Chasing Rainbows Through Storms

the anatomy of a king is composed of 2 simple elements: an iron-clad body, and a divine charisma.

as sword to the chainmail, as halberd to the shield.
to pierce the armour proves fruitless.

to bring a mighty king down, his pride is a dormant arsenic: use it.
employ sadistic machinations veiled in letters.
the cost is nothing but a measly amount of breath and mischief.

see the king, like all men, turn into a beast.
see the king, like all men, seethe.
see the king, like all men, breathe.
see.

inday: this popular icon cannot be denied, and she has the recurring atmosphere of "kabaduyan" and impossibility.

what does this picture tell of her people?

the first few cheap shots did not matter- but with frequency, comes moral anguish. it has become cumbersome when we snicker at the portrayal of a "bisaya" housekeeper as having a highly developed IQ. the big laugh, and insult, is that such idea is perfect paradox. it is pure humor when one brews an idea of a poor southerner seeking out for greener pastures, and rocket science.

i am bisaya after all, and for years i have been succumbing to these blows to my kin. to speak for my people, we hold a very diverse culture and home to a highly-developed reservoir for intellectual brilliance.

blame it to the government, the radicals would say: the centralization of government has been a bane for the bisaya, their dreams drowning with the promised appropriated funds. thus, THE option left is the one up north.

blame it to the media, i would say: these jokes spawned an overrated balloon, likened to an ethnic timebomb of hate.

for fear of an impending rift between my peers, i do not possess the will to take this discussion any further. the aim of these arguments is to pacify, to break, the bisaya stereotype.

i am of inday’s kin, overflowing with unnecessary attention- and receiving little of what is otherwise. this is what can be told of her people.

ready the floodgates.

the boulder stands proud at the foot of the shore. its view, majestic- it commands where the earth, sky and sea are wed. it is its own refuge, fortified by the very elements it exists for.

the boulder, strong and formidable. idealism glistens from it with every ray of the morning sun. the terns in flight, testimonies to the annoying glare it reflects. and its romance with the tides has been the envy of a pebble too many. only it can withstand a juggernaut of a passion; everything else shall be crushed.

such is the illusion of power to the boulder; its form deteriorates with the surf, its substance erodes with the waves. the returning ebb will never bring back what has been lost- all will be drifting forever in the vastness that beholds it. its fate belongs to the sand it stands upon and soon will become its grain.

the forces that molded it are the first to betray. nowhere will it be above the feet that crush it, nor the sun it worships. even the tides it kisses.

an unwilling whore to my earth, sky and sea: the boulder, my allegory.

law school: the battlefield.

law school is not a place for the weak of heart. i have only been in ateneo de davao law for five (5) months, and it felt like 5 years. what more could it stir up in me for the following years? for reason of mathematical skill impairment, i do not want to go to calculations again.

after all, law school is the breeding ground for perspiring aspiring attorneys. looking through the sly eye of a first person acting in third person, i could say it is a rather interesting nest. it is a nest where image is nothing and knowledge is everything. the former speaks of something about the eagle and its feathers: hues do not matter where instinct for survival is king. as for the latter, the sky is not too high for legal knowledge. no information is too taboo. unless, the law provides otherwise.

s/wordplay: it is an important mastery to be earned in law school. such is not a misspelling; it is a word i derived from the popular method of warfare in the ancient times, mixed with the preferred weapon of the law. written or verbal, the proper words are the beacons of light in law school.

i love to write, and it must be that one edge i have over the others. s/wordplay has been in my life for the most part, as i have been writing for more than half of my age already. yet, precision is a must in law school. erasures in notebooks are discouraged, and correct grammar and spelling are to be observed. these are the things i can get away with. it is the act of maneuvering my quill that irritates me.

when a professor starts flushing the class cards, it feels like russian roulette. cold sweat dampens my skin. my body hairs stand stiff. my spirit wants to leave the body for academic sanctuary. no anticipation is as nerve-wracking as of the case recitations. yet with the right words utilized like neo’s bullet-time dodges, i can get away unscathed.

camouflage: as a social creature, it is a mastery that i delight in doing. law school is a melting pot of different species. it is an ecosystem so diverse, that social butterflies and study hermit crabs tend co-exist. in my experience, jokes work best with the extroverts, while “intellectual” conversations delve into the introverts. i realize that i should master this skill, as I really would like to finish law school. i must be in harmony with the environment, without ever straying from my true nature. it is a dog-eat-dog world out there.

strategic preparation: being the classic delinquent, i have the most difficulty with this mastery. like war, every law student should have the insight of a general. time management, tactical positioning, budget and logistics, and the strings that attach them should all be pulled accordingly. any irregularity with the master puppeteer act should be avoided. i am coming to the point that these puppets are the ones manipulating me.

now i stand here in the battlefield, my dignity intact, and with my will as armor. i would launch my knowledge like homing missiles through the quill. i shall hit and not miss. in the haze of battle, i would stand my ground defending what i believe in. all of these will be bloody, yet i never desire to be among the body count. nobody told me law school is going to be child’s play. i will not escape unscathed, a torn knee is the least i would injure.

yet after all the gore, i still would know that law school merely is a battleground. it is only that skirmish to the war i call the philippine justice system.

childhood. it is that one phase that i once possessed. unforgettable and undeniable, that waking moment i want to tread back to.

at the far reaches of my past was a picture-perfect bangkal. the place was full of happy (as opposed to trigger-happy, or of the like) children, full of innocent spirit and vitality. in summer mornings, i woke up to play teenage mutant ninja turtles and contra on the nintendo. late in the afternoon, i played basketball  or tag or hide and seek until my armpits have acquired enough muck to be scraped off. in the evening, i watched movies and mtv (which, at that time, was featuring grunge videos) while i snacked on cheez curls and nagaraya with a big glass of ice-cold coke.

ahh, the good ‘ol days. i used to do cartwheels and somersaults for sweaty fun., and i played ball behind kay-kay sari-sari store till my feet were swollen with dust. back then, a family-sized coke only costs P12 and a supot of mongo bread was P5.  i climbed mango trees with my pals, and even swayed along with the swing made of nylon ropes and used sacks of 7-tonner- thinking about that now, that was scary (30 feet from the ground, where a pile of old scrap metal slept- hello tetanus and broken bones).

i remember that first time i learned how to ride a bike. i was on that seat and holding on for the inevitable, while about 8 of my pals were holding on to me and the bike (hehe).  they began to push me and the bike as they let go one by one. i am one with the bike, i told myself of this as the last pair of hands left me. i was so happy, even when i fell off the bike a few good 50 meters from the starting point and was bleeding gallons.

for sheer courage over stupidity, my bestfriend and i went downhill biking, we rode down at approximately 60 kph without brakes. at the face of imminent death, we jumped to a grassy patch along the side of the road. our reaction was one that any child would have: just laughing and rolling our bruises and wounds off. i was once young: stupid, yet righteous. and most importantly, free.

my childhood is not all about free lunch and play, it also consisted of beliefs- ones that are best experienced in the emergence of youth.

my personal beliefs are empirical and not religious. most of the essential views i have about life (e.g. love, sex, trust) can be traced back to my childhood. although opposed to truth and logic and maturity sometimes, a child knows what is best. there is truth in innocence, a certain truth that can only be seen and felt through the eyes of a child.

childhood and alcoholism: oxymoronic as it may be, but my view on the latter remains connected to my experiences of the former.  until now, i do not drink.  i deemed alcohol as an evil trapped in a bottle, and i still believe in the same thing right now. one time too many in my life, i had seen this truth punched right through the wall.

i had seen what alcoholism could do. the dr. jekyll and mr. hyde story was not alien to me at a young age, after all. just add alcohol, and a drunken monk can transform into an evil incarnate of bacchus. with the smell reeking of pale pilsen and dinuguan, i had seen this monster throw portraits and catholic statuettes like it was baseball practice.

sobriety did not change anything, neither. truth is, it was the most obvious reason why that monster needed to get drunk again. in the years that passed, he destroyed property and relations. consequently, his own life and family life had become forever distorted.

moving forward to the present, i cannot help but reaffirm my views on alcoholism. just a few weeks ago, i was caught in a new edition of a violent dual personality outrage. it had a new antagonist and protagonist, yet the story was so familiar i could puke for unoriginality.

i mourn for my beautiful past for what the present has woven out of it. my former neighborhood is now infested with places of ill-repute and violence. my bestfriend already has two stab wounds and a multitude of fights as proof. the smell of hibiscus and pandesal has been replaced with those of cigarette smoke and garbage. P1 is not even enough to buy candy nowadays, and video games have become too real that life begins imitating them.

the yesterdays are over. i can no longer ride BMXs like i was a 10-year old. i cannot throw mudballs to passing vehicles and not get apprehended for it (hello, "legal age of majority"). i can no longer play all day and not get conscious of body odor. and yes, i cannot see sex as a phenomenon anymore.

looking back, i realized that i could never relive the extinct, however good or bad it was for me. with the absence of a time machine, all i could do is to keep those memories intact and move on. i can never possess what i once had.

as years go by, the thrill to life is vanishing fast. so on second thought, i do not want to just tread going back- i need a BMX ride, complete with bruises and toothless smiles.

sacrifice. it is a word so heavy, even the sound of it drove Abraham nuts. it is a means for men and women of courage, an honorable measure of passion. surprisingly, sacrifice does not have to be good. sometimes, people are driven by blind faith, greed and selfishness to sacrifice.

sacrificing is believing. in the prevalence of love. in the evil in men’s hearts. in the apathy of society’s bowels. in the possibility of the personal abysmal void. in life’s crossroads of no-return.

yet, believing does not equate to knowing, if that is the case, self-righteousness would have already consumed the world (currently, it just is consuming). sad, but i always have to find out the hard way.

in sacrifice, there is conflict of loss. there is always one thing to lose, and there is no knowing of what is best until the leap of faith. lucky me, picking the wrong choices is the fortune i am cursed of.

like any other human being, i make it a habit of choosing romance over a few others. and yes, i am doomed to fail. how could this choice of emotional pill be a bane to the human life? there is the apparent danger of wearing beliefs like horseblinds. focus is one thing, the subject of focus is another. focus is good, but when i shut my peripheral instincts and logic out due to the course of bliss- emotional survival is thin as a whisper.

here i am- injured, but alive. breathing, in spasms. learning, through aging avenues of pain. in my series’ latest installation, i had a close call with loss. a love triangle, i was finding myself in. and no, i was not at the vertices of the bind; i was standing at the center, observing her, and him, and the choices that bounded us. looking back on how i behaved as a third person, i was astounded by my deeds. "you should’ve looked away, they said… but no, such act would have been cowardice. that time, i had to look. i had to endure, and i had to sacrifice. the wounds and cuts are starting to coagulate now. i believe i succeeded; looking back, i knew i was not wearing blinds during that run.

i am yet to completely oversee the conflict of loss. i am living on a task to be the horseman with the vision, and not to be the steed with the blinds.

in the meantime, sleeping to dream is not my drive. sleeping to feel awake is.

the human pursuit for excellence can be the most frustrating of all experience. one can toil his butt off to win this dream, yet another person is always on the prowl to snatch that away from him.

watching comedy central late one night, a line from this stand-up comedienne struck me: lower expectations. it slapped me awake all night, asking: am i living the rest of my life conquering another’s spoils? no.

that line is wrong. it destroys the fabric of self-esteem, and it puts all regrets on the pedestal and all excuses along the stable. a human person cannot heed such fool’s maxim; following such is tying one’s self to a boulder sinking down the sea.

yet, i agree that one cannot expect too much from life. leave a margin for error. keep a door open for change. the choices that one makes can sculpt his life.

every child has reached a point when he aspired to be something, or someone: an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, etc. and as i observed, only a few percentage will ever reach those heights they have dreamt of reaching. such reality is a frustration, right?

frustration cannot help.  it will spit on your face as you are pinned to negativity. worse, it can be the sand dragging you down to the depths of depression. one should inject himself some vaccines from reality: they say, prevention is much better.

know yourself- or try to. know the strength of your will, and the versatility of your spirit. and in relation to this knowledge, never deny yourself of your limits, of your weakness. i believe that the worst lie is upon the self; it is the root of all selfishness.  what one does to himself is what he wants the society to become.

acceptance brings closure to one’s self; it shall bring inner sanctum. one can never call himself a failure when he knows he has done everything in his will. never sulk- defeat is to the hopeless soldier.

keep a contingency plan among your plans. one can be a rung short to success, but it does not mean the end of life. just put it this way: when everyone itches to be driving the lead, it will all lead to disaster. it is not about the actors, it is about the movie called life.

for supreme excellence is contentment.

so when things take a different turn, never be afraid to give the wheel to the deserving.

dreams. What are they made of? They say that it is a construct created in the man’s sub-conscious. It is a desire so strong, it even manifests during REM. Some say it is a premonition of the future.

If dreams are of the latter, then how i wish i’d get good ones most of the time.

do you know that i talked to her? we had a conversation over the phone. we were exchanging sweet nothings, reconciliating, and patching things up… then it occurred to me. it was too good too be true. i crossed to the conscious, and woke up. god. it was just a dream. you don’t have any idea how shattered i was.

if dreams are of the latter… then i’d sleep to dream.

for now, i stare into the ceiling. silent.

i have a story. listen. pay attention. you can learn from this.

it’s the eve of my most dreaded day of the year: valentine’s day.

where do i start? this one’s difficult… i think i am losing the writer in me. or the me in the writer. whatever. last night, i made arrangements to meet with my dad today. we did, and hung out for the whole afternoon.

see, my dad is a hardcore probinsiyano. even after decades of living in the city, his heart still lingers in the land rich of sweat and crops. "asa ta mangaon dad?" i asked. he replied "maski asa dong, basta mabusog ta. dili lang ko gusto sa mandarin kay gilu-od nako didto." we agreed to decide on what to eat when we arrive at the mall. after getting down from the jeepney, the sight of kfc got into our stomach. nyum. he gave me the money and told me to order anything i thought that he’d like. i got us two number ones, an original and a hot one. he got the former while i got the latter. we ate on, too hungry to talk. outside, red was everywhere. inside, i was green with envy.

"lami-a diay dire dong oi." he said, as sank his teeth into the meat. i found out that it was his first time to eat there. sounds absurd right? not to me. he is a promdi, after all. the only time he gets to the city is official business: his family; us. he treats me, and the others, this way.

what just happened struck me. i am like my dad. and when she reads this, i know she’ll nod in agreement somehow. if you understood the conversations above, you might think it’s rude. bastos, as the tagalogs might say it. however, it’s not. it’s how i am, and how we are. my family is like that. my friends are, too.

then, i figured how my life got like this: misunderstood. i am torn, from the woman whom i love; the woman who lives in a place far away from mine. and now, she is gone. and i’m afraid she’ll never know me. know how i really am. she’ll never understand.

have you ever dared to live a life outside of your social circle? it’s crazy. but i did, because i am crazy. i am in love. do you know that i’d go bounds just to be with the woman i love? i’d leave my life, just to live a life with her.

talking about first times- i got into my first plane ride just to get to her. and oh, that was the first time i stepped out of mindanao. train rides? yes, because of her. but do you know why i made a lot of first times for this love? this is the first time i know i really loved. inspite the distance, i love her. nothing can be more profound than knowing you found meaning in the intangible.

the distance. i am here. she is there. it’s the problem that we have, and it has always been. it is the root of all our problems. just the mere mention of it still strikes an electric jolt up my head and my heart.

she said i don’t listen much. she said i don’t exert that much effort. she said a lot of things. i responded with a lot of things, too. now, it has become clear to me: it’s all about the he-said-she-said stuff. with a distance that covers mountains and seas, words are all that we got. and once, i disfigured mine.

distance cannot cover the things that are best experienced up-close. never. i can never see what makes her eyes squint with joy; i can never see what makes her smile the sweetest. and vice-versa.

i am more at a disadvantage, though. the picture is: she’s the one lying in wait for me to breathe life into her and reach for her hand to the surface, and i am the one struggling to get to her. to breathe life into her, when even i, too, need to catch some air for myself.

she had things all set for her before i got into her life. i didn’t. i had nothing for myself till came her. she realized everything i have ever needed for myself. and i love her for that.

do you know why it’s so difficult for me to let go? from the beginning, she’s always understood the meaning of us: it’s the union of the you and i. i understood us as together, and that’s how i got it all wrong. "what’s the difference, vince?" everything should start from the self, and not from the couple.

leave something for yourself, that’s what they say. i didn’t. i always gambled in the us, and the consequence of such is devastating: i choked her. i restricted growth. our growth. and she got tired of it.

i say i can be blamed, yet not completely. i got too pre-occupied with wanting to get to one fine day, i never had the leisure to think straight. everything headed uphill, and it got too steep. my sights were too focused to what lies ahead, that i didn’t see what was behind nor where i was treading on. consequently, i tumbled and fumbled behind.

and she won’t understand. not now, when she’s on top of her hill. if only i could summon the selfishness to snatch her away, i would.

as for my dad? i wonder if he has ever gotten over my mom. i say he has not. i can still see the emptiness in his eyes. in consolation, he was savoring his chicken.

and how about his son? well, i am not over her. i still see her in my dreams. and everything i dream of, still is her.

should i give up? no. i believe love still lingers, yet current feelings and events hinder us from being. and if i really do love her, then i should tape my mouth till that time comes. i love her. and i don’t want to choke her. i love her so much. i shall stay mute until she lets me.

till that time comes. til that time comes. til that time comes. one fine day existed. and so will another. should i lie in wait? take a seat with me and take a look-see.

i believe in change. i believe in second chances. not in the together, but in the you and i. knowing that now, perhaps… there would be an us .

for i don’t want to have my first times with her anymore. when time and consequence permit us, i would want to spend my last.

but for now, i shall not succumb to hurting her again. i shall stay quiet, inspite the pain. i love her. i shall keep quiet. i shall keep quiet. i shall.

i shall wait in the shadows, mute… and with love, unrequited.