Construction

That's the problem with skyscrapers - we forget they were once a sack of cement, rock from the earth we tread on. We think sometimes that they've always been there, or that something more glamorous than callous human hands have created them. I know, it's hard to think that such greatness was dust once, hard to believe that butterflies came from cocoons, or that adults once children

Its much easier picturing them this way, forgetting they went through construction We wake up seeing them the way they are, thinking they were never once humbled, that they have always been this towering strength but

Wouldn't it be interesting to see them again, dust and rock and blood and sweat,


(like how Babel rose with sand and earth,
the same sand and the same earth that it was,
when struck down.)

train story

It's nothing really, you and I simultaneously entering the MRT. (a lot of other people do that, no cosmic energy brought us together, we come not by fate, but for sheer time-in checks, curfews or the urge to simply go somewhere.) I assume you are going somewhere. I am too, I just don't know yet where that is.

when I was a little girl in my fathers car, I would look out the window and say "the clouds are following us!" and my father, driving ever so steadily just rode along with that smirk on his face not even bothering to correct me. He simply mutters "then we have to go faster," and then we do, watching the clouds racing to catch us as the gauge reads the highest speed he could pull off without earning a speeding ticket. we were fast, and while I thought no policeman could get us, the clouds did. They always did.

(that was my father then. now you can give him a ticket for being the slowest driver in the whole of metro manila.)

I guess I never really grew out of that feeling. I ride trains and pretend that the city is moving, for the motion of this train is imperceptible; I - we - are suspended in this cubicle while right outside is the world speeding by. I suppose in a sense that is true also, everything about this train is suspended, while outside, eveything is in motion. Everything about this train is suspended, especially the people - it's amazing how close they get without even sharing the most fundamental things - like a word, or eye contact; we all stand so unimaginably close, this distance usually reserved for couples, or siamese twins, and then the minute we get off the train, we disappear forever, in each others lives just like that. Forget that we stood so close to a stranger enough to feel the heartbeat we never even knew.

like one person said: this has the makings of a sad story.

we leave the train. life resumes.

the one with my last Magni article

kalendaryo

How bizarre it is for days (and nights) to disappear just like that—every minute, all five hundred, twenty five thousand and six hundred of them dashed past as the dates came off the wall with a coarse crumpling sound, chucked into the trashcan like they were nothing. And the memory of that rainy day in June, about four years ago became more vivid than ever—that when emerald neckties were disposed of (with relief) and the shoots of the magnificent bamboo stood proud as if to welcome its newly-found company (not that we were going to stay that long anyway).

And a surge rushes to the head as though to remember (like I ever forgot) hordes of students lined up in that gym for the first time, streaks of yellow shining at their brightest—them who never lost brilliance even as the banana shirts gradually turned white. We never really knew of the haphazardly thought of recalls bringing back the four years as though it was only yesterday—like Calachuchi caught in the hair, or bits of leftover tape stuck to the blackboard. This is all we have now. This is all we have. Hints of leftover coffee over a night’s worth of term paper, a green skirt pooling on the laundry, snapshots of everyone—from over accessorized promenade dolls to candid half-asleep dweebs on the excursion to Los Baños, or dead-cold frustrated attempts of taking a bath in Baguio, perhaps.

Scraps of yellow crepe reminded me of sweaty afternoons of vibrant cheering on the benches alongside breaths held in trepidation. There were scrawled notes wedged off planners and textbooks (though half their number was intercepted by Ms. so-and so) and palanca letters and past debut invitations now set aside. A classmate whined for someone wrote seniors rock! on her rubber shoe and unidentified feet marks were on the teachers table. A spot on the field remains warm from where we lay, and a familiar song plays once more—look at the stars, how they shine for you…

There were impatiently ripped envelopes bearing replies from coveted universities (some though, were intentionally ripped). Sometimes I thought that it is a pushover, to turn hats into boa constrictors as compared to skinning frogs, or plotting Cartesian planes out of anything. Sometimes I told myself, “This is the last time I am eating this greasy burger” and found myself eating the next day—a greasy burger. Sometimes I thought that the faces on my gradpic collection would no longer be within my reach someday, as everyone seemed to be taken in one direction: away. Instantly I was burning images of everyone in my head just so I remember them this way—young, vulnerable, beautiful…

Finally, I realized what was happening—I was beginning to miss.

A piece of crumpled paper glints at me from the can. March 21, 2004, it read.

Construction

That's the problem with skyscrapers - we forget they were once a sack of cement, rock from the earth we tread on. We think sometimes that they've always been there, or that something more glamorous than callous human hands have created them. I know, it's hard to think that such greatness was dust once, hard to believe that butterflies came from cocoons, or that adults once children

Its much easier picturing them this way, forgetting they went through construction We wake up seeing them the way they are, thinking they were never once humbled, that they have always been this towering strength but

Wouldn't it be interesting to see them again, dust and rock and blood and sweat,


(like how Babel rose with sand and earth,
the same sand and the same earth that it was,
when struck down.)

train story

It's nothing really, you and I simultaneously entering the MRT. (a lot of other people do that, no cosmic energy brought us together, we come not by fate, but for sheer time-in checks, curfews or the urge to simply go somewhere.) I assume you are going somewhere. I am too, I just don't know yet where that is.

when I was a little girl in my fathers car, I would look out the window and say "the clouds are following us!" and my father, driving ever so steadily just rode along with that smirk on his face not even bothering to correct me. He simply mutters "then we have to go faster," and then we do, watching the clouds racing to catch us as the gauge reads the highest speed he could pull off without earning a speeding ticket. we were fast, and while I thought no policeman could get us, the clouds did. They always did.

(that was my father then. now you can give him a ticket for being the slowest driver in the whole of metro manila.)

I guess I never really grew out of that feeling. I ride trains and pretend that the city is moving, for the motion of this train is imperceptible; I - we - are suspended in this cubicle while right outside is the world speeding by. I suppose in a sense that is true also, everything about this train is suspended, while outside, eveything is in motion. Everything about this train is suspended, especially the people - it's amazing how close they get without even sharing the most fundamental things - like a word, or eye contact; we all stand so unimaginably close, this distance usually reserved for couples, or siamese twins, and then the minute we get off the train, we disappear forever, in each others lives just like that. Forget that we stood so close to a stranger enough to feel the heartbeat we never even knew.

like one person said: this has the makings of a sad story.

we leave the train. life resumes.

the one with my last Magni article

kalendaryo

How bizarre it is for days (and nights) to disappear just like that—every minute, all five hundred, twenty five thousand and six hundred of them dashed past as the dates came off the wall with a coarse crumpling sound, chucked into the trashcan like they were nothing. And the memory of that rainy day in June, about four years ago became more vivid than ever—that when emerald neckties were disposed of (with relief) and the shoots of the magnificent bamboo stood proud as if to welcome its newly-found company (not that we were going to stay that long anyway).

And a surge rushes to the head as though to remember (like I ever forgot) hordes of students lined up in that gym for the first time, streaks of yellow shining at their brightest—them who never lost brilliance even as the banana shirts gradually turned white. We never really knew of the haphazardly thought of recalls bringing back the four years as though it was only yesterday—like Calachuchi caught in the hair, or bits of leftover tape stuck to the blackboard. This is all we have now. This is all we have. Hints of leftover coffee over a night’s worth of term paper, a green skirt pooling on the laundry, snapshots of everyone—from over accessorized promenade dolls to candid half-asleep dweebs on the excursion to Los Baños, or dead-cold frustrated attempts of taking a bath in Baguio, perhaps.

Scraps of yellow crepe reminded me of sweaty afternoons of vibrant cheering on the benches alongside breaths held in trepidation. There were scrawled notes wedged off planners and textbooks (though half their number was intercepted by Ms. so-and so) and palanca letters and past debut invitations now set aside. A classmate whined for someone wrote seniors rock! on her rubber shoe and unidentified feet marks were on the teachers table. A spot on the field remains warm from where we lay, and a familiar song plays once more—look at the stars, how they shine for you…

There were impatiently ripped envelopes bearing replies from coveted universities (some though, were intentionally ripped). Sometimes I thought that it is a pushover, to turn hats into boa constrictors as compared to skinning frogs, or plotting Cartesian planes out of anything. Sometimes I told myself, “This is the last time I am eating this greasy burger” and found myself eating the next day—a greasy burger. Sometimes I thought that the faces on my gradpic collection would no longer be within my reach someday, as everyone seemed to be taken in one direction: away. Instantly I was burning images of everyone in my head just so I remember them this way—young, vulnerable, beautiful…

Finally, I realized what was happening—I was beginning to miss.

A piece of crumpled paper glints at me from the can. March 21, 2004, it read.