passing time and avoiding counteer strike

Passing the time. i have been doing just that for the past thirty minutes now. i don't know, but the time when i have been the center of the universe (positively or negatively, that is) when it comes to my classmates have long been gone.

i remember during my first year in UST at the College of Arts and Letters, all my friends were male. there were ten of us, and i was the only female in the group. needless to say, even though i was not near looking like a princess, i was treated like one. the same is true when i was in Central Luzon State University. i was not treated like a princess buti guess some view me as a queen. a bitch queen that is. at least, i stood out.

now that i have left CLSU and is on this new arena of learning, again, i can not help but stand out. i am one of the oldest and so, i guess othrs look at me as the untouchable. i was comfortable at least with the set up, until just now. it was declared that we wouldn't be meeting for today, and so, not wanting to go home early, i tried my luck with my new found companions.

sadly, i end up in a crowded computer shop, waiting for minors to have their fill of the counters strike internet gaming thingy, before we go and have a bottle or two of beer.

so instead of just standing around looking at the gore in their screens, i opted to just rent a PC for a while and start writing. whew, this is such a twist.

Sopas!! Sopas!!

Last June 13 was Tatay’s birthday. We decided to bring 5 kilos of sopas (cream soup) to Mapangpang, Muñoz. We chose Mapangpang because the barangay captain is a regular customer.

And so, with three big pots of sopas and my youngest brother Third as driver, Nanay, Shiro, Noel, Toy, Pam, Aileen and I went to the elementary school in Mapangpang.

We met with the Barangay Captain, and the school teacher. They asked the school children to line up; each one has either a drinking glass or cup, or a small soup bowl, and a big spoon.

Line was not so long, as the school offers only up to grade four. We were almost sad because we had a lot with us, and we don’t want to bring any home. We wanted that everything we bought would all be given away.

Seeing that there is still a lot of sopas, the barangay captain decided to call on the neighborhood, knocking on doors and telling them that sopas is being given away at the school grounds. After a while a few mothers, grand mothers, and other old people started coming, with their soup bowls, and even small pots. They did not just take their sopas away. Most of the old folks even stayed for a chat. They asked why all of a sudden, they were treated to a hot bowl of sopas. We told them that it was my father’s birthday. They even sang the birthday song. After a while, when the sky was getting darker, threatening to rain, we decided that it is time to go home. There was still a pot of sopas left, but we just asked them to transfer it to one of their containers so we could leave it with them. They happily obliged.

They thanked us. And we thanked them in return. The kids waved their lively goodbyes, and the old folks smiled and gave us their blessings. We left Mapangpang and headed home. It was kind of weird; I did not have any sopas when we were in Mapangpang. But on our way home, I felt like I was full.

Happy Birthday Tatay!! I love you.

Why My Father is the Best

It is father’s day tomorrow. I don’t remember last year’s father’s day. Honestly. It’s funny because I tend to remember those things. Every father’s day, I make it a point to greet all the fathers that I know. My friends, even my friends’ fathers are not spared from my over acting sweetness :).

This year, so I won’t forget it, I have decided to take a note of the things that I will do, come tomorrow.

Firstly, I will hear a mass. I know that this particular mass, I will hear for my Tatay. And then after hearing mass, I will greet all the tatays that I know. I will take my boyfriend out for a lunch date because after all, if I’d ever have kids, I’d like to think that he’ll be the father (look at me, eleven years of being together and I still can’t put it straight that he’ll be the father of my kids, hehehe).

In the afternoon, I would go to my friend’s dad, Daddy Oscar (he was paralyzed years ago) and bring him something, and maybe have a small chat. In the end, I will open a bottle of wine; drink it with my boyfriend, before sleeping tight. I don’t want to think of anything else before I sleep. I hope that after this year’s father day, I can move on…

I remember Tatay. He was just such a good Tatay. He has always provided well for us. But that is nothing compared to:

• The time Tatay decided to stop working abroad (he has been working abroad since even before he married Nanay) because he found out Nanay was pregnant with me. Stayed in the Philippines for two years (the longest he has stayed all his life since he started in his early twenties to start working abroad), not wanting to leave my side;

• He worked as a construction worker, ate boiled vegetables dipped in bagoong which he has not experienced since then, because we had too little money, just so he could see me grow up;

• When at last he decided that to be able to give me and my kuya a better future he again had to work abroad, he gave me a walking, talking doll, named Wendy so that I would have a friend growing up, even if he was far way from me;

• That while he was working abroad, he still managed to be somewhat of a hands-on Tatay, I remember he wrote Nanay a letter telling her that we should shift milks. We should be drinking Anchor instead of Birchtree because there was this accident near a birchtree processing plant concerning nuclear whatever;

• That when he comes home to us, when we were kids, he used to cook breakfast for us, I remember he’d cook pancakes and ask us in what shape we want our breakfast to be;


• When he found out that I loved watching television, he bought me a 29-inch television, which was a luxury at that time, I was barely twelve then, I think;

• That he bought a passenger jeepney and had my name and the name of all my siblings written inside the jeep’s ceiling (I felt so mayabang that time, it is like the jeep was mine and my siblings’);

• That when I broke up with my first boyfriend and he saw me crying he told me that I have no reason to cry because he will love me always and will never leave me;

• That when he found out I was dating again he told my mother that should my husband to be can not afford to buy me milk (I love milk) and fruits, he’d just take me back (of course I wouldn’t be running to my father should I marry someone, but that’s just how a father is, I think);

• That when I was studying and failed to go home on time, he looked for me in the campus, seeing me drunk, he brought me home, even asked the guy I’m with if he can also bring him home as this guy’s house was along the way (luckily the guy turned down Tatay’s offer, the situation would have been too awkward), and upon reaching home, he went to the kitchen, set the table, re-heated the sinampalukang manok, prepared my dinner, he put rice in my plate, pored cool water in my glass, and told me I should eat before preparing for bed;

• And he never ceased to love and support me, everytime.


There were so much more, little things that Tatay did for us. And I’m really happy that up to now, I feel like he is still with me, being the Tatay that he always has been. Happy Father’s Day!!!

untitled no.7

you have gone near me,
beside me,
behind me,
underneath me,
above me.

you have been with me,
beyond me,
through me,
against me,
inside me.

you have touched me,
caressed me,
cuddled me,
embraced me.

you have done everything,
anything,
for me,
with me.

you have made me laugh,
cry,
smile,
yearn,
feel.

me…

i loved you.
i love you.

The Anatomy of My Loneliness

My hands are shaking badly as I open a pack of Marlboro red. I am aching for a drag of that potentially lethal, and actually rewarding blue smoke that slowly floats and chases the moon just beyond my grilled window.

It is a hot, humid night and the noise of an assortment of motored vehicles persistently challenges my patience. I don’t know, but every time my menstrual cycle would come to its peak (mostly I determine its peak… I get mad and can’t get a reasonable excuse, it’s peaked… I ache and itch and bitch, it’s peaked… well you see the picture), I always feel like I’m being chased by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And so, as the hoofs of the grey, black, white and red jockeys thunder in my ears, I sit and take a deep breath and afterwards a long drag of my faithful winged horse and I become its smoke. I float and seek to sit in the moon just beyond my window.

So much for laced talks, the truth is, I have nothing to do tonight. And I do not have enough to go out drinking. Well, there are three cans of pale pilsen in my mini refrigerator, but seeing that I should conserve it for later, more drastic situations, I opted to just thirst and think of that deliciously intoxicating, bubbly, cold taste of beer. Yeah right, I could go on describing how wonderfully delicious a bottle of beer is, and how even more wonderful its kick is after three or so bottles, but I can’t find the words to just describe how I’m so lonely right now. Well, I guess I just did.

I’m sooo lonely, and I don’t even know why.

Is it because I have no one to talk to? Well my fingers are already calloused in texting that SOB (this is actually a term of endearment) that threatens to ruin my 11-year relationship with my boyfriend. Oooops, boyfriend I say. Shit, why am I lonely then?

I don’t know. Well, haven’t you felt lonely, even when every one you know is just there, sitting beside you (well, you might be in a theatre you know…), and enjoying popcorn with you?

And is loneliness the virtue of just not having someone? In that case, I could not be lonely then? Well, I protest. I am lonely. And so I claim right now that loneliness is not just for the lonesome, or alone, or single. Well, loneliness does not concern number. That’s it.

Let me look then at the anatomy of my loneliness…

What have I got, and what haven’t I? Well, possession is relative. And I dare to say that with what I have, I am contented. Then, is it so of who I have? I have good friends with me. And what’s funny, the good friends that I have are also my drinking buddies, and so I do not have to sacrifice good times for a fix. So I guess that’s good. My boyfriend, he is your ideal partner. And he’s really a rare breed. Anyone can vouch for him. My family? You’re usual Filipino family, no problem in there too.

Ooohhh shoot. It must be me then….

Let’s see. Well, there’s nothing and no one left. Is there?

This is a choice then. I guess. When one is lonely, even beyond the noise of his or her life life, then it is because one permits himself to be. Negative emotions would always be in your doorstep. It’s just a matter of either you keep them out, or let them in… I had this whole page of introduction of how lonely I must be, and now, after several sentences I see that it’s my choice. Laughable. Next time, when I reach out for a pack of cigarette and can’t sleep just yet, I guess I’ll just have to admit the fact that I’m addicted to cigarettes, and then I may save some brain cells from burning away to oblivion, and maybe save on electric bills too, by not having to write on my perceived emotions. Till then, keep puffing…

I Was an Observer for the May 2007 Elections and There Were Three Foreigners With Me…

Even before the mid-term election is within arm’s length, I have been dying to be a part of it. Not just as a voter. I cannot just be someone who would go to the polls come May 14 and cast my vote.

Yes, I believe that it is what most of us can do to practice this dog forsaken democracy that we call ours. And most people who do not have an alternative avenue in practicing their democratic freedom see the casting of votes as their best chance in making a difference. I respect that.

I respect our overseas workers who would take the effort to cast their votes knowing that aside from the billions of dollars they send to our country to boost our economy, voting is still one of their most important contribution. I respect the indigenous people dressed in full regalia trooping to the precincts and casting their hope for the continued legacy of their heritage. I respect the impoverished masses whose souls still find within them, no matter how empty their stomachs become, to take part in the elections, pinning their hope in the leaders that have never been true to them.

I even respect those who have lost their hope in the elections. In a country like ours, there is no shortage in disappointments that would slowly rot your soul, letting go of the ideal. Maybe their refusal to vote is the only mechanism they have to be able to survive these disappointments.

We all operate on different terms, you see. And so it is with this premise that I wanted more than just cast my vote.

With the Hello Garci scandal of the previous elections, volunteerism to assure the integrity of the May 14 polls surged to an unprecedented high. And being part of the last three elections, primarily in the party list campaign, I have told myself that I will be part of the greater campaign to ensure clean elections.

And my prayers, my desire have not been left unanswered. I received a call to accompany three foreign observers assigned to Nueva Ecija.

The team from Compact for Peaceful Elections composed of two Film makers from Australia and a Swedish Parliament member became my highway to volunteerism. They stayed for five days in our province and they have made me see Philippine Election in a different light.

It is quite funny when having been their guide so they could see the conduct of elections here, after they boarded the van to bring them back to Manila so that they could consolidate their observations, it is I who come home with most of the learning. I have observed more in this election than what I have known for the past nine years that I have engaged in it.

I need not enumerate the things I have seen in the elections; yes everything is true, from the huge number of volunteers to the muddy activities of the seekers of power to assume victory. Everything is so real when you see it first hand, beyond the walls where you target to stick your posters in, and above the noise of your crappy sound system that plays the campaign tune of your party.

What needs mentioning is that every election, every one of us engages in it with the hope that we will get our heart’s desire.

The politicians can do unspeakable acts, to assure victory. The ordinary voters brave the polls, amidst threats to their security to cast their precious single vote (it is not unheard of in the Philippines when one could get killed simply by voting, or ensuring a clean election that is, there is a public school in Batangas burned down during the canvassing, one teacher and a child died in that incident). There are even political supporters who risk their security and that of their family not just to protect their votes, but the life of the person they voted for (a barangay captain in Guagua, Pampanga was shot dead in front of their house two weeks after the elections, allegedly for supporting the suspended priest who became governor-elect in their province, the priest told in an interview that a day before the captain was shot, he asked the captain to take care, to which the captain answered “it’ll be better sir if they shoot me and not you instead”). That we have been in constant anticipation and unparalleled efforts months, even years before the election to have atleast one that would reflect the people’s will, and after I thappened, we are still treated to a smorgasbord of cheating to which in the end we just accept up until our hopes are again stirred for the next elections.

One of our international observers rightly put it when he said that in their country, during the day itself of the election, they wake up, cast their vote, and forget about it, while in the Philippines, election is such a process that one lives and dies for it. He said he was sorry. But then again, who knows, you can never underestimate the desire of the Filipinos to have clean elections. there is hope for a better tomorrow.

you smiled

i knew you won’t be coming back

it was not yet a year since we last saw each other
when you called and said you wanted us to meet.

i had doubts then. Not knowing if I could look at you
again.

what I know is that I couldn’t not see you, and so
full of anticipation I slowly combed my hair
looked at the mirror,
pursed my lips,
wished so hard that it could be red
without needing to put on lipstick
but it was not, and so I carefully chose the color
pink.
i wanted to look younger.
i want you to remember how much you loved me
when we were young.
i want you to remember.
because those memories are my only hope.

i picked up my bag, and moved my way.
flying feet carried me to that place
where I would dare to hold your hands
but stop at the middle of wanting
fearing that they have held other hands
in between the absences of our stares.

i looked hard at you.
and you looked softly at me.
and for a moment we had nothing to say to each other.
when I opened my lips to say something
you blurted the year have been kind to me.

i wanted to say, no, not without you.
but I just smiled.
wishing you would recall
how you loved my smiles.
but you just smiled.
i knew then, you only miss me
the times we had.
i knew then you have ceased loving me.

you see, you could not even smile then
when I smile at you.
always, you tremble with happiness…

preparing to sleep, i think of you

It is the end of today.

I will look into my papers
And throw away the drafts.
Slowly I will put my things
One by one
Into their places
The spoon in the dish rack,
The pen into the glass,
Along with the pencils and markers.
I will carefully fold the bills
That has been settled
And post the bills that haven’t been.

I will look into the memory of only today
And sort my life
Like I do every other end of todays.
Every yesterday.

And as my heart is sinking
Tediously, I will leave you for
A while
And hope that I would never have to
Tomorrow.

My pillows will be my only companion tonight
Drowning in the tears that I will shed
Only for you.
Deafened by my silent mumbles.

My longing will be my prayers,
As every night it has put me to sleep.

And you will be my dream
To close the end of today.

This is the end of today.

Panahon ng Cuaresma ng Nilisan Kami ni Tatay (It Was During the Lenten Season When Tatay Left Us)

Today I woke up sobbing. Tomorrow will be Palm Sunday, and I will go to mass. According to the Roman Catholic calendar, tomorrow will be exactly a year since I last spoke to my father. My father and I talked on the phone during last year’s Palm Sunday. He called me and asked if I already heard mass. I said I would, and I did. I went to hear the last Mass of that day. He will leave us forever, after two days.

I can’t talk about the pain. Grief as love, knows no bounds. I can not talk about that which I can not fully comprehend. All I’m certain of when Tatay left is that I could never truly smile, or laugh again. I have smiled since then, but my eyes betray my lips I know. And I have laughed out loud so many times afterwards, but they wouldn’t stand up, even to the gentlest of winds.

I have never known my father the way I want to know him. I know that he was the best father. But every child thinks that. I know that he was religious. His calloused knees and litany of praise tells me that. I know that he was color blind, his laughter every time I asked him what color I am wearing betrays otherwise. I know that he is intelligent. When looking at his work related papers, I saw that his IQ was above average and rated as such. I know that he loved politics and never got tired of reading the papers and watching the news. He loved learning, he always have a dictionary and thesaurus in his luggage, and a bagful of questions from me every time we talk (he considers me as having a brain that I actually use). And I know that he was forgiving, because he never ceased to love me, to love us.

But I really never knew the man. I have patches and snippets of his childhood, of his youth, of him as an employee, as a husband, son, brother, and friend. I have never known him wholly. I know him as my father. Sometimes, it’s enough though.

I learned about myself when he left me. I learned my strength. I learned my tolerance. And I learned just how far I could hurt. I died that day.

When my father arrived, in the house he built when we were young, and the home we grew up in, I was the one who welcomed him. I did not want to. I wanted to tell the man who brought him to go somewhere else. That he got the wrong address. My father would call me and ask if I went to mass on Easter Sunday, I’m sure. Or if I had taken out the grills in my room as he wanted me to do when we last talked, “Anak, patanggal mo ung bakal sa bintana mo, baka magka sunog, wala pang dalawang minuto tupok yang pwesto,” he counseled. But I can no longer beat around the bushes. And so I went and embraced him. I could not cry but I know that my tears were falling like rain. I did not say anything. I can not move my lips.

My Nanay and my only sister never got the courage to look at Tatay when he went home to us for good. When every one else have taken the time to look at Tatay, I went and I looked at him. I had to, just to be sure. The assurance I got left me to pieces. I never did find the rest of me that day. And I know I never will.

Everything was blurred after that. I never knew exactly what transpired. All I know is that I shielded Nanay, and so I took care of things. I was the one who did the grocery, who accepted the gifts, who talked to the well wishers. I am grateful up to now that I could never fully recall things.

I can not believe how the times passed by. This coming holy Tuesday (it was holy Tuesday last year when Tatay went to chase the white light), we will officially end our family’s year of mourning. I would stop wearing black. There will be a small gathering where prayers will be said, and where I, and the rest of my siblings (Nanay is in the US) will be asked to wear a black veil during the prayers, after which will be taken off, thus the term, babang luksa. I dread the time. I know it might bring back memories that I am still not ready to meet just yet. And I fear that I might loose Tatay one more time, in letting go of the pain, in letting go of the black shirts and blouses that I have worn for the past year. I know that you never loose a person when that person is in your heart. I just can’t rationalize why I feel this way. I really don’t know.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday.

**I had to edit this entry before I posted it finding that I talked about my father in the present tense, e.g. he is color blind. I changed everything, and did it in the past tense. I never thought that verb tense could break my heart. I was so wrong.

the man i met met a man

I met a man today. He told me that he met a man. The man he met used to be my man. Oh man…no man. I could have just as easily said oh sh*t, no sh*t, but that would disrupt the pattern I am trying to establish.

Patterns, I hate them. But what can I say, we are ruled by patterns. They make the world we live in less chaotic, but not less simple. See, it could have been simpler to say simpler, but there goes pattern… sometimes we don’t want them, but we surely need them.

I remember a text message I received years ago, quoting the book about a boy, it says: surely all men are islands, but some are island chains, underneath, they are connected. Well, I for sure would want to believe that all men are island chains. I would want to believe that we thrive because we meet people, we share our interests, and after all those, we respect our differences. But these are all rhetoric. I don’t want to be rhetorical. I want to be precise.

So, I’ll be precise.

I choose my friends. And my reason for choosing them varies. Sometimes because I like how they think, at other times because they like how I think. But point is I start with the basic assumption that there must be some form of common ground. After all who would want to celebrate birthdays with a bunch of warm bodies that would not know how many candles in the cake you’re blowing out, or who would want to drink a bottle or two of beer with parched mouths who do not speak the language you understand. I would not want to watch a movie I pay so dearly for only to be asked in the middle of a comedy whether we could have enjoyed it better watching a mushy and tragic sci-fi movie, if there is such a thing. Oh wait, star wars is a hit. There is such a thing.

It hurts badly therefore when your carefully hand picked friends still leave you. The goodbyes send you to brain busting, life changing searches. You search for reasons, meanings, and then later on scrap the answers and search again. You sometimes get lost in the process and wake up loosing yourself. Problem is, after the quality controlled, vacuum sealed, sterilized search for people who you want to share your life with, every once in a while you come across a mutant. More problems arise when you suddenly realized that the mutant that sprouted from your carefully controlled search is a mutant you have mutated with. A mutant you have learned to love. Every one loves a friend. If you do not love your friend, then you are no friends with that friend and you should simply save your time and close this window. Call the friend-you-do-not-love some other name. But don’t call that person friend. And stop reading this already!

Those of you, who have ever loved a friend and loose that friend, stay with me. We understand each other, and afterwards, call me, if we are not yet friends, we could build on this.

There are so many pains one encounters. You get bitten by a dog, it hurts. You tripped while you’re going to the canteen, the laughter from the spectators smarts, even more than the searing pain in your ankle. You love a friend, he dumps you. You think you’d die. It hurts more knowing you survived to feel the pain. You love a friend and leave him later on; you just don’t hurt, alone. You hurt the other too. That is pain multiplied. And anything that is related to math e.g. multiplication, division, etc, is just excruciating.

In the end, I can not say what friendship really is. I can say how painful it is to loose a friend though. And the pain is enough to make me understand that friendships are nourished, every day.

I am older now. I would want to hope not by age, but by experience. Sometimes however, hopes are just hopes. And as I look back on hopefully experiences, and not years, I see so many people that came and went and stayed. I see them, I see myself. I am marked by all the people I met, I came across with, I stumbled upon, I tripped, I obstructed. Everyone I embraced. The kid who steps inside a jeepney wiping shoes and begging for alms, the woman breastfeeding her child in the middle of a market, the grand dad bringing his apo to school, the father who teaches his child to cross the street, the teenager who buys a stick of Marlboro lights. But few I kept and walked with. They are my friends. I realized it doesn’t matter anymore if they said goodbye.

thank you

i am in a trance. ambiguities... ambiguities...

today, your day, i live. And die, over and over and over.

i would want to tell you this,

now that i still possess the strength to reminisce you,

now that courage is still in my heart

to go back to the memories

that you so willingly marked my life with,

now that i know no matter where i will be found

from this day forward,

that i will never feel the same way

as you made me feel

since your path crossed mine...

it is not that you are the best that i have met.

it is that i chose to so treasure what we had.

keep it in a place where no shadows could darken it,

no frost could make it shatter.

it is not that you have given me the best that i had.

it is that i chose to take from you

what my courage would permit me,

and draw strength from it,

strength that would sustain my happiness and demise.

you have been my constant, not that i have been yours.

but that you gave me what my soul has been longing to have.

you have given me enough to know that i long,

i fly, i ache, and i laugh. you have given me peace.

you made me human.

you gave me the chance to know

what death could take away from me,

and what a single smile could taste like.

it is not that you are my knight in shining armour,

or that i have been the damsel in distress,

it is that i have learned to build my castles

and not fear that they are just made up in the air.

you have made me known the importance of dreams,

for what else would i have of you,

if not for them?

thank you.

COOKIE JAR MONEY, ANIME LOOKING GIRLS AND THE DEPARTED

I had to go to manila last week. My siblings have run out of cookie jar money and I have to refurbish the supply. Plus, I really want to see my youngest brother and get updated on what he’s been up to. It is so much easier then when we were just kids having petty fights about whose turn it is to have command over the selection of tv shows. As we grow older, the relationship has taken a new turn. Now I’m not just the competition for tv show selection, I’m also the nosy sister who keeps on insisting that at 21, he’s still too young to keep a serious romantic relationship. How times have changed.

Anyway, it was with the intent to bring them their allowance and to sarcastically discuss the grave sin committed in dating anime looking girls that I came across the best picture in the latest oscar awards. The departed starred Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and a whole bunch of other big names in Hollywood. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie gave him his first oscar award for best director after a long line of master-pieces. I have often wondered why this is Martin’s first oscar award, when every movie he ever made was considered a masterpiece. This however is a different story, and should I remember, would write something about. Back to my tripping over the movie... It was so late when I arrived in manila that I was almost snoring even before I reached the REM stage. My kid brother wanted to talk however, and wouldn’t let me sleep. He wanted to have a casual talk, as he was bound to want whenever he sees me really having a hard time keeping my eyes open. Not that he wants to keep updated on what I have been doing, no brother would want that, its just that he feels happy seeing I’m annoyed. Well, we compromised in the end, so instead of having our casual talk, we decided to watch a movie instead. Not in the cinemas. It was too late and I was too tired to pick my ass and go to the mall. We instead took out our 12 in 1 dvd and started discussing whether to watch saw 3 or the departed. He wanted saw 3 because he knows I would squirm in the gross details of decapitation and death, I wanted the departed because the movie is what the movie is. I won this time.

it was almost your usual film about dirty cops and mafia. Almost, because it had a twist. The twist however was not so much of a twist. In the class of boyscout knots, it would only go up to level three, the ones you can untie in about 10 minutes or so. There was this cop who was raised by a mafia man. He was groomed to be a cop by his surrogate dad so that he can serve the mafia dad’s evil purpose later on. And then, there was this cop who came from a family of criminals. This cop-from-a-criminal-family however wanted to be a real cop, wings, halo, and all. They both performed their duties. The cop-with-mafia-dad pretended to be a good cop so that he could have access to everything his mafia dad would want to have access on. In the outside, he was your ideal cop. The cop-from-a-criminal-family however, can only be good at what he does by being an under cover agent. In the outside, he was your ideal gangster. The gangster was the real cop, the real cop was the gangster. Ironic. And confusing. In the end, they both end up dead. The ideal cop from the outside died without honor. The ideal gangster from the outside died as a criminal but was buried with a 21-gun salute.

it was not a heavy film, and as my friends have pointed out, it doesn’t have the twist to left you drooling and needing a brain surgery afterwards. However, it is so real that you could almost smell the gun powder. How many of us have wanted something and yet are forced to completely do the opposite of what we want to later on have a shot of having what we want. Peter piper picked a pack of pickled pepper, a pack of pickled pepper peter piper picked… how many of us have to skip a day or two of our class just to be able to work so that we could earn the tuition fee we so badly need to finish school. Or how many of us have to work abroad and leave our family behind so that our family could stay together and have a wonderful life. How many have washed their clothes, wanting to wash the dishes instead. See, life is full of ironic choices and pseudo choices. We want something, we do the opposite. I want to sleep, so I drink coffee and sit in front of the PC.

I loved the departed, because my religion taught me that the souls in their transparent almost creepy state can still be saved. Oh, wait, that is a different departed. See how confuse you get when you want to sleep and drink coffee instead….

I love the departed because it told a simple story, a true story. It is us who determine how we live our life. We are not bound by the circumstances, we are freed by them.

parallel worlds of unparallel souls

parallel worlds of unparallel souls
crossings of ideals in highways of antecedents…

over coffee and the sunday paper
mediocrity stares me in the eye,
of rising gasoline prizes, and tumultuous
political concessions,
of victorious defeats and expensive
pseudo triumphs,
of life, of love, of morality.

and just when it becomes so intolerable,
just when it touches that
sensitive part in my stomach
that makes strong muscles out of
butterflies’ fluttering wings

you come into my consciousness.
you, who have dominated my unconscious,
where every turn would be by your prodding
only that I did not know
or that I refused to know
for reasons only reasons could explain.

but I do not have them.
there are no reasons in the end.
no comprehension to follow.
all I am aware now is that
you are beyond my reach
at arm’s length, but beyond me,
beyond every hope I had.
or will ever have.

wake me up now.
leave my consciousness alone.
leave my unconsciousness.

you are my world.
you are not in my world.
our paths will never cross although
it will always, always be in line.
parallel and will never meet,
continuously, dangerously close,
but friction-free from emotions.

when coffee and a pack of cigarettes
made all the difference,
when the early morning wind
blowing your hair marks anticipations
of goodbye,
when silence on the way home
made up for all my unspoken intentions,

i cry and smile and laugh from within,
knowing we had coffee,
and a pack of cigarettes.

today, after coffee and the sunday paper,
mediocrity stares me in the eye,
of love lost and love regained,
of deep seated anguish and
superficial awakenings,
of times when kite flying is a bliss,
and fishing is counted by the bottles
of beer consumed.

when I look back and ahead, I know this is,

parallel worlds of unparallel souls
crossings of ideals in highways of antecedents…