Silence

In silence, the heart speaks a lot about for it is articulate in that language where mere words fall short of.

Silence amplifies the anger raging inside, more deafening than spurts of incomprehensible shouts and cries.

Silence melts the hardest of hearts possessing the power that breaks the ignorance of the high-faced and proud.

Silence comforts the anxious spirit, tames the wearied and troubled mind of a beaten soul.

Silence typifies the coward and fearful, tongue-ties those that hide behind a shaken foundation.

But my silence is an expression of love. Restrained by distance but seasoned through time.

Strings of invidia

In the grand scheme of things, you are the emancipated and I’m the one who allowed myself to be incarcerated by apologies, pretexts and excuses instead of trampling dried leaves that cover pathways in some untarnished farm, secluded elsewhere, absent from the urban madness that has been my life for a great deal of time now.

I envy you. I really do. There are many times when, during a brief respite from the topsy-turvy waves of having a job, I emerge from the chaos, get a glimpse of a dazzling beautiful day outside the window and can’t help but think of you floating in rafts, trekking trails, scaling cliffs or simply drenching yourself of blissful needles pouring from isolated falls.

It cannot be helped that I get stabs of resentment. That I allow myself to be deprived of simple moments — moments that really matter. Moments that flavor the sweetest of dreams, the precursors of fond embraces.

That somewhere you are sodden with beads of sunlight, soaked with unblemished raptures of fresh air and the bluest of blue skies, your lungs constricting and expanding, soaring with the duets of crickets and streams. While I choose the suffocation of the metropolis and the tense taps of hurried footsteps navigating one appointment after another.

It may have not been confessed before but I do drift into wishful thinking, of sharing a hammock with you, while the afternoon heat rise from the ocean, its supplementary sister breeze rocking us into uninterrupted siestas as the afternoon quietly dissolves into another moment that slowly awakens another infant dusk.

Post scriptum

Each morning I wake up to life’s possibilities. Every minute declares the certainty of it.

Between you and me runs an invincible bridge built by our very decision to love. But it will eventually crumble the instant we decide to unbind ourselves from the same for there lies its weakness. We alone hold the power to demolish it.

Now then, the reality of your presence is made stronger than the distance that ever separates us. In truth, my heart is always asking:

When can my hands be allowed to touch and hold you once more when every part of me constantly screams to be near you?

When can I gaze back at your figure that my mind strains to remember throughout the weeks of your absence being content with just memories of you every time my head hits the pillow to rest?

When can I kiss your lips again that almost always leaves me spellbound and caress your cheeks that I can never get enough of?

As long as the light pursues the fading darkness of the night, my heart will continue to hope that we are never that far anymore. It could be miles away, yards away, feet away… until finally my hands have grasped our very possibilities.

If not for the rain

If not for the rain, we would not have enjoyed our every conversation over a plate of barbeque, every word straining to get heard in the midst of the rumbling sound.

I would not have lingered a bit more and esteemed the presence of friends for each passing minute, who would soon wave their until-thens and goodbyes.

If the heavens had not opened up with unstoppable torrents to quench the dry ground with its damp reprieve, we would not have the timely chance to leap over mud slumps and mind the thoughts to escape the even drops of rain. Nevertheless, we were cold and soaked but enjoyed it greatly with warmed hearts.

Had it not rained that day, our laughter and fun would not have danced in extravagant celebration with the drumbeat stomp of the rainstorm, the only music teasing the night away.

I was grateful for the rain.

Shadows in the dark

The darkness comforts as always, wrapping me around in an embrace.

Misty shadows that used to haunt cease to terrify. I never noticed how I have outgrown my childish fears. When what used to make a chill chalked up my spine doesn’t hold such power anymore.

Perhaps, I realize that the pitch darkness in the human soul is more intense than that which surrounds me at the moment.

Loneliness gnaws like the darkness. How ironic that I seem to love the sting that’s eating my heart away. Each bite, swift and sharp, cuts through me instantly.

I remember, once asked how I would picture a forest: The lovelier it would be at night when only the glow of the moon lights up the corners casting shadows that could stretch far and wide, running wildly in a mystic game played by the light.

I am mesmerized. The blackness of the night has this innuendo that is always enchanting; almost like the loneliness I’m feeling right now. Could my heart be just playing tricks on me like the shifting shadows in the dark?

I could care less; what I even want is to savor the moment. When racing thoughts of you keep my mind busy and the nip of your not being here could be so sensual.

I am alone in the dark but shadows of you keep me company. As always.

I am

I am a three-brain-cell organism. That is my personal contention.

Instead of having trillions of neurons in my cerebrum in charge of ensuring that I am able to use all of my organic parts properly and also in processing billions of information everyday, I believe that I have three oversized brain cells which basically comprise the so-called “Utak-ni-Ken”.

Brain cell no. 1 is tasked with handling my multiple personality — it ensures that I am able to act accordingly to situational contingencies, able to adapt with what is demanded by my environment and cause personality, mood and mindset shifts which can be mild to extreme. Simply put, Brain Cell No. 1 keeps me grounded.

Brain cell no. 2 works on everything related to me and my dweebish life. It serves as a data warehouse of my plans for world domination, information on Bill Gates’ secret success, the location of the fountain of youth and the Holy Grail, and of course, data on marketing, operations, economics, a bit of finance and accounting, mathematics, logic, calculus, fundamentals of statistics and everything else which falls in the for-nerdy-people-only category. Shortly described as the one that makes Ken boring, linear and monotonous.

And the most important of them all: Brain cell no. 3 — this makes me the nice cool kid. It helps me write random rantings, the one to blame why I still don’t have a stable lovelife, and does all other dirty work which Brain Cell 1 and Brain Cell 2 can’t handle, deciding on whether to be the ultimate bum or the most pathetic jerk included.

If at one point you wonder what my brain would probably look like, then perhaps this one will give you a pretty good idea. Long live me and my 3 brain cells!

Embers and envelopes

Classify me as the abandoned one. There is no regret. The love that I offered was denied. There is pain and sadness, as there should be. For the heavens cry each time love is rejected.

But there is also freedom. Now, I can move on. I wrapped my heart inside a tin box and lavished this with golden ribbons with a label that proclaimed, For You Alone. Now, I have the liberty to unwrap it and wait for the next person who comes aong.

My heart is fragile, there is no mistake. I dreamed for you and me. I painted a future where love resides in a home built for us.

Nobody forced me to dream. It was my choice. When the heart is filled with passion and longing, it strives best by looking forward, for I believed that there will be a time for us.

There is none. There never was.

So tonight, when the embers of my love will finally turn cold, I will celebrate. Not only because I survived a broke heart, but also because I allowed it.

And so my friend, this is my last goodbye. The next time we meet, we will meet as strangers. Strangers are incapable of hurting one another. We will drink, we will dance and we will have fun. No one will know the painful memory we have created together. That will remain our secret.

I suppose we shall be known as strangers who share the same secret.

Cheers.

Of quintessence and equal rights

Over coffee and muffins that could pass off as industrial-grade asphalt my sophisticate female friend lamented the alarming ill supply of men with the IQ of Stephen Hawking, the charisma of Pope John Paul II, the magnetism of Markus Schenkenberg, the body of Adam Rodriquez, the corporate savvy of Bill gates, the talent of Michelangelo, the sensitivity of Pablo Neruda, the lyricism of William Shakespeare, the boyish roguishness of Tom Cruise and, ahem, the dong size of Ewan McGregor.

It is obvious even to a comatose iguana that my friend is hallucinating. She probably stayed far too long in a construction supply store and inhaled repeatedly near the rack of paint thinners. I was afraid to ask if she’s started a habit involving prohibited substances and similar contrabands. By the way she rattled off I may have to commit her to intensively rigorous detox. Or repeated compulsory viewings of Mariah Carey’s Glitter.

Not only is this Prototype Male all but nonexistent but what makes it unbearably tortuous is the pressure it hurls towards the male of the species. You see this is clearly one of those confusing double standards women have. They want true love but they want Brad Pitt. Look no further than Cosmopolitan Magazine cover lines; they not-so-subtly hint in fluorescent Pantone exclamations that there are two ultra-major inviolate truths: a] men are pigs and b] there are 101 surefire ways on how to attract men! Sometimes they want to sell more copies so they produce a special annual edition uncovering the glory of 69 eligible hot bachelors. Not only is this inconsistent or a naked violation of the principle of non-objectification but whoever made the list must be as clueless as a mustard because it appears that at least two thirds of those featured in the Annual 69 Bachelors would want to assume the same number position with anyone in the list if you get my drift.

Come to think of it. Camille Paglia may castrate Male-Landia and skewer Kingdom Barako at large with chastising revolutionary female empowerment feminism, which is well and good to remind the male of the species of their place in the grand scheme of things, but after much bra-burning and fierce demands of equal rights women, banking on gender stereotype, insist and are given their own section in MRT/LRT. You, a zit of a man, not giving up your seat in a public transportation to a pregnant woman, old woman, or any kind of woman including the ones with acne the size of North Dakota is considered the lowest point in the recorded history of mankind. Come on. If you indeed want equal rights, sweat it with the rest of the guys. Scrunch yourself in a mass of sweaty bodies in a super dense public transportation and uphold your toughness. If you can survive the crippling cloud of bad odor fogging the enclosed space we’d believe this concept of equal rights. And let’s not hover towards a very touchy zone. Women, with guile and cunning would walk over a guy minding his own business and ask him if their butt looks bigger in a particular pair of pants and no matter what the answer gets mad. Truth is even Kate Moss wearing True Religion will have a posterior that reminds us of the combined mass of those three moons circling Jupiter.

Okay, back off, Gabriela members! I was kidding! Let’s all be calm and reasonable, and please put down your mallets. You are making my scrotum quake. I am sorry. What I just said is indeed a proof that most men are pigs. Please attract me.