Untitled Yet

for D
How many grocery bags of vomit again last night, dear?
And was I on the phone with some guy?
Had I invited everyone around to join us?
And were you left until morning to entertain the friends I forced to come?

I remember looking at a college boy across our table,
I remember thinking he was good looking
You were beside me, and I was looking at him
Sleep is my friend, darling, sleep is my savior.

That toxic mix of sadness, rage, and alcohol again, love?
Did I, oh did I, pour out all my "artistic" ravings on you again?
And were you just there, listening, looking at me,
Trying as much as you could to understand . . .

I am so sorry, sweetheart,
I am most dumb sober,
And my pride won't let me accept the mediocrity of the sane,
Normalcy is death to me.

But this, keep in your heart,
I am yours more than anything or anybody else's.
Ngan hangtod san-o ko ikaw hihigugmaon?
Hangtod an mga kamote tuboan nala hin liso.

Of Motocicletas and Pickups

"Some songs just aren't fitted to be sung in certain places," Missy explained to me as we were starting to be on our way home from our friend's house. We were riding on the back of a pickup and were enjoying the cool very early morning breeze; it was about three in the morning. "It must be the walls. Some songs are just too loud to be sung indoors," Kip chimed in on our conversation. The playlist for that night included Tejano, '90s pop, reggae, and '80s metal, among the many genreless others. Missy started to sing some lines of some song, "Hold on tight! You know she's a little bit dangerous . . . " We all laughed. She was referring to us needing to hold on to the sides of the pickup lest we become an on-the-spot circus act. "Yeah, you forgot to sing that," Din tried to make her voice heard over the sound of the cold winds. I nodded at them. The pickup was gaining speed. I reckon it must be because Mardi's dad can't wait to get back to his sleep; he was very kind to offer us kids a ride to the highway after our little party. It was Kip's birthday, and Mardi offered his place because they were located on a more kiat-friendly place. But that was that--there were no more rides that time of night around their area, and the pickup kept us from having to use our last resort, which was to walk. Silence followed; we were all taking in the precious moment, not to mention it would take effort to speak and be heard with the sound of us cutting through the thick morning air and all. "Born to be waaaaa-aaaa-aaaaayld!" I had to cut in through the silence. We all laughed. Din, my current roommate, then went on to tell the guys a story of another one of our weekend getaways. It was on our trip to Tagbilaran, when we had to pass by Tubigon, and Din's boyfriend had to fetch us from there on a motorcycle. That always reminds me of Che Guevara's The Motorcyle Diaries. "She just had to sing that song! Imagine the looks of the people we were passing by. They were quiet villages, so imagine it when she just all of a sudden greets them with that song!" I had to laugh. Blame the silence, I thought. It really just catches up on you, and if you don't sound off, it'll seem to explode inside your eardrums instead, becoming more deafening.
    
It was our third and last day of insobriety. We slept, of course--our only rest. But I couldn't help but think about the coming tomorrow, when reality hits again. I was feeling lighter though, knowing how Din would be in a bigger trouble than I. She had hooked up with another guy, a friend, over the weekend, and I knew I would then have to hear of her many aaaaaaaah!s and noooooooooo!s the moment we get back to the city and sobered up. I had to hold back a laugh. Things ARE different when we're sober. "Well, for one, you know the feeling would return once you drink again," I tried to comfort her. Jiminy was slowly finding his way back to her head. "I can't believe I did--ahhhhhhhhh!" I was laughing; I had to hold back the sound though. I was just too amused. "You're only feeling weird because it's the alcohol leaving your system. I assure you, once you drink again, you'd be horny again and you will forget this whole regret thing." I couldn't help it. I was already doubling over with laughter. I had to look away from her face because the more I see her misery, the more I can't help myself from laughing. "Lanox ba!" Believe me, a good dose of schadenfreude is healthy; I did feel good laughing at my friend's misery. Seriously though, I knew this would bother her for the coming days. The good friend that I was had warned her, but we must all know how it's like for her. The warm sea, the moon, and just about enough beer . . . it goes zzzziiiiiinnnngggg! then silence, then poof! it's the next day.    

To be fair, it would seem as hard for the guy too. You would know the people who has it real hard easily by the way they focus too much on the mundane. The entire night of that last drinking day would find Kip teaching Missy's sister how to play poker. By the looks of him, you wouldn't think anything was up at all. I was seated beside Moi, a guy I just met; he already knew the rest of them, except Din. Mardi and Missy was on my other side, acting the way group couples usually do, with the teasing and little fights and all that almost nauseating cutesy stuff. Once in a while, I would see Din going in and out the door to smoke outside the house. Tsktsk, drama queens are drama queens. I told her I saw it coming, and I would try and stop her when I see she no longer could hold herself. Well, it would seem even I didn't have what it takes to promote a little reservation. By the looks of it anyway, they have been holding it in for years already, and some things are just, well, inevitable. So, maybe, it was not just the beer that did it, not even with the aid of the nebulas in the cosmos and mother nature's seductions. They had it coming, and, boy, are they in biiiiig trouble. I am laughing still. Apart from my irrevocable pact with alcohol, I also take pride in my being a sucker for good stories. And, boy, wouldn't this make one heck of a good story. Din the Hardcore Chic and Kip the Sensitive Pornstar. You didn't even have to know the full story to understand my amusement.        
 

Red, White, and Booze

Disclaimer: The names of the people in this story have been changed to protect their secret identities.

You have to admit, people can be pretty narcissistic. They could go on bouts and bouts of getting wasted again and again just to try and lose control of themselves only to wake up the next morning and be amazed at themselves. "I did what?" Yeah, there's a shock on their faces, but you know they can't wait to hear the rest of the stories. "I actually forgot I did that!" But the sound of their voice alone tells you, they're proud of what they did . . . and forgot.

"I was talking to a tomato!" I could only give Chay a grin. More often, when I get the "allergies," I remember the entire night's highlights and, well, the lowlights too. That would be because I would then have to stop drinking and dilute the alcohol in my blood lest our drinking session instead turns into an ER episode. I then went on to tell Chay what happened, as I remembered them, the night before.

It started with the "new" drink. It was in a green bottle, not soju, and came in quarter-liter packaging. I think it was gin. I am not allergic to alcohol per se (thank God!), but certain nights just are, well, weird. So yeah, I can remember nights by the kind of drink we had then. Don't ask me dates nor special occasions. "Do you remember Ika's birthday last year?" I only would if I'm pretty close with the person, otherwise it would just be one of those nights to me. Forgive my drunkenness, really. "You remember that night we had ______ (name of drink)?" I would readily say I do. It's a gift; let it go. So it was the green night, as we now call it. "How do we drink that?" We started being concerned on how we drink new products when once we saw some Koreans down by a service station convenient store drinking sangria with bananas for pulutan. It's not that we think they were being weird or anything (we welcome that around here), it's just that we thought maybe that's how it's really done in some other part of the world. Who knows really, right? If we decide to be original and drink beer with banana cue, how are we to know if it must be how they also do it in a town in Liechtenstein? In the case of the green drink, well, it was just gin. We can handle that. We decided on lemon soda for our chaser.

It would seem there had been many bottles of green gin that night. It's like this, like when once you reach that certain level of intoxication, all else either become slower or faster from thereon. I'm rooting on the latter being what transpired that night, only a little faster than usual. There were four of us then. All I remember was one bottle after another then another then Lyla crossing the street as fast she could, pissed it would seem, and hurrying home. A guy friend somehow found himself with the remaining three of us, already drunk, and ended up going home with En-en, leaving her bag behind. The next coming days would, of course, find us interrogating her on what happened, perhaps something worth leaving her bag behind for. She said she was only very drunk. So there remained only Chay and me. "You were crying!" I laughed the moment I remembered what happened. "Whatever were you crying for?" I had to stop when her face started to took on her pikon look. Then, almost in exact synchronicity, "The pictures!" Lyla was our official photographer and kept a site where she posts our pictures. Usually, we would be excited to see our pictures after our nights, but this time it was different. En-en was shaking her head. "Let's blame the drinks." Lyla and I only looked at her, as though to say, Duh, what else? These are not us. Chay said it, "We're ugly in these pictures!" We laughed at that. They were pictures of how the green gin took on various forms using humans, us. Lyla got pissed. En-en got horny. Chay got dramatic. And I turned into a tomato.    

In the Blood

Call me sick, or twisted, whatever, but it was the most logical idea I could possibly have at that time. I wasn’t trying to make her become like me, or anywhere close. I was only trying to protect her. From the possible jerks who might fool her into thinking freedom is only in insobriety. Her world is as charmed as mine already. The only difference between us is that she’s in the sober world. I wanted her to see that the grass is just as green here as they are on her side.

We talked about family. I told her, well, yes, my drinking money I used to get from the parents. And yes, I feel guilty sometimes. I think guilty is not actually the word. I’m thinking pride, but that would require of me deeper reasons and more profound ideas and a possible nosebleed. So I decided to stick with guilt. I remember a friend, Adia, she told me she wouldn’t mind if her children become drug addicts in the future as long as they don’t ask the money from her. I was thinking the same thing about alcohol. As long as I have a job to pay my intoxication, I should be all right. And I did get a job. Only, I wasn’t able to foresee that I’m not alcoholic enough to drink down all my earnings. And I am not boasting. You should wonder why there are many alcoholics in the slums. It isn’t so expensive to get drunk. Drinking is the only thing I’m good at. And well, yeah, writing and words, which is my job, but you get the drift. I was earning more than I was drinking. That’s a big problem, to me at least. When I said drinking is my only forte (let’s make writing a given so that we could take it out of the picture), I wasn’t exaggerating. When I have money, I drink. When I don’t, I look for money; and when I do, I drink again. Clear enough, so far?

So there, my first justification. I could tell from the expression on her face that she was starting to feel sad for me, like all along I was a big disappointment in the making. After I told her, well, we still were not that rich to think about doing charities, and we really have everything else provided for, for us, already, she seemed to understand my point. Alcohol was an end. I don’t drink to be anything else, to serve any purpose, whatever; I drink because there is nothing else left for me to do. For me, I repeat. This should not apply to everyone else. Intoxication is customized. She was about to go further into the future; I stopped her. That’s a different story there. Let’s be egoistic for now.

I told her, well, the parents were big drinkers too, in their youths. We laughed. We had to agree on that. Even if they question my alcoholism again and again, they still would have to insert now and then their stories on how once upon a time, they would sneak at the stock area of bars, with a handy bottle opener, one at a time, with an excuse of taking a leak, only to feast on the stacks of cases of beers ready for their taking. The bar owner would wonder how, even with only a set of beer on their table, they would come out of the place ass-drunk. Those kinds of stories make one see the essence of drinking, and those same stories were the ones that made me realize the scolding I get was simply the SOP of parents to their children.

She was starting to burn on the cheeks a little. I had to smile to myself. There is this “zone” in drinking. Once you’re there, it’s where and when you realize why people drink. She must be there already. She was starting to laugh harder and was even telling some stories herself. I knew the guilt would catch up the next day (it always does for me in cases involving my intended manipulations), and so I doubled the toasts and the cheers to lose myself that night and let the next day worry for itself. It wasn’t going to get twice my worry time, that’s for sure. I only reminded myself again and again, this won’t happen again, and I’m doing her good. Ignorance and innocence are two different things. It’s not like the deal with cancer that you harm the good cells while trying to kill the bad ones. I only wanted to kill the curiosity before it gets to the cat. 

The thing about drinking is that it’s done sitting down. Thus, one can’t really tell if he’s had enough not until the time when he tries to stand up and walk and go home. And a drunk mind has way more strength than the body actually has. It’s kinda like, mathematically speaking, the inverse proportionality relationship. The more alcohol one takes in, the stronger his mind thinks it is, while the otherwise is true for the rest of him. In other words, I, again, had too much to drink that night. I made a temporary enemy of a friend, who, for some reasons, shared our table that night, the details have escaped me I’m afraid. I was to wake up the next morning with a nasty bruise on my left elbow (much as I had wanted to take all the blame, I had to be honest and give credit to the alcohol as well). Then my sister woke up. She laughed a bit before saying she wouldn’t go through one of those ever again. I succeeded.

Miseros

You made the introductions,

Between sadness and me;

What can I do but take such soft hands,

which seemed to have only known a few.

 

When I looked deep into those watery eyes, I knew,

loneliness would be an eternal company.

 

For without knowing this emptiness,

How would I have known what your embraces were for.

 

No, I don’t need your love because I am sad.

I am sad

so that when your love reaches me,

I would know why all the time without it,

I was in misery.

Requiem per Desiderio

People don’t ask for forgiveness sometimes,

not because of fear

nor of pride (nor of laziness).

They just see—it is pointless.

 

Maybe, if every time we say sorry,

we can also offer a witch’s vial—

a concoction to forget,

an agreement to forget.

 

Desire can be so powerful

to render one weak, yet free.

Yet desire can be the biggest coward;

rejected, unrequited, it hides.

 

Jealousy, the great traitor—

that which holds in suspension

outbursts, yet peeks out

through eyes, unveiling itself instead.   

 

Arrogance, what else? A lie.

Again and again, a plea for consideration.

Poke a blind man’s eyes.

It will still hurt.

 

Rage. Passion. Fusion.

To create this great structure,

For you to try to chip off pieces, unknowing

that its fall could be your death.

 

Is there love there at all?

When infidelity takes a new name—

being true to (or, in your case, denying) one’s nature (blah!).

Semantics’ act of betrayal.

 

You give me not what I seek.

I hand to you what you don’t.

A constant swing between fascination and disappointment,

just another clash of indifferences.

 

Maybe, there is love there.

Why else would today be cursed with heaviness?

Only . . . I smelled the scent of great desires this morning:

yours for me waning, mine for you hiding. 03092007

Stoning for Dummies

I started when I was eighteen. I think that part is a great factor on why I didn’t end up a junkie (although, to be honest with you, I really wouldn’t mind having turned into one—my only worry would have simply been where and when to get my next high, or how for that matter). Because I’ve had had some time with the world as it is, let’s just say, I was already grounded before I started taking my flights. It’s both a bad and a good thing. Good, in that I could always return to the default me; bad, because I can never completely let go (but there were rare moments when I did get a glimpse of total surrender; it was bliss, at worst).

Let’s start. The keyword here is “heightened senses.” That means, you don’t get superpowers, you don’t instantly become a better version of yourself; although, you might start to “think” that you have and you do. That’s okay, if only for the mere realization of your “self” and your first experience of going through the process of dismembering yourself from society even if only temporarily (some people experience this by other means, thus those rare sober individuals who still exhibit nonconforming behaviors). Back to the senses, your perception of things change—sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and feels. But it’s still you, and it’s still your mind. 

Let’s skip to the paranoia part, as that seems to be always connected to psychoactivity. Defined in Merriam-Webster, it is “a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations.” Let’s focus on “delusions of persecution or grandeur” since we’re only dealing with paranoia here as a side effect and not really as a mental condition. Heightened senses lead to heightened mind activities. And more thoughts about what you feel mean more thoughts about yourself, and gradually, the world seems to revolve just around you. It’s just you . . . and then there’s them. And when you start perceiving them as entities apart from yourself, you ask how they, in turn, might perceive you. Of course, it’s only one of either two things—they might either love or hate you (grandeur or persecution). Around this point, clichés work just fine: “everything will pass” and “it’s all in your mind.” Once your mind calms down, the best parts can now begin. 

Personally, I’ve known the feeling of really wanting to know how other people perceive me. I have this unhealthy need to please everyone. If you long to reach that divine state where you have “unconditional love for all,” sometimes your human side would seek to be unconditionally loved by all also. When I begin getting thoughts on how I might be perceived by others, I find my peace when I let go of trying to manipulate their views of me, acting out what I know would accomplish applauds. Let them see me as I see myself. For anyways, one of the more crucial moments in our lives are those time we spend with but ourselves judging us, and the voices of other people either praising or criticizing really don’t amount to much anymore.

Back to the lighter side of stoning, the laziness part is only half true. We still move a lot, although, yes, sometimes it’s already after being in a vegetative state of unsleep. What we do while in that state, it differs for us. For me, it’s like dreaming, only awake. I let my thoughts run free, not of my willing. Sometimes, I see beautiful things, and sometimes, I get nightmares. Then when I have the thoughts that I need, I take a more active role, and I mix them all up here and there until I come up with some form of logic, any form at all (whether sublime or mundane, universal or specific, eternal or momentary). It’s the awe that I’m after, regardless of the doses. It’s a lot like making love—it’s best when I reach my peak, however it happens and however long or short it lasts. And when I do, nothing in the world seems threatening anymore, even if not indefinitely.

It’s true what they say about food tasting better, but just a warning, you have to wait to feel the munchies (when you’re really craving), or else, you’ll have system overload. Prematurely, even just a slight taste of whatever it is you’re having would send your senses flaring, and it’ll be just too much for your enjoyment—well, unless you’re really the indulgent type. 

Music does sound better, but not in an otherworldy way or anything. Nobody becomes a better singer or a better musician when she’s high. It’s just that there’s this isolated feel to the music, as though it is the only sound you’re hearing, and thus you’re able to thread through the layers and listen piece by piece until it seems that the music has intertwined with you in a very intricate pattern that it has already melded with every aspect of you. As though you’re a puppet attached to the strings of a guitar and you’re dancing on top of a large bass drum lying on its side. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And you’re feet gladly follows the rhythm.

And you begin to see the images at the back of your eyes. The puppet, the strings, the instruments, the dancing—and oh how you’d like for your eyes to see them as well. And you get your brushes and dare to recreate what you’re seeing with your amateur strokes. Earth colors for the guitar and the puppet, black and grays for the strings and the drum, and you let it all out with arrays of bright and dark hues intermingling together to portray the movement of your doll’s dancing. 

[Deep sigh of relief]
I’ve reached my peak for now.