You hope that university will answer all of life’s questions, but nope.

I don’t know, I.

There was a guy who’d been hanging around outside our residence lately. Too consistently. At first, I thought he was someone’s friend but he’s always alone. He wasn’t doing anything or bothering my roommates, but that asymmetry set off my alarms.

He looked at me once (which I suppose isn’t a crime), I think, it was quick - a blink of sharp curiosity. I mentioned it to Charles who took his picture. The next morning he said the guy’s a legit student who has no criminal record, so maybe I’m all wrong.

Every girl’s encountered a creep or two before. They’re seemingly everywhere, as if mandated by law, like auto insurance. Most girls develop a sixth sense, a creep-dar. Nowadays, creeps have a new name, “incel” ("involuntary celibate") and they’re a recognized, online subculture. Next, they’ll have a coat of arms proclaiming, “We Would if We Could.” It’s as if awkwardness, a normal human foible, has been distilled into something dangerous.

Although the campus looks like a garden or a perfectly manicured ‘stepford’ park, we joke that it’s really a locked-down, patrolled, surveilled compound, with guards, cameras and card-key access to everything. Which, I suppose, is all to the good.

Our creeper wasn’t there Friday, and he wasn’t there today, so maybe he was nothing.

I don’t know, 2.

I was in Sunny’s room. We were going shopping in a few. There was a little pink book on her bed - a diary!! I’d never seen it before and it was open, about three-quarters of the way. She too-casually moved to scoop it up, like the neglected book of a sorcerer.

My GOSSIP-dar Alerted like a class bell. “Hmm” I hummed, head-tilted, then I laughingly lunged for the book.
Sunny’s eyes went wide for 3-billionths of a second and she snapped it up with the speed of a striking cobra, “That’s MINE” she said, rigid with seriousness.
“What’s going ON?!” I asked, but she shoved it into her night table.
Another mystery!
‘Sleeping dogs,’ I thought to myself.

It was an idle evening
And I was sitting in the lap of Past
Resting my head on her chest
As she slightly moved her hands through my hair.

I told her about....when I painted
With colours and brushes....a colourful world of mine
When canvas and sheets were drenched with bright colours
Bright colours like red, yellow, green, orange and so on.

But now...I can't even recognize them
They are lost in some dusty drawers
Somewhere I can't even remember
Now I live in a world of black and white
White pages drenched with black ink...

Did I lose my bright colours?
Or am I just homing in this black and white world of mine?

My diary says the stories and words that i never had the courage to say but these words are always gonna remain the way they were meant to be ...

Untold.

I meet you daily at a train station around St. Cook’s,
today you wore that weary traveler look,
struggling to carry a backpack by its slender hook,
looking through a corner of my eye that you may have mistook.

Finding a seat by the window,
standing in front as I could see only your shadow,
offering to give you my place as though I did owe,
smiling almost to yourself,
yet choosing to forego.

Your name must have been the sky,
as your eyes were as blue,
just as the ocean reflecting the sky,
meeting you by chance and I don’t know why,
sadness in your eyes is not something I could allay,
load off your shoulder is all I could take away,
can’t do nothing more than wonder and pray.

Someday I will know you more on your journey faraway,
on this non-stop ride we choose to be on everyday.

I miss my place,
I miss my people.
Want to hug them so tight,
Before the tears reach my cheeks.
Want to sleep on her lap,
Cry on his shoulder,
And  annoy him,
My mom,my dad, and my bro,
I'm missing you and love you so.

I write with a pink Bic now

My phone is white and out of storage and I’m not connected to the
   cloud because it freaks me out, so every time I delete a picture, she
   asks “are you sure?” And I “delete anyway”
My high school best friend’s cousin’s husband just died and I’m
   wondering why I’m weeping for a kin I never grew akin to, a mere
   stranger, a subtle blip in my matrix. But his poetry
   is beautiful, I know that. And his music is beautiful, I know that.
I drank a root beer float tonight and the night before, or did I eat it? It
   reminded me of buying 99 cent slushes at Convenient. Or the
   “healthy” slushes I bought to accompany my soft pretzel everyday
   in middle school.
On the terrace, everyone else ate hot dogs and I looked down,
   holding my soggy French fries and wondering what else there is out
   there besides ketchup and mustard: like in Princess Diaries when
   Julie Andrews puts mustard on her corndog. I always thought
   that was so cool.
Or when Mia Thermopolis sit sideways in her giant comfy chair after
   throwing darts at balloons filled with paint aka “stupid cupid stop
   picking on me” or is it… “hitting on me”
Remember when Ben Day asked for pictures and when you sent cute
   selfies in your sports bra, he responded, “okay, but can they not be
   of your face?”
Or when Ben Wilson taught you that “hurt people hurt people” and
   had “ultra conservative” on his Facebook page underneath political
   views and you had go ask what that meant. I Corinthians 1:13 or
   something like that was always my favorite bible verse because its
   the only one I ever learned by heart.
Hail Satan.
We all rot under late capitalism.
But I didn’t know that then. I know that now, but not then.
Now I wonder mostly about the ethics behind “procreating.” I wanna
   bear fruit, but I can’t even stand the thought of myself burning in a
   fiery pit, let alone my spawn.
But,
My stepsister is pregnant. She found out the “gender” today, “boy.”
   My nieces and nephews have had a very gendered upbringing, I
   guess I did too: barbies and bratz and Betty spaghetti.
I know everyone always says they just want a “healthy, happy baby”
But I have a crippling nicotine addiction and manic depression, I’m
   not healthy or happy.
Do you think I was the idea my parents pictured when my mom peed
   on that stick and got a plus sign?
Probably not.
I hate to disappoint.
They can live in the glory days when my cursive handwriting was
   better than anyone else’s in my second grade class. Olivia Layne
   Ulmer on that brown, dotted, lined paper.

With a yellow no.2 pencil.

The day snuck up on me this year
Five years is starting to feel long
You're no longer my yesterday
Darling you're just gone

they say growing up is a trap,
but what about never growing at all?

I think it may be worse to miss out on all the heartache and pain that comes with being alive because in all that suffering, is where you find yourself

growth hurts,
every limb and vein in your body as if you're being pulled apart,
but from darkness always comes something far more beautiful and then after all of it,
you're still here

rather than stay sheltered and safe and comfortable,
I think I'd rather feel it all

all the risks I've ever taken
or hardships life has thrown at me,
or moments so wonderful they imprinted my soul,
have been more painful and beautiful and just so very worth it
I wouldn't change a thing

Pero paano kapag si teacher naman ang nangailangan ng tulong?
Paano kapag si teacher naman ang nahirapan?
Paano kapag hindi na rin maintindihan ni teacher ang mga pangyayari?
Paano kapag si teacher mismo napagod na?
Paano kapag ubos na ang pasensya ni teacher?
Sinong iintindi sa kanya?
Mauunawaan ba siya ng mga musmos na nangangapa pa lang sa buhay?
Paano kung si teacher mismo naliligaw?
Kaya bang sagipin ni teacher ang sarili niya?
Kakayanin niya ba?
Kaya niya pa ba talaga?
Kaya niya ba talaga?