reason in my haphazard ways. You are the silly board games and sillier jokes during night-outs. You are my first bottle of beer, the incessant beat of the drums in my head, the unread book on my bedside table. You are the companionship I thought I had and never will know anymore. You are solitude and the hope I harbored.

No, I'd say, there was nobody.

Why, they'd ask. The voice in my head would answer, I guess because I didn't try. You have been no one yet you were so many things.

What's your middle name?
How do you play the game?
I'll the be the first to leave*

---
* from Midnight Coward by Stars (In Our Bedroom After the War, 2007)

Untitled [03]

i marvel at how
the light from the lamppost
casts shadow
upon your face,
how your eyes
get cloaked
and your cheeks become pools
of orange and gray.

midnights and
distant murmurs
of words unspoken
lead us on
as the world sleeps
while we parry and walk
upon pavements cold
and aglimmer.

i marvel at how
content i have become
in this silence
our silence
enveloped by the shy
glow from the lamppost,
in this transience and
sporadic shimmer

woven in the night
gone come dawn.

Untitled [02]

Goodbye to the one
that never was.
Today is the day
I'll be seeing you last.

A letter unsent [05]: To the med student

To the med student who held my hand and cleaned my wound, how long since you had a solid eight hours-worth of sleep? I could see it's been a while. The dark circles under your eyes betray your fatigue. And yet you managed to keep your wits about you as you tend to the blood and cuts and cries of agony of the patients streaming into the emergency room. You can't afford to rest even for just a while: You and a couple of your fellow interns, under the command of a single physician, were all that made up the skeleton crew of this public hospital's Surgery section.

Have you had a decent meal yet? I wouldn't be surpised if that sloppy burger I saw you hurriedly buy from the fastfood joint across the hospital was your lunch and dinner combined. And yet you handled well that bloodied but mulish drunken old man who kept resisting and pushing you away as you tried to patch up the cut on his forehead. He kept standing from the plastic chair you're operating him on and I saw you struggle to let him make you apply medication and the gauze. After you're done with him and you're barely seated came more patients--men and women and a little girl--all covered in blood, one of them throwing up on the hospital's floor, and the kid crying from the pain of the huge gash at the back of her left thigh. Meanwhile, more victims of vehicular mishaps, cuts, concussions, and all kinds of injuries  made their way to your section incessantly. So much for dinner.

To the med student who held my hand and cleaned my wound, pardon me for my (and my companions') whining and inconsiderate actions that night. While I was fuming after a couple of hours of not being taken care of since I arrived at the emergency room with mere scratches, a small wound, bruises here and there, I finally understood that there were more who needed your attention--broken bones, blood splayed everywhere, and even deliriousness. Watching you deal with them one by one, not once did I see you heave an exasperated sigh, nor heard you raise your voice when a particularly hardheaded patient kept refusing the medication he was being given.

It was the first time I get to be treated in that hospital and as I understood how things went in such a place, I sat quietly with and waited for my turn, half-expecting to be told to just go home since my injury seemed inconsequential. (Although I have to admit I was feeling faint probably both from the shock from the accident itself and the situation inside that emergency room.) I was therefore surpised that you took the trouble to come over to my seat bringing a iodinated cotton swab and a gauze to clean and cover my wounded forearm with. And looking at you as you bent your head to treat my wound, I wondered if amid all that went on you ever felt quitting, or if you desperately wanted to leave such a forlorn public hospital, or if you can't wait to leave this country altogether and practice medicine in a more rewarding place.

To the med student who held my hand and cleaned my wound, I watched you, in your white uniform with your broad back and a mess of black hair, perform your duty behind the big bellied kind-faced doctor. I don't even know your name and I now find myself wondering where you'd be in a couple of years, whether you'd stay to serve your fellow Filipinos or go where the pasture greener as they say, and whether you'd choose to practice privately and enjoy its comforts or take command of a Surgery section of another bustling and despondent public hospital such as the one I had the chance to see you at.

-------


Yes, I got a minor injury from a minor road accident some days ago, causing me to miss work, giving me bruises on my arms and legs, and causing right hand to be put in a splint and be immovable for a few days. Other than those, I was thankfully okay.

A ship to nowhere

I look at you as you look at her. From across the table she's every bit your dream--her long silken hair glowing with the light abovehead, her eyes twinkling in laughter. I see you become disarmed as she smiles at the jokes she's being told. You have been so keen to her whims--a platter of onion rings, an extra fork, a glass of water (without ice, please). She's having fun listening to the others' stories amid the convivial cacophony, and you, the usual bard of the group, contently sits in silence watching her. Once, in the same place, you sat beside me while everybody else was on the floor singing and dancing the night away. Out of the blue and as if I needed telling, you muttered, "I really really like her," your eyes focused on one single person, unobstructed by the dizzying colored lights and the haze from cigarette smoke. And sitting beside you again this time, I wonder why all I could do is look at you as you look at her.


----------
Experimenting, I guess? Haha.

'How I miss yesterday, how I let it fade away...'*

Sometimes I wonder why I cling onto the bits and pieces of daily life, and the stories and the people I encounter.

I keep instructing my brain to remember a line from a book, a conversation, a scenery, a tiny detail that would probably never mean anything.

"The richness of life lies in the memories we have forgotten," says a graffiti written on a desk in a class room. Does it, I wonder? If we don't know what we've lost, we'll never know how much we should or might have had.

Despite this, and as much as possible still, I try to remember.


*from Memories by Panic! At The Disco