Slip of the Pen

(For S.)

Countless are the women likened to the stars. Stars who are adored, stars who tingle and tickle the being, stars who are courted, stars who become lovers and better halves. Ah, such bitter pairings! A beautiful star is aloof, without a care in the world, isolated by a dark vastness oft-minisculed as a greatest ocean to cross or a highest mountain to climb, and if and when I conquer the cold void between me and the star after a journey that took forever, I will just be swiftly and mercilessly consumed by the blinding and unsurpassed heat of her fire without her even blinking. In the company of a star, two indeed become one and only one.

You, you are not a woman comparable nor should be compared to a star. You are dust, as I am who came from dust and will return to dust. You and I are mere specks in the cosmos, but in our world that is only ours, we are valuable and are valued the same. There is no darkness nor oceans nor mountains in between us. Together, we are free to tumble in the grass, to slide down the waterfall, to dance to the tune of the wind. Together, we are two yet we are one.

But you are dust unlike I, dust of the earth. You — and you might not realize this — you are dust of the stars. I know this because when we are together, you make our surroundings scintillate like a firefly does in a moonless night, and a ring of gentle fire — fire that does not consume life but nurtures it — caresses and embraces our joined bodies.


Happy 22nd birthday, Ia! More October 24 goodness at last year’s She, I. This was translated from the original in Tagalog.

She was born on 5:28, I was born on 8:52. At first glance it seems a harmless coincidence; after all, there’s a person born every minute. But when two people having those amusing numbers cross paths and spend eight years dancing with each other, you’re reminded of an oft-abused word having “soul” and having “mate”.

These two people are two shoes in different colors. Somehow, they sport similar designs. (Maybe because they come from the same Maker, and were meant to be paired in the future, albeit in fashion faux pas?) The feet that wear them walk together in different cadences, but if one falls behind, it always catches up — the other never leaves it behind. And when these feet find themselves back on the same track, the cadence goes awry again after some time. But as always, one waits for the other, the other catches up. It’s a cycle, a sequence of missteps and small reunions, all backdropped against a war of colors that, oddly enough, look good together from time to time.

She was born on 5:28, I was born on 8:52. She was born, I was born.

She, I.


Happy 21st birthday, dearest Ia. Guys, please do me a favor and greet her at the newly-opened Stellify.net. Thanks! (And it’s not my birthday today — I was born on May 10.)

The comma is a punctuation mark, mistress of the period, slave of the semicolon. It separates ideas within the structure of a sentence; it’s a pause, a caesura. Or so the dictionary says.

The comma, like all symbols in the world, holds profound meaning for many people. Lawyers use it as a tool of mercy in their tortuous statements. The literati adore it, despise it — why, wasn’t, it, Jose, Garcia, Villa, himself, who, made, the, comma, famous? Optimists see the apostrophe as comma in transcendence; pessimists see the comma as apostrophe condemned to earthly life.

Me and Her hold the comma in reverence, too. We adore it, despise it, like we do with all our gods. Our ziggurat is the phone line, our ritual the conversation. Her comma is a brief moment of peace, a time to recollect thoughts scrambled by loud words and louder silence, an unspoken armistice.

My comma is an obstacle, a rage-inducing eternal pause, undoubtedly illogical — why, every sentence must end in a period, an exclamation, a question! I want to get my point across, clean up the mess, and settle the matter. My comma is my foe.

Differing opinions, comma deified, comma vilified. But one thing is certain — comma means one thing for both of us,

When I write, I write about something — a day in a bastard’s life, a tragic comedy, a comic tragedy, a poem, an essay, a whitepaper, an emotion succinctly portrayed in polysyllable words. Today is different; I can’t find anything to write about. But that will not stop me from writing something, because when you think about it, I can write about nothing and you will see it as something. Here’s the something of this day’s nothingness, captured in less than a minute. Ready?

tick The blankness of the digital page tock staring at you from your monitor tick appalls you, rendering your fingers frozen tock above the keyboard in stupefaction. tick Face it — you can’t write anything, tock much less a dazzling piece tick of literature (literature governed tock by you, omphalos of the world). tick After all, the cursor blinking tock on-screen is your Freudian id, insistent tick and irksome to an extent, prompting tock you to type something, weave tick something from nothingness. tock Heed your blinking id, gratify tick the primal writer in you, delve deep and type, tock type type type, then dress up tick your writing with fonts (times new roman tock or comic sans?), breathe into it tick red passion, green freshness, black tock simplicity, then decide if you’ll tick skew it to the right, to the left, or tock be page-centric as your egoist self. tick Take your time, decorate your writing tock as you would yourself (admit it). tick But when you’re done, better make sure tock it’s good without the appurtenances tick (blame your blinking id!), because tock the unadorned text is nothing but tick you. tock


[Adapted from my poem written this very day, titled "It’s Cliché"]

Might as well put a marker below it: Since May 10, 2005.

Credit a close friend for this remarkable career choice of mine. The friend gave me as a birthday gift some sort of “Today’s Advice” poster which neatly presents more than a hundred pieces of ‘advice’ in tabular form. The instructions say: “Close your eyes (no cheating!), turn around, and then point at this poster and follow the advice your finger lands on!”

Certainly for idiots and the cheesy-types. But then the Corsarius is prone to moronic and yummy-cheesy tendencies from time to time, so forgive me if I indulged myself with this self-advice poster. And guess what? It sure is one treasure trove worthy of a corsair! Here are some jewels for your perusal:


June 23: “Don’t be Late”

My 10AM classes always suffer from my delinquence. Grooming myself takes about half an hour; the trip from Mabuhay Rotonda to UP Diliman is another 30 minutes. And I wake up at 9:30AM.

Solution? Ride a taxi. The catch? A hundred pesos down the drain.

My wallet goes kaput.


July 1: “Expect a Miracle”

Downstairs in the backyard, I know my favorite dog lies dying. But with this advice nagging at my mind, I hurry to the yard. Tough luck; the dog is still sprawled on the ground. Bleeding. Dying. I turn my back on him.

Suddenly, our maid lets out a cry. I swiftly turn around. Lo and behold, the dog is trying to sit up! He looks at me with glassy eyes, as if pleading for help. I rush and force-feed him another dose of medicines and nourishment.

Minutes later, our dog throws up all of his medicine and sustenance.

The next day, he is dead.


June 11: “Be Gentle”

Don’t tell me I’m going to do it with an untouched lass. Uh, come again? Ah. So that’s what the advice really means. Sorry for my greener-than-the-greenest-grass-and-greener-than-yours mind. But before you throw me out of my own blog for this overly “male chauvinist pig” paragraph, here’s a last advice –


July 19: “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”

Have you prepared your victory speech? The one trumpeted after your graduation, your promotion, your humble acceptance of an award. It’s the speech everybody wants to write, to deliver with élan, to be immortalized in some history book, to be worshipped by the inferior people looking up at you on your pedestal. So, have you already prepared your speech? Because I have prepared mine.

Cut to the chase. No funky perfunctory greetings here. Only self-adulation. Because if I’m to thank one and only person, that would be Me. The Me who resisted failure when failure was but a certainty, the Me who defeated defeat when defeat wasn’t a possibility but an inevitability. The Me who stood by Me when all others’ support wilted in the face of the all too human Ingratitude. The ‘alpha male’ Me who through the years finally believed in himself because nobody else believed in him. The Me who forged the best in Me — the Corsarius — even when all others thumbed their noses and stared their most disparaging stares at Me. And so I don’t thank the unrewarding parents, the fair-weather friends, the royal-righteous-popular-heroic enemies of the maligned corsair, the blind fools who see the villain and not the innocent, the spurners, the skeptics, the critics, and the dogs which bite their feeder’s hand. I thank only one person. I thank Me, I thank Me, I thank Me. Thank Me, and thank Me all. Thank you.

That’s it. Others may write their own speeches. If they need to spend hours on it, it’s fine. I’m done with mine.

It only takes ten minutes to self-adulate.

How do I get spurned by thee? Let me count the ways:


The Immaculate, circa 1997

Over the phone line. “I’m sorry, Corsarius. You see, I’ve got a guy friend. He’s so kind to me. He buys me ice cream everytime.”

I say, “Aw, shucks.”


The Angel, circa 1999

Written on perfumed stationery. “I’m sorry, Corsarius. I never thought you had those intentions for me. I just want to be your friend. I mean, we can still be friends, right?”

I rip the letter to shreds.


The Princess

Strike One, circa 2002 - Dark hallway in PSHS, half-wishing something nasty would happen between us. But — “I’m sorry, Corsarius. I just don’t want to have a boyfriend, and you’re not of my religion.”

Wish not granted.

Strike Two, circa 2003 - Araw ng Kagitingan, UP Diliman. On the main library’s steps. Sunset. Romantic. But — “I’m sorry, Corsarius. I should’ve told you this a year ago. There was no spark. Nada. Nunca. Wala. Now get out of my sight, you sorry git.”

I get out of her sight. Head unbowed, chin up to the dying sun.

Still romantic.


The Corsarius, circa 2005

“I’m sorry, too, Corsarius, for having been a lousy suitor unworthy of your swashbuckling title oozing with machismo — or so I imagine.”

Oh joy.

And it’s not even Valentine’s Day.

At least, it’s the fourteenth.

[A crap of a space-filler, methinks. Rummaging my mind for some bright idea. Till then.]

You, yes, you, you who have her, greet her. Give to her what’s due her — a kiss, a hug, a Hallmark card. Bake her some cookies. Wash the dishes. Take her to the movies. Spare her your irksome, childish manners, even for a day. Better yet, give a simple, heartfelt thank-you for all that she has sacrificed for you.

Ask yourself, How old am I? Don’t add, don’t subtract. Keep that number exact, keep it in your mind. For that’s the number of years she has cried, toiled, and felt happy for you.

Be grateful. Feel fortunate that you can greet her today, unlike some others. You, yes, you, you who have her.

After all, the ‘you’ isn’t a mere literary device.

It’s a revelation.


[Look for the revealing line here.]

I’ve always enjoyed riding the red tricycles plying the streets of my barangay*. And no, it’s not the exhilarating speed which makes me feel like Schumacher in his equally-crimson Ferrari. Rather, it’s the unique scenery whizzing past my eyes, which — weirdly enough — provokes deep, ‘socially-relevant’ thoughts.

You see, there’s this road called Calle** Street. Obviously a repetitive name, but that’s where the redundancy ends. The two sides of the street are not replicas of each other; the houses, parked vehicles, and even the pet dogs of each side are strikingly different.

When I ride a tricycle and pass through Calle Street, I can’t stop comparing the old, ramshackle, wooden houses of the left side of the road to the palatial, concrete mansions of the right. Parked on the left side are several FX taxis, a jeepney, and a dented Volkswagen Beetle on its last wheels. On the right, Ford Expeditions and top-of-the-line sedans charge forth from the mansions’ gates. The left sidewalks are home to emaciated mongrels, while the right-side Dalmatians and Rottweilers chase them away when the latter’s masters take them out for a walk.

In this little swath of our barangay, a famous expression is given new meaning.

Two sides of the coin, two sides of the street.


*In the Philippines, some sort of ‘community within a city’; an administrative subdivision. Visit this link for more.
**Spanish for ‘Street’. Spanish ceased to be an official Philippine language in 1973.

In front of the Santo Domingo Church along Quezon Avenue, I was quite surprised at a familiar sight so unfamiliar.

A pair of young boys was braving the noontime sun on a crowded, open footbridge which spanned the road. Unmindful of the traffic below, they intently tugged at the sky with invisible strings, pulling this way and that. Even as a hurrying adult crashed into their frail bodies clothed in tattered sandos and shorts, their eyes remained glued to the heavens and their hands steadfastly gripped and yanked the unseen strings.

Squinting my eyes against the glaring light, I finally saw two small kites soaring above the road, casting their measly, dancing shadows on the vehicles below. Grey gusts from countless exhaust pipes powered the kites’ flight. Again and again the paper birds darted left to Sto. Domingo’s direction, right to an abandoned building fronting the great church, then upwards to the sun. Left, right, up. But never downwards.

I fancied seeing some words scrawled on the flimsy kites. One prayed: “God gimme a jeepney*, and I’ll earn many coins to buy a red, shiny car.” The other kite simply pleaded: “Let some coins drop from a pocket’s hole so I could eat kikiam** today.”

Suddenly, one kite crossed its partner’s path, then wavered in flight. The other kite followed suit and lost altitude, its diamond frame faltering. Finally, both spiraled downwards like birds shot from the air.

The kites’ unseen strings had caught each other.


[recently published in INQ7.net's Expressions]

*jeepney - the Philippines’ King of the Road. Public utility vehicle wherein 18 people can be jampacked. Ultimate polluter of the skies. Visit this link for more.
**kikiam - cheap but sumptuous cuisine (at least for me) sold by mini-food stalls dotting the Philippines’ streets. Spend a few coins, and your tummy’s pleased.