I was hungry enough to eat the **** end of a skunk.  I felt like gobbling the whole mound of concrete that is half an hour closer from becoming a part of my room.  Make that a quarter. I guess my tummy has had enough grumbling, like a seething network of volcanoes ready to devour Hawaii.  I am sure as exhausted as a zombie after a “battle of life and death” handling a plethora of carpentry tools which I have managed to rummage from our dismal basement.  I’m quite serious with the phrase “battle of life and death”.  I get to have this Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome which gulps a huge amount of my rhythm compelling me to put things in place especially in my chamber.  At times, a weltered pen could instigate an emotional havoc.  Or perhaps an inappropriate collaboration of curtain hues and mattresses would be ample to spin the color wheel concept out of my brain.  But now, my walls have done it.  Well, it was just a microscopic sight of a divine crevice, but how in the world could that escape my eyes?  Without a second thought, I approved an avid proposal from my subconscious – a full concrete room renovation.  And that’s how it brings me here, smothering the last square inch of the genius blueprint with this porridge of lime and clay, the hell with chemistry!  I have found out that my room has achieved the piquancy of a sizzling summer noon, thanks to the mist of dust and the precipitating drops of sweat that come tingling down my overheating body.  Ah! At least my system tells me that I’m not a promising patient of ****** dysfunction.  When the last patch has been perfectly planed in place, I drew my last ounce of pure strength and plunged into my most formidable bed, congratulating myself for a job well done. Alas! A thirty-minute nap and I’m ready for a superb coffee and doughnut delight.

I woke up from a cat’s screech. I peeped through the window. The nap breaker was a Cheshire, one with a dimmer fur, the stripes of gray suppressing the darker color.  Its tail enjoyed dancing around its rear, connoting either fear or excitement. It sure has a distinctive mischievous grin.  The feline was on the verge of climbing up the roof by jumping from a gutter about five feet away.  It seemed to have slipped but has managed to bring its **** next to the roof tiles. It stared at me with intent, giving me the macabre look from its glaring eyes.  It’s as if I’m being watched, stalked and examined in a way I couldn’t see, bringing me that feeling of guilt, of remorse.  Urgh! That’s why I hate cats.  Though I’m planning to keep one, I’ll reconsider it.  But what pains me more is to discover that my alarm was not able to do the job and so I slept three hours more than planned.  I looked down and saw the city lights flashing one by one, the beams glowing like a barrier of radiance diffusing into the gloom of the night. I guess this was the price I have to pay. I traded my snack with a peaceful hibernation, turning the coffee into a glass of iced tea and the doughnut into a great dinner with me, myself and I.

I have learned to cook since I was ten.  My mother believed that culinary prowess could be inherited from generation to generation.  And so, she put her trust on me and I haven’t failed her ever since.  This gourmet brilliance proves to be very useful at times of solitude when you got bored of ordering other’s recipes and decided to make your own buffet.  I remembered her telling me that all food would taste good if there is the chef’s heart flavored in it.  Cooking is an art, combining the loops and the whoops of seasonings and spices to the medley of meat and herbs.  Tonight, I decided that my dinner would equal breakfast, satisfying the grudge that I got from skipping my  diabetic snack attack.  A beef stew and a side of paella made my stomach die in joy, appeased at last that my gears are energized for my routinely nocturnal bookworming activity.

I normally hide under my sheets at nine but tonight, I shall break the rules. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll fix the rules next time. Just this time to spare for I have gained interest on this book entitled “100 Years of Solitude”, talking about how one could live happily even alone, just by creating the world you have ever dreamed of. Gabriel García Márquez is dumping the “no man is an island” concept which anyway sounds inspiring to me.  Finally, I jumped into bed thanking Him for letting me outrun another day living alone in a comfortable apartment, free from all sorts of vexation.  I wished for a better life at school, which gives me an imagery of dull monochromatic memories.  I am not that famous but I can be someday.

A heavy beam of sunlight pierced through my window, refracting on the ***** white floor and creeping up to the mahogany table just right at the corner.  It intercepted with the glass pyramid and created a beautiful prism that glittered all around my room.  It was a really majestic scenery, one that I luckily happen to see every morning, a good optic background, I guess. Two hours before class time – that’s where my pattern starts.  Take a bath, eat, brush teeth, groom, check the doors and power, then I’m off to go. Everybody follows a certain kind of pattern, that’s for sure. Whether you wear different types of clothes everyday or use competing brands of toothpaste, clothes are clothes and toothpastes are toothpastes.  As humanity finds more and more complexities in life, they become wired to doing the things and involving the events which they think would give happiness to them and simplify their equation of life.

As a proof, there’s Mrs. Lanny Honeycut from the house next door. She usually sprinkles her daisies every ten in the morning, wearing that friendly neighborhood smile. On their patio, you could never miss a day seeing her husband, Mr. Blake Honeycut reading the daily papers with a round of tea, jam and bread spread on his table.  On the busy intersection stands traffic enforcer, Red Mayer, waving his arms to and fro while wearing that aura of valor, never seem to get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Thousands go out for work and go back to sleep everyday and that's the status quo we're talking about. Even inside the academic arena, you can still hold on to that thought; I mean the size of the population doing the same pattern at the same time – my schoolmates, enemies and… friends? Well, I’m not quite sure with the last one, but it’s this: they all make a fun of me.  They say I’m a dork, a nerd, a geek, a freak, and etc.  I wonder if they mean everything that they say or say everything that they mean.  Either way you put it, I’m not buying it. I am not what they say I am.  I just like being alone and that’s where I do best.

And as always, the school is crowded with busy people rushing through the corridors. Others are beating the deadlines while some are happy they could breathe for another break. But no matter how busy everybody could be, there is always a time spent for “information dissemination” or chitchats. But only this time, the topic discussed is the same.  I could hear it on the entire campus, everywhere in the perimeter. Another student in the university is missing leaving no trace of existence.  It’s been going on like this for over two months now and the university council has taken their best courses of action to unknot this mystery while campaigns have been running on TV’s and vigils were spent. Not that I don’t care but it seems that this is also happening to other places, I mean, this is not the only school where maniacs could exist and become professional serial rapists in the making. By the way, this is already the 12th case on the record. Weren’t people overreacting to the issue? Isn’t the case overrated? Did they reject the possibility that these people ran away because they got pregnant, messed up or something like that? Soon, the university area was covered with security troops roaming around like a swarm of bees, buzzing and sometimes boozing all the time.

I guess that’s what happens when you hang out too much with friends who are just jesters plotting your own jeopardy. I don’t think it would be good at all to be bothered with things like that because sometimes, it’s also useful not to have any use at all.  Like the king being admired by his kingdom amidst his sloth and compromises.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not friendly anymore. Actually, if it happens that I got company, I would magnanimously offer a treat at my place.  But the thing is, who would likely do that? I’d cross my fingers on it.

Wishes do come true even for a loner like me.  I think I have a fan. No, that would be too sublime. She’s hot and she’s hotter when you’ll know she’s so cool. Quite a paradox, but that’s just reality.  We came to know each other on our lab class. Her name’s Athena, fitting for her twisted logic and good humor. It makes me burn a lot of calories when I talk to her more than a 5-mile marathon could squirt. We were lab partners and we get along well. I just couldn’t figure out where she got the courage to befriend me. I do regard myself as unwelcoming species, but I might work on it when someone tries to knock the door. We juxtapose ideas. Yes, that’s what makes our conversations spin like a merry-go-round. But we enjoy it nevertheless, evident by the crescent smile we both generate out of the craziest topics in store. Once, she interrogated my way of settling wars with enemies. Well, I told her it was my habit of treating them to my house and giving them souvenirs to show how sorry I could be. She snickered and her eyes glowed like the Andromeda and her face shun the whole universe. Oh, I can do this all day long, if only I got hold of time and space.

Today, she asked me if it would be okay if she’ll stay at my place till nine when her dad could be home and she would be able to call her and ask to pick her up. She reasoned out that otherwise, the night would be scary because she’ll be alone in their house, no company, no security. I was puzzled how the thought of being alone could scare her. It is like freedom from any constraints, no ties, and no limits. But I couldn’t blame her. She’s too fragile, too vulnerable to handle it with herself.  With the speed of the light, I accepted the favor.  Well, that goes even without saying.

It was past six thirty when we arrived at my immaculate apartment. It’s great to be an“ OC” sometimes, I said to myself.  I thought of a winner dinner, one that would make her visit worth reminiscing. I preferred Italian.  I cooked her lasagna and drenched the dinner with sherry. We talked a lot until we run out of resorts. I guess she planned it, or I planned it, synergy perhaps.

The clock ticked nine and there’s no sight of her father’s getaway car. But there’s no sign of worry in her countenance either. I surmise it didn’t reach her inkling yet to phone her dad.  She was busy dissecting my kitchen and living room with her very playful eyes. That doesn’t trouble me though. That’s just as instinctive as any other first time guest could get. She grappled her attention on my antique collection of prehistoric movies, like the Scarlet Letter, The count of Monte Cristo and the likes. She happened to love them too. Well, that makes her more beautiful to me, other than the satin white dress she wears. Suddenly, she got the impulse of going to my room. She said there’s nothing more exciting to see than a gentleman’s bedroom. I startled from the request, but before I could say anything, she leaped straight to my chamber with the gestures of an imp. It’s weird to be in this kind of circumstance because I don’t often invite a lot of visitants to my room. I ain’t no hotel crew, bowing down and waving his hand to the chamber’s destination and leading the VIPs to their cabins. Yet this time, it’s the other way around: it’s my cabin.

But now it’s too late to stop her. She molested the **** and I giggled for some reason. Finally, the door opened a crack and a bend of light escaped from inside. She stepped in, and I followed. She was filled with awe not because my room is all made of gold nor did it resemble a royalty’s den. It was the exaggerated neatness and order that greeted her. In some unknown vortex of my deepest imagining, it made me feel like I’ve been through this instance before. The flashback is not so vivid as it appears, but something tells me this isn’t the first time. Deja vu could be working on it, I infer,although I don’t really believe in those forms of conceptualizations. Perhaps it’s the sherry’s spell infiltrating my mental prognosis. But something, I guess, isn’t really right.

I caught her opening a red box that was hidden behind my cabinet. I tried to steal it away from her but she fought back and it came tossing down the floor. Numerous items spilled from the case. A purple head band with the glittering initials ANNE, a ruby embedded bracelet, and a Nokia handy phone exposed the secrecy. This isn’t going to go along well and fine, I guess. A strong surge of desire came from my core. It tried to envelop my entirety and control me like a lifeless puppet. I felt the tip of the pyramid glass in my hand and I succumbed to lose my consciousness.

Morning came and it felt better than ever. It was a ***** Saturday. There she lies beautifully on the deck, like an immortal bud of red rose trapped in golden amber. The cellophane fits her well, and there’s no doubt she’ll be complaining anymore. I already prepared a cozy place for her deep sleep: A 5x2 feet wall engravement which I was busy molding last night. It wasn’t easy making her go to bed but still it ended up smooth and sound. I helped her get up and fitted her in place.I turned on the radio as I reached for my dear carpentry tools. The news was still nailed on it. But this time, the missing case struck for the 13th turn. Ahh, the hell with society! They never really get a way to deal with it.

I was busy patching the last mound of concrete that is half an hour closer from becoming a part of my room. Make that a quarter. I guess there’s no end to this divine crevice issue. It must be following a pattern too. But I can handle it, thanks to this vicarious personality. I wonder if I could get the chance to invite another visitor in my place. But if I do, I would certainly offer the best treatment they could ever have.

A cumulonimbus caused the gloom that day. It went shedding drops of rain that looked like bead of pearls glittering in the grey autumn sky, vanishing as they plunge on leafless laurel trees and solitary cypresses. He watched them dance to pitter-patter on every umbrella that opened towards the heavens, their colors of rich black calling out to such empathy. Finally, the drops kiss the graze of withered grasses and thirsty dandelions, reviving their foliage and greenness. Slowly, the rainfall collect to become one with soil and mud crawled down to the six feet depression where a coffin was laid. It was white like ivory and carved with elaborate insignias as a token of love and undying memories. Soon, it was all covered with crimson roses that carry the last parting words of the bereaved. The priest waved out his hands above with mournful eyes, lisping his beseeching of earnest favors while spades of loam filled up the burrow. He saw faces of despair around the pit, gasping for reprieve and sympathy. If only the rain could also bring back her life, he implored.

This, in his senses, was belongingness. This, in his heart, was death.

It had been two long weeks since Roxanne’s death and Vincent couldn’t get his feet back on the ground. He still couldn’t believe he had lost her and that their seemingly endless love has flown away from him for all eternity. He’d make believe that this was all just a dream and at some point of this nightmare he would finally be unchained and awakened. Days became niches of shackled memories that kept haunting his love-fletched soul and nights were nothing more than a requiem of lovelorn longings that still linger in his mind. He remembers it all, the feel of her name on his lips, the smell of her hair, and the sound of her laugh. Everything is still as fresh as the dewdrops of June and as vivid as the most cinematic imagery a mortal could immortalize. The ultimate fight of this melodramatic transition was to remain whole when all the strength Vincent has built up begins to crumble by a mere reminiscence of the tragedy that gets freeze-framed from beginning to end over and over again.

It was a rainy Friday evening on the 22nd of May and everyone’s feeling the smell of the weekend rush. Vincent was already at a friend's house party and called Roxanne that he’ll be waiting. Roxanne was driving the Lexus behind a small truck that seemed to plod toward the upcoming red light. She was a few minutes late on her way and watching these two people ahead of her jabber away in that truck was getting her out of her ecstatic  mood. The light turned green, but the truck too slowly moved forward. Roxanne became frustrated as the driver fixated to the right. He visibly gasped at what was just about to come into her view. A brand new grey-blue Chevy Silverado blazed through the opposing stop light to broadside his little truck. Roxanne tried to stop, but her car slid into the Chevy's rear side and went tossing down the highway to an explosion.

All these is what Vincent needs to drown himself to agony. It’s as if Atlas gave up the bearing of the world for him to endure. Wretched and perplexed was he, blaming the world for such a prejudiced conspiracy. How could an angel like Roxanne be bound to such an end? How could an invincible love become vulnerable on the visage of death? But then again, his heart starts to concoct a spell of phantasm, bringing back the most prized memories of him and her together, infiltrating his whole system and gaining power over the bitterness and pain. In this test of sensations, he himself wasn’t sure if this two-edged delusion is a boon or bane. But one thing was becoming clear to him-he cannot be like this for the rest of his life. If this nightmare must be proven real, he must find a way out. Whatever may lie ahead, he must keep going, recreate his own world and be able to break free from the fetters of this mishap that surely promises him nothing but living scars, frustrations and sorrow.

Two years have passed and the town of New Hope has undergone a lot of changes. New coffee shops and cafes run down a block away from the University premise as well as convenient stores and parlors. New establishments stood welcoming and billboards mushroomed the skyway. The streets are crowded with more and more busy people, indicative of a metropolitan evolution of lifestyle. Summer has ended and without a trace, the arid autumn and the frigid winter fluttered to oblivion.

The same is true for New Hope University which, in its current enrollment period, has its student population increased by two thousand. The institute’s remarkable performance rating in board examinations and national competitions attracted other towns to invest their education to the latter. It was nearly the start of class and everyone is busy catching up the enrollment pace. But not Vincent, who, in the first day of inception has already completed the enrollment process. He was ecstatic, more of curious how his life as a senior student could turn into this academic year. He met faces of different kinds-some familiar and some entirely strangers. Those he doesn’t recognize would just pause and pay a smile while others he knew jsut pass by and make him feel invisible. On a ledge in front of his course department’s office he sat. He in himself was New Hope town in human transfiguration- braver, brighter and better. He looked from afar, with eyes playing on the nimble of heads and shoulders of people passing through the corridor. He drenched himself to an illusion of how each head turns toward him with a infectious smile, that once in a while, happiness is sought even in the gallows of solitude. Solitude-it wasn’t a strange name to him anymore. It never was. He was entangled with it on that day the sickles of death took his love away. Somehow, through the passage of time, the wound that was scourged deep in his heart has mended and the thought of being alone became amusing that he has managed to laugh about it over the seasons. He is more human now, away from the devious portal of his mundane imagining.

The daydream was shattered when out of the blue a silhouette of a familiar figure took the stage. She was elegantly tall, with hair of pure ebony lolling on her shoulders. Each step enraptures, and each gentle sway of a hand is a compelling rhythm. She draws closer to where he was and he's left slack jawed. She entered the office and he was back to his senses. Maybe not. What he beheld was something farfetched, something that he cannot comprehend. Vincent saw it all coming back to him. A remnant of his long buried love has come to life. It was Roxanne and it is more certain than breathing. He couldn’t explain what he felt. It was a maelstrom of joy and surprise, of hope and fear. It was the face he yearned to see, so long that the yearning turned to hate and despair. But now that it came to pass, his humanity fell apart. Although he is a mere victim of his own circumstances, the serendipity took a shot straight to his heart and there is nothing he could do about it.

Perhaps there is, and he is now pretty preoccupied. He wanted to know her. He must unknot this puzzle that has challenged his whole conviction. He must find every answer and throw all of its questions behind. Whatever there is that the road has in store for him is not essential anymore. He couldn’t care less to fathom this enigma and once more, find something worth living. But now that he is hanging in midair, he planned to fall back. He jumped out of the ledge and headed out the campus, afraid that she might be at sight and all the strength in him shall subside. He was up all night, thinking of how he could get a chance to meet and talk to her. He had thoughts of crafting schemes, devising methods and inventing tricks.

And nothing of it worked.

The first day of class commenced. New Hope University is buzzing with ecstatic students. Vincent giggled with utmost excitement, carelessly bumping shoulders and brushing elbows with other students in the corridors.  He molested his tattered COR and skimmed for his first class. It is in room 101 scheduled 9:00. He reviewed through the digital clock and he hurried as it ticked to 8:58. Luckily, he is safe from prime tardiness, though he seemed to be the last comer. He seated at the back, knowing that after thirty minutes, he’d helplessly succumb to napping since it is his favorite subject-English 8, Technical Writing.

And so she happened.

It was her, Roxanne’s doppelganger who broke the charts. She was 15 minutes late and unforgivably beautiful with her sequined tee and skinny jeans. She realized what she has gotten into and apologized with the kindest gesture. The professor gave her a hand and led her to the seat beside Vincent. She felt awkward. He was worse. They both sat like lifeless puppets with the puppeteer gone until she broke the silence.

“I’m Katherine,” she muttered. “Katherine Evans, glad to be your block mate”. She took it off with a smile that sent Vincent to hyperventilation. He couldn’t shake her hands. They’re already shaking with butterflies. The poor guy mounted his strength. He could not afford to lose the chance. “Vincent, Vincent Smith”. That was all and a nod. It was rare for Vincent to survive the thirty-minute nap attack but he did this time, although the victory seemed unnoticed. They enjoyed the remaining hour sharing thoughts and ideas with Vincent succeeding in all his attempts to stint his best jokes. He has come to know who she is at the basics-a transferee from Dakota University, a cheerleader and an adventurist. He also looks forward to know more about her in the days to come- hoping that she likes cheese, watching live wrestling fights and attending Sunday mass.

Perhaps she doesn't.

Two weeks was enough a time for the two of them to get closer to each other. They were both open to let the affinity they share to grow and blossom. It was very apparent that the two knew where their relationship is going and they both seemed ready for it.

Months have passed and the two were no more than couples. But Vincent was too overwhelmed of what he had let enter his life. Katherine is no Roxanne. She doesn’t like cheese, wrestling or Sunday masses. She was more self-driven, conceited and unwelcoming. Sooner he realized that he isn’t in love with Katherine, nor will he ever be. He just created his Utopia by painting Roxanne’s memories on Katherine’s facade. He believed to have loved again and he believed in vain.

It was a candlelight dinner at Katherine's and it was all set. She suggested it herself. She would always do this, steering their affair on a one man tag and turning the tides whichever she likes it to be. She seemed obsessed about Vincent, about their friendship, about their bond. This was her biggest mistake: to let Vincent get drowned in her self-consumed devotion.

Vincent is on his way. To break her heart.

When he came, Katherine pranced in glee. She presented the menu. And the drinks too. She was on the midst of telling Vincent her summer getaway plans when he told her to stop and listen. He undid it to her gently by taking all the blames, that it was his butter fingered actions which led them both bruised and bleeding. It was a self-defeating battle preordained by the gods. A tear fell down from Katherine’s eyes, and she didn’t want to show him more. She fled her way out the dining room with a tormented soul, like Aphrodite torn by Adonis, and hurried to her room with the banging of the door. Vincent was left with only the deafening silence, keeping his severed heart together.

As he sat out there slowly losing substance, he began to notice a set of picture frames that showed two happy faces, one of them Vincent was able to recognize in just a matter of seconds. But what puzzled him most is the picture's relevance to Katherine. He thought of a reason to make his way out the riddle. He looked closer to the girl beside Roxanne and found a spot of mole that was identical to Katherine's.

Vincent stumbled to a discovery he wished he had never known.

On the night Roxanne met death, she was not alone. She was with company. The girl that happened to live is Vicky Duran, Roxanne’s best friend. She was secretly in love with Vincent. And she was prepared to change her entire life for a streak of a chance that she’ll have what she was living for.

And she almost succeeded.

Vincent, still staggered on how things turned out insane, went to Roxanne’s grave. He shattered from an implosion of mixed emotions and he cried out like a child who lost his treasured toy. He curled on the ground with so much pain and bearing contained inside him. He called out Roxanne’s name with pure longing, bringing back his old self and his memories of that grey autumn, of that unwanted Friday that took her life away.

Footsteps cracked from the ground and Vincent ceased his outburst of melancholy.

“Let me end your misery,” a trembling voice came from behind him. It was Vicky, whose face is neither Roxanne’s nor Katherine’s. It was a face of a hopeless woman, wretched and determined for something. She was wearing rugged clothes and she held a gun on her hand. To Vicky, living is no different from death. She has now understood why the very person she loves has turned away from her when she gave all that she never was. But the realization priced too much of her reality that she cannot anymore take back. She decided to **** him and then take her own life.

She pointed the gun towards Vincent. He jumped at her to take the gun away. They grappled on the ground, the weapon still on Vicky’s hands. Vincent managed to overpower her but she kicked him, tumbling back to the gravestone. A shot was heard from afar with a man’s cry.

It rained that day. Brown withered leaves of tall laurels hovered with the wind while branches of solitary Cypresses dance to every whirl. The breeze whispered to the clouds of grey, a mark of autumn’s return. Vincent crawled to Roxanne's grave. It was a weeping of a true love that echoed away. Raindrops keep descending from the heavens, washing away the blood that kept flowing to the ground of mud.  Perhaps, on the last moments of his life he found happiness, even from a love that was never his to keep.

 

- by Larry Potter

They say, in the wheel of life, you'll spend half your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the bottom. I guess they got it all wrong. I believe life is a crooked tire that can never roll up and down. Pretty sure, it is nailed to the ground where weeds could grow to entangle it forever. Until now, what they keep trying to say remains a puzzle to me. Perhaps I can never understand what they mean. Or maybe I just won’t. Why? Because from the moment our eyes opened for the world, we’re already stuck down below and I’m afraid we’re trapped here in this limbo for all eternity.

We’re just simple people living an ordinary life. Like every family who seeks refuge from the storm, we do have a place we call home although it’s not much of an architectural delight. However, for some reasons, I find our roof appealing like a real work of art. Patches of cardboard embellish the underside while a combination of tarpaulin and ad posters works in harmony to provide an extended shelter. On bright mornings, we’ll wake from the sunbeams piercing through its many gaps. On rainy days, however, the sound of raindrops falling from the gaps down to our water containers serves as our wake up call.

To jumpstart ourselves for another day’s challenge, we could either eat breakfast (if there were any), or just sing our skipping meals away and spend the rest of the day with sacks of scraps and rubbishes on our back hoping to make a good deal with Mr. Gomez, the junk shop proprietor. He reminded me so much of my father but without the alcohol problem and violence, though. During nighttime, we bring with us our drum to sing carols on the lonely streets. If our feet become too weary to walk, that’s the time we head home. We rush all together, eager to count the coins we’ve collected that night. We make sure to put a plastic cap underneath two of our table’s feet so that it won’t lean uncontrollably and spill the tiers of ten, five and one peso coins we’ve dedicatedly piled over. Then the next part does the trick. A portion of our collection for the night goes straight down a big jar and joins in the many others which fill more than half of the container. The remaining part is used to buy supper to save our hungry tummies from
shrinking again. However, during slack nights when drivers and busy people decided to become miserly, we’re fortunate enough to have a pack of noodles for supper. But if we ran out of luck, we just set our untidy beds ready and drown our raging stomachs to sleep. I know there’s not pretty much but this is where our lives revolve. And as they say, life must go on no matter what.

Together with the three most important persons of my life, I continue the journey for a better living. Along the way, we try to search for the good things out of life’s bitter truths. We never let misery **** our hopes and dreams. Instead, we work harder and tougher. Take Islay, for example. She’s cheerful,
clever, aggressive, talented, a model of hard work. She’s got most of everything. Well, except for height, probably. I wanted to be a doctor so I could help the needy. Islay dreams of becoming an elementary teacher. She said she really likes kids and teaching them would surely be a more exciting thing to do.

Then there’s Nova. Her looks may require you a little more time to think and consider, but she has a good heart. However, she gets a little, uhhm, what term do we use for an unsociable person? That’s it! She’s a bit of a Killjoy!

Islay and Nova caroled a store swarmed with drunkards. It was always Islay who’ll find every creative idea and propose it convincingly to Nova, who in turn hesitates and rejects it but then ultimately respects it in the end. Islay always has the winning edge. Maybe that’s one of her abilities. Her convincing power deserves a credit to the list.

The two didn’t mind the ***** that welcomed them. Inside her mind, Nova asked herself how many people could waste their money on a doze of liquid or spirit that can poison their mind and bring them to imminent danger. If only they have given it to the poor and needy, they could have saved a lot of lives instead of ruining their own.

But Aling Nena, the wicked storeowner, unleashed her witchy wrath to the two. She looked at them with eyes of contempt, of prejudice and disgust. She accused the two as jinxes and blamed them for the
store’s unprofitable end. If only she could look at herself and discover a chest of shimmering blame, she might shrink into shame. Islay and Nova ran off not because they were afraid of Aling Nena or the drunken men but because of what Aling Nena said to them. They cannot defend themselves from such
an attack. How could they when they were surrounded with eyes of ridicule?

And of course, there’s my dearest sister, Juaning. We’ve only got each other since our mother’s death. It has been months already. Juaning was still 15 when mama left us. She’s 16 now. It’s been quite a while and I know she misses mama a lot like I do.

And so they fought life’s bitter realities. They begged and implored to the unconcerned passers-by, almost falling to their weak knees for one very important thing - to live. But even if the three of them were sitting, lying, and rolling down the cold pavement, these people with more graces just pass by without even sparing a glance of concern. Wouldn’t it be happier if they shared their God-given blessings? But as the day continues, they have to endure the hunger, the contempt. Because other than filling their
hungry stomach, they have a sibling, a friend to support.

That’s my part of the story. It has been months now since I caught a serious illness which bound me
to this bed, flat on one’s back, weak, inutile, and useless. Every time they come home, I wish I was with them to taste the sweet and feel the pain, not just a good listener to their stories of survival and moments of friendship. Someday, I’ll become strong again, and this curse of a disease shall be gone.

I woke up to the longing for water. I’ve never been this thirsty before. I called out their names but my voice just echoed deep in the four dark walls of our crooked house. With no one to help me, I summoned my strength and decided to get a glass of water by myself. But my legs aren’t as strong as my will. And as I attempted to stand, they betrayed me. I collapsed and plodded down the floor. Luckily Islay came and helped me get back to bed. She scolded me for being careless. I cried. I can’t help it. I pitied myself all
over again.

The cold evening wasn’t a problem for Islay. Seeing me cry like that crushes her heart. I know, as a friend and a part of our family, she wishes the best for me. And that’s why she’s still out there in the middle of the night, working late to earn more for our better future. She ignored the chills and the exasperation. She knows she has to work harder and she’s more than determined for it.

But something happened to me while she’s away from home. I cannot move my body, not even my mouth. Tears just fell from my weary eyes. And before it’s too late, Juaning caught me unresponsive and paralyzed. My sister cried for help. Nova sprinted to get the jar. Juaning told her what to do. And wasting no time, Nova rushed to the nearby pharmacy to get me some medicine, and most probably to save my life.

But Nova’s effort was in vain. Prescription drugs cannot be bought that easily. The pharmacist closed down the only lining of hope for me. The security guard felt pity on Nova and he suggested her an alternative decision that will change our lives forever.

Islay was still busy serenading the busy streets with her chants of joy and sweet hums. But the clouds become unwelcoming. And by the sound of the thunder, big droplets of rain started pouring down the highway. She ran as fast as she could and sat on a corner where she thought of something deeply. She hugged the drum that she was carrying for five hours or so and tried to remain calm in the presence of the bad weather.

After half an hour, Nova came back with a pouch of medicine on her shaking hand. She handed it carefully to Juaning whose faith and hope were hanging to the tiny bottle of miracle.

Days gone by and my condition wasn’t going any better. It turned out that my medicine was consumed to the last drop. Still I remained immobile and my hands are going number by the days. Slowly I was losing hope. I wish they weren’t mad at me. I’m trying my best to live on. That’s why I’m still here. But Nova shared something worth listening to. She revealed how and where she got the medicine.

It was from a quack doctor on a stall put up on the corner of Rizal Avenue. She said he was well versed and very convincing. And that she spent all of our savings for a bottle of deception. But we can do nothing about it. We did not have formal education. We were fortunate enough to meet kind children on
the streets who would try to teach us something they have learned from school. We would attempt to read newspapers and the description in the carton boxes we spread beneath the Badelles overpass.

Nova cried in guilt and shame. Islay was still angry at her, and it can be understood. My sister, Juaning, comforted Nova with a promise that everything will get better in time.

December 27. It was my birthday. And more than anything else, what I wish is for the four of us to be happy. Nothing in this life is more important than seeing everyone you love smile with absolute
happiness. Juaning never forgot her job and that’s to buy me a cake. Every year, they will try to surprise me with every creative possible way. But that’s how their surprises become predictable with my age.

They sang me a birthday song. But this time, they were the ones waiting for a surprise. As my sister was about to hand me the cake waiting for me to blow the candle, she noticed something she was least expecting for. My lips are pale and my eyes are shut from the light of the world. I caught my last breath and before I gave it away, I left a smile on my face that can never be changed forever. That is how I want them to remember me. Not that heck of a frown clown whose audiences are stricken with sadness.

They say, in the wheel of life, sometimes, you'll spend half of your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the
bottom. Maybe they were right. It was then that I’ve come to understand what they were trying to say.

Our life’s wheel revolves around things way beyond just money, food, and shelter. It is about the moments you spend with your loved ones, friends and family that will be forever carved in your heart. We can never know when our life here on earth will be over. So let us cherish every bit of it. And for me, even if we skip breakfasts and eat only noodles for supper, I have realized in these last fleeting moments that my life has always
been on the top of the wheel after all.

I am empty, yet I am whole
I burn with passion, desire, hot
Yet I am frozen to the core, cold.
My steps are surer than a Lions,
Yet insecurity ravages my mind like a bad disease.
My thoughts impulsive, extemporaneous
Yet cool, calm and calculated are my middle names.
Sometimes fear makes me weaker than a withering flower
But usually I'm bolder than a boxer, ducking, diving, bobbing, weaving
I can be loud, raucous, unbecoming
or quiet, shy and unwelcoming
I prefer my own space
But I'm your best friend
I can follow with the obedience of a dog
But I love setting trends.
I am an honest liar
A well read idiot
A losing champion
A logical creative
Beautifully ugly
Perfectly flawed
What I'm saying, is I'm human.
A walking contradiction
I'm an Oxymoron,
Yet I am not.

He awoke.

His eyes opened slowly with a purposeful slowness; an action that for most people is the beginning of their life was, for him, a procrastination.

He arose.

The floor felt cold, unwelcoming as he stumbled reluctantly to the sink. The bristles rasped against his teeth, gums bleeding out of spite.

He entered.

Breakfast—a lonely egg, boring toast—entered his body; each bite was scooped with the utilitarian vigor of one who is no longer enchanted by food, yet the relationship must continue: a compulsory marriage without option for divorce. This discomfort washed down with lemon-water.

He contemplated.

Thoughts, those musings that are feared, condemned by most and yet became the greatest of comforts for him, reminded him that one day it all would end and he would be free.

He wasted.

He stretched out his hands, offering up his life force in the daily sacrifice to the eager god that, in return, lit up with the brightness of a thousand stars that blinded him from all that he wished not to see.

He showered.

Cold water ran down his soul, icing the most superficial inflammations while taunting the deepest wounds; no matter how long he remained behind the curtain, there would be no true respite.

He returned.

The blackness beckoned. He entered willingly, surrendering himself to the dark embrace of that demonic respite, his beloved above all others.

He died, once again.

J.R. said the man in the helmet said, “Goodbye, my friend,” before shooting his father in the chest. His body sank, but the man shot him twice more, in the head and cheeks. The children said the three men were laughing as they left.*
-Daniel Berehulak, They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals, New York Times

Manila, goodnight.
The world is watching you slowly die.
Tattered truths & losing sense of life
captivate your battered night. Mud hurls blood
streets batted with horror & blabbed
anonymous spirits ghostlier than ever.

(Even ghostlier than your Martial Law days)

Manila, tranquilize yourself.

Your rest will be disturbed by scourged souls, thunderous cracks of guns,
bullets hitting flesh, motorcycle tandem arrests,
people’s holy shouts shunning shibboleth sounding death.

Hear them not. Sleep well.

Maggots festering wound. Manila,
on your knees, worms stich your broken nerves
healing gunshot wounds with peace.

Your night will be a train of madness
shattered by lies through morbid holes in skulls
& confessions in cardboard signs.

(Justice today is served cold, so cold)

& everything from that day on is simply to be known
as a cold just.

Truth decays. Life smolders, vanishing.

Your nights will be unthreaded from memories
for no one dares to look back to twisted arms clenched
by plastic strips, head bowing to ground (instead of ground
bowing to head), ground kissing the body naked swarmed
either by grease or blood, the body breaking gossips
among gossipers & gossamer among spiders.

Weep not, dead men tell no fiction.
Their bodies are the shocking truth, forsaken
shocking headlines hissing morning papers
peppered with mint or lies.

Manila, goodnight for your night will be remembered
through vigilant myths & nothing more.

Often cold bodies, freezing voices from limbo,
can’t speak nor bothered the living.

Again, Manila, in your arms, dead men tell no tales.

The killing spree of fragmented morality,
mortality, fatality, vanity, sanity, insanity, apathy.

Manila, do not move. You are now sedated with fear,
stronger than cooked methamphetamine of crooked realities,
no less than a drug making your anxious, bothered
in the darker & dimmer night
in dimmer  & darker disaster.

Manila, walk with your graffiti walls.
Your gutters will be banks of blood. Daylight traffic
will erase your night’s unwelcoming sphere. Last night
persists as tiny figment of imaginings photographed
& again, nothing more.

Everything will pass like hyacinths of Pasig River.

Everything will pass like one’s eternal passing.

Everything will pass like a chilling December wind.

Everything will pass either a typhoon or a butterfly fluttering.

Manila, goodnight. I am afraid they will ****** you
in your sleep. I am afraid that everything will just pass
like your breath losing hold of your lungs then your heart.

I am afraid that your death, my dear Manila,
will just be a neighbourhood rumour passing
& everything turns into a fiasco of a madman who believes
that he is a messiah, was he a messiah or never he will be a messiah.

Manila goodnight, I will watch you in your sleep. Your sleep
will be a thousand fold peace. No more of your sons or daughters
will be killed at least not in my memory.

Manila, here comes the night. Sleep,
sleep holy in the hidden lair of my mind. Your
catacomb will be wreathed by flowers & tears.
Incense will be fragrant burning bones. Your life,
your tired life will be a gentle ebbing of time
like your Bay’s sunset beauty, like your lively street people
like your once known heritage, your life
in the busy daybreak of your kindred sons.

Goodnight, my dear Manila.

.aye aye... trí turds... wha'? three turds... huh? tree thirds... oh paddy paddy paddy... τo 'ινκ ιτ θρoυ(γɥ)... you might 'ave even brought ubout a a taught - naught - a thought.

but but... but...
Poland is so unwelcoming?!

good...

   no attachments
of a post-colonial narrative...

oh... and the language
is hard to learn...

    by all means,
infiltrate...
            
  we've had the Nazis,
we've had the three-headed Hydra
of Prussia,
  Russia and Austro-Hungary...

we've had the Communists...
oh i'm pretty sure we
can accommodate Islam...
along with the scuttling
rats
of the gutter...

            we are a people,
and WE, as a people:
owe you nothing!
         nothing!
  take your British empire postscriptum
elsewhere, eat and ****
there, and don't come back...

i'll appropriate this native spreschen,
i'll speak it...
but don't you come around here
supposing i'll "think"
like you do...

      funny... well... not really...
Dublin was never to become the second
Edinburgh...

        but whenever I hear an Eire man
talk...
  there's that diacritical excuse of
repeating:
    paddy paddy paddy potato
pancake...
paddy paddy paddy mac (protestant)
mc (catholic) Doug -
      la la paddy paddy woo! wooooooo!

no, thank you...
  we've had the Nazis -
we've had the Communists -
thankfully all the Polish economic migrants
are returning home...
   thanks for being treated like
some sort of, quasi Roma...
              
   no problem... we can go back
to a homeland, given that we're actually
less victors, and more inheritors -
   the Marshall Plan...
well...
      if only the H'americans reached
Berlin first...
there would be no Warsaw pact...
by the way...
   i thought Sweden and Switzerland
remained neutral?
  so why pay them the Marshall Plan
funds?

       oh, but please...
move to Poland...
        see how long you'll survive...
         that feral land of lost
opportunity...
        i don't mind...
   language might be a problem...
given...
English isn't exactly pop
outside the confines of a
Jean Claude van Damme movie...

        but go on... try...
            you'd find more success in
catching a floater's worth of a ****
than exercising any
     chance to subvert the reigning
culture...

  bo? (because)?
   i'll integrate -
             (ja wtopie się w tą kulture) -
but - ale -
on one condition -
    w ramach jednej potrzzeby -
i'll retain my birth-tongue -
ja zachowam swój zór!

i'd never trust immigrants,
economic or refugee,
if they do not retain their mother tongue -
if they can't construct
bilingualism?
   they're rotten fruit...

   i'm not here to be nice -
zapomnienia mówienia po
   polszku...
   i forgot how to speak Polish...
  
rotten fruit,
attempting integration too hard...
you can't forget
your native tongue,
just like you can't forget
riding a bicycle or
swimming...

            the argument stinks of
****!
i hate it...
    i'd expect a jew to make
this sort of argument,
rightfully so...
     i can't imagine the heartache
of having invested so much
Hebrew in German to create
Yiddish...
   a Jew i can understand...
       but some ******* Pakistani
suggests he has, on "purpose"
forgotten Urdu,
and speaks only English?

   sum? terrorist...
     no man is born without either
a linguistic, or a cultural integrity -
prior to the cuisine,
the language dies...
but then the cuisine never dies...
neither does the language -
and if the language is "dead":
the mentality remains...

         you smell something?
skunk?
   hmm... i'll speak English, i'll write
English... but i'll think in my
Western Slavic guise...
ah... sorry i'm not copper-skinned
wishing for an Indian suntan
of the lower-caste...
  sorry...
          
you're standing ****-naked in terms
of orthography - as a language -
and you're over-laden with metaphysics...
sure as **** a satan will come around
dressed in either paupers' rags
or a gentleman's nightgown;

    as i still begin, persistent -
in telling you...
a man who does not have enough
ethnic pride, in retaining, and keeping,
a language his mother used to
lullaby by him to sleep,
into his later years?
   a person, who cannot accommodate
bilingualism?
        trust score? ZEE-RHO.

i much abhor the Scots and the Eire men,
as much as i admire the Welsh
for priding themselves on
retaining Cymru -
                      no Gaelic?
   no pass...
                 English is a mongrel language...
who gives a ****?
  some Shanghai
         half-wit economics student speaks
it...
    lingua franca...
                       thus that i have
to admire... the Welsh...
     and their version of YHWH:
                     CYMR...
that... takes *****...
         the Welsh could look into
Kashubian and Silesian Polish to boot.

There are hearts of gilt,
And there are hearts of sin
There are hearts that lose,
And there are hearts that win.
There are hearts of stone.

But if my heart was anything,
It'd be a cactus.

Prickly and unwelcoming with tight alien-green skin,
That never fails to swell to accommodate whatever grew inside unseen.
With love it'd bulge,
And it'd shrink in the absence of love.

(But with the right care it could bloom the most spectacular flowers.)

There are strong hearts,
But even strong hearts give in.
My heart is a cactus heart,
My heart could keep it all in.

Like some kind of metamorphosis,
You changed so rapidly,
Once you were quiet,
Yet so abrupt,
Then you didn't care what the world thought,
Once you laughed with me,
Once you chuckled lightly with a smile spread wide,
Once you'd hug me,
Even kiss me,
But once this metamorphosis hit,
You've become cold and unwelcoming,
So restrained,
You listen to their lies about me,
You let the world decide for you,
Now the laughter,the chuckles and giggles,They are gone,
The smiles have faded,
No hugs or kisses,
Barely a glance,
Only receiving ignorance,
Now,Because of this change,
This One evil metamorphosis,
We are like are like strangers in the street,
All we have are the memories,
The ones you say meant nothing,
The only proof we know one another,
Is the look on your face when you see me,
Near disgust,
You put up your hood and run the moment you spot me,
Those moments hurt,
But it is proof you knew me,
But that was all before your metamorphosis,
That was when our memories meant everything,
Now they mean nothing,
At least to the one who changed....

Momentary
mourning peace.
Mama pours a glass of mulled wine,
lights a scented candle
                               (- "cherries on snow" -)
and drinks to ol' Joan.

Passed down with the jewellery box,
somewhere in the will, the daughters
receive the annual chore of roasting
the turkey (delicious!) and the veggies
(good job!) and (could you pass the?) breadsauce
for their brothers and husbands huddled
            on a threadbare sofa -- and a younger girl,
            barely there, staring at a laptop screen.

Mama's not festive - always too tired -
barely celebrates, but orchestrates.
Years barely there 'cause she's needed in their kitchen
and someone's gotta cook can she please get a hand? and
one chivalrous male puffs out his chest, takes one for the team, gestures to the girl with no discernible attention span and
half-laughs an "ay, one day this'll be you!
Best get in there while you're young!"

                                                       ­   ((A baritone chorus of laughter.))

"You outdid yourself on the turkey."
"S'great, ain't it? Pass the potatoes."

Sometimes here, sometimes Spain.
We stay over. It's tradition: we're
scattered across the country,
maid duties are the least she can do.
Never our kitchen or living room.
Tiny. Messy. Unwelcoming.
Come Boxing Day, Mama gives
a bear hug goodbye and an
"it's good to see you";
Because it is, she thinks.
Thank you for inviting me
to carry out your labour.
I'm just grateful to be needed.

A month of red 'SALE' tapes
scouring the clearance shelves;
overtime for extra cash
scraped to afford the food she cooks you;
paying half for gifts she'd brainstormed
while Dad buys partial credit on the gift tag.
We vanish from your house
- like elves -
by morning.

I know the feeling
very well - its mutual.
To be ****** and dogged
cowardly. It's an
unwelcoming
situation. All bottled up
with emotions
and consumed with rage.
At your breaking point
and at your peak of going
over the edge.
Licking your flesh wounds,
but calculatingly plotting
your eventful
revenge.

art critics are like tourists in the art world / australian cricketers,
they come to see the major sights, like bling ben, the eiffel tower
and the leaning tower of pisa... and they leave very quickly...
when the atmosphere of each town allocating each momument
strikes them as both unappealing and unwelcoming.
+ we're not living in the age of the culture of celebrity,
the celebrities were fooled...
we're looking at living in the age where the culture
is defined as: looking for the doppelgängers:
just check out the galaxy chocolate advert - the 2nd reneissance
happened between the nineteen 50s 60s 70s 80s and 90s
and now everyone is bemused when they have to
entertain showing up on trivia-knowledge shows.*

there won’t be a spoiler alert with this book,
you will basically not read it,
it took me two years and a few books in between
to finish heidegger’s opus being and time,
at the end he’s quizzical about either being
the strand of philosophers who follow aristotle
or a strand that follows plato,
given he allocates 15 years to study aristotle
i assure you he’s from the root of aristotle,
and as a poet i favour him and aristotle,
given heraclitus was almost a poet: it really doesn’t
make you a poet if you express yourself
without using a paragraph... a paragraph is not
among the poetic techniques, so don’t bother:
it’s just a ****** ref. to a square.
i never quiet knew why the beatles made a bigger impact
than the doors... i blame lucy and her fishnet stockings
rather than van gogh’s night with reference to diamonds
as jubilee stones of carbon.
i find it fascinating that contemporary schizophrenics
have the delusion of thinking their friends are spies,
i walk in a german army shirt to prove the point...
of course men affected in greater no. by this condition,
after all the spermatoid is the creative element
given the **** singletons are blank canvases...
but you know what single “thing” undermines
psychiatric diagnostics? empathy...
empathy is a divergence from solipsistic apathy... otherwise
known as self concern,
and i know that if you itemise further on an atomic level
(kabbalah) you get a- pathos...
apathy meaning without pathology...
but everyone, each one of us has some sort of pathology,
the most frequnted domain being the domain of phobia,
arachnophobia e.g.,
to intend to be wholly without pathology would
turn the notion of the ego into a-, in casual usage,
one can be pathological with or without one’s request...
one can be pathological in relation to oneself...
i once said that apathy breeds no pathology, and it’s true,
but concerning this statement there’s the kantian
thing-in-itself (noumenon): that apathy is self-caustic,
self- implying automated, and is a cause of concern to either party
concerned.... if apathy is seen as a quasi- / pseudo- pathology
then all subsequent pathologies are understood better...
because why testify an apathy without an adrenaline rushing
through the system? better still... why not call apathy
a misguided exfoliation of inserted / produced adrenaline?
as akin to atheism - if a- (without) -theism (softer logic akin to god,
god via experience rather than theory / the -ism expression, not the logos expression)
is to be expressed why is there a necessary concern to exclude
any logic of the existence of, when it’s argued that experience is not necessary
to prove anything, but rather non-experience has a basis of adequate logic?
you know that point... when using words and subsequent reading
becomes akin to arithmetic in terms of complexity,
where words such as i and think, are unified by the equivalent of +, -. x
by guidance of noun, verb, adjective, etc.

I think I would like to make a home of your body
Like the dens I used to make with my siblings,
Before I started saying "no thanks".

To take a doctor's scalpel,
Clean and new and never used
And so very, very sharp
And to rest it in the hollow just where the breastbone ends.

Then to push it in along your soft smooth shiny skin
So unlike the mottled scarring that covers mine.

Down, down, down
To where you wear the waistband of your jeans.
A horizontal swipe at the top,
At the bottom,
Like making the fold of a window in a paper house.
Shh, is anyone home?

Lifting the heavy, wet flesh,
Your rib cage is so very white
And so very perfect
Like special cutlery for special occasions-
Births and weddings and funerals.

They hide your lungs,
Bloodshot and tired of the
Eternal
Moving and moving and moving on and on and on

Your stomach, soft
And vulnerable in its hideousness
Yet it hides the despicable necessity
Of human life.

And your heart,
Plump and fresh and young,
It is restless and strains
But for what when all that lies outside
Is incomprehensible and unnerving and unwelcoming.

So I will leave it all behind
And with damp heavy fatigue crawl
Into your torso like the unborn child
We have all been and will be again.

And your ribs will cradle me like a birdcage
That has grown so sick of the world,
And your organs will cushion and comfort me
When I feel that I do not want to live.

And blood will cover everything
Just as I have always wanted.
Flooding my eyes and nose and mouth and ears
And bathing me in the warmth, the constant gentle pounding,
That would make me feel alive.

Terrifying façade,
long and tall, overpowering
but frail.
Ready to crumble and fall.

Snide wire intertwined,
exit wounds in the concrete flesh.
Each thorn stood to attention,
unwelcoming guards of the now unwanted.

Block after block
of relentless alleyways,
like a labyrinth of colossal gravestones.
The sky opens.

Water rattles bullet-like,
upon the once majestic city walls.
The cathedral moans its last hymn
as the steeple betrays itself.

The descent prevails.

You are the sarcastic stain in my words.

You are the scoff in my laugh.

The dragging in my steps and the scar on my side.

I’m restraining myself,

I’m holding it all in.

But I will always be searching for your empty laugh.

And waiting for your restless phone calls.

You will always be the unwelcoming sun,

that casts my darkest of shadows.

The sun never shines
in downtown
Theres no merry go round
Nor the sweetest sound
in downtown .
There's no pleasant air
And nobody cares
lifes so unfair
  in downtown.
Such an unwelcoming sight
When your out  at night
Walking the streets brings no delight
Your caught in a trap and can't take to flight
in downtown.
There are no bars or  sound of cars
All you have are many scars
  in downtown .
Now this is the news
That can help you through
There is a way out of downtown
For there's not such a place  
you need not fear nor dread
Its just those thoughts inside your head.

Who was I to think we had something worth keeping?
Certainly not you.

But why.
We played the game.
I thought I understood the rules.
I thought you were trying to break through.

My walls oh so high
They hid the sun from you
And you saw my darkness.

In the dark you found truth.
Unable to understand it, you ran from it's grip.
Too tight around you,
the darkness is unwelcoming.

If only you knew that if you held on a little longer,
the sun was to rise and from truth love were to arise.

But you disengaged.
Saw the truth and convoluted them into lies.

Now nothing.
But a heartbroken metaphor
for I think I miss you more.

You've moved on,
naturally and genuinely.

I sat here,
stupidly.

I am repaying my
wounded soul a visit

A distant voice tells me
“I am no longer welcome here”

The lighting of streets' corners -
Even those corners that hitherto were dark and unwelcoming.
As the sunset bleeds
on the city's disappearing silhouette.

The shimmering traffic;
The blares of multiple cars as they try to rush home.
As windows smile brightly to passersby.
The return of Santa Claus!


The holiday seasons,
Winter to the snow laden,
Harmattan to the arid lands.
Chilly on all sides.

The warmth of the fireplace,
The joy of the days to come.
The jingles of merry bells.
The bright lights of Christmas trees.

A reminder that all of humanity can still be happy.
That there is still hope.
That we can share in each other's joy.
And always be there for each other.

I'm Broken, But Not Shattered
I've lived for what seems like a long time
To me, who has been alive for 17 years
I am older than I have ever been and have been broken before
To my parents, who have all but forgotten their youth
I am young and have experienced little to no trouble
To my grandparents, who can barley even remember me
I am such little child that I couldn't even fathom pain
To world, who only knows me by my age
I am the source of so many problems
Sometimes I wonder if the pain I feel is real
I mean real to them
Because I know it's real to me
I cry
I feel
I hurt
To those around me
My is trivial
It is nothing
But I have been broken
I have had my heart broken
Not even by love
But by the world
By my parents
By my peers
I have been broken
My parents have showed me
That there is no unconditional love
Nor is there true
My peers how taught me
That he world can be cold
And unwelcoming
I am 17 and broken
But I am not shattered
I will pick up my pieces
And I will make a better and stronger
Me
I may have been knocked down
But I will rebuild
No matter how broken I am
I will not but shattered
Not by my parents
Not by my peers
Not by anyone
I am broken
But not shattered
I will build myself up
So strong
So high
That no one can deny what I feel
And no one can make me feel like that
Ever again
I am broken
But I refuse to be shattered

Why try to belong
To something
You have never known?
Distant lands
Unwelcoming arms
I have gone.

hatred met
bitterness
darkness has grown.
Homeless in
a home is her
personal song
singing these truths
writing these wrongs.

Be yourself
Even if that person
Is a stranger
Not owning it
is a far more
Evil danger.

There's this busy parking lot
and a strong North East wind
and a dusky night time feel
and a lost seven year old boy begging for change
and red lights and angry drivers
and tears rolling down my face
and pain in my heart
and the unwelcoming architecture of a mall

and I need a cigarette...

Eyes so serene as your body relaxed,
your passing never passed until
a gravestone was all I had.
An edged slab of marble
unwelcoming, cold,
won't compare to the lingering life
so close to behold.
I miss how I missed you
when I missed you the most,
as love's just crux howls
only when losing its host.
Thus through such virtue
I could lastly accept mine,
enough so to nurture,
and cry for my Pieta
one last time.

Too many Black bodies,
Know the unwelcoming
Pavement as their home.
I can smell the sadness
That seeps through their pores.


Sorrow that furiously
Enters my nostrils
Like tornados yielding eviction notices. 



Pupils that beg
For eye contact.

They are empty change cups
That fill to the brim
Through the locking of retinas. 


Begging,
More for the reminder
That they too are human,
Than for the change
That will provide little of what it boasts.

Open caskets
With the bodies of suicidal souls.
Lifeless faces rearranged
To show a glimpse of joy.


The scene is rich with irony.
These dead are smiling.
While the barely living
Don't have the same luxury of tranquility. 


Words claw their way outside of mouths,
Fighting
To reach a listening ear.
Suffering
Such alienation,
From being unaware
Of their origin or direction.
When the body and mind lose
Their living accommodations,
Words still yearn
For a home.

Black bodies litter the streets.
And sanitation crews wonder
Whether to place the lifeless bodies
Into the truck’s trunk,
An open casket.

I wonder,
When was the last time
One of their names was
Spoken into existence?

How difficult is it,
To forget who you are?

Eminently most nights
you enter my dreams
falling languidly
within each
moving ethereal scene

The first light of morning
feels cold and unwelcoming
an imposing enemy
waiting for me to rouse
staring blankly
carrying me away
from my most precious clouds

Sleep and the peaceful state
of 'just being'
has become my most
sought after friend indeed
upon awakening
I recall with wonder
who is luckier?
you or me?

A visitor to church was seated by an usher.
Greeted with warmth from some of the congregation.

The visitor listen to the word coming from the minister.

Today's sermon was about love.
The ways to express it.
The ways to accept it.
By saying, that what God would want of us?

The minister's spoke of all the just men.
Who were once the best of the sinners?
And addressed the faithful of the good women.
Who came to accept Him?

But stayed centered upon love.

The minister's stated, how can you say you love your brothers?
But shows a different reaction each day.
When you're not around the people of faith.

The visitor listen quietly and smile.
In her heart, she felt she has located her church.
A place she would love to come and worship.

The minister's said, love is a rare charity given to  us all.
Even, to those that hadn't recovered from the fall.
The visitor felt loved.

Until, the minister spoke about unwelcoming sin.

He spoke God gave Eve to Adam to complete the gender deal.
That He created he for her.
And her for him.
And that anything else won't be tolerated by him at all.

The visitor smile became a frown.
Especially, when the subject was about love.
She was taught to love anyone and everyone with an unselfish heart.

That when you point fingers at one.
Others , are pointing them upon you.

After a certain amount of time.
The minister has concluded his speech.
He stated, by God's wisdom he was put here to teach.
And concluded, with the phase that God is love.

The visitor approached the minister and politely asked, why you teaching hate?
The minister was lost in trying to understand her.
She stated, God placed us here to get along.

And to judge another isn't the correct thing to do.
The minister was lost more.

She stated, while we might not agree with everything in life.
If love is found in those of the same.
Then, why should we try to dictate their ways?

We all have fallen from the grace of God.
But the most important qualities He has given us, is love.
The minister's understood.
Even, if He disagree about the same remark.

But there were wisdom in her remarks.
The House of God should be tolerant of others.
Especially, if addressing the subject of love.

She politely left.
But stated, she will be back.
Because she believes she was placed here to be a Devils Advocate.

INTRO

What happens beyond the realms of  reasoning, where do the lines of  reality blur, How close are the boundaries between light and dark, between dusk and dawn.
  What takes us beyond the thresh hold, the point of  sunlight and shadows, Are  we lying in wait as our limitations are questioned? How many souls have been taken unwillingly to the depths .
         Fall into a place, this chaos which so quickly crept into me, slipping away bringing me back to thoughts of sanity.
  But tainted thoughts stain what innocence is left, making me vulnarble and weak.
  Corruption is tempting you to just give into its wicked ways, influenced by bad habits unable to be dealt with, your surccumed to the sins.
  Such problems now swallow you entirely. There is no cure to this disease, I'm fighting and pondering a hopeless battle, I see no victory for me in the end.
  I will never win, I fear and know this now.

CHAPTER ONE

After the silence entered me,got inside rmy head  ,the lack of sound drowned out all the outside noise . Oh so quiet my world became,except for a suttle  humming,buzzing which echoed in my ears, I could only make it cease with the voices in my mind,my thoughts which I could now hear, and I heard them loud and clear. I heard fear, panic,uncertainty, so many questions I had no answers for.  I told myself its just this happens,maybe its just age,it won't last, this silence won't last,right. Yet another voice told me that something has gone terribly wrong here,and that this is only the begging of my end.  Along came the silence with it then came isolation, one by one everyone I loved let me and has not yet came back. Not even strangers met my path, instead I came across loneliness who now won't leave my side, all alone left to deal with me by myself.

CHAPTER TWO


It didn't take much time until the whispers began at first they only came with dusk,the end of day,when the sun sets taking the light from the world. The sky dims ,lower and lower until all is covered with a blanket of darkness. Shadows creep in slowly cascading across my walls, they remind me that something wicked this way comes,the essence of dread is in the air. An unsettling aura keeps me from sleep, as night falls my eyes grow heavy and my mind is so tattered. Yet slumber eludes me for the fear is much stronger. I lye  awake yet another night. Up until yesterday only an unwelcoming silence suffocated me made my emptiness almost unbearable. Then,well then it was broken, in the 2am hour, a whisper entered my dreamless conscience mind,from no distinct place and yet from every direction both at once

CHAPTER THREE

With such length of time now with deaf ears, I instantly noticed the change of frequencies, though it spoke in a low,low pitch normally it would go unheard or simply mistaken as a gust of wind. But lying there uneasy amounst the darkness of solitude,lacking of sleep and being not of sound mind by this point, I had begun to speak my thoughts aloud, answering my own questions, listening to my own voice somehow gave me comfort when nothing else could. Whispers,quiet whispers echo into the night, for my ears only. I can't clearly understand what they tell me, but the tones of each word gave
off a unsettling undertones that sent chills through me, if only I could understand, but  my  translation of these whispers are inaudible, pinned down by a fear that I'm sinking in slowly,like quicksand,its slowing pulling me under. A catatonic scream paralyzes every part of me, and I can't stop this, this downward spiral into madness. A descent into insanity, I feel myself growing weaker as my mind struggles against  chaos and the discontent , my dreams are dying before my eyes that will not close so I might rest, no no lately the days have brought me only misery,and a question of my faith, it will not give me a moment of ease cause every night has been just the same

CHAPTER FOUR

Why is this happening to me, why won't this just stop, and let me be, this hope fades the longer I live this way, won't somebody come save me, I'm wasting away and I have no control , my will is broken now. How did I not see this coming, something wicked this way comes, it comes for my soul, every peice of me turns black, and it hurts until I'm numb, A sudden suffer rips over me just before dawn, I  understood the  whisperes after all ,go adead just give in, suffocation is near, taken into a sea of self despair, this life you live and breath isn't yours any longer, step by step you will stumble, until you fall, until your empty and hollow.  Where can I go, where will I run, when there's nowhere to hide, nowhere at all. I thought i saw a glimpse of the mourning sun before I fainted from the weight of realizing that I am far from the better days ,tomorrow will lead me further, is this real, or I'm I only dreaming, is this reality or have I imagined all of this, I just don't know these days, time laughs in my face, and I sit silent and still. Watching myself fall,and fall and fall

CHAPTER FIVE

  Down in the dark, an endless night, keeps away the sunshine, cause lately I've been stuck in the shade, wishing for brighter days that are so faintly seen in the distance, I fear none of my wishes will be granted, now many of will be destroyed. I can not change this spiral into extinction, helplessly I watch myself stumbling, crumbling, and slowly coming apart.
  As I live and breath, I see my life wasting away.
Choking on what is yet to come, everyday brings me another dose of misery and a lothing ache that spreads thru me , suffocation is draining me from the inside out, What is pain, I can't scream loud enough to express what has taken ahold of me these days
  All this crept in on me like a cloud, why me I keep asking myself, won't this just go away, won't this just let me be, did I deserve this, well did i , nobody should ever know these wicked ways and all the inflict upon your soul.

CHAPTER 6

Y So with my mind a mess so much so that my consintration strains each thought, I can barely function anymore, and sleep depervation blurs my vision,ive been seeing traces and objects that aren't really there. Plus add the pain, loneliness, and total breakdown of my will, the stress is more then I can handle, I bear a heavy burden, and the weight is crushing me, but what can I do, nothing, I can't run far enough,or hide where I can't be found, please save my soul I whisper aloud, to late the damage is done, this is how I will die, surcombed to a bittersweet end, one day at a time. Now adrift into the void that swallows me up ,and a darkness dissolved another
day

CHAPTER 7

Within a few days I have managed to lose everything, All I am, all I gave and all I  made of this life, Step by step I watched it taken from my grasp, I saw what I worked so hard for be stolen, so easily from me. Peice by price my very exsistance was shattering , All this has torn my world whole apart,  it is being taken out from right underneath my feet.
   Ya I've been experiencing some real trials and tribulations ,they say life isn't easy  but they don't go into depths of how ****** up it can be, or how far down you can fall without any warnings or signs that you didn't realize until it was to late and the damage has been done.  Oh no I've heard some really messed up stories about some of the **** some people have lived thru. But in my personal opinion my life started 2 days ago and it this life of mine since then has been slowly deterating,

CHAPTER 8

ya I'm a sad sort who isn't alive in a sense but instead a slipping mindless  lost soul, that has nothing to look forward to because tomorrow isn't going to be any better and it never will.
    When the sun rises up from the darkness  bringing you Into another morning your wishing harder and harder wouldn't come. That just one night would be your last and you wouldn't take another breath of the morning air. Why oh why can't you just fade out with the darkness,  why oh why can't these misfourtonate events of lately end, I just want everything to just end. And if you Were in my shoes I know for certain you would feel the same way as I do now.


CHAPTER 9

Y … Well I can not express these emotions that have, but they are intensely surging inside me. And I only wish I could share my pain, if only there was someone besides myself to share what I'm going through. It would make it a little easier, well probably not but at least someone else would understand,to feel what I do right now.
So it may seem like I'm droning on and on, Im probably not telling my story so anyone can make sense of it.
  So sorry if I haven't made sense or if I've told this scattered all about.  My thoughts aren't as sharp or clear as they were before this nightmare started, a few short no make that long,long days ago.

Chapter 10

YThis verse keeps repeating in the back of my mind, kinda like a
  song you  hear somewhere but your not sure where, and can't get outta your head ,you find yourself humming it subconsciously ,and this is whats stuck in mine.
  Here I am, Here in this place, Here in this state,Here I am a nowhere Wonderer.
  This is me, This is all of me, This is what I've become, This is who you see now, LA LA LA LA
  I hum this melancholy tune as sappy as it may be,all day long from morning to evening, 24 hours,no 48 hrs. , no 64 hrs. now. I guess I've lost count but it seems that there's been a broken record placed someplace inside my head.

chapter 11

YSo this brings me back to the present hour.  And once again, yet one more day which hasnt let up on any of torment continuing to be inflicted upon my mind, body and soul. I struggled through the sunlight until the moonlight shone down upon me.
  Naturally I find myself lying silent and still, insomnia plagues my weairy self , drained of any motivation. I really couldn't move or accomplish a single thing, I felt frozen inside myself, trapped in a almost vegetable state.
      Dropped in the velvet shroud of darkness, night has placed a veil over the land, and it has me in its embrass but instead of a calming drowsiness as  all others are effected, I instead have an allergic reaction.  For sleep will not come to my tired restless soul, not when fear enters the mind and stirs up the worst of thoughts, how can I relax with such horrible not stations.
      

Chapter 12

T  Here I am starring into the air as the clock marks 3 in the am hour.  I almost thought I might or that I could catch a few zzzzz's, a quick cat nap to recooperate,to regenerate my mind,oh yes my mind in such a desperate need of rest. As well as my body, my sore,aching bones, im throbing all the way to my very core. So when I felt at ease for how ever brief a moment it may last I willed sleep to come, sandman bring me to the land of nod, please oh please.
  But of course as I shouldn't of expected much less, I blinked and my moment was gone, once more I wouldn't dream,wouldn't sleep, wouldn't find slumber or any escape from my new found reality,
In a land far far away, fantasy and make beleive are put on pause cause my presence has been marked absent

Chapter 13

   They started in a low low  tone, the whispers.
Whisper,whisper,whisper, ascending louder with each tick tock of the clocks hands, clockwise,round and round the clocks face marking time, reminding me my life grows shorter with each tick and each tock.
  Ya t-i-m-e isn't on my side, oh no its not, but it makes me feel lm gonna die, and I'll keep running back, yes I'll keep running back.  Ya I can't stop even if I tried. N-o-o-o time isn't on my side, and that's a brutal fact.
Hhiisss, hiss, blahblahblah,yaddayaddayadda, mumbles of the incoherent voices, the voices I guess if that's what you want to call them, these whispers calling out to me, relentlessly tearing me down , thru all the twilight hours
of the night.
   With the morning dawn,  the whispers grow quite once more, disapating with the dark skies.
  Im conflicted by the sight of the sun rising, not sure if I welcome the light of day or curse another day I find myself in it.
  For one daybreak ends the whispers which I'm sssooo thankful for, but yet its another day I have to deal with the misery and pain that seems to intensify with every day that comes and gos and comes back for another round.
  
  

chapter 14


  I got a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror today and I almost didn't recognize the stranger staring back at me me face had changed, my cheeks where sunken in, I didn't notice how much weight I had lost, but I guess I hadn't eaten a thing for days I just had no appetite the thought of food made me nausious, so I went without.
  And my eyes they looked so vacant my pupils where so dialated like eyes gone black, to match the deep darkened circles under them.
Just a glance and you could tell ive been neglecting my health, I looked pretty banged up, a real mess. I didn't dare look to long cause my appearance made me sick to my stomach, in only  3 days going on 4 I seemed to have aged 10 years, and the deeping lines on my face showed it.
Oh what a sorry sight I am, and I'm glad no one will see me this way, even if someone did I had a feeling they wouldn't even care. I let out a depressing sigh I am damaged goods now, this black cloud that hangs over me has made sure to push and shove everything I had, all that I loved. Took my life right out of my hands and crushed it, so that piece by price my life wasn't my own anymore, I had nothing to link me to the life I once knew. Why me, I don't think I'll ever know. But what a tangled web they've wooven for me, and on that note I let out another mournful sigh.
  

Chapter 15

YSo I push and shove well corruption bends my will, no matter what I do I can not make it still. Instead Im inflicted with a disease that there is known cure for, my diagnosis is a fatal one with a slim chance to nil that I'm gonna go into remission and win,having a full recovery, , I can feel it in my bones and I just know I will lose this battle,no matter how tough or how hard I fight against this,this bad bad thing, this destroyer of souls, this devourer of free will, this monster in my nightmares that has crawled out from my dreams to haunt me well I'm awake. I think I'm going crazy, but Im watching myself go insane and I have no control, how maddning this situation has reached, reaching out without reasoning.


Chapter 16

  So here I am still as another day finds the dawn and once more I watch the sun rise, but I can't see the beauty in this anymore.
Now I believe this makes day four without sleep, without rest, without happiness, without any emotion or feeling, except the constant dread and emptiness that has drained me dry.
  I can tell this wickedness has grown a little stronger, its borrowing its way into my soul.
  Alls I can do is helplessly sit back and and wait, to just let this happen to me, and realizing this only makes me weaker. Im becoming such a fragile being, I'm almost afraid to move from this spot, cause my brittle body will most likely shatter to peices.


Chapter 17

Tick tock, tick tock the clock laughs in my face, it screams at me telling me that time has no meaning in my life from this moment on, and as the hands round the clocks face hour after hour, tick tock tick tock, your running out of time , your life is coming to an end sooner then later.
  Amoungst the buzzing silence of the daytime, I hear the clock somewhere in the background, its becoming a nuisance, annoying me just enough to where I can't possibly try to ignore it.
  I sit here silent and still, motionless , paralyzed from fea

the best **** I ever had forgot my name
as I forgot his touch
and the awkward silences that persisted
when we weren’t intertwined
I think this entire season forgot about me
my home, my green oasis has moved forward
while I am trapped in a 23 degree loop
that no winter coat can thaw
maybe I don’t have a strong enough heart
for the unwelcoming streets of New York
because the bare trees cast evil shadows
like some horrible acid trip that lasts all winter

Her lips looked like two lakes
smothered in blood,
and her laughter; an act of splitting the sea in two,
the brushed teeth – soft salty shore
the widened mouth – its split
the emitted sounds echoed – fluctuating waves

Her breath was that of the
water particles; the sky its destination,
sunny, humid, a blessing – showers, blistering rain

Her anger, lightning bolt, contagious, unwelcoming
inflicting sickness thereafter
a-choo, a-choo, another,
spreading quickly then quicker,
causing a quiver, a stutter, an utter
“stop. Bring us blood again,
lakes of blood again”

willingly, submits, humming chirps of birds,
she announces
the end – an eventful beginning
sun rising, rainbows forming, she is laughing.
Again. The sea is splitting, again.

Found my slice of paradise on the southern coast today.

Although I felt ill prepared at first: cycling in my climbing shoes (the only shoes I found tossed in my car),
no helmet, and nothing but a large body of salt water at the end of the trail to quench my thirst for refreshment,

perhaps what I was most unprepared for was this small patch of sand I stumbled across at the edge of the lagoon, much unlike the pristine white sandy beaches with ******* clad women that embody San Diego County, this slice of shoreline is squeezed by a motel parking lot to the north and tightly packed condos to the south and seems rugged and uncombed, like an abandoned lot the city had intended to develop before the recession but instead left it to sit, collecting seaweed and mangy seagulls.

Slightly windy, home to an unwelcoming rip current, and the view of the freeway not far behind me, this was paradise. My unkempt paradise.

Although a few scattered families littered the sand, who somehow felt like intruders to a secret jewel I had just discovered, I still felt that this was my new patch of sanity. I felt a strong urge to keep it a protected secret matched with a sense of pride in finding it and the desire to share this hidden sense of serenity with all my friends on the central coast; bring them here to christen it with the free-spirited energy I had unwillingly left behind.

But instead I left that decision for another day, rolled out my yoga mat I had haphazardly strapped to my back, and started my Vinyasa flow with a view of the Pacific Ocean; a sputtering plane engine was my mental Sanskrit, the tide my metronome for breath.

Even the stares of my fellow beach-dwellers wouldn’t deter me from this spot. I had left my mark near the lifeguard tower, a skinny path from my tires and a rectangular imprint of my mat that said: I'll be back. Perhaps what sealed the deal was the sign I passed as I pedaled away: Bicycle Friendly Community. Yep, maybe this could be a home away from SLO.

What's so good about picking up the pieces?
What if i can’t pick myself up enough to pick up what's remaining?
I can’t forget you.
You were the reason i shattered like glass all over the **** floor.
Your smile crushed my heart.
Your laugh killed me instantly.

I spectated while you played the game with my heart.
I never owned it,
You did and held it in your unwelcoming hands,
Crushing it with all your might.
You left me lying there beaten up crying and breaking.
I collapsed in your arms but you threw me down.

You threw me away,
Almost as easily as someone throwing a piece of trash in the trash can.
Your words struck my already broken heart.
Why i came back i may never know.
I just laid there not knowing how to breathe because i gave you my lungs.
I ached for you.

I ached for the way you smiled at me after you beat me,
Or the way you said you loved me while you were crushing my heart.
You cut off all communication to the ones i loved,
And when i came close to closing the door a new one opened up.
I don’t know how you did it,
But you lowered my chance of survival from this hell called loved.

Did you even love me at all?
Or was it the thought of having something you could control.
Did you think it was that easy to escape the way you treated me.
Or was it the possibility of me loving another soul to much to bare?
Not much i knew,
But i knew you never loved me yet,
I stayed for you.

I called your name,
I called you the way you taught me.
I couldn’t fall asleep without you beating me senseless.
Sadly this is not just physically,
But it was much more than physically.
It was every ******* thing possible.
You were the devil himself.
You left and never came back.
I was afraid of escaping.
I pulled together and push myself through the door.
I was finally hopeful.

Marie and Charlie,
Mother and Father,
Grandma and Grandpa,
Yet I gaze upon a photo,
Black and white,
Torn with folded corners,
And a crease down the centre,
Youthful grins and life in their cheeks,
Not a trace of parenthood,
Not a trace of responsibility,
They're just...people.
Could even look unwelcoming,
Could be misjudged as cold,
Yet a job as mother and father,
Warmth comes with the title,
You adapt, become someone else,
Change, who knows whether it's for
the better, and the couple fade,
The couple become a family.