the tiny trinkets hanging on your door, screaming for your attention will always be left unnoticed. you always leave as suddenly as you come.

fingers dirtied by charcoal, a maddening version of reality from its tips; you are the Dark Horse rampaging the undulating terrain of my mind. you draw the most intricate faces with the most intricately soulful eyes, pulling out strings of unknown emotions from your own forgotten past. but that was how you did your drawings, and it was always a wonder why, while trapped in your own little world in simple sneakers, dirty shirt and tattered denims, you always drew with a smile.

did you know that i tore my pants that night when we climbed over your fence and into your mom's bougainvillea, semi-chased by your ugly dog who did not liked the idea of being stepped on while he was sleeping at 3 in the morning? i never told you, but one spike got naughty and snagged my pants. those were my favorite pair. but the heck, your dog can eat it, even my sneakers, anytime.

and speaking of your dog, remember the time when you turned white because your dog just buried its nasty fangs on my leg? my now 25-centavo-sized scar is still as clear as the memory of your face when you saw my leg bleeding. you were mumbling about hospitals and rabies while i was just sitting there, smarting with pain.

and blurred pain was all i can remember of those days tagged under 'uncertainty' when we used to greet each other good mornings every single day. i did not know what it was for, or why we were doing it, or even what it meant. i had a few thoughts i kept to myself, but keeping them to myself did not allow them some space to roam so they just stayed there, round and round in my head.

because it's quite strange how in different points in time you can have so many faces, so many names.

rain has this tendency of shepherding people who wander into sreetside awnings, or teasing them inside the relative safety of their homes. it frustrates cityscape stories, prevents the capture of streetside words, cancels the nightly communion with urban spirits that haunt certain corners of this city...

to some, rain washes away the dirt, grime, and memory accumuated during the day revealing a clean surface ready for yet another round of abuse. it's all this city ever does best. no one sees what happens after all the washing and wearing. nobody talks about where everything goes. no one knows and no one wants to find out.

in other parts, rain brings terror to the hears of many. those who have seeen its fury fears what its unrelenting torrents will take next. whose dreams will be washed away by the watery rampage? whose memories will be buried in muddy graves?

wreaths of grieving flowers floating on a brown sea. makeshift crosses and stone markers stand on the bottom of collapsed hillsides. collective loss is remembered, lifestories are retold.

heavy rain is pounding on my windows. i'm going outside to catch myself some words.

one night, a creature of contradiction buried its fangs into my chest, making my heart skip not a few beats, leaving behind tell-tale marks that asked not a few questions about the nature of order and chaos.

in some dark alley, a harbinger of chaos strayed me into a labyrinth of streets in that unexplored city full of throbbing memories. it whispered some strange stories: spies being sent out to see the comings and goings at someone's door, secret departures and undeclared battles, and surreal abandonment in the name of one single precious moment.

it made me wonder if chaos was our answer to the tedious futility of order, if chaos was meant to unravel things so that we can use the pieces to create something new...

once, an impossible monster made me think of possibilities just waiting at the tips of my finger, of the necessities of wandering to know where we belong, of leaving so that we can have a reason to stay.

but i too am a creature of contradiction. and since my reality is expressed in a complicated theory of too many knotted strings, i use my tongue to write the wrong words in my palate. i use my fingers to send out signals i do not mean.

"what remains unspoken breeds demons." - Dean Francis Alfar

he knew there was something different the very first day he noticed it.

it started when he saw his just-departed mother roaming around the house, occasionally giving him a glance and gliding away. but he thought that it was by the grace of Allah, an answer to his prayers that he could see his mother even for just one more time. but this time his heart skipped beats every time he saw her like that, with equal parts of fear and yearning.

"you have a wing, but the other pair is missing," the tambalan told him in front of his father and his sister, as the old toothless husk-of-a-man pressed his palm on the boy's forehead. he motioned close to his ear and whispered, "but you will get it when your father passes away".

that day was the last that he saw of his mother, and in one of her glances he saw her smile at him.

what happened after was equal parts of horror and good luck. he dreams of death, and as his warning always go unheeded, death visits people close to him precisely as he dreamt it. aware but helpless, he would sometimes stay quiet in his waking hours, pretending not to know that those are going to be an aunt's last laugh, a brother's last smile.

trying to escape, he goes from one place to another, seeking refuge from his torment. it seemed whenever he goes and calls it home, lives get better; a new car for a relative, booming business for a sister. but he absorbs everything else; bullets, broken bones, and an tip of a knife in a dark street corner one rainy night.

as he laid there bleeding and alone he asked, "what of my other wing, father?"

i met a disciple of Love who had the mountain breeze at the tips of his fingers. and everyday he sends it out to the lost and heartbroken to whispher words in a language of longing. but he tells me that sometimes it comes back to haunt him, a caressing echo of his emptiness instead.

there was one who lived on top of a tall promontory where he can see the entire city unencumbered. he searches for the one being who can make him complete, but wishes he was blind inside the bowels of the earth when he found that she could no longer be his.

another was a force of Fire sitting on the face of a hill. around him were ashes and blackened remnants of his life. too fierce that his fire burned everything he touched. and in a fit of self-immolation, he has begun torching himself as well.

i once knew an element of Change who lived by the shore; her house was made up of things washed by the sea at her doorstep: driftwood, shells, bones, trash. she can be as placid as the summer sea, or as angry as the waves crashing in a tempest. one day she was carried away to a distant land never to be seen again. and her house was all that remained.

yet another tried to roam this city and its fringes to sate a hunger that has been eating at him for years. he has consumed Time, and the warmth of human bodies, leaving behind throbbing memories in the avenues, under fresh asphalt, on tire tracks and city grime, and the filth and refuse of this city regurgitates. and he does not stop, he cannot stop, as the more he consumes, the more he is aware of the void in him.

there was this lady who had the power to bring down a rain of tears that can wash away memories. and everyday people would be on their knees begging her to shed some for them. until one day, the rain became a trickle which ultimately stopped. she said her well of tears have dried up, and she slowly became a hard statue of a woman with two expressionless gems for eyes.

and the memories began piling up, becoming a lost mountain breeze, becoming blindness, becoming emptiness, becoming rage, becoming useless remnants of past lives, becoming a hunger that cannot be satisfied.

i have quite a number of stories to tell.

for example: finding and fighting fire in your new-born eyes. fierce in their lack of surprise.

there was the cost of pride and precious choice. someone sifting through sand to find stars. everyone oblivious to the obliging monsters circling up above and creeping down below the bowels of this city. an absence that poses as a cure for uncertainty.

someone was planting flames on windy ground. the thunder and laughter with its new found sound. streets aflame and aflood. half-hearts searing, whole hearts drowning. demons prancing rampant before your very eyes. defy the laws of fire and the skies.

there were dead lights, empty words, haunting smells, and shivers that shake the bones of the blessed. truth to hide lies. jealousies and its justifications; a noxious fume to both friends and foes alike. you, demon of unspeakable contradictions, a palm of apathy, a finger of spite.

in a war of attrition, consistency emerges victorious. my ten letter-spell could not contain the curse.

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." - Cicero

we need to resurrect ourselves after a while. otherwise the dead will stay with the living.

you were the one who taught me to taste-test words for truth as they pass through our lips. too much of a gamble at times because you simply never know; pain can be the consequence of trial and error. oftentimes false words disguised as truth fall into unintended ears.

both of us were well aware that the ground that we were treading on was a minefield. still, we were there playing hide and seek with words that have too many meanings, blowing ourselves up one limb at a time. it was our version of a war of attrition; the last person standing will be declared the victor.

but after a conclusion has been reached, not just of the entire conflagration but even including the bloody aftermath, something strange happened. first came the inevitable descent to the murky underworld were rules were broken at whim and words roll out of our tongues with cruel tastelessness. nothing was sacred that it cannot be broken. nothing so sublime that it was immune to filth.

there was blood tricking out of my dreams into a proud little vial. there was heat, sweat, and hallucinations. charred bones, pale streetlights. jigsaw puzzles and connect-the-dots. skin-sweet chocolate and chewy confectionery.

and of course, the Sun.

someone told me that the gods are here to temper chaos with the concept of order. it doesn't mean it has to be perfect, but just enough to make sense out of everything good or bad. enough to contrast chaos, a matchstick tower challenging a storm.

and it is chilling because the storm did not taste like either truth or lies. it tasted like a mindless, aimless war. it tasted like a conclusion that never was, a turn at the corner that was never taken.

stick out your tongue to taste truth from mere illusions; the words it seem have become actions.

sometime after this sunset we will no longer be passing this way, and slowly the grass will reclaim the footpaths we have left on the ground.

at sunrise, we will try to train our feet again, to step on and get used to new earth. perhaps that place would be very different from what we have here now. then again, perhaps not.

with dew underneath them, the crisp leaves of grass will resist, but they will eventually give way as the morning passes. with constant visits of our feet, we will tame the soil with our tracks and marks. we will call the place our own at mid-day, and it will be more than just a place we pass by. each patch of grass will cradle a memory. each boulder will hide secrets.

and then we have to leave again, and slowly this place will give itself up to no longer be ours...

i do not want time to stop anymore. rather, i want it to pass by in a blink of an eye. i want the transition to be abrupt. i want the day, this day to end quickly without the entire drama of a sunset. to move on in a click of a switch, light extinguished from a room.

because its hard to stand by and watch the enemy twilight tarry. i see demons in people's faces as they meld with the background.

i will concede one small fact; no one, nothing makes words flow out from me like this. they flow out not in bundles but in ferociously incoherent streams its hard to single out and capture the essence of this ramble. it takes not a few tries...

because it is like this. there should be more important things that this head should be preoccupied about; new things happening, new feelings blossoming. but once this kicks in, everything takes a back seat. everywhere it is empty, except this.

in this incessant and compulsive drive to flesh out reason and rationality, these unmended cracks become the reason why holding on and keeping everything of the new inside has become an insurmountable challenge so far. something always comes out. something traces back. something looks for something else...

and it doesn't stop. it does not know when or how. until one point in time when the torturous silence will finally end of the battle for endurance between forces that do not even know each other exists...

and it goes back on itself again and again, feeding on itself, a vicious cycle of failing to cross boundaries and sitting on fences instead

between then and now.