The Dissected Break-Up Speech

“See, I’ve been thinking about us lately..
--He’s telling you that you will be talking about your relationship

“and I feel like
--He wants to be heard first

“we should take a break.
--he pauses, then inspects your reaction. (deep breath optional)

“Things have been very hard for me
--you are thinking why he never talked to you about it

“and I don’t want them to be harder in the near future.
--he needs something convenient

“I don’t want you to be hurt more in the process
--he sounds as if he cares. Then you wait for his next phrase.

“that’s why I’m telling this to you now.
--he sounds as if he is actually doing you a favor.

“but don’t think that it’s your fault
--he assumes that you blame yourself but really, you are still in the process of digesting things

“it is mine actually
--he takes the blame for it. He expects you to say it’s not his fault

“I feel that I need space
--he doesn’t need you anymore

“in order to understand myself
--really now. Is this the first time?

“to find reasons in the things I do.
--he acts pitiful. He wants you to pity him.

“I don’t know why I’m feeling this way
--*blank stares* he is thinking of what to say next

“I loved you, I’m sure.
--he wants to reassure you that everything was real and reasonable

“but I can’t keep you waiting
--he reinforces that it is reasonable by assuming that waiting is such a bad thing to occur to anyone

“I don’t want to deny you of your freedom
--again, he makes it look as if he’s doing you a favor

“because I still care for you.
--he wants you to feel better to feel better about himself.

A Love Letter

I like thinking that sometime in my life I have met you.

And though meeting you is not very convenient, I still like thinking of you and my life with you in it. Amazing how the past days have become. I have not been the usual me. I just find myself missing you more. And missing you less…because I know I’ll see you soon. Plus I’ll be seeing more of you. Such a nice thought.

I’m fighting the urge to SMS you because I don’t want to be too obvious. And trust me, this is not usual. I surf the net to check how you are but I do not find anything interesting. Nothing new. Just the same you; the same you I had come to like so profusely these past few days.

Conversations with you (at night) had been one of the bests I’ve had in my life. I have never felt more understood. Whenever you speak with me I feel like a kid, listening to his soccer coach who is also his dad. So full of amazement and respect. And a pinch of love. Those are the kinds of nights when I wish that God would forget to put oil in the earth’s axis; then the earth wouldn’t rotate, then the night wouldn’t end.

Right now, everything is blurry for the forecasted “us”. But I know---because I feel it in the depths of my heart---that someday, we will make such a nice couple. We will live a fruitful life. We shall conquer the world together and every night, you shall sleep with poems under your pillow. Every morning, you shall wake up to my songs in the shower.

We will put up a business together. We will support the kids that worship the same art that we do. We will be happy and we'll grow old together.

And if you are reading this, you will know that I am talking about you. You will smile because I have become such a sissy. But you know, I think I love you. There are just too many to love.

But I’ll see you soon. Promise.

Minatamis

Sinfully glazed
With warm sugar
Cubed bananas
Sit lap-to-lap
Overlapped
Competing for my
Attention

I pinched the topmost
Piece with the fork
In my hand
Some juice squirting

I bit it
Tasting the
Coffee-colored
Lava that dripped
Enveloping the
Little banana
Boulders under

It was hard
Not to close my eyes
As I savored each bite
Thick with glory

There seemed to be
Little children
Crawling around
My tongue
Depositing
The sugary sauce
All over my mouth
Before it dives
Down my throat

Then after that
My taste buds waited
For the next shot
Of those cubed friends
Sitting quietly
Though sugarly-drenched

And for the first time
After I received
That plateful
My eyes darted
A little upward

And then, and there,
I realized,
A more blatant kind
Of sweetness

Luring me
To go closer

It sat across
Smiling
And reviving
That sugary taste

Left in my mouth.

*I was inspired by the free saucer of minatamis I got his lunch(Thank you Red!). I actually ate it slowly so as to make sure that I use the right words to describe how it felt. Then I added a little teaspoonful of love. The words were scattered in my head all throughout the day and it was only tonight that I finally "finished" it. I was also inspired by the poetry-reading activity of Davao Writers Guild before lunch. Another ispiration also, was the fact that I had lechon for lunch. And I had a hellish exam after lunch. And everything else that involves lunch---my seventh most favorite meal of the day :)

As usual,
You are two hours late.

(I hope you haven't forgotten.)

And as usual,
I compose reasons for you

As if those would heal.
As if we can stay.

I haven’t heard
From you for a long time.

(I hope you haven't forgotten.)

Did you take care
Of my bonsai?
Did you keep
The withered roses
By the medicine cabinet?
Did you throw away
The tea bags I hid
Under the sink?

But okay,
Let’s get back
To fray.

Say…

Have you also forgotten
To love me today?

*Photograph by Red Agreda

STRESS: SPIDERMAN'S BLACK REVENGE-SUIT

Top ten killers by year 2020 will be led by Cancer, and next is (guess what) depression. I’ve read an article in a health magazine which says so. Diabetes, even, comes third.

Reading such article amazed and alarmed me. Times got faster. Technology kept on improving just as fast as a baby born in China. Thing is, because technology has been seen to do so much for the human race, people expect more from it. We want things to be as fast, as efficient and (what the hell) as cheap as the ideal gadget we have in mind. See, people are more impatient now. I know. I am guilty of this too. I don’t like colored cellphones because they have “Opening Folder” flashed on the screen when I open messages. It takes longer to go in and out the inbox. I am pissed by dial-up internet. Even waiting for a jeepney for five minutes annoys me now. I continually remind myself that I shouldn’t be that impatient. But then the thinker in me kicks in and analyzes. So far, I’ve hypothesized that my newfound impatience is a product of technology. And so, I’ve began to despise technology bit by bit. (Never mind I’m writing this article via a Windows XP-ed PC.) Stress comes in handy, doesn’t it? It’s so so destined to kill me someday. Haha.

Depression is a daughter of stress. A more powerful daughter at that. It’s easy. We begin to worry when things don’t go our way. We get sick. It’s either we get physically sick or emotionally sick, or worse, both. Then we become more worried. We try to take a break---go on a vacation perhaps---but then we can’t FULLY relax because office/school/relationship/financial stress will haunt us way before we become aware of it. It’s like Spiderman’s black revenge-suit. It sticks to us when we least like it. It sticks to us even when we try to pull ourselves away from it.

And so we pull ourselves away from it.

Let’s talk about Davao City. I see Davao City as an implicit anti-stress zone. There is a growing coffee shop culture in the city. Salons are paces away from each other. Spa shops got cheaper and cheaper because of tight competition. All with the intention of “making you feel good”, which is, merely a euphemism of “to forget for awhile of your goddamned life”.

In this entry, I’ll use the coffee shop method as an example because it caters to both sexes majorly. Ironically, having coffee in the coziest coffee shops doesn’t come cheap. A cup of ordinary brewed coffee starts at P65. But if you want the yummier ones, be prepared to dish out around P150. The price itself is stressing for the mass Juan de la Cruz. I mean, imagine having this fixation every single day. Enough to feed a family.

Speaking of family, one peaceful night, I saw my dad wearing a black crystal bracelet which didn’t look that good on his skin tone. I asked him where he got it. I said it was hideous. He laughed and said he bought it for P700 because the crystal was believed to “sip in” stress. Some Chinese thing. I rolled my eyes on my once-practical dad who refuses to buy a third pair of shoes because he thinks they’re unnecessary. How stressing!

This morning though, I could just use that bracelet because I was scholastically coerced to finish two papers in two hours. I became caffeine dependent since the beginning of my junior year. I actually forget lunch (this is so not me). It’s obvious I am currently wearing Spidey’s black suit (if you know what I mean).

I’m keeping my fingers crossed about surviving til next sem.

Check this out

Every year, 11,000 Americans injure themselves while trying out bizarre sexual positions. (I'm glad that I'm not one of them. How embarrassing!)

The Archives of General Medicine say coffee drinkers have sex more frequently and enjoy it more than non-coffee drinkers. (So I drink tea. What does that mean for me? Is it the caffeine or something else in the java? Food for thought, friends.)

A sperm whale's testes weigh in at a bouncing 25 lbs each, roughly the same size as a bulldog. (Super happy that I'm not a girl sperm whale. Think about those things coming at ya. Scary!)

The first automatic vibrator was invented in 1869. It ran on boiling water and was steam powered. (Can you imagine getting this thing going? It sounds like a locomotive, where a couple of people had to shovel the coal to keep the vibrator on. Ay yi yi...we've come a long way, baby!)

The orgasm was first called Hysterical Paroxysm. (Uh, okay. At least it's easier to pronounce. Haha.)


Napadaan lang ako sa "Who knew?" part ng isang woman's magazine. And I felt like sharing these amazing stuff.

Life's like that

Out cleavage, come collarbones. You’ve been seeing a lot of them off-shoulders, tube tops, V-neck sweaters and spaghetti straps lately… Never mind it’s rainy season. This landmark just below the sexiest part of the woman’s body (the neck) takes center stage now. A lot of men like seeing the woman’s collarbones because it is one of her “vulnerable” portions. Other “vulnerable” features include neck, shoulders, wrists and ankles. The contemporary majority actually like it better when these features belong to the skinny woman. Voluptuous may still be sexy for some, but hey, it’s the age of anorexia.

Out eight-hour stress, come part-time/freelance. The yuppies just got more versatile. Latest surveys from all over Asia say that fresh grads---and err, fresh job-seekers--- prefer having one or two part time jobs or do freelance than be stuck in the office for eight hours straight. They say they want their day to become less tedious, have a more diverse network and make their schedule more dynamic. Clever isn’t it? One can have brunch dates, lunch dates and mid-afternoon munch dates.

Out monthly salon trips, come home hair treatments. In a world where everybody is in a hurry(this world is called college), the average human being who usually had monthly hot oil/hair spa at her trusted salon would actually opt for home treatments. It is easier, cheaper, faster and there’s no need to dress up. (You can even do it naked.) You just have to apply the cream in her hair evenly, massage your scalp for awhile, wrap it up in a shower cap, wait for 20-30 minutes and rinse with water. Even foot spa and hair relaxing can be done at home. Sweet home.

Out Sheldon, come fast-food fiction. Cosmopolitan books, chick lit and Youngblood have skyscraper sales during the past three years. Blogospheres have more participants. Thing is, people nowadays may still want to be entertained by reading, but you know, their business (read as busy-ness) forces them to read quicker stories. Albeit Literature remaining sweet, it just keeps getting shorter.

Out Atkins, come Three-hour diet. The Chair of Harvard's nutrition department went on record before a 1973 U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating fad diets: "The Atkins Diet is nonsense... Any book that recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter, and eggs, as this one does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice." The Atkins diet is also known as the nightmare diet---especially to the rice-loving Filipino. You’ll likely be facing a self-inflicted psy-war before you get to your dining table. The Three-hour diet on the other hand, makes you lose weight by following time intervals. Just eat one hour after you wake up, then have a light snack after three hours. Have lunch after three hours, have another light snack after three hours then dinner after another three hours. Eat nothing after dinner. Drink water whenever you want to eat, when you’re not supposed to eat---especially during the after-dinner time. Voila! You’ll lose inches after a week. That’s the 3Hour diet. Easy, quick and cool. Most importantly, you can still eat WHATEVER you want.

Darwin was right. There had been evolution. Coz there still is.