<p>I walk slowly
Slowly into
To your empty room
All thoughts of you come flooding in
I close my eyes
Open my heart
Calling out your ghost
You are nowhere near my truth
I’d stay, but more like left behind
I’d stay and water the plants
I remember you telling me
I can wake up late
Saturdays til noon
Sweep the yard at dawn
Come back to bed
Still, I’d have to water the plants
I’d stay and water the plants…
I first punched in at PAGCOR on March 25, 2004. Jumping in between call centers, PAGCOR dialed in to ask if I was still interested in pursuing a career as a card dealer. I wish I knew how I got in as the only one who survived the I.Q. test from a cast of 35. It made me feel that I accomplished something and was set to achieve more. On the first break of my first day on duty, I wanted to quit and go home. The job is too fast, too intense and yet too mundane to actually mean anything. Dealing feels like you’re perpetually chipping away at this thick boulder with small ball peen hammer and a 4 inch concrete nail. Eventually, you’ll break your will first before you break the rock.
Nobody on the road is much douche-ier than hazard lights leading an expensive car pass through tight traffic flow. Flanked by pair of police patrol motorcycles, it doesn’t matter if they weave by you with or without their sirens blaring. It’s not as if their arrogance and misplaced sense of entitlement get muted when they only use blinking lights to announce their importance. I’d rather let them use their “wang wangs” so that it can drown out the invectives hurled at their direction.
Magic Johnson played with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for 10 years and went to the NBA finals 8 times where they won 5 (Magic, who played for 13 seasons went to the Finals once more, after Kareem retired, to pass the torch to a certain Michael Jeffrey Jordan). Nobody called him a sidekick despite being paired with the greatest scorer the league has ever had who, just dominated the preceding decade by winning MVP 6 times (71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 80). Maybe it helped that Magic’s rivalry with Larry Bird was so captivating, it catapulted them as the face of the league.
Also, in their decade long partnership, Magic won 3 season MVPs and another 3 Finals MVP (Kareem won one of each, but nobody’s gonna call him sidekick)
The struggle between good and evil has been going silently for occupation of my soul for the last 13 years every time I pass by Padre Burgos Ave. It is a chronic heartfelt intention to visit the National Museum; a prayer that always gets drowned out by the reality that spending 3 hours in traffic just to get to the Philippine senate’s former august halls (when they used to define august, one may say) and view an elitist time capsule may not be worth a day off.
This time I have kids, whom I may have spoiled enough to articulate a strong opinion
I ride the UV Express to work because I’m beginning to think that the stress that Manila traffic entails can be life shortening and may easily be quantified like a stick of cigarette (1 stick = -5mins of your life; 1hour stuck in traffic = losing half a day of sanity, something like that). Of course, driving in your own car is an insulation from all harm and comfort is what one primarily sacrifices when taking public transport. Especially if you choose to be crammed with 18 others in a tin can that can fit 14 comfortably. In the end, you are not paying for a fee just to get to your destination, you are paying for a leg room.
You’ll never know it
Where and when it starts
Then you’ll see patterns
Of yourself
With which muscle is dominant in their smile
What they find funny
Where they find happiness
And I know we’ve been taught
To find our own
Be it learned through a tragic lesson
Or influenced popular opinion
A throwback… A throbbing pain… In cubits, the window Is mocking my escape
Dear Thierri & Vedder,
A friend of mine re-posted this poem from more than 15 years ago. Published through Bulacan State University’s collegiate paper “Pacesetter”. I used to get a kick out of how our artists interpret the verbiage that is my poetry. The illustration gives it perspective and texture that was invisible when it was in vacuo of my head.
Allan Flores, the artist and
danDAman 