Early morning coffee with a friend at Starbucks in Pearl Drive. Too many realizations, but hey, this one is for you.
Dear AR2,
Emotional Masochism works like this you ignored me and I only liked you. It, perhaps, comes with the non-fulfillment and a desire to fulfill–at the very least, because I believe dissatisfaction is what makes affairs and love affairs more interesting. This is how you create want by holding back a smile or a conversation. It is silly how this is the way I sustain this fascination towards you and your great wit and bad hair and bad teeth.
I would like for you to know that I had a dream about you. All I could remember was us running from point A to point B under a deluge. Everything was in technicolor: greens, yellows and red light leaks. And your wrists and your ankles which perhaps is the reason why i am certain it was you I was dreaming of.
I would like you to know that I like you. And that is more than enough.
DK.
And only because my sister said: Bed Weather: Sleep Together this is a timely poem for today.
Weatherbeaten
Naya Valdellon
By the time you read this, the week-
long typhoon will have moved
north towards the South
China Sea, as the weatherman
had predicted. They never change
course this time of year,
these tropical storms named
after fickle women—like migratory
birds, they never stay long
enough to learn local words
for love, steadfast to their wind-
blown language of rainbursts.
more?
"I’m lifting you up
I’m letting you down
I’m dancing til dawn…
For a long time, I have been feeling burnt out by this job. For so many reasons.
But I stay because:
- Jobs mean pay, and pay is important considering the current situation that my family is faced with.
- I like surfing the internet, and doing this outside the house can prove to be very comforting.
- This job is a distraction from REAL LIFE.
- I have found good friends here. Some worth mentioning in this journal, even.
- I like the anonymity of this job.
"I’m fooling around
I’m not giving up
I’m making your love…
Today, our client accused us of plagiarism. That he will terminate one of us.
I am not one to say that I do not steal people’s ideas. Because, after writing the tenth article about insurance and mortgage and business solutions, well, you get dry. But I firmly, and steadfastly do not plagiarize people by means of copy-pasting or copy-typing. Because I have been accused of this before back in college, where my world literature teacher thought I could not write well. She underestimated my capacity for brilliance, to put it conceitedly.
"This city’s made us crazy and we must get out…
I admit to lift ideas from other people. Because I am not versed in insurance, in mortgage, in economic trends. Nor do I have any degree which could help me discuss dinosaurs or the Genpei war.
I am a Language and Literature major. With two years of law school under my belt. That is it. No more, no less. This might suggest that I respect people’s works considering I have been dealing with them the entirety of college. This also means that I respect language, in a way that I do not lift words directly from another’s page. To add to that, I am versed with the understanding that crimes and misdemeanors beg for their commensurate punishment.
I am not washing my hands of sin. But I do not plagiarize in such a way that I have to be chastised with termination. Or any of my fellow team mates for this matter.
"There’s only so much I can do for you
After all of the things you put me through..
Sins require absolution. But what if you never sinned to begin with?
*song lyrics from Maroon 5′s "Must Get Out"
"Love You, babes," said Shadow.
"Love you, puppy," said Laura.
…
When they got married Laura told Shadow that she wanted a puppy, but their landlord had pointed out they weren’t allowed pets under their terms of lease. "Hey," Shadow had said, "I’ll be your puppy. What do you want me to do? Chew your slippers? Piss on the kitchen floor? Lick your nose? Sniff your crotch? I bet there’s nothing a puppy can do I can’t do."
-Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Believe me, I wince everytime I see the word
babes in a sentence. I had only called one person babe. Only because I get reminded of Sir Delfin Tolentino everytime I use the word. Blame it on Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin movies which made the word seem too crude, too commonplace, too cheap. So I stay away from calling people I love
Babe.
I do not know about you but I always get the "hon, d2 ka text, load mo ako 150" messages, and I wonder whether hon is the most common term of endearment among Filipinos. Why didn’t s/he say baby, mahal, babe, love, darling?
The context of terms of endearment fascinate me. Too banal as that may seem, I like hearing people be called nicknames. Because it is a standing testament that love is all around us. It takes courage and pride to reveal a special nickname you give to the ones you love. The context in each term of endearment intrigues me. Because these names, it always boils down to a moment of choice. Not that that moment is heavily revealing, but it is a moment in itself which made you decide to call someone that name which you and your SO single out for each other.
I had once been called "Bebhe", and there are times when I wince at the unwarranted H. It reminds me of bakery vendors and coughing kids who buy ensaymadas shirtless. But then again, who is to say that this term of endearment is worse/better off than the next one. I admit, I like being called such. Because it is, in fact, a term of endearment borne out of a context.
To date, I have given three boys I loved animal nicknames: Panda, Fish, Ducky. Maybe next time I shall call him Penguin♥. (yung first definition a) Who’s to say?
What about you? Any terms of endearment you had? shared?
My heartless boy,
don’t you remember
how you gave me a thimble
instead of a kiss?
You wanted someone
to mother lost boys
and thread stories together
by the fire, while mending
holes in your clothes
torn from fighting
redskins and pirates alike.
I bet that you still get
entangled in adventures,
that you still wind up
frolicking with fairies,
teasing Tiger Lilies,
and mooning mermaids
on a blue lagoon.
You’ve stranded me
here– is this still another
game? Or have you really
forgotten my name,
which I should have
stitched in your memory?
For years, I pretend
you would fly through
the window, take me
straight on till morning,
give me a kiss, call me
Darling, and never
ask me to grow up.
But it’s too late now–
I have become my mother,
compulsively picking up
these pins and needles
spilled on the floor
by wind from the open
window, Besides,
I have forgotten how
to fly, I can never land
there where you are.
though i have no doubt
you have found another.
You will always need
some other little girl to sew
your shadows back on.
(emphasis mine)
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
C. S. Lewis
EDIT: I saw this one on gossip girl and I can’t find the song. ~everytime you walk away or run away you take a piece of me with you there… come back to me. you smile and make my life complete.
