Water

I will tell you this: the ocean knows in its unfathomable eternity, my entire existence, as if a lover in the deep blackness of midnight.

It is familiar with every ebb and swell of my hips and how my limbs taper to veritable anemones in its grip. But although the surf caresses me until I ache, I keep myself together - for I am not ready to commit to the depths of the world’s waters.

But I have always rehearsed drowning: the ocean’s dark mouth swallowing my heat and breath and life; my spirit kept like a fish to be caught in the thundering currents. When the brine starts to smell of your lost matter, I spurn the salt embrace to return to tasteless air, safe from deep promises - and live hidden, among the mysteries of the shore, craving the slightest sense of light.

But still the surf beckons to me and leaves treasures at my feet: the polished hulls of ocean life, the detritus that mimic jewels in the sun. But I cannot accept them. 

For I long not for the bleached and blanched versions of what the sea has taken and claimed. For I long not for the tokens of those that have died and gone.

For I only long for what lives and what is now.

Reblogging this because apparently, this got featured in Tumblr’s “Black And White” tag. Teehee. A big shout-out to the tag’s editors! :)

(Source: mikerebuyas)

So this is how my desk is, currently. To say that it’s overflowing is kinda stretching it a bit pero I think, if I keep up with my twice-a-week bookstore sojourns, it might soon be haha.

Anyway, I posted some few months ago that I’d be making a post on my book hauls and so, here it is:

• The Lovely Bones*
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Sandman: Book of Dreams
• Neverwhere
• American Gods
• Rising Sun
• A Very Long Engagement
• Coyote Blues
• Thirteen Reasons Why
• Between Mom and Jo
• The Screwtape Letters*
• The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
• A Wrinkle In Time*
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• The Secret Life of Bees*

I figured too, that maybe I should add my thoughts on buying books. A lot of messages in my inbox often ask on where I buy my books. The answer? My local BookSale branch. Sure, the place might get too crowded or too disorganized but I think that’s what makes the book-hunting even better. My friend Francis once told me that he thought I possessed ”book-hunting superpowers” since I usually get first editions in the most unlikely places (see entries with * ) and for the lowest of prices, mehehe. 

I also scour sidewalk bookstores (you know, the ones near Manila City Hall) and just pick through their lots. 

Aand, since some of my followers have messaged me regarding my book-hunting sojourns, here are some tips I’ve put together for you guys:

• If in BookSale, be prepared to go through each and every book on the shelves. Keep an eye out for interesting details: an author, book title etc.
• Try rummaging through the books at the lowest rungs of the shelves. Usually, these are where the staff put the lowest-priced books.
• Make friends with the staff. I’ve had my share of snooty sales staff pero I often encounter the polite and helpful ones naman. I usually ask them about delivery schedules and the like. And oh, I also purposely bought a SIM Card whose number I gave to the branch supervisor for alerts on new stuff. Lakas. Haha
• In sidewalk stores/bazaars/tiangges, be prepared to haggle. They usually give discounts whenever you buy more than 5 books.
• Dress comfortably. You’d be stooping around most of the time so yeah, this practically explains everything.
• Keep an eye out not just for books but also, the ever-famous Manila street thieves. Nagkalibro ka nga, na-snatch naman phone mo, gets? It pays to be extra-vigilant these days haha.
• Aand, the most important tip of all: don’t buy books if you ain’t gonna be reading them. I personally set time to read and finish at least two books a week, which explains the apparent hoarding haha.

• PS: As of the last count, I already have around 75 books in my posession. Majority of them bought just the past year.

Silent Hill

Charades

Tonight, I stare at the monitor’s blank and unblinking face, allowing myself to drown in its hypnotic stare as the cold breeze outside my window howls, seemingly in sync with the ravages of my own delirious psyche.

As of this hour I have already downed one full bottle of beer - on my own, and am now halfway through my third stick tonight. And I’ve often said that I’ve quit these stuff for what, five, or is it six? years now.

I think of the reason why I’m doing this, why I am drowning myself in the cloyingly suffocating sweetness of smoke and cloud and ash and alcohol in the deep, dark hours of a seemingly endless night, and the only thing that comes to my mind is you.

I’ve been holding out for as long as I could remember, offering the most inane of commentaries on your problems, giggling like some madman whenever I get to make you laugh and getting light-headed at the slightest touch of your fingers on my arm.

When I close my eyes it’s not only your face I see but your whole being: your warmth, your smile your aura and even in my mind, I still get to inhale that heady, rich and intoxicating scent of yours.

I admit, I am smitten, infatuated, even, but maybe there’s more to this than just that.

Many times I’ve attempted to come clean about everything I feel about you and many times I failed. And all because of that sick, unfounded fear that maybe, by doing so I’ll be destroying what we have now.

Right now, as the stars burn in the evening sky, I wonder, what if I took the risk? What if, by some weird twist of fate, I actually gained enough guts to spill out whatever has been festering in this heart of mine? 

But then, the better question for tonight would be, “why am I saying all this now?”

Maybe it’s all because I don’t know if I could keep up with this damnable charade with you for much longer.

(Source: mikerebuyas)

I woke up today at three in the morning, the staccato of raindrops overpowering the thickness of the silence just before the break of dawn.

I woke up, realizing that there are a lot of things I have longed to tell you; things I wished I had the courage to say straight to your face; things, that for all they are, mean nothing to you and yet, all the same, mean everything to me. And that includes all the unspoken “I love yous”.

Sometimes, in my fevered psyche, I imagine you going through the same as well-for me.

Heaven knows how many times I’ve attempted to block you out: putting into my mind the fact that we simply could not, nay, would not, work out; that we were simply too similar in our ways and at the same time, are polar opposites; that for months now, I have wished that the time will come when the mere mention of your name in casual conversations would do as much for my mind and heart what a random flash of thought would to a busy mind: nothing. And as what you could see, I haven’t really had much of a success with it.

I wake up every day facing the possibility of me seeing you, all too sure of the fact that the moment I lay my eyes on you, I’d once again be drowning in an ocean of emotion and longing for things that could not be.

If I had my way, I’d be the one to first halt the advances of this sappy heart of mine and chain my runaway emotions like one would to a rabid dog, putting a stop to all of its rampages and silent, emotional histrionics-and finally get to have the peace that I have long since forgotten the moment you entered my life.

If I had my way, you would be among the many persons I get to encounter every single day: faceless, nameless bodies busy shuffling through life and all its mundane ordeals, and not the bright spot that I, in a state of emotional delirium, have considered you to be.

To illustrate the extent with which you have managed to disrupt my life, know that today, just moments before I woke up, in a dream made hazy by smoke and alcohol, you and I were holding hands, as if from a sick television movie that no one bothered watching, and I had the most awful of realizations: I loved it. The feel of your hands on mine, imaginary as they were, felt real: they had warmth, they had life.

And they had love.

This is not a love letter.

For several nights now I have tortured myself with thoughts of you, of being with you. I figured this was because of that encounter some few nights ago. But then again, maybe not, for then that would make it all seem so shallow and I know in my heart that it isn’t.

Maybe it’s because of the skill with which you weave your words into emotion-riddled poetry as you speak; Words which open up like the virgin blossoms in summer, enticing whoever flutters by with the cloying scent of wit and polished intellect, disarming listeners with their inebriating powers coupled with raw honesty and candor. I remember having those moments with you, when time seemed suspended in honey, each second ever so slowly turning into minutes and the minutes melting into hours with neither of us noticing, the two of us engrossed in profoundly deep conversations about metaphysical realities or whatever random topic we feel comfortable having conversations about.

Maybe because whenever I am alone, seated on that musty old couch, I would have the strongest of urges to recollect on those exchanges and conversations and to thumb through that book you so vehemently recommended, reading and re-reading all the phrases I found applicable to whatever situation I am in, never mind if those pages have since been torn at the edges from all the use and abuse they’ve been through; At least, I imagine you saying, their message got through.

Maybe it’s because you are what I see in the swirling effervescence of the sunrise: bright and vibrant and very much alive. I see your smile in the explosion of colors: when the blacks give way to the purples and oranges and reds of a new morning, when all is right and pure in the world. In that exact same way, I see your smile for what it is: a lop-sided grin belying your affinity for both convention and the familiar and the weird and unknown.

For several nights now I have tortured myself with thoughts of you, of being with you. I have fought hard with myself over these strange, new feelings I have for you. And fortunately, I guess, I lost the fight. As I am writing this, a song plays in the background, albeit by chance (or is it kismet?), the singer crooning the words I have longed to say to you: I have fallen head over feet for you. And yes, it’s all your fault.

Do I love you? Yes.

And no, this is not a love letter.

(Source: mikerebuyas)

Sayaw

Babagtasin at sisisirin ng mga hipo ko sa dilim ang iyong katawan

At sasakupin ang sansinukob na iyong kinatatayuan

Hanggang sa mga panaginip mo ako na’y  manirahan

Sa ilalim ng platinong ilaw ng buwan itinuloy natin ang sayawan,

Bawat kilos at galaw at pagkumpas ng ating mga paa’t mga bisig

Kasing banayad at tikis ng pag-agos ng tubig

Inangat kita sa aking balikat, sa mga bisig ko ikaw ay pinaakyat.

At doon nga, sa iyong pagkakaliyo, pagkakataas, at paglipad,

Mga alaala’y binura’t mga mata’y aking napag-ulap

Lalasingin kita sa aking tinig, at huhulihin ka naman ng aking pagtitig,

Kilos mo’y inukit sa aking isip, habang ako nama’y hihimlay sa iyong mga halik

Hanggang sa katapusan ng  ating sayaw tayo’y tuluyan na ngang napagsanib

Unang lumabas ang piyesang ito sa Banaag Literary Journal Tomo X Bilang I ng UPHL Gazette. 

Manila Bay.

Binan Market Scenes

Analogue

So I borrowed our publication’s Canon SLR. I bought two fresh (expired, really) rolls of films with different ASA/ISO speeds. I was supposed to use it yesterday but being the klutz that I was, forgot to buy a fresh set of batteries for it haha. Might buy some soon. 

Cheers to analogue photography!

Tonight, with my heart wrestling with my mind, I grasp at the painful chains of doubts and uncertainties, all in an attempt to escape from the suffocating pressures of emotion and longing that I have come to know for so long now.

Tonight, I leave behind my whole being: emotions and all, at your doorstep with a final embrace and a final kiss. I take one step forward with full resolve, and yet see myself quaver, hurrying back into your arms with another.

Tonight, I choose to dance this sad waltz with you again, despite its implications of defeat and tragedy, and allow myself to be swept up by the tides and currents of an unfathomable ocean, and just let myself be pulled down and up by its unpredictable motions.

Yes.

Tonight, I accept the sweetest of defeats.

mikerebuyas:

滴

In Fragments

Melancholia