Gaps, patches and in-betweens

Queen’s "Another One Bites the Dust" was the first record I bought with my own money. It was a 45 record, yes, vinyl, with a flipside that could’ve used more traction on our record player.  I remember struggling not to spend my recess money while saving for it, and the pride and freedom that came from the feeling of “having your own” bought with hard-earned (scrimping on recess money is hard-earned!), money.  It was liberating. Oh the power it gave me, to be 11, and be able to play the song whenever I want, over and over, when I was mad, happy, sad, ecstatic, bored, and to dance like no one was watching (even though my siblings probably were), and lose myself to the song. It was a coming of age of sorts. I watched Bohemian Rhapsody with those memories washing over me as the songs took me back to my 11-year-old self, in Cainta. I sat in the movie house reliving the life of the band centered on Freddy Mercury’s struggles.   The sound system at the Ayala cinema made ...

I will fall in love with the world again. It may not be the whirlwind, sweep-you-off-your-feet kind. It may be more of a slow-burn with chunks of humidity rain snow hahahas huhuhus waiting. Like any other love maybe the trick is not to rush it but it is taking so long for the heart to be light again to skip, not drag your feet and sing like no one’s listening and dance like no one's watching and hear the notes all at once while distinguishing an instrument from the others and be able to see all the glorious details of the earth and the people and not just blindly walk past them. I will be in awe again at the bright smiles.  I will not want the day to end and I will look forward to the excitement of tomorrow. It might take time and time is all I have It is finite still, I know. The time will come and I will fall in love with the world again. "I am an X in an indeterminate equation. And that X is the rock upon which I stan...

Leaves today. I sweep leaves in our front yard.  Yesterday, they were flowers. Small, tiny, should’ve been yellow flowers, enough to make a pretty carpet to cover the cracks on the haphazardly poured cement. But they’re brown. Sometimes, they are branches. Small or medium branches, enough to hurt you if you’re caught unaware that it’s their season to fall; the branches whipping your arm or smacking you on the head.  At certain times of the year, right before the heavy rains, the fruits. They pound on the roof leaving me imagining they will crack a hole that would make the rains think they are welcome in my home. Until they cause a puddle. And then they all come-irritability, anger and the overall feeling of misery of how I can’t even keep dry inside my own house.  The impact of the fruit smacking the ground with the force of how you would want to break something after a bad day causes the half-heart shaped, sour-sweet (yes, sour first) produce to crack open, enti...