gian can’t dance,

before anything: there is no need to understand;
listen — footsteps are echoing in an empty city,
filled with people who will never admit
that they can smell the tides in the bay,
crashing into the esplanade.

there is no need to understand;
because everything is a sandcastle.
and letters, in the same way, are borrowed –
from seagulls dancing on the tip of some arbitrary sunset.
that is where we will find them in the end. look,
here is my translation: there is no need to explain.

the rickshaw carrier who’s seen no other day or night
runs around the city for his children.
the camel tour guide, who leads tourists to adventures,
knows exactly where he is in every desert.
the souvenir vendor announces his  never changing pitches
his ever changing prices before dust settles –
a rickshaw speeds past. dust turns into clouds;
clouds upon clouds of clay-coloured sand,
settling and drifting, settling and drfting, repeating
chapters of some journey in some dusty old book:
the souvenir vendor who proposed to his wife
in front of the taj mahal.
the camel tour guide who named his child after the sun.
the rickshaw carrier who runs in circles
in a romantic place like india.

So I’m turning 24 soon and I figure: “That’s not too old! That’s promising,” and I think, when my mother was 24 she was thinking about marriage — making the decision that would end up becoming me. I appreciate the sentiment, I can say that straight out, but I can’t quite put my finger on what that sentiment is. It can’t possibly be love, at least, not yet at the time. At 25 she was carrying me.

I remember a friend of mine who is 27 (sorry!), and I think: “Where do the fun times go?”

An open question: Does anybody here remember his/her mother ecstatic? Do they continuously hide their joys from us because, after birth, they become mothers full-time and stop being people?

I don’t know what it was. Making the decision to have a baby at 24, that’s something. I’ve seen crazier things, yes, but that’s something. I think of my father at the time and he was 38 when they got married, probably 37 when they were dating. I wonder how it feels to take all of a promising person’s promise and breaking it?

Speaking of promises, I made a promise when I was four years old and my mother was on the telephone, crying. While she probably remembers this promise, she probably thinks that I don’t, but I do. I promised her that I would never make her cry. Either that, or I would always be with her. Sure, I allowed myself to be loose with the promise. I couldn’t be with her all the time, not in high school, no.

But she was 29 when I made the promise, I remember. I’ve forgotten which house that was in. We moved around a lot, but I do remember the room, the table, the telephone, the bathroom — crying in the bathroom. That’s when my mother became iconic, like, I can’t find a word for it. Sometimes, in the silly world of my brain I think that she will always be 29 and I will always be 4.

We moved around a lot because of broken things; family, for one — teeth, maybe, she is a dentist, after all. Looking at how I turned out without a father (most of the time, on weekdays), that was a good job patching up a few important cavities.

Going back, though, 24. This is it. This is when I start changing — the way my mother changed. Like, I know what’s gonna happen, or I’m expecting. What exactly? Something that comes along, ruins everything, then something sprouts out that promises happiness, or less sadness, at least.

It’s vicarious from there, from what I’ve seen. I’ve thought that maybe after 24, we’re not allowed to be happy for ourselves anymore. I’ll spoonfeed, forgive me: We’re only allowed to be happy for our children, and that’s great.

Humans were born selfish, and it’s hard to get over that selfishness — that’s what mother did wrong. Sometimes I like asking her to be more selfish, she’s been taking one for the team ever since. It makes me feel less guilty about thinking less of her happiness.

I was in grade school when I first learned this; when I would ruin her day with a 6/10 quiz. How old was she then? 29, probably,  it’s the easy answer, careless again. When I would get a 10/10 I’d receive a prize; a 6/10 merits verbal whiplashing. That was my happiness/sadness. Her happiness was buying me the prizes.

Before you ask, you’re right. These are all fragments. Just an “essay,” broken into pieces like memories of the (there being a) family. Believe me, I wasn’t this miserable, at least not until now.

Is it that hard? Being 24? Being 29? Is that when you write your dreams down on a piece of parchment, sign the dotted line and classify them as inheritance? From everything I’ve read and from everything I’ve heard? No. It’s not supposed to be.

So then why? Rather, how did mother make that decision so early in life?

And I begin to think, I made promises (that I still remember) when I was 4.

And I begin to think, it could have been love.

before we discovered
gravity,
we had
only perfection
in shapes: drawings
published in parchment –
only perfection and the death of penmanship
and all our hands looked alike.

we also discovered the secret
of horizons:
that they do not end. at least,
that is what we think.
we are still afraid
of falling from imaginary cliffs
into those infinite spaces –
specks in any perfect universe

under an illusion, yes.
the illusion that we look in straight lines
into the vastness. here is a straight line:
beyond the horizon is not the edge
or the backs of our own heads,
but the winding curve of what is –
claiming that whatever it is,
we already know.

i won’t fail your test because i’m not studying. i’ll fail it because i refuse to pass a test that measures the amount of useless work one can do. oh, wait, you actually think that your tests measure a student’s knowledge and personal competence? let me enumerate the reasons why not:

1. enumeration.
2. this is the same test that deprived “audio visual production” students the chance to synthesize what they learned. you cancelled a live tv show production so that you could conduct a useless test. i understand though, the test, after all, is much easier to schedule and grade, especially if it’s (refer to number one)
3. after i voiced my concerns about your exam potentially being just “memorization,” you answered with “no, it’s going to be practical, with writing exercises and floor plans.” then you went on to say that it’s going to be 50% identification and enumeration. why do you still want to measure our personal competence then? you obviously think we’re all idiots.

*breathe*

okay, those were the reasons why i think your decision to give a non-negotiable exam is absolute bullshit. now here are some reasons why i don’t like you:

1. you threatened to fail 66.7% of the class despite the As, B+s and Bs we received for the three major projects. you reasoned that none of us were participating in class and that you would fail our “participation” grades without an exam. wait, what?!
2. you feel like you have the right to give us grades on powerpoint presentations when you don’t know how to give a presentation yourself. at least none of the students’ presentations put me to sleep.
3. you’re a brat. you can probably tell all your friends how lazy your students are, but in the end, you cut more times than any of your students, how’s that for lazy? you also chose enumeration because it’s the easiest type of test to check. come on, cheech, we’re not that stupid.
4. you believe in creativity. let’s look back at the semester! our topic for our powerpoint presentation? swine flu. our topic for our music video? cory aquino/how fun it is to be catholic. our topic for our news report? food fair. yeah, very creative, cheech.

so to anyone reading, just one message: don’t take audio visual production with cheech. i can say with confidence that she is the laziest and most boring comm teacher in the loyola schools. and don’t believe the students who will undoubtedly tell you that “she’s nice!” because she’s nice only when it’s convenient to be nice.

i actually have a theory on why cheech insists so much on giving a test: it’s the only way she can keep her students awake.

so in conclusion, fuck you, cheech.

regards,

gian

when your dad gives you a razor that’s too expensive to shave your nipple hair with?

around, i looked and saw invisible gardens, invisible cars, invisible doors, invisible sun invisible moon invisible man — submerged, resting in a river of floodwater.

i remembered when i learned to dive from my father, in the night time by the pool.

i remembered because i dove into the muddy waters; because i was stupid, curious, human.

and there were stars. under the water there were stars, constellations shining reluctantly.

when an octopus swam by and blew an ocean of ink at me, the intruder, i was happy; happy because everything turned black, silent — dignified, black.

except for a star in the distance, faraway, too small.

“too far away,” it said, “the earth is too far away.”

“and what is water like?”

questions, because we only see the reflections of far things, a star takes a thousand years to die.

this is why we look upward when we try to remember things, or when we try to imagine. the universe reminding us there is only one past

and several presents.

i remember in the night time by the pool.

i always thought of the day when all the city would become a shore — just tides and mud, tides and mud, tides and mud.

how wonderful to just fall asleep.

water is a strange thing, try holding it with your hand.

have you ever tried remembering something before it is gone?

“The symbol of the city of Panangtucan in Bukidnon is a white stallion that, according to legend, saved their tribe from an approaching enemy.”

in our country, when our settlements turned into cities, horses were the first things we tossed aside. they didn’t fit in our towns. we wondered how they would ever fit in with our roads, our homes, our sidewalks – or or how they used to fit in with our plates or flower vases or windows – which we inherited from the Chinese tradesmen before we even called them plato, florero or ventana. we inherited the horse, too, or perhaps the idea of befriending the horse – which we’ve lost; somewhere in the fields, in some province, somewhere. what did we call the horse again before caballo?

now we see horses only in the Chinese areas of the city; blind, walking like slaves, slaves to walking – have they forgotten how to gallop? their keepers peddle their labor to the highest bidder; and we begin to forget the story of one heroic horse in Bukidnon, back when it could have been called a Stallion still, giving a warning of invaders arriving — its memory just the sound of footsteps in the distance.

the invaders have come and gone, and the Indios conspire with them. behold, our culture: the Indio offers a ride on his horse. the visitor asks what we call this mode of transportation and the Indio answers calesa before he whips his blind horse, who is waiting, loyally, for its keeper to take both their blindfolds off.