natatakot akong lagyan ng title. hahaha.

in drugs or in violence
or in endless sex penitence,
they try to soothe the bruises

of their souls that were
punched and slapped in the hazing.
they’re friends, anyway,
friends by the vapor

hanging in the window,
clogged by heavy moans
or cloudy, organic breaths.

drifting, their world seems weightless.
because nobody knows about gravity, that is.
plus, dust is hardly seen

in black clothes hung together
at one side of the cafeteria
where we do not notice

the applicants walking by.
later in room 204,
they’d take off his heavy cloak.
and there begins the chain of penitence
just to have the access.

A Letter To My Professor

Dear Sir A.F. Galang,

I think about the odds in which this message might reach you, but I don’t really mind whether or not you find my words. I only want to engrave this day in history, and set a marker for me to remember. Today, i nearly cried in class. My heart was thumping the whole while i was seated in front and posed like a beggar whose only purpose in life is to qualify for your standards. But when i reached for your desk and claimed my paper, it felt like i had in my fingers the best treasure so far: a 1.0 Galang-graded paper.

You have always given me more than what i deserved. Your criticisms alone are five times sharper than the knife that is sharp enough to cut my bones. When you gave me a failing grade — coupled with remarks that literally stopped my world for an entire hour, and made me doubt the kind of craft i’ve been writing for years — I felt like a dirty rag on a muddy floor. But that frustration consequently made me wake up from my delusions and force myself to become a better writer (ie, omitting the superfluous language and the disturbing quasi-philosophy).

For many times, I have made decisions to quit this course and just walk out of the lovely door. Your lectures are far more gut-twisting than Gabi ng Lagim and Anchor’s Away. It crumbles me and burns me whenever I stammer and lose myself, knowing that you are hearing my broken words in the morning and reading my garbage drafts at night. But it puzzles me why i still chose to stay and face my tuesday/thursday morning nightmares. I guess, my seat belts have been attached quite too well.

Sir Galang, with my sincerest apology, i admit my contempt for you when we first met. For me you were an exaggerated Atenean statue, a walking hyperbole, an OCD freak. (you made me search the entire town looking for GSM 80 bond paper, and i hated you so much.) I swore to myself that i will never laugh at your jokes and i will insult you by writing you an anonymous hate letter. I was that naive, Sir, and plainly ignorant and full of bullcrap. Up to now i admit i’m bullcrap, but you have trimmed some of my loose ends, and i’m grateful.

This is not just the 1.0 euphoria. This is for all the lessons you’ve taught me, as well as the bitterness and the despair. This is for all the great days in class as well as the hell days. And especially, for how you brought out my scholarly side. The hard way.

I wish you the best in your study abroad. (I don’t pray, so i can only wish.) I will never forget you, especially the bloody marks on my shitty papers, which i will keep for my entire life. May you inspire more people, the way you inspired and shaped me.

Sincerely,
Your rockstar student

what’s to hurry with life?

what’s better than having a full night’s sleep, a warm gush of february wind, the view of a coconut tree swaying beneath the blue, the smell of rural life and the sound of trinkling water? there just isn’t, especially when you’re laying eagle-spread on the soft bed, beside yellow-curtained window, purged of all meaningful thoughts, and offering yourself to the ambience of homeliness. you’re young and far from dying, time is as thick as the heavy strands of your hair, and the world goes on, slowly, as slow as the flow of blood through your veins.

i’m unattached like the stars above, free and unrestricted as the waves of the ocean, unowned like the mountain orchids, freely breathing, like a conch in the seashore…

ganyan ang drama kapag walang trabaho throughout the weekend. BAHAHAHA. my date diary will hate me today. i had done nothing but lay around like a pig and do work-irrelevant stuff, like crochet and browse twitter. pity me. i couldn’t recall my last work-less weekend. it’s either i’m doing a critical paper for english class, or killing myself out of writing a novella within the weekend. so today i decided to give my mind a rest (my brain is the most abused part of my body) and SLEEP for hell’s sake. during weekdays, my brain never rests (have i told you about my take-home exam written in blank verse? after finishing at past twelve, while i was asleep and dreaming, my mind was still busy figuring out iambs and pentameters) and when i wake up, it would be as if only my body slept through the night. my mind never rests, mind you, even while i’m watching a movie, it thinks of other things. but good stuff comes out of it, however, like this morning, while sipping a cup of coffee and simultaneously zoning out, i figured out a nice raw plot for my creative writing class.

having a writer’s mind and being a writing student sometimes don’t lie on the same plane. being a writing student isn’t about drifting and dreaming all day, whereas the writing mind has committed itself to dreaming in public. at home, i have a lot of texts to read and understand and discuss for my classes. at school, i need to grab library books and to line up at FC. and speak in my horrible german accent.

classes are never based on spoon-feeding. gone are the lecture days when i actually copy something from the board, or when the professor’s ever write anything on the board. attend classes, read assigned texts, research, write, report. lecture days are more of “attendance days”. it’s like the Chem1 Vallejo classes — it goes on even if you’re not going on. The Agapito calculus class is the extreme — it goes on and you will not go on. The Physics 71 class is a matter of survival, but the most unforgettable, the most burn-your-brow class i’ve ever had. It’s the battle of an academic amazon. Suddenly, the Galang class has never seemed so easy.

during those days, what had i been up to? yes, i did burn my brows for Physics and yes, i stayed up till midnight to find discussion answers for my english class. in the middle of everything, it’s a rush that pushes me only forward and bans me from looking behind. i have no choice but to turn the next page and google the entire question. (haha) it’s like running down a cliff; mind your pace and mind nothing else but your feet. the coffee is bottomless, but i never stayed the night.

the best thing about being underloaded last semester (either that or i get a 5.0) is that i would nevermore feel the obligation to drive the extra mile and pursue a latin honor. what only matters now is getting there, for graduation, and polishing my writing skills so i can have my “own workplace, headphones, music to listen to, a fresh cup of coffee and a nice office work”. what’s a job cooler than being a writer? although it sucks sometimes (i once had to write about cabinets so i can get an online job) because writing is still a job, after all, the reward is there when you see your name in the by-line, or ever bought articles of clothing and food as a reward for the cool essay you’ve written.

someday, my words will take me farther. i don’t mean going upstage to receive awards or buying a huge house out of my salary. the writing life (as i’d read it to be) is a one-room apartment kind of life, and it’s perfect! i mean, i just want alcohol and a nice bed and music. and of course, my “own workplace, headphones, music to listen to, a fresh cup of coffee, and a nice office work.” what i mean about it being great, is that time when i actually feed my own mouth and pay my own rent because i was just thinking up the next word to write.