THINGS I WISH MOM ASKED/NEVER ASKED ME

Hey guys. I’ve been busy with my stuff lately (ie, laying around like a pig all day) and so I never came up with a Mother’s Day post. Yesterday I was thinking about finally writing here, but couldn’t come up with something to write, so let’s go for the themes. What’s Mother’s Day in my life anyway? To give you a glimpse, here are three things I wish my mom asked me but she never did, and another three things which she said and made my insides turn.

I wish mom asked me…

“What do you love about writing?” I’ve been writing since I can remember. I’ve been writing since I can put up English with the worst kinds of grammar error. When I was five or six I mapped out child games and wrote a manual for them, but I’ve never seen this pathetic piece since years ago. My parents never made a good archive of the things that I’ve written; the only literature they valued was the gospel. However my dad did collect a few Outcrop newspapers with my name in the staff box. They supported me whenever I joined journalism contests (and even found me a camera that failed at the contest proper) but I can safely say that they never understood the heart of the hell which I’ve been at for almost all my life. They like the fact that I get a few recognition for my writing, that’s part of the general pride for having an excellent child, but that’s the beginning and the end of it. They never understood my passion with words, let alone tried to understand it. Simply put, they never encouraged me to write at all. Period.

“Do you use condoms?” When my mom first learned that I was sexually active, first thing she did was go crazy about it. She cried like Sisa and borrowed the ears and shoulders of her sisters whose daughters all got pregnant outside marriage. But in the look of her eyes and how tears fell from them, it didn’t seem to matter to her exactly what was the sex that I’ve been having; she only stuck in her mind that I was having sex, and that it was premarital. She never gave a thought about why I’d give myself so completely, besides the fact that losing my virginity was a very complicated process. She only thought about my age when I first gave a blow job, when I was turning sixteen. Despite everything, she never told me to use birth control (oh wait, i think she did; she advised me with abstinence anyway) or at least mentioned safe sex. I remember that we had a sex talk somewhere in the past, when she told me that the girl is the loser in any premarital affair, and that any kind of penetration, whether just digital, takes your virginity away. But that was a different time; I never knew about patriarchy and feminism back then, and I never got answers when I asked why is it that only men can give surnames to the children, and why the conventional sex position is the missionary position. (Kidding about the missionary part.)

“What do you love most about your boyfriend and your relationship?” Maybe I’m to blame for being secretive and keeping journals since I was ten, but that was because mom and I never talked about the philosophy of love. Among a few things like drugs and violence, love is a silent word in the house, especially as I grew up. When I was younger, my mom brainwashed me and somehow convinced me to never marry. It’s not hyperbole to say that somewhere, she raised me to end up becoming a spinster. When we last talked about marriage, I told her, “marriage is just a matter of luck, some miracle you’ll never know,” and she seconded it. In the highschool level, I never had the nerve to tell her who my crushes are or were. I was nine with my cheeks burning and silent at the dinner table, not able to share about my crush because he’s Catholic. And it went like that, with only my diaries talking to me. I never had her moral support when I was being an “other girl” and I was fighting for it. In the back of my head, whenever I cry myself to sleep, I just know what they will say anyway. You are just investing love for the wrong person. Drop it. Great advice, but what kind of moral support is that.

I wish Mom never asked…

“So how much money does peddling poems make?” I remember it clearly during my 16th birthday, and I was very much into creative writing. I simply sucked at Math, or at least in managing not to sleep in Math class, and so I realized why not go back to where I began in the first place and intended myself to be in — Communication Arts? So that day, when we accidentally met in a jeepney ride, she greeted me with the best face and asked me about the job demand of creative writing. I don’t need much elaborate this; I don’t wanna arrive from show to tell.

“How many men have devoured over your womanhood?” Among so many other degrading things that I heard from her all in one night, she also asked me the question top prostitutes and courtesans answer only with a smile. I guess nymphomania has something to do with losing your virginity before marriage, or at least she thinks it goes that way. When I shared this interrogation to my elder cousin, she said to me, “Does she think you are truly her daughter?” Oh well. What can you expect from a virgin bride who has devoured only a single penis in all her life and is proud about it?

“Why don’t you have a proper relationship with Kevin?” My mother, as far as the stories from her own mouth go, had dated five men including my father, and she was totally proud of the fact that her first boyrfiend lasted three years with her but only got to touch the tip of her fingers. Their relationship ended out of boredom mostly, according to her. From her archive of love letters, I learned that mom was “experienced in kissing,” as she had told my father, in an apology for a sexual assault maybe? Haha. And yes, she was a virgin bride, but in one of her letters, I had read, “…I’ve never done that with any of my previous boyfriends. Anyway it pleases me that I have made you feel great, but I’m sorry I just don’t want penetration yet. I’m afraid of the shame that I will get in case I get pregnant out of wedlock…” Okay, so here are three things that I can conclude: 1) dad’s one hell of a vixen converter 2) mom is an absolute idiot who has never heard of condoms 3) we all have the same desires, but some are hypocrites to their own feelings and dismiss their very own sexuality. Just because she never masturbated, she chose a dry relationship with her previous men and a long-distance affair with my father, that doesn’t mean I am not having a proper relationship with my guy, for hell’s sake. For the lexicon, an improper relationship is one that has cheating and lies. Just because the relationship isn’t traditional, that doesn’t make it an improper one, or a wrong one. Traditionality will never save you, or keep you immune from all the dogshit scattered in the streets. Get real, Maria Claras.
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Apparently, my mother’s a very traditional, anti-feminist woman, who gave up her dentistry license (degree from CEU) for the stinky kitchen counter and a career of raising two children and one bastard. While I stand at the near opposite for being modern and liberated, I do my best to keep a civil relationship with her. I think we’ll never settle our lady’s war. The last time I will ever agree with her will be on my wedding day. For hell’s sake I am an atheist and my only dream can be getting married at a very christian church right? Sucks. So I told her recently, that I will never ever let my child be baptized in any religion, until it’s my child who chooses to be baptized.

Lastly, a little update about the stuff I got into last Mother’s Day: I greeted every mother on my phonebook, and that includes Kevin’s mom, however I never got a reply from her. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to being with them this Friday, birthday of Kevin’s Dad, and so once again the weight of the world is upon my shoulders; here comes *finally* a formal meetup with his family. I’m thinking about the clothes I’ll wear and the things I’ll say, especially our plan to stay there for the night until the next day in celebration a town feast. I know it’s going to rouse a round of whispers again, but i’ll just say, “wtf.”

I’ll keep you guys updated. How the hell this whole in-laws thing will get to me. ciao!

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.

warning: horrible content

i can’t help but procrastinate. right now, my notebook’s peacefully closed beside me, while i gently rock myself on grandma’s rocking chair near the balcony. i’m writing my third blog post. i’m writing my third blog post for today.

twenty minutes (or so) ago, the scene was different. i was definitely absorbed with my task of reading self-assigned texts (out of guilty responsibility). my legs were put up on the rocking chair (and opened wide) while my warm notebook rested on my abdomen.

adobe reader ran on the screen, from which i read one of the articles i downloaded from projectmuse. it’s getting interesting, really, until my left hand started to crawl down my left thigh, down and down, until my fingers were tracing the outer lips of my womanhood. it was a silent afternoon. the living room was bright and yellow like sunflowers, and everybody was asleep. i took the role of Benjamin Button in his midnight world-watching. my mind was debating against itself whether i should pay attention to what i’m reading or to what i’m feeling. but i can’t help it — the tingling sensation brought by the tips of my fingers, which seemed to have a mind of their own, against my own flesh, which to my vanity and self-admitted beauty, was arousing and absorbing; soon i put my hand inside my clothes, with a little precaution of looking around first.

my fingers landed on the soft and slimy sheath of skin that felt like lubricated satin sheets. i let one of my fingers slide inside (through a pair of silk curtains that brushed me with purple warmth) and surveyed the troughs and valleys inside my walls. i felt a certain kind of blistering pain and pleasure, but still tolerable, coming from an elusive source from somewhere god possibly lives. nothing in the world could compare to the texture and softness of the woman’s cave — not even the moss of rainforest floor, not the petals of a spring rose, not the nape of an infant, not the surface of the purest oil. it had the wings of a coral pegasus, crowned with an oriental pearl, from which two delicate folds flow and possess the smiling face of an ancient willow tree. it is a place that can never be found anywhere in the world, and so garnering a title as “the home of every man’s flesh, his sanctuary, his infant’s cradle that invites a newborn to sleep uninterruptedly in paradise”. if there’s paradise on earth, it must be the space bounded by the walls of feminine grace. (and don’t you dare google search vagina pictures; you wouldn’t find mine. haha.)

and so it came to me in wonder, what this cave can bear to take already. so far, i can let a couple of fingers in (four years ago, my eyes shot through the skies, catapulted by the unbearable pain of sliding a single finger for the first time) and quite well move them in. i reached for the nearest object closest to a dildo (a plastic canister of hair gel), sanitized it with alcohol, and treaded the unoccupied room, locked the door, put down my laptop and everything that i have waist down.

i laid on the bed, leg spread, trying to get myself wet. i pressed the canister on my womanhood, teasing it, tickling myself. soon, i lubricated the canister with my mouth (pretending to perform blowjob) until i tried to stick it there once again. i tried to push the rounded edge of the canister inside, drilling it in, screwing myself. i felt it begin to trespass the gates. all i can think of was laying with a man, beneath him, squeezing his masculine shoulders as i scream in pain. i can’t push the fucking tiny canister in. 1. the entrance was too narrow 2. it was too painful. though i did try my best to “take my virginity” i still failed, even with both hands pushing and my legs pushing against the bed. i can’t rape myself. period.

it’s one of these moments when i feel like a virgin. i can’t be penetrated, i haven’t taken anything, and i can’t imagine how can my “first man” slide in and out of me, when i can hardly slide anything in, apart from my slender fingers. will i just stiffen my legs against his waist, as he plunges inside of me and takes me, in the midst of my moan-screams? i can’t imagine. i can’t imagine how it feels to contain something inside, to be full, to cage some kind of angry bird. i don’t know.

out of failure, i just finished it in the usual way that i do. the non-penetrative orgasm. i pulled my clothes back to reality, with a little flat pain down there. jeepney guy’s fingers still hurt more. it’s kind of frustrating. i want to enjoy things and make my man enjoy it, too, not cry in pain due to pressure (not pleasure) and torn hymen.

it’s too intimate to appear vulnerable, weak, and to tremble in somebody’s arms. i don’t want that. i want it to be as casual as in the promising porn movies.