And wasn’t that the point of this year for you? Starting again.

Not from scratch (because haven’t your hands gathered so much? Leaves, dust, pencil shavings, eraser shards, ink, salt water, wounds, et al.) and definitely not from ashes. You minimize the document. Copy/paste.

Now, Dean Young (whose voice you’ve never heard) is talking. “Each morning we wake with the obligatory liberty to conceptually recreate the world. We fail. There’s some leftover energy from the first bang still causing trouble. We despair. We try again.”

For a moment a thought (looming deadlines and that unsent email, the boy you’ve been meaning to talk to, the time you’re supposed to wake up in the morning, how much money you’ve spent for the holidays) occupies your mind. The song is now at 1:28. You think of how many times you’ve had to stay up beyond that time for the year that was. More than you could count (then again, you were never that good with math). You think of the two coffee shops you frequented for a time, and how long you stayed in each of them, filling your mind with facts and facts and facts and names (a disease’s, rarely a person’s) enough to equip you for the past few exam weeks’ multiple choice mazes (where you’ve dealt with “all of the above”, “A and B only”, and “A, B, and C only” with the same stoic look, pushing your glasses closer to your face as if you read the questions and choices wrong the first time, as if it’s another question). You tell yourself you should be thankful you’re passing, thinking of the friends who are doing worse, but the thought only comforts you (wrongly, even) halfway. You think you could do better, with enough dedication.

But you know inside its really about how much you’re willing to give up.

/

You think of how much really is at stake. Writing, for one. If one thing occupied this year most, it was writing. You try to remember how it felt, when you first got published and whom you told about. Only a vague memory surfaces. It was a piece you spent an hour or so drafting the first three pages, while talking to a friend over the internet, following your then-professor’s suggestion (“If you’re going to make it short, keep it really short. And if you’re going to make it long, make it really long.”), ignoring the impending deadline for the animal physiology class presentation due the next day. Some workshops and roughly fourteen revisions later, the piece makes its way to publication. You feel like a writer, yes. But only for a moment. Enter thoughts of Low Self Esteem, Infinite Sadnesses, School Deadlines, et al. But you keep working anyway. Work is the cheapest drug you’re willing to purchase. You make it to the longest and oldest writing workshop in the country and for a few days you think this is The Best Thing Ever. Enter the actual workshop. Enter meeting new people, getting pieces (of your pieces and maybe even you) ground to smithereens but you take it all in anyway. You tell yourself it’s for the best. Months later, you conclude how this is decidedly so. For the best. You try to remember the water (how it softly crashed against your legs while you were looking out into the dark sea in some distant beach on one of those nights, not sure of what you’re trying to find, not sure if you can even see anything), you try to recount the conversations but end up recounting more the things you drank and smoked. You wonder how your mother would react if she found out you smoked now, occasionally. You think of ghosts and if there really were any of them sitting in during the workshop. You think of the wasps that gathered on your doorstep (dead, enough to fill a bowl- lots of bowls) there every morning for almost two straight weeks. You think of that grey-brown dog who kept visiting, who hung around long enough to get his head patted by everyone and anyone. You think of the cows and the sunsets. (What Seemed To Be) The Longest Jeepney/Bus Rides Ever. Jumping off a cliff. Jumping off a boat. That scar (you keep forgetting to fix). Reading poems. Not reading poems. Zooming around the open field like an airplane. Listening to people speak in a dialect you couldn’t comprehend. You think of lessons in kindness and silence. You think of Edith and her words, how they struck something inside you then and how they stuck- how you later found out you were lucky: the last batch of fellows to have been with her. Something stirs. You think of folding paper (cranes, the only thing you could even create from origami). You think of the water again. You think of all the books you’ve borrowed and lent away from your co-fellows-turned-critics-turned-friends-turned-occasional-drinking-buddies-turned-walking-talking-advice-columns. Inside, words seem to swell from your bones but they don’t quite make sense yet. You think of getting better. How much you’ve read. How much you’ve yet to read.

/

You think of the date (December 30, 1:25 AM) and in just a few more days school will resume. You wonder how the rest of second year will pan out for you. You pray you’ll pass the last few slews of tests. You ask the universe for more sleep (because really, that’s what you need the most). You think about your classmates: how this year it was mostly about knowing each other better (some people proving you wrong on what you initially thought of them, others showing what they’re really made of). You can’t help placing them in different circles – circles you’ll never want to touch, circles you keep closest to you, circles within circles within circles. You think of that one professor who frightens you a lot- the one who said she didn’t like your group on the first meeting, the one who told her patient “You have to let go.” You think of everything you have to learn versus everything you have to memorize. You think again of your classmates: the ones you look forward to vis-à-vis the ones you need to learn to tolerate, or regard as invisible. You think of which classmates you pay the most attention to. You ask why. Conclusion: fascination/boredom. You think of the things you did this year, which were driven by boredom.

/

You wonder why you’ve been drawing lesser and less. A gape presents itself and you swear to produce more art in the next year.

/

You find it funny you’ve been spending time with your family more this year, as if to make up for time you will soon lose to your chosen (soon-to-be) profession. You try to remember the sound of your friends’ voices- commanding them to echo from the walls of your home, but only the same song plays in your ears. 7:31.

/

You think of The End of The World. Even if it’s hopefully/likely untrue, the idea frightens a part of you. You have plans (tucked somewhere- inside a book, in one pocket, in a small sock) for the future. You hope for a better year soon because this one was great. You think of a line you had recently read: “Sure, everything’s ending,”

“but not yet.”

I poured my aching heart into a pop song. I couldn’t get the hang of poetry.

- Suck It And See (Arctic Monkeys)

SIDE A

[Track 01]
The start is the hardest part[1]: I coughed
your name, I smoked
all day[2] – I call your number
but I can’t get through[3].

[Track 02]
It’s the same fucking
habits[4]: watching you turn
from me towards your friends[5].

[Track 03]
You told me you wanted
to eat up my sadness[6]. In a soft-porn version
of the end of the world I quake at the knees
as my intentions unfurl[7]: we’ve got a minefield
of crippled affection[8].

[Track 04]
Here’s to all the pretty words
we will never speak[9]:
“How you gonna keep me
warm?[10]”, “I’m glad
you’re on my side[11].”, “What’s wrong with you
is good for what’s wrong with me.[12]”

SIDE B

[Track 01]
We find it hard to deal with
when our dreams come true[13].
But now we must pack up
every piece of the life we used
to love, just to keep
ourselves[14].

[Track 02]
Oh you can lose yourself
in art, or you can break somebody’s heart
in two[15] – I’ve written pages
upon pages, trying to rid you
from my bones[16]. Medicine clouds
my mind[17]. There’s mercy
when the lies kick in[18].

[Track 03]
You were a truth I would rather lose
than to have never lain beside
at all[19]. I chose to feel it
and you couldn’t choose[20]. I’m sorry
about the phone call and needing you[21].
You chose that moment to say to me
“Has all of your life been this lonely?[22]”

• The curtain of skin that folds following a smile (see: “Endings, Misinterpretations, Things we do to each other, Despite everything”)
• How you stole my car and crashed it somewhere I couldn’t place (filed under “Dreams, Recent”)
• Gestures (i.e., stealing my photograph and stroking my hair without so much as asking; filed under “Truth, Undated, Recent”)
• A quote from a movie we did not watch together (see “Things we do to each other”)
• Hands – holding, pushing away, gathering dust, gathering pencil shavings, pulling; wounded, clean, muddied, sterile, warm (file: “Misinterpretations, To be continued”)
• Books: the ones you refuse/d to read, the ones I love, the ones you still have from me (file: “Missing pages”)
• Nicotine (filed under “Habits, Excuses, Disease, Things we do to each other, Despite everything”)

]]> http://speakinginhushedtones.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/from-the-list-of-regrets-i-swore-to-forget/feed/ 0 Lyza http://speakinginhushedtones.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/book-wishlist-holiday-reading-list/ http://speakinginhushedtones.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/book-wishlist-holiday-reading-list/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:20:44 +0000 Alyza http://speakinginhushedtones.wordpress.com/?p=758 Continue reading →]]> Two of my friends were asking what I wanted as (delayed) Christmas gifts and/or (advanced) birthday gifts (birthday’s in a few weeks) and I sort of really would like books (even if I sort of don’t have shelf space at home). So I’m making this post first and directing them to it once I sort out the Non-Books I could possibly want.

• Rebus by James Jean
• New and collected poems 1931-2001 by Czesław Miłosz
• Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
• Narcissus by Mark Anthony Cayanan

(see, short list! because…)

…I also managed to hoard/borrow some books from T!

• Pidgin Levitations by Ricardo de Ungria
• A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Voices from the Other World by Naguib Mahfouz

and some new books I got

• Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata by Ricky Lee
• A Feast of Origins and Geographies of Light by Dinah Roma Sianturi

I doubt I’ll be able to read everything over the break though. Deadlines and schoolwork, hoom.

My poem “Three Movements on Anatomy” is up in Stone Telling Magazine.

Many thanks to editors Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan for this opportunity and their feedback. Thanks as well to friends and mentors alike who took their time to help me with this piece. Do check the poem out and let me know what you think.

—

Other news (if you still didn’t know): recently Typhoon Sendong hit Mindanao and as of this afternoon, death tolls have hit more than 1,000. You can help and donate goods and othersuch supplies to those in need.

 —

It’s so surreal that all of this is happening. I mean, halfway across the archipelago people have lost their homes and loved ones and just this afternoon I had a nice time hanging out with my friends. I don’t even know why I find this weird because this sort of thing happens all the time: people suffer while others are happy; sometimes we can tie it to an apparent cause, sometimes it just happens. But it’s not how things should be, you know? I feel idealistic for thinking this way.

I’ve spent a hefty amount of the past few months feeling sad and cranky about my life (depressive episodes, et al) but the past few days catching up with people and just laying back have eased a lot of myself back in. And I guess I just wish for more of that in the world, you know? Like, just more times with people we love and those we can sit down with for hours talking about Stuff, et al, not worrying about Everything Else That Makes Us Sad, Stressed, and/or Uptight.

Christmas is about to roll in and I am broke (I spent my mother’s Christmas money present buying people gifts and I didn’t even get to buy things for all the people I wanted to give presents to) and this is the season I got the least amount of presents (because almost all my friends are broke too haha) but somehow it feels like one of the best holidays so far. Just hanging out, meeting up with people I haven’t seen in 100 years. Pretty much that simple to be happy, surprisingly. Right now I’m thankful for a lot of the things and people I have, the things I’ve achieved up to this point. Life. I’m thankful life is being good, despite all the setbacks, and I wish it kept getting better.

Season’s Greetings to you all.

The piece is “Fragments: In Which We Are”, which Tilde did a good job of turning all topsy-turvy and nifty and it looks so much better in print, so if you’re in the Cubao area, Sputnik Fantastik over at Cubao X is selling them copies for Php 200. 164 pages of comics and articles; 28 creators!

Under the cut is the text version of Fragments (but really, dear children, please go get the comics)

—

Fragments: In Which We Are –

1687 Spain. You are a ship: golden; polished to perfection, carrying a hundred and fifty men sailing out into the new world, eyes brimming with promise despite the disquieting abundance of clouds (how they hide the stars): their graying shades signaling vulnerability, distance. I am a mermaid praying for prey – behind an altar of jagged rocks, hoping the sea delivers a storm, hungry for the taste of human flesh.

∞

Highschool, I was the girl who cut class to hide in the bathrooms, its windows the only witness as I took in whiffs of happiness – back then they named it “Magic Dust”. You were the smoke I exhaled thirty seconds before my first overdose.

∞

2207, a single light-year northwest Alpha Centauri, I live in the 88^th tower of Hyperion IX – the last to be discovered of Heisenberg’s moons. Inside it is a garden where I spend my days tending to the young saplings, remnants of a world we never saw. Mornings filled with starlight. My 21^st clone rushes into the room, her face raining beads of sweat and she does not understand why; she stammers, stumbles. Today she brings me the news I exhausted hope upon hope upon hope spanning a century to hear: they have found you.

 ∞

In the year of The Plague I am a slave cleaning the sacred books of Alexandria and you, the bastard son of a monarch, staggering into the halls of the library, breathing fire and pestilence into the books, creasing their pages with each afflicted grope of hand, death quietly waiting from a distance, a spherical model of the world on the shelf meekly wobbling from this disturbance.

∞

20 years from now we are wearing a few more lines on our faces and you are sending me a message in the stark darkness of the night your voice weak from the static of the ancient telephone, saying you are sorry, how much you wanted to make up for everything yet having no idea how, and I reply with the four words that will render us strangers: I’ve heard this before.

∞

Ragnarök: I am the last valkyrie standing at the edge of the world and your are my sword, drunk and thirsting for more of the golden blood of gods. At my sides: the bloom of gaping wounds, trophies bleeding through my once-lustrous armor. The god of war approaches me, fervent bloodlust painted on his face and I tighten my grip, stiffen my right arm, muscles coiling on bone. I ready myself for the last battle; in my hands you grow heavy. Meteors collide in the cloudless sky.

∞

1943. You are running away from the bombs they said would grace the city in a few minutes. Your shoes worn out from having run to the landscapes of exhaustion, they scar the soft of your sole, leaving laces coming undone midway your attempted escape. In your haste you stumble over my body, splayed over other bodies blanketed by dust. You scamper, become an animal – knees wounded by the wreckage, mind wounded by the look on my face: the dead feigning sleep, crusted eyes reminding you the necessity of living, how that pounding in your chest came to be.

∞

1724, you are a missionary sent into terra incognita, hoping to chastise the foreign soil with the holy waters of your god. I am the virgin sacrificed to the most vicious of the native gods, moonbeams in his glass eyes and strings of thorns budding from his head. The moment you laid your pale feet on the ground, I am offered up, my eyes closed, granted a thousand memories of the dead, my mouth breathing fire.

Anyhoo, the nice folks over at Free Press featured my poem “Examination“.

Yay! It’s also amusingly timely as I am having exams this week.

Do click the link if you have the time. I had fun making that piece. Let me know what you think.

Also- dedicated to my dearest medschool friends.

(…who are fighting the fight- we have 8 more exams to go. Pediatrics went down with a bang this morning. In a few hours it’s Pathology hooheehoo I have so much to read plumbum kulchitsky cell, wish me luck!)

I hope everyone pulls through exams. All righty, that’s all for now. Byebye!

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

—

There is this boy I know who keeps giving me a boxful of darkness lately. What to make of it?