reading huxley's brave new world instead of kafka's metamorphosis feels good on a bright afternoon. damn this predilection for the let-me-tell-you-about-the-general-human-condition affliction.

stanisawesome.png

p.s. lost my phone.

Too many people tell us
how to love. Nobody
dares talk of the undoing,
the slow erosions. Say,
there is a sun-dappled window
and someone is looking out.
If this were love, there would
be soft music, scrolling instructions:
We do not need to learn this.
If this were love, consider
her gaze, the curl of her lashes--
say, each one a wish and she
had something to murmur. Instead
she is looking out the window,
edged in light, watching someone
pick his tall way through tall grass.
There is only We have outgrown
it all in her head. She will not touch
glass, she will not sigh. Instead,
she turns from the light, returns
to the kneading of bread. Something
warm under her hands,
something pliable. Once
everything was whole. She dared
speak of it in the softest of gestures:
a hand to her hair before she entered
the bedroom, the same hand she lets
fall onto his sleeve, as insubstantial
as the leaf he brushes off now.

one more rengirrrl with sasha

:)

We have the simplest pleasures, nestled among
the finest of things: grains of sand, for example,
or fruit. That which can be cupped in one hand,
and devoured that way, plumpened
with sheen and the press of palms.
Easily palmed, however, means easily lost.
Just as how we think simplicity is everywhere,
like sand accumulating in the corners you forget
to sweep, or peaches in a mildewed bowl.
Pluck one from the huddle of its neighbors,
raise it to the light -- what skin? what weight?
what curve, its silhouette? Hold it in the palm
of your hand. Allow yourself to think of pain.

renga with sashasheep,
or should i say rengirrrl hahaha.

wrote while in the hospital
(what else was there to do? i had exhausted the view.)

here's the first incarnation of one of them:




click for bigger

as of today, i owe a couple of hospitals 27,000+ pesos. that's about $570.

--

that being said, i just got out of a five-day in the lung center of the philippines.

petra
you missedddddd me
makatttak
i did!
it's yr fault!
for having a shitty immune system
and not listening to enough vitamin c
!!
petra
i swallowed seven oranges
in three days
O SHIT
MY PARENTS ARE GONE
THEY WENT TO MASS AND LEFT ME HERE
I CAN HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE

--

i've got all the symptoms except diarrhea & vomiting. swine floozy!

fell over two times today. once in muay thai when my foot gave out from under me, and then again in front of magnet katipunan when i was running and my feet went out from under me again (!) and i slid onto my ass and ended up wrapped around bea's leg. (you could say i fell for her real hard but then i'd have to kick you)

bruises on my palms, a big one on my knee, nice and fresh,



and a sore spot on my toe where i dropped my shampoo bottle on it in the shower at school.

way to go, klutzpah.

was gushing to my little sister, four years younger than me, about a cute freshman in my muay thai class, & she asked for his name and when i gave it she supplied his last name and we both recoiled backward from the dinner table in one long drawn-out sisterly squeal of horror because apparently she's "danced with him twice at two parties!! omg!!1"

CRUSH GONE

--

getting thin but not losing weight. put on a pair of shorts that were impossible to wear three months ago, & when i inhaled, they slipped down.

--

my heart hurts & i miss you, i'm sorry.

(chocolate
coffee
lime juice
hemp oil)

--

nagsasawa ka na ba?
sana'y wala kang iba.

--

http://www.ailap.org/2009/06/call-for-manuscripts-for-9th-ateneo.html

results of renga with jc over email.
in order of creation:

Longing does not happen in short sentences.
I am thinking of rain and its uncut finger-
nails versus topsoil and grass roots and
the everlasting cities of ants. I am pounding
the punso and you hush me: Remember
what lola said? You earn nothing by breaking
and entering; you wait for the yield. The ants
come from a fairy, you utter lola's words. They
were once the fairy's tears shed over the loss
of yet another garden, another crop of flowers
cut down too early by an eager human
lover, who knew nothing about patience. Patience ...
neknek mo, I say. Picking up pebbles,
I begin the punso.

---

Begin yr poem with Let,
no, let yr poem begin with Let,
though I suppose it's too late
to let the universe correct itself
like this poem. A religion professes
There is no god but god. And I am
thinking of enjambment: There is no god
but godlessness. There is no god
but there is a flock of birds taking flight
in the mind of Borges and he supposes
God sees this, and with a divine finger,
counts the wings. But the birds are flying
earthward. God sees a flock of birds,
he counts the wings, he stirs the stars, and
weaves a poem beginning with "Begin yr poem
with" while Borges is somewhere thinking
of dinner and sex and &'s, hushing a lover
with an index finger that, after brushing
lips still damp with wine, lifts itself to
point at the moon. The lover knows
not where to look. Borges points at the claws
of stars, no, God's luminous fingers, and says: listen
the reader is about to end.

at least i'm writing again. a big fat FU to the dumaguete dry spell!

p.s. ( jorge luis borges - argumentum ornithologicum )

i dreamt we were on an island and the air was charged and every time you kissed me there was a little spark

a tanker of gas floated by and gladly, gracefully, we were on fire

ezekiel & zombies.

--

in another window i am refreshing my email inbox impatiently; i haven't done this since seventh grade.

walked home from class at 9am through some goopy half-hearted rain, gloomily thinking about gloomy things, socks soggy inside my shoes, but when i got home i decided to dance around the house to old pop songs, wearing my bare feet & damp jeans, eating chicken wings for breakfast & thinking i am the happy genius of my household

old pop songs to right-click & download:
aerosmith - pink
kylie minogue - love at first sight
the magnetic fields - the death of ferdinand de saussure

+ a prayer:

liz phair - help me mary

temper my hatred with peace
weave my disgust into fame

p.s. probably the loveliest thing i've read on the internet all week. the song's not too bad either!

http://gh0stmeat.livejournal.com/227915.html?thread=489547#t489547



howyoumakemefeel.com/mmmmmmmmmmmmm

I wonder where the fireflies hide,
or if they disappear altogether when I am not looking
inside an empty well. I often catch them
out of the corner of my eye, a mocking flicker
from a mirror's silver tells me to notice them,
but what is there to be trusted in an afternoon
stretched by siestas and warm winds and slow dances
by acacia trees that outline our path,
as if our feet needed to know where to tread,
as if our hands needed to know where to go.

What is a world without guidance, without roads,
without the flashes of light-
year memories telling us: yes we may dance
the darkness with fireflies, yes father will
come home, yes our late lola's stories about the alitaptap
and their soft company are true,

truer, even, than the knee-jerk reaction
to what could be fireflies in the dark, to turn your head
toward something you are not sure you have seen --
to turn your head, and for a split second, believe,

fireflies sing.

renga with jc. took us about a week emailing it back & forth. i don't even know if it's finished. the wikipedia entry for renga is highly technical & we adhered to none of those rules, so it's technically collaborative poetry.

which is good because post-workshops i haven't been writing much. & by much i mean at all.


p.s. out of sight out of mind? or doth absenth make the heart grow fonder?

no one's listening.

i know how you feel



& i know how you feel