on letting go

IF you decide to let go,
then let go completely.
don't hold on to the razor's edge rim of uncertainty...
knowing eventually,
inevitably,
you will fall.


(epiphany 29sep07)

it just felt right

"you would pretend that you are better than i,
but you are not.
you are no freer of guilt,
no nobler of purpose,
no higher of mind.
you are a monster; you are as cold and dark as i.
if you think otherwise, you are a fool.

the difference between us
is not that i think i am better than you.
the difference is that i recognize what i am,
and i understand how terrible that is.
you would go on as you are and not regret it.
even if i am able to change myself,
i will look back at what i was and regret it always."


from terry brooks' the voyage of the jerle shannara: morgawr

wishful thinking

gremio>
things will get better. they always did for me.
they will get better for you, too.


sometimes things don't get better
despite our intentions and efforts...
and we are left
with nothing but the fragments
of a shattered forever
and the shreds
of dawn dreams
we struggle to recover and forget upon waking.


(epiphany 21sep07)

dancing with demons

I want to die.

All my life I’ve been floating, drifting.

I’ve unfurled my sails and let the winds blow me where they may. I’ve had my adventures. I’ve seen places others have only visited in dreams. I’ve experienced the beauty of different cultures many times over. I‘ve had my conquests; my share of wine, women, and song.

But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. I’ve weathered storms strong enough to leave me bruised and battered. I’ve lived through terrors both imagined and real. I have been becalmed in waters I did not know; and gotten lost in waters I thought I did.

Now, I just want to die.

Very poetic. But, no, you don’t. Ha! Who are you kidding? We’ve go too much of a good thing going here. We're happy and content. Would you really throw it all away? You won't. You don’t have what it takes!

I’m tired.
I want to stop running.
I want to rest.

I want to look at myself in the mirror each morning and look myself straight in the eye without too much of an effort, without too much self-doubt; I want to got to bed at night and not wrestle with memories of what could have been and dreams of what could be.

I want to be free. Free of you.

You will never be free of us. We are You. You’ve painstakingly built us up, piece by piece, in your own image. We are the result of your yesteryears… of all your joys and sorrows, successes and defeats, pride and shame. You won’t destroy us. You can’t destroy us. We are your armor against the world.

I don’t intend to destroy you. I go to seek my true self.

Not in the physical realm from which you claim to shield me, but deep inside myself…in the inner space you draw your strength from. I intend to journey to my heart and embrace you, my shadows. I claim you for myself. Once and for all.

And the deeper I go and the darker it gets, the more you become real; yet the more I hold you close, the less significant you become. Your substance will dissolve in the twists and turns you yourself have unconsciously designed. You will no longer hold sway over me.

We spent years protecting you. Do you think that embracing your shadows will make us go away? We are your shadows...we know. Do you think that loving a person who betrays will reveal your Godhead? Do you think that speaking your secrets will win you a place in her heart? Do you think that perfection can be attained with the writing of a few words? If you do, then you are a fool!

I am not doing this for her.
Or for anyone else.
Or for anything else.
I am doing this for me.

Secrets can still be secrets even when they are shared; and perfection is the process, a journey and not the destination.

They say that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I take that step now.

I go to die.

daybreak

and has she gone?

to a place i cannot follow
because i do not know the way...
or because i do not dare to?

with her passing,
beauty fades,
stars turn to dust,
words lose all meaning.

it is time for us all to decide who we are

have you asked of yourself what's the price you might pay? or is it simply a game for rich young boys to play? the color of the world is changing, day by day... red: the blood of angry men! black: the dark of ages past! red: a world about to dawn! black: the night that ends at last!"

i hear helicopters overhead. i hear tinny, furious shouts from loudspeakers in the distance. i hear my mobile beep messages asking me to stay at home (here, safe in my dorm room) or inviting me to take to the streets (not at EDSA this time, but at the Ayala-Paseo de Roxas intersection, a few minutes walk away.)

i heard that professor randy david was “detained” this morning. walking over to ninoy’s statue, i heard cory tell gloria to make the ultimate sacrifice and resign. walking among the crowd, i saw the poor and the marginalized.

i saw the farmers and the fishers and the workers (and a song from high school started to play in my mind: "is freedom a farmer with no land to farm? is freedom a fisher with no river to fish? is freedom a worker with no place to work? and yet they said, 'freedom is at hand!'"). i saw the students. i saw the women. i saw the religious. i saw the left, i saw the right. how i wish i could say that i didn’t see the politicians, but alas, they were also there.

i saw the scramble of some to make a living in the sea of hopeful/hopeless faces. i heard the shouts of anger and the whispers of frustration. i smelled the unwashed bodies. i tasted the tension of the struggle to be heard.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

i asked myself, "why?"
we were there because we had been forgotten by the very people who promised us liberation. we were there because we vowed that the spectre of martial law would never again haunt our waking dreams. we were there because we demanded our rights to peaceably assemble, to express our opinions, to equity.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

i asked myself, “where?”
where were the middle class? where were the upper class? there was a very light sprinkling, to be sure, but we were not enough to make a crucial difference. they weren’t there because they had a roof over their heads, because they could have three meals a day with snacks in between, because they could insulate themselves from the reality of poverty.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

looking up at ninoy, i was ashamed of my class.

i went home in the early evening knowing (deep down in my heart where the Silence resides) that ayala wasn’t going to be "people power three"--or people power four, depending on how you’re counting.

there will never be another people power. unless the people can be there for the same reason... and be the same.

twenty years of freedom

As nightfall does not come all at once,
neither does oppression.
In both instances,
there is a twilight
when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight
that we all must be aware of change in the air
however slight,
lest we become unwitting victims
of the darkness.
- Justice William O. Douglas

my country is celebrating twenty years of freedom today.

in 1986, a military coup gone awry led to the greatest manifestation of the filipino spirit: the people power revolution. as the world watched and waited on bated breath, filipinos linked arms and stood against tanks; flowers held in hands became shields against guns; whispered prayers became words of prophecy.

it was, perhaps, my country's finest hour. her shining moment in the midst of the gloom. her date with destiny.

democracy had risen phoenix-like from the ashes of tyranny. filipinos everywhere basked in the glow of rebirth and held their heads high and hope filled every heart.

but.
moments pass.
and
stars fade.
heads droop
and
hearts quail.
dreams are forgotten
and
hope extinguished.

after a rollercoaster-ride
through a twenty-year sine-wave with four presidents,
my country still toils under the yoke of oppression in a mask;
my people still dare to yearn for freedom in a dream.

nothing has changed.