my dog for almost nine years had just died a few moments ago.

eleven years old---i can still remember the time when i first saw her as this big chubby chunk of brown furry hair. she'd be the one to race into the rusty gates whenever she hears me arrive from school. she'd be wagging her tail like crazy and affectionately cajoling me to run after her.

after a few years, she gave birth to the two other dogs of our home. she was the cool mother of them. she played with them constantly and, disbelive as you might, took on the task of being a good role model dog. she never pooped in places you never wanted her to, she barked relentlessly at shady strangers and she never failed to delightfully swing her tail from left to right whenever she saw us.

she began acting weird the other day. she would just sulk in one corner and not eat anything at all. then, yesterday, her legs became limp and she was crippled. she couldn't even support her body up but her eyes were always looking towards us, catching our gazes if she could. i was still awake around past midnight when i heard her mournful moans. there was no question of whether she was suffering. it was dead dark at the place she was sentenced to sleep on. i thought that she might have felt fearful of the dark, afraid that she was on the verge of death and she was there all alone. i groped to turn on the light and saw her. she couldn't even look my way because her neck was stiff. all that she could do was desperately roll her eyes to my direction to see me. her cries tamed down a bit when she realized i was there but i just couldn't stay. tears welled up in my eyes.

at this very moment, my dad is burying her just beneath the chico tree. my dad loved her more than i did. i could imagine that every shovel of earth that he digs up for her grave pains him, every sweatdrop a homage to the wonderful creature named thalia.

i had a weird dream this afternoon...

dear you,

hey. i had a dream about you. i know---that's kinda pathetic. knowing you, you'd probably would pick on me forever for it, you'd start fluffing up your ego and rave on incessantly about how i'm still so into you.

you wanna know how it went? i'll tell you just the same.

i was at our living room, chilling out, watching tv, when my sister called for me. looking quite confused, she reported to me that someone was in front of the house. i saw you. you had just came from your hongkong trip, complete with your two hefty luggages. i knew i was supposed to hate you for shutting me out of your life but the instant you smiled at me and mouthed my name, i quickly forgave you... without you even asking for it. maybe it's a cliche but realizing you stood right in front of me was all that i needed.

i paused for a second or two to grasp your existence. i let you in immediately, after i came to my proper mind. you were beginning your lines of "i'm sorry's" and "happened because's" when i shushed you and assured you that i'm ok. you looked weary and tired so i offered you to sleep for a while.

yes, the dream had you and i on a bed but i had nothing sexual in mind, put that in your head, silly. as we lay on the bed, we just talked with our eyes closed. it wasn't until you softly squeezed my hand, that i came to terms that both our hands were clasped together, filling the other's spaces between the fingers.

this dream is so fucked up. it was like being drawn back to the past when there was still the "us". it was like a hodgepodge of overlapping time zones. it was this epiphany that ended the dream. i woke up.

now, don't you get any far-fetched ideas about this. let's not get our undies up in a wad. maybe i had this dream because i wanted to validate that what we had was not trash, that it really meant something to you. it would be pathetic for me to reiterate that i'm over you but it is the stark naked truth.

ok. i would be terribly lying if i told you that i didn't have even a granule of love for you. that piece of love coupled with the friendship you told me that we had, did suffice. it was more than enough to remind me that we ended good. unfortunately, because of the present situation, i cannot be blamed for thinking otherwise.

i dunno.

here,
just me

more than anything, i think this is my soliloquy.

i got my schedule for this term at school today. i was so enervated by the fact i was able to see my friends after quite a long time of seclusion. the only things that bridged us amongst the heap of activities were the yahoo messenger chats and the e-mails. wow. i really did miss the fellas... and damn it! i'm so sure they missed me too.

after getting the registration forms, we ate for about three hours at mcdonald's. well, you can't really blame us. in fact, that is so short a time for really catching up.

food fetish: tell you what, i think i won't ever get tired of eating twister fries dunked in a puddle of ketchup!

when our tummies were filled in beyond recognition, we decided to drop by the very de classe (good if you don't understand this) mall within the thief-infested quiapo. you see, two of my closest friends from college employed me to help them with the graduation committee. i'd like to believe that i'm an honorary member of that group (just so you know) that's in charge of the pictures and the yearbooks---yes. i did say yearbooks. they planned on having a digital annual since we're supposed techies.

riding the bus home was quite a different thing. have you ever ridden those television-equipped buses? it would seem very nice if the vehicle isn't jampacked like a pathetic pickle jar. but no---the bus i jumped into, did a very good impression of a canned good. people were standing in a very compressed queue in the middle of the bus's body---butts and other parts of their lower bodies, which i would rather not mention, kept humping my nape because i was seated. then there's this moronic lady who blocked my site of the tv because she positioned her crane-like neck and her match stick head in front of it! talk about being so fucking inconsiderate! hey, i know how hard it is to take the "standing bus ride" (having done that myself a good number of times) but please, don't make other people miserable! i paid a more expensive fare just to be able to watch tv through the two-hour trip!

but in summary, the day went very good for me. everything else is just nit-picking.

i'm doing letters today. i know the supposed recipient won't be able to read this...

dear you,

why?

i dunno. i'm a bit clueless. do you know how i felt when my friend told me you left the country?

when i got wind of that, i felt like being dunked in a pool of puncturing ice.

i know i didn't go to our reunion. maybe i didn't want to see you just yet. maybe not at that moment... but i wanted to see you... i needed to.

so you went to hongkong with your father. could that be the reason why someone else had your number? did you sell it to somebody? geesh. you could have given me a clue on what was happening in your life. what happened to the friendship we were proud of having?

guess what? nobody seems to know if you're staying there with your dad for good.

why didn't you tell me a thing? am i that unimportant? for crying out loud, i was a part of your life... you made me believe then that i am still a part of your friggin' life! what was that about?

i am a bit hurt but i'm still wondering how you are.

i want to hear your voice.

here,
just me

at least i shred off some of the baggage i was carrying.

i have found one of the saddest poems....

tonight i can write
pablo neruda

tonight i can write the saddest lines.

write, for example, 'the night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

the night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

tonight i can write the saddest lines.
i loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

through nights like this one i held her in my arms.
i kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

she loved me, sometimes i loved her too.
how could one not have loved her great still eyes.

tonight i can write the saddest lines.
to think that i do not have her. to feel that i have lost her.

to hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
and the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

what does it matter that my love could not keep her.
the night is starry and she is not with me.

this is all. in the distance someone is singing. in the distance.
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

my sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
my heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

the same night, whitening the same trees.
we, of that time, are no longer the same.

i no longer love her, that's certain, but how i loved her.
my voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

another's. she will be another's. as she was before my kisses.
her voice, her bright body. her infinite eyes.

i no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe i love her.
love is so short, forgetting is so long.

because through nights like this one i held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that i write for her.

great poem... but allow me to digress. my biological clock has gone haywire. somehow, i awfully need to correct it.

it's a cycle, really: i go into half-asleep mode from early six to nine, i doze off a few hours more, i really wake up around twelve noon, i do my things, i get my siesta, i do the greater half of my things, i do my solitary couch potato-ing at ten in the evening until twelve thirty in the morn hits, i surf the net from one till three in the morning... then it all begins again when i walk halfway out of dreamland to jive with the radio at six in the morning.

ladies and gentlemen, this is the life of a professional slacker. if more people have the same schedule i have, the society and the world as we know it is absolutely towards self-abomination.

it's a damn wonderful world.

i didn't go to the reunion. i got a lot of text messages from my classmates shamelessly coaxing me to catch up though i'm uber-late. let me tell you that it made me feel good. so, they wanted me there. that's nice.

i was stuck at home filling my head reluctantly with useless what if's. yup, that's all that i had.

maybe in a few years time, i'll get to got to a reunion in case they have the guts to organize one again... and maybe isn't really an insignia of a promise.

this senate trial is really interesting. you get to see the so-called noble senators at work. aside from that it has efficiently divided my family's opinion in two, thank you very much.

my father is loyally adhering to the reasonings of the government side. while me and the subversive potentiales are keen on looking at it from both sides, leaving an open mind on the fact that the anti-administration team may be on the right snooping trail.

it's just pathetic for my father to instantly dog to the other side with the basic reason that it is the philippine government's.