The Thing About Those Little Things

Even if you have to metamorphose into something less human-like, you are important, just like the toiling Philippine carabao that ploughs the rice field under the peaking sun, mindless of time, and its shrinking energy denied of water and rest, or the diminutive ant that with its marching army scavenges for and carries crumbs heavier than its own body.

Even if you have to be oblivious to the fact you are a thinking being, you are important. No matter how menial a thing is, however reduced your cerebral capacity is, you are important, an integral part of a whole.

Even if those humongous, watchful eyes towering over you only see the superficial, the skin-deep, you are important, because you are that essential of a detail, that small mud-brick that composed of the colossal pyramid.

You little thing, you are important. Yes, you are. You are greater than all those above you combined. You are highly appreciated.

Image: MacRitchie Reservoir Park, Singapore

Solace in Perfect Beauty

Blankness. Blackness. The streak of light that arrows through my left foot, that with its loyal pair freezes in all its indolence coupled with the sogginess underneath, blaming the scorching air that pierces the virtually muted room. The still motion disgusted by the sole arthropod doing its rounds on the ceiling. The dust that finds the darkest corners as its home parades itself as a quiet killer. And the intensity of silence that amounts only to the sound of eternal tick tocks and the faint honking of cars a hundred feet away. All these set me in a subtle trap. I feel the immobilization on this varnished wooden chair is as long as an unfortunate series of events.

Distraction approaches its rebirth every time the faculty of memory involuntarily scans the unforgotten times of me and you. And it is as tasty as more than half of the grocery store’s bitter gourds.

I remember you.

Those crazy times I pursued the youthfulness of you, embraced by the summer air in the same breath as those cold nights, were never a mistake. It was during those times when I realized that a bland being could love, be thrilled by your distant presence, where my pupils dilated like never before, be sometimes shy by your nearness, and be hurt by that fire that resulted in a throbbing Romeo. Those rainy times I penned those love letters by the window, were silly nonsense, but a child is always blameless and only his adulthood finds fault in its absurdity; we laughed together when we reread those eight years later. Those playful times we chased each other running barefoot on the solitary hill among the wide plains conjured our song. That beaming time I touched your delicate milky face as you adored drawing your favorite TV character, and those aimless scribbles meant our simple happiness.

But that happiness indescribable inside our light chests flew miles away years ago, unidirectional like it could never come back. It was gone to nowhere, to never our land anymore.

Never will I gaze again at your beauty that transcends living on a borrowed time. And when seen from every angle, it is like a candle that never melts. It glows, lighting up a dark room, in all its perpetual glory, wiping the sadness away.

Image: Joo Chiat Road, Singapore

Redeeming Thee

The smoke that smelled of mint, leaving a stubborn trail of white and grey, underscored the hell that that crammed house screamed of. The source, in my following, was from that little, dingy room with no window, and whose door manicured in dull red was its only escape, greeting my asthma so perfectly, whereupon I almost ran back outside. I thought the thickness of it clamping into my nostrils, clawing its way straight to my immaculately pink lungs would have me pass out anytime soon. Yet, I struggled, barely managed driving the near panic away. I continued with my feet pointing towards the door.

My vision, despite being blurred by the fog-like atmosphere rolling unceasingly in infinite directions and the lace curtains hanging in parallel with me, sorted three pairs of searing eyes that met mine. It was easy to see, anger nestled in their eyes, and it was maddeningly insane. I shuddered in fear I could hardly look at them for a second. I was so dumb I couldn't understand why. It was incomprehensible for a guest who expected nothing but a warm welcome. "Warm welcome your ass." I got it. And that echoed in the cavity of my head as I drew the curtains slowly.

My eyes searched for someone familiar, someone close to me, and then I saw you, finally. But I was stricken with horror. Your beautiful eyes were tinged with fright, and then tears came rushing to their floodgates down your cheeks. I wiped them while my heart cruised into thud after thud. I cried.

Saddened, disheartened, I closed my eyes, trying not to know anymore. I loved you. I knew it was you, because we had those strange affinities the first time I braved talking to you at the coffee shop. That fateful day that caused us spending a million wonderful moments together.

That sour reality pinched my core. I really wanted to save you, but you wouldn't let me. Just give me that hope, that chance. I am pleading.

Image: Iloilo City, Philippines

Her Name Is

Down the river in the wilderness, a distance too far for my eyes to see unmistakably, a figure emerged gracefully from the ground, a silhouette wrapping her milieu, swaying with nature’s cadence. I could tell it was a face accompanied by her long locks and body with royal proportions.

She was dancing with the night. Her fluidity that joined the water facing the majestic moon, the cold wind that touched my weary face, the trees that broke the silence, and the nocturnal creatures that bore witnesses to the magic, had me enchanted.

And I fixed my eyes at what could be the satellite in her sparkling eyes, the shape was beautiful. I stared at hers for too long. I wanted to see more, and then we were locked, chained by the universal obedience called togetherness. We were face to face. My proximity caught her by surprise. She lifted her hands to mask the entirety of her face, perhaps fighting off the pressure that crept into her midst, and hiding from a stranger. But, I saw it. It was a snicker, twitching her eyes, which left my heart racing the whole night. And she disappeared, remaining without a name.

Nevertheless, there is still a today or a tomorrow when you will tell me your name in my consciousness.

Image: Woodlands Waterfront Park, Singapore

Conflicts: Politics, Religion, and Relationship

Politics:

Nothing can be well-explained when politics come into play, for it is colored in the worst kind of discrimination and subtly reserved for the players’ own interests that would become blatantly shameless. Disenchantment is upfront, compounded by the fact that can nevertheless be more right or truer in its sense as they sail their own boats only to defeat the others dirtily and to surface atop the rest, wrapping it with an overwhelming victory in their all-encompassing calculating minds so undeserved.

It is sadder upon the realization of their now bared textured souls, rich in cavities you wish to scrape away until they become spotless and pure, even if they have to bleed and it calls for your exhaustion.

Religion:

For human spiritual needs, an open mind to accept that which satiates the soul in a moralizing tone freed of a heavy heart can be let enough than to debate and refute their truth against yours. When we do, violence is out there silently laughing, waiting to explode.

Violence only breeds another. It is an endless vicious cycle that is trapped and bottled unnecessarily in the name of defence as the oppressed or of offense as the deluded, yes, the often brainwashed. No one is above the other, no one can tell which the more absolute truth is, and no one is ever more powerful -- for we are all born equal, believing in the One with different names.

The reality of an individual is relative due to his/her circumstances and how he/she experiences life. Religion becomes part of life, a reality meant to be appreciated to make sense of our transient existence but never to cause harm on others, especially that the barbaric times had centuries-long been gone.

Relationship:

Innate human imperfections are precisely to be blamed. No one stands faultless succumbing to a fallibility, which may be grounds for the friction. We try to be logical, we dare to be called correct, we act to will it, only to cross past boiling point, thus, the clash.

A petty or a serious skirmish is but linear, it takes you to a dimension infinite and never ending. However, it takes a humble party to resolve it, just brave enough to talk it through and to ask for forgiveness, which will snowball into something far greater than any reward one could imagine.

From there, despite marked history, a relationship can still be perfected and not dead any more.

Image: Toa Payoh, Singapore