Déjà vu

Kristine tells me she talks to Jesus

on bus rides to Antipolo; she thinks

she understands him now, acknowledges

his existence. I thought, good for her,

she believes in something. She began

writing letters to a man named Elvis;

receives a couple of his records,

asks to meet her at a diner in Memphis.

I said, “Great, are you dating John, Paul,

Ringo, and George too?” But I cut her

some slack. People make up things

all the time. She’s the kind of girl

who takes off her clothes in the car

while waiting in the parking lot,

devotes time for hunger strikes

thinking all her protests were

for a greater cause. I secretly

envied her, I wanted to see and feel

everything she imagined. She was

my best friend: I put up with her

and she put up with me. I was just

as crazy though I tried to care for her.

She’d hold my hand when she got

nervous. Not long after, Kristine

disappeared. She took off without

a word to any of her friends. I hated her

for as long as I could remember.

Life moved on, everyone got older;

I’m not wiser, just more forgiving

and happier with my cat on weekends.

I hang-out with Jen and Ann now, I dated

Daniel but we’re just friends. Years passed

and one day I was caught in the eye

of a Midwest storm, driving in zero visibility.

I saw a woman with a suitcase and umbrella

hitching a ride on the road. I pulled over

but another truck had picked her up.

I could’ve sworn it was Kristine. Now I take

a second look whenever I pass that spot,

with Round Here by Counting Crows

always singing in my head.

“Remember Kristine?  You won’t believe it,

but I think she’s in town,” I said to Jen.

She asked, “Kristine, who? What

are you talking about?” I tried

to make her remember, but no luck.

I showed her a photo. “There, that’s us

in college.” She gave it back

deeply perplexed, “There’s no one there,”

she said. I had no proof, except how it felt

when I held her hand. Always slipping,

I held her hand. 

About Time: A Letter to the Past

By now you must have realized time doesn’t feel long when you take it for granted. Your anxiety has ensued, deeper and vaster than any void you’ve had to face before. You are overwhelmed. The fear: There is never enough time, and you do not know how to make up for all the important things you’ve overlooked in your brief life. At 22, you could not articulate it, but it was the moment you knew you were not magnificent.

I will tell you this, yes, you are small, yet your life has a cosmic purpose no matter how insignificant you may feel. You will always be on the verge of almost comprehending it, and you will realize this need to feel free and connected can only be reconciled by accepting life as it is and by graciously moving forward. Do not despair in your smallness for you are not the only one; it is every person’s fate to feel lost, and with it comes the possibility of finding what it is that will make your life richer and meaningful. I believe it is our destiny to find it.

You’ve struggled long and hard trying to fit in a world that tells you what you should and should not do. You may tell yourself you’ve given up, that you no longer mind being like everybody else, but you’re wrong. All your life you’ve only wanted to be yourself. I say, stop holding yourself against normal and average standards; that’s not how good people with great dreams live happy and satisfying lives. I want you to know being different is a good thing. Everyone gets to have their own path, and comparing your lot against others is useless. You exude individuality and people cannot take away your convictions. Never lose the faculty to think for yourself.

You’re right. You will be hurt, tired of the world, you will have difficulty trusting others. But I’m here to give simple reminders: Do not be afraid to live, do not be afraid to love. Don’t stop listening and learning, it’s how you will grow, even in your later years. Be kind to yourself—you will reach a point wherein you feel you no longer deserve goodness from others, but again, you are wrong. People don’t stop being good just because they are old; true goodness asks for nothing in return, it simply gives. You will learn about love in the goodness of others, especially when you learn to be kind to yourself.

Speaking of time, make the most out of it. There is truth in cliché. Never miss Sunday lunch with your family. Meet old friends because you’ll never know when you’ll see them again. Be kind to your workmates because you don’t know what kind of problems they are going through. Have a bit more patience when it comes to people, you will only understand them when you listen long enough.

When your father visits your room, don’t push him away. Don’t yell at him or make him feel unwelcome. Try not to shout back at your mother when she asks you simple things. There is no need to feel defensive about the things you do. In time you will know they mean well, and if you felt they were invasive, don’t get it the wrong way. They just want to feel closer to you. Make time with your family, you don’t know how long they will be around.

A time will come when guilt and anger will shut you down, you will loathe yourself. I must tell you to hang on, to take everything one day at a time. You will get tired of your anger and you will see how beautiful the world is. You will know what a wonderful thing it is to be alive. It will be a long and grueling process, but you will learn to forgive yourself. That nostalgia, that yearning for some ghostly place in the past where everything once was, did it even exist? You will find a word for it: Saudades. One day, that emptiness will go away. You will live through it.

Keep reading poetry. Buy books whenever you get the chance. Don't waste time on people who lack depth, don't waste time on useless recreation. Unless it enriches you, you will find many things unnecessary. I tell you, do not feel guilty about the kind of dream you have. Do not be ashamed of what makes you feel alive. You will only resent yourself the longer you deny this truth. The future will always be unfamiliar and unconventional, but you will find that the universe has a way of making things come together for you. By doing what you love, you will learn to trust again.

Fall in love. I know you cannot help it, so don't stop your heart from feeling. Have the courage to show your love to others no matter what. Holding it in just makes the world a lonelier place. 

Yes, live. Make as many friends as you want, go to places you have never been to before. Do things at least once in your life. Make time for yourself. I hope you do all these knowing your happiness was not gained at the expense of others. 

Next year you will have a wonderful reminder: It will suffice. 

Finally, trust in yourself and the universe. Believe me, you'll never regret a single tattoo.

Shot at the Night

It feels weird, but do check out the UP DECL Shorthand tumblr.
Save for this obscure blog, I'm glad some of my work can now be read.

      Valencia in May, 2013

Page from a Notebook

I think nobody becomes an adult without going through a phase of depression and cynicism. If you're lucky, you grow up to be an emotionally and psychologically stable individual, which means you're only mildly depressed for most of the time. Unfortunately, for quite a handful of us, we're nowhere near "stable," and we'll probably take longer to figure things out in life. It's just difficult to live with depression; most of the time we have to suck it in or we'll never be able to get up and function like everyone else. It's tiring to be so empty all the time. I wonder what in the world I'm suffering a nonsense life for. I'm grateful for everything, and yet so miserable: this is probably the closest I can ever get to happiness.

***

My emotions are so delicate; my life is so dependent on guiding relationships that a wrong move can send my day into ruin, and as the years go by, send my life hurtling out the window.

***

It astonishes me how something so abstract as emotions can make or break a life. I think this is precisely what fucks us up: when we cannot understand our emotions, what they are, what we must do with them, and why they disturb us so. Something so irrational and destructive has pulled apart relationships. Foundations that took years to build can crumble down in minutes. They lead us to neglect ourselves, others, and forget what we've been fighting for throughout our lives.

***

To weather these emotions, I've taken to reading and writing. I found something in poetry that tempers these storms. It soothes my mind and eases my confusion even for a while.

***

It is such a relief to find that a poet somewhere in time was able to articulate thoughts and emotions I could never make sense of in my deepest and darkest times. For that, I am grateful. And for a moment, I am less alone. It is good to be reminded.

***

On Reincarnation

When my time is up, I will no longer dread the life I lived
For how wonderful it will be to know I played a minor role,
free of expectations and duties that kept me, and all my lives,
from being who I longed to be. This life was a reward
from my memories. At last, peace. I am home.

***

"Description is revelation. It is not

the thing described nor false facsimile."

--Wallace Stevens, "Description Without a Place"

p. 181

***

"To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love, to know that it is precisely there where you are not--this is the beginning of writing."
--Roland Barthes, "Lover's Discourse: Fragments"

"I let down my defenses this morning"

Effort at Speech Between Two People

:  Speak to me.          Take my hand.            What are you now?

   I will tell you all.          I will conceal nothing.

   When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit

   who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair    :

   a pink rabbit    :    it was my birthday, and a candle

   burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.

:  Oh, grow to know me.        I am not happy.        I will be open:

   Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music,

   like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.

   There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

:  Speak to me.        Take my hand.        What are you now?

   When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental,

   fluid    :    and my widowed aunt played Chopin,

   and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept.

   I want now to be close to you.        I would

   link the minutes of my days close, somehow, to your days.

:  I am not happy.          I will be open.

   I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems.

   There has been fear in my life.          Sometimes I speculate

   On what a tragedy his life was, really.

:  Take my hand.          Fist my mind in your hand.          What are you now?

   When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide,

   and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death   :

   if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty,

   if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt.

   I am unhappy.          I am lonely.          Speak to me.

:  I will be open.          I think he never loved me:

   He loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam

   that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls:

   he said with a gay mouth: I love you.          Grow to know me.

:  What are you now?          If we could touch one another,

   if these our separate entities could come to grips,

   clenched like a Chinese puzzle . . . yesterday

   I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,

   and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.

   Everyone silent, moving. . . . Take my hand.          Speak to me.


-- Muriel Rukeyser

Archetypes

Often before our fingers touched in sleep or half-sleep and enlaced,
often I’ve been comforted through a dream by that gently sensitive pressure,
but this morning, when I woke your hand lay across mine in an awkward,
unfamiliar position so that it seemed strangely external to me, removed,
an object whose precise weight, volume and form I’d never remarked:
its taut, resistant skin, dense muscle-pads, the subtle, complex structure,
with delicately elegant chords of bone aligned like columns in a temple.

Your fingers began to move then, in brief, irregular tensions and releasings;
it felt like your hand was trying to hold some feathery, fleeting creature,
then you suddenly, fiercely, jerked it away, rose to your hands and knees,
and stayed there, palms flat on the bed, hair tangled down over your face,
until with a coarse sigh almost like a snarl you abruptly let yourself fall
and lay still, your hands drawn tightly to your chest, your head turned away,
forbidden to me, I thought, by whatever had raised you to that defiant crouch.

I waited, hoping you’d wake, turn, embrace me, but you stayed in yourself,
and I felt again how separate we all are from one another, how even our passions,
which seem to embody unities outside of time, heal only the most benign divisions,
that for our more abiding, ancient terrors we each have to find our own valor.
You breathed more softly now, though; I took heart, touched against you,
and, as thought nothing had happened, you opened your eyes, smiled at me,
and murmured–how almost startling to hear you in your real voice–“Sleep, love.”

- C.K. Williams