Hiccups

(for the Goat who found a boner scary...)

Enveloped with the dark shroud of despair and rain-kissed
the heavy soul picked himself from the shattered pieces of his dreams
the mirrored past loomed in his future, his bent present seemed full of pain
but a tinge of the distant rainbow could still be traced that he moved slowly

Towards the comforting arms of reality- his father, his mother, his siblings, himself
yet their realities excluded him from jumping up to Mars
that he decided to be embraced by the comforts of "the others"
their laughter became his and he went to hell and to heaven and back

He decided to become his own universe, free from gravity and other forces when rotating,
his own axis and his own center was not the sun but the night
he became a demigod, then God himself... then, the devil incarnate
justice, truth and other stuff became distant feelings from his numbed ones

Then, the rain, the shroud caressing him like a lusty lover... and the man on the moon!
he wept and looked at his tattered clothing of a self
and stooped, grasped the last breath of oxygen gifted by another demigod
he died, tried to but survived, he left the old shell of a body but the spirit won't...

Vampire or not, he must grab that tinge of rainbow that Baxter's world is offering
Death would come intimately, as Sugar Hiccup suggested...

(photo:circlingthelionsden.blosgspot.com)

His Island, Our Islands

Jack opened his eyes. He was dazed. He saw green trunks of trees. Before moving, he sensed the eerie quiet. Was he dead? But, a blade from grass touched his cheek. He felt something - of course, he was still alive!

Then, he stood up and realized he was in the middle of a thicket. Vegetation surrounded him like foe and he saw the dog looking at him with curiosity... He felt pain all over his body and he heard the ocean. He rushed to where the ocean was and he saw them.

There were people both living and dying. The dead stayed immobile on the beach with eyes wide open, the dying ones were trying to figure out whether they were in heaven or hell. Then, Jack saw the debris of their plane. Of course! He was a passenger of Oceanic Flight 815 and their plane crashed.

He hurried to where the injured persons were. He tried to resuscitate a woman who seemed not to breathe. The woman coughed and he commanded someone to take care of her as he scurried on the sand to find more of the injured. He must help them!

Jack then remembered he was a doctor.

So goes the opening sequence of J.J. Abrams' pilot episode of LOST. The TV premiere garnered an average of 15.69 million US viewers per episode on ABC. During its sixth and final season, the show averaged over 11 million US viewers per episode. Viewers hungered for the answers when they find themselves asking a lot of questions as the episodes unfold more twists and turns.

But the series was a no-nonsense one. Although there were twists, they were presented in a consistent manner where the story is intact and the characterization, precise. Indeed, every time the scenes were presented, the viewers were allowed to think... deeply. The main interest would crop up when one realizes that "there's something about the island!"
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You know such places.

One time, you were cajoled by your friends to go to a night joint and you suddenly sensed sex on the atmosphere. When the nude women started to gyrate onstage, you wanted to find blankets to cover their imperfections. The men salivate on the mons pubis downwards but you saw poverty behind the staged lust on the ladies' faces. You also saw the scars of childhood rashes and deprivation of Vitamin C. Their reptilian skin was slick with perspiration yet the men around you wanted to perform the animal instinct of mating and nothing more. But there were no blankets and your urge was as blasphemous as shouting F_CK YOU! inside a church while the priest is venerating the unleavened bread to become the body of Christ.

You also remembered a street corner where some drinking buddies drowning their souls with intoxicants witnessed an accident from someone riding a motorbike. The driver, sans a helmet, flew some feet away from them banging his head on concrete. The will to help surfaced on the drunks. One lifted the victim while another started massaging the chest of the man. One shouted to unbuckle the belt and take off his shoes. When another saw that the man stopped breathing, he grabbed the man's balls and squeezed them hard. He died anyway.

There's also an acacia tree near the church of your place. Across the street is the statue of Michael the Archangel stepping on the devil with his sword angled to impale Satan. But at night time, some young couples (gay, straight and whatnot) would make this spot as their rendezvous. Others are equipped with protection, others would simply make the Australian bush as their thin shield from shame. You even wondered if the energy of this place would shift since an adoration chapel is on its completion.
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Yeah, Jack is a fictitious character and his island. But his kind and his island is here amongst us.

(Matthew Fox's photo: fanpop.com)

Inner Demons

Heavens wept. It was twilight and the sick light from the sun turned shadows on the wall. It's unhealthy to speak to them, the shadows. Sarah Maclachlan told you a while ago that:

Time here,
all but means nothing,
just shadows that move across the wall
They keep me company,
but they don't ask of me they don't say nothing at all.

Outside, the twigs trembled as the wind made love to them. Their groans of pain was felt by you even if the windows were shut. What would be their complaints if it was snow to penetrate their pores? What would you feel when you're away from the confines of you prison?

You remembered Naomi. Yeah, the supermodel...She guested on Oprah's last episodes and you wondered if she's a liar, a control freak or a victim of childhood fears? But she told the viewers that no one could be blamed with her outbursts... Could you throw a phone to your assistant too? Could you kick a police man, punch a TV crew if you are a SUPER-SOMEONE?

Then, anger management was mentioned. Is it really that scientific when we consider the shrinks' way of dealing our demons? Or is this simply a way of anesthetizing human faults and failures? You don't know. All you understand is the fear in you that you will become what your lineage promised - insanity.

You see, you are now being paranoid even with the sunset and the rain. There are figurative threats a raindrop could make inside your brain. Your heart would beat faster when a caterwaul is heard not realizing that the cold could send cats to their basic need to mate. You would tremble when you hear Edgar, your neighbor, who would yell at his daughter when the pail inside their makeshift restroom is unfilled with water from the nearby poso. You then wonder if the girl is being molested by him since the mother ran away three months ago...

Like Naomi, you must do something about the things churning inside you. If not, this would come like raging phones flying to the faces of your companions, or the "red" thing she saw during such experiences... What is the red thing anyway? Tint of blood surging? Anger materialized into color? Or the devil himself?

The devil.... The devil!

You need to go out and shout that the world is on the edge of being destroyed... That Armageddon is here! The placard you prepared is now ready for the persons on the streets to see. In big red letters, you wrote:

REPENT! REPENT! THE END IS NEAR!

(art: northbankfred.com)

Like Parasites, We Feed

Let's face it. We always have intentions. We do some things because deep in us, we want to get out something from it. We read for some reasons. We eat because we need to have nourishment. We go to school to learn, or some reasons otherwise... We roam the streets to hunt or be the prey...

We use social networking sites because we have our intentions. We like to link or communicate to others. We also like to hunt potential victims or be the sacrificial lambs for others so for them to learn that evil exists even in the virtual world.

Was it some months ago when it was reported on national TV that a girl was being blackmailed? Her nude photo was published on the web by her irate boyfriend. There were some who got raped. There were untold stories. And, there are stories to be told...

The accidental billionaire, the facebook creator, designed his social networking site to know the status of the girls in his campus so that he would know whom to be with for future copulation. The story is now immortalized into film with the so-called artistic license being used by the filmmakers. But you think that those who are into these sites don't give a fig on its history. They just feed on narcissism and lick their insecurities to the point that freedom of expression would sometimes cut across the norms.

You like to think. For you, it's like breathing. Sometimes, you like to think out loud and you like your thoughts to be translated into words. Others would accuse you of being a show-off. But whom are you showing-off? Inside your place are boxes of notebooks with your thoughts for two and a half decades... Nobody is reading them...

But there are things that you need to write. It's like an itch that you need to scratch. But your intention is like that of others. You need to feed. Thinking aloud could be your food. Writing could be the nectar that would nourish you for you to be able to fly. Others could have their purpose of making you as their hapless victim but it would be OK. Life is like that.

In the end, we would all be cadavers others would dress-up for our funerals. We will then be remembered, then become a distant memory...

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
- Kansas

(art: GaneDev.net)

Crypt dweller

On top of the tombs, the flowers wilted and the candles melted. The living who paid their one year guilt of forgetting, left the dead for the earth...Life has to go on for them. So with the dead, death has to go on - some would be cherished and others would be just fertilizers to the dandelions...er, in these parts of the world, lemongrass.

Why is it that the epitaphs here don't tell stories? You see, you had an activity with your boss long before when he told you to write your own. But would that tablet synthesize one's existence? Or simply a poetic justice of his mishaps and failures?

"Here lies a man who lived a life full of fun - booze, sex and drugs. He is well-loved by his friends who think of him as THE GUY." This would raise eyebrows and could make grimaces out from the faces of the conservative flock.

"Here are the remains of a person who devoted his time, treasures and talents for the well-being of others..." This could be superficial too. It might create a stir to others who would pass as crabs in the vicinity.

You then think of such things: we are so busy acquiring things and performing activities that could be considered as funny and rubbish once we imprint them on our epitaphs. You would then worry about your sanity for you oftentimes envy those who "live their lives well". But then, what is "living well"? Whose definition must be followed?

Still, the dead must not worry about the status of the words on their tombs. Who would care about the grammar, the sense and the impact of the words? Who would care when the man inside the crypt is rotting with the maggots infesting his skin (dabbed with gallons of soap and moisturizers before) and flesh?

You could just be with those who celebrate life on top of the faithful departed 's tombs during All Souls' Day and tell others to cut the crap when they'd throw comments about the drinking binges which could sometimes lead to stabbing incidents at the cemetery. They are always equipped with reasons like: It's the only time we could spend with our loved ones! Forgetting that it's their own selfish intentions they're bloating.

Life is filled with mysteries...

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget...

-(Christina Rossetti - Song)

Castles in the Air

It's funny how we act on situations where power is involved. We like to be up there so that we would belong to a social class where parties, gatherings and fake smiles are projected.

We like to be elected into office for we fancy the title Honorable... Yet, could we indeed tag honor to our names when we do things against the word itself? Who would honor us, the people whom we bought for around eighty pesos or a bar of soap? Could we demand being honored?

You won't linger on a lot of questions. Your teacher in English (who was knighted in England for his prose and poetry) told you to avoid a lot of questions in your copy since it would confuse a reader. But, you could not help yourself but to ask such questions for you might have a headache if you'll contain them all inside your mind...

But then again, you like these characters in your ecosystem. For whom would you perform some sort of a dichotomy if they're not around? You knew long before how they are disgusted with you. They would even curse your existence, and would be happy when some sort of a malady would strike you...

But you like to study their kind too. Mark Gordon could not have the dough without those criminals. Stephen King could not create characters that would give Kathy Bates (Misery), Jack Nicholson(The Shining) and Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption) critical acclaim for acting... Freud, Jung and other scientist of the mind could have been unheard of.

You are a demon too. You are guilty of a lot of things but you try to be aware of what are these so that you could co-exist. That could be different from plotting things that would lift you to a higher social strata where there are lots of people who struggle to say things which they don't even understand!

Was this the set of thoughts by Thoreau when he decided to stay in Walden Pond? Was that some kind of an escape from a society that was slowly eating his sanity? Was the decision a sort of defeat for him that he could not do anything to correct his observed societal ills? Are there cases of paranoia and messianic thoughts inside you due to such thoughts?

Ah, more questions... Your professor is turning in his grave right now...

Still, like those self-professed honorary persons, you have the right to think what you think. You have the right to believe what to believe and you could choose to be mad if your capacities to hold on to your sanity won't be enough when the voices you hear inside your head would be unbearable...

Anyway, everything would be excusable when people tag you INSANE.

If you have built castles in the air
Your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now, put the foundations under them...

However mean your life is, meet it and live it;
Do not shun it and call it hard names...
- Henry David Thoreau (Walden)

(Photo: F.Cos)

(Postlude: I was struck with the question: What thoughts would I think when I live here? It was so quiet and " away". The place was so serene I was afraid to listen to stillness... But when I saw the eyes of a local, I could sense his contentment... At a distance my students were taking their shots for their photojournalism session...)

Towards the Abyss

There are times when you have to confront the inner you: your fears, anxieties and even the pain that persists inside your heart. This is the time when you have to extract yourself from the noise of the people around and consider the inner silence...

These turmoils are part of your existence, you knew this fact long before. But why is it that there are persons who could not take such darkness that they succumb to the eternal abyss of death? They would curtail the future blossoms of hope by resorting to the embrace of the rope on their necks, the searing whispers of the sharp razors on their wrists or the toxic promises of those pills...

We are all insane. This sentence alarmed you when you came over a book from an academic. According to him, our only difference from those mumblers is our ability to control our individual sanity... But when would be the yielding point of such control? What is the breaking point of our iron will so not to scream and shout obscenities to the man on the moon?

Exhale! That's what that soul diva told you via her songs. These emotions bottling up inside could be released by looking at the horizon. The vastness and immeasurable space must overwhelm you. The tight feeling inside your chest is but fleeting...There are arms around you, hold them...There are shoulders at reach, cry on them...There are people who love you, love them back...

Still, the process of grieving and hurting must be savored for you could not proceed to the next level without that stage. Emptying yourself is not possible if denial is there...this could lead to the aforementioned abysmal darkness of surrender...

Is there a room for existential angst these days? It seems that all moments are being distracted by electronic glitches and technological claws. We could not pause for a moment without our cellphones' ring tone cajoling us to read texts. We could not concentrate on our R&R since we need to plant something on the virtual farm. We don't need to communicate with real persons in the Internet cafe for we have virtual friends... We could also malfunction when there is a brownout... We feel sad, irritated and forget about the sky, the stars and even the poems written by Rossetti...

Yes, we need to slow down. We must not fail to examine ourselves for we might not know what level of insanity are we into these time...

"Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality..."
- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(photo: f.cos)