What sadness is this, what woe? I can hear the waves crashing to shore, only the sound is receding, only the blue, dimming.

What ails the ailing heart, ailing in spite of what it knows, ailing because it knows? It knows, my love, it knows.

I write your name on the sand and realize the sea will take back what it bestows, bequeathing only memory.

The sea is constant. It giveth, taketh. All the while, it remains, its magnitude, engulfing.

The heart shudders in this knowledge. For what can love give that cannot be taken away?

Still, the heart remains. Like the sea, it is steadfast--being, despite the tide, beating, despite the fear. Whispering your name, chanting I am, you are, we are.

Daphne, defeated

Because I was afraid of the recognition my light had seen in yours, I ran, and ran. And as I ran, I threw shafts of darkness your way, conjuring erasure, willing the shadows to take over.

I did not know all this will come to be--I was so certain, my love, so certain. But the heart is wise in ways unknown to us.

I had consigned you to the shadows, but your light has shone through. Dazzled, I turned my turned back; dazzled, I stared. Dazzled, I allowed myself to be drawn in to you. Dazzled, I succumbed to your brilliance.

My nimble feet are nimble no more. The weak, blurred edges have given way to clarity. I now recognize what I have always known to be sacred, what I have felt to be more powerful than the strength I tried to break it with.

And now here I am, bathed in the glow of you. Breathless from running away, and scarred in the struggle, I recognize my defeat and lay my (erstwhile) hesitant heart before your feet.

And what now, my love? What now?

Martial Law and the Price of Forgetting: a Reflection

"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."
- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Forty three years ago, Martial Law was devised and declared; days later, it was announced on National television, with promises of order and prosperity, threats of capture for those who would dare go against the decree, the voice of one man claiming power over one nation. Forty three years to the day, we are a people divided on the era that Marcos, in his quest for absolute power, seized and grasped by the palm of his hand, squeezing an economy of its promise, stealing from a nation's coffers and piling up billions to its debts, strangling a democracy and stripping its people of its right to speak. Forty three years to the day, and most of us have forgotten.

The shortness and selectiveness of our memory, coupled with the stealthy maneuvering of certain bodies whose goal is to rise to power once more and revise history and further erase the bloody footprints they have left on our land and streets, have all combined to create the cultural, historical amnesia so prevalent today.

Forty three years to the day and those from whom loved ones and friends were torn through abduction, incarceration, torture, and murder are still grieving their loss, and whom we are depriving of justice because we choose to be deaf and blind to their truths. The people who witnessed the horrors of Martial Law are still fighting to be heard, to educate, to inform, to make us see the light, because the opportunists and the people whose minds they have corrupted are creating a clangor meant to blind our youth to what truly transpired.

But there are those who refuse to believe that the crimes against humanity committed during Ferdinand E. Marcos' regime will go down in history as hearsay, as knowledge shared by few, as dust swept under the rug, as a mere whisper that fades and will continue
to fade as the winds of time blow by and away. We refuse to believe that decades down the line, our children will echo what they hear nowadays: that Marcos was a great president, that his regime was peaceful, that this country knew abundance during his time. We refuse to believe that Marcos will be remembered for everything that he was not; for seeing him otherwise would mean a great disservice, would mean dismissing the sacrifice of all those who paid the price of opening this nation's eyes and ears to the cruelty of that era. They have paid for it--and dearly--with their lives, and those lives could have been ours, they could have been us.

I take a stand because I have been told about and I have read the stories of those who had lived through that dark time. I take a stand because contrary to the glossed-over claims of the Marcoses, their cronies, and loyalists, there were elements more terrifying than one can imagine, but were stymied and put under guises--and claims--of peace and progress. 

There was Alex Belone, a young Bicolano who was my father's classmate at the Naga Parochial School and who, my father told me, met a gruesome death after being captured by the military. He had taken a revolutionary stance against the dictatorship, joining the movement that sought to decry the atrocities of that time. As a UP student, he was active in the marches and public demonstrations of outrage, that condemned the crimes against humanity and blockades on freedom of speech rampant during martial law. Witness to the deaths of his co-students and companions, he continued to fight from the underground, locking arms with his equally passionate and fiercely concerned brothers in the movement. 

When he was captured in 1980, he underwent torture, as was customary for anyone who dared speak, write, or go against the dictatorship in those years, and was eventually killed. His story does not end with his death. As a warning to everyone, the military tied his body to a tricycle and was dragged around the streets for all to see. I shudder at the thought, but I cannot help picturing the already badly bruised and beaten carcass of a man  scraping the asphalt, scuffing skin and flesh and bones, further tearing the already torn sinews, blood staining the streets, countenance defaced. 

This was a dead man in his 20's, unutterably helpless against whatever was being done to his lifeless body. During his wake, none of his friends and comrades could drop by because the military was nearby, on the prowl for any suspected members of the movement. In my mind, the mental picture of his family blurs from the cloak of sorrow I seem to have subconsciously painted on them. The cloak is dark, heavy. 

This was Martial Law. 

Another story that has stuck to my mind is that of poet Pete Lacaba. He was an activist, writing against the cruelty and corruption of the Marcos of those days, who, along with fellow writers Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr. and Ricky Lee, were wanted men for their roles during the First Quarter Storm. It is documented that the PSHS and the UP--among other campuses--were teeming with youthful, passionate rage at the injustices perpetrated by Marcos. They were jailed and tortured in ways too horrifying to stomach, that it took a while before any of them could take the time to sit down and come to terms with it, if they ever did, at all. 

Pete Lacaba was detained in Camp Crame, subjected to regular and numerous forms of torture, when he heard that his brother, Emmanuel F. Lacaba, had been killed. Lourdes Gordolan, in her February, 2013 piece entitled "And My Life Flashed Before Me" published in Rogue, wrote:

"The dehumanizing treatment continued in Camp Crame, where Pete suffered through disparate acts of violence from prison guards for nearly two years. Whereas in the beginning the mental and physical torture may have been done under the guise of “interrogation,” eventually, as the 1975 Amnesty International Report describes, the brutal treatment was done for “no particular intent, except to inflict pain.” 

'Pete remembers being called to the guardhouse, where the aging prison guard held up a newspaper in front of him. Its headline reported the death of Emmanuel Lacaba, an activist killed in a military encounter in Davao del Norte. He looked at Pete. “Are you related to this Lacaba?” the guard asked. Expressionless and still, Pete answered no. Emmanuel was Pete’s brother. It was the first time he heard news of his death.'"

These ongoings were common in those days, but well-hidden from the general public. These stories make up but a few drops in the bucket of many more, harrowing experiences of real people, but whose truths have been silenced by time and inaction in our part; by the denial and nonchalant shrugging off of those guilty of these crimes; and to add insult to injury, the passing off of that dark time as peaceful, orderly, and prosperous, and as some would say, manned by "the greatest president this country ever had". It makes one wonder if the word "great" has a different meaning for some.

Reading alone about the torture that these forgotten heroes had gone through is, by itself, painful--nail-pulling, burning the private parts with lighters and cigarettes, rape, beating, electrocution, and other unimaginably cruel methods. It grabs one by the heart and wrenches the soul. 

The many senseless deaths--and we are talking thousands-- make one ask what one life is really worth. And the desaparecidos--those who have disappeared, by abduction, and many at the prime of youth--whose stories of suffering will never be told, make up another set of victims.

The Marcos loyalists harp on the economic progress supposedly created by their idol. This, in itself, is a very problematic claim, but it deserves an altogether different discussion, as it covers a huge scale of data, analysis, evidence, and form of discourse. Marcos' time was characterized by corruption, but the massive plunder is only half of the story. The human lives--damaged, broken, so gruesomely taken--account for the more significant part.

If we are to go by the respect for life and freedom that are of utmost importance if we ever value humanity, knowledge itself about the tortured and the murdered should be enough to make us want to say "no!" to another Marcos--their cronies and loyalists included--ever setting foot on any position of leadership. Time and again, they have made many attempts to revise this nation's history, to distort our perception and understanding of that truly dark period. 

I am one with you in condemning these acts. May we seek to know and kindle the flames of enlightenment to those who are in the dark, because from the look of things, the Marcoses are once more making their footsteps echo loudly in our lands. May we not waver in this fight, for those who fought and died under this cruel regime, fought and died so that we may be in possession of the democracy we now have.  

Blood spilt is blood spilt. Let no man erase their heroism.

Forty three years to this day, Martial Law was declared. May we never forget.

Redemption in Remembrance and Reflection, Part 1

"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."
- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Forty three years ago, Martial Law was devised and declared; days later, it was announced on National television, with promises of order and prosperity, threats of capture for those who would dare go against the decree, the voice of one man claiming power over one nation. Forty three years to the day, we are a people divided on the era that Marcos, in his quest for absolute power, seized and grasped by the palm of his hand, squeezing an economy of its promise, stealing from a nation's coffers and piling up billions to its debts, strangling a democracy and stripping its people of its right to speak. Forty three years to the day, and most of us have forgotten.

The shortness and selectiveness of our memory, coupled with the stealthy maneuvering of certain bodies whose goal is to rise to power once more and revise history and further erase the bloody footprints they have left on our land and streets, have all combined to create the cultural, historical amnesia so prevalent today.

Forty three years to the day and those from whom loved ones and friends were torn through abduction, incarceration, torture, and murder are still grieving their loss, and whom we are depriving of justice because we choose to be deaf and blind to their truths. The people who witnessed the horrors of Martial Law are still fighting to be heard, to educate, to inform, to make us see the light, because the opportunists and the people whose minds they have corrupted are creating a clangor meant to blind our youth to what truly transpired.

But there are those who refuse to believe that the crimes against humanity committed during Ferdinand E. Marcos' regime will go down in history as hearsay, as knowledge shared by few, as dust swept under the rug, as a mere whisper that fades and will continue
to fade as the winds of time blow by and away. We refuse to believe that decades down the line, our children will echo what they hear nowadays: that Marcos was a great president, that his regime was peaceful, that this country knew abundance during his time. We refuse to believe that Marcos will be remembered for everything that he was not; for seeing him otherwise would mean a great disservice, would mean dismissing the sacrifice of all those who paid the price of opening this nation's eyes and ears to the cruelty of that era. They have paid for it--and dearly--with their lives, and those lives could have been ours, they could have been us.

Insomnia

You slump into a couch, exhausted. A host of thoughts flits by--faces, names, faces with names, nameless faces, random names, random faces--and your tired mind shuts down for the briefest of moments.

What was it she said? Tragic. What was it he said? Flatulent. He and she--they blur, their words and voices commingle, first; next, their words turn into a colloquy of opposites; and finally, the dialogue booms into a cacophony of sounds. You close your eyes. That girl could have been you.

Ah, to be lethargic, ah to be nothing.

But the evening waits, the day is not done. Night is not only for counting the stars, it is also for mapping the syzygy of circles and squares that surround us each day, that set us looking for what is not there, for what could be there, that keep us on our toes, aghast and running, that make us feel alive, that make us stop and notice. For those of us who recognize the ephemeral, the ubiquitous is seldom--if ever--what it appears to be. Our heads are filled with imagery, color, tune.

You wonder how long the night is going to be, tonight.

You turn on Chopin and mull over the pictures in your head: the bright lights of the city you ride across each day, the woman selling hot cakes, the looming figure of a bright-eyed man, the misplaced, baroque facade of an old building, the puddles in side walks, the look of worry on a friend's face, an unlit street lamp. You run your fingers over the texture of words and you realize that sleep will be elusive tonight, the way it often is when your mind is wide awake the way it is now. The goal is to be blithe; the reality seldom lives up to the conjured. We are thinking beings, counting on the clemency of paradoxes. We breathe love like air, but we find it discombobulating. Our quest for spontaneity leaves us planning where to go next.

What time is it, you wonder. The music has stopped. The night is just as dark as it was when the first strains of Chopin wafted into your ears, but you've already filled the hours with the scenes of the day. The questions remain: in what context did he say what he said? Did you say the things you wanted to say the way you should have said them? Did you say what you had meant to say?

He throws figures at you and you become a shadow. Mute, sighing.

You play with the idea of writing a letter. You start writing it, in your head, with the night stretching ahead of you like a long, confused road.

Stranger

Strange things happen, sometimes.

Sometimes, we are not where we are, we are somewhere else.

This evening, the sea is beside us--the setting seems passé, but here we are, and we have never been here before. The ebbing waves are lulling us to something very much like peace. Stranger things have happened.

We have spent the afternoon talking and frankly, you have not told me anything new. I already know all that you have told me--from watching you, from various distances. I know you. I have taken the time to. I know the curves of your brows, the lilt of your mouth, the light and dark in your eyes, the shadows there, the fire, the flickers, the embers. They show me your mind, and oh, how quick it is, but how crowded and full of faces, teeming with the weight of thoughts! I know your hands--their rising and falling, their grip, their submission. I know your lines and turns. There is a pathway. I know your heart. I know its weight. I wonder if you do.

I want to tell you: learn to let go, if only sometimes. The world will turn without us. Life trickles on, let us flow with it. Learn to go with it. Teach yourself to stop and just be. You are tired. Breath out the heaviness.

But I do not know how. So I just sit here, watching you from lowered lids. You have mellowed into a subdued mood, and I am relieved. I am thankful for the distance, thankful for the time. I exhale my gratitude into the great void, and whisper a prayer into the sea.

I am aware the end will come. I accept it. But for now, we are. Let us just be.

Stranger things have happened. This does not surprise me, and this does not surprise me.

And foolish though it may seem--

Here is one last faith in metaphor.
That it must do what it's meant to,

and draw you near.
Abstraction is the silence of skin:

- from "Braille", Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta

This morning, the sun was not its usual self and let the clouds have their way, but, pushing the threat of rain aside, I braved the gloom and took a walk. My feet led  me to a pathway I had not taken in a long while, and soon, I found myself in a familiar spot where the trees parted, ushering me into a clearing that I knew well.

"and there whisper-sing her songs to the sky, to the distantly aloof stars, the insomniac clouds, the attentive moon."

I felt my heart skip a beat at the sight of a well-loved wisteria-wrapped bower and, crossing the short bridge, I braced myself for the next sight.

"and when he spoke it was with a voice that reminded one of a perfectly tuned harp."

There it waited, the garden, but oh, how empty it stood, how desolate! Patches of brown grass called the eye's attention; yellowing leaves, fallen overnight, danced aimlessly about, blown by some vagrant wind. Last night's rain still lingered everywhere, its drops lacing what  little green remained.

My heart broke a little when I saw the chairs, empty now as I knew they had been for a long time. I walked toward the spot that was and still is sheltered by that huge beloved tree, its branches privy to so many conversations, much laughter and, later, some tears, some talk in low, mournful tones, an uncertain parting. Sometimes I fear I would never see you again. No books lay in the faded basket, no cups of tea sat on the rain-streaked table. I leaned against the still sturdy trunk of the faithful tree and looked about. I wondered if you had been here, at all, all this time. It didn't seem likely, but not absolutely impossible. Still, my heart sank as I drank in all the emptiness that lay about. How still the place seemed, but for a cold breeze blowing by, now and then. I am very ill, love. I am.

I searched my memory for all that had been said and realized I could no longer remember what the last words were. Has it been that long ago? Yes, it has. 

I started walking away but could not resist looking back. One last time, if this, indeed, be the last. Wherever you may be, happy birthday. I cannot altogether promise never to come back, but I will try.

"There's a few ways to call down the moon-road, if the sky is ready, and the timing's right. Sometimes you can summon a moonbeam by whistling, like some people can summon the wind."

Radiohead, The King of Limbs: This Fan Raves

"It's like I'm falling out of bed

From a long, weary dream

The sweetest flowers and fruits hang from the trees

Falling off the giant bird that’s been carrying me--"

- from "Separator", Radiohead

Heard melodies are sweet (sorry, John Keats), but music also "seen" is sweeter. For a musician's full magnificence to be experienced, one has to be witness to the performance. The auditory reception is enhanced--non-exclusively, of course, since people have different ways of appreciating--all the more when one catches these people in the act of making, creating the music. Imagination liberates, but we are, sometimes, limited by what we cannot see.

In the case of Radiohead, masters at their craft who have forever changed the sonic landscape with their music, and withstood the test of time and all other elements, this is especially true. I watched "Radiohead: King of Limbs Live at The Basement"--over at YouTube, where else--and was struck by some nameless sensation: quickened heartbeat, bliss surging up from the chest, or something of that nature. The passion, skill, and ease with which the band went at it, just doing their "thing", took my breath away. I experienced something similar with "Radiohead: In Rainbows Live in Japan", but "King of Limbs", because recorded in a smaller venue, offered a much closer, more intimate view. The years have not at all diminished the intensity that Thom Yorke not so much exhibits as exudes; the same is true where Jonny Greenwood is concerned (still ruthless, still insanely skilled); and of the rest of them, all as essential and as present as ever. Face contorted in intensity, mindless of all other things except the music; fingers caressing, plucking effortlessly at, and flying over guitar strings; fingers touching and striking keys; able hands, masters to drum sticks--what a spectacle, a thing of beauty!

Radiohead's lyrics have only become more cryptic, the music as beautiful and more complex. My favorite track from the album is "Lotus Flower", but I was blown away by Thom's performance of "The Daily Mail" (the phrase "king of melancholia" crossed my mind); "Codex" has a similar relish, though a bit toned down; the jazz barroom flavor of "Feral" and, by a little measure, "Little By Little" (I wondered if they were trying to pull a Miles Davis, with a 21st century flavor, of course); the percussion-led sensuousness of "Separator"; the acoustic, mellow air of  "Give up the Ghost"; the guitar-playing skills showcased in the rest of the songs.

The King of Limbs, like In Rainbows, features elements of electronica (in smaller doses) but the former, upon close inspection, chronicles Radiohead's absolute comfort in what they do, and highlights the poetry and talent that has been characteristic of their music from the very start. The King, for this fan, is sonic perfection. The effect of their music on me has always extended to the heart and the deepest recesses of the brain, but more so this album. I could only wish I were really there when they recorded the session--probably sitting in a corner, and certainly my cup of tea would have long grown cold, forgotten.

Imagine how much tea I've been consuming, waiting for the next album. Meanwhile, let the music play, and let me watch while it does.

Variation on a Theme: Rain

On a rainy day, one entertains thoughts similar to rain. The general chill in the air becomes a prolonged brush of coldness against reluctant skins. The falling raindrops create a symphony of sounds--raps against windows, patter on the ground, pin-sized knocks against doors, but magnified many times over. The mind roams over darkened plains and dismal landscapes, beneath unfriendly skies and indifferent roofs, across winding streets.

On a day such as this, you materialize, but never matter enough to be palpable. Your ghost descends, in perfect synchronicity with the rain and the blowing gusts, disturbing the spell of warm days, a hand against the stillness. You appear, though the validity of this, I am never certain of.

I am wiping the glass to make your image clearer, silently praying for recognition. I end up mumbling into the grayness of the day, mouthing names I can barely pronounce. Your image gets washed away by the rain, but for a moment, I make-believe it's your face I see reflected in a puddle.

What I love about rainy days is they blur remembered faces, dull the sound of uninvited voices, wash away intruding memory. The rain dampens the very sadness it carries with it, turning it into something that faintly resembles sorrow only. There is comfort in faintness--it softens things like pain, the way years of forgetting sometimes do.

After hours of rain, a hush follows. We wonder if the rain has gone, and slowly pick up where we had left off before it came.

Summer, Part 3

I am typing down these words. In the background, Jeff Buckley is singing, "kiss me, please kiss me," and I am wondering who he wrote the song for, and if he really did write it, and I am thinking, there is so much I am uncertain about, there is so much I don't know. There is no point to these words, to these thoughts, but I am hoping there will be. I resist the urge to stop. There is always the urge to. We wonder about the things we do, we wonder about the sense in them, or if there is any sense to the things we do. But we keep at it, we do not stop. At least, not when it matters--when it matters to us. Most of the time, the things that mean so much to us would not make sense to other people. I wonder about other people. I wonder about the things that mean something to them.

The song has ended, another one has begun. I wonder what sound will come out if the last one and "Lilac Wine" overlapped, at some point. If moments of our lives overlapped, what would it be like? Do moments ever overlap? What do the sciences say about time? It is a thought I do not wish to pursue. I can feel the sweat on my temples. "Why is everything so hazy?' Jeff Buckley sings. Outside, the sun is going mad with its own glory. How exaggerated the heat these days, have been. The word "exaggerated" was deliberately chosen, yes. Today is May 1st. It always rains on May 1st. Today, there is no rain, and the heat does not seem to have any plans of making way for rain. The heat always compels me to write. Sunlight such as this stirs up so much, but when I sit down to name them, I keep drawing blanks. There is nothing new in this.

"Oh, that was so real, oh, that was so real, oh, that was so real," Buckley sings. And then there is something about the moon and the wind. I go blank. I am wondering what to write next. Was it so real? This morning, I went through my stash of unfinished stories. I wonder if I would ever get to finish them. These things mean nothing to you, I know. But now, Jeff Buckley is singing, "Well, I heard there was a secret chord", and I pause to listen. Some songs command one to listen. Am I making sense to you?

Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah


The song has ended. I have run out of things to say.

We/ are we/ random

A conversation is an overture to many things: the next conversation, kinship, love. Cross this out. We redirect, retract, swerve--we talk about the weather. We hesitate to talk about love because we are proud, we are strong, we are practical, level-headed creatures; we would rather talk about things that matter--the stock market, the upcoming elections, your neighbor's latest acquisition, my last meal, your next.

And inside our heads, a voice, cooing a soliloquy: But my love, you are my miracle.

We snort at sentiment. It is shallow, it spells weakness. We are strong. We do not talk about love. The world will turn without love. We insist.

Abdicate, my love. Because the world is ruled by numbers. Ejected by the maths, the story of Eros and Psyche remains a myth. Yet we die a little at love's facelessness.

We do not admit this. We would rather have plotless dreams when we are asleep. Or grind our teeth.

We concatenate one chance with the next, and come up with a kaleidoscope of flukes. Where do they all go? We wonder. We wonder, and wonder, and on the surface, we are placid bodies of water. Stagnant, too, the voice. And on and on, we insist--what is dilatory must stay hidden.

Serendipity is underrated (or is it over? I can never tell) -- you are here because you filled out an application form; I am here because I had nothing better to do. We will never walk the same line; this conversation is flimsy. It will never hold. Art is for the foolish, I heard somebody say. But he who is not moved by sunsets and violins must have some serious searching to do, yes? My teacher agrees. Even Euclid had feelings, I'm sure. But where is it written?

There is a mathematical formula for everything. Yes, even love. We talk in tangents; the parallels outrun each other. We measure and throw away the excess. Love is an excess. We throw love away, we erase it. Or pretend to, at least. And then we cope by subterfuge.

"There will be time, there will be time," wrote one T.S. Eliot, and "Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,/ would it have been worth while,/ to have bitten off the matter with a smile,/"-- oh, hapless heart, what do you beat for? Who?

Stop that sighing, the minutes are ticking, we do not have time.

We do not talk about love. Let Apollo chase Daphne to the ends of the earth. It is a myth, as love is. Turn off that music in your head, and let's be productive, instead, so resume brainstorming, snack on these data, reconcile those figures. There is no you, there is no me.

But look, my love, you have turned into a tree.

Strings and Stones

Today is your birthday.

Today is your birthday and in my mind, we are thirteen again. It's 5 in the afternoon, and I am standing by a doorway, admiring the cuff lacing my wrist, its plastic stones blinking, wondrously catching the dying afternoon light. You are inside, talking to the shopkeeper, asking her about the crystal bracelets on the display counter.

Today is your birthday.

Today is your birthday and we are thirty-something-year-olds, miles and miles apart. I am thinking about grace, I am thinking about laughter, I am thinking about sunlight and moonshine, about dreams and oceans, about mysticism and music, about warm firelight, about friendship and constancy--because these are the thoughts people like you inspire in other people. I am looking at the bracelet I'm wearing, the mild sheen of its magenta-colored beads stark against my skin, and I remember the broken pieces of me that you had strung back together into a circle.

Today is your birthday and I am thinking of the sound of waves crashing to shore. How beautiful it is--both the thing and the memory of it. Thank you for letting me hear its music, once more. One day, we will find ourselves along another sunlit shore, scouring the sand for forgotten dreams. Or pretty little stones, maybe.

Happy birthday, Kristine. The world is one brighter place with you in it.

Summer, part 2

Water.

Oh, to soak, to sink

in dreams
of you, to wade through you, or drown, perhaps, but gloriously. Because I cannot swim.

Stop struggling, they say. The tide will bear you to safety. I find it hard to believe, but it's not wholly impossible--nothing ever is. Some things are like water;

so pour me out.

These lines are figments--I am standing somewhere square.

Trickle down my throat, or wash over me.

Solid things wear me down; edges can be scathing. Hard surfaces, those bricks, that street. A rock and a wall, you say, and I, in between.

Let me flow, instead.

Billow, crest, and fall, and start again. And again, and again. There is rhythm in repetition, but beauty lies in swirls. Oh, let me swirl. I want to swirl with you. I want to swirl in you.

It's this darn heat.

"I wish I had a river", Joni once sang. I wish I were a river.

Tonight, the moon glows bright, illuminating the rivulets coursing through my mind, liquid pathways that lead to you.

The moon seldom ever insists its presence, but it always finds its way here. Like you do.

This page is full of abstractions, invisible streams gushing everywhere, taunting my delirious brain.

Will somebody please hand me a glass of water.

Caliraya, by moonlight

Is that moonlight in the water?

I stand up to get a better view of my view of the lake. All things that could be still are still; only the crickets dare disrupt the enveloping quiet, but intermittent, as if they, too, suspect their cry a sacrilege to the calmness.

Muted rays of pale yellow light slant toward the surface of the water and I stare, fascinated. I wish the moment would go on, and on. I could feel the air and my fingertips, brushing against each other. I feel the hair on my nape rise at so much aliveness and for a moment, I picture myself, wrapped in moonlight, lost in the rapture of solitude. The mind reaches for the soul and is surprised at its nearness.

Above me, the sky is ablaze with starlight.

I shall always remember this. It is what I will take home with me. This beautiful memory of evening, lake, stillness, moonlight, and I, one with all--they shall find their way to one of my storage boxes at home; and some distant day, should the threat of chaos once more come knocking on peace's door, I will close my eyes and summon back this evening, reach out for this moonlight, and let go.

I will remember the light on the water and cast anxiety aside, push fear away. It should be enough.

Lost

I grieve my inability to turn you into what I want you to be: here.

You are always somewhere else: next month, seven steps ahead, a moment away, three hours ago, the past week; a few distances away, framed by a window, an inch apart, walled by glass, wrapped in distance, lost in thought; that indecipherable frown, cryptic vibrations, obscurity.

The wall I put up falls into shambles, but patiently, I pick up and rebuild. The foundations are weak. I make do with pretense, believing it would hold, as if it ever did, as if it ever will. Meanwhile, the distance picks up its pace, the hole deepens, your absence becomes more and more present.

And so, I I toil, I dig, never knowing what it is I work for, what it is I look for--your presence or obliteration. Am I conjuring or am I erasing?

Even this page fails to capture you. When I get to the bottom, I glance back up. In the end, I go back to where I started.

Peace Be With You

I remember the scent of burning candles.

One finds oneself at home in the crowd, the lack of space. One gets accustomed to the rush, the madness of everyday. One gets used to the lights and the noise, to losing track of time, to losing count of what was and what comes next. One becomes familiar with the randomness, the flurry, the blur of it all. One gets lost in it; one forgets what is.

One gets so used to it, that the upcoming stillness becomes an assault to the senses. The present quiet disquiets; the mind gets jolted by the lack of sound; the eyes get overwhelmed by the onslaught of space.

But how beautiful, too, these impressions of muteness. How calming, how peaceful. The heart finds itself pulled into reflection. The question of faith ceases, finding respite in the hinges. In the hush of things, one stops being lost, if only for a moment.

Our part of the world is once more taking a pause. May peace be with us all.

Rain

Today, it is dew that you awaken to, a morning wrapped in cloud, soft notes from some distant music. Yesterday's weather report said it will rain today, and you are certain it will. All signs point at raindrops, sing of wetness, hint at fluid things. The yielding heart, yielding to forgotten days. Time slipping by hands that can barely hold. Tears.

Your consciousness still shakes at the (fragmented) memory of a strange dream. There is no sense in piecing the shards together, but you allow yourself--for a few moments--to waft in that barely perceptible line between sleep and wakefulness.

But broken things get lost in the language of the everyday.

And soon, rain, its drops hitting the roofs, the windows, the grounds, soft patter on hard surfaces, prying open what will yield, permeating what will not; washing away the dust, brightening the weariness; so that what was dull soon sparkles, what was withering gets revived.

You understand this: there is reason for the stillness in the day before; you, who have long believed that always, always, there are (heavy) things suspended in the unmoving air. You are grateful. You have been taught that what has gone is gone, and today is here, now.

(In a parallel universe, things may be different; but all the same, it is there, not here.)

In the distance, a door shuts. Tonight, the moon will be her usual, lovely self, and you remind yourself to notice.

Notes for a story

--In the swell of evening,

all is space and more space.

Crickets go darting the night

to alliterate a face. They scree

a name there are only broken

vowels for, broken words,

broken music. Absence,

- Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Burning Houses

In my heart, a foreshadowing. In my heart, a premonition. In my heart, a question, unasked. In my heart, a heart, sinking.

This evening, this book. This evening, its unassuming spine caught my eye. I wasn't looking for it; I had long stopped looking for it.

Now, my finger traces this book's cover. I leaf through its pages. I allow my eyes to linger along its lines, parsed into shorter lines. I allow my eyes--but only for a while. Holding this thin volume is both uplifting and heartbreaking. Bittersweet, extremely so. Opening it felt a little like sacrilege. How precious our friendship is. How fragile. It rests on the hinges of you and I. I break a little, grasping it.

You had once told me, smiling and sad, how you could never seem to win the race against things that find their way to me. I trail, too, dear one. But you already know this.

I think of this book, at rest in your shelf. My heart breaks into little pieces.

I think of the conversations we had. I think of the conversations we never had. I think of the conversations we will never have. I think of your pain and the silence with which you cloak it. I think of your suffering and all the unnamed distances that separate me from it.

I think of the things you taught me--how to write a story, how to un-write a story. How does one write a story?

I am certain I will end up writing you a story--I have known this for a long time. I do not know how it begins; I only know how it will end.

In the story, this book will remain in your shelf.

My heart sinks.

That Requisite Pre-Oscars Post

"People, they love blood. They love action.

 Not this talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit."

This year, Neil Patrick is hosting the Oscars. This year, I finished my marathon quite late. This year, the Oscars happens tomorrow.

This year, too, the Academy seems to have chosen fewer gems than they usually do. 

But anyway, here's my annual two cents drop into the piggy bank:

8 American Sniper, Clint Eastwood

Bradley Cooper's acting is restrained and brilliant, and Clint Eastwood, as always, directs with a competent hand. The movie, though, falls short in terms of width, and though there were some heart attack-inducing scenes (which is a good thing, by the way),  I feel that the scope of the biopic could be wider, which is not to say that it is completely lacking in depth. And the tribute shots in the ending--this viewer somehow feels cheated. Come on, Clint, we know you could have done better than that.

7 The Theory of Everything, James Marsh

The film has much to say about hope and perseverance, and I salute Stephen Hawking for his remarkable strength in the face of so much adversity, and James Marsh for making this film because now, we are reminded that our little complaints are nothing compared to what other people must be going through. The film, too, has much to say about Eddie Redmayne's talent. He shone in the film.

Ah, but that's all, folks.

6 The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum

Benedict Cumberbatch has always been--looks, notwithstanding--flawless for me. He (and he, taking on Alan Turing, of course) was reason enough to see the film, and I was not disappointed. But only in that aspect, and that statement deserves a repeat: only in that aspect. Cumberbatch aside, it seemed to me like the film was created precisely with one goal in mind: to become part of Oscars history. Which is not to say that it's an entirely bad thing. But let's see where it goes.

5 The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson

It started out on a whimsical note and I was, of course, smitten. The language was smart and elaborate, the background grand, and Ralph Fiennes, well, adorable. Until the first train ride scene, the movie had my full attention, and then I just started going downhill. Yes, it was I who went downhill, make no mistake. I have no doubt that the movie has glorious, wonderful things going for it; I have no doubt that it has much to teach about history and the melancholy remembrance of things that were; I have no doubt that Wes Anderson is a genius, as he has often been called. I, however, have doubts about my own capacity to focus when things start dragging on, and on, and on. I have a penchant for falling asleep on things that fail to sustain my interest, besides, but that is entirely my fault--I take full responsibility.

You do the math.

4 Whiplash, Damien Chazelle

If you're at all into the arts, if you're a musician, especially, and a drummer, specifically, you must see this film, and there is absolutely no reason why you should not. Pardon the exaggerated language, but I stand by my words. I imagine that your heart, like mine, would be up in your throat for most of the time, because Chazelle delivers in the film-making aspect. Plus J.K. Simmons is intensely fascinating, hateful, and arresting here, and one would wonder why he should best be remembered as that loud, annoying, bossy newspaper head in the first Spider-Man series. With Miles Teller (Andrew), he forms one of the most memorable (if a bit dysfunctional) mentor-student relationships on film. So drop those drumsticks for just a while and catch this film.

A digression: I usually refrain from ranking, but I decided to do it this year, and after I got those 5 out of the way, came the difficult part. I drove myself a little mad trying to decide which of the three films below came first, second, and third, and almost gave up. But because I do enjoy tearing my brains apart (sometimes), here are my top 3:

3 Selma, Ava DuVernay

The film, famously snubbed (in all other categories excepting Best Picture) by the Academy for all the wrong reasons, is a historical drama that chronicles a people's march to unequivocal civil rights, as led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The historical context is not at all tiring--the viewer feels as if he could be right there, in that moment. The film is executed in a way that the viewer does not at all feel wanting, where most of the aspects of film are concerned. The rising action is gripping and the drama is sustained, all throughout. The movie affects without employing excess, and this is an admirable quality in any form that tells the story of a leap from oppression to liberation. David Oyelowo delivers exquisitely; DuVernay has definitely made her mark in film-making history. 

 2 Boyhood, Richard Linklater

This was the first of the nominated movies that I watched, and I was quite taken aback at how wonderfully understated--and beautifully crafted--it was. This is a film where nothing really happens, but so much happens, at the same time. It is both detached and intimate, piecemeal and complete, restrained and moving--you get the drift. It tells so much about one life and all the other lives entwined with it, and with so much gentleness and intricate subtlety about it. Up to now, I'm still hard-pressed to place this where I'm placing it, but meanwhile, I'm letting it stay here.

1 Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu 

Because Michael Keaton's acting is above reproach and praise; because Edward Norton is matchless; because I am straightforward in taking the storyteller's side; because I feel that he is able to say what he wants to say in a manner that is interesting and thought-provoking; because thought-provoking films bring me to uncharted heights; because we all have a Riggan Thomson in us; because cinema and theater will almost always find themselves on opposite sides of a spectrum; because culture is subjective; because, in an effort to explore it in its entirety, I could think about--and talk to someone about--this film for hours and hours on end; because Raymond Carver; because.

What about you? I would love to know what you think.

No more tears

"As I lay next to you in hyperacidity," I sing, in my best imitation of Geoff Tate's unabashedly bass bass, my best imitation being pretty, pretty bad. You snicker, then laugh, and your laughter extends into extended laughter that lasts more than I expect it to. I roll my eyes and giggle. It's 6:19 a.m., and our day has just begun.

There's a turn in the road and you steer; meanwhile, the DJ introduces the next song, saying it's by Better Than Ezra. I say, "T. S. T. S. is better than Ezra." You hoot with laughter and I settle snugly into my seat, secure in the knowledge that I'm the funniest person on earth. Never mind Tina Fey, and never mind the people who laugh, not at my jokes, but at my (almost always) failed attempts to crack them. You--with your usually morose moods and propensity for brooding--think I'm funny, and that's all that matters, where my sense of humor is concerned.

I squint behind my glasses and make a mental note to get a better pair. It hardly ever happens, but today, they start to play "Friends of P." and excitedly, I sing along. From the corner of my eye, I could see you grinning, and I find myself throwing a "thank you" note into the air, for turning us into the pair of (slightly saner) fools that we have become.

Double Vision

I am piecing you together, broken, absent one--you are whole because I say you are.

I think you up in metaphor: the rustle of leaves against a playful breeze, your laughter; this slant of sunlight, your arm; this track's drumbeats, your footsteps. "Hey, Squirt, come here," I hear you say. You are always calling people things. You are always dreaming things up; you are always dreaming. You think people are better than they are. I remember that cold December night when, not having seen each other for years, the first thing you did was scold me about my smoking, and I rethink my life.

Four Minutes, half an hour, an hour. I squint at the page I'm reading--did my heroine really say, "Death is a lie"? My eyes start to strain and I think of eyeglasses, words blurring, a morning, darkening.

Faceless, you brush past me to reach for that book you've been meaning to read since September. My breath catches, I spill my glass and I wait for the page to blot. I had forgotten you are here, and I begin again.

You are here because I say you are. Otherwise, the words I have not yet gotten to remain undisturbed. Otherwise, the page remains dry.

Slytherin has changed, kiddo. The files are saved in my drive.

For RJP. You are missed.

A New Year

My eyes sweep the clutter around me, looking for material, wondering which one goes first, which one goes with what, which one stays where it is--I, who have no gift for organization, whose bed is lined with stray books that have no relation to each other, some odds, some ends, a pencil; who mixes up the days in the calendar; who has no calendar.

But the hand and mind grow more listless as the days pass; the year is about to end, that much I know. I find myself cleaning up, instead.

It is the broken heart that has gathered the most dust, so it is the first to go. Tear-stained records follow suit, and how can that empty beer bottle still be where it is? That corner looks like a good spot for a coffee table and a vase. I'll buy the flowers myself, I'll make sure to say. There were never any flowers. The room echoes with forgotten sobbing. Was there really that much crying? I laugh a little. They need to go, too, these echoes have no business being here. Ah, but this is turning into a more difficult task than I thought, and it wasn't even what I had set myself to do. The things we deliberately lose eventually catch up with us, don't they always? But there are ways to make things easier, there always is.

With haste, I throw things away. The trash bag quickly fills up. A handful of empty pens, strings of sadness, socks that don't match, bits of despair, an armless cup, leftover bitterness, a rusty, blunt-edged knife, a cracked plate, loneliness. I'm almost done.

No. I am done. I crumple one remaining piece of regret and shoot it into the expectant bag. How light it feels, how new.

I look for B. B. King and draw the curtains to let the light in. Here is music, here is sunlight. So much sunlight, beautiful sunlight.

I fix myself a cup of warm, fragrant tea. I am ready for the New Year.

You, there.

I am throwing a smooth, grey stone your way. It will land near your left foot.

You will look up from the book you've been trying to read, take your glasses off, and bend down from your seat to pick the stone up. You will turn it in your hands, wondering where it's from, but only for a little while. You will soon realize it's from me, and you will not find it strange, no, not at all. You will not look for a crack in your roof, you will not wonder about distances. You will not think about strangeness, because you and I have already been to most worlds, together.

You will only think about sunlit gardens, wide straw hats, coffee in the rain, shared seats in flights to nowhere, warm hugs, buttered potatoes, pecks on the nose, foot massages. You will think about The Sundays, you will hear me reciting poetry. You will remember that story I wrote, many years ago. You will think of that story you filled with songs, moonbeams, and stars, wrapped in pretty paper, tied with a bow, and gave me on my birthday. You will mumble to yourself, "I once rescued her from a flood of tears, yes, I did." Because you did.

You will smile, dear one, you will be happy. And if I have to keep throwing stones your way for the rest of this life just to remind you I am here, then that is exactly what I will do, even now, as the bones on my hip start to ache from the weight of years, even if it means I have to plod through decades and dimensions, and walk back miles to where we started.

You will smile, dear one, right this very instant.

The Story I Found: Foo Fighters and Sonic Highways

"There is a river I found---"

- from "Something From Nothing"

In Sonic Highways, there is a man, and the man--broken and a little lost, but looking for answers to his questions, looking for deliverance-- (unwittingly) takes a journey. Something inside him has died, but something in him, too, knows that there is life in the death that has taken place, that there is something hidden in the undergrounds of the world that just might bring him back to life. Along the way, he encounters darkness, more questions, people who are lost in similar and different ways, epiphanies in the most ill-lighted of corners, love both found and lost. He encounters himself along the way, meets himself at the end of every path. Finally, he comes to terms with himself and rekindles the fire that has kept him going, despite the odds, the same fire, stronger now, that will keep him going, henceforth, and his journey comes full circle, in the very fact that he knows and looks forward to the fact that the journey will keep on being.

It is a typical enough story, the story of everyman, after all, but the beauty and grandeur of Sonic Highways is in keeping true with the themes it has set for itself, in delineating a story with a beginning, a rising action, a climax, a denoument, and an ending. Each song is connected both to and with the next one, and each listen brings with it a discovery, so that one can spend entire hours on it, and not get tired of doing so. The words are in keeping with the music, which is brilliantly-written--thanks to the genius of Dave Grohl--and flawlessly-executed, thanks to the talent, skill, and passion of the entire Foo Fighters. The arrangements are dynamic, the riffs play up the narrative, the drumbeats provide both backdrop and heightened action. Sonic Highways is a phenomenal work of music, unabashedly different, and with enough richness as to leave the listener more than satisfied, even with only eight songs in the stash, because the music fleshes out the themes and this sort of thing necessitates a repeat listen, and another, and another.

The one flaw (and another good thing going for it, if you will) in Sonic Highways is that the songs would not be able to stand to their full height without the others. The album is unapologetically contextual, and something gets lost when one song is taken from the other, leaving the listener turning the song over for something more and very possibly not finding, and thereby making the songs un-radio-friendly. Or maybe it's just me talking. I take off from the mistake I made of listening to "Something From Nothing" the moment it came out, and subsequently giving it my full judgement, without giving it the very benefit of the whole. It was only when I got to listen to Sonic Highways in entirety that I saw its richness. From that point, I started raving (mostly to myself) about it, and about the fact that everything now made sense (and what beautiful sense it was!), the way that almost nothing of it did with my "Something From Nothing" one-bite experience.

There were undercurrents of a narrative in Wasting Light, but the Foo Fighters' use of the story-telling device comes full-blast in Sonic. The album excellently spells out the kind of evolution that Foo Fighters has proven itself capable of, time and again, the band's collective effort and incredible energy visible in the entire production. I would say that they have outdone themselves, this time, and have managed to put enough pressure on themselves as to spend the next few years bleeding their brains out in order to top this particular, border-defying work. But knowing Dave Grohl, I now counter my last statement by saying that it will never happen. There's no going dry with that madman. He is most definitely something else.

See if you find the story I did, and if you find something else, do share it with me.

"There is a secret

I found a secret--"

- from "I am a River"

Static

Let me tell you about my recent preoccupation with stasis, about the question of what one is supposed to do with it, about whether one is supposed to do something about it. But then again, will that not negate the stasis, will that not make it something else? I fear I will contradict myself; I often do. I will pause somewhere, I am certain, and I wonder if you will wonder about that pause, you who seem to find blanks in pauses. But know that there is stasis in certain pauses; in others, thoughts, in some, confusion. And then there are those that hide stretches of waiting, variable in length. 

The afternoon could drag on like a tune pretending to be a melody, and I shudder at the thought, for that could mean a chance forever lost. But what am I doing taking chances? There is comfort in stasis.

I will take a sip from my cup of tea, I am sure, I might finger the label at the end of the string and fold it into smaller and smaller shapes, but let me talk to you about you, too, will you? Will you let me, if I could find it in myself to do it, if I could allow myself to leave the safety of my pause? As it is, I have a feeling I will end up (once more) analyzing the stasis in teacups: the subterfuge of stillness resulting from the opposition between teabag and water.

Let me tell you a story I found along the highway, instead. This, I just might be able to pull off.

Older and Better: My Kind of Mr. Big

euphoria. noun - a feeling of great (usually exaggerated) elation

Thank you, mobile phone dictionary, for being so succinct. Euphoria is the very word I would use to describe my Mr. Big experience last October 31st. The build-up of excitement--from the time I found out they were coming over to the very moment they appeared onstage--took a little over two months before culmination, so that meant I had had to suppress that little lump of giddiness for quite a while. Our tickets were purchased two weeks before the date and by that time, I had already consumed enough of their music to fill a medium-sized pool. I am a discography type of person, though I no longer have the luxury of time to "study" each and every album, so I end up singling out and retaining only my favorites from each. A handful was added to my cache of Mr. Bigs, but I still spent so much time listening to them because once a song becomes a favorite, I put it on loop and listen to it enough times for somebody else's ears and patience to burst.

Sadly, though, Mr. Big started out for me as Eric Martin and only Eric Martin, when I was in High School and still very much prone to crushing on celebrity vocalists, Eric Martin not the least of them, if only because he was so deliciously good-looking and had one of the best voices in town. Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan--I used to not see drummers back then, so Pat Torpey was virtually non-existent--were no more than fixtures for me, ignorant little girl that I was, whose idea of music consumption was confined to song and singer, and knowing next to nothing of the other (equally) important details that went with the finished product. All those changed when I got older, but that's another story.

So, anyway, there we were, two hours before the concert, loading up on a few beers, trying to contain the excitement that found (paltry) relief only in sudden exclamations of "I'm so excited I could barely contain it!" And alcohol, so it would seem, because we managed to make it to the arena in one piece. Thankfully, we had prepared ourselves for a delay, being used to waiting as we were, so it didn't appall us as much as the sight of the half-empty (or half-full, for the positive thinkers out there) venue did. I found myself getting more and more dismayed as the minutes ticked by and there didn't seem to be much hope of the arena getting filled. I grew anxious for the band because yes, I'm a little crazy that way. What will they think and how will they feel, poor creatures? What is wrong with people? I questioned the universe for a little while, biting the ends of my fingernails and sighing. The minutes stretched into longer ones and I turned into a huge blob slumped into my seat, watching a big, white guy in denim shorts and a black shirt making last minute check-ups on the set. His long hair was tied in a ponytail and I wondered what his life was like.

When the lights went out and loud, orchestral music filled the room, people started to clap and shout and whistle and I felt the hairs on my nape and arms rise. The band went onstage and took their places and everything else disappeared into a vacuum--I felt myself rising to an all-time high, and the rest is history. Or maybe not. They opened with "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy", played "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind" and "Just Take My Heart" to an audience that could hardly stop itself from singing along, "Alive and Kickin'", "I Forget To Breathe", "Addicted to That Rush", "Take Cover", and some tracks from their new album The Stories We Could Tell, "As Far as I Can See" being my favorite from that album, which I have yet to "study".

Eric Martin wasn't as cute as I remembered him to be (I'm stupid, I already know that), but he was still able to hit the notes, though sustaining them was an altogether different affair; still, he had ways of playing around with the vocals so that he still winged the more difficult songs with flair. Paul Gilbert was his usual brilliant self and the crowd went crazy when he did his solos, but Billy Sheehan ended up the one to take my breath away--so much stage presence, that giant of a man, and those guitar rifts, holy molly! Apparently, he is who Mr. Big took its name from, and this new tidbit delighted me to no end. Pat Torpey, who has been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, still appeared on stage and drummed to "Just Take My Heart" and "Addicted to that Rush". For the rest of the night, his place was filled in by a drummer who was known to me only as "that bald guy". I just recently found out his name was Mark Starr. "To Be With You" and "Wild World" were my two least favorite numbers.

Everything else was a roaring blast, as I had expected--and hoped--it would be. It was a relief that the band did not allow the sight of the empty seats to stop them from being in their element. They soared up to the high ceilings with their energy, more fired up and bigger than I have ever known them to be. There they were, a bunch of wonderfully talented musicians who've been playing for fans for 25 years; there they were, in their mid-fifties and having gone through as much of life's ups-and-downs as any other person could; there they were, older and better. I had a feeling that night was going to imprint itself on me for a while, and was I right. I'm writing this more than a week from that time, and I can still remember how they were, and how I was, watching them.

They didn't play "CDFF Lucky This Time", which is my favorite Mr. Big song, but I ended up not minding, at all. My pool was overflowing and it was one of the best feelings in the world. That night, I went home nostalgic, reminiscing how it was in the 90's, remembering my long, wavy, untreated hair and my afternoon trips to the diner with my friends, the little joys and heartbreaks, the weekends spent reading and waiting for my favorite songs to be played by faceless DJs, the light, airy evenings, wonderful little stuff that only fourteen-and-something-year-olds can know--and I felt young and stupid and happy, all over again. And so it goes that the things we loved and lost but keep loving, anyway, eventually find their way back to us, at some point or another, and music has just the power to bring it all back. And that unforgettable night, Mr. Big made it all happen for me.

Companions

Morning. My thoughts are taking a walk, with I in tow. They are traversing a path strewn with certain hours of certain days. Objects, sights, platforms, smells. Remembered musings appear from corners. Sudden turns yield more images. I find myself having to catch my breath, sometimes, they are going too fast; other times, I stop and turn blank, unmindful of them. Then I would have to break into a run, just so I could keep up. There are times they pause and turn their heads to look at me, willing me to confront their faces and I comply, breathing a sigh of relief, taking a rest from the whirl of strangers and voices and gamuts of feelings. They resume and I follow. We keep walking and I start losing my breath.

By the time we return, I am exhausted, my cup of tea grown cold.

Disagreements

I survey the distance from I to you and stifle a gasp.

The plan is to calculate and come up with sums, but I end up counting differences, instead. For example: your hurried steps plus my tentative ones equal a gap. Or: a definite blank is formed when my flights of fancy meet your appallingly firm hold on all things solid. At least I know I got those right.

Everyday, I wonder, though I almost always resolve to stop poking figures into the air. Because I have never been good with equations; because equations aren't figures one pokes into the air. Or are they?

The law of this states that and the law of that states this--I am mad to think I could make sense of things, though I'm pretty sure that you could. I count the number of squares between us and realize what exhausting shapes they are. So I turn my back and draw circles, instead, wishing I could disappear into them.

I would like to

draw a line on one of your furrowed brows, and make a cut, a cut along your frown. I would like to trace that line.

It cannot be clean, this mess that's to be. You are not a task and if you were, I will never be able to complete you. Are you all straight lines, are we parallel lines? It cannot be so, or so my mind insists, insisting on softness even as I struggle--while feigning non-struggle--with the (imagined) resistance of your surfaces.

I steady my trembling hand; this fear is of my own making. This fear of you is of my own making. My fear is that of recognition: what if I end up seeing you, and yet end up only seeing you? I suspect I will; I am sure I will.

And so I wrap you up in haze, consign you to the shadows; I darken you with words like "cruel" and "lost". I look for safety in my own ignorance, or whatever bliss that's left of it.

I shut you out. I would like to.

Dear--,

There is a distance made of walls and on the other side, you. Where are you, dear friend? How are you? Sometimes, it is a thick slab of glass, opaque, this gap. I feel, hear you stirring, and I wonder if your thoughts mirror mine, like they often do. We are listening to the sound of the rain, falling listlessly, aimlessly. Are we? Is it raining where you are? In the distance, a grand chorale, horse hooves thundering. Listen. Listen, you would say, listen and hear. And I would hear them, I who never think of horses, realize that they are beautiful and grand. Send me a line, share this breakfast with me, for it tastes like sadness where I am. Where are you? Help me break this wall of glass--surely, it can be done? We've done it before. We've been saved once, and again, and again. Talk to me about angels, talk to me about grace. You are moving my fingers to write. You are here.

These days, I spend a lot of time watching you. I'm not entirely certain if it has something to do with the years I didn't get to spend with you, like they are something I have to make up for. Maybe it does. Maybe they are.

Now, I watch you pace the length between here and there and wonder how far you've gone from where you are.

Is it true, what you say, that the number of times you stir your coffee makes a difference? Does it take more of the bitterness away, the more circles you make? I wonder.

You are looking at the road and I am looking at you. To your left, a darkly tinted window; to its left, an unrecognizable twilight. I realize that I don't mind if it is so, at all. I trace your profile with my eyes.

I couldn't bring myself to stop at four segments; and so I write you down again.

Because your birthday is coming up, I will write about our garden

We agree that someday, we will have a garden, and that garden will have: lots of green grass; a perennially mild sun, whose light plays on glass tabletops; five old, friendly trees with trunks as thick as years; nice, wooden chairs with brown cushions for seats; unread books kept in a woven basket; pink and red flowers that are perpetually in full bloom; a wisteria-wrapped bower.

And a huge, yellow-and-white striped umbrella, of course.

We agree that it will never rain in that garden unless we wish for it to rain, and only after we've put the books and the cushions away.

We agree that we will wear big, straw hats when we sit in that garden to talk, or read, and those hats will be identical. I have picked out an ensemble of long, white skirts and frilly white tops, and it's up to you whether you would choose to stick to the floral shirts you'd said you would wear for those daily breathers. It's not too late to change your mind.

We agree that I can laugh to my heart's delight at anything you say that I might find funny. My laughter will ring and rise and be loud, unlike how it is now--muffled, silent, almost-- while you're there, and I'm here.

We agree that the only thing we will argue about are the books we've already read; we will never argue about politics, or about how good, or bad, people can be, and you will never disagree with me when I say that life isn't always all that bad, because once upon a time, you had told me so yourself, and just because you are very sad right now doesn't mean you will always stay that way.

We agree that crying is allowed, but only if we are both there. We will each keep a hankie in our pockets.

We agree that there will always be warm tea and cold water. I will fix you fresh garden salads, and we will already have sworn off junk food, by then. You will absolutely not be allowed to eat anything that's bad for you--delivery of any sort doesn't reach that part of the world.

We agree that in that garden, we will have all the time in the world to talk about our favorite writers, the movies we've seen and want to see, poetry and loveliness, how complicated relationships can get, Woody Allen, Fiction. We will take our time making plans, like dropping by Paris for cups of coffee; watching the rain soak my sandal-strapped feet at an outdoor restaurant in Prague; hugging in a crowded mall for half an hour; attending a conference in, say, New York, and sharing a plane seat, just for laughs.

We agree that we will not wear watches; the sun, setting, will be the only clue that it is time to go indoors. We can always choose to stay until evening, however--there will be lamps, and candles, and watercress sandwiches.

We agree that in that garden, I will always be 18, and you, 24. There will be no such thing as aching limbs, or wrinkles, or brittle bones, or failing eyesight. Never.

We agree that we can keep coming back to that garden forever, or until one of us decides we don't want to, anymore. Even then, one of us just might still keep dropping by for a peek, to take the chance that the other might be sitting there, reading.


For L--

Because I do not know which scary place my thoughts will take me to.

This is how I know I'm not all right; this is how--and when--I know you're not with me: no matter how late the hour and no matter how drowsy I am, I feel almost afraid to go to bed without popping a pill.

You wonder.

You wonder about the storm, wonder about the things it may have taken with it when it went away. The dust, the prayers, the hours, the night, the morning. You wonder about roofs, floors, houses. You wonder about children. You wonder about sadness.

You wonder about rain, trickling down glass windows, wonder about rain, whipping at shut doors.

You wonder about overflowing rivers, wonder about books and plastic cups washed away by flood, wonder about wet, shivering skin, about fear, helplessness, loss. You wonder about hope beneath a torrential rain, hope against the wind's merciless lashing, hope despite them.

You wonder about words--do you describe the wind as "howling", "roaring", or "wailing"? You wonder about meaning; you wonder about meaninglessness.

You wonder about the trees: some, uprooted and fallen, streaking the grey streets green; the others, leaning low against the sides of roads, nodding even as the air momentarily keeps still. You wonder about puddles.

You wonder about the blank look on people's faces as they walk under a drizzle, you wonder about their thoughts.

You wonder about darkness and light, wonder about the correct way to strike a match to light a candle, and how there is loveliness in the sound. You wonder how you can think of loveliness at a time like this.

You wonder why the sun shines the way it does right now. You wonder why you wonder.

You wonder what will come next.

Passage, or something like that

There's an element of strangeness in it: being half in love with something for as long as one can remember and then, one day realizing one doesn't like it anymore. This was the case with my (erstwhile) addiction to coffee and sadness. One morning, I woke up, fixed myself my usual cups of caffeine and gloom and, after a few sips, decided I wanted no more of both. 

I poured them into the drain, turned the water on, pelted the sink with disinfectant, and scrubbed with more force than usual. 

I went out to buy some tea and bask in the sunlight.

Variation on a theme: Daphne and Apollo

You have betrayed me, Eros.

You have sent me

my true love.

- Louise Gluck, "The Reproach"

Waning, trembling, loss of breath: the first signs of the permanence that will become the end of this story.

Picture woodland, Dear Reader, imagine trees with whorled roots, and leaning branches; picture sunlight and comforting shade; picture the occasional brook, silver rivulets crossing brown earth and clusters of green grass; the sky must be a blinding blue, for it cannot be otherwise, the mind will always insist on blueness; let the breeze be a delicious balm--in the beginning, at least. Isn't this how most stories start, after all?

Or imagine the city, if you will, the city with its absent stillness. I prefer the woods, but do what you must.

STICK TO THE STORY. A reprimand. There should always be a reprimand.

The mind is where the chase leads; the mind is where the chase is, and I begin:

The shadows lengthen as the day loses ground. Two shadows, they were, and one of them was faceless.

MIND YOUR TENSES.

At the body's swiftest, the limbs persevere, and the mind endures.  Soon, twilight, herald of night. Soon, the wind; soon, the truth. YOU ARE GETTING AHEAD OF YOURSELF. But it is a race, is it not?

IT IS A CHASE.

I erase a word and replace it with the same word and think that I am discovering newness. It is a form of madness. I look out the window and see a small, round moon. I think it is more yellow than white, but then I change my mind.

One shadow fleeing from the faceless one, from the impermanent one, he whose being is always a makeshift one. I come up with a list of adjectives: transient, shifting, short-lived, they. They is not an adjective. Impermanent, then.

And that was why I ran. An epiphany.

WHO IS THE SPEAKER HERE? A reprimand.

The other shadow, breaking, then, turning into someone else, breaks again.

Daphne, dazzled by a slice of brilliance, finds herself turning--

That was not in the outline. That sentence pushed its way from below, from somewhere unseen. That sentence was an insistence I did not foresee. It begs to be italicized, but I would rather look the other way. It was I, after all, who was dazzled, it was I who turned; it was I who mistook that slice of brilliance for light. There is no outline.

WHO IS THE SPEAKER HERE? There should always be a reprimand.

It never ends. I cannot have you follow me this way.

WHO IS THE You HERE? But must there always be a reprimand?

I have (finally, finally) taken the great myth and torn it apart.

You are the tree that I want to become.

The Walk Home

what surprises you most in what you feel,

earth's radiance or your own delight?

- Louis Gluck

The lamps were lit, the street was pale yellow, and my steps were unhurried as I walked.

I was thinking, it is no longer the night that's catching up with me; it is I who's catching up with the night. I was remembering a particular moment--daybreak, it was--when you made me realize twilight no longer made me sad, the way it used to, for a very long time.

A small, unforeseen smile, a quickening in my chest, the deep, languorous texture of evening--an aqueous joy was rushing through my veins, and I felt light, like a murmur, or a ripple. A faint memory of, of--something brushed my left cheek, and was gone before I could give it a name. The word/s seemed far away, too blurry for me to make out. Or was it a breeze?

I laughed, out loud, and the sound echoed upward, toward the sky (like I knew what sky meant), like my laughter always does when I am laughing, and happy. I felt my heart swell with anticipation. Just a few more steps and I would turn the corner that led to you.

Thoughts of hot tea, of music and books, of hope and love, wafted in my mind like promises about to be fulfilled. I brushed back some wisps of hair that fell over my eyes and quickened my pace. Awake and pensive, by the light of the furtive moon, I knew you were waiting.

Story

Sacred and unutterable Mind

flashing thorough the universe one thought,

- John Berryman

Let me tell you how it happened:


My foregoing thoughts of you: did we have to be all those? I cannot let go of this loveliness, all blurry and countless, unlike

the wondering I had done: oh, let me, let me ask, where? Where

are/ you/ are you

(in) the things I had seen you in: streets and highways, titles in bookshops, random twilights, a handful of rainy days, this solitary tree,

the accidental skein of prayers: let me ask you one final question, or be, or here, my love, here--

converged into one dazzling, lushly flickering light.


And you, beloved, were, one enunciated night, licked by the sudden warmth of a far-reaching flame. From the immeasurable--because, with time, turned into something unseen--distance, you crossed the rift between before and after. And by crossing, you sealed the hollow, drawn as you were by the brilliance: a known strangeness, yes? Beckoned, you came.

Summoned, you arrived.

And here is the afterglow: you and I, 

here.

Summer

Daybreak. Pale rays of light cleave (your) consciousness into humid halves. Edges start to blur. A book of poetry, sprawled on your left thigh, disappears as your lids finally drop.

Slumber and desire are both fluid--

The ceiling, dock to your longing: this will be your first thought when you open your eyes again, hours later. Oh, merciless heat. When and where, deliverance? A dull ache lingers as a montage of tarnished dreams dissipates from your mind, but

--so let me flow--

not yet. Meanwhile, your mind roams in unbearable brightness, through tepid skin and agitated hands, above rising, and rising heights, underneath the glow of distant moonlight and alongside a frugal, sultry breeze, through restlessness and crawling mist. A dark, nameless hunger, an absent stasis. The eyes seek dim corners, entanglements. Blue lights flit about.

A specter of you, faceless, all brilliance--

On surfaces, sweat breaks, and breaks, and breaks into tiny, oppressive beads and

you dream of skies unfastening,

of you, opening

of rain falling on parched ground, of you catching the drops finally, finally, with your

tongue.

Interlude

Mo chuisle, you have come back.

Rest now, dear heart. Rain has laced the evening with crystal drops; look at how they shimmer in the moonlight. The night has shed away its mournfulness, and is once more fragrant with promise.

Do not keep this brightening at bay; let yourself be consumed by its radiance.

Tomorrow's sunlight waits. Love hovers at your fingertips.

Debris

Slanted stems of sunlight bathe the room in the aftermaths of a stowaway morning, and my eyes catch movement, elsewhere. Elsewheres are faraway places. A quick brush, an agitation of sorts, the noiseless rustle of absence. One more hand slices into the stillness and I realize it is the mirror, stirring: the mirror is the explanation, and my hand is in it. There doesn't always have to be a reason. I look, and my elbow materializes.

That is my wrist, and that is my hand. The sunlight lingers, waiting. My fingers are flipping through the pages of a slim volume; my fingers are looking for a memory. There is no face, and I move away, grateful. You will only find that which you really look for. The air hangs heavy with what comes next. And I'm sorry, but there are no more gaps I can put you in. 

Hand and book disappear, reappear, and I scoop them out of the mirror.

Somewhere, mute, small and distant, a misplaced hollowness. Here, the poem I was looking for.

Your Franz Ferdinand Shirt

And indeed, there will be time...

There will be time, there will be time.

- from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

A girl and a boy once roamed the city under sun and starlight. Their portion of the years, once swallowed by the city, are now resurfacing into a single moment. Once upon a time, the girl and the boy drifted into parallels and disappeared into the years. But some sleight of hand, hosts of cogent thoughts, some vagrant wish, a strange, mute sadness--they will never know which, or that even all of these--have driven the years away and pulled, tilted them into a single point.

The girl and the boy are now talking about a shirt. The girl is telling the boy about her dream, because the shirt--and the boy--were in it. They are laughing, and in their laughter, their thoughts are careening backward into another time. The boy is remembering a Thursday, the girl, a Saturday. They were both in those days. As they talk, they are thinking of each other, and they are bending back into each other. Now, they are starting to grope around for the lost years, inching their way into them, picking up the luminous fragments and handling them in a circumspect way, avoiding the cracks on the floor, kicking the shards away. 

In this moment, they are not aware that the wounds have healed, or that they were ever there. They are not thinking about healed wounds; they are not thinking about wounds, at all. They are asking each other about the last movie they saw, about the books they have read. The boy is telling the girl about the book he finished two days ago; about how, upon shutting it, he had found himself wishing he were also shutting her memory forever, because the years have failed to do that. "But here I am," the girl says, and the boy replies, "no you're not here. You're there, I'm here. And I want to be there." The girl hesitates, then laughs, and the boy does, too. They are walking around the gaps.

They start talking about something else.

Grace

She caught her by the wrist and said, "Your wings are bleeding."

Startled, Czarina slowed her steps down and looked beyond her right shoulder. All she saw were sunlight, some trees, the sidewalk, a lamp post, and a man, sitting on a bench, reading a book. She stopped and stood where she was, staring at her right wrist where the woman had touched her, remembering the distinct whiff of cold air that seemed to have brushed past her when she was touched. The woman. It was a woman's voice she had heard, and the words had been spoken in an unmistakably feminine way.

She felt her heartbeat start to slow down; it had accelerated to an alarming pace two, three minutes ago. She walked to a nearby bench and sat down, finding relief in the familiarity of wood. Your wings are bleeding.

She gingerly touched her right shoulder blade with her left hand and winced a little. It still felt sore, and she could picture flowers blooming on it. Some were purple, others, bright red. Rudy. He had planted the blooms on her skin; he had imprinted himself on her consciousness for always. She had cowered and cried, remembering other pains and hearing other insults, feeling them again, hearing them again.

She thought it would never end, and she was right. Bathed in daylight and so many hours removed from that evening, she knew that it was still happening. Her heart, she felt, was still breaking; her soul, bleeding. She wiped the tears on her cheeks with the back of her right hand and made a decision. She was going to look for a new place.

She stood up and started walking down the path, thinking of angels and dreaming of flight.

Here is your line.

He sank into the couch like an old friend and lit a cigarette. His pockets were full of unused scripts, obscure facts, and cryptic notes; most of them, hoarded from walls and pavements, a few, borrowed from random years, none of them useful, except when it really mattered, none of them hollow, except where the edges began. He watched the smoke float aimlessly in the space between him and the cream-painted wall, like a nameless shadow looking for a place to go, looking for a parallel to press itself against, and he wondered at these thoughts; he knew they didn't make sense.

Outside, the darkness lingered like wine in a glass.

She threw her head back, laughing at something he had said, and she felt the space between them turn into undulating rings, becoming smaller, and smaller, and smaller. And in her mind, she was thinking, will there ever be a question I can throw at you that you cannot answer?

"Probably not," he said.

"What?" She blinked, twice, wondering if she had asked the question out loud. She was sure she had not.

"Forget it," he grinned. "Are you somewhere else, again?"

"No," she shook her head. "I'm right here."

They started talking about The Beatles and as she listened to him speak, she remembered other conversations in other places, other days, another year. It occurred to her that they had both become different people, but then, afterwards, wondered if they had stayed the same, all along. She was a lost child who had insisted on clutching at the same straws, and in one way or another, she would turn to him for answers to questions, for when nights got too dark and things that were lost became irretrievable, blackened out.

She had a tendency to slip away; he was a drifter who knew his way about, and always found his way back. She was liquid; he was the breeze. She felt like he could see through her, somehow, could read between her confused billows. She constantly found herself struggling against waves and waves of untold stories, in storms both real and imagined, in self-made whirlpools, in conjured images of drowning, in nightmares of frighteningly high tides. And she would always come back up, gasping for air.

Conversations with him were balms to her many wounds, and listening to him talk, she realized that it was really she who had dreamed up the unused scripts, the obscure facts, the cryptic notes. It was really she who looked at the smoke for more than what it was. It was she whose thoughts were looking for a place to go, it was she who was looking for parallels, and she knew that these thoughts didn't make sense, at all.

Not yet.

Meanwhile, they talked about Beethoven.

Segment

A door in the mind closes, its sound barely perceptible. It may never leave an imprint in the memory, may never be heard, may never be felt. But in some random series of seconds, when the mind is at the crest of wakefulness, it comes back, that previously unnoticed wafting of a slight breeze, that faint click of the knob.