My Words for Breakfast

'Eat your words'
I told myself one morning
Tastes like just the other pills you've taken
But high in nutritional value
Keeps low-level of humbleness
And gives 100% learn-from-your-mistake
concentrate which is good for your heart and mind.

I should be...

I thought I should be happy for you
A new life that has been waiting there
at your doorstep --- finally filling the corners
For a love that has been waiting
for your arms to embrace --- finally returned
Erasing my footsteps trailing away
through the gate of those years
I am now just a whisper of
i-hope-memories-worth-remembering-once-in-a-while

I just thought that I needed to be happy for you
Because after all it's what I'm always after
Your happiness.

Point of Views

Two things that I've learned about point of views --- First is to never walk away without presenting it; And second is to never dismiss another person's right to send it back. It is another step to learn and another way to strenghten whatever cause you stand up for in life.

Swept Away by Christopher Cross

I remember singing this song to you in a small videoke room. I passed the microphone to you and I said that I don't know how to sing the rest of the song. Truth is I don't want to cry while singing the song to you because it's true that I see my tomorrows in your eyes.

When a story begins with...

It is always a sad ending for any story that begins with two people with a love lost, floating on the waters of endless hoping and yearning. What breaks your heart more is knowing that all throughout their lives they know that they're meant to be together and that their souls were half of each other. What happens a few years after makes it even more true: unexpectedly seeing each other somewhere - next thing you know their eyes meeting and it's all coming back to that very first day they said 'I love you'.

You are my invisible anchor

I have docked from shore to shore and told the world that I have been to places, that I have moved and changed the course of my fate but in the abyss of my heart and my being I know I never left the one place that made me feel home.

You are my ever-fix mark, my unfailing compass and my invisible anchor in this journey I call life.

Untitled

I may have moved on
towards a new direction
walking on a different road
but I've been kicking
the same old shiny pebble I got
from where we began.

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My love for you thrives
between dreaming and awakening

I trust what we have like how I trust tomorrow.
I hope for us without borders but without expectations.
I love you like how I should love life and the reasons to live it.

Just like the waves, we sometimes don’t know if we want to reach the shore and be absorbed by its sands or stay out in the open and live a free circling life in the ocean. We move fast, eager to reach the destination where we both wanted to be, in each others arms forever. Together we have traveled miles of this water where we keep ourselves afloat with whatever we can give or receive. Yet there are days when the open water makes us wonder what if there’s something out there that we are missing - wondering if we are missing the greater waves of life.
You may roll back and forth, taking your time before you reach the shore but you’ll never be alone. I am the wave after you, just always a roll behind you wherever you want to go.

When was the last time you felt good about yourself?

Yesterday was a good example. My wife and I found two kids outside our gate, asking for alms door to door. Both children were untidy and look like they have eaten neither breakfast nor lunch. We asked them to come with us to a nearby sari-sari store and bought them some cupcakes and orange juice. We noticed that the older brother was barefoot and has a big wound on his right sole. I can see that he’s in pain while walking with her 3 year old sister. My ever generous and compassionate wife suggested that we buy him a new pair of slippers. We asked the kids to stay on the bleachers outside the store and finish their snacks while we look for slippers. The market place is only five minutes away from home so we were able to get back just after they’ve finished their snacks. I can see in his small eyes that he is so delighted with his new pair of slippers, though maybe in his shyness he cannot manage to give even a tiny smile. We also bought a new pair of sandals for his little sister; unfortunately it’s too small for her. But still we gave it to them just in case they have a younger sister. The last thing I told the little boy before we left was to take care of his sister.
It felt so good inside. It delighted my soul. For a moment I realized how complete I am and that completeness flows in abundance that I can even share it without fearing that I’ll ever run dry.

Addicted to the Sensation of Agony

I do not invite and enjoy misery of any kind just to be pitied by others or admired for forbearance but it is thru this sensation that I feel more alive – watching my self bleed while I strive to breathe.
We need pain, misery, sorrow and failure. We need it because it fetches the finest character in us. It teaches us to reckon success, happiness and even pleasure with such depth that changes every strand of our being.
So the next time you see yourself under a cloud, just go ahead and pump the rain out of it. Let it pour on you. Let it magically wash you for sometime. After that you’ll begin to appreciate better the warmth of the sun, not just the usual smile that your face gives when you see it shine.

The One Minute Closure

How far will you go?
You'd do anything
I need you
I need you to let go
I will let you go
But I need you
Because I love you
If you love me then let me be
I will
Because I love you

No Vacancy

If there’s a pang in my heart now it is not something to be sad or worry about. It’s simply a lack of space for something that is bigger occupying every inch of it. Every muscle, tissue and vein stretched out to give way to an everyday growing dweller, powerful enough to consume me. Love, yes, nothing else. No space for hatred or regrets, just love. It fills me up and then whirls inside like a giant black hole. The intense gravity gathers my being and then the most beautiful thing happens…
I burst into millions of stars, planets and galaxies. Almost seems like giving birth to a whole new universe. And the best thing about this is that it happens with every beat of my heart, with every chance that I get to realize that I am loved and that I can give it back.

Swept Away

I couldn't think of any way to describe it better. I'm afraid that my lack of taste to judicious words might disappoint the very thing that keeps me breathing. But neither do I find it necessary for any additives for something that is already intense. I hope I can give justice to it --- I say it as it melts in the palate of my passion.

I am falling endlessly.
Deeper everyday.
And there's no intent to halt at all.
I have inside me an entity bigger, stronger than I am.
And it seems so true that wild things do run fast.
The inertia is an absolute apathy at this point.
I was swept away too many times and I am still, as before, drifted by its course.

It’s a total surrender of my being to something painfully sweet like a scalding desire.

Wild Things Run Fast

I couldn't think of any way to describe it better. I'm afraid that my lack of taste to judicious words might disappoint the very thing that keeps me breathing . But neither do I find it necessary for any additives for something that is alredy intense. I hope I can give justice to it --- I say it as it melts in the palate of my passion.



I am falling endelessly.

Deeper everyday.

And there's no intent to halt at all.

I have inside me an entity bigger, stronger than I am.

And it seem so true that wild things do run fast.

Hands

This morning I was stopped by the image of my hands. The creases and wrinkles are twice as much as last year. I started wondering where it all came from or how I got it. There was a vague flash back (or maybe just a tickle of my imagination) of my own tiny soft hands held by one warm finger. My baby hands! So small and all it can grab was my mother’s finger. That’s all I saw and snapped back to reality then I looked at my hands again. It looks old and weary but still very able. If my hands can talk it can probably remember more of my life than my short-termed memory. It was the very tool of my every action, the messenger of my every thought and deed, and my savior when I turn mute. It makes the obvious even more alive when it hits its surface.

September 29,2008

Better Half

April 22, 2007
Sunday
8:44 am – 9:42 am

Sometimes people see only one side of love. Without my presence, without my existence known to them I am but a name. But it’s alright; it is her love that I want the whole world to know. How deep, how beautiful, how amazing, how intense, how powerful. To her closest friends, to her family and to all her acquaintances I am someone who just got lucky; someone bathing in the benefits of her love. And that anyone would love to take my place for a day.
I never ask of glory from love, all I wanted, needed was her. I don’t care if no one knows how much I love her; how deep, how beautiful, how amazing, how intense, how powerful. Knowing, understanding and believing what I have for her are enough. And if I have to be the only one to know, to understand, to believe I’d still go on. The thought of an existing love, returned or not, is what keeps me alive. I celebrate it alone; no need for compliments from friends or anyone how blessed she was to have me. Alone I rejoice because I have learned to love again.
I will never speak to the world of my love for her and no one will. But the wind, the moon and stars, the endless sky, the earth I walk upon, the sun, the birds they were all witnesses and I don’t know how to keep them quiet. My bed, pillows and sheets heard me a hundred times murmuring her name before I sleep at night, well maybe I could always wash them but what if my voice and my thought had become it’s threads that made it soft and warm at night? Then it’s hopeless. I almost forgot my shoes. Yes they know a certain road that I love to take. It’s the path that leads to her home. They know the way and they know how my feet, my heart dances with anticipation as I start my journey to home--- her arms, her smile, her kisses, her thoughts, her dreams, her love. Should I burn them to keep them shut?
In the end it is love that matters, not really the people that had become instruments of its existence. It is a circle that keeps us all in its center. No matter what kind, it is of one root and it had kept me nourished, alive and had kept my own world breathing.

The pen is mightier than my memory

April 18, 2007
Wednesday
6:24 pm – 6:51pm

I’ve forgotten how to write a letter or perhaps I’ve been refusing myself to do so. There was a lot to say for the past few months. My heart, my hands are burning to write but a part of me would always say it’s not yet time. A part of me would always say to wait for the perfect time and the perfect place (probably far away from where I am now; far away from everyone). But when? Where?
The pages and spaces of my Starbucks journal is not enough. Every time I write I have to fabricate a day’s memory into it’s simplest from. The best and most beautiful details are gone and emotions are usually held back to avoid downpour of words. This is very unfortunate for me. Writing is the only way I know to preserve what I treasure, my memories.
Since childhood, among us three daughters, I’ve always had the poorest memory; always the slowest to learn. I probably passed scholarship grants back in college not because of good memory handy for remembering lessons from tons of textbooks but maybe because of simple hard work and a bit of guts.
Only through writing would I know how I’ve lived my life. I know it’s quite odd but I always have this feeling that I’ll lose my memory at a very early age, probably between my 40s or 50s. Fear of the unknown, of things I’m not even sure that will happen in the future. I was thinking too much of the anesthesia that was used to me before during dental operations, and of that time when I tried to overdose myself with memory enhancers to make sure that I pass the next scholarship evaluation. Maybe these things have affected my memory. There were lots of times back in college when I would bang my head to the wall because of unbearable headache. That may have caused my poor memory as well.
I know that the people around me would always remind me of how I’ve lived my life regardless if they cared for me or not. But the details of how beautiful life was; how life was presented with life; how life found reasons and meaning --- I guess it’s only me who can tell. This should be one good reason why I should write.

To Forgive is to...

April 22, 2007
Sunday
10:56 am – 11:42 am

Why is it so hard to forgive sometimes?
Maybe because we know we’ve committed mistakes less than others, than the person who have done us wrong. We think highly of ourselves.
Maybe because we know we have given so much for something or someone and it makes us look seem so perfect that we are bathing in our own rightfulness. Our generosity, our kindness becomes an excuse. It becomes a banner on our heads to let everyone know that we don’t deserve such pain.
Maybe we’re afraid to be abused. After giving chances we might receive more of this pain that we try to avoid.
Maybe we want the other person to suffer first with the waiting we make, making them beg to death.
Maybe being unforgiving is revenge itself and it’s the only way we know how to get back.
Maybe the silence that unforgiveness makes is a weapon, a knife that slashes the soul of a weeping repent.
Forgiving is what helped mankind survive through ages. For if we do not forgive we would all perish in the hands of hatred, of revenge. We forgive not to delight and pass the soul of the one who repents but we forgive for our own sake. For when it is our turn to repent it is not only the ears but the heart that listens, that understands, that forgives.
Today I ask for forgiveness. First from myself. I have denied myself of freedom to change and to embrace chances. I have built a cell around me that will forever tell me that I don’t deserve such good things in life; that I am only second to anyone; that I am limited; I am only embraced by this world but not life itself; that I am sin itself.
In order to forgive myself I have to realize that I am made out of love and of love and that I am capable of multiplying myself and the love that I have in me. Love itself is the hand of forgiveness that extends to every corner, to every soul.
It is the thought of being abused that blocks the courage to forgive. But we never realize that we become instruments of survival. Because mistakes are daggers of the soul and the cut it makes can only be healed by forgiveness. Left unhealed, it becomes fatal and the body dies but the soul wanders weeping through the banks of life.
Today I survived forgiven by others so that I may help others to survive by forgiving them.