the L word

i have some sort of experiment wherein i won't use that four-letter word with you.

but i just want you to know, as we hit 16 next week, i want us to take care of each other. i miss your sweetness. i'll concentrate on being your baby and sweetheart for now. i won't tell you that i love you... none of that. i'll see how far we can go.

the experiment begins in 15 minutes. :)

for now, let me just tell you, sweetheart, how much i truly, deeply, madly love you.:)

wosh?

bakit mo ako sinaktan? hindi ko pa rin makalimutan iyong sakit na dinulot mo nang dahil sa musika, sa mga pansarili mong inatupag. i can't get over your being so wrapped up in yourself. it hurts. my heart is nowhere to be found.

your paper cranes can only go so far. they are beginning to lose their charm. :'(

lie to me instead

i write this with some trepidation. i've sworn off the internet and it's because of you. that's all there is to it.

i dreamed a dream last night. i woke up close to noon today with the heaviest of rocks in my chest. oo, ikaw nga linalaman ng panaginip ko.

in my dream, you were having sex with that girl. in my room. i woke up to the sounds of your frenzied sounds. i was shocked to see you coupled and started to hit you hard with chairs and other large hard objects in the room. when you still would not stop, i started to trash the room, sweeping glasses and bottles off my dressers and shelves. the crashing did nothing.

the next scene had cyvil taking a shower in my bathroom post-sex. i stepped into the stall with her and looked her over from head to foot. i noticed that she had no boobs and had the body of a ten-year old. she looked at me with wide-eyed innocence and answered all my questions. she said that you and she had been meeting each other on the sly even while we were together. my heart had stopped beating already but i kept asking her calmly how why when where. she obliged with every question.

it felt so real. :'(

then she had to leave. i was about to drive her to UP but decided that she should at least suffer a bit commuting to UP instead of getting ferried there. then i thought about all the times you had met me in UP and knew that you had met her first.

it was the most horrible dream in my life. now i just want to throw up.

dread

beware the ides of march. --- "julius caesar", william shakespeare

it's always around this time of the month for the past five months --- and, sadly, still counting, because what i think is worthless --- that i inevitably conclude that what we have is a losing proposition.

just before the 11th of every month, instead of being met with a recollection of happy and joy-filled moments, i am confronted with the yawning, lonely abyss of our connection that glows with festering nothingness.

please just kill me and take me from this misery. whenever i try to do anything to save myself, i fail.

no fire and flames

i'm spent.

sad.

on days when i need comfort, i run to you.

it isn't enough that you make me happy each time i see your face.

sometimes, you need to let me need you, too. and just sink into you.

one day you'll probably begin to understand, no matter how little, how selfishness has its own vicious karma. i don't need to cut off your dick to prove this. you will do it just fine.

i wish i could love somebody who would treat me well.

you asked me last night whom i would choose between you and him... and when you persisted in making a fool out of me with the full conviction that i was yours, i realised that i would never choose you. the way cyvil didn't choose you and chose gay raven. i would do the same in her place. any self-respecting person would choose salvation over folly.

in the end, love isn't enough. one-way never sustained a lifelong relationship. look to your own parents and know that i cherish that sort of commitment over your bossiness and explosive temper. you deserve someone who will cut your heart into a thousand pieces and never leave you any change. that person isn't me.

tearfully yours

wow, a film about me. with the typical putdown by the legitimate wife played by hilda koronel spitting out, "tagalog yan para maintindihan mo ako." there is the usual scene where the miffed wife puts the likes of me in my place and haughtily says, "while i'm alive you will never be promoted to wife."

do you really think i want to get married?

some things in life carry more import. like self-preservation. living for others, getting by simply so that others who depend on us might have a stab at a decent, respectable, dignified life. so we've thrown ourselves into the flames of shame because deep down, we've stopped seeing ourselves in the mirror and shrugged off our own existence as being monumental or significant.

only our lives do matter to people like our children. my son might go the way the rest of the world have tread, which is to view me with scorn and revulsion. he might wish he had a normal mother who had a normal husband and had a normal life.

bea alonzo cum sari put it well: walang babaeng nangarap maging kabit.

we wake up one day and know that our lives are tied irrevocably to one man who may, for all we know, be the biggest asshole the world has ever known. only he has looked upon us and decided that we were worth keeping. and loving. even if it's only on thursdays.

on that one day of the week that i am irrevocably and irretrievably lost in your embrace, i am the single, focal point of your universe and i matter. the rest of the days i walk through in a haze, more than half dead, living in between light and shadow.

you prick

ang pangit pala talaga ng ugali mo, J.

bukod sa you bring out the worst in me... you have lied to me so many times that i am turning into this ugly, angry person whenever you're near me.

you force your way all the time. and i let you. but even when i tell you not to force me or make me feel like an animal, you don't care and still insist on getting your way. ang cheap mo. di bale nang cheap pakiramdam ko, basta makuha mo lang ang gusto mo.

you lie. the latest one i have discovered? is you insisting that the cell phone you used to communicate with me the day you accompanied me while shopping belonged to a guy, even when i showed you the messages and said that they were obviously written by a girl. how did i find out? well, that same person sent me a series of text messages yesterday and told me she was a girl. you fucked up man whore.  you fucking liar.

and last, but not least, never least because you are the worst i've known, is that you are so fucking selfish. i hope na ma karma ka in such an awful way. you don't deserve anybody you've ever bedded or conquered. you are the worst kind of person there is, JA. you are.

go to hell where you belong.

shut up

simula pa noong bata ako, kapag nanonood ako ng romantic film tapos may eksenang nag aaway ang mag nobyo na natatapos sa hindi magandang yugto, parati kong naiisip, "how can they just walk away from each other like that?" the next scene will show the two (ex) lovers living their lives without the other as if the other had never existed.

kahit sa sarili kong buhay, hindi ko maintindihan kung paano kaya ng ibang tao to just stand up and walk away. and out of my life. kasi hindi ako gan'on. hindi ako nang-iiwan ng basta basta lamang.

kapag ako ang iniiwanan, hindi ko maintindihan bakit nagawa sa akin iyon. walang kwentang pag usapan pa kung paano ako nanghihina o nawawasak (i like the english word: obliterated) because it doesn't seem to matter.

in my fantasy world, he dares to walk away from me. and then returns. kasi hindi niya matiis na maiwan ako at nasaktan.

this has never happened to me in my life. all i know is this: if someone walks away from me, tangina mo, stay out and never come back. bastos ka, hayop ka. at saksakan ako ng bobo dahil nabigyan ka ng pagkakataong bastusin ako.

lord, please, please protect me from assholes. no more, i pray. please, no more.

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?

The Voice of My Life

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 4^th grade and she was in 2^nd 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.

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.

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.

checklist ng katangahan

given #1: alam naman natin ako yung pinaka bobong tao sa mundo.

given #2: bastos ka. ubod ng. nasusuka ako sa ala-ala ng smug face mo at ang pagsabi mo ng pasigaw, "fuck off". na hindi ka nag apologise.

given #3: rapist ka.

given #4: you never keep promises. compare yourself to spidey? he's a superhero! he helps people! false analogy ang ihambing mo sarili mo sa isang taong may desire to help others.

given #5: kung gusto mo akong gaguhin nang husto, ipangako mong makita ko si KM. at paasahin. and never deliver. while at it, crucify KM.

given #6: be proud of your drugs, your cigs, your alcohol, your depravity, your glaring selfishness.

at dahil napakaraming given, ang conclusion ko lang ay...

tangina, nadia. ang tanga mo. malinaw nang ginagago at binababoy ka, ngunit nagpadala ka pa rin.

hindi ko na kailangang magpakamatay.

wala na

i just do. without question. without doubts.

with lots of fear and trepidation.

but i do. i just love you.

*now the crashin' and burnin' begin.

please don't hurt me. please.

Weight-lifting

ang bigat mong dalhin. kahit mahal kita at pinasaya mo ako, mas umiiral ang sakit ng damdamin na idinudulot mo sa akin.

paalam na. it's only a matter of when. sooner than you know, in a wink of an eye, wala na ako.

arrest in descent

tama na. sobra na. palitan na.

tama na, nadia, iyong pagsapit sa ganito. sa pagpapaniwala na mayroong tunay na pag-ibig o pagmamahal dito, doon, kahit saan.

but he promised me he would not hurt me.

at alam mo namang salita-salita lamang iyan. a man will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know.

pero mahal ko siya. sigurado ako doon.

ilang beses mo nang sinabi't "naramdaman" iyan. nadadala ka lang, ate, sa pagtingin niya sa iyo. sa pagiging accomplished mo siguro. kapag naisip mo na iyan, makikita mo, libog lang yan lahat.

has it come to this? that i live from day to day, from moment to moment?

i think you're depressed because of all these affairs. you have to know that the more you let them use your body that your spirit, your esteem, gets crushed again and again. you might never emerge. i can't figure you out anymore. i have been trying to understand how your mind works and i have not succeeded! you have to know that this is wrong on so many levels, right?


i'm sorry. i have pushed him away. i have outlined the thousand and one ways that this will never work. he doesn't listen to me. [what i will never admit to you is that his being aggressive, domineering, and stubborn are the very things that captured me. what i can never admit to you is that his refusal to be sweet, sensitive, and caring kills me inside which means you are right, he will drive me to madness once more because i never last with someone who doesn't care about me as a person...] 

but you know it's WRONG, right?

oo, oo, alam ko...

just quit cold turkey. kaya mo 'yan! stop communicating with him, with them, with all of them.

that's going to be hard. *starts to cry*

you have to do it. i'm not asking you to change anymore. i'm just asking you to quit.

--------------------
ayan na naman. paulit-ulit lang. wasak na naman ako. there is nothing more in the world i want now than to be assured by You that what we have is Real. but it's hard. ever since i discovered your lying to me, You have now been able to assure me nor convince me that all that is in the past already. i thought your telling me that you would stop being a douchebag was hastily if not grudgingly done. i know how proud you are of being a jerk, of crushing people's feelings and dreams underfoot. part of me just wishes you could see the valour in being a nice, good person even when no one is looking.

nasagasaan na naman ako. in my desire to see you realise this, i lost myself again.

 --------------------

basta ate, tandaan mo, narito lang kami para sa iyo. ang bola ay nasa mga kamay mo. ikaw ang kailangang magpasya. kahit anong desisyon mo, narito kami para sa iyo.

kahit na hindi ko siya iwan? kahit na masama ako? am i? am i bad?

tanggalin mo na sa isip mo iyan, na masama ka. tanggalin mo na lahat ng guilt mo. kailangan mo ring sabihin sa amin ito kasi kung hindi, sasabog ka.

tatawag na ba ako kay papa jack?

sira ka talaga, ate! 

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hinanap kita kagabi. and before that, noong hapon. inantay kita bago noon pero hindi ka nagpakita. nang makita ko mukha mo sa labas ng pinto. nakaramdam ako ng relief. not that fierce, thumping joy i have grown to associate with you every time i see your face, but a feeling of relief over a delayed, inevitable loss. i resisted your attempts to hold me. i needed to know that you would make a way to be with me, anyway.  and after an hour, something in me just knew. you would not be there for me. 

i would like to say next that something in me just died. only that wouldn't be true because i had died long before then. and just as i wrote that, i realised it. 

wala akong natira para sa sarili ko.

pag makipagkita ako kay Y sa pupuntahan ko in two weeks, wala na talagang pag-asa. meron nga ba tayong pinanghahawakan? kailangan na talaga kitang suwayin. 

sabi mo dati, hindi mo ako kayang tiisin. pero nagawa mong saktan ako nang ganito. nang hindi ako habulin, kausapin nang matino, nang pansinin. all i needed was for you to be there for me.

you're no different from Y in that regard. buti siya nasa ibang bansa. may dahilan siya, kahit papaano, kahit lame, para iwanan ako. e ikaw? 

sabi mo pa, from now on, i will take good care of you. promise.

wala nang saysay ang mga salita sa akin. not just yours. but anyone's. anyone who comes near me and tells me he loves me and makes me believe that it is sincere. 

in the end, mawawala rin kayong lahat.

ang bobo mo talaga, nadia! wala na naman! you're left with nothing! pati sarili mo, nawala!

please, lord, please kill me. i can't do it myself.

-----------------------

kung mabuntis ka man, ako ang kukuha ng batang yan. swear. wag na wag mong palalaglag yon a!

never!!!  pero talaga??? ok lang sa 'yo? kukunin mo talaga at palalakihin? let's shake on that. *we shake hands and i can't believe it* 

sure na sure yan. kukunin ko ang bata.