silent falling

The thing about intellectual conversations is that they are almost for certain never funny. And even if they were, you only get the mild ha-ha’s that end as immediately as they started. Like if you talk about Hitler’s funny mustache while talking about the Nazis and genocide and the Jews and the great conspiracy of this and that. You laugh a little, yes, but it’s just not it. Not that we are boring people, it’s just that sometimes even the funniest people need to be serious too, and need to be seriously taken.

A heaviness always falls over me every time I sense that my humor should stay somewhere hidden for a while. Even if Bonaparte would sure as hell give me an idea that would draw some chuckles from my friends, there just is something that whispers to me to save it for the rainier days. Not this time, dear, not this time. I then counter the heaviness with a heavier sigh. All right, what now?

I remember I heard this from a movie, and the actor (Bruce Willis in Rumor Has It) just quoted somebody else as well. Che Guevarra had said, although nonverbatim, “A revolution is characterized by a turn of the heart.” Yeah, I figured too, there’s nothing funny about what he said, and although laughter is a very genuine thing, there are just some things that although are as real aren’t as light to the heart.

We talked about respect and hospitality. Visitors should respect the place and the people inhabiting such said place, while the locals should welcome their neighbors and make them feel as at home as they could. Then one of us, Tops, came up with stories of how some places aren’t as welcoming. I was—how do I put this?—in a state where my senses were heightened above my average consciousness. (We had been drinking from the moment we finished breakfast, and it was already after dinnertime.) And so I had to react to diminish the fear he was starting to draw from me. I could ask him to change the topic, but that would be asking for too much. Newton’s law of equal and opposite reaction to every action tells me I could come up with something. I had to, and well, if I don’t, I could go down in history as the one who thought up of using Newton’s laws for the laws of reasoning and discourses and proved that the opposite is true for matters of ideas.

“It is wrong to draw respect from a person by threats.” Tops looked at me. I was over the edge, he must be thinking. I then went on to explain. He then told me, “But I’m just telling the story as I’ve heard it!” It dawned on me. Yeah, maybe some people are just more territorial than some. I almost drowned myself in the sadness of that thought. The thing with me is that I have learned the logic in the “unconditional love for all” philosophy. But when one single entity pisses me off, it becomes “unconditional hate for all.” I then decided to heave out another sigh and admit to myself that having partiality for some things over other things is not a bad thing. “Good thing this place is not one of those places, huh?” He had a look of disbelief in his face, like saying, “Duh!”  

Laughter, for my case, has a life all on its own. It knows I need it. Like a nurse who knows when I’ve had had enough sadness and immediately comes to my rescue. But that night, somehow, it preferred to stay in slumber.

We continued to talk, and our discussions reached to our ideas about paranoia. “What if the people were only unwelcoming because the visitor already had in mind a fear? What if all along the people couldn’t care less actually, and the hate for the visitor only started because in his mind, the fear was too real that it decided to just manifest itself in reality to get over and done with the limbo (of whether that fear is real or not) the visitor has placed himself into?” We all became silent. Maybe every person has some paranoia in him, only that it differs in levels from one individual to the next. It is after all defined as a feeling of greatness for the self. Nothing’s wrong with that. It is only when we draw other people into the stage we set for ourselves and force them to join our tableaus that conflicts arise. Perhaps it is hard to do our own thing without needing to hear the applause or the boo’s after. We all want to know if what we’re doing is right or not. Some people, though, have learned to find that out for themselves.              

I remember this situation we discuss in one of my philosophy classes. If a tree fell in the forest, if none was there to attest to that event actually occurring, then there really is no point in the falling, is there? But to the tree itself, that event would be the most significant event in its entire existence. Then I felt the silence. I tried to listen to the sound of a distant tree falling. I then looked around at my friends. Good thing they were around; we weren’t going to be like that tree.

my logical poetry (or my poetic logic)

my poetry is now wholly mine,
not for who it is for, not anymore.

and it becomes more his, more about him,
more not about myself.

and as i write more about him,
with words more mine,

he becomes more mine.

put that finger away; i tried to tell him then i was in love . . .

I drink with Ricky when I feel I'm most confident, not chemically induced, to add. He was just one of those smartasses whose big egos you'd just like to keep on adding air into until that one critical moment when the thinnest pin would do for a perfect prick. I cannot come unprepared; it is always a war around him. He would have the littlest annoyances. I understand how guys tend to make a big deal out of girls' toenails. Ugly nails are really a turnoff. My point was that I thought I didn't have to worry about my nails around my guy friends. "Be turned off all you want, MF! I wouldn't mind having ugly nails if it means keeping myself hump-free from you!" He allows me certain cuss words now. "No, really, even without the sexual clause, you should look after your nails." I looked at my nails then. I had to agree; they looked ugly. "Get over it. Just keep your eyes from my knees up."

After one bottle. "Some women cannot afford the look to reach your standards, you know," I told him. "What? Clean nails?" "Get over the nails already!" He smiled. He could get really picky with his women. Perhaps it was his only indulgence. He is a good person and has many opinions regarding how unfair the current system is for some of us. But this does not mean he would all-of-a-sudden go courting some nice girl from the slums. He likes them well dressed and all worked up to match the perfectly photographed ones in magazines. It's a man's world to him, and women could go and make themselves pretty all they want; the world has created heavier crimes than making its women beautiful. "I think if nails really should not matter that much, I would meet a girl who'd actually make me forget about them." This guy just could not get over things quick. I decided to join him further on with this topic he seems to be unable to let go of. "What do you think women before used for nail cutters?" I was really now starting to wonder. Of course, he, predictably, turns to me and gives me a look as if to say, "That's going too far back."

After the second bottle. "For all we know, God must have created Adam and Eve to see if they would end up killing each other." He laughed this time. By now he was already used to me being fond of God-thoughts. "Yeah. It's really a wonder, huh? Maybe they were not the first couple God made. The first ones could have killed each other. They only happen to be the first to actually learn about sex, which stopped them from cutting each other's head off." "And they say God hates the serpent." We were both amused and became silent for a long moment or two, each inside our respective Gardens of Eden.

The third bottle got opened. "I'm thinking of moving to a new place." He looked at me. If he was about to say something that would hint on an attempt to stop me, it didn't show on his face. As I've said, I only see him on a few occasions, and my moving to another place would not seem that big of a deal to him. By looking at the the number of times we get together, I could move to another city and still see him just the same, with the same frequency we currently have. "What's wrong with the place you have now?" I had to hold back a smile. Even if he understood clearly what I meant, he was making me feel as though the impossibility of what I intend to do just could not reach him. It was always like him to twist what I actually meant into something else, into what he thinks I intended to say, and he just has this way of making me end up going along with him until I become convinced that it was what I really meant to say to begin with. I meant a new city, not just a new place. But I still ended up saying, "It would be great to have a kitchen of my own." He nodded his head. He had me again.

The fourth bottle came, and I still wasn't even half drunk. "I'm running out of ideas for my book." I tried again. Even I cannot understand why I had to establish it with him that I was moving away. I could just send him a message one day that I'd be leaving in a couple of days and that I would like it if we get together with our friends for a despidida. I guess I'm a sucker for romance too. I'd like to know if he'd try to hold me back, or if he'd finally tell me some secret feelings that had been accumulating inside him--things like that. Don't get me wrong. I don't have a secret love for him or anything, or that I'm dreaming for us to one day realize we are actually in love with each other or something. I told you, this guy has some serious dose of megalomania in his blood. Those people, you wait for them to fall head-on just for the sake of seeing them tumble over. I have to say, though, that it never occurred to me as a problem just in case he actually does. There's a reason why I stayed friends with the conceited brat. Ricky could be a real charmer.

The fifth bottle found me starting to morph into a carrot. "You're starting to burn around the cheeks. Do you think you can still drink some more?" I told him I was fine. I just had too much sun over the previous weekend. "What happened to your hiatus from smoking?" I decided to go to another topic. I am an egoist too, and I considered him a break from myself. "I told you it was only going to be a short one," he answered me matter-of-factly. "I didn't think you'd last long without smoking either." I saw the look on his face and went for a quick follow-up to keep the tensions, his mostly, from rising. "I mean you really don't have any reasons to quit or anything, do you?" He must have realized I didn't mean anything from my last statement because he looked away from me and just stared at the space in front of him.

There were more yawns than talks when we reached our sixth bottle. He finally gave in to this one-case minimum when I pointed it out to him that we don't drink that often now anyways. I grabbed for one of the last two remaining slices of pizza left. He waited after my third bite and went for the last one. More silence followed. Halfway through his slice, he poured himself a shot, twirling the ice around in the glass to make the beer cold before drinking it. He then poured another shot and gave the glass to me. I got the glass from him and placed it on the table between us; I finished my pizza first before drinking down my shot. I then went on to stare at the space between me and the vandalized wall across the street.

and so there, both love and guilt

reversed fear.

 

your redemption instead,

 

much on that first introductions.

 

only to be back, yes,

 

but nevertheless not yet.

 

even if only to prove,

 

good things, you can live in their absence as well.

 

yes, even if only for a while.

 

"By my leaning over the precipice
Of your presence and your absense in hopeless fusion
My finding the secret
Of loving you
Always for the first time" (Breton, Andre). 

i will not live forever

i could only but quietly stare at his apparent disbelief.

he was not used to hearing no.

no.

"until when, then?"

i don't know . . .

i have to look for my insignificance again.

i need saving too.

i am no hero.

but i cannot be your damsel in distress.

our story cannot be that easy, even if classic, oh yes.

elegance? we never lacked modesty and our sometimes-overboard humility.

i remember, "don't be too humble; you're not that great."

ouch.

forget my arrogance. up until now, i know nothing still.

you cannot force any more words out of me.

i do not know anything.

take your ivies with you.

your quick-melt bullets.

your well-thought-up phrases.

i gave a knowing smile.

i know love now as well.ü

things less mundane

half old

he complains, "he does not love her enough."

yes, she wants some love to come from her as well.

don't take all the credit for this love we have.

i have given as well.


half blames

"you were never here."

your mind runs on time and infinities.

it's been minutes, i think, just mere fragments

to you

but to me, i've had forevers with you.


half sweet

sugarless, "i seem to have lost my senses somehow."

you laugh.

that story had been wanting to be told.

from you, to me.

somehow stories become a little livelier.


half home.

i know i've found it

yet i had to go

always, my absence had to follow.

half gone.

only because you were half there.

Undress

water on cardboard