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Sa pagdating **** napabalita
Unang sulyap palang namangha na

Gayak na sinauna
Sa paningin mahalina
Musikang kaytanda na
Sa pandinig mahiwaga

Mahalaga ang gabi
Simula ng pagsaksi
Kwento kong inabangan
Hatid niyang kasaysayan

Sa aking talambuhay
Gabing iyon may saysay
Nasa pagtitipon
Mga kaklase noon

Kapitbahay inuman
Masaya ang kwentuhan
Subalit ako’y saglit
Umuwi sa malapit

Iyon ay dahil batid ko
Simula na ng kwento
Ng kanyang unang yugto
Gabing Trenta ng Mayo

Mula nang araw na ‘yon
Pagsubaybay tradisyon
Naging makabuluhan
Likhang pampanitikan

Subalit ‘di naglaon
Nawalan telebisyon
‘Di hadlang gayunpaman
Sa radyo’y pinakinggan

Mula pagkabinukot
Hanggang aliping tulot
Babaylang naging ****
Mandirigmang pinuno

Nilupig at nanlupig
Inusig at nang-usig
Natulig at nanulig
Inibig at umibig

Nagtago at naglakbay
Namatay at nabuhay
Tinanggap at nagpanggap
Naghirap at nilingap

Sakay ng karakoa
Tinungo ibang banwa
Naghanda sa pagbalik
Upang ganti’y ihalik

Sa mabagsik na raha
Na pumatay sa ama
Sa pinunong baluktot
At sa harang nanalot

Mangubat at Angaway
Mga rahang kaaway
Lamitan na ninanay
Nais siyang maging bangkay

Sa kahuli-hulihan
Lahat sila’y talunan
Sa babae ng tagna
Walang iba – Amaya

Salamat, umalagad
Maging hanggang sa sulad
Salamat, kapanalig
Laban sa manlulupig

Salamat, Uray Hilway
Mga tinuran gabay
Salamat kay Bagani
Pag-ibig nanatili

Salamat sa Banal na Laon
Diyos ng mga ninuno noon
Kina Amaya’y panginoon
Tagapagpala ng kanilang nayon

Ang dulo ng epikong kapapanaw
Akala’y ‘di na matatanaw
Salamat sa unang Christmas bonus
May TV na bago taon ay matapos

Mahalaga rin ang gabi
Katapusan ng pagsaksi
Huling yugtong tinunghayan
Ang kamatayan ni Lamitan

Sa aking talambuhay
Gabing iyon rin ay may saysay
Nasa huling burol at lamayan
Bago at matapos subaybayan

Iyon ay kakaibang alaala ko
Sa katapusan ng kwento
Ng kanyang huling yugto
Biyernes – Trese ng Enero

Nagbrown-out pa nga
Habang oras ng balita
Buti nalang at umilaw
Sa tuwa ako’y napahiyaw

Sa pagtunog ng huling musika
At paggalaw ng katapusang eksena
Bukas TV at radyo
Sa makasaysayang mga tagpo

Ngayong gabi ng paglikha
Ng tulang handog sa programa
Unang gabing kapani-panibago
Dahil wala na sa ere ang paborito ko

Subalit ang Alaala ni Amaya
Mga gayak, musika, tauhan at kultura
Mga aral, tinuran, inspirasyon at ideya
Mananatiling buhay sa aking diwa!

-01/16-17/2012
(Dumarao)
*missing my favorite program
My Poem No. 93
Juno Dec 2020
Oh, the sweet warm nights of summer;
     barefoot on the pavement but for once it doesn’t burn,
          walking side by side under the newly born night.
I reach out to hug you and i laugh as i realize
     your hair still smells of chlorine from the pool.
Amaya Bhavya Oct 2014
I remember how he walked through the door;
How sunnily it begun.
I remember the white color of his shirt on which DPS GANDHINAGAR was written.
I remember his crooked smile and also his sweet words.
I remember how he said 'Hey,Amaya'; While I blushed and flushed!
He simply became my crush.
I remember thinking that for life he was mine,when suddenly my dreams were crushed.
There was lot of pain and ache and sorrow,And I remembered how sunnily it had begun.
After crying over him for months I found someone whom I loved.
Then came another storm,it took him away from me for forever and I didn't care;
For I had learned what infatuation was!

Then I got to know that Roger Federer is the one.
st64 Sep 2013
where are women really safe?
how is it that society-collect FAILS
as humanity stumbles yet again.. and again?
our lady-folk are not safe..


Amaya-
bai* finds little comfort but in sibilant-twin
as no eye of sun nor ginoo laid eye on this binukot

Olga is the silent-saint; believes in charity at home
yet chaos ensues too easily - she is wronged and just gets.. lost in the system

Zandile fetches precious amanzi in her sun-soaked calabash
her vigilant-sister falls.. roving guerrilla-men from the river's edge

Michelle, la petite belle, survives the daily-grind via low-coin
tubes to Champs-Élysées as assistante-de-pharmacie

Aadita,  from the outset at 15, dons a veil hiding ****** acid-burns
she has some relative-luck to escape sati later on

Amy with downtrod-heart, grabs the tram to downtown family
wearing dark glasses and gloves on rainy-day blues

Emiko graced (yet cursed) with beauty struggles with ancient-practice
despite the ban, silent-suffering lotus-gait in the tiny village

Aisha may be alive but not well from ethnic-marking tragedy
as irugu are outcast from all-too prevalent gishiri-cruelty




might as well take a trip to Vladivostok
or be dumped in a sarcophagus
beneath the Pyramids
safer there








S T - 27 sept 2013 - *freitag
and the list goes on.. femicide / dowry killing / ****** slavery / breast ironing / bride burning / violence / **** (marital, date, genocidal, corrective, etc)

oh.. the practices, the wicked practices of the wayward-thinking on females of the world :(



Prime minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi said, "If a whole community is involved in this practice, you cannot jail an entire community. You have to change the mindset, and that takes time."

how long, still? how much more of suffering and death..?
can a figure cover it?




sub: fly to the sun

1.
fly to the sun
bird's eye view
of
rivers a-shimmer and mountains a-hulk

2.
no pandering to weird-wishes
of anyone

inhale tranquil-life
just the trees in the forest

3.
beauty
in
leaves

fly to the sun
No el mar, sino esta fuente junto al mar.
Y la ciudad, detrás. (Qué importa la ciudad.
La ciudad era tiempo: primero, Roma y sus murallas,
y sucesivamente, peces de barras rojas en el lomo,
rejerías y olivas, el poderío de las naves
de la Corona de Aragón.
Más tarde, un diálogo de humos).

La ciudad era un diálogo de aguas
-la fuente, el mar-; la vida, un diálogo de aguas,
una chiquillería desnudita y morena.
Y un griterío, un amontonamiento
en aquel aire cálido.
Y olor a hogueras, que no tienen tiempo.
Siempre a espaldas del tiempo.
Y nada más que ojos oscuros
para mirar, mirar, mirar...
Esto ocurría en lo que llaman,
los que no son de nuestra raza, pasado.

De noche me acercaba a las olas.
Las olas no ocultaban ruiseñores
como el agua del cántaro que yo apoyaba en la cadera.
De noche, entre las olas, de cara al tiempo congelado,
sonaba el mar a hojas de otoño, pisoteadas por los pájaros.
Ceñía mis tobillos de diamantes.
Allí era el reino del vaivén, del ritmo,
de lo eterno acunado. El mar tampoco,
como si fuera de mi raza, se encadenaba al tiempo.

Sonaba en mis oídos el ruiseñor del agua de la fuente,
oía los rumores del mundo.
Mi sangre era el mar mismo.
Me contagiaba de su movimiento.
Me enseñaban las olas a no morir jamás.
Lo sin tiempo es la muerte. Y aquello, el ritmo,
el tiempo vivo, pero detenido; algo que no conoce
ni principio ni fin, que no parte ni llega.
Era el mar y la fuente junto al mar.
Y entre los dos estaba yo.

Igual que ahora. Nuevamente unidos.
Cuántos racimos de años habrá exprimido el mar.
Por cuántos sitios -horas y lugares, qué sé yo-,
lo que dicen países, he llevado el centelleo de la espuma,
el oleaje de la llama...
Es posible que yo parezca diferente.

También quizás la fuente parezca diferente a los demás.
Yo no lo sé. Juntos estamos el mar, la fuente, yo.
Vinieron las autoridades,
artistas, periodistas, gentes que leen mi nombre en los periódicos.
Me dijeron que era mía la fuente
(cómo podían darme lo que era mío, mi vida, el mar, las nubes).
No pudieron matar mi vida, restituirme al tiempo,
cuando hablaban y hablaban del ayer, la gitana
de Somorrostro, y otra vez aquello del arte y de la gloria,
y más palabras sin sentido
que siguen pronunciando mientras me acerco hasta mi fuente,
y adorno mis muñecas con sus helados brazaletes,
y humedezco mis sienes, mezclo sus aguas con mis lágrimas.
Porque ahora pienso que he olvidado el cántaro,
y la tarde se queda sin ruiseñor que la ilumine,
y tengo miedo de volver sin agua,
y no sé dónde está el cántaro
y mi madre me va a reñir
porque a ver cómo vamos a guisar,
a lavar la ropita de los niños...
Y yo no sé qué le diré para que pueda comprenderlo.
Pink Hat Jun 2017
Dear Mohammed,
Did you know.
Brits own 8 million dogs and
lavish 10 billion on pets
In Syria this must cause mirth
for its distorted priorities
but in Britain it awakens the soul
to love one’s animals most
It's a companion with few conditions
and reinforces  quaint traditions.
Do you find them funny?

Dear Isaac,
Did you know.
Why the sky is blue
You must have coloured it that way
It isn’t easy explaining but I try
The seven colours of the rainbow is light
Like the ocean it’s made of waves
Blue is the shortest so it’s nearest
Red is the longest so it’s  far behind
Arsenal still beat Chelsea though.
Are you laughing?

Dear Khadija,
Did you know.
You are beautiful and gifted
Bet you were surprised when they said
yes - let the world see your mind
and picture your thoughts
of the dark skinned man and woman
which is the colour of their diversity
When you reduced them to flat shades
Their conflicts became your success
What are you thinking right now?

Dear Mierna, Fatima and Zeinab,
Did you know.
Curling tongs are cool
Confidence is better than looks
Girls are doing better in school
Fifty-six countries had women leaders
Boys prefer curly to straight hair
but Beauty is mostly within
Make up is for the beholder
Smiling eyes are a winner
as a sure sign your heart is open.
Who said smile and the world smiles with you?

Dear Yahya, Firdaws and Yaqub,
Did you know.
Football was born in China
The first club was Sheffield FC
Messi is only five six
The number one rapper is Jay-Z
Your eyes and heart Firdaws
left its mark with its brushes
Inside is a free spirit
that roams across your sketches.
Who is your favourite artist?

Dear Baby Leena and sisters three and five,
Did you know.
Halloween was a Celtic belief
to mark the start of winter
School trips in year 6
can make friendships forever
Fingernails grow faster than toenails
Hair grows at half inch per month
just in case you like them painted
or wanted long locks for fun
You will soon take your first steps.
You cannot wait to run?

Dear Maria,
Did you know.
The home of the Bird of Paradise
is in faraway South Africa
The lotus sacred to Buddhists
is a symbol of hope and peace
Roses adorned Cleopatra
created by Chloris and Aphrodite
Hydrangeas are from the Himalayas
when pink the Beating Heart of Asia.
Do you like flowers?

Dear Jessica,
Did you know.
Australia was born in Dreamtime
onto a land that owned Man
Incas once reigned supreme
In the heights of a mountain
Fish and chips married in 1860
in London by the Bells of Bow
Bruno Mars was number one
but now he is second.
Where would you like to go?

Dear Amayah,
Did you know.
Perrault wrote Cinderella
and Beauty sleeping in the Forest
A princess likes to impress
like a jewel she’s so precious
Rapunzel had very long hair
Snow White very fair skin
Little Mermaid had very sad eyes
The Goat Girl a very clever mind
Would you like to read them all?

Dear Jeremiah
Did you know.
Writing is fun because you connect
with other inquisitive minds
Twenty-eight curved and straight letters
compose Arabic words in a line
The Chinese started before everyone
have characters nine thousand
Whether with a pen or a stick in the sand
No longer are the words confined.
What words will you write first, I wonder?

Dear Mr Councillor
You do know, don’t you?
Isaac has lost his pencil case
Jessica cannot find her tickets
Princess Amaya is looking for her dress
Jeremiah wants some paper
Fatima needs to read the Quran
Maria is desperate to water her plants
Mohammed keeps longing for the Sun and
Khadija is preparing for that accolade.

Forever there is a drought.

You, Mr Councillor, were the outline in their lives
and the shadow in our fears

Pinkhat
22nd June 2017
to those who suffered and lost
Shaded Lamp Aug 2014
All that will remain is bones and rotting meat
Toss it in a cheap wicker box for worms to eat
Topped just with wild flowers and no cement
Plant a weeping willow instead of a monument
It can do the weeping, please don't you cry
There is a chance that I'll be busy when I die
For if I am wrong and there is life after this
I have plans with whom I'll dine and reminisce
I'll be dining with Oscar Wilde and Caravaggio
Cocktails and conversation with Kant and Plato
Then with Bellini, Verdi and Rossini I'll take a Show
An interval tipple and discourse with Rousseau
An after party with Bakunin and Proudhon
Whisky and blues with Howlin Wolf til I'm gone
I shall breakfast the next day with Tz'u Hsi, Homer and Malcolm X
And take morning coffee with Gandhi and Marc Bolan from T.Rex
At noon a spicy ****** Mary with Mary Queen of Scots,
Freddie Mercury, Lou Reed, Picasso and lots of tequila shots
Lunch that day with Saladin, Karl and Groucho Marx
Then smoke a pipe with Newton whilst discussing quarks
Afternoon tea with Queen Victoria, Kipling and Colin Ward
Followed by a game of Tafl with a viking on a giant board
Dress for flamenco with Carmen Amaya (then dress the blisters)  
Then pre-dinner drinks paid for by Geronimo and the Bronte sisters

So you see, if I'm wrong
And we actually move along
A fascinating after life awaits me

Yeah, when I'm gone from here
There'll be plenty gin and beer
Cucumber sandwich's and tea

If you wonder what I'm doing
Give your watch a quick viewing
Then just check this poem and you'll see
Just in case
Dante Rocío Nov 2020
I reflect with a projection,
when hearing
melodies of rhythm or
stronger
lower basses like guttural
voice chords, especially
in the dark or being on a waiting room
of a car ride,
whenever I want it or not
/
an endless dance or some
semi-tangible
image that twirls into
hot
red
rose
petals
even though
there’s no dress to whizz,
feet strong like Carmen Amaya’s
had no mercy for Iberian taverns’
dance floors of flamenco
/
watching that spectacle
always
from discarded collage views
/
of that accounting
and how no
voice is needed to direct
the melody a vector,
only let it be sung-thrung
through the heat rising
and orchestra listened to
completely, sharp motions in
the eyes of the crowd
or those who had ever considered
pondering on me like a philosophy...

Maybe such styles and asphyxiations
of rapid ragged jerkings of too sharp
notes in the air cutting
the atmosphere like a blunt knife
have got to me a long time ago,
stay ever more as visions to moves
audacious, and have been
chosen beforehand my vessel
without its decision to be turned
into something greater
in the collaboration with my own other dishes
to fit Passion.

Then - then - I always imagine - then
in all that how
any certain entity
would be looking at that,
taking it in from the outside
and what that painting of me
partly
will be made as
in their sculpted no flesh
eyes.

/
Thank you
Ladies, Gentlemen, Whoever Further
for attending
/
Prima, Prova, espanso aggiunto dalla danza e verso il fiato soffocato ma del fiato.
The daze of that accounting and making, above, within, towards, has been written and reminisced so real from every reoccurring time of itself my body authentically lost breath and freedom of fatigue's influence by then from that vision. Beforehand, afterhand.
Have you ever come to dance there where your body doesn't exist yet only what's beyond it eventually here on Earth or somewhere else? The feet knives rather than flesh and deprived of idea of physical ******* or not
The current day is May 1st, 2024. I believe I might have found Brianna. And she’s gone. . .

About eight years ago from this date, I would have my first encounter with this mysterious girl. With all of this having taken course over such a long amount of time, a lot of the details are blurry compared to how solidified they used to be to me. But, back to the first encounter, although encounter sounds more like a passive aggressive frightening experience, I’m not sure what other word I might use to describe it. Maybe it was a chance meeting or divine intervention, but encounter gets the meaning across a bit more fluently, as every time I would find this girl I would be in total shock, utter disarray, and my heart would beat so fast I’d feel as though a heart attack was right around the corner.

The first time I ever met her was through a dream. . .

I can’t remember what this particular dream was. I’m not exactly sure what happened in it, why I found it so profound, or how it even got me to begin thinking about this girl. All I know was that it got my attention and I began to pay attention to this idea, this one night miracle where I first met this mysterious woman.

The night I had that dream, I’m pretty sure I thought nothing of it. Who doesn’t have a dream every so often where they’ve met their true love, their other half, their once in a lifetime love of their life? I’ve always been a bit of a hopeless romantic and I’ve always known that this was one of my deeply ingrained character traits. From my first ever year in school in first grade, I had a very large crush on this girl, Ashley Amaya, and I remember wanting so badly to be her crush as well. I even remember a moment from school when I saw a spider crawling towards her and me while walking across a paved walkway to get to our next class, and I leapt towards it and crushed it, despite having a massive fear of the little demons at the time. But, I did it to impress her!

All that to say, the first dream wasn’t extraordinary, and instead it was just another more than usual somber morning when I woke up only to realize the beautiful woman I had just met was probably a mixture of something I ate and some tv show I’d probably seen the afternoon before. Time would go by, the memory of that first dream fading to the farthest recess of my mind with only a hint of any remote recognition still reminiscing in the deepest abyss of my head.

But, this is when what started out as a dream began to become a bit more substantial. This is when Brianna began to plague my mind.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I began to have recurring dreams of being in love with this mysterious woman. She began to become more familiar in a very inconvenient and unreliable way which was of course through the remembering of my dreams. In the beginning stages, I’d only ever catch glimpses of her face and the reset was usually a silhouette or a very rushed moment. The rushed moments were hard to describe but they were full of light, always this wonderful warm yellow light and though they were rushed, time also slowed down significantly in a perplexing way that I still can’t really understand to this day.

I’d see her dark brown hair flowing and filtering the light into these tiny and magnificent rays making a twinkling in what was usually a dark atmosphere. I’d catch the corner of her mouth turning ever so slightly into a warm beautiful smile as she looked away, something else in the vicinity stealing her attention for the moment. There were intense feelings of joy and tranquility and there was a warmth about the situation I could only hope to ever feel in the true cold and lightless world we all collectively call home. Something about her was so intensely special, and the fact that I even got to share a dream with her was the highest privilege I could’ve ever received.

As time would go on, I’d continue to have these dreams. She always stayed the same, with her long dark brownish red hair flowing ever so gracefully. It got to the point that when I would have these dreams, I would’ve preferred to not wake up, just so I could spend more time with her.

Over a year would go by. At this point in life I was still just in high school and still brand new to learning life in the real world compared to the sheltered view I used to have. I had just gotten a job at the local Home Depot as a cashier, literally a few weeks after I got my license since my parents were unwilling to pay for gas for me (as good parents should do!) I was still figuring out life with my friend groups and trying to balance the reality of starting to become more mature and take on more responsibilities while still trying to cling to my childhood of digging holes and bashing legos against the wall with my brothers! It was an odd time, which I guess many can easily familiarize themselves with the timeframe as we’ve all at one point been teenagers.

One of the biggest things in my life I remember being a bit troublesome though, was all my friends I had made and my groups of people I had become so entangled with. With going through these changes, I had some friends that were still absolute children at heart and some friends who were practically ready for college! I had loads of moments through those years where these friends I had grown up with would start to feel like strangers and I’d begin to not really feel as though I had a social place to call my own.

Work was a new outlet, and I actually used to love talking to people as a cashier, ringing up their items, and learning the social norm of small talk that would amount to nothing less than an afterthought. I made a lot of friends with people who were retired and with college kids who seemed to be the coolest bunch around, who knew how to live life and have fun doing it. It was such a variety of friends where I’d talk to Tina about her granddaughter or Jim about his retirement and stock options and then I’d go up to Isaiah and he’d tell me about all the dates he’d been on or all the party stories of him and his friends living life to the fullest. It was a pretty great time in my life though, because one thing especially it taught me was how to be social, though this process would still take years and years to fully develop until I was in my early 20’s to be fully confident in my ability to put it on and be charismatic if need be. The reason I mention so much about this job though, was there was still a deep  and unrecognized subconsciously aware desire in me to meet the one.

Home Depot of all places was the first time I saw her. In person. . .

I remember it was a day much like the rest of them. After having struck up some conversation with our customers and being a little groggy from waking up at the crack of dawn for the early shift, it was time for me to finally get some lunch. While taking my usually route from the front of the hardware store I stopped at my usual coworkers stations to say hi or make a passive joke as I strolled happily on my way.

I can’t exactly remember why, but I had the need to talk to one of my managers, and it was something I needed a response for by the end of the day, so I figured before I clocked out for lunch, I’d get that little task out of the way. But, on the way back to my manager’s office, which was this little 10 foot hallway with doors on either side, one leading to a bank of sorts, and the other side hosting two doorways to offices, I was stopped in my tracks. Right next to the old clock-in machine were two seats where you’d usually sit and wait if the manager’s doors were closed so you could catch them as they walked out. They were also the seats I had sat in when waiting to get an interview for this first job of mine, where I nervously and anxiously awaited the outcome so many years ago.

In one of those broken down, flat cushioned little seats was a girl so beautiful, I literally lost my breath at the sight of her. I knew immediately who she was. She was the girl from my dreams I had been having over the course of that past year or so. Recently through my dreams, I had learned a very crucial detail about her and that was that her name was Brianna, and there sitting right before me within a few steps walk was the girl.

I froze. I made eye contact. And I immediately turned around and walked away. How I wish beyond wishing I would’ve said hi now. . .

Seeing that my manager was currently in the process of onboarding her as a new employee, I decided to take up my little question with my manager a bit later and I went to lunch. While walking into our break room, I ran into one of my new co-workers who I had become pretty good friends with. His name was Brad Brad.

At this point in time, I had more of an idea and more of a recognition of the fact that these recurring dreams of mine were something special, though I hardly let anyone know because of how embarrassing and odd it was. I mean, who would go around blindly telling people about some chick that they’d been dreaming of that they were totally in love with?? (Definitely not me eight years late. . . ) But with Brad Brad, I trusted him and had told him about the story a few days prior to running into her.

Not knowing her name and only having seen her face, I walked up to my friend and asked him about the new possible employee. He immediately knew who I was referring to her as he had seen her just a bit ago and apparently gotten to know her slightly! I asked him if her name was Brianna, being almost definitively sure that that was her name, and just wanting to check to see if I was either certifiably insane, or possibly blessed with this odder than life knowledge.

Brad immediately confirmed her name was Brianna and asked if I had spoken with her, and this immediately had me out of breath, terrified of how the girl from my dreams was truly true and realer than life. I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went down, though I can safely assume I was blabbering like a lunatic and telling him every single detail of every single dream I had had of her before. I walked out to get lunch knowing that I’d finally become acquainted with Brianna over time in the work atmosphere which was a relief to me, knowing how social I was at work while in comparison to how introverted and quiet I was at school. Life was looking to good to be true.

Brianna, didn’t get the job.

A few days would go by and my excitement to go to work was through the roof. Never before had I had so eagerly gotten in my car, driven to work, and immediately clocked in in hopes of seeing this new girl around the work place. A week would go by and my thoughts of her were still as excited as ever, but I began to realize that there was still training, a full on hiring process, and that it would most likely take time for things to get in motion. A few weeks would go by and then a month and an unsettling worry began to haunt me as I started to wonder if she didn’t actually get the job.

I started going around asking all of my fellow co-workers if they knew her or if they had any ideas of if we were hiring anyone new. I became obsessed with what we called the, “war board,” which was a schedule of all cashiers’ schedules for the day, what departments they would work in and so forth so on. But, I never saw Brianna’s name pop up, and I began to realize that I might have missed my one and only chance of getting to talk to Brianna.

As time progressed I finally decided it was time to talk to Brad about this new girl since he had been the only one I had talked to about her, and this is when the strangest thing ever happened. Brad had absolutely no idea who I was talking about. He could tell I was obsessed with the idea though and he saw how persistent I was that I had had the conversation with him before, and he even sympathetically lied to me about knowing her just to appease my insanity by saying,

“Ohhhh yeahhhhhhhhh! I remember who you’re talking about!”

I was crushed that the only person who knew her didn’t remember her and at the time I’m unsure of why I didn’t ask my manager to see if they knew who I was talking about. Maybe it was embarrassment or the thought of not being able to see other potential employee’s information that scared me. Either way, I wish I had asked more and been more determined in finding information on what had happened to Brianna.

Months and months on end would go by and the fascination with work would disappear as I got older. I’d check the war board on a pretty consistent basis always hoping that by some miracle, Brianna would show up to work for the day! And even though we eventually would go on to hire an incredible Brianna that I’d become such dear friends with, she wasn’t the same one.

I remember how I used to day dream about Brianna walking into the store and how I would recognize her and how we’d instantly fall in love. Especially on those hot hot Summer days when I was stuck in the garden department with nothing but my thoughts and a dream. As life began to progress though, I realized I didn’t want to only dream about Brianna. . . but I wanted to find her! What good was all my wallowing around if I didn’t make any active attempts to find her!

Thus began, the searching for Brianna. What might just be an everlasting one. . .

I began to take a reality check on this recurring girl who haunted my every thought and when wondering on how I would find a girl from my literal dreams, I thought maybe the first best place to look would be there! Literally in my dreams. I took on an idea I had borrowed from the movie Inception where first thing in the morning, if you try to remember your dreams you’d have a better chance of seeing more details.

Doing more research into this line of thought, I read about dream journals and how some people keep entries of their nightly subconscious activities in order to become better at what’s called lucid dreaming, where basically, you have full and utter control of the dream and realize that you’re in it while still sleeping. My dream journal over time would start to slowly fill and fill with some pretty crazy stories and hilarious dreams. Actually, I wonder if I still have it. If I can find it, I’ll drought down one of my entries here for you to read. . . whoever “you” might be.

I won’t lie when I say I found it in about one minute. It was sitting on my desk right next to me. Oddly enough, my first journal entry is far further in this story than I thought as it was written on October 9th, 2022 (thank God I wrote down dates!) Here goes my first entry.

10-09-22 (#1)

My first dream, I remember being at Home Depot, working while pushing carts. I was very sick and delusional and the atmosphere was rainy and dark. All I could feel was gloom and sadness. There was no one to help me which added to the exhaustion. A customer managed to break 3 carts in half and I had to try and fix them, but I couldn’t. The feeling of wanting to go home was very strong.

10-09-22 (#2)

This time I was in a small class with two other men. It was our first day and our professor was already making us write books worth of homework. But, she soon assigned us Minecraft assignments and the rest of the class was devoted to playing Minecraft. A mixture of falling while playing the game repeatedly occurred and was frightening, yet exhilarating and fun.

Though my timeline of the dream journal and me beginning to write it might be skewed in this story I’ve been telling, as you can see from October 9th’s dreams of the year 2022, it was in fact something I started to do. There were quite a few pages from this journal missing and I can’t recall if they were pages of old homework from school and the notebook was one I self-recycled or not. But, I thought I had started writing these way earlier in my life. Maybe one day, I’ll write up all of these dreams into some sort of official funny document, but as of right now, they’ll all stay in that book. It might honestly be for the better!

Either way, it’s obviously apparent that I became obsessed with this idea of Brianna and I began to play my life events in my head over and over again, and this might have been harmful to me later on, but at the early stages of these occurrences, I was very much into reading. Being the introvert that I was in school, and having no access to a smart device, I used to read so so so many books all the time! My best friend in high school wasn’t any other student really but the faculty and staff, specifically our school librarian Mrs. Hogue.

Every time I’d walk into that library which was probably like twice a week, she’d see me and know it was time for me to become obsessed with a new story or spend the next however many months of my life engrossed in a series. I absolutely loved Mrs. Hogue and while she was very strict with all the other obnoxious kids, she loved me too. We used to talk about life and such and the day I graduated, she was one of the people I made sure of to talk to her and wish her a goodbye to.

Anyways, this obsession with writing and reading of mine was one that really flourished during high school due to these circumstances. It feels rather odd writing now when I haven’t gone about it aside from formal essays and school work since specifically 2018.

2018 was the year that I decided to run with a lot of these creative concepts my mind had created over Brianna and turn them into an actual book with full on character development, a family for Brianna, a place to live and friendships and occupations of all sorts! This is why I mentioned just earlier that this might’ve been more harmful to me, because, sometimes I can’t remember with Brianna what’s memories and what’s a figment of my imagination developed by a creative and passionate former younger writer of myself.

Either way, at this point in my life you could tell I was so devoted to the idea of Brianna being a real person, and this one specific idea plagued me like no other.

The idea was that Brianna was also dreaming of me and that we could only communicate through our collective dreams.

This idea for a young hopeless romantic was intensely alluring and from this idea became the now published and only book of mine, “The Fracture of Reality.” In this book, there’s two main characters named Ian and Brianna. Ian oddly enough matches almost identically all my physical and intellectual traits, some of the only differences being him having a place of his own, a pretty successful job and a bit more muscle, almost as though he were a version of myself I hope to one day be.

Brianna, well, she was and is the Brianna that I know.

The premise of this book was, well how should I put it? Better yet, I’ll just plug in the summary from the back of the book I wrote many years ago!

“Dreams and reality are relatively similar terms. Dreams describe and amplify events that occur in reality whereas reality can capture what little glimpses of the dreams remain. But, it never occurred to me that the two could blur together. Only when it was too late did I start to realize that reality was fracturing…”

Although this summary doesn’t really expound on what the book was about, only now do I find it so profound that I established this saying, this line of thought while I was still younger. I’ll write to you now that the basic premise of the story was a bit of a thriller! Ian begins to have these dreams where he meets and speaks to this mysterious tranquil and beautiful girl. He starts to fall in love with her as he slowly begins to realize that she is in fact real and having dreams of him also. But, with his dreams comes the slow beginning of his down fall where his dreams start to predict horrific events that will occur relatively soon. Along with the dreams comes the mental breaking down of his sanity with a deadly progression exponentially on it’s way to happen far too soon. Through the connecting of his dreams, he needs to find Brianna who he hopes when finding her, will stop the terrifying decline of his conscious nature.

In the end, and [insert spoiler warning here hehe], Ian finally meets up with Brianna only to have one of his dreams predict a horrible event of him and her being hunted by some men that Brianna had gotten in bad with during her youthfully naïve years. The story ends with Brianna and Ian in a cottage after Ian in real life has been shot. The story ends with Ian being unsure as to whether or not his dream reality is real life, or if his reality with the pain of the bullet in him is the truth. Brianna tells him that it doesn’t matter, and tries to convince him that the current peaceful reality that they’re currently in? That that moment and that present feeling is real, and that’s what really truly matters.

Look at me, doing a synopsis of my own books six years later! Writing this book and creating my dream journal and doing research was really the first phase of my obsession with Brianna. The older I’d get though, the more it’d become real to me. I’m unsure as to whether the past eight years of my life has made this idea so authentically real to me, but now I see this all as fact rather than speculation and a possible decline in my sanity that I used to be subconsciously aware of.

More years would progress in my life and would lead to the graduation of my high school and the starting up of college at my community college. There, I’d me one of my best friends which will most likely be my best friend for life KJ, but it was also a time of maturing and shying away from the ideas of Brianna as much. Rather than focusing on the idea of her, instead I got so busy with work at Home Depot, balancing friendships at community college, and still trying to socialize with my family that I hardly thought of her.

But, circumstances would change and even though I went a while without thinking about her, she was always there. When I began my first semester at Columbia State and accidentally sat next to this absolutely beautiful girl named, you guessed it, “Brianna,” I thought that she was her! Only to find out like literally two days into the semesters that she was married, whoops! But I still became friends with her and weird stuff like that would occur every so often, but at this point in time, life was changing so rapidly and my mind was always so distracted that Brianna began to fade.

I’d still have my occasional dreams and when those hit, it’d be more difficult than it used to be. The feeling of wanting to stay in those dreams was so strong and so hard to swallow when I woke up and realized it’d only been in my head.

With school starting though, my priorities changed a lot in life! My job was the least of my concerns at Home Depot and I’d more often than not skip all of my shifts as it always drained me of all my energy having to socialize with a bunch of people I didn’t care for or care about. All the small talk became irritating and whenever I was there, I guess I had come to associate that little hardware store with the idea of loss and gloom. I mean, if my dream journal didn’t speak enough for itself, I think it’s because I missed out on my one and only chance to actually talk to Brianna.

My new priorities were to make as many friends as possible and to turn this new page in life and that’s exactly what I did! I was incredibly social and went out of my way to introduce myself to total strangers just to try and escape the old Mike and pursue a new version of him.

It wouldn’t take long for Brianna to come back to me though.

Nobody that tells you how quickly life goes by can truly explain the depths of what that means and you sort of need to experience it yourself, and with the pandemic of Covid-19 happening around 2020, those two years at community school and the two years at MTSU would go by like a wisp of air. Like a breath, **** the time went by. Sure there was quite a bit of stuff that happened throughout that time, like me beginning to fall in love with creating content through YouTube about Minecraft, getting internships and freelance work for my degree as a Graphic Designer where I won competitions and published my art in many places and had the opportunities to be in a crazy high end internship.

But the amount of time, was just literally gone. I was too busy. Brianna became an afterthought.

That is, until fairly recently. To drop some dates for you, I created my first official youtube channel on September 18th, 2019 and published my first video four years ago a day after I made the channel. At first, my channel of Minecraft specific content was created both to prove to my brothers that I could create content as incredible as the youtubers we watched, but it was also just in hopes of turning it into an actual career since it was something I genuinely was okay at. Having had architecture for for years in high school Minecraft felt like a more creative and liberating way to express those abilities and live them out in an actual environment I had created. But also, Minecraft was an excuse for me to turn off my mind.

Covid and the pandemic was sort of the greatest thing to ever happen to me, because it gave me so much time to think and play this wonderful game. I know I mentioned above how I didn’t think about Brianna that much, and that part is true, but when I had those dry moments of playing Minecraft and grinding out some simple tasks of literally just breaking and placing blocks, my mind would wander to her. I used to choose the most essentially mind numbing tasks of mining for hours upon hours which only consisted of holding down a button and occasionally moving your character around to mine some more. But though the task was completely and utterly boring, my mind was active as ever thinking and wondering about Brianna.

Finding these quiet moments in life were far and few between, but I began to cherish them. All the moments from day dreaming while mowing the lawn and sweating to death in the 100 degree sun, to sitting in my car after a long first four hours at Home Depot while staring at a semi-vacant parking lot, to even just the long walks across my enormous campus at MTSU or the long walk from parking spots I chose purposefully to be super far away from my campus at Columbia State. These moments while rare, gave me a chance to keep Brianna at least in the back light of all the real life moments I was constantly distracted and thrown around with.

But, going back to Minecraft when I got into youtube, this changed everything.

I went from having at least some spare moments to having literally no moments at all. The only time I would rest was when I had experienced such bad burn out from trying to do everything everywhere all at once, and between that and the occasional sleep I would get, my mind had no time to think. I still can easily get into that workaholic mind set sometimes and it’s a dangerous one to be in, but I’ve gotten better as I’ve figured out why I believe I fell into that mindset in the first place.

The reason was to escape Brianna’s grasp.

As I went through school hanging out with friends and making new one’s internationally through the development of an ever expanding youtube channel, I had just about no time for anything. The only time I had to stop and think was my 10 minute drive to get food and even in those moments, I had no time to think, because I was too busy driving trying not to get killed by crazy drivers.

Three years of school went by before I finally said that enough was enough. With school being as difficult as it was, I decided to “retire” from my newfound love of youtube because in all honesty, it was driving me mad. My retirement video from Minecraft came out on December 5th, 2022. I stepped away from the never ending grind and set out to enjoy life and the little moments that life offered.

The only problem with this was that my mind began to ponder Brianna once again.

At this time in my life, after retiring I was actually working for a famous youtuber named PrestonPlayz. It was a random freelance job and for the past year or so I had been jumping from freelance to freelance work with little regards to cost and payments real life had always waiting around the corner for me.

This would make me end up ultimately getting a job back at Home Depot for a few months to pay off debts I had incurred from being financially stupid and buying stuff I didn’t really need. But, between all the financial problems and weird life situations I had so much more time to think about Brianna. The dreams of her still occurred every so often but the frequency at which they had started to occur was less and less. Maybe this was all due to me reaching a new level of maturity, but I’m still not entirely sure what caused it. Maybe it was the distraction of a busy workaholic life or the hopes to find someone, really anyone that was a girl that would love me that I could love back.

But, like I said my mind began to think about her more and more. I began to see her in my thoughts like I had years ago previously and it almost felt like I was back sliding into some weird territory I had just grown oblivious to with the amount of time that had passed. Either way, that was my life. A jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas all scattered in a brain far too busy to stop and breathe coming to the new age of silence and habit.

With my mind able to breathe, I thought of her again. . . and then I saw her again. . .

I can’t remember the exact day or time of year, but on one of these days of my “retirement” I was driving home after having just gotten some taco bell. (I was obsessed with the place back then) Driving up my street, I saw a girl with long dark curly hair and bright pink clothes, what might have even been pajama pants on her, walking up my street! I didn’t think much of it until I looked into my sider mirror and saw her face and saw that it was the one and only, Brianna.

Brianna was walking up my street right next to my house. In person. Alive and breathing.

I panicked and jumped out of my car with my taco bell nearly crashing to the ground as I roared into park in my driveway with my car. With bare feet, since I used to drive with no shoes when I went to fast food place, I dove onto an aggregate driveway and started running down it, knowing that there was no way on earth I was missing my chance to finally talk to her. I had nothing but time that day, and I was overly excited to finally introduce myself in person

But when I turned around, Brianna was gone. She’d simply vanished into thin air? I still don’t know how or why, but she was gone. . . possibly gone forever. . .

This experience drove my efforts to find her to another level of passion as I began to research through many google forums and sites and social media platforms praying to God that I’d be able to find her. It didn’t matter if I had to cross the entire ocean to get to her, I was going to find Brianna, no matter what.

I started to revisit old ground and went to the Home Depot I had worked at, asking the new manager there if he could search records and being able to find her that way. I found old coworkers I used to work with and asked around trying to find any trail or any lead and couldn’t find a single thing. I even managed to find Brad Brad’s Instagram and messaged him only for him to have literally no idea what I was talking about, go figure.

With nothing working and having literally no idea on what else I could do, I began to passionately work on a project called, “The Bri of My Dreams.” What this basically was was an ARG or alternate reality game which was a puzzle game I setup for my prior youtube community to solve and have fun with. But, it was more than that. It was the telling of the story of Brianna in a way that I could hopefully publicize and gain some popularity on so that maybe instead of me finding Brianna, she’d be able to rather find me! So, I started working on it behind the scenes unbeknownst to anyone in my community that I was going to use this new found passion project to hopefully find her, but also to bring me back to youtube content creation.

To this day, I’m still not sure why I wanted to go back to youtube. Well I know some underlying reasons, that being tied loosely to Brianna, but now many months later still being at it, I’m unsure as to the real reason why I still create stuff on there.

Either way, after creating an entire animated short film with a script and what I consider to be one of my greatest projects of all time, “The Bri of My Dreams” project was finalized and ready to publish. I put it out there hoping that it was only a matter of time before I finally heard from her.

Hardly anyone noticed I’d returned to youtube, let alone my project failing horribly as only close friends I knew even attempted the puzzles.

My final efforts produced literally no results, and well, this brings me to about right now, this moment that I’m actually writing this all down on May 1st 2024 at 4:21 p.m CDT. For the past few hours I’ve written down all of this while listening to The Caretaker album on youtube, a depressing soundtrack meant to represent the stages of alzheimer's.

This morning while sitting around doing nothing really, I looked up Brianna one last time, despite me telling myself I would be done with her after my ARG project. I found a girl, about the same age as me that matched the name and the description. Her father’s name was funnily enough the same as my own, Michael.

What I found about her and her father were obituary statements.

I’m unsure if it’s okay or morally right to even think that might’ve been her, but something I noticed when doing research about Brianna in my earlier days. . . For some odd reason there’s a lot of young beautiful Briannas who unfortunately die in their early 20’s. It’s an odd and horrifying fact I’ve come to know over the past few years through my odder than odd research.

But, this case I found today? Well the exact date this Brianna died on correlated almost exactly when my dreams stopped of her.

I don’t dream of Brianna anymore. I haven’t for years. . .

I think the reason I’m writing this, is my own way of finally saying goodbye. Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s well. But as for me, life continues to go on and it’s finally time after these past eight years to finally say. . .

Goodbye Brianna. I’ll miss you. . .
Plucked thee from near ground
Outdoor ornament
On Bermuda grass
It’s the plant type one
Decorative “fern”!

By Hachuela clan
Neighbor relative
It belongs to them
Planted by someone
To grace their front yard

January Thirteen
Friday Twenty Twelve
Ante Aclet’s wake
Night before burial
And saw Marvic G.

Neighborhood to South
Way to Codingle
Not along the road
Yellow-painted house
Just in front its porch

Friday the Thirteenth
Last day – Amaya
Hour before watching
Saw CapSU backers
I, Nanay & kin!

-01/13/2012
(Dumarao)
*My Toladas Collection
My Poem No. 91
Plucked thee from near ground
Sprouts independent
On clayey barren
It’s the **** type one
A pretty wild “fern”!

Basco family
Neighbor but not kin
Are they owning it?
Now that it’s a ****?
Yet on their domain?

January Thirteenth
Friday Twenty Twelve
Old Nong Toging’s wake
Night before burial
Saw some my students

Neighborhood to North
Way to the crossing
Not along the road
Front concrete abode
Beside bamboo fence

Friday the Thirteenth
Last day – Amaya
Hour after watch it
Saw CapSU students
I & some cousins!

-01/13/2012
(Dumarao)
*My Toladas Collection
My Poem No. 92

— The End —