Whys and wherefores

Reasons


Being around him makes me poop. Everyday.

This is what I tell friends when they ask me why I stay with him, despite his decided weirdness.

Before I met him, I was constipated; I suffered from irregular bowel movement despite my seemingly infinite consultations with various specialists. I even went to a witch doctor one, still to no avail.

He is weird, that is an incontestable fact. He counts the number of times he gargles while brushing. He only drinks water when it’s a certain temperature. His meat has to be precision cooked at a certain degree Celsius. This means not being able to go out most of the time to have fun. Whenever we do, it’s to the movie house that he paid to have the air conditioning set at 16 degrees Celsius. When he’s a certain mood, he rhymes unintentionally. It’s sometimes funny to me but it isn’t to him, so I end up farting just from trying to keep myself from laughing.

He is undeniably weird and I have been told, had I gone to our senior prom, I’d have been crowned Prom Queen. And Homecoming Queen at the last football game of our year. But I opted out because I suffered from cramps from constipation and had to stay at home.

So you don’t know how much it means to have someone who makes me poop on the regular. It means no cramps, no occasional regurgitations, no worries that the fiber I take might be too much for my digestive system, it would lead to diarrhea.

It’s a trade-off and I am getting used to the new normal. I get up in the morning with a predictable toilet habit waiting for me.

His idiosyncrasies are beginning to grow on me. And it’s not like he is physically repulsive. You might even say he is good looking when he is dressed to the nines, like that time when he took me to his sister’s wedding. He wore a really nice gray suit and my heart skipped a few beats first time I saw him. And it’s not like he has halitosis or stinky feet. He is just really meticulous and I know it’s bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder, but I have the patience of a saint so I can live with his kookiness.

Today I am at the jewelers, picking out a platinum band. It is our third anniversary dating and I want to surprise him. I bought a pretty pink silk dress for tonight. A string quartet will serenade us at my secluded backyard where I have a table set with a sumptuous dinner. I have water standing by at his preferred temperature. There is also an architect’s plan for the renovation of my home that I will show him.

I am asking him to marry me and I am not giving him the chance to say no. I like pooping everyday, and I don’t care about what other people have to say about it. It’s a match made in heaven.

Dealing

Still remains

I have been driving around town for hours now, going around and around the same streets and alleys and avenues, wishing that by passing through them, my pain would come to pass too.

But it might be too soon. To say I am jumping the gun would be an understatement.

My husband’s heart transplant failed this morning, at exactly 10.34 am. It’s only 7.49 pm. I’ve been to the petrol station five times to gas up so that I can continue my mindless meandering through the city. Robert was ready. I laughed at the thought, Ready Robert. He spoke to our two kids before the operation to tell them it could go both ways: Daddy could get well or he could go to heaven. Either way, he said, be there for Mommy.

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to have my husband be part of the 64% of heart transplants that didn’t succeed. My prayers went the opposite direction. That morning, as they were wheeling him into the operation room I prayed, “Dear God, don’t take him away. Not yet. We have so much yet to do together. The kids need him. I need him.”

I don’t know what kind of answer it was to my prayer, God taking Robert away. It is something I think I have time to figure out with my kids.

I’ve been driving around because I did not want to go back to a home that would be a different kind of home from now on. He wouldn’t be there to play with the kids in the mornings as I painted. I wouldn’t have to count pills during mealtimes to give to him. There would be no holding back my long, quick strides because he needed to catch his breath while we walked around the neighborhood.

Before his transplant, there were lots of breakfasts in bed and a lot of foreplay. He promised, after his operation, I would have an unlimited supply of lovemaking from him. I laughed when he said that. I told him, jokingly, I wanted him to bring it on now but he was still in a delicate state.

I cried, let myself cry as I closed the door behind me when I finally allowed myself to go home. My children were asleep; the nanny put them to bed. My mom broke the news to them. She was there when I arrived. She asked the housekeeper to make me lavender tea and to bring out the honey and crumpets. How well she knew me, knew that I would be hungry for a tiny meal. She knew from the heartbreaks she witnessed over the years that I find comfort in food during trying times.

We did not talk. I just let the tears fall as I poured the tea from the pot and chewed slowly on my pastry.

After that, at 10.52 I turned in. I slept beside my mom in the guest bedroom. I couldn’t sleep in the bed I shared with my husband. It was too painful. Just looking at it brought back a tide of memories I was helpless to contain.
I slept fitfully, tossing and turning and dreaming of my departed husband. In my dream we were young again and laughing as we sat by a lake. He was healthy and we spent time chasing each other. I screamed when he caught up with me. He held me fast in his arms, telling me to be still. He said, “Listen. I will always love you wherever I go. I will never be far from you.” He was serious and then he let me go and he jumped into the lake, never to emerge. I cried after him, cried and cried, but he did not come back.

I woke up drenched in sweat, with tears in my eyes and mucus in my nostrils. I could not go back to sleep.

I was groggy at breakfast and I spoke to my kids about how things would change now that Daddy won’t be coming home.

Adriel, my five-year-old son, understood the situation more than I gave him credit for.

“Mommy, Daddy left behind his body here when he went to heaven. What are we going to do with it?”

I was flummoxed. It was an unexpected question. I held back my tears. “We’ll have it cremated, darling. Cremated means you burn the body until it turns to ashes, like what we do with coals when we barbecue, okay? Then we’ll put Daddy’s ashes in an urn and have a special place built for him in the garden.”

My daughter Anna was two. All she kept saying was, “Daddy with angels. Daddy up in heaven.”

I gathered them to me one at a time and hugged them tight. I didn’t want to them to see me crying but I couldn’t help myself. Mom kept rubbing my shoulders.

I took a bath and instructed the nanny to bathe the kids. After everyone was dressed we drove to the morgue at 9.30 am. I told the kids to say their goodbyes to their Dad, to tell him everything they want to tell him and reminded them to never stop speaking to their Dad in their minds because he will never stop listening to them.

At 10.34 they took the body into the crematorium. We did not wait for the entire process to finish. We will come back for the ashes tomorrow. I chose the urn and asked them for the number of a contractor who could build a mini mausoleum in our yard.

I said goodbye to my husband then, as we were driving away from the memorial park. A weight lifted from my being. I felt light, it was like my husband telling me to go on, I never really lost him, that he will always be with me in every little thing that makes me who I am because there was a time when we were one and we walked this earth in unison.

Rehab

Expectations

He was nothing like she expected. She knew how old he was, but in the flesh he seemed more youthful, not only because of his looks but also because of his demeanor. She had heard of him, in the circles where she moved but she never really met him. Not meet meet, but she passed him by alright, one time too many in her opinion.

She chose this café to meet him. He initiated the meeting through her friends though Lord knows how he came to know her friends. Her social orbit was definitely far from the center in which he revolved.

He shook her hand and smiled his killer smile. It was a good start to a great evening. They never could run out of things to say, to talk about and he said he’d call her in the morning after he brought her to her doorstep.

A few more dates followed the first one, but she was afraid she was underwhelmed. He bored her, he was too perfect. He said all the right things, was witty in the right places and was too damned decorous for her tastes.

She blew him off one night to go out with a guy who’s been bugging her to give him a chance. He took her to a marijuana party. She’s never done drugs before that night and the guy kept insisting it wasn’t technically a drug, it was a weed, doesn’t she get it?

She liked the feeling of being stoned, so she went out with the guy a few more times and before she knew it she was doing crystal meth.

At first she told herself, it was okay, she has a grip on the situation. She wasn’t an addict; she could still get out if she wanted. But it soon got out of hand. She lost her job and blew her chance to become the youngest vice president in the PR agency for which she worked. Her Mom kicked her out of the house for stealing money and valuables from her and bringing undesirables to wreak mayhem under her roof.

One night, she was out on the street, the rain pouring in buckets and she hadn’t eaten for days. She remembered to call her Dad, the one whom she did not know much of because it was what her Mom wanted. She couldn’t recall his number so she called her Aunt Marge for the number. Her Aunt Marge asked her where she was and what she was doing out so late at night. She said she was at the police station trying to scrape a phone call. Her Aunt Marge asked what happened and she told her Aunt Marge everything that has happened in the last two years.

Her Aunt Marge, her Mom’s sister, was flabbergasted. “I thought you were doing really well,” she said, her voice tinged with shock. “Anyway, just stay put. I’ll come for you. I don’t know where I put your Dad’s number. I’ll look for it as soon as I get you someplace safe.”

True to her word, Aunt Marge came by the police station and took her to a rehabilitation center south of the city. She made sure her niece was settled and all the paperwork was taken care of before she left for her place 30 minutes away.

Life in rehab was no picnic. It was arduous, but the staff knew their shit. There was no getting around them and she appreciated this opportunity to get rid of her bad habits once and for all.

In her third month, her Dad came to visit, along with Aunt Marge. Her Mom washed her hands clean of her.

“I’m sure this isn’t how you expected our reunion, but I’ll take what I can,” her Dad smiled wryly. “What happened sweetheart?”

“I don’t know, Dad. One moment my life was going great, the next I was spinning out of control.”

“How did you get into drugs? I wish I was there when it was happening, maybe I could have done something.”

“It started with marijuana, and I liked how it felt. Then it became a habit I couldn’t control,” she said. “I wish you were there too. I wish I talked to you so I wouldn’t have done all those stupid things.”

“It’s alright, as long as you want to change, that’s all that matters,” her Dad reassured her.

“But I am afraid, they say once an addict always an addict.”

“That’s crap and you know it. You’re my daughter. I’ll help you stay sober. And you can if you want to. Remember, it’s always up to you.”

She felt good after that first dialogue with her family. In the ones that followed, she got to know her Dad even more and she came to a point when she was almost glad she had an addiction problem to kick. It brought her close to the man she always sought in her life, in the many boyfriends and lovers that she had. She came away from the experience knowing that she found what it was she was looking for—the love of the man who was missing from her life.

After a year and a half, she checked out of rehab clean and sober. She stayed away from her old drugging crowd and sought out her college friends, the ones who tried to help her as she descended on her downward spiral.

She got a job with another PR firm, thanks to her Dad pulling a few strings. In a year she made vice president, the youngest in the firm’s history.

As she looked back on the nightmarish two years when she was drugging, she realized she did not want to go back to that kind of life. And that she had too much of everything and did not know how to put her life in perspective.

These days she blows her money on treating her friends to dinners in nice restaurants and shopping trips to Singapore, and travel to the beach.

One day she was having coffee at her favorite café when a voice intruded on her thoughts.

“You disappeared,” he accused, smiling.

It was him, Mr. Prim and Proper.

“Gosh, it’s a long story. Wanna hear it?” she said.

For some reason, she felt comfortable sharing with him what she went through in the past five years and she told him about her life then and how her Dad became her salvation.

“You bored me, you know. It’s all your fault, if you weren’t so proper I wouldn’t have gone out with the guy who got me into the rabbit hole,” she joked.

“Oh did I? Well, I was going to tell you I dirt bike in the open road and build homes for the poor in my spare time. But you cancelled on me,” he laughed with her.

“Okay, so I admit. The fault is mine. So what else kind of daredevil things do you do?”

He told her and he told her that he surprised even himself for not making a move on her those times they went out. He said, she intimidated him, as if one false move would be his undoing. He was glad, though, he said, that things happened the way they did.

“You were too perfect. I couldn’t see a sign you were human,” he observed.

“I could say the same of you,” she retorted. “So, it’s okay that I’m a former junkie?”

“As long as you stay a former junkie,” he was honest.

Then, “It’s getting late. I’ve to call my Dad. Gotta go,” she gathered her things.

“Will there be a next time?”

“Sure. And next time, grab me,” she walked away with a wink.

He certainly did.

Romance Part 2

Husbands and Poets

She was sure, as the priest read the rites; she was where she should be—right here with him whom she has loved for as long as she can remember. It wasn’t difficult saying Yes to him when he proposed. Who would say no, with all the flowers and the candles and the violins and the champagne? Who would?

But as the priest asked her, if she took this man to be her lawfully wedded husband, she took off her heels and broke into a run down the aisle away from him. She hailed a cab, her gown was caught in the cab door and when she looked back he wasn’t there calling after her.

She went back to the hotel to change into jeans, sneakers, a white turtleneck sweater, and a purple beret. She did not have time to take off her makeup. She made the call, the call her Dad assured her he would always take and he took it.

“Dad?” tears were falling on her cheeks for reasons she could not fathom.

“I’m here honey. What happened? Why did you run?” he was calm and he was obviously still in the church. It sounded like a Saturday market in there.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I was so sure, but suddenly I wasn’t. I was scared,” she was calmer now. She put her Dad on speaker phone as she put her stuff away and packed her luggage for the beach.

“Okay. What do you want to do? Is there a place you want to go?” his calm demeanor soothed her.

“The beach, just please help me get to the beach,” she sighed. She never felt so tired in her life.

“I got you. A car will pick you up in ten minutes. Whatever you do, remember I love you,” he said. She heard his voice, her fiancé’s voice. She did not know if he still was.

She woke up to the roar of waves in her small cabana the following morning. Her father’s private plane took her to Bohol and his staff took care of everything. She did not even remember taking her wallet with her but she found a pocketbook with cash and credit cards in her luggage. Trust her Dad to condone everything she does. She should have been a brat, the way he spoiled her but she had enough sense to know how far she can push the envelope with him. And they both knew she knew what she was doing 99% of the time. This time though she wasn’t so sure.

She got a lifeguard and snorkeled across the islands in the morning. At midday, she asked someone to drive her to the Tagbilaran City for lunch at a Swiss deli. In the afternoon she slept. She wasn’t interested in bars and drinking so at night she called her friend Reena to ask about the aftermath of her walkout.
She was walking along the beach, looking at the blinking lights along the coast. She wished her life was as simple as a fisherman’s, that she wasn’t who she was and that there weren’t so many obligations to so many people.

“Hey,” she said with a catch in her voice.

“How are you? What happened? Or would you rather not talk about it?” you could tell she was afraid she’d be on the verge of a breakdown.

“I’m pretty good. I want to see him to explain. I don’t know he would though, after what I did. I didn’t mean to run. But I did, but I’m not sure. I’m sorry I did,” She wanted to cry but tears wouldn’t come. She was wishing on the lights, bring him to me, please, please God, bring him to me.

“You’re not good. Goodness, will you please let yourself feel bad, Maya? I’m sure you had a pretty good reason. No one blames you. Jim doesn’t,” Reena was a comfort.

“Thanks, but if you see him, please tell him where I am. If he could come I’d be grateful.” She said bye then and headed to her cottage. She had a heavy meal and sang videoke with the other guests on the resort. She turned in at 12 midnight. She forgot her medication.

It was Carla’s voice that woke her the following morning. Carla was her other best friend. She had Jim in tow. Maya woke up with a start, wondering if she was seeing things as she saw Jim there, like she hoped, like she dreamed.

“I know I am being nosey but you two need help. I’m your fairy godmother. Jim, Maya. Maya, Jim. Now get it on,” Carla said with a laugh as she backed out of the room.

He stood there at the foot of her bed looking every bit as handsome as she remembered. She pulled up the sheets to her chin belatedly remembering she only had her panties on.

“Could you please let me get dressed?” she said rubbing her eyes.

“Sure,” Jim said quiet and watchful. Then he went to the wardrobe and pulled out a whole ensemble of shirt and shorts and underwear. “Take a shower. I’ll wait at the dining room, let’s have breakfast together.”

He never did that before—prepare her things—and at that moment she felt more married to him than any wedding rite could make her feel.

She took her time, she even blow dried her hair and put on a little make up. She carefully chose from her sparse arsenal of accessories. She went to the dining room ready to face his wrath. Or his sorrow. But he was calm, like her running away was more expected than her going through with the whole wedding ritual.

“I know you like mushroom and cheese omelet, so I ordered that for you. But you ask for the rest of what you like,” he smiled the easy smile of someone who knew what exactly he was doing.

“I actually don’t know what I’m doing,” he said as if reading her mind. He rubbed the back of his neck like he always did. “Heck I don’t know why I am here, why I am even with you after what happened.” He closed his eyes and a tear fell on the table.

“Because,” Maya, usually loquacious, had no words.

“Should I even be trying? Obviously you can’t make that commitment to me, so tell me, what I should be doing,” he took a deep breath.

“I just want to be. I just want to be with you. I don’t want a thousand pairs of eyes watching us when I tell you I do. I want a life with you. I don’t want a show that people can judge depending on how they’re feeling that day. I want something real.”

“My God, Maya, when was I never real with you?”

“These past few months, I felt like you were moving farther and farther away from me. We got so caught up with the show, I think we lost sight of why we were getting married in the first place. And I don’t want to ever forget why I’m with you. That day at the church, it felt so wrong,” her hands were all wrung, as if she was afraid the wrong words would drive him away.

He sighed a deep sigh, as if trying to be patient with a truant child. “So what do you want?”

“Let’s try, here, what it would be like to be together. See if it is what we want, if we could stick it out despite the mundane,” she challenged him.

“Okay. Let me make a few calls, I just need to let people know where I am. I got a honeymoon leave from the office so I might as well use that,” he said.

They started their life together on that beach, with that breakfast in the resort. They retired to her cabin, they did not get a bigger one because they admitted to each other they liked being enclosed in a small space together.

They slept the whole morning, and when it was lunch time they drove in a rental to the city to eat at her favorite Swiss deli. It became their lunch place. They drove over there everyday for the rest of their lengthy stay to have lunch.

They made plans to tour the entire island the following day. Each day found them at a new destination until they exhausted the attractions of the island. It was then that they learned more about the other. He knew she was a morning person, but he never knew she wrote poetry first thing every morning.
She knew he had to shave twice a day but it was only then that she learned he uses shower cream instead of shaving cream. He liked sleeping across the bed, so they did.
And he liked spooning instead of sleeping facing each other.

She could eat eggs every day, he could eat dried fish. They both love cold chocolate milk and French toast.

When there was nothing left to do, they’d lie down on the hammocks tied to the palm trees facing the beach talking of their plans.

On the second month, he said, “Is this how life will be always?”

“No, this isn’t reality. But I am glad we had time together here. I like life with you,” Maya said with a smile.

“So what’s the next step?”

“We make it legal. But without the big production number, if you can live with that.”

“I can live with that. I just thought it was what you wanted. I’m sorry I assumed,” he seemed sheepish.

“I just want you. Not the show you can afford, not the party you can provide,” she said emphatically.

“I get it. I like life with you, too.”

She called her Dad in the evening. She was ready to get married. She promised not to run away this time.

Unspoken

Would I have the courage
To touch your lips with mine
Put into action
The words I utter

Would I have the courage
To tell you
My heart beats your
Name

And time passes like
An ocean through a sieve
As I wait for the day
When I can be with you
And you’d tell me
Your heart belongs
To no one but me

Would I have the courage
To be brave
And stop laughing
And say with a straight
Face
It is you
Only you
And I would wait
Until what’s wrong
Becomes right
And I would wait
When there
Turns into here

Would I have the courage
To whisper
I love you
You’d be beside me
And I would be free.

What's that smell?

Perfume

“You can’t just walk away,” he said not bothering to hide the note of desperation that crept into his voice.

“Watch me,” I said, turning on my heel. That was the last time I saw him.

The scene happened five years ago, I was young and too idealistic for my own good. I have never regretted anything more than uttering those two words to the man I have always loved, and I suspect, will always love.

He wasn’t perfect. He was far from being perfect. He was always late even when I must have explained to him a thousand times why I found tardiness rude. He forgot my birthday every year and anniversaries were nonexistent.

But I love him. I put up with his shit because if I did a cost benefit analysis of my relationship with him, I stood a lot to gain.

He never remembered special occasions, but he made them up as we went along. I would be sometimes surprised with a treat to my favorite upscale restaurant because he said, it’s “Remember to Appreciate Your Girl Day.” He had a day for Holding Hands, Kissing, Pretend It’s Your First Rock/ Dance/Jazz/Classical Music Concert Day and a whole host of made up holidays.

Sometimes, when we have little money left over before payday, we’d share a fast food meal and he always lets me get the first bite on the fried chicken.

Or he’d tell his friends about my achievements at work and you could tell he was proud of me.

There’s also the way he always directs the air con at me when we’re in his car because he knows I like to feel cold in the car.

He loved me, I could tell. He loved me with a passion that ate up his being because we were so good in bed together. You couldn’t fake what he felt for me every time we got freaky between the sheets.

Then one day he came home smelling of some other woman’s perfume.

I warned him about it. I could not tolerate infidelity. It broke apart my parents’ marriage and I told him, I can stand that he was a slob, that he was no good with money, that I had to pick up after him. I could stand the worst habits but I could not stand infidelity.

I told him, if I so much as smell some other woman’s perfume on you, that’s it. We say goodbye.

And it happened. I did not fear it, it was not a prophecy that was fulfilled. I was so secure with what I had with him that I complacently believed he would not wander.
How I regret what I did that day, just walking out without asking for explanations.

I must have counted a million valid reasons for him reeking of somebody else’s perfume.

I replay it in my mind, over and over, like a bad movie on an infinite loop. On my 40th birthday, I decided to seek him out, just to put my mind to rest. I dialed his home number, hoping he’d still be there.

His mother answered the phone and told me he already moved to another house in the suburbs. She gave me his number. Apparently, she did not remember me.

I called him and he said he’d meet me at the park the following Sunday.

I put on a white turtleneck and red shorts and red flats. My hair was pulled back into a soft chignon and I put on light makeup. I wanted his jaw to drop when he saw me.

It was mine that did when I saw him again. His brown hair had flecks of grey and he was now muscular where before he was lean and wiry.

He bussed me on the check and smiled his killer smile.

“Wanna sit?” he asked, leading me to a park bench.

“I’d like to walk,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. I wanted to pull him close and kiss him like I used to do.

“What happened?” I asked, unable to control my tears. “What went wrong?”

He stopped, took both my hands in his and squeezed them.

“I did. I was all wrong for you. I had four other girlfriends when I was with you. That’s why I never celebrated anniversaries and birthdays, so I don’t get them mixed up.” He sounded sheepish. “I was young. I knew better but I was an asshole, I had no excuse.”

I tried to take my hands from his but he held them fast.

“Listen. Listen. The four others knew how things stood, but you. You’re special. I couldn’t bear to let you go. My friends told me I wasn’t being fair to you, but I was selfish. I should’ve been faithful to you. I should have played by your rules. I sickened even my friends. Would you believe, they’re on your side?

“They were afraid I would give you a disease or you would find out from my other girlfriends so they sprayed me with women’s cologne that night. Just to get you out of a bad situation. Because they didn’t have the heart to disillusion you about what we had.”

He was crying and my face felt like it was carved out of stone

“I don’t know what to say to this,” I said. I wanted to cry but tears wouldn’t come.

to an august man, j'aime

Or would you die
The Prince of lost causes
For something
Worth living for

Would you look me
In the eye
And tell me
That hiding in the mountains
Is a life fit for
A Princess

I will walk your
Journey with you
Cry as you vanquish
Sorrow
With the thundering sword
With the lightning hilt

I will crash the waves
At your anger
Over injustices
And malpractices
Because I adore you

I will walk your talk
Let your passion consume me
Let the flames in your eyes
Lick my body an inch
At a time
Guide your hands
To the places you call heaven
In my arms

But would you die
Instead of live
For the hungry children
The widowed orphans
The losses that have no name

Would you be there
Instead of here
Where I need you to be
By my side always
And always
In the rising tide
In the splintered moon
In the June monsoon

I prayed for you
Prayed that you would come
Bid your soul rest
In the comfort of mine
But would you die
When I need you to live?

+++++++++++++


In the years in between
I have come to know
The person beneath the sheen
Of newness
Now I am older
Not much bolder
But definitely wiser

The fresh faced harbinger
Of deadly truths
Has matured
Still a bearer of
Unwelcome tidings
To a race that dares not listen

Not the Messiah
Not Napoleon
Not some great goddess
Demanding adulation

Just a girl in love
With a man in love
With a woman

Just a woman in love
With a man
Adored by a multitude

I’ve seen him before
In my dreams
In my waking hours
Pardon me
Can’t tell the difference
Would want to know
If in the flesh
He could make my heart sing
As loud as it does when
I peer at him from my chair

In the years in between
I learned
To let go
To be ready
For one day
He just might call me.


++++++++++


Leave the pieces behind
The pieces of you they took
The pieces in every nook

I have loved you
When I was in my mother’s womb
Loved you before my eyes
Forsook the beauty of the stars

Take me up and let me fall
Break me, shatter me
Because I would rather be
A fraction of who I was
With you
Than be whole
With a hole in my heart
Alone.


++++++++


Dream
Fly
Till the heavens embrace you
Leap
Throw in the towel
And take this chance

I am real
Real as the rain
That falls mainly on the plain
In Spain

I do not sell seashells
By the seashore
And I am not Moses who
Supposes his posies
Are roses

I play no games
I do not like drama

If I am your dream
Can I wake you
And tell you
You can make your dream come
True

If you were my dream
I’d pinch myself awake
And be sad
That I cannot make
My dream come
True

I hang on to your every word
Not always
But when my heart listens
I see the man
The knight in shining armor
Riding a noble steed
Saving the day
The strong one protecting
The weak

How I wish I was the weak
But I am not weak
I could be stronger than you
I might not need you
But oh, how I want you
I just want you.

Muriel and Seymour (Not Mr. Salinger's)

Canada

It was three a.m. and Seymour was undeniably drunk. He had twelve bottles of low calorie pilsner and a few shots of tequila. He couldn’t walk straight and he’s beginning to see double. He had to piss and figure out which of his friends who had condos nearby would let him crash for the remainder of the night. Even in his inebriated state, he was still conscious of the crap they brainwashed him with against drunk driving. He concedes they have a point; it would be unfair to inflict his bad choices on innocent lives so he better stay put.

He half crawled to the bathroom, he didn’t care if it was for males or females, he just needed to piss. He opened the door and saw two girls in the heat of intercourse on the lavatory. He sobered up faster than you could say beer. One of the girls was…

“Muriel!” he ejaculated then went to the toilets to barf all the alcohol out of his system. The other half of the Sapphic sex scene scuttled, grabbing her wet underpants from under the tap they left running.

Muriel, his wife, looked in on him, her face stony. He never brought her to this bar, this was his cave. He came here during the times they fought, which was becoming more frequent. Yet here she was, under circumstances that made him sicker than the alcohol.

They had two kids, whom he was sure was becoming fucked up from all the domestic uncertainty they saw between their parents. Joan and Jett are sweet kids, they get good grades in the pre-school where they matriculate, they help Muriel out with the chores in their little way and they are wholesome, trouble free kids all round. But they left him cold.

But back to Muriel.

“What the hell was that? Why are you here? You couldn’t even get a hotel room?”

What he saw in the bathroom explained a lot. For starters, it explained why the girls in the bar have been going to the men’s room for the past two hours. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Either that or every female in the room was a tranny.

But it made it clear to him why Muriel constantly complains of a headache every time he makes a move on her. He’d been bone dry for almost a year now and it has been suggested in one of their fights when he accused her of keeping him on a tight leash by denying him sex that he engage the services of a prostitute.

Muriel stayed silent, he couldn’t understand why. If she really loved him, she’d try making him understand what the hell it was he saw earlier. But all she said was, “I’ll drive. I didn’t drink. I took a cab to get here.”

Seymour fished his car keys out of his pocket. He was wiping his mouth with a wad of tissues. He was choking on his tears, but he held them back. If she could be this unemotional about the whole thing, so could he. At least that’s what he thought.

They were both silent during the half hour ride to their townhouse near the central business district where Seymour worked for the family corporation. Muriel was a capable driver; he was a crybaby of a passenger. He was thankful for the dark and he didn’t know if it was just the alcohol doing away with his inhibitions. He’d wanted to cry for a long time now and he didn’t mean to but the tears just kept streaming down his face. He kept quiet though.

Muriel parked his Audi tail first into the two car garage. She switched off the engine and unlocked the doors, then leaned back against the seat as if she had no intention of getting out of the car. She stared unseeing out of the windshield into the dark street.

He didn’t get out either. His head was pounding, his heart was beating a loud tattoo he was sure he could hear it in his ears. He was tired and drunk and sleepy, but he wanted to be with her, he wasn’t going anywhere until she assured him things will work out between them.

Seymour fell asleep and when he woke up his watch said seven a.m. Muriel was still in the seat beside him; as if she didn’t move a muscle in the hours they were in the car. The sunlight hurt his eyes. He was hungry, but he wasn’t hungry.

“I’m not mad, Muriel. I just want to know what the reason was behind all that,” he tried to start a conversation with her.

“God, Seymour, when will you stop being such a goddamned saint? What would it take?”

“What would it take to what?”

“To make you realize that this is a mistake, we are a mistake. Can’t you see, you don’t love me, you don’t love the kids but you go on everyday deluding yourself that we’re this happy family? Well, we’re not!”

“Don’t say that! We’re just having problems, but we’ll work it out,” Seymour countered.

“I want an annulment, Seymour. I can’t take anymore. Let me go,” Muriel was losing patience.

“But we love each other…”

“I don’t love you Seymour. I’m in love with a girl who’s in Canada right now and where I mean to be soon. I shouldn’t have married you, I shouldn’t have had kids, I shouldn’t have spent the last ten years trying to be mommy in your Brady Bunch dream,” she said with fire burning in her eyes.

“What was I to you then? Tell me, because I’m too stupid to understand what’s going on,” he said sarcastically.

“You’ll always be the first and only man in my life, Seymour. I don’t blame you for the last ten years. It was my choice to marry you. I shouldn’t have just because you got me pregnant but I did. But I think I’ve already paid my dues and it’s time I lived my life for me,” Muriel said, a note of tenderness creeping in her voice. “You’ve always been good to me and maybe that’s why I picked fights with you and made life difficult for you, so you’d leave me. That thing about last night, I didn’t mean for you to see it. I was going to talk to you properly.”

“If you leave now, there’ll be no coming back,” Seymour said trying to but knowing his statement won’t scare her.

“I know that. God, I know that. I know I’ll get disinherited for leaving you and running away with another girl. But I’ll take my chances,” she said.

“Has it been going on for long?” he asked genuinely curious.

“Can we go inside? It’s going to be a long story and I want to be in the aircon,” Mi requested.

“Sure.” They got out of the car and into their bedroom. The kids were with his parents with whom they visit during weekends.

He took of his shoes and lay on the bed, flinging his forearm across his forehead. He had a grandmother of a hangover, but he wanted to know, get things straight from her. She’d become more difficult to live with as the years went by. She’d go ballistic over the pettiest of things then make up with him, sweeter than honey afterwards. It was enough to drive him up the wall.

“Camille and I were classmates in boarding school. We’ve known each other since we were twelve. She was my first kiss, my first fuck, my first relationship. I always thought I’d end up with her. I never thought there was anything wrong with what we had because I’d often catch my Mom with one of her women friends in the bedroom. Dad left us when I was young and Mom never dated men after that,” Muriel began.

“So why didn’t you? Why’d you get into a relationship with me?” Seymour asked accusingly.

“When I told Mom about it, she hit the roof. I couldn’t understand. She threatened to send me to my grandmother’s and stop sending me to school. I wanted to go to college badly, so I stopped seeing Camille. And she transferred me to another school, this one for boys and girls.

“I met you after college and you weren’t unattractive to me. You made me wonder what it would be like to be with a man. You got me pregnant and at first the task of raising a family distracted me. But doing the same thing everyday, it made me a little crazy. I got back in touch with Camille after Jett was born six years ago. I realized I still loved her and being with her is what would make me happy.

“I bought a plane ticket to Quebec and my bags are packed. I was hoping to talk to you last night but I couldn’t find you. My plane leaves tonight. I hope you don’t take it bad. If you don’t want the kids, I’ll take them. I just wanted to give you that choice. I leave tonight,” she said with a tinge of sadness.

A snore broke her soliloquy. Muriel half laughed. Trust Seymour to sleep through the part where she was going to break his heart. How he escaped her cruelest moments, she’ll never know, yet he did.

Love for this man swelled in her heart as she stared at him curled up in bed with a pillow. He reeked of alcohol and puke, yet she remembered now why she let him near her, why she agreed to commit herself to him for life. Seymour is a good man, she just couldn’t see past the fact that he was not Camille. But she loved her too. Muriel knew she’d have to choose eventually. But it didn’t have to be tonight. She lay on the bed and hugged her husband close.

Colours

Yellow

If you be the sun
If you be the lemon
If you be the sunflower
If you be the pineapple

Let me be the rain
Let me be the sugar
Let me be the plant
Let me be your mother

I had a father
Who is much like your
Nemesis
Who dared not dream
And did not respect
Those who did

I walked in your school shoes
The ones you wished would
Disintegrate

Because I am your mother
The one who bore you
Into this world

You told me, without
Me, you will not be
But I think the shoe is
On the other foot

Who would have thought
My dream would come true
It came true
With you.






Red (To my childhood)

Red the shoes
Red the bag
Red the lips
Red the cheeks
Red the hair
Red the flair

Come back I cry
For my sorrow
Is burning me
To nothingness

Let me go
I plead
I want nothing to do
With how I bleed

Let go
Memories
Pain
Futility
Frustration

I am not alone
But my brothers
My sisters
They are silent
Silenced by the
Weapons of terror
By the cold stare
And the cold heart


Red the sun
Red the moon
Red the stars
Red the scars
Too soon
You were gone.

Missing Mom

Goodbye, Grace

I felt nothing as I stared at the lifeless face beneath the piece of glass.

She was the woman I knew as my mother all my life. Her death was no surprise, she suffered from a lingering illness for the past three years and I was nothing if not prepared for this event.

They let me know while I was in the South wrapping up a lecture tour a week ago. This is the first and perhaps the last time I’ll be seeing her as she is, finally without the ability to hurt me and make my life miserable.

I said a short prayer for her soul as I passed the black painted metal box and let others view her emaciated corpse.

I went back to my apartment in a building an hour’s drive away from my childhood home. I did not have the volition to unpack but did it anyway because it was something to do. Afterwards I lay down in my bedroom, unable to acknowledge the relief and the joy her passing brought me. It was to be the end of a very sad chapter in my life; it was the closure of a painful and scarring episode that defined who I am today.

Her name was Grace, which I think is a very bad divine joke for she exhibited none of it all her life.

My earliest memory of her was when I was three or four and we lived in one of the rooms of her eldest sister’s cramped house in the poorer part of town. Her husband, who is not my father, came home drunk and vomited in the chamber pot at the foot of the bed we all shared with my brother, who was a year older than me.

She screamed at her husband and punched him in the stomach, mouthing epithets faster than you can say uncle.

I don’t know how that memory affected me but it set the tone for my life with her. You could not count the number of times she gave me a mind fuck with her actions.

But the biggest mind fuck of all came when I was five. It’s a memory that will not fade with time, an event that defined me for such a long time.

It was the summer after my first year in school and much as I enjoyed the experience I was glad for a break. I spent my mornings playing with the neighborhood kids and the afternoons napping and playing some more.

One Saturday she woke me up early, heated water in a kettle for my bath and carefully gave me one. Then she dried me with her own towel, dressed me in my best t-shirt and shorts, combed my long hair and braided it. She even tied the shoelaces of my sneakers.

I never felt so loved in my young life!

She was smiling as she did all this and then she said in a soft voice, “Baby, we’re going to your favorite amusement park today. We’ll ride all the rides you want and eat all the cotton candy you want. Just do as I say okay?”

Her words sent me to five year old heaven.

She hailed a cab, got in first then had me sit on her lap. But the taxi did not go in the direction of the amusement park; we went the opposite way where the big houses were.

The driver pulled over in front of green gates which hid a sprawling structure set in an even more sprawling lawn.

We were greeted by a man who looked as if he had been sitting on the lower floor verandah since last night. I did not like him at first sight. His grey hair was camouflaged by raven black dye and he had a couple of gold teeth that glinted sinisterly at me when he smiled. He smelled of sandalwood soap, but it did not sit well on him.

He grabbed my hand after handing Grace a thick wad of hundred peso notes and half dragged me into a bedroom in the second storey of the house. He was rough as he undressed me. He took off my panties last; he did not remove my pink sneakers.

He smelled my underwear before he undressed himself. I closed my eyes and I remember to this day the searing pain I felt between my legs a few minutes later. I did not open my eyes until I heard him go out and close the door a good twenty minutes after.

When I did, I saw blood trickling down my legs and soaking my yellow socks. There was also blood on the bed sheets. I shivered in the cold room; the air conditioner was turned on full blast. I curled up and fell half asleep.

I woke up to her scolding, she bitched about waiting and how I should have had the sense to get dressed and go downstairs. She raised her voice as she commanded me to put my clothes on and wipe the tears that I did not know were flowing from my eyes.

A white car that I imagined to be a funeral pyre took us home.

A week later I heard Grace complain to one of her officemates that she lost thirty thousand pesos at the horse races. Instinct told me it was the money I was bought with.

I changed after that day. I used to be an outgoing, precocious child. I became sulky and moody, always given to introspection and I will admit that majority of my thoughts were focused on trying to figure out what it was I did that got me in such big trouble. I still got good grades in school, I still enjoyed learning and the task of getting an education distracted me from the hell home had become.

But with Grace, it was as if nothing happened. There were no traces of guilt in her demeanor and she treated me like trash as usual. It wounded me to think as I looked back that I was nothing more than a piece of meat to her. And maybe because I was.

She proved this when I was nine and her husband got a job that required him to travel regularly to the provinces to oversee the company’s various factories.

On his first night away, Grace barged into my cramped bedroom and commanded me to go to theirs. She had only a towel wrapped around her naked body. Then she lay on the bed and spread her legs. She grabbed my hair and shoved my face in her crotch.

“Lick me and suck me and don’t stop until I scream,” she said hoarsely.

I was going to do no such thing. This was not going to be 1982 all over again. I kept myself from gagging at the stink of her genitalia. Instead of doing as I was told, I bit her hard there until I tasted the iron of her blood in my mouth.

She boxed the right side of my face and screamed “You worthless animal!” at me. I reeled and fell face first on the floor. My nose broke and the blood that spurted mixed with the blood in my mouth.

I failed my quiz the next day.

I could go on and on and I wish I could say she had no redeeming qualities and maybe there was one. She did not turn me out on the street when she could easily have done so as I learned after she was diagnosed with stomach cancer that she was not my real mother. That was all she told me, she did not go into details. She wouldn’t tell me who my mother was or how it was that I was given under her care.

That was when I finally decided to cut loose. I moved out of her house and finally took on the low paying, highly fulfilling job I always wanted. I stayed in public relations for Grace, because despite everything she did to me I felt what I now realize was an ill-placed sense of duty and gratitude towards her. Wanting to earn her approval was a bad habit I could not kick and when I look back I see it’s worse than being addicted to drugs. But she was the only mother I knew and I always had a strong sense of family.

I taught economics at the state university where I finished college and I could not remember feeling happy in a long time. It was liberating. The hours were not demanding. I had a teaching assistant who took care of most of the grade keeping. All I did was lecture and grade essay assignments, which I loved to give in lieu of quizzes.

I was gaining equilibrium when I was told of her death. The receptionist at the front desk of the hotel where I was staying handed me a note left by Grace’s son, whom I always thought was my brother.

I locked myself in my bathroom, waiting for the tears to come but none did. The note informed me of the date of the cremation, which was two weeks away. It was the soonest Grace’s daughter could come home. I decided to stick to my schedule and go back to Manila after I finished my lectures.

Her will stated that her ashes be left with me, her paltry fortune divided between her two offspring. I did not want to keep it. I was trying to decide what to do with the urn when my doorbell rang.

An elegant elderly woman was at my door. She wore a tailored long sleeved shirt and slim cut black slacks. It was Celine, Grace’s older sister. Seeing her gave me a shock, it was like seeing myself twenty years into the future. I’ve never seen her in person but we wrote occasional letters and I sent her birthday and Christmas cards when I remembered. Grace also let me speak to her on the rare times she called on the phone. She also sends pictures of herself and her family, which is based in England, but I was not prepared for this meeting.

“I have a lot of explaining to do and I don’t know where to begin,” was how she started the conversation.

Celine was married at the time she had me, but not to the man who is my father. I was born in secret in remote Birmingham. She asked Grace, who was starting her own family, to come and smuggle me into the Philippines and have me registered as her own child.

The agreement was Grace would keep me until Celine could get a divorce and marry my father and we would all move to the United States.

“But she kept you so she could blackmail your father and me for money,” Celine expanded.

The money stopped coming when I was five, which was why I was sold, she further explained. They refused to give in to her demands and threatened to sue for breach of contract.

“I didn’t want you to hate me for making such a choice. I regretted it the moment my sister left the hospital with you,” Celine sobbed.

She explained she stayed away because Grace threatened to turn me against her if she stepped foot in the country—it was her revenge for leaving her to care for me and spend for my upbringing. My education was an investment because Grace saw I was no halfwit and had the potential to earn a good living so I can support her in her twilight years.

Tears were trickling down my cheeks as I took it all in. I got the explanation I have been praying for for so long. I tried to hate Celine for the things she did and did not do but I couldn’t. I have known her all my life but it felt like we’ve just met. I sat on my part of the couch silent, watching Celine watch me.
“Please say something, anything. Blame me, I know I could never make up for giving you up, for being such a coward,” she pleaded.

I wiped my tears and gave a half laugh, hoping Celine could see the joy in my eyes.

I held out my hand and said “Hi Mom, it’s great to finally meet you. Do you have any suggestions on what to do with an urn of ashes?”

Her frown lifted and she laughed. She shook my hand. “I’m glad too. How far is the sea from your place?” she asked.

I hugged her and picked up the keys to my 1969 Volkswagen Beetle from the mantel. We drove to the beach three hours from where I lived.

A tale tall

Red

The red parasol set off her creamy skin and grey eyes. And walking under the summer sky, she looked pretty as a picture. Tonight she would make her debut in upper class society, she was turning eighteen and the thought of the party terrified her.

She was walking across the Saturday market with her nanny, who had been with the family since her oldest sister was born twenty five summers ago. They were looking for silken sashes that the seamstress forgot to buy for her dress. She was sent to run the errand because they knew she was always particular about her clothes and they didn’t want to buy the wrong color.

She folded her parasol and went inside the canopied nursery that housed plants of varied origins; some came from the Deep South, others from the farthest corners of the East.

She was looking at purple and yellow and spotted orchids when she came face to face with him. He was a merchant; he made wines and cheeses in his farm and vineyards north of the town.

His heart skipped a beat, he never imagined in his thirty six years he would get this close to the female he has admired since he first saw her walking home in short skirts from school. She was just fourteen then, and he knew he would never be given the opportunity to court her and make her his wife. She belonged to the ruling class and he was a lowly trader, a working class man who had no material comforts to promise his future wife.

He found her enchanting; she had a grace that not even the nun-run school she attended could teach. It was intuitive as a panther is born with its slinky demeanor. She did not walk, she floated on the ground. She had the habit of running her hands through her hair and it did things to him he never imagined possible in this lifetime.

She came away from the nursery with a pot of tea roses, borne by her nanny in her sturdy arms.

She smelled of rosewater and he wondered if the plant would be used to make the water which perfumed her person.

He followed her, not on his own volition, it seemed. She skipped to the dry section of market, where trinkets from four corners of the world were sold. Silver mirrors, gold jewelry, copper kettles, all manner of bags and textiles and figurines and brushes and ribbons made a menagerie of merchandise in this part of the market.

He wanted to buy everything she touched. He wanted to feel how her finger tips feel if only through the things she came in contact with.

Her name was Lianna, that much he knew and she bore the surname of the family that ruled this small island principality tucked in the latitudes where the East met the West. She is a bright student. He knows because one night he bribed a gang of hooligans to break into her school and steal her test papers and notebooks. She got good marks and was a diligent and well read pupil. You could tell by the breadth of words she used to answer the questions on her exams.

She loves strawberries, for when they are in season, he would watch her come to the market with her posse of servants purchasing kilos and kilos of the fruit that she sometimes ate right there without washing them. He has paid a small fortune to servants in her household to give him information, anything and everything, about the object of his affections.

She likes to bathe at night in a hickory tub filled with aromatics and warm water. Her long hair is always carefully groomed and is never allowed to sway loose whenever she is out. But in the bedroom, as he saw with his binoculars through her window, she does not plait it for sleep. It hangs loose up to the small of her back like a copper curtain. It stirred his loins in a manner he knew was improper, especially since she seemed so distant.

He is invited to her coming out party, for even though he belonged to the merchant class, his family has warranted enough respectability in society to earn them the right to consort with the nobility of the island. He sent his RSVP the day after the invitations were sent out and chose his party ensemble soon after. To say that he was excited would be an understatement.

Carriages lined the generous driveway of the palatial mansion Lianna lived in on the night of her debut. The ballroom sparkled with lights, which were reflected on the flatware, stemware and cutlery. An sixty piece orchestra, that came from across the ocean played music that mimicked the sea’s movements. Everybody wore finery, borrowed or otherwise, as if parties like hers happened everyday.

He would be introduced to her later on, along with the multitude of single men and women who will be presented to her as potential friends, playmates, and lifelong mates. Of course, he knew, he could never belong to the latter category. The most he could hope for is to be allowed in her orbit for her amusement.

After a procession of three hundred forty two males, his turn came to face her and to have her say his name, Auguste, to his face thrilled him. But as he was to step forward and take her hand in his to kiss, a shot from a revolver rang out. The bullet pierced her heart and his blood ran cold, as if he was the one who was shot.

He saw her collapse on the floor and he saw the crimson blood flow from the wound that left a hole in her heart.

He thought, this can’t be. We’re not even friends yet. I have so much to show you! You can’t die. Don’t die, my darling angel, don’t die!

The guards caught the miscreant who harmed her, but they all knew taking his life would not bring back her own.

Emboldened by the crisis, Auguste came forward to Lianna, and kissed her mouth, willing his breath to jumpstart the air in her lungs. He prayed as he kissed her, bring her back, bring her back. She is so young, it wouldn’t be fair. Please if You’re listening, don’t break my heart. I haven’t even gotten to know her yet.

Everyone gasped, as the blood that issued from Lianna’s wound flowed back into her body and the bullet in her heart was expelled and pierced her attacker’s heart. Her wound closed and he knew she was alright, finally when he felt the warmth of her breath on his nose.

He was to let her go, but she held him fast in her arms, tangling her fingers in his hair. They kissed for a few minutes, to catcalls and cheers from those who witnessed it.

She was out of breath then, and her eyes were alight with mirth when she let him go. He stood up and helped her get up. Her dress was unstained. She did not let go of his hand the entire evening. She danced with him, taught him how to, for he never bothered to learn.

Before the party ended, she asked him to meet her in the courtyard by the fountain.

“Wait for me, I just have to ask someone something,” she instructed him.

Her eyes were shining when she met him, with what he hoped was love.

She told him, you have my father’s permission to pay me court.

It was more than he hoped for. He jumped up and down with joy.

“But if you ask me, I’d rather elope,” she said with a wink. “I know you, you know. Nana knows you’ve been sniffing around me for the longest time. She set my father’s spies on you to make sure you won’t harm me. It was her idea to invite you to my debut.”

He was speechless. The tables, for once, were turned on him and he never felt so good.

“I don’t just love that you love me. I know all about you, how you work hard, how you love your family. I know everything!” she was as giddy as the schoolgirl she no longer was.

He finally found his voice. “Okay then. I’ll give you one night to really think about this. If you really see me as a potential husband, send me your red parasol tomorrow. Then, I will come to your father to ask for your hand in marriage.”

It was the first thing she did the following morning; send him her red parasol at daybreak.

Can't live for tomorrow...

Today

Today is going to be the greatest day ever.

I remember telling myself that when I was in school and the day turning out to be a dud. In various times and places in my life, today didn’t turn out the way I thought or hoped it would.

These were the times when I should have stopped believing in the God of my childhood, took a U-turn and attacked life from another perspective. But I never learn.

I never learned when I was playing Chinese garter and my playmate tripped the elastic so I fell head first into the concrete flooring of the schoolyard. I wouldn’t stop bleeding for hours.

I never learned when the bullies dunked me head first into the toilet in the faculty CR (the water is colder there because of the air conditioning). I was dunked a total of 3,456 times during my entire stay in that school.

I never learned when a sorority novice took all my books in college and made a bonfire of them over which we roasted marshmallows and made smores. My participation was vital in the public humiliation ritual. Strangely, it felt like I was the one being humiliated.

I never learned when they attached an empty can to my dress during college graduation and everybody cheered when I went up to the stage, dragging the tin behind me to the heckling of my batch mates.

I never learn.

So when I started my first job as a receptionist in this really great building in the central business district, I brought with me all the optimistic hopes and good intentions I have been carrying as my baggage since I was little.

See, I am a self taught optimist. My home life was crap. I lived with a mom who liked to gamble everything in sight and was biologically predisposed to bet on everything (“Bet you this roach will die as soon as I cut its head off”—it didn’t). I suspect that if I fetched a price she’d bet me in the casinos.

Dad is a drunk. I will not elaborate, except say that he is not the kind of drunk that can really hold alcohol well. He pukes every three beers.

Mom and Dad can’t have any children so they took care of other people’s children. There were eight of us kids in their households, some the children of neighbors who had to work abroad for a living, others are the product of a marriage that husband and wife got tired of. In this menagerie I didn’t know where I belonged. Nobody knew who my parents were or how I came to be here. There was a theory going round when I was in third grade that I was the product of the earth and rain’s copulation. I sprang from a geyser, my sisters and brothers would tease.

So how would such a dysfunctional household produce a stubborn optimist like me?

I like to read, and starting from when I was little, I was attracted to stories that had themes of good winning over evil and the knight in shining armor winning the day.

I liked the story about the Archangel Michael driving Satan away from Paradise after a fight.

I like the retelling of the Cinderella story in the movie Ever After starring Drew Barrymore where the wicked stepmother and stepsister were given their just desserts.

I like to read my Bible, especially the part where Jesus resurrects from the dead and ascends to heaven.

I like happy endings.

So now, as I start with my first job here in this towering glass building, I bring with me the optimism of my childhood and my faith in God and all that is good in the human race.

I smile as I hand out guest IDs and ask visitors to register in the guestbook. I assist those who are confused by the information they need to fill out. I nod and acknowledge those who have permanent building passes who go through the metal detector. Until he came along.

His ID says Phillip Anthony Norman and it indicates that he is the Chairman of the company housed in the building across the street.

I detain him and ask him to get a guest pass and register. He smirks and says, “I own the building across the street. What do I need to register for? I always get past security without having to be checked. Are you new here? You smell new.”

“Sorry sir, but rules are rules. Maybe you can ask your Club to issue a permanent pass so you won’t have to register every time,” I replied, smiling still but wishing I could kick his seventy year old butt.

“Oh alright, but let it be known that I am only doing this because you are not worthy of being in an argument with,” he conceded.

He came to the building every day, but he still did not ask for the guest pass from the establishment he visited there. I would have acquiesced at some point that he need not register anymore because he did have face value in the building. Everybody knew him and they did give him special treatment.

I would have acquiesced had he been not determined to make my life hell. Sometimes he’d steal my pens just to make my life difficult. Once I made the mistake of lending him my vintage Waterman ballpoint and the sneak did not return it. When I asked for it back, he was all nonchalance and pretended he did not hear.

Another time, he brought a hundred employees with him and made them register just for the heck of it. It took me two hours to get them all through.

There was also a time when he spilled chili and lemonade on my guestbook. Deliberately, you could tell. I wanted to cry then but I wasn’t going to let him get my goat.

Because I was the way I was, his antics did not annoy me or instigate wrath and vengeance in my heart. I felt…compassion for the poor old fart who would stoop so low as to play mind games with a receptionist. I mean, come on, what kind of Chairman thinks up new ways of making a lowly receptionist miserable every day? I thought, he must be really screwed up.

Today would be the greatest day ever, I said to myself to celebrate my first year at work. I survived a year of hell in the hands of an evil geriatric and I was dang proud of myself.

I waited for Mr. Norman that day, but he did not show up. I waited for him the next and the next and the next but still no Mr. Norman. I got curious. Did he finally kick the bucket?

I thought of him in a sickbed, but the image didn’t fit. I thought he seemed so indomitable he’d scare away disease.

I gave in to my curiosity and dialed the number on his guestbook registration. A cultured voice greeted me with his company name and her name.

“Hello,” I said. “This is Elizabeth Jones. I am the receptionist in the building across yours and I know Mr. Norman. I am just worried about him. We haven’t seen him in a while. Do you have news?”

“Oh. So that’s your name,” the voice on the other end answered. “Mr. Norman took time off indefinitely; his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. He’s taking care of her.”

“I see. Well, is there any way I can visit? Can I get his home address?”

“I’ll ask him first. Call me same time tomorrow,” I was told.

I got his home address the next day and the hospital where his daughter was confined. I made sure the daughter was still in the hospital before I went over the weekend.

“You! I thought I saw the last of you. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I missed your antics,” I said tartly. “I wanted to know what you were up to.”

Then, “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

He did something I did not expect him to do. He gathered me in his arms in a hug and cried silently on my shoulder. It must have been uncomfortable because he was taller than me by at least ten inches.

“Whoa!” I said, rubbing his slim back.

“Elizabeth, I can call you that can I? My daughter and I were estranged before she fell ill. Now I am praying that she live a little longer so I can spend some time with her,” he said, tears still streaming down his face.

“I got a call from the States last week, telling me that my daughter had ovarian cancer. They said she put me down as next of kin in her papers. That’s when it hit me, she could change jobs, change boyfriends or girlfriends, change her name, but even through those changes she cannot change the fact that I am her father.”

That’s how it started he said, their estrangement. His daughter started dating women and eventually told him she was lesbian. He couldn’t accept it and he banished her. He said if she did not leave the country, he would. So she left.

I wish I could tell you Mr. Norman got his wish, but it was too late for him. His daughter died that same year. He stopped coming to our building. Actually, he retired from work and refused to visit the Club in our building, saying it was to snooty for his tastes anyway. That if he didn’t have to take out his clients there, he wouldn’t go there.

There’s a McDonald’s behind our building. I take my lunch there whenever my foster sister forgets to prepare me something for the day. He treats me to a Big Mac too, there, once a week. But there are nice restaurants about and we eat in at least four every weekend.

I can tell he is trying to make up for the time he lost with his daughter by spending time with me. I don’t mind being a proxy. I am just glad I did not write him off as a crazy old coot. Which he is, it’s just apart from that, if you get to know him, he’s a really great guy.

Almost

Sometimes

Sometimes
I think of you
All the time
And I am reminded
That joy is within
Reach

It helps that
A million miles separate
Us
And that I cannot touch
You
To do that I must
Fly
And that I cannot see you
Except through pictures
You send
I talk to you on the phone
And think of the time
When you will be
Mine

I think of you
Sometimes
And I treasure
The distance
I measure the time
And longing is a stranger

Sometimes I think of
You
All the time
And I love the memory
That you are funny
A little cruel
A little stingy
Unkind
And would never mind
What the next chap
Thought of you

I think of you
All the time
You do not belong to me
But the world is mine
Sometimes.





Come

When the lights go
Down
You steal into my
Kingdom
Here where no one matters
But the other

When you make me
Come
To you
I like to open my eyes
I like to hold your hand
I like to keep you close
Listen to your cries

Because you cannot
Borrow my heart
I do this to make you see
What eloquence
Verbs, nouns and sentences
Cannot tell you

Because you cannot
Read my mind
It is my dearest hope
That you see my soul
Through my eyes

The soul that came alive
Where torture no longer
Rules
Whose demons are
Vanquished one by one
By one by one by one
Until the multitude of them
Are gone
Where courage planted a seed
Where the anesthesia has faded
Because you came
Along.

Monday Verses

Brevity

As I look back
On this short life
A witness to
Thirty two summers
Countless monsoons
Criminal typhoons
I look back with regret

I regret that I lived
For a future
With a God I cannot see
But who feeds me
And fuels my desire
To be noble

I regret that I feel
My God
As I feel the breeze
In my hair
As I feel the love
Sent from overseas
As I sense the end of hunger
With each mouthful
As my thirst is quenched
By sweet water

I regret that I felt
Divine benevolence
With the passing of the tide
When the sun rose
To give life to those
It touches
When the rains poured
To nourish a thirsty
Earth

In this short life
I regret that I do not
Look back
As often as I should
To count the blessings
Of friendship
Of love
Of faith
Of grace
Bestowed upon me
Despite life’s difficulty

As I look back
I look back with regret
And I do not regret
That regret
Only makes me
Want to make the next day
A better day.





Lie still

A lie for a lie
Is not the same as
An eye for an eye

You lie so comfortably
It is like second skin
Like the air you breathe
Your kith and kin

You destroy the truth
With ignoble intentions
Made manifest
In your inventions

You lie, regardless
Of whom you hurt
Of the homes you destroy
Of the love that dies
At its birth

You twist reality
To suit your morbid tastes
So instead of a diamond
You’re nothing but paste

Each lie is a hole
In the ship God built
To take your soul
To the Heavens that is home

So at the end of it all
When all has been said
Prepare to meet the undertaker
Of wayward souls

Because I pray
That with each lie you told me
You earned a ticket
To burn where you belong
In the fires of Hell.

Forgive

You have forgotten
Half the promises
I have broken

You who remembers
Every little thing
Who keeps each memory
As a miser
Hoards his treasure

You love me you say
And forgetting is part
Of forgiveness
You would rather
Remember
Promises kept
Than promises broken

Believe me when I say
I love you
For forgetting
For remembering
For knowing when to
Do one and the other

Take heart in this promise
One day I’ll show up
At your doorstep
Finally, to claim your heart
As your beloved
As the one you waited for

Believe me when I say
I love you
Believe as much as I believe
You love me
And every time you forget
You forgive.

Trap

I told you, you shouldn’t work so much.

But you didn’t listen so now I am looking at you with a pane of glass between us. You lie there so still, with the stitches on your forehead still. You are in a white painted metal box, and I stand here on the other side willing you to get up and cheat the Grim Reaper.

You don’t know how much I long for you to be alive again, if only because I am pregnant and I have never felt more alone in my entire life. It doesn’t matter about the money. I can always work to make a living for myself. But you, losing you—just the thought of it is enough to make me want to go mad.

I am due to give birth in two months. The sonogram said it will be a boy. I want to call him Edward, after my great uncle. You didn’t get the chance to see it, the sonogram, and didn’t get to see my shortlist of names for the baby.

There were a lot of things I didn’t get to share with you. I cry when I think about how I should have insisted, demanded that you spend more time with me. But it’s been so hard to reach you as you buried yourself more and more in your work.

I wondered. Did you know about my affair with your boss? Did you know that the baby in my womb is not yours? That I contrived to sleep with you that one last time so that you would not suspect anything?

I wonder. Were the assignments that kept piling up in your desk part of a ploy to keep me from you? Did my lover want us to separate and get an annulment so he can have me to himself?

I have no answers and as I look back on our life together this last year, I am only riddled with more questions.

You did not sleep the night before you drove to your death. You were working late, as usual and you were on your way to a provincial assignment when you fell asleep at the wheel and drove straight into a ravine.

I wonder. Were you working yourself to death? Did you do it deliberately, not sleep knowing you were driving a long distance the following day?

My lover called yesterday to call the whole thing off between us. I wonder. Did he get what he wanted finally? To trespass on your property (me) and destroy you utterly? Was I a part of a plot against you? What was it that you did that would be so horrible it would merit carefully planned vengeance?

I was looking through your things the other day and I saw pictures of your boss and you at the beach, in different restaurants and cultural places looking like you are having the times of your lives. I wonder, is he the ex you only talked about in vague terms?

Sleep

I was fixing my hair and putting on my make up when I noticed the dark circles under my eyes. It was ironic that I’d have eye bags the size of a Louis Vuitton trunk when I have been doing nothing but sleep of late.

I sleep like a cat, for three hours after a late breakfast and another four after lunch. And at night up to fourteen hours. That’s why I rarely go out nowadays. My answering machine and cell phone voice mail are full of queries about my whereabouts from well meaning bosom friends. I never answer them. I just want to sleep.

I ought to be gaining weight, what with my uber sedentary lifestyle, but I hardly eat anything now. So I am breaking even, I sleep a lot, eat a little and tip the scales at 120 lbs.

I did not mention that I am scared. My psychiatrist thinks I am sleeping my hurt away. Maybe I am, but I am more scared than hurt.

Last month, I broke up with my boyfriend of two years. I broke up with him because he brought up the possibility of marriage and it was something I felt I wasn’t prepared for. He first asked me what my thoughts were on taking our commitment a step further six months ago and I freaked. I started an argument; an irrational outburst that I hoped would drive him away.

It didn’t, he stayed. And his decision to stick with me freaked me out even more. Because it meant he wants to be with me for the long haul and I was afraid if I let him stay, he would find out there wasn’t much to love about me, and leave. To me that would hurt more—to let him in and find he didn’t love me enough to stay than to nip what we have in the bud, while we’re still not too attached to each other.

It would have been great if he broke up with me as I broke up with him. But he didn’t. He insisted he’d give me time off, but we’d still be status quo, still boyfriend and girlfriend and potential betrotheds.

He didn’t give me a deadline, he just said he’ll wait for as long as he could and if he feels that the waiting is taking too long, he’ll tell me so and move on. It’s a phone call, or conversation I’ve been waiting for for a month now. It hasn’t come.

If I were someone else, my situation would be easy. My boyfriend is someone you would consider a catch. He’s old enough to be mature and able to support me and a future family financially. He’s not conventionally handsome, but I find him attractive enough to make me want to take my clothes off and jump his bones when he’s around. Which I haven’t done. He’s the right amount of jealous to make me feel wanted and special. We finish each other’s sentences. He knows how much I love flowers, pets and children and always gives me the opportunity to indulge these interests.

We’re perfect for each other, his friends say.

I make him laugh. I turned him to home cooking and amateur chef’s nights in hole in the wall restaurants. I convinced him to love nature; our favorite activity now is trekking along mountain paths in the countryside on weekends.

That scares me even more. I’d have been able to accept it if he was the type to beat up girls or cheat on his taxes or lie to his mother or make me cry.

But he doesn’t and the thought that I would be the keeper of a heart so noble and pure scares me. What if I break it? What if somewhere along the way, twenty years into our marriage he realizes I am lacking and he wants to leave me? I know I wouldn’t be able to take it.

Part of me says that my fears are irrational, but my experience as an abused child tells me otherwise.

Friends have left me, just when I was beginning to love them and discover I want to be with them for good. Nannies have been sent away when we were starting to bond because my mother couldn’t stand to see me happy. My father was good at making promises but not keeping them.

And I was the sexual slave of at least five male relatives. I was molested so many times when I was a kid I couldn’t remember anymore who did what to me.

The experience left me with the belief of myself that I am not good for anything other than being the plaything of men and the punching bag of women who want to feel better about themselves.

My childhood scarred me so much, I isolated myself from people. I never let anyone get too close, except for a few female buddies who made me feel good about myself and feel accepted.

Then he came along. I was at a bookstore, browsing through the coffee table books in the art section. He made like he wanted to start a conversation, but my eyes widened with panic I had to turn away.

He was patient. He went to the bookstore every weekend I was there and would just smile and wave at me. One Saturday, after four months of the routine, he bought the book I’ve been looking at but never could bring myself to buy. He gave it to me with a note stuck to the paper bag: Care for lunch? It had with it a smiley face. I had to say yes.

Things were good when I was with him. He opened my world to people, to new places, to different experiences. It was like I was just starting to live. And I couldn’t remember what life was like before he came along anymore. I do not exaggerate when I say that just by choosing to be with me, he changed my life. And he scared me, more than all the monsters of the past, he scared me. Because with him I realized I could be happy and that he had so much control over that happiness.

I could not bring myself to talk about these fears with anyone. Not my therapist, not with him. Because I felt talking about my fears made me inadequate, that I could not be anything less than the strength I projected to people. It was a lot of bull I knew but my fears held me hostage.

Until my favorite uncle died. He was survived by his wife of 40 years and three children and five grandchildren. I have always been close to my uncle, he helped me through the rough patches of my life and whatever people said of him, I always believed he was a good man. If only because he saw me through tough times and kept me believing enough in myself to reach out to life when I wanted to give up.

It was all so sudden, my aunt, his wife said. We had such a good thing going, he was always caring to me and the children, and she sobbed. Now he’s gone, but I don’t regret anything. I’m glad I took a chance with him.

I asked, took a chance?

My parents didn’t like him; they thought he wasn’t good enough for me. But I loved him, and I knew I loved him enough to want to face the uncertainty of a financially insecure future with him, she replied.

It was like a bulb lit up in my brain. The answers were so easy; maybe I was just looking too hard for them.

I slept for 24 hours straight after the funeral. After that, I went to see my therapist and poured my heart out to her. I told her, I don’t want to sleep the hurt away anymore. And maybe she’s right; I am more hurt than scared.

I went back to work and started seeing my friends again. But somehow I could not bring myself to call him. Because I felt I made such a fool of myself by blowing his proposal all out of proportion.

One Wednesday, I came upon him waiting for me at the front gate of the house. Dread crept upon my heart like a cold hand. I made him wait too long, I thought.

“I’ve been thinking…” he started.

“You scare me,” I whispered at the same time.

There were tears in his eyes. “I realize that. But I hope you see I won’t do anything to hurt you, not if I can help it.”

I smiled a thin, pained smile. “I know about that. But there’s a lot I haven’t told you. Come in, please.”

I told him everything, without missing a single sordid detail. Explained why I’ve been behaving the way I have, because of the fears being with him rouses in me.

He cried in some parts, laughed at the others, but on the whole looked relieved.

“I thought you were in love with someone else. Couldn’t figure out if it was a boy or a girl, because you shut me out whenever I try to get intimate with you. I’m glad it’s because you’re scared because at least, it means I can move you enough to feel something for me,” he was smiling now.

“I know it’s not easy, and I can’t give you guarantees. But I hope you love me enough to take that chance with me. To let what you feel for me be stronger than your fears. The only guarantee I can give is that I will love you today, as much as I can and hope that the love will be greater with each passing day,” he said.

I nodded silently.

“So, I am going to ask you again, will you, my love, marry me and spend the rest of your days with me, for as long as you live?”

“Yes, I will,” I replied.

But I had a question. “Does this mean though, we can finally get cats?”

Henry

He had the appeal of an un-flushed toilet; there lay his appeal for her. He stank, by choice if you want to know and he let himself go after he came home from the war. Without the structure of the military, he became unkempt and he looked like he hasn’t bathed since the nineteen nineties.

She first saw him outside the expensive bookstore housed in a five star hotel chain far from her side of town. She was with a friend who came to see her cousin play the piano for the guests at the hotel bar.

He wore his military issue boots, faded khakis and a white shirt punctuated with ketchup stains. He was smoking a cigarette like it was going out of fashion and fast. Despite his unkempt appearance, you could tell he had money; at least he had family who had money. His clothes were branded and the rucksack on his shoulder bore the name of an expensive luggage company.

But it wasn’t his disguised wealth that excited her. She was attracted to him in the same way she was drawn to stray cats and hobos. She had this visceral urge to tame them, make them heel, and have them under her command.

She came back to that hotel where she saw him first a week after and found him nursing a cup of espresso at the cheap café across the street. She thought of the million ways she could contrive to meet him: ask for a light perhaps. Or offer to buy him coffee. Maybe give him a lift home. The possibilities were endless, but they all seemed too impossible.

“Nice shoes,” he smiled at her.

This was her chance. She hoped she wouldn’t blow it.

“Thanks. Yours aren’t so bad either,” her smile was wide and inviting.

He laughed at her obvious lie. “Where’d you get them?” She was genuinely curious.

“I was with the army for a while, during the war. Glad that’s over.” His lopsided smile was doing strange things to her heart.

“Can I join you, if you aren’t expecting anyone?” Her boldness surprised even her.

“Sure thing, but bear with me. I haven’t spoken to anyone in a long time.”

He may not have kept anyone company for a long time but you couldn’t tell that he was out of practice. He was a regular raconteur and he kept her entertained with his stories of life in the military both funny and sad. He spoke of his beliefs about God and the human race (is man good or evil?), and his philosophies about war (he was against it). He asked her a lot of questions about herself, but he talked little of his life before the army.
She enjoyed herself thoroughly and before she knew it she was making arrangements to meet him, same time, same place next Saturday. It would be her treat, she said. Let’s go Dutch, he insisted, saying he wants to see where the thing goes before anyone gets obligated to someone. It excited her.

Next Saturday, she dressed casually, careful to fit in with him. He bathed and shaved and had on a clean shirt. But he still wore his military boots.

“Hi! Thanks for showing up,” she greeted him.

“What? Do I seem the type who stands up his dates?” He laughed heartily.

Date. This is a date to him. She didn’t know what to think. Things were proceeding at a pace faster than she thought they would. It scared her.

“Of course not, but with men you never know,” she laughed despite herself.

She told him about her dream from the night before. She was in a corridor filled with blue container drums of all sizes and it felt like she was being pushed through it. Then she reached a brown door and behind it were two men whose faces were unfamiliar to her. The dream was strange she said, because she never had such a dream before.

“Maybe the blue drums represent the empty spaces in your life. And the long corridor filled with them says you perceive you need to fill a lot of spaces, the strangers may be the new things you try to fill your life with,” he analyzed for her. Then he broke into a laugh. “I don’t really interpret dreams. I was pulling your leg!”

She laughed with him and she invited him to join her at a nearby Thai restaurant for dinner. They had pomelo and shrimp salad and tom yum with noodles. They washed the whole thing down with milk tea. They split the bill and made a date to watch a new release at the movie house the following week. He is paying.

After five more dates, he brought up the possibility of being exclusive dating partners. She agreed. After six months of exclusive dating, she moved in with him.

On the month before was to live with him, he introduced her to his uncle, his only surviving family on his mother’s side. He is his mother’s younger brother and is a very wealthy writer. He wrote pulp romances that sold really well among the female market worldwide, but was panned by critics left and right. He felt no acrimony. He said his main goal is to entertain and if his style was revolting to the literary hoi polloi, he couldn’t care less.

He received her with as much affection as one receives a frisky pony, with a lot of curiosity as well as caution. Uncle Raitt quizzed her about her own means of making a living and was pleasantly surprised she had poetic persuasions. But her bread and butter is entertainment journalism, although she would love to be an author who writes at her leisure one day, she told him.

He gave them his blessing and promised to increase his nephew’s allowance to accommodate the change in his status.

She brought very little when she moved in with him: just clothes and books, her desktop and laptop computers, music compact discs and a selection of DVDs. Her single bed was put in the empty guest bedroom, which he had decorated so her friends can stay over if they decide to drink after dinner.

His suburban hideout was spacious for one, but adequate for two people. His home belied his scruffy appearance. It was neat and well kept. It sat in a new development outside the metropolis, in a province that is not quite rural, not quite urban. The community shone with the intelligent planning of the developers, it kept its old incarnation as a forested patch of land as much as it could. The buildings were integrated with the flora and fauna in the area. In the mornings she could hear the birds sing in the centenarian trees while she has her coffee in the clubhouse.

She did not mean to, but she made him over. Seeing her busy, well groomed and occupied with various artistic pursuits got him off his bum and had him resume his old occupation as a civil engineer. He applied for jobs with two boutique development firms and got accepted by the one with offices in the city. He had his unkempt hair shorn for a neater haircut. He shaved in the morning, but left his five o clock shadow in the afternoon. She loved rubbing against it.

He bought a minivan and proposed they get a pet. She did not wish for it, but she was pleasantly surprised. She will choose, he will name the pet. She chose a Maine Coon cat and he christened him Henry.

Life fell into an even rhythm. They argued over little things: wet towels on the bathroom floor, uncapped toothpaste tubes, kitty litter that needed to be taken out. They made up, more than made up for the arguments with long, loving letters and walks in the park, dinners at hole in the wall restaurants and Michelin star hotels.

Yet it felt like their connection did not go deeper than the amicable, sexually charged friendship they started with. Neither was inclined towards marriage. Neither cheated, but the commitment they shared was not one borne of a passion towards the other. Fidelity was part of each one’s values system; it was something they would have granted to whoever their partner was.

It hit him one day.

That he loved her because she was more friend than lover. It made him sad. Sad that he changed into something he loathed and that he spent years trying to fit into her world. He didn’t want to, but he did. He was going someplace he didn’t want to be with a person he wasn’t sure he should be with. He made a run for it.

He left her a letter and didn’t ask her to leave their home. He bought a one way ticket to England, where he hoped the cold will cure him of his addiction to domestication.

She found the letter the day after he left. She read it dry-eyed, after feeding Henry.

It read:

“Dearest Sarah,

I was never meant to be in the place you brought me, yet after years of being with you I found myself there, as another middle class statistic earning a keep in an office job. I joined the army because I didn’t want identical days; I wanted each to be different from the other. Routine suffocates me. But I found myself yearning for it because you were around.

I do not blame you. You are who you are and you did not ask this of me. I blame no one. I know things just happened, we took the next step and the next and the next without asking if it was what we wanted. At least that’s how I see it.

You tamed me, without meaning to. But that doesn’t mean I should belong to you.

I will always be grateful for what you did to me, get me back into the land of the living once again. But you are more a friend than a lover and I hope you understand that we both deserve more than what we have right now. Let’s not settle for anything less than love.

Yours always,
John”

She tore the letter to pieces and wrote a reply, sent to him through his uncle:

“John,

I hope you rot in hell.

Sarah.”