Sunlickers

As my years have stacked up, I’ve been having several health complaints, one of these is my borderline sugar level. My doctor advised me against indulging in too much sweets. I could manage without the candies, the brownies, the bonbons, the donuts, the cakes. But… but what is life without ice cream?

Somehow, a part of me rebelled. Nobody takes ice cream away from me.

Here’s how I got around the good doc’s injunction.

Runningboarding on a Safeway Bus

Today is a total deviation from the hectic schedule of work because I spent the entire day running errands for the household instead.

And there, I slipped. I mentioned work, didn’t I?

I’m — again — doing the workaday grind five days a week,  part of the labor pool, one of the bazillion commuters standing on the train station platform, drenched in sweat while waiting for the boxcar to carry me to my destination.

If the station is so crammed with commuters that one cannot drop a pin in the middle of the throng, I skip the  overpopulated cattlecars and ride the bus.

A bus ride in the metro is actually an exotic activity in itself — a unique flavor that the Department of Tourism should not miss in exploiting as another sport that tourists must experience firsthand while vacationing in this here tropical paradise of ours. CamSur has its wakeboarding; let Metro Manila have its runningboarding on a Safeway Transit line.

Here is the main perk:

Lystan

• The age of the drowning man has arrived.
• Consequences of choices are ripe for the picking.
• Candlewicks pick up flame and lick thick waxes down.
• Entities dance to tuneless dirges.
• Dreams of aisles and veils portend the desire of a dying heart.
• Unnurtured soul cries — silently, bitterly — behind fierce mask.
• Lost believer making their way back to the beckoning fold.
• Pains, joys, tribulations mingle for perfect sustenance.
• Cast adrift in sunless seas, tides ebbing, flowing to final oceans.
• Ends of worlds no longer matter.
• Maps no longer bear compass points to lead the way.
• Directions are meaningless — the only choice left is to trod onwards.
• Forward, forward, forward to bleak horizons feet doing the work.
• Goodbyes are spent, hellos are still minted and unused.
• Oceans swallow sleeping ships and spew them back to empty piers.
• Baggages are packed, unpacked, and packed again.

Tropical Depression

photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk

Perhaps it is the bleakness of a city cloaked in gray filthy fog that has dampened my spirit and made my soul long for home.

Perhaps it is the realization that coming back to the city of my birth does not have the same significant heft as staying in the mountains with the people I love.

Perhaps it is just the fickle side of me awakening and realizing that the only creatures that I talk to whenever I am home are two stray cats who have found refuge on the window ledge of my kitchen.

So this is how loneliness looks when personified.

No wonder others find comfort in the thought

Tuesday Confessions

Give leeway for my addiction.

Around the witching hour, I commune with the unholy in the safety of my room, windows darkened by woolen blankets to ward off intrusive eyes.

Throughout the day I visualize the gratification I get from each hit I take. Withdrawal symptoms are obvious in the way that I can’t wait to get home for my fix — itching hands and skin filmed with cold clammy perspiration.

I am fixated on doing it. Again. And again. And again.

There is a shallow sense of accomplishment each time I indulge. The hallucinatory fireworks, the evanescent contentment, and the virtual congratulations of nonexistent entities are more than enough to fuel the drive. There may be few others who can understand the rush it gives, and they themselves may not admit to their own addicted selves that they are hooked.

It’s never easy to get to this level. Still, after surmounting all the odds and the dangers

Old Song for Headmusic

I’m purging myself of several traits and thoughtforms that no longer work well. In the process, Metallica’s Until It Sleeps serves well as my head music. Such an old song, and I don’t even exactly remember how it goes; but it’s there looping in my head because one deranged dj left the booth for a tinkle but not before hitting the autoplay switch on — think guitar riffs, wailing leads,  pounding drums, slapping bass plus the Metallica hair before Mr. Hetfield decided to go for a cleaner, scrubbed image.

Here’s the lyrics I culled online.

Until It Sleeps (Metallica, ca. 1996)

Where do I take this pain of mine
I run but it stays right by my side
So tear me open, pour me out
The things inside that scream and shout
And the pain still hates me, so hold me until it sleeps

Just like a curse, just like a stray
You feed it once and now it stays
How it stays

Shovels and Pickaxes

circles come to close
days of madness cut the chase
pools oiled with distilled me’mries
of yesteryears and stale tomorrows

promises unfulfilled yet unbroken
lies left unsaid truthfully enough
behind musty curtains of longing
they sigh and wait sweet visions

spite for spite or might for might
it matters not at the junction
crossroads leading to crossways
choices ready ripe for picking

days come to close
circles grow mad within limits
yesteryears bathe in pools of tomorrows
mem’ries buried now deep underneath

image courtesy of deathby1000papercuts.blogspot.com.