Memoirs of the Hopeful

Something keeps my mind pre-occupied unnecessarily at this pitch-black hour, like an extreme comedy enforced upon a lifeless outrigger sailing aimlessly over the immense, fogbound ocean. It holds captive all five senses, their purpose lost. It seizes my faculties, rendering me a hard-core inutile on the ever faithful ground. Much more, it punishes the last dregs of my breath. It screams king from its exploding, arrogant chest; and I am the enslaved soul on all pitiful fours, fettered and wounded. It spells dread in its countenance that I shudder and become weak at the knees. It lives in a prominent, arresting mansion over the hill this poor dreamer could only fancy about, as it murders the sullen truth that rides the silent and infinite ripples of black water -- putrid and nobody's wine nor tea. The phantom lingers its shameless exploits round me. 

As I don my tattered shirt and threadbare pants, which speak loudly of what it wants me to, exhausted with bloodshot eyes, I toy with the penetrating idea of how to escape, which is now a crime. How hapless this soul is, it could not sing anymore. But there should be a tunnel out! If not, I could dig my way out all day without its prying eyes noticing. I could outsmart my enemy, however skinned my hands and restless my heart would be. I have to. 

Now it seeks to suck out of my life, leaving me freezing in stiff air with the deafening, shrill cries of its mocking guards lurking in the dark, whose labyrinth-red eyes I can only see. Poised to battle against this mimicry of the devil, I pretend not to hear any of it, nor to imagine what creatures bear those eyes. I turn myself into a modest stone. I need to endure its bigotry. 

I close my eyes with a dying heartbeat. I swallow my saliva to quench a parched larynx, only to murmur within myself. I rest my mind from the convoluted pollution. I hope to muster a sleep. 

This is not a race to forever, nor a fruitless struggle. A triumphant claim looms over me.

Image: Toa Payoh, Singapore

The Plant

There you are my muse

in the nook of my soul,

looking out for my god

dressed in my faith and hope.

How the silence of your mien

perpetuates through my afternoon,

is to my indignation not;

it is the fuel stirring 

my affair with solitude.

I delight in your fine expression

-- coy, playful, full of conviction,

yet unpredictable.

You carry the eyes

watered with spring and summer,

and direct which to mine;

and for that, so grateful I am.

Despite all the nuisances

dangling and screaming around,

you remain calm and steadfast,

only to breathe with me,

to sleep in our own pulses

and be swayed by our simple happiness.

I catch the phrases let out from your foliage

-- young, smiling, and still wading

in the ruffled air and storms.

I love you.

Image: Toa Payoh, Singapore

Lungs and Nicotine

Left with the unavailability of tables for starving beings with pink lungs and nostrils that unwelcome their nemesis called nicotine, I lunged myself to the far side of the hawker centre. It was the perfect spot for the addicted patrons who were puffing away on a cigarette as if smoke would be contained in their own boundaries, their imagined vacuum, and wouldn't dissipate to elsewhere. My butt sat like it owned a puff smoke shop. However, in a snap, there was the prune-skinned uncle, the sole master in command, not of a sinking ship, for, as he claimed, he had lived a good life. And my thoughts came running from old age to "the calling." I am sorry; I have to euphemize the latter. I am just caught up in a paradox. 

I hoped for an easy trespassing that I felt I did. My lungs said no worries; all things would be very well, anyway. 

I carved my teeth into my pork pao, and it caused a scene in my mouth. My taste buds met it as a father would his prodigal son, making me hungrier, yes, salivating even more. The pork and the pao milled out of their juices, forming mini-balls and bumpy plains, finally, were pushed down to my storage, making me a fraction of a pound heavier. Oh, how my gut worshipped anything but pork! It sang in glorious harmony! I took a sip of my iced lemon tea bombarded with ice barrels -- ah, just a perfect companion for my pork pao. 

I enjoyed my afternoon cravings. I really did, until four more smokers joined uncle. Our circle swelled with nicotine and rained ash. Indeed, they had their own vacuum, and that just killed someone else's pink lungs.

Images: Toa Payoh Central, Singapore

Fragile

As the paws of your power reached for my feeble spine and limbs, through the golden grass and earth of the safari, I looked into your weary eyes borne out of my carelessness. Unknowing, toothless, and short, I was raked back home. I was in dire peril. There was true commotion when I left the perimeter, yet I would never realize that. Closing in on your midst, I felt your growingly normalizing heartbeat, and it unwittingly pulled your upper lip up and lower lip down, revealing your hunting sharps that scarred a mighty history. All was converted into a relief. Comforted beneath the warmth and strength of your mane, the expanse of your kingdom is all but your arms entangled around my fragility.

Photo source credit: The Telegraph

Boracay Island in Frames

I won’t necessitate gloating over how stunning and awe-inspiring Boracay Island is. It is what it is: the Philippines’ premier tourist destination, which has one of the world’s top beaches under its pocket -- the White Beach. I let Google and Wikipedia stand by their own definitions of the island's face.

A haven for water-sports junkies, nature lovers, foodies, children on the prowl for water and the sun, couples silly-crazy for romance, and party-stoked creatures, it isn’t easy not to love the island. I love the life it breathes.

From the long stretches of Stations 1, 2, and 3, and back, to Diniwid Beach, until the colors of the sunset peppered the horizon, I was there, like a reclusive soul drifting on the shore, unfazed by the miles and even when all turned up its silhouettes.

Here is what has become of Boracay Island through my lens.