Written Contusions

Two nights ago, I dreamt about another disturbing thing.

I dreamt that I went into an apartment near my house. I sat in the living room on a turquoise colored sofa and I started reading a book. Suddenly, my little nieces and my kid cousin came in and started playing in the living room. Afraid that they might break something, I told them that they should stop. I got up, folded my book and started holding their hands in mine when I noticed that there was an old lady sitting on the other sofa.

Her hair was gray and it reached down to her forearm. Her face was kinda stern looking. It was kinda wrinkled in an austere kinda way. She had her hands folded on her lap.

After seeing her, I felt embarrassed that I went into her house without her permission so I faced her and I said, "Sorry Ma'am. I didn't realize you were there. I will be taking the kids home now."

"That's a good idea," she replied as she smiled at me.

When I looked back to grab the kids, they were gone. Instead, I saw the old woman standing in the door way. She said she was lonely and asked me if I could stay longer. She pointed to a photo behind me to show me her family picture. I turned my head and the old lady was already on the other side of the room, sitting behind a desk. She was smiling dubiously now.

I approached the desk but I felt funny. It felt like every step I took didn't reach the floor. My body felt light.

Then the old woman asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think my body is levitating and I can't control it."
"I can do that too. Just concentrate," she advised.

I put my palms together and opened it slowly like a butterfly while making sure my index fingers and thumbs were together to form a triangle. Slowly, I was able to prevent myself from floating. I was able to control the rhythmic bobbing of my body.

Then I got surprised because hand gripped me from behind and pulled me down.

I turned to face the person and I felt relieved to see my colleague from work. Her name was Ena.

"Hey! What are you doing here?!" I asked enthusiastically.
"I'm visiting my friend," she answered.
"Ah! Yes, that's right. You told me you had a friend living here but I didn't know your friend lived so close from my house."
"Where do you live ba?" she asked.

I walked towards the window. It was made from jalousies. "There! I live in that compound just across the street."

As I pointed it out, our view of the street zoomed in like it was being focused on a video camera.

I said, "Wow! Auto-focus!"
"I could also do that!" my colleague said and the window view zoomed even more til I could see my house's very own door.
"That great! So is she your friend?" pointing at the old lady.

I twisted my body to look and point but the old lady was gone. I looked back to Ena an the old lady was beside her already, sitting on a wooden chair.

The old woman was stilling smiling and I noticed that I was not able to move my whole body. I could manage to wriggle my toes and fingers and jerk my hand but that was it.

I struggled but my efforts are in vain. Then, a spark of inspiration hit me. I realized I was dreaming!

Local superstition states that if you are dreaming and you can't move your body, the solution to that is to clench your toes or cross you fingers. I was starting to get frantic. I tried both at the same time. I was starting to curl my toes when I saw Ena hugging the old lady to prevent her arms from falling to her side.

I immediately saw the connection. I was put under a binding spell and the only way to break it is if she unfolds her hand or if I was strong enough to break it on my own by curling my toes or crossing my fingers.

I was near victory and I saw the old woman straining to stop her arms from being lifted up when suddenly, Ena helped her and hugged her really tight.

I became desperate. I was able to talk so I started shouting for my mom. I was also starting to wake up but still I couldn't move my body. My mom was fast asleep. Good thing my aunt woke up and I was able to tell her to curl my toes and then cross my fingers. Suddenly, every was ok.

It felt horrible. I thought I was going to die in my sleep that night. I felt like I traveled the astral plane again and I met someone really powerful. Could this also be a test of power?

Yesterday I dreamt that I went to a clinic for a medical exam. I walked up to the counter and they gave me directions on how to proceed. My first stop was a male nurse across a corridor strewn with all kinds of things like blood test kits, syringes, plastic wrappers, test tube racks, and beakers.

With patience and a considerable amount of dexterity, I was able to reach the nurse and he took my hand. He put a test tube with a jagged opening to my wrist. We slowly moved the jagged glass around my wrist and I got lacerated. My wrist was bleeding slightly so I pressed on it with my other hand to stop the bleeding.

Anxious to get the medical tests completed, I asked the nurse, "So where should I go next?"
"To avoid crowding, go to the last nurse's station and then back track."
I said, "Ok. Thanks!" as I was walking towards the place he was pointing to.

When I got to the nurse's station, the nurses rushed up to me and they looked horrified. They asked me, "Sir, what happened to you!?"

As soon as they got to me, they held up my hand and I realized that my wrist was bleeding like a stuck pig.

"How did this happen to you, Sir?" they asked as they were cleaning my wound.

I pointed to the male nurse and said, "I think he wanted to get my blood sample using a test tube."
"Sir, we know you've done this before. Weren't you weirded out when he did that? You know that its not the standard procedure!"
"Yeah. I thought that was weird but...." I never finished my sentence. They ushered me in to a room to get my wound dressed.

They finished dressing my wound quickly. They told me to wait my turn for the other procedures for the medical test. They said I could walk around the garden while waiting. I got up and went out through a side door.

Stepping out on the garden felt like a visit to the zoo. There were cages with all sorts of animals. I am particularly delighted with ponds so I approached a pond when I saw a monkey wallowing in the sludgy water. I didn't notice it earlier but there were two crocodiles approaching the monkey and another animal. It seemed like an aardvark or a hairy ant-eater.

The first croc slowly plowed through the mud and snapped at the monkey, taking away most of its snout with it. Surprisingly, the monkey was able to still struggle away from the hungry crocs and it helped the aardvark/ant-eater escape the jaws of death. When they stepped on land, they ran with their front paws held outward and they ran erect with their hind legs.

I felt queasy considering that the monkey only had half of its face left.

I was distracted by the ruckus so I didn't notice that there is an even bigger crocodile approaching me. Good thing I was standing in front of the door so I didn't meet my end.

As I stepped inside, I saw that I was in another sector of the clinic and I was surrounded by a wire mesh fence and there were benches to sit on. I had my bag with me and one kid was yanking my bag. I felt scared that he would get my cellular phone or wallet so I shooed him away. He left but he put out his tongue at me.

I saw my mom there too.

I tried getting back to the nurse's station I was previously at but I didn't find it. I was tired already so I sat on a bench. I had nothing to do so I examined my wounded hand. I felt relieved that it stopped bleeding but I got chills looking at the muscles moving beneath the torn skin. I felt frantic when I saw that instead of blood, the wound gaped open like a talking mouth. I was so outraged that I mocked the passing medical personality by making the wound close and open like a mouth when speaking.

After that, I felt ashamed because I saw that everybody was staring at me already. I sat down again and tried to cover my face with my hands when I saw Eli (Elizabeth), my ex-girlfriend. I didn't want her to see me that way so I wished I could be invisible. Nevertheless, she still saw me and she sat beside me.

I don't remember anything more about that dream. That's all I have. It felt weird and actually felt that my hand was aching when I woke up. I was pretty shaken up because of that.

Sadness is the single most destructive emotion because you cannot direct it to any other person but yourself.
--------
Ironically, love is the only emotion that we can produce more of but choose to give to just one person.

Sometime two weeks ago, I saw a cockroach crawling underneath our washing machine. I know, this might not be the best choice for a blog entry since you might think that I am sloppy but this is actually very disturbing.

Knowing that its really not a good thing to have a cockroach in the house, I asked my kid cousin to swat the unholy creature dead. After a considerable amount of crawling to dodge the swat of death, the cockroach finally managed to stay still long enough for my cousin to kill it. Thinking that he already swept the dead insect, I turned to more pressing issues, i.e. the game show I was watching and I forgot all about it.

Evening came and I noticed that the little rascal was still there, dead and flat on the floor. However, I didn't want to sweep the germ-infested thing so I left it to my sister. While watching TV later on, my sister called me in a distressed and excited scream and she was laughing she asked me to guess what happened to her. I told her I had no clue and patience to guess so she energetically told me that our dead little cockroach was taken by another cockroach. This might be our hard evidence that cockroaches, over the millenia, have developed a culture and became civilized enough to claim and bury their dead.

Freaky huh?! I am still haunted by the thought. Brrrrr....

A few days later, my sister reported that the cockroach was returned to the original spot where it lay dead. She saw another cockroach dragging the dead one while she was sweeping.

I saw Charlie's Angels last night and I felt the sea calling me. I have actually noticed this during the past few days. I feel drawn to it and I feel that it has something to tell me or teach me.

I keep on seeing this image of a crimson sun, indigo sky, flaming sea close to the horizon, black sand and me, sitting on a dark beach, with waves washing over my feet.

Non sequitur: my friend Charisma asked me to write a poem about her. She says she'll give me P200.00. I felt flattered of course but at the same time, afraid that I might not live up to her expectations. She even gave me P30.00 as a down payment.

By the way, want to see how she looks like? This is Charisma.

Summer's heat is still unbearable. Last night, I was able to smell the approach of rain clouds in the air and I felt happy about it. I felt relieved because it has been so hot that all I can think of is banana daiquiri.

Last week, Friday: Small World

I went to an interview with a call center. I was anticipating that there would be heavy traffic so I left home at around 6am. I guess it is a good thing that my worst expectations were wrong, meaning, I arrived there at 8am - one hour earlier than the scheduled time. I anticipated this so I brought along a book that I borrowed from my sister and I read while I waited.

After suffering an hour of the dreadful paperback novel, we were ushered into a training room which also served as an interview room, a lady approached me and I found out that my old officemate, Wilma, worked there. I then realized that she was HR there and she was to conduct the interview. It relaxed me a bit to know that I think I breezed through her interview with flying colors.

Afterwards, we were told to read a script and make a recording to be sent to their operations manager. This was the next step of the selection process. I started and finished before the other applicants and I felt quite confident about everything.

I was on my way home and was about to cross the street when I saw my other friend, Charisma, and I actually jumped up and down to greet her and I also hugged her.

Small world, no?

Emotional camouflage.
Wreathed in smoke
hair shrouds eyes.
I'm sitting pretty on a lounger.
Bar is full of entangled histories
about desires, frustration,
real & imaginary ecstasies.
I lost my capacity to suffer -
sadness. I blatantly show
red cheeks
when no glance intersects with mine.
My eye lashes bat,
hearts start to flutter
& then a warm hand on mine
takes me to Neverland

-November 11, 2006

Welcome!

Vintage photo?

The flight of two birds
called "Dream and Nightmare"
in a sepia sky.

Hour glasses?

The endless autumnal molting
of red maple leaves
or the vernal tears welling
down weeping willow boughs
that are barely visible
except on moonlight nights.

Balloons?

Giant ogres orbitting over our heads.

Looking glasses?

You - a pale fairy prince
pointy-eared with damselfly wings.
Me - a rain child with scarlet scales
and lionfish fins.

Rings?

A fin & a feather intertwined.

I'll take that, thank you.

You're welcome
and thank you for shopping.

-Marso 8, 2007

I've first encountered Wislawa Szymborska when one day, I bought a DVD of the film Turn Left, Turn Right. As I was watching, the heroine of the story recited a poem called Love at First Sight. I liked the poem instantly and I became curious about the poet and her other poems.

My search for Wislawa wasn't very easy because for one thing, her name is very difficult to spell. When I got through to one site telling about her, I found myself on Nobelprize.org and I was happy to find out that she was a Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1996.

I was telling everybody about her then and one of my friends, Donna, told me she had a collection of Wislawa's poems and I asked her if I could borrow it. She lent it to me and I almost didn't want to give it back to her.

You may read about Wislawa Szymborska and her poems through these links

• biography
• poems

There is no use preparing for the future because we are always living in the here and now.

Be frustrated.
For the thing you do,
which defines
your very
existence,
gets you nowhere.


-Raquel Dujunco
Malate Tomo XVI, Bilang 3
p. 113

I like the paradox of the rocking chair. It moves incessantly and yet, this very nature never gets it anywhere.

I could relate to this at this point in time as I have already switched from one job to another - never, in any one of them, have I felt a sense of fulfillment. I have said to myself that I will be taking up a job to fund my passion in the arts - literature, mainly poetry, drawing and a bit of web designing.

I started that plan in 2004. It is now 2007. I feel like I have not moved an inch from where I have started.

At this point, I will never get anywhere so I decided to take up my pen again and write. It doesn't matter what it is. Poem. Story. Doodles. Spells. Anything, as long as I don't fall in my self-created black hole.

I am a leonine child but I have always identified with the Moon. I consider the Moon as my muse. This blog is a toast to my muse.

Read on...