If I had known at the point of birth that this is the life that I would be made to lead, I would have strangled myself with my umbilical cord at the point of birth.

Humanized Ubermensch

Even the most forlorn of souls wander away. Some hover about trying to find justice to existence and often to no avail. They end up being blown away into the void and in there they surrender their last strand of hope.

Some drift away aimlessly like pollen grains falling to the ground, and there they become alive.

And like that, I have become alive falling in love with you.

Truisms are dubious platitudes.

You are a fountain of uncertainty, a drizzle of random things and of random emotions slacked out by the yearning to perpetuate a hopeless war. With you I do not know what to believe in. With you I choose to stay in muddy waters and sinking becomes redemptive. Maybe there’s more certainty underneath the ripples and the splashes than this enthralling surface.

I’m certain of my affection towards you but why do I care to see the mutuality of this all? 

To no one in particular,

I’m sorry I have not be able to write as I have been extremely preoccupied of late. Pray don’t think I’ve probably forgotten you whoever you are or our non-existent memories of separate days gone-by. I’ve reserved a spot of the day dedicated to the recollection of your non-being. I smile to myself whenever the mnemonic blotches of these days ‘unpast’ appear in my meager breaks. You’ve always been remembered,

-Strange(r)

‘Us’ was just an experiment; an attempt to prove that we are capable of something so grand and trivial as love.

We failed, of course. 

On Literature

I am tired, of the world and everything about it. The force that I deliberately exert in order to resist the shattering forces of life has exhausted. I’ve run out of energy to live, to fight, to survive. But more than that energy, I’ve also run out of tears, of emotion, and of passion and the only thing that holds me together is literature. I dread the day when this extremely miserable world would run out of books, or when I have read all of them, or when the last inkwell breaks and could no longer hold magic. Upon that day, horror shall fall as I instantly elude from sanity in order to embrace the lesser oppressive miasma of pure imaginings. There is no better refuge than literature.

The only tunes I know are the tunes of flipping pages and of a pen forcibly carving on paper.

Salmon History of a Geek

From the age of consciousness, I have already regarded myself as a boy unlike any. Because of this extravagantly delusive assumption, I never got to hang out with other kids. I believed they were inferior to me. I didn’t like them but they were quite obliging, too obliging even— they didn’t like me too and worse, they ostracized me in dealings of the class. Hence, I was never class president. But I didn’t care, our regular class president and his compeers couldn’t even pronounce salmon correctly.

I was not bullied but I was not welcomed anywhere either. No, my aversion was not instantaneous. I tried, horribly, to ‘belong’ to a group. After each attempt, I ended up more frustrated, unable to comprehend the actuations of lesser mortals that ran around hiding behind trash bins and plant boxes. My attempt to mingle turned into a microcosm, later on to paracosm, until I finally eluded the world into a multum in parvo. Plant boxes began to be gateways to a sounder parallel universe (certainly better than the one before me), umbrellas expanded into electromagnetic force fields that shielded humanity from raindrops, which slowed down droplets at 5 droplets per minute via my time-controlling watch. All of which accommodated in an infinitesimal mind.

I used to go home directly from my last class while the rest of the juvenile corps formed their gobbledygook assemblage. At least there was a best friend waiting for me at home, my mom. She knew almost everything about me except that I led a pretty god-forsaken elementary life. She didn’t know that I basically had no childhood. She knew I had misanthropic tendencies but still felt that I was doing just fine since I aced exams, won all the contests I joined in, and joined every contest I was qualified at. I used to be the “pambato”. Mine was a familiar face to a bunch of competitive students in the province. I guess I have subconsciously projected my frustrations to mankind to my aspiration(s). I just knew I never wanted to be part of the crowd or be that guy who just applauds and cheers. At such a young age, I have already developed a strong aversion for mediocrity. I skipped breaks for visits to the library because I wanted to know more stuff than everybody else. I think I still have a vivid picture of book locations.

I have brought this attitude with me year to year, school to school. The breadth of competitions I won widened and the rivalries toughened. By the time I was in junior high school my command of the English language was better than my teachers’ and most of the students refrained talking to me in fear of epistaxis or just plain incomprehension. I called them idiots upfront and ridiculed their answers in classes particularly in Science. I graduated on top of the class. My valedictory speech was both idealistic and pretentious but there was never a salute to the divine. I thought I was god. Nine years later I still do.

My years in the academe were no different, I was mentally superior and I felt intellectually invincible. I had classmates who didn’t know the difference between invisible and invincible, so there. I took more regular visits with Thursday Next in the literary world primarily because I have grown to love reading even more and also because I could no longer afford decent meals at that time. I still remember hiding from my classmates while eating lumpia for lunch after trips from the library because buying something else would have meant that I’d have to walk home because I wouldn’t have enough money for fare. I was enrolled in a private university in the province whose students were mostly nouveau riche so meals were unreasonably pricey.

I drift back to these moments and realize how great and lonely I was at the same time. It was not until I got into the outside world that the venom of lethargy has irreparably spread. Today, it just seems too late to be alive again. I am gradually decaying, not even just dead yet. But what can I do when in fact, I have brought this curse upon myself, to live obsessive of greatness and solitude both at the same time? And the only consolation I get is the pronunciation of salmon.

Faint

You are a vague memory, curtained by convoluted what-has-beens, probably one that I have just made up as a consolation to the bravery of surpassing fretful nights, when the air was cold and bitter and every breath was a breath of death. I was gasping poison unconsciously. Memories of you have been washed out. Cruel Mnemosyne has robbed off days that seemed so real, cutting them off from decadent neurons. Now it’s just the feeling that I hold onto. But even onto that I’m slowly losing grip.

There was nothing.

I watch the droplets of rain form ripples on the once calm lake as the cold wind blows vindictively the curse of unforgotten bitter days. The winter we’ve never had freezes our non-existent soul and the frosts that we’ve never seen have drowned days that are yet to come. The gloom of empty skies and muted trees seep into my longing flesh, how can we forgive the hurt that stormed into our lives even before our love had blossomed or  else just divine the sting of these utterly dissatisfied hearts? I recoup from my lakeshore reverie and notice that the currents have written a love story we were never ever told.