K-

Nice day? Or still too much? A lot of questions you had there. Thank you for them. I let them keep me company for a while, as I simmer through my routines.

What have I been up to? A lot of boring stuff. The type that drives your folk to mark us socially challenged. Or misanthropes. In truth, I'm trying to keep to myself as much as humanly possible. Before, the coffeeplaces sufficed to give me some alone time. Overpriced drinks yes, damned too classy of me. But I like the understanding that I can stay there for hours, smelling other people's coffee while getting lost in the amorous wood of Petrarch's Canzoniere, the night of Williams's Iguanas, and the length of my own pen's shadow upon some unfotunate paper.

But recently, I end up studying people's faces and ways of conducting themselves. Those shiny elbows, those fine brows, the nasty hips, and all the blank eyes I can drink. It's a guilty pleasure at least, a perverse habit, at most. But I guess, that's my work. You deal with numbers and balances, I deal with character sketches.

I went to the hotel again on my own a couple of days ago. Going through much and I'm not disposed to disclose details.

I had a ballpen and pad. But then there was the expanse of the sheets. Although I had a craving for the stronger scent and color of oils and the thick brushes of coarse goathair. The bedsheets were as white as reams of bond paper. It was horrible.

I made full use of three hours and I didn't even touch the bed. Although, yes, I was dead tired. I guess I'm undergoing a lot of clarification too. A lot of "what's up now?" "what next?' "how do I work though all these?" I wrote so much that time. It took me almost an hour to realize that the aircon was not on at all.

You asked me too if there was propriety in writing me. While I don't know if you did right, I know that sometimes it's enough that you felt right doing so. You taught me that. Of course, you were never keen on following your own advice. I wonder if any of us can take the weight of our own advice?

This doesn't matter at all but allow me to say it: I'm glad you did.

See, my guide is this picture you gave me. I want you to always have that smile. I want to remember you as you were in your old safety-pinned whites and in your black elegance in diliman and rockwell (and all those places that I want to be dispossessed of). Most of all though, I want to be sure you are smiling.

Keep well and stay rested. The monsoon will come soon enough to soothe you. When was the last time you took a bath under the rains? Thank you for making your presence felt during these hours. Always pamper yourself.

And for your last question: keep him.

d

First flight

Felt the need to hold onto something. Armrest? No. Seat up front? No. Sides of the window? No. Nothing to hold. Not in this ascent. Not while trespassing the clouds this way, leaving earth until it seemed like an irregular, unintelligible microchip. Let me tell you, I thought, when we were up that awkward diagonal, that it'd be the most natural thing to get sucked back down, by the tail. I'm violating something, I am! I must be. Desecrating some azure god, or other. Far motor roars did not assure at all, not against the gracious great balls of cotton. The attendant's pearly smile did no good, even beneath an odd, aquiline nose. And some cool disc jockey voice reminding us to turn off cellphones, in both tongues too, well, that's just great. I'm with a fistful of strangers, raping the sky, and my ears are up to this, somehow, ringing, ringing. Eyes straight down though, a spiderline of futile anchor. I brace my stomach against revolt.

Spent the whole morning trying to alter the date of birth on the identity card of a young deserter who turned up this morning and firmly requested this service - with the same confidence with which others have asked for a clean shirt or some food. It is much more difficult to do than one would think, even though the type of my machine is fortunately of the same size as that used in his document, the difficulty being to put the new figure precisely in line with the others. And clumsiness is lent to one's fingers by the thought that the boy's life may hang on its being done well.

Iris Origo
April 17, 1944
Diary entry


More kalamansi

Dear reader, I left you for God knows how long, but definitely much too long. Much comfort to be had from a space like this, you know? Ah, the delight of an audience not at all captive. This fact gives me a breath of freedom. I generate little expectations, very little carrot on the proverbial stick, so that if you don't like what I'm serving, the door's open for other tables. Always the happy presence of invisible eyes, silent judgments filtered by binary and clicker-happy surfing.

I missed this.

I haven't told a straight story in a while, have I? I must tell you, I'm sorry when I'm hermetic. Too many identities to protect, too many lives to hide, so that sometimes I seem to speak to myself. I repressed the basic storytelling impulse so much. I suffered a string of headaches.

Dears, let this not happen too much along so narrow a stretch as this here world.

Before I ramble on again, let me thank you for the company you deigned to bless my miserty, much gratitude for all the anonymous poison you held for me and helped me distill. I have several stories for you. Some, I've published (one recently, for example, if you'd care to pick up the April 18 issue of the Philippine Graphic, "The Imitation of Veronica"). And also some very small ones I'll tell you right here, right now.

You must note, I grew obsessed with the question of how the dyaryo-bote-garapa gatherers distinguished between bottles they'll pay for and those they wouldn't. Size, maybe? Or type of glass? The substance previously contained therein?

For a long time, I harbored the unverified assumption that they may profit from even those small bottles they declared didn't count: fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, medicine bottles. I suspected thus because they asked for these bottles anyway. Why did they? What would they do with trash? "Another man's grabage" principle applies here. What the magbobote defines as trash should be those stuff from which they stand to profit nothing save for extra weight on their carts.

I'll spare you details of many thoughts and turnings from this simple, seemingly worthless problematique. Let me, instead, narrate a twist to this query, one courtesy of my father. My father showed the magbobote in Quisao the sardines bottles he saved for him. You know those sardines? Those overpriced bottled Spanish, Portuguese, oh my! let's just say Romance-tongued sardines in hot veggie oil sealed in with chilis and superthin slices of carrot and pickle? Well, we just love those and spend beyond our petit means to grease our lips with them little fishies.

The magbobote said that the bottles wasn't worth a cent. Dad had around twelve, all of which he thus pulled back, putting forward instead the relevant dangkal of newspapers. The magbobote however still asked for the bottles while palm-spanning the newsies. My father asked in turn, "What for?" maybe inferring something along the lines of his son's hypotheses.

The magbobote replied, "We don't have glasses at home."

I'll end the story there though my petty investigation continues. As you know, I'm cursed with doubt. This makes me a good humanist but sometimes, methinks, a lousy human being. For example, after my father's breakfast story, I entertained the thought that this may have been too ready an answer from the magbobote. You can be certain I'll doubt, I always say.

I must tell you, still dear reader, that since I began publishing stories in print last year, I've been less than forthcoming in this space. Maybe because I feared my story ideas would be used before I got to refining them. Better not show the raw ore, I thought. But hey! Who was I to argue when my head spoke against my miserly conduct in aches. The migraine, for all the evil it has wrought - barring me from classes, meetings, dates, oh all these occasions we need to remind ourselves of the other - well, this has regularly done me some good as a sort of emotional or moral spidey sense. Call it Conscience or Muse, but hell, it tells me when I'm not doing good, goddamnit! My sin? I kept myself from you, much too long, my dear pretty faceless. So here, I just set the ground for another little story, haven't I?

Two or so years ago, I ate at this Chinese-style not-so-fast-food. Breakfast, and I had the pleasure of zero bustle chitchat atmosphere, a few quiet newsie readers minding their anonymous business, and an uppity threesome from the crew working the tiles and tables with mops, rags, sprinklers, and early bird smiles.

After marking a table with my things, I went to order. I was not buena mano. That honor went to a man in maybe sixties, dressed in drab, unremarkable clothes, as nondescript as my get-up. I went to the next counter, got my number, and left him still dealing with his cashier in the hush of his manner.

Minutes, coffee, half a plate, and about ten pages later, the crew cleaned the area behind me and - maybe seeing how I was too engrossed with my book - freely discussed the old man.

"He just ordered siumai! Then, after his sliced kalamansi, he began asking for more. Some more calamansi. Some more calamansi."

Laughter while sprinkling away, and the two others laugh too, though, clearly, even with my back to them, it seemed that nobody still got anything from the spare sentences. Until one of the fellows asked. "So, how much more did Jean finally give him?"

"Seven! Twelve halves in all, plus his two halves. Imagine Jean's face, guys. Imagine: eight calamansi for four siumai!"

More laughs, but that's not all.

"Then, our man asks for a couple of sugars. He just got siumai, guys, remember. No coffee whatsoever. So what's he going to do with sugar?"

"What?"

"He turns his back, goes with his tray of siumai, kalamansi, and sugar, and all. Jean displays her dumbfounded face to everyone else in the counters and the kitchen. And where did our man go?"

"Where?"

"To the water dispenser, a glass of water. Water! Math, guys! Equals?"

Laughter.

I scanned the resto for the man. No sign of him. My plate instantly emptied, I left for work. The last thing I remembered reading was an epigram from Nietzsche. As you know, Nietzsche played with some poetry himself and, some claim, with most success in his epigrams. The epigram I recall read: "Poets treat their experiences shamelessly: they exploit them." Well, yes. Yet too, I noted just recently: maybe we're just trying to get to our recommended daily Vitamin C allowance the best way we know how. I'm also just going for the juice.

May palandas-landas pang nalalaman

O heto writing prompt* para sa mga trip magsulat nang tuluyan. Ganito ang instruksyon sa mga writing prompt o 'tulak sa panulat'. May isang teknik o linya na ibibigay sa iyo upang magsulat ka nang tuloy-tuloy, walang patumpik-tumpik, at walang alinlangan na para bang mapipigtal ang kulot na kurdon ng buhay mo kapag umangat ang iyong boligrafo. Linya ang gagamitin natin. Kapag napatigil at hindi na alam ang isusulat, bumalik sa prompt. Mga poseur lang ang naniniwala sa writer's block.

Anumang landas ay landas lamang. Subukan makailang beses kung kailangan. Ngunit itanong sa sarili mo at sa sarili mo lamang ang isang tanong: 'May puso ba ang landas? Kung meron, mabuti ang landas.

Kay Carlos Castaneda galing ang mga linya. Ano, handa? Simula!


Walang puso ang landas mo. Walang puso, walang puson, wala ni pitso, walang piston. Walang motor o pedal ang tutulak sa akin sa huwad na lakad mo. Mag-isa ka.

O kung sasamahan kita, alam mo ang interes ko, malinaw na malinaw parang bulalakaw sa gabing itim na illustration board. Pero kung ang gabi mo ay likod ng ATM card, mag-MRT card ka na lang at dumiretso sa SM North, magliwaliw sa sine, pumunta sa Monumento pagkatapos, yakapin ng titig ang tilos ng batong gulok, at sumakay sa anumang provincial bus. Piliin ang probinsyang hindi mo kilala ang mga reflector na titik.

Siguraduhin mong wala kang idadamay sa makasarili mong paimbulog na spiral. Malapagong man akong kumilos, o Akileus, matibay ang aking bahay. Malambot ang iyong sakong. Okay lang na tumakbo ka nang tumakbo, pero punyeta pag may sinagasaan kang hindi dapat, makakakilala ka ng diablo. Magigi akong Kappa. Hindi ang mga walang bayag na fretmen na kayang-kaya mong mapaalab mula sa kanilang mga hungkag na kaibuturan (kailangan pa ng palo para lang malamang may balat kayo, medyo tanga, hindi pa ba tinuro ng mga ama ninyo?). Kappa. Umalis sa Griyegong google at pumunta sa Hapon kung nais mong maintindihan ang trip kong ipalulon sa iyo.

Kapal naman ng mukha mong magdala ng bata sa balikat mo e alam mo namang tumatakbo ka sa kung anong panganib. Tandaan mong piksyunista ako, noy, hoy hoy juloy! Kilala ng sinungaling ang sinungaling, intiendes? No? Binalaan na kita. Hindi ko kayo puprotektahan. Alam mo ang pinasok mo. Kilala mo ang sakong mo. Dapat batid mo ruon sa kulubot ng balat ang mga luray na katawan ng pusang dinaanan ng bagyo, ang mga inihagis na katawan ng pinagpyestahang anatomy ng palaka, ang upos na yosi, ang mga kalat, ginto, patay na dahon.

Ano'ng karapatan mong magdala ng ibang buhay sa kabilang buhay mo?

Magtitimpi ako sa ngayon dahil taktikal, dahil maaari, dahil, trip ko. Diretsong linya man ay labirinto, o maliit at nakakairitang tao. Tao? Akala ko ba sabi mo patay ka na? O linya lang ba iyon?

Aco, hindi patai. Hindi aco patai. Patai aco hindi. Aco patai hindi. Patai hindi aco. Aba, baca icao!

Mahinahon ang lakad ko, parang umaga ng hamog papuntang forestry o IRRI. Mahinahon ako parang hamog. Mapagtimpi ako, parang tula. Marahas ako, parang tula, parang yabag sa tuyot na talulot ng mga mundong yumaong walang pangalan. Tuwid ako, parang palaso, parang lapis, parang etits, parang linya ni Euclid. Diretso ko sinabi sa iyo, kaibigan kita, kaibigan, kaibigan. Ngunit alam mo ang linya ko. Hanggang duon lang ako. Limitasyon ang tanging ipinagmamalaki ng mga tao. Limitasyon, limen, ang matinding pagkakaintindi sa mga limitasyon. Iyan ang yabang ng tao. Magtatapos siya, parang anumang kwento. Kung kaya't ang mga sandali niya ay walang hanggan.

Ikaw? Kaya mo bang mapirmi? Kaya mo bang manahimik? Akala mo ba makakalusot ka, ganuon lang, sa mga binitawan mong salita? Hiningan kita ng kung ano ang tatalakayin, wala kang kagalang-galang, ni hindi mo binanggit isa mang bullet sa iyong listahan. Buti na lang (aba magpasalamat ka!) mas matindi ang sakit ng ulo ko kaysa sa boses mo.

Isa pang mensaheng matatanggap ko mula sa iyo sa telepono ng nanay ko na walang kinalaman sa pag-atras mo sa paglalagay ng mga bata sa panganib, makakatikim ka ng umaagos na lason ng tinta. Magigi kang imortal, iyon naman ang gusto mo hindi ba? Imortal, tulad ng nakasabit na pinaliit at pinatuyong ulo. Imortal, tulad ng aluminum na lata na pinagpapasapasahan ng kotseng built-in ang obsolescence.

Kaibigan, kaibigan, mahalaga lamang ang trahedya kung hindi ito ginagamit na salapi. Hindi mabibili ng kwento ang aking pagsunod sa iyo laluna't hindi mo mahawakan ang iyong sarili. Matanda na tayo, tayo lang ang dapat makaranas ng hagupit ng panahon. Ngunit bayaan mo sila, berde, na mangunyapit sa kanilang mga nakagisnang ugat. May paraan at panahon ng pagpalakas sa kanila. Mali ka sa dalawang punto. Para sa akin lang naman. Para sa akin.

Mananahimik tayo. Ikaw sa iyong trahedya, ako sa akin. Magigi tayong mag-isa, sa kabila ng napakaraming nakaligid. Ito ang kondisyon ng aking landas.

Iisa ang puso nito. At ang pusong ito, sa ayaw mo o hindi, ay lingid.

Ano ba? Sasabay ka ba? Lalakad na ako.


*Walang sense ang writing prompt. Wala itong kinalaman sa mga tao sa totoong buhay. Anumang hawig o pagkakatulad ay hindi sinasadya. Bakit, kontrol mo ba ang iyong unconscious? Kaya nga unconscious e: unconscionable? Bakit, may kaibahan ba ang hawig at pagkakatulad? Wala itong silbi maliban sa mailabas ang utot ng utak para masimulan ang isang matiwasay na pagbabawas hanggang maabot ang success! na pangako ng mga diyos ng advertising.

On Monday Dr. Huntington read the Chapel service, and we sang [my sister Beth's] favorite hymn. Mr Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Sanborn, and John Pratt, carried her out of the old home to the new one at Sleepy Hollow chosen by herself. So the first break comes, and I know what death means, - a liberator for her, a teacher for us.

Louisa May Alcott
March 14, 1858
Diary entry


Conception, divination

Always a day among all the hours, Ma'am, and even now among the meats of kaymito and tahong, when I am no different from a phantastic, grinchy, or scissorhanded fellow. Every week too, a weekend among television shows and old movies, the marked soft spot of our generation who cannot but remember the transition of black and white to colored, high definition screens. Please appreciate how our fingers still remember the old negotiation of antennae, static, v-holding, and two-digit channels.

Now I write in a medium of screen plus page or page plus screen. I don't comprehend this limen or gestalt, though I'm in it. Like one dwells in a dream, these letters evade me though I try to make my home upon their shifting sands. Goethe would chastise me for always calling my letters my own though I don't understand them and thus can't possibly possess them.

This medium maybe much more foreign to you. Even now - wherever you are between everywhere or nowhere - as I address you without the courage to believe you're nowhere. Even now when you're nowhere in sight, your voice not even a wind between ear and nape.

Still, I write you here, write to you, write you down, write you off. You didn't know my twin, Rico Angelo (though maybe you do now? Did you two shake hands or kiss? Who asked whose blessing?). He once told me, write or be written down. And so I must surpass these problems before I go on, Ma'am. Shall I write to you? I say yes. I cannot write about you too far and omniscient as a third person. I'd be lying. I'd be making you, much woman, and all, too much of an exposition. I don't want to read myself as if I were explaining you. Hell no! You're not an instruction manual, not excuse slip, not merely a poem, dear teacher. Not an epilogue, not a eulogy, not an epitaph.

Should I write you down then? I believe I should. I believe you'd want me to, even though I feel I cheapen you with words and metaphors like worlds, worms, and the growth of grass tend to disgrace the passing of a genuine life. I write you, and down, deep into places where you probably don't care to be, cataracts and chasms I myself don't know but nevertheless exist in me. I believe you'd care that I did write you down with the peculiar ink and angle of my pen and keys. You taught me composition and literature. I assume that you'd prefer me practicing and failing above merely keeping you in the yellowing leaves of my grey matter.

Should I write you off? I must, whether you want me to or not (though I also believe you taught us to outgrow our teachers along with "Oedipus Rex," the "Naming of Parts," and "Spring is like a perhaps hand"). Otherwise, I'd serve the purpose of stone set upon graves, without enough steel to mark letters for a name, a flower for a coming, or a cross for going. No style or steel to number being or becoming.

Therefore I write. I write to, upon, and about you with the same reason one takes down the course of stars, harmony of spheres, flight of birds, fowl entrails, candle droppings, and dregs of tea. I write to divine a self.

Dear Ma'am. Dear Ma'am, thus. Dear Ma'am, then.

First and always, sorry. You wanted something for me. I didn't appreciate that. I'm sorry I shifted out of English against your wish. Sorry that I don't regret this. Also, sorry that I didn't explain myself. I'm sorry I didn't follow through. I'm sorry I didn't say sorry. I may even be sorry that I, now, here, just sent my apologies.

And in English! Out of all possible tongues.

Thank you for everything, all the things I'll not write here. Above all, thank you for making me grateful. This spirit guides me now and forward. I'll disgrace you, this much is certain. I'll wrestle with the angelic image you left. I'll hate you with the zeal and inevitability of true terrans hating gods they cut from their own flesh.

True too, and truer still, I - illiterate and incognito - I shall be no ingrate.

Walk with me, Ma'am. Walk as you always did, as we never did, back when you had the curve of feet. Walk with me even while I piss and spit on the land that claimed you. Walk with me down to the paths of my students, my loves, my readers. Walk before me, beside me, behind me, below me, upon me.

I reincarnated materialism precisely because of a dark thought. The idea terrified me that you and each of them who came before still see me, while I go through drafts, while I scratch balls, while I dazzle, while I come. Always an amaranth astir, forever, the paradisiac fear of panopticons. Yet, I kill matter now, as we all do - as warriors do in their terrible moments, as phonies do in their dreams, as poets do all their lives - out of horror of any space without you eyeing me.

Thus fearing and killing, I take pains so that students and sisters don't bear my ghosts for me. It's not necessary for the stooped back to be so contagious. For me though, I can only carry ghosts if I were to take anything else in. I who, as a child shifted the legs of a dying man (left to right, then again right to left, and later but never finally, left to right) to spare him a summer of bedsores. Who could predict the permutations of a future for one such as I? One nurtured by warring sisters, silent brothers, lying lovers, unloving lovers, vain teachers, singing teachers, primadonnas, yayas, bullies, the endless warmth of a cold twin, the infinitely various smile of a deep twin, a changing sky, a riverless lake?

Thank you for arriving on time. Because of you (though not you alone!), I know the sacral truth of secrets and mysteries. Ache by ache, like Baudelaire from his enemy, I flourish by learning. I learn to keep them who are sacred from those who are vulgar. I value the word worth valuing, the word of the true. You taught me to keep them who keep my secrets.

I may have found them, Ma'am. If they are keepers or aches, I may never know for sure. Such a solid faith, this. This feels truer than I ever imagined it would. I believe I've found them. Dear them, who would keep my secrets as if they held my soul, choke back their tears, swallow their uncooked blood, as if they could hold me - dancing amid their throbbing, thronging, tongues, tonsils, and cadmium teeth - and never spit me out.

Or I may be just projecting fears and loves unto them, as my specie throws shit, saliva, and guts down splat upon screens. As my generation sobs out stories to the concerted art of music videos or the grate of digits and cable static. As we abandon ink to leaves. As my kind cast our brothers down from the poverty of shared pedestals to the blank, bulleted mercy of our words.

Or I may not have found them at all, a people I can be worthy of and for. I may have just spotted my softness, my ache, that no one will be the twin who knew everything and loved me. That no one will be you, dear teacher, who knew nothing but loved me - just the same - leaving me loving, hoping, and believing in your wake.

Sa sandaling hindi nakitagay

Angas pips, lalong-lalo na kay Tasna Chucks, pasensya at nahirapan akong mamentena ang koneksyon ko mundo ng ating mahusay na kahibangan. Salamat sa "heads up!" Nate. Ang katotohanan, may mga panahong ayaw kumonekta sa e-mail dito sa internetan. Isang beses na nga lang kada linggo ako mag-internet e. Sira rin ang yunit sa Makati. Wala naman sa oras at konsiderasyon ko'ng lumipat pa ng internetan. Yoko nga. Mabait ang mag-asawang nagpapatakbo rito. Masyado na tumaas ang aking ekspektasyon sa alaga ng nagpapa-internet na baka makipag-away ako sa ibang internetan kung di sila makapantay. Maarte kasi at needy sa kalinga. Kaya heto, bukod sa nabitawan ko kayo at hindi ko man lang nailibot si Tasna sa LB, naiakyat ng bundok, nahanapan ng mug, at napakinabangan sana sa mga workshop dito (haha, kala mo walang bayad yung mug ha?), di ko rin matatapos ang aking MA ngayon. Nagkandabuhol-buhol ang attachment sa impyerno ng mga mailer-daemon at maling akala.

Di ko pa kayo nakasama sa gabi ng angasan.

Yoko na. Sana nariyan ako ngayon sa piling ninyo. Kung hindi lang ako banidoso (isang pagkabanidosong kamukha ng 'lahat' ni Shakespeare), ma-pride (parang Satanas ni Milton) at di makapapayag mang-iwan sa ere (parang tenga ni Dumbo), matagal na akong lumipad palayo at nagpakalunod sa ating isang baso.

Daghang salamat sa libro Manong Cbs. Magpopost ako ng review kapag natapos ko na. Salamat sa pagsalubong at paghatid ng regalo, Belle. Maraming salamat sa mga kasama kong maglakad, mga katulaan, at kakwentuhan. Sa mga nagpapahirap ng buhay, salamat na rin. May patiktik-tiktik pang nalalaman. Para nga naman may konting saya, di ba? Kung talagang kilala ako, dapat batid na batid na may nakatakdang araw sa kalendaryo. Nakapangalan na. May puso pang pamilog sa numero, panigurado.


Bati sa Araw

Araw dumarating ka
tila amang may tangang talim
ng karayom upang sungkitin
ang salubsob sa paa dibdib mata
o kamay ng kanyang nagdadalaga

maligayang bati muli
bagunsilang na Araw ikaw ay dilaw at lunti
at pinuksa mo ang lasa ng dilim
na maalat parang dagat parang hikbi parang itim

hindi na ako nagpaalam sa gabing hati
bukas ang buong palad ko sa iyong umaga

Araw buhayin mo ako bilang dionisio hesus o umaga
dalhin mo ako sa rurok ng daigdig
sa lalim ng dagat sa hita ng diyos sa iyong pinakadidbdib
at sa iyong kamatayan

umaalis ka Araw
tila amang may tanging talim
ng balaraw upang kitilin
ang hakbang hinga pagsinta
at alay ng kanyang nagbibinata