I realize how much it means to have someone to hold, someone who’ll remember you in the morning and put you to bed at night. Someone who’ll be there, waiting for you to arrive from a journey of miles just to be together again. We may not be in the perfect situation, and we’re not always in wonderland, but even in the midst of confusion and weakness, we hold on. Even if it’s not everything that I want sometimes, I know I’d still go for it the next day. And that kind of endurance and willingness to stay is what matters. Love. It’s not just about sleeping together. It’s not about mercy or staying for the sake of promises. It’s the feeling you get when you hold this person close and feel a sense of possession and being possessed.

Randomness turns to magic then bounces back to being ordinary, but Love manages to give it meaning, something more beautiful than the face of magic: nature.

It’s not like I hate this house so I intended to escape and runaway, thus gone for three days. Fucking no. I had to fix a lot of stuff at school, such as my clearance forms and applications for transfer and the stupid STFAP. It had to take me two days because at Day 1, the Department Chair was out and had signed my clearance form only a day after. It was at Day 2 when I could gather the papers for STFAP and submitted them. I was just being practical and saving money and energy and time, so I didn’t take several trips back and forth. For Day 3, Kevin asked me to stay. And it was at Day 3 when I finally received a message from mom, “Is that the kind of life your flesh is thirsty for?”

I wanted to defend myself, but explaining has gotten so tiring and boring. It appears that I am the most selfish, wicked, person on earth again for staying in at my guy’s house. It’s not like we went club hopping or smoking pot or doing drugs or performing orgies or sleeping under bridges. Though yes, there was a little alcohol and some fun, it was still far from dangerous. At some point there was a house party, but I just curled up in bed. Anyway it was only a bunch of people watching tv and dancing Dougie.

Maybe I’m the worst person on earth for trying to stay outdoors on a summer vacation. Maybe I’m the worst person on earth for making love in my guy’s bed. Maybe I’m the worst person on earth for being away from home for three days. Maybe I’m the worst person on earth because I’m seventeen. Maybe I’m simply the worst person on earth. You just see the closed door and hear the party music coming from inside.

I want to come back to that old feeling, where you know the silence of the moment says so much more than so many words. I want to be alone with you, doing no more than looking into your eyes and touching the tips of your fingers. Touch my soul through my skin, burn me from within. Then let me lay my head on your chest, feeling only sanctuary, having no desire to move further southward; let me be passionless as dead grass. And maybe this will save me and clear the nightmares off my head.

Sometimes, Kevin jokingly asks me if this is just going to be a summer thing. Then I seriously tell him that this isn’t. But maybe some things would also be lost at the end of May: the long nights, the plain days, the warm afternoons, the unfelt dawns. Definitely, we would be more platonic, and desire and passion diving in too much in the way solemnity would be less worried for. But of course we’ll keep our relationship steady and strong, whatever the weather or the situation.

Love, for me, isn’t the desire to sleep with someone or to fall into their arms. Love is the silent happiness that you hear above all noise, the rainbow at the end of every storm, the desire to give without getting any in return, the safest answer to every how and why. Maybe I’m misunderstood for a bunch of valid reasons, but the hell with it. I’m here in the middle of somewhere far from first base, and Love has taken me here. The rest of the path, I’d have to figure for myself.

Our plan to spend two days and two nights and one morning together was successfully carried out last May 18. Against all odds I kissed goodbye my limp grandmother who didn’t get the chance to see my sling bag stuffed with clothes good for three days. It was Kevin’s Dad’s birthday that was my primary reason for going out of the house, but it was the hope of seeing him once more that kept me sane enough to live through that day. Nevertheless, I journeyed like Ulysses back to his home in Quezon City, and like Boo I ran down the flight of stairs at the train station to eagerly meet Kevin’s embrace. Life has begun again. And even if the previous days had been rough (my going to his house has become an issue to my nosy relatives, plus we had a little misunderstanding in the morning after spending the whole night on the phone) we still managed to stay ourselves and take care of the house with just me and him and the day before us.

*NP: John Mayer, Your Body Is A Wonderland*

MEET AND GREET

I happen to wear the wrong kinds of clothes (this time my three sizes oversized Engineering shirt) each time I meet his family, but when meeting future in-laws, the last thing that should matter is your clothes. Take it from me. What matters is that outgoing spirit to say out “Hi Daddy!” to his father, to take the hands of each of his aunts and uncles (names memorized) and do the Mano Po tradition, to devour (like a pregnant woman) over a roll of mocha cake, chocolate cake, and pancit until his mother gets laughing. It was as good as I could hope for, and I still managed to pull out a little joke when one of his uncles asked:

Uncle: “Saan kayo nagkakilala?”
Me: “Sa internet po. High-tech po kami eh, ginoo-google lang ang pangalan ng soulmate.”

Okay maybe that wasn’t as cute as I’d intended, but let’s get on with the story. So his mom wanted us to spend the night beside a hospital bed, but Kevin refused since we weren’t prepared for a sweaty night at the UST Hospital. I wanted to stay for the sake of pleasing his mom, who looks very stern and cold as opposed to his father, but because Kevin refused, I didn’t stay. We took a cab and reached home around 1 am, settled ourselves for the night, watched The Onion Movie, slept together and woke up at 11 am to my mother’s text message: “PLEASE COME HOME YOU ANNOYING PIECE OF FUCK” (heavily rephrased)

SATURDAY

I forgot to bring my phone to the hospital so I wasn’t able to inform my parents about my whereabouts. So with my last two pesos of prepaid credit, I gave my excuses and indirectly said that I’ll be home the next day. She didn’t curse me but she still begged me to come home. Oh that was just mom, so let’s sleep again. (haha.) We spent the entire Saturday in bed, watching movies and painting dolphins in the air and sleeping and waking up at midnight without a clue what the hour is. Like always, there were people in the living room, separated by a sheet of curtain that was our fine line between exhibitionist and passionate. We were lost in our own world, a little world of whispers and loving and looking into each other’s eyes like we’ve never seen them before. And I told him I can stay that way forever, just me and him in this bed without ever getting hungry or needing to go to the bathroom. I just adore him all the more whenever I get the chance to glimpse at him. And right now, in my own empty bed I’m missing him and the way we hold each other, the way I hold him and feel for myself that he is mine, that we’re one flesh and spirit.

I long for that day when I wouldn’t have to be teary eyed, on a Sunday morning when I finally have to say goodbye. But we manage to stay strong and sweet even when apart, fueled by the promise of meeting again sometime soon. And we’ll see each other again on Thursday, as I settle my transfer to Art Studies. We’re counting months and smoothly going over the preliminary struggles in a relationship, but we’re ever strong as an iron fortress. I love you Loves!

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.
####

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!

I was up lately, reading the drafts folder from my phone, dating from December 2011. It contained bits of my life from the past as being this “other” girl, until I decided to just give up on it and face the coldness of life all alone (hence the quote above). From what I had written, I could say I had a lot of immaturities back then. My vengefulness was one, after my extreme todamax selfishness. I also remembered the difficult beginnings of my relationship with Kevin, of my doubts and fears about the truth of this reality, of trusting myself into falling in love (now for the last time), of giving him the space his previous drinking life requires (but you’re never gonna drink anymore, right, Loves?) and of that night when I had to wait his call for about an hour or more, and when I heard his voice I almost broke down into tears. But now, after about two months in our relationship, I realized that we’ve fallen in all the right places, perfectly fitting and complementing one another despite the pressure from my parents (whose rules include love as a sin) and the pressure from his drinking buddies. Kevin had changed a lot for me and because of me. Just to spend so much time writing me messages is a big change in him.

I’m still up tonight because I had a cup of black coffee in the dinner table. But maybe it’s not just the caffeine that’s got me, but also so many thoughts about this life. For the first time since I was last a human being, I really felt empathy for someone. This time, it was for Kevin. I don’t know if this has some conjugal thing to it, but to have the thought of him shedding tears as he talks to his bedridden father made me cry just about a couple of hours ago. It’s called empathy, one of the strangest feelings to me. I wish I can do something, like buy pens and papers for his little brother, Kier, so that his mother can at least have one check mark in the neverending “things to buy” list. I just want to pause right now and cry, thinking about all those difficulties we push through just to get our relationship as alive as it can still be. Whenever I walk out of our house, I swallow all the disdain I get from my mother who thinks it’s shameful for a girl to be the one who has to go to the guy’s house. Then we come to terms with the fact that he can’t show up here and we can’t show up in the hospital because Dad needs a lot of medicines and what would go to the cab driver should better go to the pharmacist’s counter instead. Then after one short day of being together, a day that I would rather not end and wish that would last until the next morning, I get looked upon as what? As the grain that feeds itself to the cock.

I’m not complaining about our situation, or about its difficulty. We continue to help one another and bring each other up whenever one of us is feeling down. Right now, I believe Kevin’s fallen asleep with his eyes swollen by tears. He sliced onions for dinner anyway. And right now, I’ve got my own eyes soaked in salty tears. There’s still a flurry of thoughts in my head that I wish to vent here. But I guess it’s enough to have said and realized the things I’ve written above. And it’s a great thing to have shed a lot of tears. Even if he hasn’t said goodnight to me, who used to stay awake because no one would tell her goodnight, at least I can sleep tonight knowing that someone will remember me in the morning and write me a message first thing in the day. And it will make my day.

Even if it has become impossibly difficult to push life through, we will still have one another to search for that last bliss in life. As long as I’m holding his hand, even if we’re dead as corpses, I know life is just fine.

PS.

You won’t need to greet me this Sunday.

I wake up knowing that today would be as typical as yesterday. But i’m saying it’s never the same as yesterday, although today and yesterday compose the same episode of my life where I lay all day and listen to 70′s music, and exchange messages with my sweetheart. Today had just gotten different when I decided to write another blog post after a million years. And maybe, mom wouldn’t be sending shame-on-you messages to me today. (Not that I care.)

I just remembered that I want to become a published writer finally this year, and that one more month to go and the year is halfway through. No, don’t focus on the noun with an adjective, or the failure of this yet-another-plan-by-Mia. Focus on my will and determination to get somewhere in life apart from my burial ground, that is one thing that never waned in my life. To those who complain that life is just the same old, linear shit, you should know my story — balanced and fair, full of ups and downs, boring days and too real days, dreams crushed and dreams fulfilled, papers graded 5.0 and papers graded 1.0, winning essay pieces and blog posts visitors never read, etc. You get the point. Life is a system of price and reward. There is a bad thing to every good thing that you have in life. So it’s a matter of either being a pessimist, an optimist, or a nihilist.

But back to reality, I still didn’t seek admission to the Institue Of Creative Writing, though it had been my goal for an entire semester. I decided to gamble with Art Studies, as advised by my counsellor, and formally aim at another degree for the fifth time. Kevin has remarked that usually my plans never find fulfillment. For the most part, I have too many plans — not grounded on reality, but on the bliss of making them — and it’s so common for us to dismiss the other good things.

Three years ago, I began writing this blog. I didn’t commit formally and seriously, but still here I go, doing what I’ve always loved — writing. You don’t have to have a writing degree in order to become a writer. In some way, you just find your way to it, or it finds its way to you. The same goes for the plans and dreams we make in life. In the end, we just want fulfillment, nevermind the position we have to execute just to have it. Just having these moments of writing aimlessly, without a general topic, a deadline, an expected grade, I’ve already found my fulfillment. There’s more to writing than being published, or winning a writing award. It’s the joy of the experience with the written word, whether you are the writer or the cunning reader who gains fulfillment through catharisis.

Writing has many forms and faces, but it’s the fucking same activity that makes civilization possible. The same goes with life. Whether you get pregnant somewhere in your seventeenth year and graduate with a little child, or whether you get your University diploma virgin and gay, the graduation ceremony’s still there for the one point: to acknowledge those who chose to find a diploma that’s a key to every door in this world (so the delusional intellectuals say). We’re just drifters whose drift is defined by our sense of morality and reality. What makes us human is our ability to decide to after all, just get fucked (literally and figuratively).

***

Earlier today, I was thinking about getting a pregnancy test and figuring out how the rest of my life would go in case I happen to find two pink lines there. However, it’s still too early to make suppositions because I’m waiting until Saturday, about five weeks since my last period and basically the fifth week of my pregnancy (if i’m pregnant), and when home testing is already reliable. But before all, I’d like to tell you guys that right now, I’m not really troubled or anything or worried or feeling bad about it. If I’m pregnant, I’m taking it wholeheartedly and am going to raise the baby together with his/her father. Kevin and I see tough times ahead, but we also know that we have to take responsibility for our irresponsible actions, and face the consequences, and we cannot leave our child cold and hungry.

I don’t see having a child this early as a hindrance for us to live successful lives. What matters is our will to stay together, achieve our goals, build a great family and keep our love strong despite the disapproval and discouragement from society. Never at once had I considered abortion except when I was sixteen. I’ve always dreamed of a family with Kevin, who is my best friend and the man whom I adore and love so much, and for hell’s sake I wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill our child. I’ve never doubted my desire to share my life with him and to give myself to him. From that dark afternoon when we were only seeing each other in silhouettes, and I broke into tears, realizing that I’ve found the one I have been waiting for, my love for him hasn’t changed and only grows everyday. Having a child or a wedding ring isn’t supposed to be my took to glue us together, we’ve had our bond strong even in the beginning.

Maybe we’re a little unprepared, but I take all of it as a wonder work of nature. I’ll push through next semester and file a leave of absense so I can take care of our child throughout his/her first two years or so. Sometimes my heart still beats loud and fast at the thought of it, but I know that I must embrace everything, of having two hearts beat inside my body, of being a mother. Kevin and I will just work it through and never give up; just work things out for our relationship and for our future child. I’ll keep you guys updated about about my test results, or when this post had just become a false alarm and I’m having my period already. So what’s it going to be like for my parents, his parents, for us? Coming up next on LM.

I didn’t come home last night despite my mother’s plea, or everybody’s concern. I wasn’t trying anybody’s patience, though yesterday, before I stepped out of the house, I had made up my mind to spend the night at Kevin’s house and pack some extra clothes. Neither was I little by little moving in to his house (I took back my toothbrush with me). We just really wanted to be together and spend the night, without having to be late at the train station and saying painful goodbyes in the midst of the night. But with mother’s begs and pleas in the surge of her text messages, I can only be a parental law-defying teenager, or Law itself, following nothing and on one but herself.

But I couldn’t go home; Kevin was suffering from a throat infection (from all the sweets he had been eating recently) and late in the afternoon, just before dark, he had to wrap himself since he was shivering with fever. Early in the morning I had already noticed his temperature, so I gave myself a little blame for not having given him paracetamol and strepsils before things had gotten worse. And now no one was there but me — to buy his medicine, to dampen his skin, to cook his dinner. I cannot walk alone all the way to the train station; Kevin wouldn’t allow it, as much as I wouldn’t allow him walk all the way back home, alone, burning. If there was a decision best to be made, that was to spend the night with Kevin and care for him, set aside the disdain I’d expect at home.

That was the third night we’d spend together. The first was when I succeeded in pulling up a lie about sleeping at the ladies’ dorm, finishing some project at school. The second was a half-lie about sleeping over at a friend’s house and being too tired to go home. I didn’t pull up a lie this time; I told mother straight that I was at Kevin’s house, nursing him, coming home tomorrow. After that, I ignored the rest of her messages and carried on with the night.

It wasn’t far from the other sleeping moments we had spent, but a little like that night when I was intoxicated by gin bilog and was out of my mind. I remember Kevin holding me close throughout the night and comforting me when the alcohol had gotten me crying. He caressed my back when I vomited at the bathroom. I still slept soundly, only managing to give him medicine at midnight, as I had told his mother. I was terribly upset by his being sick and I shared half his pain. No, I wasn’t finding our situation to be a painful one, of us being broke and helpless teenagers — oh wait, I’m the only teenager — but it was just as painful as it can be. Instead of a starry, shimmery night of chuckles and endless conversation, we were drooped like dead vines. Happiness isn’t all that there is in life, but even if we only had one reason to be happy about, and that was about us being together, I may say I was still happy to be with this sick guy. Dude, he’s like, my guy.

Then I woke up beside him, this guy who was my first thought in every morning, this guy whom I love and share love with, this guy who was the reason why I’m going to be screwed up at home. His face was still as pretty as it can get in front of my eyes, not quite innocent about the world, but are still captivated by the randomness of it. So I asked, “Bakit ba tayo magkasama ngayon?”

He replied, wide-eyed, “Nagtataka ka na ba sa atin?”

“Di naman,” I held him close, “Sa dinami-rami lang ng tao na pwede mong maging katabi ngayon, bakit kaya ako pa, ano?”

At this sweetly senseless question, he nodded off with a little smile, then I tenderly kissed him. I know that I love him, not because of the distance I’m travelling, not because of the hours I’m spending, not because of the part of me I’m willing to give him, but because of the sense of an infinite sanctuary when I’m only with him.

Later in the bathroom, in that one private moment, I inevitably ask myself if I had ever gone too far. Seeing my face in the bathroom mirror of another house, I can only realize being away from home, of being quite far from where I’m supposed to be. I blink at myself and think, “But heck, this isn’t just another house, this is his house, this is my lover’s, of the one I share half of my heart with.”

And just for the sake of mentioning, here is where I meant to be.

Today, I made myself a bowl of oats, and cooking the oats was damned fun.When I got up I asked Manang, “Do we have any rice?” (I still believe in heavy breakfasts, though usually I take brunch or completely skip breakfast and just wake up at eleven.) Manang replied that we only have pandesal, so I made a grunt and grabbed a steel pot and began boiling water for my own food.

Pretty much nothing was going inside my head. So I’ll go to UP tomorrow, meet Kevin, spend the night with him, eat breakfast today, go to church. But just then, in the midst of nothingness, I encountered a random demonstration of Fate and Survival. A few kitchen ants had been racing around the lid of the pot, racing round while the surface temperature rises degree by degree, and their bodies burn.

The stove fire was at its lowest set up, killing the ants as slowly as the heat can, and I thought about the sad fate of these insects while they crawled/ran all over the endless circle. They kept running and running; why can’t they just stop running and face Death? It’s not like going on and on around that stupid circle will save their lives. So I raised the fire of the stove, still considering my oats boiling below, and while the ants ran faster, and I grinned wider. (I’m more masochist than sadist, but hell, watching poor objects run for their lives and controlling their pain is one hell of fun.)

Eventually, due to the extreme surface heat, their tiny bodies crumpled and withered, and died. The insect corpses dashed to the sides of the pot lid, since no more *what do you call insect feet?* will sustain friction due to gravity. Poor ants, they died while amazing me how even the littlest of creatures try to live up to the last second of their life. They died showing me how amusing it is to see how life runs for life, and doesn’t stop going around the endless, senseless circle for as long as it can, for its own sake. But anyhow, these are idiot ants we are talking about, stupid ants who live only for the sake of living. For God’s sake, they don’t even have sex just for the fun of it.

***

Earlier today, from my OMGFacts Twitter feed, I read that the inventor of the flash camera committed suicide because he thought his work was already done. Well maybe the ants still had endless work to do, so they didn’t just sit there and embraced death, without defense. So is life just all about work; is survival just for the sake of surviving your work; what does it mean to work, anyway?

To come and think of Life as a lifetime job is quite amusing and is further insulting: being born, we are employed into a lifetime job that we didn’t choose (that is, to live a life bound by the rules and standards and prejudice of our society), yet we spend our time living in sacrifice, usually in pain and tire, just to keep our job and perform well our roles. And if you were the ant who was conceived just to get working and building a colony, wouldn’t you find Death the ultimate salvation? Wouldn’t you just run away and completely shun guilt, stop living life in other people’s terms, follow your own will and raise your middle finger in the air?

Your reality is your option, man. I’ve chosen mine, when will you?

– Grow Old With You, OST The Wedding Singer

We met the day before yesterday, and in the evening he took his guitar and sang me this one. We sat there, on the lower part of the double-decked bed, or his bed, where we basically spend all our time together. The heaven where we laugh, cuddle and make out, explore ourselves, and talk about all the little details of our world, like the chronology of events last time I drank too much and lost myself. Time was running as fast as the vibrations of strums and plucks and the chords in his throat, but with respect to the relativity of this precious moment, time slowed down if it had not completely stopped, or crawling as slowly as a slug or sloth; and soon tears were making our eyes glassy, filled with a love so overwhelming it starts to spill over our vision. Then he reaches out my arms, which I wrap over his strong shoulders and fasten the zero distance of our bodies. In about an hour or so, the distance will stretch out like elastic gold, until we’re regions and provinces apart, but always in one world bound by our love and shared dreams in life.

Sometimes, while I take the train ride to where he lives, I get all sorts of weird feelings exaggerated by my, I hate to say, a little borderline attitude. Suddenly, unnecessarily, my world turns colorless, a lump finds itself lodged on my throat, and I’m nervous about the turn of the world. It’s because of the stern look my elder sister gave me earlier, before I left the house and nodded to her advice, “Come home early,” and of the way I lie to my gullible grandmother about my whereabouts. I stoop and look down on the floor, take wimpy steps; I am a confessed liar, a discovered liar, a poor liar, a great actress. Like red ants, guilt crawls up my legs and one by one digs their teeth under my tough, pale skin. I can only look up at the brightness of the day, of the sweet tunes carried by the wind to numb the shouts of my superego. Then I listen and feel the train move swiftly along the tracks, taking me closer to my loved one. Time passes, time passes, time, pass, time, don’t stop.

But most of the time, I’m all bright and giddy and pumped, and pushing my life through using my excuses and alibis is more of an adventure, of playing the role of a game master, than a fraud in a fraudulent action. I scored over my grandmother when she gives me my money, from where I sold a half-lie, “I’m going to UP to claim and submit my grades,” which ends up in coming home a day after. I exit the house feeling like a champion princess who just escaped her own tower by tricking the servants. As I go along my journey, I exchange messages with him (when he is awake) and every second is a sweet passing of time, a silver memory to savor. The swoosh of train tickets is a sound of gladness, the rush of people at the station is a rush of tourists at a zesty feast. Then five stations later, I take the staircase of the south exit with a wide grin on my face, with my sinewy legs almost sprinting to where he has been standing, waiting for me. I wrap my arms around him and lift my right leg up, (he probably never notices it) and always, no matter how my ride went, no matter how bad the day was earlier, looking into his eyes will take all the bad mood away, and I’ll smile, authentically, when finally my fingers are interlaced with the only fingers my hand needs to hold. Then while walking we talk about all the time we spent apart, as if to merge the lost hours with the moments of finally getting together.

AT THE LUNCHEON

What added extra beats to my pumping heart was when he said that everybody was there — his grandmother, his aunts and uncles, his sister, and cousins. There was a tiny flick at the back of my head; I hadn’t prepared for the event and wasn’t in my best form, though gladly, I dressed decently with my very summer outfit, a pair of long sleeves and full length denim pants. I thought about how this day would go. So all of our intimate moments at the love shed would be reduced to more innocent gestures in the living room. I didn’t have bad feelings all for the reason of simply not being able to lay all over him all throughout the day (and what kind of reason is that, anyway, we’re not Justin and Mila!) but because heck, I’m a freak and is quite scared of people.

Though fortunately, I received the warmest reception I could ever think of at that day.

There was Ate France, and his sister, Karen, and his astoundingly beautiful grandmother, Mama Grace, who dubbed his very own grandson as lazy and irresponsible, and said that he must change before I change my mind. Haha. But after a few minutes of settling there and playing the traditional “ligawan at the salas”, I soon found myself comfortable enough to answer the very questions of his grandmother: where do I live, what do I do in life, where do I study. Lucky for me I have thought about this for a hundred times: how to make the ugly truth not seem so ugly without having to pull up a lie. When I was asked about what my father’s nature of work is, I replied with the very prudent word, “Clergy.” And the way I had said it was prudent enough so as not to harvest any more follow up questions and compel me to defend myself and say, “But I’m an atheist.”

They were cool, and nice, and just fine when I had lunch upstairs in the household of Tita Candy. The never-dying jokes about “But Ken, who is Brenda?” was part of the dish, but I just laughed at their way of acquainting me into the family. However, in the back of my head, I still had that black sheep kind of feeling, because of my clandestine background, which electrifies me when touched. I am carrying it like a cross on my back, as the Christians say. But among those who care, who matters? Maybe our relationship is challenged by society, by divisions bounded by human faith and (mis)understanding, or even just prejudice, but here we are already, and there is no backing out. How can you measure the strength of a relationship if there are no weights to carry and hurricanes to endure? What’s a relationship anyway if there are no problems needed to be settled together? I’m not saying that easily-situated relationships are weak. We all just have our own fucking share of problems, that is. What matters is that we finish the food on our plate, and we don’t bite off more that what we can chew. We go to war and never, ever, bring our flag down.

to be continued…