life is good

...roasting pig in looc, romblon

sibuyan rainfall

on board m/v maria xxxxx from san agustin in tablas island, romblon to magdiwang in sibuyan island, romblon, rainfall waits as we slowly approach the destination.

a note from away

every time he receives a mail from her, he freezes. or time freezes. and everything around him blurs, except for the face of a mail he has anticipated to receive for days (which some time ago seemed like weeks or months, even years), even if the mail only writes, "i pray to see you soon. i'll be coming home."

and a burn

i felt my sides burning, recalling the way your arms wrapped around me.

please send me away (3)

he thinks about parallel dimensions. planes that could never meet in any space or time. whatever he could be doing in those others is of no regard as he could never realize seeing, feeling or sensing them converge altogether or separately into his present life. he takes his time now to contemplate life. in another he could be studying. in the other, he could be competing in petanque in a world championships, or he could be a reigning chieftain of a humble head-hunting group. he realizes the futility. he feels disappointment. frustration. regret. bitterness. anger. spite.

what could be the use of this mental endeavor, if only to cause a breaking of the heart, that the things he had wanted to be doing now become merely futile hopes that he is doing them in other (fictional/self-serving thought-of) dimensions.


*******

she whimpers, restless on her bed. she thinks about people with fragmented souls. different people who are actually made up of one soul, fragmented, differentiated, and distributed from death to pieces of two or more several rebirths. only upon finding and completing that one soul could these people contain peace, fulfillment, happiness, and what sought-for virtues. one fragment could be a life born of farming, fighting teeth and nail to till a land that could be called his or hers. another could be found miles away as a corporate financier, working to build companies that may amass income at the expense of what damage or destruction to social and cultural lives or the environment. another fragment could be a dancer. another a world leader. there could be more.

as the world is surrounded by many deaths and births, the complication of the death of one fragment to several more rebirths (due to a booming population) brings a realization of the futility of rebuilding the whole, and finding those sought-for virtues for the world.

please send me away (2)

it will almost be a year since i last visited, almost a year since i last saw n and we talked with that sort of shyness between two unsure people, and that sort of directness by the same people wanting to maximize the limited time they can share glances and smiles, seeming accidental mutual wafts of their arms or their hands, and some feigned mistakes of drinking from their beer glasses ~ my lips knowingly finding where her lips did sip from her glass, her lips onto mine. it was one good night, the last night we can remember together, with good friends playing cupids and crafty matchmakers. from that outside table of a localized korean shabushabu joint by the wide river under a glittered night, good friends and an almost couple shared and enjoyed.

'i pray that everyday be always like this,' she whispered. i barely heard. the others heckled, 'forever eating korean bar-b-q, drinking beer, we'll go fat and liver-die.' i bantered, 'and live or die in merriment together.'

i stole a view of her, and she was staring back. those eyes, her smile. i felt her fingers cross paths with mine, momentarily, but felt like time freezing a capsule for the two of us, and the whole world set apart.


i wrote her a few days back. she replied earnestly, 'with patience as my virtue.' let mine be showered with mcarthur's hope and return.

kuskus

please send me away

i remember the time you were sent to me for custody. i never knew i had you then, and with whom. it came as a surprise when your five-year old eyes stared into mine, unknowing but with an unexplainable recognition as if they were connected in some way more than the distance that sets them apart. i felt too, mysteriously, that you bear a big fragment of my life.

i should have known... been let known from the time you expressed signs of your maturing conception that i were to become elevated to that generation of new parental obligation. she never spoke. we never spoke again after that one night. i parted to my world, she went to hers, never a time contemplating the possibility that some cookery will connect us once more a time away. five years to be precise.


your eyes tell me more. in that near peak moment she hastened to speak as we hastened to naturally combine our intimacies, "please send me away." i did. and you are here.

good foot hanging

ubao

...after around three hours on top of the bus, the rugged cordillera mountains gave way to rolling grasslands in ubao, aguinaldo, ifugao

rolling

he would have wanted everything to roll on smoothly... uncorrupted grass hills, clear blue skies, a mirror lake, then a slow flowing gust of wind that smooths and rolls through and through, and through and through.

but life would not have it his way. at many points of the wind's journey to the other end, it has to endure... obstacles. difficulties. rejections.

should i fall...

i have the earth and the trees to embrace me.