On her being unpredictable

Sometimes being unpredictable isn't an asset. She's sweet now, she's a bitch later. Mood swings, ticks, fits, and helluva lot of surprises. Multiple personalities in one dinner with your favorite bone soup. You won't eat that bone soup anymore. She will ruin it with her unsolicited sudden pessimism about life. She will ask, "What the hell are we doing?" while you try to recuperate your bone soup disappointment with milk tea. Your mouth will be stuck in that straw. "What the hell are we doing?" Damn the woman, you don't know yourself! You are in love with a lot of persons in one body. What the hell are you doing? She's unpredictable. You tried and tried and tried. You tried to understand. But you lost that drive anymore. Her ticks and fits and helluva lot of surprises numb you. You don't know her anymore. A million versions of her in one dinner date. She likes pudding now, she loathes it later. She likes her dress now, she wants to get naked later. She loves you now, then she will ask "What the hell are we doing?" later. You don't know what the hell is going on. You try to get out but you can't. Why? You still hope of seeing her in one piece--that version of her that you loved. Damnable love. Damnable feelings.

Being unpredictable is a shitload that doesn't make sense at all. Why do you have to be this mean? Why do you shock me with your ticks and fits and helluva lot of surprises? I don't need to be shocked. I want clarity. I want to see one version of you while we sit and warm our asses on a fine dinner date with bone soup and milk tea and pudding and buttered chicken and turkey. Why can't you be one at a time? Why do you ask "What the hell are we doing?" Don't you know? We are screwing ourselves waiting for each other to get lost. I don't want that bone soup anymore. Damn that bone soup. I want to get the hell out and cuddle up my pillow--doesn't matter if you'll come along with your multiple personalities. You're too unpredictable. It's too much. It's too painful. But I love you and that's where I lose despite my whines. I love you. Damn I love you. Please be kind and come back in one piece, baby. Come back in one piece.

Of silence and alter ego

I keep my mouth shut for three reasons: 1.) I am in pain; 2.) my mind is telling me something and I need total silence; 3.) Cupid is poking this stupid heart.

Alter ego: What the hell, Dennis? You've been too melodramatic lately! What are these posts about love and pain? What the fuck is going on with you? Have you forgotten that you should not fall in love? Have you been weak? Did you let her get you? Did you let her go inside? Did you let her?

Me: I did and I am sorry. I have not forgotten that I shouldn't fall in love. But I did and it's not that bad at all.

Alter ego: Not that bad? Let me remind you of her, then.

Me: You don't have to do this.

Alter ego: Yes, I have to. Let me remind you of the catastrophic history that almost ruined your entire life.

Me: It is the part of my past that haunts me until now. You don't have to tell me what I've been through because I've been carrying the shitload of pain with me all throughout these years and I assure you I am still badly wounded.

Alter ego: But here you are doing it again.

Me: You've seen her, haven't you? You know how I feel about her. You know it's different. You know this isn't going to be a major screw-up. This is it, man. I know you know.

Alter ego: And I've seen you being hurt, Dennis. Remember those nights? Remember all the fucked up nights you have to go through? Remember the days inside campus that everything felt void and you are but a shadow of a broken soul? All I'm saying is that I don't want to see you hurt yourself again. You worked so hard getting up. You collected all the pieces of that broken heart and tried to piece it back together. You worked so hard for everything inside you to be right again, man. And here you are throwing it out again to the void. You said so yourself that she isn't feeling the same way. Why are you doing this?

Me: Man, love isn't about getting something back. Love is total sacrifice. I've said it many times: even if she doesn't love me I will still love her. That's the gist of it.

Alter ego: But you are hurt. A part of you wants something back. A part of you wants her to love you. That part will be your major screw-up, man.

Me: That part is you.

Alter ego: And it is you.

Of a song reminisced

A song always reminds me of you. They play it everywhere I go and it reminds me of you. At first I felt unprejudiced longing for you. It was good. I felt like flying above cloud nine as that song played on. But it also reminded me of the unrequited. The unrequited feeling. The unrequited care. The unrequited love. The melody stabs and breaks what little hope I have with the idea that I love you and you don't. It was like how Tom felt listening to that song he and Summer used to sing (500 Days of Summer). I hate this song! I loved it and I hated it. Why does it hurt so bad? Why does it fucking hurt so bad?

I know you've heard the song. You're singing it. You sing the heartbreak of my soul, fair lady. You sing and I die with it.

October Reads

October Reads:

1. Fight Club
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. Inferno
4. Doomed
5. Radiant Void
6. A Separate Peace
7. Sputnik Sweetheart
8. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
9. Naked Lunch
10. Goldfinch
11. Middlesex
12. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
13. Smoke and Mirrors
14. Devlin Diaries
15. Atlas Shrugged
16. American Psycho
17. The Fountainhead
18. Blood of Olympus
19. The Giver (Quartet)
20. No One Writes to the Colonel

On loving that woman

That woman.
That ever-beautiful female human specie.
That powerful woman.
She stunned me.

I love that woman. I know for a fact that she will not love me back but I love that woman. Even if I'm making up false realities for our love story to be a fascinating fairy tale that ends happily ever after, I know for a fact that that will not happen, and I still love that woman. I will continue doing so.  Even if she is surrounded by handsome male homo sapiens I will still love her. Even if she is happy and I am not the one making that smile on her face I will still love her. I will continue doing so for the rest of my life.

Maybe I can hold her hand. Maybe I can touch her cheek. Maybe I can do all that stuff but that maybe exists only in my dreams. I can be with her in my dreams. I wish to linger in there. I wish to stay. I wish that everyday I am dreaming and in that dream I can hold her hand and touch her cheek.

I love that woman.
That woman is far.
That woman is going away.
And I am here.

I will conquer universes and mix up singularities in time space continuum, if that will lead me to her then I will do just that. But I can't conquer universes and fight off time paradoxes. I can't. She is going away and I am here.

I love that woman.
That woman shouldn't know.

I love her in silence. Even if this crazy fragile heart bursts to shout to her, I will fight this off. She shouldn't know.

If she will know?
Let it be.
I still love that woman and if she'll know, nothing will change.

I love her.

On dreams and scrutiny

Come on. Give us this benefit that we will screw up. Heck, we don't even know how to shoot an MTV. I mean, what the fuck are the formalities of shooting a music video anyway? We don't know. This is our first production project. This is my eleventh time using a digital SLR (don't have one, but hell my powershot is cool!). We did it for fun. We did it for learning. We did it because it was cool. It was cool. It was cool that as we made mistakes along the way, we could still smile and say "Yeah, shit, that was wrong. Now I get it."

Laugh now. Scrutinize. But that will not stop me from hitting that red record button and shoot. This is my dream. And this dream is valid.

Ode to the Line

funny how i stayed
inside this long queue
made of handsome
homo sapiens sapiens.
funny how i lingered
with frail hope
that I'll be the one
you'll choose.
funny how i moved forward
as you rejected
those metro-sexual
fools.
funny how i had hope
with the universe
tapping my shoulder
i could get to you.
let me be.
let me fall in line.
let me take this risk.
for you are that sunrise.
you are that sunrise
that melts my nocturnal coating.
you are that sunrise
that paints happy on my face.
you are that dandelion light beam
dancing above the orange horizon.
you are there, the end of the line.
you are the end of the line.
an inch closer and closer,
my red blood cells gone mad
with platelets
shaking schizophrenic.
but i vow to the line:
i will stay!
i may sound like a drunken Shakespeare
but believe me I'm Edgar Allan Poe--and I will stay!
with you at the end
i will stay.
the line is long
and the line is rough.
the line is filled with perfect humans
and I will stay.
i bid farewell to you,
rejected metro-sexual fools
this queue may be long
but a stout heart can push.

Of a father's love

"Makit-an lang nako nga nakapaso namong duha sa stage, okay na kaayo nako nga matumba." It was a line, completely random, spat out by my father yesterday. He was drunk. And it came after my mother asked me "Kuya, maka-graduate ka? At least pakit-a mi nga makapaso naka. Okay na kaayo na namo."

My father is the best human being there is on this wretched planet. He was known to be the one putting smiles on other people's faces but I was witness to his grief. A grief for a father, a grief for a mother, and a grief for a brother. I saw him cry and I saw the child in him. I saw a child missing his father.

Wala'y igong mga pulong ang makabayad sa tanan niyang sakripisyo. Sa tanang paghuwat nako sa eskina hangtod alas onse sa gabii. Sa tanang pagsabot ug paghilom kung masapot ko. Sa tanang pagmata sayo sa buntag. Sa tanang paghatod nako sakay sa bisikleta niadtong elementary pa ko.

I was six. The event was UN Day. I am holding the flag of Algeria. And I was alone inside that big sports center. My mother was late. I panicked. Everyone else was already falling in line to be on stage. Mother didn't show up. The teacher prompted me that I'm next. I was silent. And crying. I was crying. I was six and I was crying, holding that Algerian flag. Then popped out my father. He was smiling. He was laughing at me crying. But I continued to cry. He didn't say anything. We got on stage, I waved my Algerian flag, said something silly about the country, and got off. He held my hand and walked near a photographer. It was the best picture I had with my father because that was the best smile I'd seen from him.

I was fifteen. It was a barrio fiesta. A cold night. A cold noisy night. My father was drunk. It was the month of my uncle's death anniversary. Father rode on his motorcycle and said "Akong apason akong igsuon." I was fifteen and naive. Then a lady rushed and said that my father fell off the road not far from our house. I rushed. I arrived at the scene filled with people, and not one of them helped my father. Bangin to siya, and I jumped off without thinking. I knelt beside my father, with blood all over his face. He was unconscious. I cried for help. Then an ambulance wailed. His head needed an operation. And for all the nights that my father was on the hospital, I cried. He became so thin and passive. By the time he got out, he was frail. But he recovered. My father was back.

I was nineteen. News of my grandmother's recent diagnosis welcomed me home from school. Stage four cancer. My father wept alone in his room. From that day on, he barely smiled.

Everybody else thought that my father is a man of jokes and satirical punches. No. He is a victim of a screwed up comedy.

Pa, mosaka ko sa stage. I'm sorry kung dili ko makahatag ug speech like I used to. Mosaka ko sa stage and I will shout "Pa, Ma, daghang salamat!" and I will invite you to come up and screw the graduation program because I want everyone to know that you are my father and I'm proud of you and from that day on I will be in charge and I will take care of you and buhaton nako tanan para makasukli sa tanan ninyong sakripisyo. From that day on, Pa, ayaw usa'g katumba. Daghan pa kaayo kong plano para ninyo ni mama. Ayaw usa.

On siblings and grandfathers

It was the fourth of October, 1999, my brother was born. The next day, October 5, my grandfather died.

This kid, my lil bro (but technically taller than me, damn), is a genius. Trust me, he knows all jet fighter models there are in this planet. Let him look at an image of a plane and he will tell you all of its specifications. He knows every country's defense profile. He knows history more than me. He edits Warcraft maps that you fondly call DotA. Yes, noobs. My bro customizes characters and skills. And he will be attending a leadership summit tomorrow (tho I don't really want him to be a student leader).

My grandfather, Dativo Premacio Sr., was a writer. He wrote articles for national newspapers. And he wasn't able to go to college. He was the municipal bookkeeper and how he did the magic of organizing all of those books amazed the professional bookkeepers of USJ-R. He did accounting, theater, radio drama, crossword puzzles for local newspapers, balak, poetry, and tons of manuscripts of Visayan literature. He was the first one to bring in famous actors and actresses to Cordova every town fiesta. How he did that was a crazy awesome mystery. He was my Charles Bukowski.

On women and slimming pills

(A 1-minute extempo speech for our English 3. And yes, I remembered every word that I said on that day.)

Q: Women are fond of using slimming pills and other slimming treatments. What is your opinion on this?


A: I'm going to ask why. Is it for self-esteem? Or is it for validation? Or do you think that the society slams you a false truth that if you're fat you do not belong? No. Women can be fat or slim or anything she wants to be. That is what makes you real. What you want to be makes you real. What you are makes you real. You see, beauty is superficial. It does not pass through the skin. To hell with carbs. To hell with fats. To hell with the society slapping you a false truth that if you are fat you do not belong. Of course you belong. You are not objects. You do not need validation. You can be you. And you are beautiful.

On a friend's blog

writespeakshare.blogspot.com/