To render strings of scenes from your head
into words on paper
that another person could read in order
to recreate the voice of someone unmet,
and at the same time be presented beautifully and clearly;
to choose the right words making the right phrases
making the right sentences making the right paragraphs
making the right chapters, and to have these chapters
interweave into a cohesive story that manages to
fulfil the reader and make him feel
joy, sorrow, despair, or hope;
is insanely meticulous,
and inanely ridiculous.

And to come up with characters
that need to feel alive:
to have to be so many people at once,
each with their own dreams, wants,
thoughts, feelings, identities,
and treasured memories,
how can one not explode?
How can a mind not erode?

And of all the hobbies, passions or pastimes
a human being can engage in—
from juggling chainsaws on a tightrope
to playing the piano while  painting yourself playing the piano
to sculpting a hypercubic klein bottle,
nothing is as delicately difficult
as juggling a thousand possibilities of plot
on a swinging tightrope of self-doubt
while playing the instrument of your vocabulary
to paint a scene revealing itself magically
all the while sculpting an entire universe(!)
piece by piece from the flesh and bone of your own
pregnant imagination.

Who, then, but only the most idiotic,
brave, ambitious, and diabolic self-haters and self-lovers
would write a book?
It's a noble task, to be sure,
for without its fair dose of literature,
mankind would crumble and un-create
back to the unthinking, unfeeling dirt from which it is made.

Why do we need to read?

A silly question. It's for the same reason we need to breathe.

But some people can't read. And lots of people who can read don't even bother to. Am I saying they do not breathe?

No, but I like to think of reading as an "acquired necessity."

It's like an acquired taste like wine or cheese, but once it enters your life, you find that you can no longer live without it, and you wonder how you ever existed before it...

I guess in a lot of ways, Love is an acquired necessity as well.

This world is right;
I'm nothing after all.

(The night is bright
with millions of my dreams
holding me safe)

Up on the sky
I dangle on a rope
above the smoke of today's defeat.
What's tomorrow but another retreat?

(If I could fly
into your thoughts tonight
and if I could find
one warm memory of me
then all the stars can die
for I will be alright.)

Here comes the Wake
eating up the light
that clothes me.
Soon enough I'll find myself
gasping on my bed,
wondering
"Am I alive or am I dead?"

(Just hold on tight
my dreams, my love, my light;
I'll come for you all one day
Through all these narrow rooms
where despair and darkness looms.
I'll find a way to smile
In the shadow
Thanks to the thought of you.)

I thought today would be terrible, but it wasn't so bad. Everything's alright.

I don't know what it is. Even if I passed a hundred couples holding hands today, the spaces between my fingers did not ache . Even if the scent of other roses perfumed my solitary air, I felt no sorrow in being alone.

I sat behind Her, the motor of my heart, today in the library and I felt my heartbeat. We never talked but I felt content just being so close.

Even if I'm watching the full moon by myself, I'm chipper tonight. She's my Valentine my best Valentine my brightest Valentine, and the world is still.

It was a hot, sunny, summery day, and the fire trees were in bloom. Their red leaves littered the streets with sunset though the midday light cast contrast on every little awning and ledge.

You were hanging out by the Big Brother store, talking to the friendliest shopkeeper I ever knew, drinking soda and listening to his stories.

From far away I thought you were a boy; your hair was cut so short. It was the first time I ever saw a girl without long hair, and ordinarily I would have been curious, but I had other problems, as you knew. As my little feet marched closer to the store I saw (though I tried to keep my head down) your face, which was so pretty with your huge luminous eyes and your fair soft skin.

I was twelve back then, though, and so were you, so those weren't exactly the things on my mind as I reached the awning of the store, facing the storekeeper and trying my best to get it over with. I was disappointed because you were there; that there was another person to see me. I was even more shy back then than I am now.

I must have made quite the curious first impression on you, huh?

As I said, it was a hot summer's day, and the sky was robin's egg blue, and there I was beside you, about to purchase some juice and biscuits.

And I was soaking wet with water.

My hair and my clothes were heavy and dark and drooping, as if I had just been submerged in a river with all my clothes on. A trail of tiny blue puddles followed me from the gate of our house to where I was, where a big puddle was forming under my feet. I was frowning.

You just stared at me with wide eyes as I told the shopkeeper what I was going to buy. Straight to the point. Oh, and back then I couldn't speak Filipino very well, and so my words had an outlandishly English accent. The friendly shopkeeper was used to it, but you definitely didn't hear me speak Filipino every day. He didn't even ask me why I was giving birth to puddles. He was cool like that.

He handed me the juice and the biscuits. Great. I could splosh back home. But I hazarded to look at you, so ever so shyly I turned my head to look and remember who it was that saw me so I could avoid her.

Then oh man, I blushed. I didn't know you were that pretty with your short hair and your wide eyes and your fair skin.

I'll never forget it; how right then and there you lost it. All this time you were biting your lip while watching me, but then you just giggled and laughed and bent over and laughed some more. I was so embarrassed, but now as I sit remembering that moment, I realise how happy and innocent your laugh was.

Then I made like a dish with a spoon and ran away in a blush as red as the fire trees. I hoped I would never see you again, but of course I did.

I did, sometime later, when we were older, and I remembered you. You didn't let off that you remembered me from sometime past, but I couldn't miss the way you half-smiled and held back a chuckle after you studied my older face.

I never did tell you why I was dripping that day. You never asked. You're cool like that. I swear though, that someday when we meet again I'll tell you, but for now it's my little secret, and you'll be the first to know.

And oh how I was in love with you and, I think, always will be.

All the time I keep asking myself
“Is she worth all this suffering for?”
I stare at your picture—
Smiling through those deepest eyes of yours
—and after crying until the ocean in my heart is dry,
I somehow manage to convince myself that
“Maybe not… There will be others like her
I should stop weeping and be happy.”

And all goes well for a while.

But darling I have learned
Through years of this charade
That it is as futile as throwing stones into the sky
To taste the air for a little while,
For they will fall back to the ground
As inevitably as my thoughts fall back to you.

In moments sublime, with the crash and play
Of picturesque peace and beauty,
Through association, I see you,
And I wish you were beside me.
In the deepest of my thoughts,
In the stillest of my dreams,
You are my archetype of Love,
And of everything that is desired in life.

And I rationally fear
That a mere lifetime’s width of painful edges
Cannot cut this emotion
That runs deeper than my heart is capable of.

And of all the universes out there,
Why am I in one where you don’t love me?

It’s just another world without you—
Empty as the outside of Time.

It’s now but another hollow street
When you disappeared into your serene retreat.

This galaxy of elegy and commemoration,
These yesteryear’s cheers of annual celebration,

How can they keep rolling,
How can I keep going, independent of your forgoing?

These voices have no weight and these stories have no soul
Your conversations, your smiles, were all I cared to know

And now, as good as any gravestone
your faceless face now hangs alone—

Framed in my heart for all to see
I love you: Please come back to me.