Friday, August 17, 2012

my own leaning on

my intelligence is both boon and bane.

boon: for others who need someone bright and quick to "get" what they mean and more often than not, i do get it and more than half their toil and trouble are gone.

bane: for me because i'm always just tired, tired, and tired. it drains the life force out of me and i am always spent, spent, spent. i simply do not know how to leave anything for myself.

if we put both b's on a tipping scale, my boon will eventually lose because i am none the wiser in spite of being older.

am i the only towerblock for me?

Monday, August 13, 2012


I was a guest at a big wedding tonight. The speeches from the father of the bride and the sister of the groom left me in tears.

I told the sister of the groom after the reception that if my sister could say the same thing at my wedding, then any stranger would think highly of me. Of course I will never have that privilege because my sister is a royal bitch and even if she was the matron of honour at my wedding, she could never bring herself to have any kind words about me at my wedding except, “My family would want you all to know that we are so relieved that she is finally getting married.”

Move on, move on.

I tried to play along with the game of the bride and groom… where the answers would reveal their special and unique love story. It actually came across as corny and a bit formulaic if you ask me, but then I’m a jaded, world-weary bitch myself so maybe, just maybe, I’m just jealous because these two people seem happily on the way to their own happy ending.

Then I thought of you. And how, maybe, years from now, at your reception, people will find out that you and your bride first met when you were in 4th grade and she was in 2nd grade. And how you pretended to have a cold when you saw her at Starbucks in Katipunan because she was waiting for some of her fellow Music majors from UP before doing an evening show.

And I wondered, can we ever have those sorts of memories? Will your sister ever tell a congregation, “On behalf of my family, we would like to welcome you to our family and tell you how blessed we are to have you”? can we ever have a public celebration of our love?


Or am I forever your secret hidden love, like that lavender water lily that will forever languish in the shade and never proudly stand in the sun as officially, legally yours?

Who am I fooling? Nadia, wake up.

Friday, August 10, 2012

walang tigil ang ulan


I used to put it down as some form of attention deficiency… the restless twitch of your hands, the incessant shake of your leg, and the difficulty to sustain eye contact.

Then I wondered about the seemingly inviolable weekends that could not be touched. When I heard Sisqo’s “Incomplete” that you dedicated to me, I didn’t get it at first. There were so many other things that eluded my very limited comprehension. Why were you always so pushy and bossy? Why were you always trying to control my actions? Why were you always setting the schedule and never giving in to any of my requests?

And then the bartolina suddenly made sense. And how you always needed to get a bit of me every time. I added up all the smiles plastered on your face for no special reason on each occasion we were together and I came up with a mosaic of our moments together.

The only way you’ve ever known is brittle, cold, and hard, like the tiles of wall art that need to be chiseled into wholeness. You are insatiable for some sort of warmth and light… and all those times you told me, in the beginning, that I was the only patch of goodness and happiness in your life… slowly, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. I never had the emotional tools to cure any fool, you notwithstanding… you weren’t recovering from a previous relationship… you simply felt incomplete. Did I make you whole? By devouring me every single time, taking me into your embrace, your mouth, your love, did you mean to possess me and make it stick somehow?


Earlier, over dinner at a favourite family restaurant, I tried not to notice the young girls sitting in the next table, or the couples I had passed in the mall holding hands and standing close together on the escalators. I felt a lump in my throat when I thought about how you had gone through so many other girls before me… I felt sick to my stomach. Had I been just another item on the menu that you needed to possess? I bit back my tears.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

out of the depths

did i dig this hole? one day, i was looking forward to spending time with you. as i walked through the hours in a daze, i had already unknowingly lost you.

how much of you did i really know? i wanted to be the one there for you, to hold you, to keep you safe.

you took so much of me and i still had some left to squander. but you were yanked out of my world until i woke up with the dreadful certainty that you had shut the door.

i knew... even before we fell, that if i got sucked in, i would lose in the end. because now that you're gone, i am the one left searching for the outlines of your hazy face with eyes that never look my way.

i'm lost in the memory of you. and now i move in a fog all the rest of my days.

losing it all

it's true. na kung mahal mo ang isang tao nang lubusan, handa kang pakawalan siya.