The Day I Stopped Stopping

The day I stopped was the day I stood against the wall.
The day I stopped was the day I had neither ladders nor ropes.
The day I stopped was the day I carried nothing but spaces.
The day I stopped was the day I looked above and called on the skies.
The day I stopped was the day I felt steel raindrops, pouring and pouring.
The day I stopped was the day I bowed my head, loosely and vulnerably.
The day I stopped was the day I saw nothing but the faceless: the stones on the ground.
The day I stopped was the day I bore finally the bruises on my feet.
The day I stopped was the day I conceded the scars etched on my skin.
The day I stopped was the day I thought I had given everything up.
The day I stopped was the day I turned around it: the darkened and the ruin.
The day I stopped was the day I closed my palm, creases and creases, and held only to air.
The day I stopped was the day I did not look back.
The day I stopped was the day I ran for meters.
The day I stopped was the day I ran for miles.
The day I stopped was the day I ran for nowhere.

~ ~ ~

The day I stopped was the day I stood beside a wall.
The day I stopped was the day I had again neither ladders nor ropes.
The day I stopped was the day I carried nothing but the olden spaces.
The day I stopped was the day I looked above and called on the skies anew.
The day I stopped was the day I felt brazen raindrops, drizzling and drizzling.
The day I stopped was the day I bowed my head, imagining and hoping.
The day I stopped was the day I saw nothing but the perennial: the grasses on the earth.
The day I stopped was the day I had borne not bruises on my feet, but traces of one's face. Yours.
The day I stopped was the day I surrendered the scars but not the skins in between.
The day I stopped was the day I thought I had given everything up.
The day I stopped was the day I turned towards you: the illuminated and the dream.
The day I stopped was the day I opened my palm, creases and all, and held yours. Tightly.
The day I stopped was the day I did not look back.
The day I stopped was the day I stopped running for meters.
The day I stopped was the day I stopped running for miles.
The day I stopped was the day I stopped running for nowhere.

~ ~ ~

The day I stopped was the day I was.
The day I stopped was the day I began.
The day I stopped was the day I stopped stopping.

~ ~ ~

Today is the day I am.
Today, I will not look back.
Today, I will not run but, I will walk for meters.
Today, I will not run but, I will walk for miles.
Today, we will not run but, we will walk for somewhere.
Today, I have stopped for you have made me begin and never ever stop. :]

Alcohol and Thereafter

Tonight, I've finally managed to resurrect my craving for writing. I'd always wanted to do so but the time didn't allow such (well, actually, my social networks, torrent-ed movies and PC games just got too demanding).

Or maybe, time did permit such.

Below is a "supposed" post "supposedly" published approximately a week ago. I was just a sissy then for not having it published and keeping it in the drafts folder because I feared that it was too "alcoholic" and "wasted" for one's taste. I was too drunk -- and undeniably beyond the safe perimeter of my lucid interval -- that I even entitled it "I am drunk and I don't care."

Yes, Virginia, I do drink and once in a while, I do that thing people call "insanity." I've got organs, too, you know. (Sometimes though, I wish they were made of stone or of dead material. Haha.)

Anyhow, for laughs, here's that post (pardon the language, the bitter gourd-feel and the disorganization):

For quite sometime, I've been posting entries in the form of poems. I don't even know if you can call them such. I have no "learned" education when it comes to poem composition, anyhow; all I know is I have been publishing my thoughts in such form because they should be firstly understood differently. After all, poems -- again, if you can call them such -- are to be comprehended always in different lights. Further, I like it better if people don't get an idea by just merely reading it but, by grasping it -- tightly.

Well, enough about that. Oh yes, the title. Again, my entries usually are titled vaguely. I like them that way -- again. Unfortunately, I am not in my proper state of mind at this very moment so, I might as well be more transparent; be more honest; be more direct; and be more erroneous. So, pardon me if I may be a little -- or very -- disorganized. I just don't want to sleep yet. I want to savor the beauty that is the misery of intoxication. (Quite scary, I know.)

I'm aware that I'd be laughing the very moment I regain my sanity later -- or ironically, I'd take pride in this foolishness. People are too dishonest nowadays, anyway; thus, it is worthier to shed a little truthfulness -- and embarrassment -- once in a rare while.

My best friend is leaving soon. In fact, she's at the airport now. She'll be gone in a month. Thereafter, she'll be somewhere else farther and she'll be missing longer. Friends have already gone ahead of her, in search of places far richer and far greener than this place whose leaders -- mostly, at least -- don't give a piece of damn about their desperate co-citizens.

x x x

Oh well. That's that. Frankly, I also don't quite understand it that well (I am presuming the reader doesn't either). It's too full of ideas -- or plain rants. Apparently, it's also unfinished.

Too bad, I'm not drunk now.

The Itch

What's the difference between a worm and a caterpillar?

Both of them are restless, wriggly and seemingly ugly in their ways; yet, the distinction is this: the worm -- with its body intently philandering almost every surface it passes -- stays wrinkled and devours the filth of the earth throughout its lifetime while the caterpillar has to be imprisoned in pitch black just long enough for it to lose its wrinkles and to sip the sweetness of the flowers.

Come to think of it, people are either of the two.

Climate

The rain has stopped but the leaves drop its tears as the wind continues to sway
The clouds are crawling in threads, pale and faded with their nimbus rags
The sky no longer scratches to see for the pitch has loosened its black
Below, I stand still, my skin shivering as its hairs dance slowly with a rhythm unknown


The worst is over, the spirits whisper without words of thunder
The silence turns into howling, pleading and persisting, but the plague lingers
The leaves continue to shed as I hear their cries, covert yet bursting
I look up and as my gaze singles out a tiny ball of cloud, a leaf decides to let go


The water once on the leaf's palm drops and finds my eye, precisely and painfully
I blink -- once, twice and more than thrice -- and I blink again
Yet and yet, the water stays unmoved as my head remains tilting against the void
Then, I bow. The water slowly leaves as it rubs my cheeks, hesitantly and fearfully


The water stops on my chin as if dropping will be the end of it
After all, though it has come from above -- from anything but me -- its entirety has been mine
It has entered my eye and has left it as if it is a tear I have succumbed
Then, drop, drop, drop. Drop. The water lays on the ground: spilled and scattered


The spirits shriek
And the howling grows
I feel my mouth twitching
And my eyes wailing

Hide & Seek

Close your tired eyes
Rub your cheeks with your cold palms
Face the darkness behind me
Deafen me with your voice of numbers

I shall scamper away
With the sprain you caused
I shall, I shall

Stand beside your deceitful tree
Those branches, wider and wider
Those leaves, thousands and thousands
Won't you ever cease counting?

I shall scamper away
With the sprain I caused
I shall, I shall

Where are we? The hearts beat but the mouths are stifled
Our fingers pierce the wind but the void is sultry
In the gray, I know you have shown up again
Find me for I, too, am seeking for you

I shall not scamper away
With the sprain we caused
I shall not, I shall not
And that you know, you know.

1.1.11

The waiting was short-lived.
The longing was incessant.
The feeling was undeniable.
Further and further, we went down.
Panting and panting.
Then, release.

Pitch black turned red.
Then, red to green. And green to yellow.
Melancholy, rage, desire and then, illumination.
The glare was blinding.
Further and further, the irises withered.
Falling and falling.
Then, drop.

New sight.
New pair.

New day.
New year.

New nothing.
New everything.

New you.
New me.

New us.

Freight

Late dusk. Time of departure was undisclosed.
The train's hiss declined as the fog came closer down.
As I looked at the few passengers, I bowed.
My luggage was as diffident as their looks.

And heavy.

The letters.
The post-its.
The paper bags.
The movie tickets.
The receipts.
The bus coupons.
The books.
The pictures.
The small boxes.
Even the torn papers.

Dismal, static and unresponsive.

...And the memory.
And the nostalgia.
And the word.

Heavy. Heavy. Heavy...

Retreating, yielding and courting...
The battle. The love. The daughter of demise.

The train's hiss halted.

The burden.
The heft.
The monster.
The monster.
The monster.

Heavy.

Hours passed. As I handed over my luggage, I stared at it.
Its threads were loose and the wrinkles of its bygone bulk were dreary.
The fogs had finally settled over the station. Dawn was coming.
The once unerring void was now too full for any, for any more.
It was time to go. Time of departure.

The train hissed loudly.

It was morning.
Light, finally.

Light.