A Certain Death

Finally I have completed a poem. It felt so good to just sit down and not say anything and write (albeit groggy), even for just about twenty minutes. I am yet to like/dislike this poem. For now I do not care. What's important is that I have finished one. The last poem I have ever written is Paper Cup, and that was almost a year ago. I find this progress promising as usually after I finish a poem, several other poems follow. And I plan to be prolific this summer. Sleep-deprived, but prolific.

I find some inconsistencies in the poem, though, so I have a feeling I will want to hang myself tomorrow for deciding to have this posted here. So I may even wish to revise it. I am not sure. This could be the first draft or the final. Whatever. Here's the poem.

A Certain Death

certain deaths preoccupy me
deaths no less
abject than that of

fear --
that some live forever
puissant and whole

that others don't
and some resurrect
that others stay

suspended in one's memory
vividly
out of culture

or remorse
that others have not killed you
enough to die.

6 Years, All Crap

Bong, one of my closest friends, sent me a text message yesterday. One of those that come in after a three-month interval. We rarely keep in touch with each other. In the past two or three years we’ve only seen each other about twice a year. The last time I saw her was during the Sinulog this year. The last text messages we’ve exchanged prior to her message yesterday were about this plan to go to Boracay in April. Yesterday her message was about how mediocre she thinks her life is, because she has not amounted to anything that pleases her.

I myself have not amounted to anything that pleases me. And it did not feel right that I replied to her with all the positivity I could muster. I have been, if you look at it from a self-proclaiming God-fearing fart's perspective, cynical this past year. Most of the ways I rationalized life when I was younger have been reversed. Thus I felt so much of a phony trying to make Bong see things the way most people do. That she shouldn’t kill herself because (a) we have this as-of-yet unofficial pact that I should go first and (b) things will work out fine.

One of the specific things that has been depressing her, as she said, is the fact that she has been telling herself that she likes Nursing because it was the only option right after college. She took another course, Nursing, after graduating from UP since it was her ultimate plan to work in the U.S. I never knew it then that it was more than that. I cannot really stress anything succinctly enough as only she knows what she truly feels, but as far as I understand it, she wants to live independently, to prove something to her parents. And now, as I understand it, she is looking back and realizing that she does not feel any love for Nursing the way she’s supposed to, and that she "can’t just flush those two years down the drain." And again, that’s just the way I understand things about her current expression. Only Bong knows what truly is drawing her closer to punch Life in the face and stop living.

I myself spent roughly 5 years convincing myself that I can just go through Computer Science for my parents’ sake and right after that I can devote my time to writing the way I want to. And everything will be fine.

But I have no interest in Computer Science. I could not say, either, that I get revolted by it. But I decided to take it because I felt neutral towards the course. Because my mother sort of convinced me it is the way to make money and I can always write freelance if I want to. Because my parents want me to earn a degree in UP. Because they do not allow Diliman where Creating Writing is being offered as it is too far. Because I won a DOST scholarship that I can enjoy under the condition that I take up a course DOST supports (e.g. Computer Science).

The result: 6 years in deep shit. I cut classes. I learned how to smoke and drink a lot. Some professors revolted me. I flunked numerous subjects. Although I did well in programming at first, it wasn’t enough. So now it all ends with that UP degree no longer viable. With all that money they all thought I would be able to earn impossible. And everyday I get to wonder what could have happened had I been granted the first option I wanted to take.

I live my life now by the day, with no apparent masterplan on how things are going to turn out years from now. And I am frustrated because 6 years ago I killed the possibility of becoming the writer that I want to be. I killed it when I took up Computer Science. I just realized that to become a good writer takes a lot of effort, and it cannot be "freelanced." It requires for me to be able to write daily so I can effectively find my own voice and hone it.

Everything’s too late now. And everyday it doesn’t fail that I feel suffocated by my own frustration. Because the voice that I want to find in my writing is buried somewhere deep in a pile of six-year-old CRAP. And it takes more than one blog entry a month to find it.