What is poetry

but prose denied

of its limbs; when

in place of its arms

there are sticks?

What is poetry

but prose beheaded

and run on with

spikes; arteries

left hanging without

words spilling out?

What is poetry

but prose without

a tongue; of prose

with no feet to go

against the whims

of time?

What is poetry, then

but a premeditated murder

that did not go as planned?

Of prose slaughtered

ruthlessly in cold-blood?

Ah, this might be so—

for poetry is but prose

with no more hands,

and one more soul.

Huling Hapunan

Nakapinid ng mahigpit ang tarangkahan

ngunit walang bantay ang paligid.

Aakyat na lamang ba para sa kahit

isang pilas ng lebadura at isang

patak ng pulang alak para sa iyong

tigang na lalamunan?

Hindi mataas ang bakod, ngunit

malalim ang gabi at ang kailangang

talunin ng mangangahas pumasok.

Paano na 'yan?

Malabo ang mata mo at alam mong

walang naghihintay maliban sa mga daga

at insenso sa ilalim ng kahoy na pulpito.

Alam ko na!

Bumalik ka na lang sa Linggo.

"To write fiction is to create a parallel universe." - Mr. Jay Salvosa, during one of the meetings of Fiction Friday

It is not uncommon for most children (adults, even) to be unaware of the fact that ants can carry items approximately ten to fifty times their own weight, but Little Charlie knew from his mother, and he was not above putting it into a test.

He was, after all, one of the finest eight-year-old empiricists of his generation.

It did not take long for Charlie’s curious, piercing eyes to locate a platoon of garden ants marching tediously along the wall of his blue-painted room. The black-clad army came from a half-closed window—few of them bringing along morsels of unidentified things (Charlie did not recognize any of it aside from a torn-off grasshopper’s limb)—leading its way through a crack in a dusty corner.

For five minutes he observed, and with a flick and a silent tap his little index finger found the abdomen of his unsuspecting lab specimen. The rest of the foot soldiers quickly broke ranks, perhaps thinking that the Armageddon was upon them, and the unfortunate ant Charlie had preferred struggled helplessly as he took it away to the other side of the room, where his previously eviscerated piggy bank was lying in its own copper entrails.

Another day, another casualty, reported Squad B to their Queen.

Later on, Charlie deemed the experiment a failure, and was disgusted at her mom’s lies. What he didn’t know (and would not, until he reaches fourth grade) is that the weight of ten coins is more than fifty times heavier than that of a garden ant.

Charlie would eventually forget his first pre-meditated murder until six years later, when he would vaguely recall the incident after his professor in Biology force-fed them with information about the Phylum Arthropoda. Thus, he would then furtively scribble at the edges of a page in his book, two minutes before the class was dismissed: Ants and Coins: Ant-countancy? Neat.

In his mind, the possibility was already running like an Olympic athlete. He chuckled at its absurdity.

-----

It was very unlikely that the action of fourteen-year-old Charlie had been felt, seen, or heard of during the time that it was committed, at least by any human-standard-intelligent being occupying a planet or heavenly body in the Milky Way. However…

The moment a period was placed after the letter “t” in one of the pages of the book, Biology for Real Dummies, a black hole formed by itself exactly two million light-years from the spiral galaxy nearest to where Charlie’s galaxy was. If, and only if, there is a safe way to go in and cross through the wormhole, one will find a universe not unlike Charlie’s, where the third planet from Charlie’s sun also exists. There will be land, and trees, and people, and Charlie himself.

And there will be ants—the same ones, but they will not be compared to soldiers, but to bookkeepers.

"As per usual, the Inspector saw but did not observe," remarked Holmes impatiently as he dug his fingers deeper unto the earth. "This patch of land have been tampered with just recently, most likely by our culprit, and as expected Scotland Yard have managed to overlook it."

It did not take long for me to notice what he was on about; perhaps it was due to my long-standing companionship with this man of deduction that I have caught on to his malady as well—I have developed a keener sense of observation. Although it is unlikely that I will shoot a full barrel on the wall or take my doctor's prescriptions too seriously resulting to over-dosage, I am delighted that his line of reasoning was, at the very least, contagious.

"Do you see now, Watson? I believe a proper excavation is in order, but we have no time. We should recover the body by daybreak to avoid unnecessary paperwork."

"The soil on top is most definitely softer than underneath," said I, scooping a bit off the top layer of moist earth with my left hand. "Someone, or something—if we are to believe the witness' account, by covering this here, tried to hide the spot where they have buried the girl..."

I did not concern myself with finishing my statement any longer. What we both have found after removing the topmost layer of the crime scene was indeed puzzling, but ordinary, too ordinary.

We expected to see the decaying remains of a three-day old corpse. The foul stench, rotting flesh, haunting images of a child murdered in cold-blood—we expected them all, and yet...

...we were rewarded a rabbit hole.

A rabbit hole where children can easily fit in. Its depth was indiscernible, its mouth, ominous.

Could it be that the master detective had made a serious blunder? I looked at him as he brushed the accumulated dirt off hands on his coat then wiped the sweat off his forehead. Time seemed to move more slowly by the minute. I waited for answers that only he could give, with bated breath.

"It is dangerous to form conclusions with limited evidence, doctor; as of now, I am at will to inform you that we have arrived at an interesting point in our investigation," was his reply; he must've sensed my question coming a mile away. If I didn't know any better, I would think that this is just a timely excuse for being at a loss. But this is Sherlock Holmes we are talking about. I would hate it if he gets lost. Or worse, commit a mistake. Especially with a little girl's life on the line.

"Watson, if it is to your convenience, ready your shovel. We are coming in."

"What?" My thoughts halted and I was brought back into form within a blink of an eye. The reason behind the eccentricity of the man have always failed to escape my rationality, and will always do so. I have restrained myself from wondering and instead focused on understanding, but at that time, I was compelled to ask. "You mean into this pitch-black hole? Are you mad?"

"You heard me, did you not? Be quick, Alice Liddell is waiting."

Dumbfounded, I lifted my shovel in silent protest—and then realization struck.  

He had too much cocaine.

07/21/2012

The Case of the Missing Alice I

If she can just persuade her feet to slip off the edge ‘accidentally’ rather than kicking away—pushing aside, screwing balance—causing friction and ultimately, a boost to non-friction, then this feeble attempt on a farce will count as a glaring success. If I ever, she thinks, but this is precisely why she’s only wearing socks on top of a newly-varnished wooden chair.

She wants to keep things stupid as one would have expected of her.

She was going to have coffee. Stoves are famous for heating things, more particularly water about to reach boiling point in three minutes. Indeed she might have decided to abandon her almost intimate contact with caffeine but the stove she left on, enough for the kettle to be mad about. If there is one other thing stoves are good at, it is their tendency to make angry kettles sing.

Unlike the familiar kitchen, the rarely-used dining room is dimly-lit. She purposely left the door a quarter-of-a-quarter open not only so a hint of bleak light can seep through from the hall to the living room where everyone else is not, but because she also finds the idea of people having to break down doors when they have no access detestable; in the end exerting effort will be proven worthless, if the ‘theatrics’ on the other side is the recompense for trying.

Contortions of the face are far more poetic than those of the body’s, and even so the combination of the two can be overwhelming to the naked eye.

A soft breeze visits and a piece of paper flies off from the table not far from where she’s at. Nothing is written on it but she longs to catch it before it lands and forcibly take it away from the invisible forces that hold, similar to how she tried to tear herself away from the chair a million times before conceding to the foremost emotion that brought her to the dismal dining room. Then she thinks that maybe she should have really written something first; maybe... but she has learned to fear the pen, and two letters more in addition to the word itself.

One minute. The kettle will signal the start of the crescendo and soon heavy footsteps will follow from the bedroom upstairs, quite begrudgingly in this dead of night. She hopes it will be over quickly and painlessly as two feet slide and four other give way—if they ever, and the rope shall handle the rest.

Until Midnight II

The moon is far from over,

in silhouette and shadow.

Come, have the macabre

take one form or another

as the pendulum swings twice

and the jester loses his head.

Let the petty, let the weak

steal apples and good wine

and wait for the next sentence

be it in voice or in axe—

In lieu of the piano

with a dreadful orchestra.

They told you

to march on the edge

with balance as your foe

and eventually,

your trusted friend;

like a cat

that never lands

on its back

even with buttered toasts

and a crippled foot.

“It’s alright

if you really have to

spread both your arms

and walk on tip-toe.

It’s fine

if you don’t mean to

pray to anyone

who can help you.”

But in the end

they’ll never tell

how deep

the fall will be

and so, don’t just raise

a leg—break it!

Fuck destiny, and jump

hoping there’s a haystack

under the rabbit hole to

Wonderland.

Do you think it's easy

to feign a smile
and admit defeat;
to swallow my pride
and let silence drown
the fear of dispute—

to hide behind cards
and tell you "it's okay",
that since we're playing
a game of poker I can
win through deceit—

to hold back my steps,
not leaving you behind
or for me to quicken my pace
and try to catch up—

to read between the lines;
to treat you with the courtesy
I did not have and could not give—

to answer your questions
and hope I'm correct;
to play along with your whims
of varying difficulties—

to convince myself that
I'm on the right track
and did not take
the wrong turn, the wrong path,
the wrong you—

But hey, I do think you know;
that is why you make me do them

over

and over

and over

and over

and...

until I yield
and say "I give up"
making you frown and
decide I wasn't worth it.

Do you think it's easy
or do you not care enough to know?

The news keep the papers alive

and the papers in my hand

hold the news I’d rather not read

in a year or two—at least

if I’m behind the times I can

stay in the past and be trapped.

She said “I don’t need anything”

when I asked “What do you want?”

I’m pretty sure you would

need what’s up and happening

and she didn’t even answer

the question properly.

So, news flash! It stung my eyes

and I couldn’t see if the

glass was still half-full but it didn’t

matter at all because I knocked

it away—

Crash!

It was breaking news.

It fluttered above the coffee stain,

landed—then stopped—

and caught the attention of the poet

with a lonely pocket and

a writer’s block.

He wrote:

‘Send an angel with a sword

and an accusing finger

for the dragonfly

beside a smashed-up paper cup

with one less wing and a

broken heart.’

But the devil came instead and

took away his mind and pen,

along with his idea that the dragonfly

is almost a butterfly

and never a bird.

A ‘lost cause’, they said,

is the search for the wooden cross of Christ

or the place where the Little Prince died.

It is looking for the Fountain of Youth

and talking dragons and swords in stones.

It is proving that Attila the Hun is a

pacifist; it is the attempt to understand

women, rabbits and William Shakespeare.

It is trying to keep the sea in a fishnet

and the snowflake in your sweaty palm.

It is chasing the horizon and trying to

reach the end of the rainbow in a day.

It is seeing an oasis in the desert and

knowing it’s just a mirage for a dead man.

It is trying to put a 30^th in February; it is

a tone-deaf blind child singing in karaoke.

It is the terminally ill, the falling oak,

arriving into an answer to an unknown

question, and the missing pages of a book.

                                            

A ‘lost cause’, I said,

is pretty damn lost in context.

Let me tell you about a couple—

not your ordinary one—

that lives in a brick-and-chimney house

on the other side of town.

Although they married last September,

they cannot stand each other.

They can’t see eye-to-eye, he and she;

how’d they even last, I wonder?

He eats the wrong side of the mushroom,

yes, he’s in over his head;

while she loves to grow in her garden

poisoned apples in scarlet red.

She once told him, if I remember:

I’d rather be with a frog!

To which he answered angrily with:

Shut your trap, you hideous hag!

He didn’t bother with the glass slipper;

she was Jill who stole Jack’s crown.

He’s one who screams Open Sesame;

she was there when that bridge fell down.

They’re like the spindle and Rapunzel—

just a fickle fairy tale.

She’s the big bad wolf in sheep’s clothing;

he’s the ghost ship without a sail.

The Water Cycle

We started off as droplets, among the countless others that added up collectively as rain—it might have been in a drizzle, a quick shower, a moderate downpour, or a deluge. We were hailed from different clouds: might have passed one another on the way, might even have fallen at exactly the same moment.

We didn’t know. We didn’t care.

Yet.

We were not quite sure where gravity will take us, but we all had our own destinations to reach; we wanted to land somewhere safe, a place where it wouldn’t hurt, where circumstances will eventually take us back up. We braced ourselves for the crash, and crash we did.

Fortunate were those who fell in flowing rivers and streams... they were the shortest, easiest routes to the ocean—freedom was a small price to pay when all one had to do was to let the current pull them in. Not everyone had that luck. There were those who fell into rooftops, asphalt, sand, leaves, bricks, old tires... and we... made our way into a puddle.

And there we finally met.

There was nowhere else to go. We were stepped at, ridden on, splashed about; yet we found that we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. It was that puddle—our group of drops that gave us a home. We learned that we didn’t have to join the ocean to complete our existence; we were perfectly content.

I hope, when we eventually fade into vapor, that we are also able to share the same cloud.

You feel your knees wobble as you incorrigibly stand for hours, or you believe so—watching for a familiar, albeit blurred speck of color or a piece of clothing you can recognize. You’re not even so sure of yourself if this method, however tiring, is foolproof. Yet you stand there, squinting as if it will help turn your eyes into binoculars; you do not trust your eyes—they have failed you many times over, but they’re the best weapon you can utilize in this situation. You imagine your legs turning into jelly soon. Probably. You consider it as something worth witnessing—heck no, you’d want that so you can have something to eat while you… wait.

You turn your attention to a nearby clock. It moves ever so slowly, testing your patience; you try to think of other things to spend whatever is left of time that is still valuable to you. However, in an almost annoying twist, just when you are finally starting not to care anymore, she arrives. You shake your head in disbelief, or at least in your mind you would have done that. You then ask, rather irritably:

What took you so long?

“What took you so early?” is her only reply.

You realize you have been years ahead of her. Maybe even more.

It’s already past ten and you wonder if Sleep is having a more intimate relationship with someone else, for recently it barely has time to console you in the evenings when it’s either too hot or too cold. You feel a tinge of jealousy and an urge to scream; it is not your fault, it never has been. You press your left cheek on your pillow and close your eyes—finding solace in false darkness.

It is as if there are no walls in your room tonight. In your mind you hear the howl of the wind and you feel the damp draft touching your skin. The cold is almost unbearable, but you realize it is the middle of summer and no breeze should be able to enter your four-cornered sanctuary, with the door locked and the windows secured tight. The hum of the fan seems to get louder and louder with every beat of your heart, and so you decide to turn it off without relying on sight. You find relief in the fact that the switch is in reach.

You turn back and forth in an attempt to warm yourself by means of constant movement, shuddering every time your blanket fails to cover any part of your body.

And then the realization that you have a blanket sinks in. You shouldn’t feel that high of a chill.

You push your doubts backwards, but your imagination is always in activity and never enters inactivity. You try to drown your grim thoughts, blocking its path with a measly plank. Alas, they keep on resurfacing.

“Look up.”

You are careless; the pull of the invisible force is enough to make you abandon the comforts of a closed eyelid. This time, you think that curiosity might finally kill the cat.

The ceiling brings forth a surprise. You hope it’s just a dream.

How quick then

was the downpour.

How quick then

was the screen’s flicker.

How quick then

for my eyes to dry.

I don’t like it when you tie your hair up.

I don’t like it when you pull out a ribbon, or a lace, or any kind of string—god forbid, not even your ID cord out from your… hammerspace and sweep the ends of your perfect tresses, setting them together in a deathly lock. I can almost hear the strands of your hair scream in distress, in despair, in immovable compactness: liberty; free them I will from those chains that bind—if only, but I lie.

I lie. I couldn’t care less of your prisoners: render them unable to do the waltz together with the alluring lead of the evening breezes or play tag with the playful morning wind; that is entirely up to you. Given, I take pity, but sympathy—sympathy I can only give through a glance and an occasional cringe, if you have chosen to tie your hair up in the most… dullest of ways.

Nay, I have reasons of personal range and differing diversity as to why I don’t like you locking your locks.

I don’t like it when you tie your hair up, when you leave your nape exposed and bare—and my eyes the north will be attracted to your fair, vulnerable, unblemished south pole… staring… stare… Alas, in a cruel twist of fate I was born a human, and much as I want to sink my canines, anchor it in your neck I could not, lest I be shunned by society I thoroughly despise for constructing such stale norms. And so I will settle with a simple caress, my finger lightly tracing an invisible trail of dots and circling around forming miniature whirlpools of longing… perhaps, for a miracle.

I don’t like it when you tie your hair up, when your cheeks are finally in plain view—the waves of brownish black framing your face no longer, your defensive measures from the glares of the thieves of time and moment lifted. In an unreasonable fit of selfishness I will undo your hair-work, and the frame will once again fall on both sides, obscuring your mischievous smile from the many that might snatch it away from me. I warrant your apology but I fall short of regret, for I am one of the blessed few close enough to witness that smile and I condemn your ponytail for revealing it to the crookedness of the world.

I don’t like it when you tie your hair up, when my fingers lose the chance to have your disheveled threads in between them, to run my hands from the top of your head slowly… slowly… down, down, until it hits empty air or if in the opportune of times that I am on your side, your shoulder… the tip of your sleeve… your arm… making its way to your wrist… it does not stop there, it does not; until at last the familiar feel of your warm palm and your prints closing in on mine… Woe, it dashes one too many a dream when you say onto me: Don’t touch my hair, else you’ll ruin it.

You see now, if granted a wish from a genie of the olden tales, I will banish forever the existence of pins, of ribbons, of laces, of ID cords, of any accessory or ornament that will enable you to put a stop to the waltz—or I will have to make do with stealing them from you, everyday… every minute I can.

I don’t like it when you tie your hair up. Please, don’t.

Lightning

Lightning.

What is lightning?

Lightning is the sound of your steps

walking towards the hut,

your curls bouncing and

swaying with the irregularity of your

gait, your sneakers scrunching

and scraping the soil and the pebbles

underneath—but we do not hear,

you are not thunder, you are

Lightning.

What is lightning?

Lightning is your playful smile covering

the perpetual frown I catch you

wear when you think no-one sees;

your silent hum of the tune that I

cannot discern—but we do not hear,

you are not thunder, you are

Lightning.

What is lightning?

Lightning splits, lightning flashes;

it is light yet it is not, a flicker, so

sudden, so quick—do not

look away for even a second because

if you do,

if you ever do, if you ever try to do—

you will lose sight,

and never again

will it be the same

when she comes back.

One Percent

It’s just half and half, you once told me
in your usual—or was it philosophical—

I didn’t think it was polite to ask

self, whether it was seventy down
to fifty or twenty up to
eighty: the possibility exists
and therefore,

Therefore, heretofore, thus

the balance remains in boring
stability, stale—quite stale.

What if I tell you now that
you, not you, maybe you

Yes, you!

are one
of the ones from the endless ninety-nines;

the one Blaue Blume
amidst ninety-nine pink roses;
the one Annabel Lee
among ninety-nine Juliets;
the one Bad Beginning
to ninety-nine Philosopher Stones;
the one true void
in the middle of ninety-nine empty spaces;
the one walk on the railway
to the ninety-nine on the hallway;
the one hopeful despair
to slay ninety-nine hopeless hopes; and
the one number
to complete a hundred—

All of these ones compose
the one percent I took, violently

but not too violent—

saved it, I did—from the wretched
ninety-nine that threatens to
consume it, finally turning into
a full circle of the usual, the commonplace,
the dry feel of just

staying alive.

But I will not let it be,
worry not.

This I address directly to you

I would like you to stay
in my one percent, and not
venture out to the rest.

I hope it’s not just a possibility,
a half and half, a seventy-thirty, a three-quarter.

Let me see life as the ninety-nine

and the one.

Where have they gone— 

                        the i rr e gul ar it y
                    fluc        n
              the       tuatio
       the noisufnoc
the TuRbuleNcE

—they are no longer, no longer.

My life is all about this. It is all about walking when I do not want to, studying when I do not want to, talking when I do not want to. It is all about attempting to open doors when I do not have keys, and picking locks without any amount of success.  It is all about desperately trying to prove that Love is not present in a world that claims it as one of its cornerstones. It is all about the weather as foul as my complaints. It is all about skimming through my notes in an almost hopeless bid to ace an exam and attain the right to brag. It is all about squinting to see that which is yet to be seen. It is all about the value of the contents of a book. It is all about disproving the existence of Christ as the Son of God, and pointing out the Bible’s inconsistencies. It is all about looking “up, down, up, up, up, down, up” until the person beside me does a facepalm. It is all about killing time, mutilating boredom, correcting mistakes. It is all about using metaphors or the refusal to do so. It is all about typing a narrative without knowing its finale as my fingers beat the keyboard in rapid succession.  It is all about being impatient for the simplest of things, being patient for the worthless of things, being indifferent to how reality tricks me into believing that I am indeed indifferent. It is all about writing in English and not in my native tongue. It is all about despising Twilight. It is all about defining what definition is. It is all about sudden breaks—

My life is all about this. It is all about cynicism, irony, condescension. It is all about putting up with idiocy for the rest of my life. It is all about eradicating frustration by means of filling my stomach with French fries. It is all about pretense. It is all about liking someone that is spoiled, vain, too demanding but at times anything but; wondering if I just totalized that person, or if it is still normal for me to remain. It is all about the means of escape from the cruelty of what they call Fate. It is all about watching a horror movie with someone I can hold on to when I am too scared to look.  It is all about listening to my friend give justice to a story. It is all about hanging around in a hut as someone tries her best to sleep amidst my incessant chatting. It is all about my friend’s feeble attempts on entertainment. It is all about sweets wrapped in blue, pink, yellow. It is all about defying rules and making your own. It is all about contradiction. It is all about being a child for eternity. It is all about getting caught. It is all about inactivity, interruption, intelligence. It is all about claiming property. It is all about an unusual end of a paragraph—

My life is all about this. It is all about the color black and how it is not really a color but a hue. It is all about running around for errands when my feet refuse to cooperate. It is all about having no curfew. It is all about attending a boring class, attending a class that is not my own, attending a boring class once again. It is all about having so much respect to teachers that earn it. It is all about thinking of an answer for a question that has no answer. It is all about bluffing my way through exams and how my friend encourages me to. It is all about fallacies and paradoxes, arguments and politics. It is all about inventing new terminologies. It is all about wishing for a miraculous drizzle in the middle of the burning heat, wishing for a miraculous sunshine in the middle of the freezing cold, wishing for both just for the sake of it. It is all about fixing my bed before I leave.  It is all about mockery. It is all about flicking ears, and annoyingly flick ears. It is all about the three hundred sixty six days of a leap year. It is all about a random sentence about a random sentence randomly inserted in a randomly written bunch of text. It is all about noticing how weird life is. It is all about planning how to effectively murder a person without getting caught. It is all about hiding something in between the lines, hiding something on an entirely different place, hiding in a place not suitable for hiding. It is all about dramatic cuts—

My life is all about this. It is all about having writer’s block. It is all about pointing at a sign and saying “This shouldn’t have been here” or “This is so wrong on so many levels”. It is all about the desire to trespass an abandoned, apparently haunted private property. It is all about being too comfortably close and the phrase’s many implications. It is all about moving from point A to point B, and how it is different from expanding. It is all about the lack of pens when I need them most. It is all about the tendency to overanalyze, underanalyze, coanalyze. It is all about a small gesture of affection from my colleagues. It is all about staying in one place, staying in one piece. It is the knack to bother other people. It is all about playing Scrabble and shamelessly losing. It is all about getting fed up, literally and figuratively. It is all about exacting revenge in the most subtle way possible. It is all about the space between my feet. It is all about blatantly lying. It is all about words not worth mentioning again, words better left unsaid, words not being heard. It is all about the inability to stay awake. It is all about being extremely lazy. It is all about expecting for something new and having nothing at all. It is all about the overuse of em dashes—

My life is all about this. It is all about long posts. It is all about waiting for the clock to strike three, to strike eleven, to strike six. It is all about wasting an opportunity. It is all about getting disappointed. It is all about threatening to ruin one’s life. It is all about striving to be gender-sensitive. It is all about the inability to construct sentences, utilize my vocabulary, tell the truth. It is all about breaking routine, breaking bonds, breaking down. It is all about fiction. It is all about being taken for granted. It is all about being grievously offended and not showing it for fear of the unknown. It is all about the failure to remember things of importance that can still be included in this farce. It is all about not knowing how to end a prose. It is all about deviating from a pattern. It is all about me. It is all about the rest.