Care for a Shot?

By: RDV


She had loved him since he was twelve. Since she was eleven. When they were sixteen he got her pregnant. He was a truant most of the time, which began as far back as anyone could remember and which he stayed so longer than he had to. He didn’t finish high school. He wended through his life being a petty criminal. She loved him still even if she had to stop school for her childbirth, even if he did all humiliating things which somehow saw their way through the local tabloids. Embarrassment wasn’t enough, love was. Love was well-appropriated, sustaining and encompassing.


In her last month of pregnancy, he decided to feel guilty for a change. Her long-suffering back had had enough, he just caught wind of it. He’d do everything now; drugs, sex, homosexual acts, pilfering, snatching, everything before the kid was born. By then, he’d be totally clean. He staked his claim on this. He said he’d be alright, so long as the kid would be.


But it didn’t. It came out dead, stillborn. It was blue all over. He couldn’t understand why. He was too lost. She, however, was calm. But thinking had to be done for him, lots of explanation and everything had to be showered on him like one would on a child. In the first place he had no right to be there. He hadn’t been anywhere near a responsible father. No, she didn’t kill it. It was just weak. He should leave now. The medical procedures with which he was interfering was now being delayed. The girl needed rest and her parents didn’t want him there.


So he left, never to be seen again until the girl’s next pregnancy. He was the father again. They met in their rendezvous occasionally, clandestinely. No one could’ve understood why she ruined her resilience and recovery at life the second time around. He was no good. He was back to being the criminal that he was, a society drop-out, an also-ran and a dangerous presence. Maybe she still loved him, anyway there was no knowledge on which decision such as getting pregnant could be made on. She was stupid. She thought being with a child would be favorable to her. No, it was an endless source of worry to her friends, parents and siblings.


This time the second child was alive. It was a boy, robust, visibly healthy and kicking at birth. Alas, the bound still existed, even strengthened. He had reason to believe that he had custody over the child. He would be accepted in her circle once more, because he was the father.


He was wrong again. He was on the police’s black list now. With the help of his and her parents he would be in jail for the innumerable crimes he committed, for the bounds he trespassed on. Dreams of establishing a family disappeared out of his consciousness and peace would reign in her life once more.

The Cave

By: RDV


The cave is small, magical, historical and suffers no sinner to pass. When you get stuck, you get stuck for good. It’s like something that has to end through death only. Because you are a sinner, you have to stay there forever.

The walls are cold, very cold. The air that goes through, believed to be coming from the pits of its crevices, helps lower the temperature to almost freezing point. Anyone who has asthma shouldn’t make the mistake of considering it. Anyone who is aware that he has a crooked moral stand shall not back out at the very trial, because the cave will eat you alive.

And when it eats you alive no one will come to the rescue. But the cave is full of vitality, of life, and company is never scarce. The spirits will abide by you, angling themselves for a closer look at you. They will be loyal. They will play with you. They’ll help you through the story, make the development of the denouement more bearable for you.

They will end your life quick.

The Paradox of Rock: A Decade of Ignorance and Bliss

by RDV

Anthony deCurtis said that a good single sounds familiar the first time you hear it and sounds brand new after hearing it for many years.Nearly 11 years ago my sisters and I pledged loyalty to a genre that none of us had any clear understanding of. When grunge music still made it on top of the charts and the mound of Kurt Cobain was still fresh, the oversized JVC boom box in our room rarely hit the switch off. If the music video of Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’ were realistic it wouldn’t have seemed over the top or funny when Caulkin turned the volume dial to ‘ARE YOU NUTS?’, the one that went after ‘very loud’. But we did that because we were nuts for ‘rock’ music back then. Nuts enough not to get enough of maximum volume that we would, three of us, literally stick one ear to the speaker so we could send the optimum audio waves through our eardrums, so it would travel thence to rest ultimately in the sanctuary of our think tank, so that many years later we would remember how good Van Halen sounded, not to mention how cool. Even if that meant another house rule wrangling with our mom.We discovered ‘rock’, in its minimal sense not through Metallica’s ‘Unforgiven’, not even through Rolling Stones despite my dad’s prejudice to them or the over the edge Beatles, but through Steve Tyler and Joe Perry and their 1994 single ‘Amazing.’ It was a single that would shame the whole lot of solo singers because of the powerful vocals; more importantly, it was one that obscured the demarcation between mellow and punk. Hence, a hi-breed that contains two conflicting genres sprinkled with an outstanding element of bravery. Doubtless it sounded familiar because of the high pitch and the well known voice and the intense instrumentals. But I was never sure whether it would sound new to me after long nostalgic years; and even ashamed to admit that I thought I could never be.People around here started to rumor about a petty habit; one they named The Last Song Syndrome, whatever that meant. It didn’t take long for me to discover that I always suffered from it; I would catch myself crooning in undertone the first stanza of ‘Selling the Drama’ over and over again to the point of running full circle with the lyrics, just as I did with ‘All I Want’, ‘Black Hole Sun’, ‘Not Enough Time’, ‘Champagne Supernova’, ‘Song 2’ and so on. It was the state of contamination with no serious effect whatsoever; I thought that I did that only because I love those singles, purely on that basis, that is; and without knowing that they could’ve been what critics claim to be ‘great singles’ like Aerosmith’s ‘Amazing’. Naturally, I learned that a subconscious love for the music wasn’t all there was to it.They likewise brought the familiarity one feels in a reunion which would overwhelm the uncertainty of a first time encounter. I sang their lines again and again because I found easiness in them and in the notes they follow through, because they were easy to remember, in other words unforgettable. It wasn’t because music channels and radio stations always aired them; didn’t the minority rock fans always complain of the scarcity of rock radio stations and the domination of pop music? They did; we did. But we continue to insist on our indulgence in rock by humming the music by ourselves because it is just that…always familiar to us, always hanging in the space inside our heads and finding their way to our throats to satiate what our undernourished ears are dying to hear, even if it’s the poor imitation of the melody.Up to now I am never rid of the infamous Last Song Syndrome and am never pissed off by it. 11 years have drifted since I heard ‘Amazing’, when my dad brought the album ‘Get a Grip’ from Diego Garcia. 11 years of Ignorance, of making my own various versions out of the great track, and of not knowing that the single, all this time, sounds not only familiar but also still fresh and new to us as a stolen first kiss is to a virgin. It is this touch of novelty that makes me want to sing it again and again even to the decades afterwards, without, mark me, ever getting tired of it. We want it because it is new, because we always want new things, and if we truly want it; we would instinctively make ourselves familiar to it by hook or by crook, though ironically, we can never spiritually get enough of it unlike the physical satisfaction one gets from delicacies; because a great single will go on sounding like a newfangled chime, unchanging and as immutable as the laws. Hence, the symptoms of LSS. Now I wonder, will I ever get sick of my own voice singing Aerosmith, Live, or Blind Melon? Nah. Nobody gets sick of something that is new, inimitable, and immortal like rock.

Incubus

By: RDV



It has been four weeks since Carrie slept in her room. Ever since college started she had had very little time to spend in their provincial home. She secured herself in a dormitory around the university belt. The protocol was to go home on weekends, but due to the academic demands of a college student, she found herself rarely at home anymore.


Now she lay supine in her bedroom in the dead of night. It was never as comfortable as it seemed to be when she was in high school. College had rubbed off that homeliness and replaced it with a stranger’s aura. She stared at the ceiling in an attempt to familiarize herself with the sensation. Nothing really changed save for herself and her perspective of the room. She couldn’t tell if it was gloomy or something else altogether. For all she knew it was different.


As the stardust settled around her, a presence made itself known. Something ancient, something she’d never encountered before in her lifetime. Maybe it was a dream; being half-asleep, it didn’t seem at all that farfetched. But it seemed so palpable, the darkness it exuded. It was like a cloud, voluminous and urgent. It went on top of her, rocking her, pinning her against the bed as if to prevent any movement. It was like the rape scenes she’d seen in the movies.

Then, all at once, it was made apparent to her. She heard of tales like this before, about sexually abusing spirits. Evil spirits. Outlandish, vicious forces that inhabit what they thought was abandoned permanently. Like her room, in which she hadn’t entered in a month and counting now. She struggled with all her might. She could feel its hands roaming on top of her; she could feel them as if it were hers. If you think you can imagine it, you’re wrong. Nothing could’ve defined what was happening to her then, half-plunged in slumber but handcuffed in her nightmare. She opened her eyes. Yes, she was wide awake. A scream died in her throat as she saw not a face, but a fog of dark hue plodding down in front of her.


The next thing she knew was that she was loosened up. Her energy faded. She dared not venture to speak of it. But upon boarding on the bus for the city, she asked her mom to have her room blessed. Huddled in her thoughts, she didn’t know if she’d ever sleep there again, or come back.

A Yarn of Sleeplessness

By: RDV

He learned what fucking cunts he had for neighbors. Their children, numerous as they are, ran around the streets like fuck sure as the day is long. And they normally didn’t have slippers on. Rain or shine they sprawled over, earlier than cock’s crow and later than the owl’s hoot. He would wake up bug-eyed, being snatched from his shut-eye by their little noisy festival of hide and seek. He would shriek at them to just die off. Exactly his words. Sometimes there would be an accompaniment of profanities, assortment of them that ranged from one end of the world to the other. The children would stop for some minutes and wouldn’t you know, resume soon as two minutes drifted away. If they had been terrified, they recovered quickly. They would let go of their temporary restraint and come in full shameless noise barrage yet again.

One Tuesday morning, he threw a pair of scissors at them. They were just like good mood repellant that you can’t help but to intend to hurt them. Somebody cried, and he even fantasized about blood streaming down the little cunt’s face. He sneaked toward the window to get a view of the panic he predicted to have caused. But he saw no change at the party at all except that some runny-nosed fella was crying, uninjured however. Having the mini company at his drowsiness was like murder under a beautiful sunshine. So he flared and shouted fuck for the whole world to hear. The kids ran off. He saw the scissors just under his window ledge. It had been thrown out of range. How come? Afterwards he felt even stupider.

Later as he so rightly guessed, the children returned. They didn’t shut up still so he sulked the whole afternoon. It unhinged him right out. He didn’t toss anything at them. Probably as an act of redemption, probably for ethical, elucidated reasons. They were kids after all, each to his own. Not really liable for having useless, fermented parents. So even if their sight was unbearable to the point of sacrilege, it couldn’t be entirely owned up to them.

He was a kid once after all. He felt light, in a very spiritual sense. He listened to the kids. They were playing house again. They were being silly as expected of them. Then, as if in submission, he went back to sleep, no longer dead set on shrieking his way to a peaceful life.

Piece of Cake

Piece of Cake

By: RDV


When I picked him up from the dog kennel I just knew I had to have him. He had the cutest face a puppy could ever have. His immaculate white fur so fluffy I just wished he’d retain it through his adulthood. His parents were both Japanese Spitz of pure breed. Like them, he showed signs of stunted growth midway on the process.


I called him Mico. Mico was only one of the two pups that stayed alive a week after birth. I named him even though the most I could own of him was a short borrowed time. I couldn’t keep a dog. We couldn’t. The neighborhood almost had no dirt for pets to dump on and it was so tightly packed one could hardly keep a domestic animal without complaints from the residents. I pled on bended knee in front of my parents just to keep him for a month, trying to reconcile myself to the fact that sooner or later the rightful owner would come and pick him up.


My parents agreed on the condition that I’d have to make Mico shut up when he howled out at night. It made me want to sing out in joy. I kept him in a little basket with old sheets and pillows. He did cry at night and sometime even milk did not suffice. In the morning I’d play with him. Once in two days I’d treat him to a nice little bath, against which he’d fight for his life. Unable to challenge the necessity of a bath, he’d just tremble in fear.


Two weeks after the temporary adoption, he stopped eating. Like all puppies we’d owned before, he just lost appetite and would refuse whatever food we placed on his plate. He was so mired in sickness that his movements seemed strained too and I knew that he was ready to die then. I couldn’t bring myself to deliver him to a veterinarian. My parents were away on the vacation and wouldn’t be home for the week. All puppies that assumed the same behavior died, I remembered, as any food turned spoiled before them. A neighbor said we should take him for a walk. If he ate grass that meant he had a poisoned stomach. To my dismay, he ate weeds of them, an indication that he was hungry and had a bad belly.


There was nothing else to do but wait. In my desperation I prepared a refrigerated cake, cherry cheesecake, let it freeze and planned to make him eat it. He wouldn’t of course. But likewise I wouldn’t give it up. I spooned one on his mouth, forced his jaws up and stuffed the cake down his throat. It didn’t matter if he choked or something. I just knew I had to put something inside him. His eyes were watering, suffering, I guess. He was too weak to fight back which is why he was compelled to swallow. I heaved another one spoonful, and then another until there was nothing left of the slice. It was night, his sleeping time, and I just let him after that unsavory meal, knowing he wouldn’t wake up the next morning.


The first time I did the following sun-up was to check on him. I had partly accepted that he was dead when lo and behold; he was standing up on his own. He was walking, to my great joy, but feebly at that. Although he was quiet I could tell that life went back to him. He was lapping something on his plate. I hastened to him, knowing that the half-rotten food was what he was busy nibbling. His appetite was back! I hurried to the kitchen to serve him food. When I brought it to him, he took no time and gobbled it up in minutes. The joy I felt was indescribable. I knew it was through my hard work that he was resurrected. He was no longer sick. His weight came back along with his lithe. I couldn’t believe it was all because I forced food up in his mouth. I told myself I could make a good veterinarian.


Three days later, however, it was time to say goodbye. The owner picked him up and raised him somewhere else. I don’t know if they kept his name. I don’t know if he ever grew up to be a dog. I never asked; I was too disappointed. But wherever he is now, I hope to hell that that cherry cake is still fresh on his tongue.

Supernatural

By: RDV


She trusts that there are things whose presence is affirmed even without the actual view, thereby offering the probability that indeed the eye can be deceiving. Or should we say not as efficient as to reveal the unseen. There. She has touched a subject she has been omitting all this time and she can’t promise anyone that she’s too happy about it.


Whispers in the dark. Just what are they? Such an odd phrase. It better had no answer. It had better be a fib.


She comes barging in on her solitude. Her sister. Claiming that voices seep from the netted windows, which of course was impossible to discern if true or not. The windows apparently have nothing to proffer from the other side but brick-layered walls, which aren’t much of a sight. And since they aren’t, the question begs to be put in motion.

Unless the dog learned the art of talking, the anecdote is a complete mystery. There on her bed, both of them fight against the stardust, battling against what they so want to forget. They have no arsenal apart from their mutual reliance on each other. They are scared. They wish they have erroneously heard everything instead. Sleep has by then proved to be a non-resort. In their stimulated fear, their eyes bar their lids so they won’t close. But they do. Nightmares fail their attendance. Interruption was barely there as the night promises to be peaceful. There’s a fog that hovers just beyond the window, like an apparition that’ll dissolve upon being paid the slightest attention. Time, yes, time passes so agonizingly slow. They lay there, trying hard not to suffer in the dark.


Only the fright inside them keeps brewing, extending itself up to their battered consciousness, the situation continuing. A fugitive thought dawns on them, pushing itself up the surface; maybe someone wants to be remembered.


In the morning, there comes a curious reminder from the calendar. A dead family friend just had his birthday. The news has arrived so belatedly so maybe the departed aren’t happy.


Whoever said that they won’t bother to be forgotten?

Reunited for a Blink

How, in truth, he never really anticipated that he’d see her again was a marvel to him. Five years had gone by since then. They had been over on any terms. She just went to smoke without a word, without biding him a heart-felt farewell. She made him feel perfectly persecuted because of her ineffectual handling of it all. She was bold as brass. Now her reappearance was a mixed blessing, maybe. He couldn’t as of yet identify what he felt.

A little earlier he just prepared himself for a trip around the bookstore. Nothing special. He had always done this in the past. If his eyes caught something of interest and if fortunately he had money to spare, he’d get one. Last week he bought himself Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers. It was too late when he learned that the book was unfinished. He couldn’t return it so he tried to read it right through the end. The conclusion made him feel somewhat placated. Later he decided he should grab another book since his supply had been running out as of late.

He hadn’t even settled which to purchase when she saw her. She was listlessly scanning through the general fiction area. He wasn’t sure if he remembered her reading anything when they were together. He could hardly suppose she was as much a reader as he was. Then she looked at him, as if by force of instinct. He was ready to turn away as he never liked awkward encounters resembling this. But it was too late. He was caught even before he could digest the shock.

Did she smile at him? Maybe. She flicked her hair in front of him then, her ritual of vanity. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in her. She came right up to him as though they’d just had coffee the other day. That casual. He for his part, wanting to put off the impending disaster, backed away. But of course it was pretty much too late. The proximity was unavoidable.

Greetings were exchanged sooner than he knew what he was saying. She seemed happy. She told him about the new guy she was engrossed in. What an impertinence. He hadn’t yet learned how to be cruel enough to get across her that he wasn’t interested. So he nodded. Would he like some lunch? Incidentally he was hungry. It was plain to see. So she took him to a Korean restaurant. Her reassurances seemed to say they were not going to have anything more than a tacit conversation. She knew he hated vulgarities. It maimed his joy to be delayed like this. Truly.

She asked him if he had been dating lately. As usual, decency in any sense was lacking in her. Wow. Had they no other things to say to each other but banal stuff about love life? The trivialities of being unattached? No. The answer to that ever so pervasive question was easy; he hadn’t been dating since she ditched him. He had in fact dedicated the remainder of his life to sulking around. He had, however, pledged union with literature. What about her? Had she been reading? Yes, actually. She adored Da Vinci Code. You know, by Dan Brown.

Well, that just about appalled him to an inch of his life. Being fundamentally scornful of lowbrow taste was ever his watchword. And things like Da Vinci Code the destroyer of his mood. He wondered why he ever dated a pea-brain like her. He almost fell for her. Two can play the game, so they say.

Well, he should be going now. Thanks for the quality time. She gave him her new number, as if donating a part of her fortune to the boring and the socially deprived. He made a salute. There was vague look on the girl’s face as though she was wondering if she said something bad. Well, never mind. He was always that wacko. Always easily disturbed and undecided and given to inconclusive actions.

He returned to the bookstore, resuming his search for a time-killing book. The meeting rendered him partly contemplative and he wondered if it had meaning. Perhaps. He headed to the classics again. His eyes were mesmerized by Don Quixote, particularly Picasso’s sketch on the cover. One thousand and fifty pages. Perfect. His problem just formulated an answer on its own. According to the reviews, this was a witty novel. Chances are, he was going to enjoy each page. Hopefully.

He looked back at his life. It was empty romantically speaking. But at least he knew he was nothing, and didn’t pretend to be something else. Maybe that’s the trick of his contentment. He hoped to hell that this time, it was he who left her with thoughts that hurt.

END

Never Again

BY: RDV


Imagine a family so perfect it must never have existed.


Two girls, smarter than was due them. A working mother. A responsible father. The nanny of the girls had remained faithful for years and counting. She couldn’t help but to stay with them. They were like a family to her, the roots that held intact her family tree. If she wasn’t so physically un-alike them she would’ve easily been a progeny of the family. It would be unthinkable to be separated from these heavenly creatures. It would be implausible. She’d rather be in hell with them than to go back to her rat-holed, tattered past.


Then the father won an assignment in the US. He was a nice-looking man, the likes of which wouldn’t even hurt a hair on your skin. He was professionally competent and trusted much his wife, who was worthy of it nonetheless. The girls needless to say loved and respected him. Even at an early age of six, the firstborn had exhibited such fondness of him. He’d flip her up to his shoulders, buy her bicycles and stuff and went over proud when, at age five, the girl remarked that the flock of birds soaring against the sky was on migration. Normally little girls would utter superstitions like ‘someone is getting married.’ But not his firstborn. She knew well what those birds were up to. Overjoyed, the father bought her science books to pore on. And when he was off to the airport, he promised that he’d be back with more cool books for her.


He never came back. The cruelty of the event was too hard to imagine. He never did. The mother, in solitude, knew why. He had called her to say it. He had the nerves to say it, that he had been reunited with his old flame. He stood up his wife and family for the woman whom he loved years ago, who he hitherto thought had belonged to his past only.


None knew how his wife took it. When it went down a slippery hill they thought they could do something about it. But there was nothing more to be said and done. For all the world would know, the luggage beneath her eyes became more visible, circular and heavier. An indication of endless crying nights. How could he leave the daughters just like that? Only large amount of immorality and pitilessness would make anyone capable of ditching a family, wonderful or not.


As she wrung her fists on the table, now for the seventh straight month, in spite of herself, she looked at the nanny of her children who was then fixing something at the kitchen. She never bothered for the maid to see her like this. She had been more faithful to that family than her husband ever was.


She thought of him, if he was happy and guiltless there on the other side of the globe. She realized that that couldn’t be possible. She knew him. He wasn’t that strong a person. Occasionally he might have the urges to come back for redress, but shame would take over him. He might very well be smitten with grief but what was done was done. No, she didn’t deserve this and neither did the girls.


She stood up to head to the sink. She washed her face. No more. She would no longer picture his homecoming. Because how she saw him then, un-smeared and immaculate, was a perfect picture in itself. If he came back, tainted by the home-wrecker, he would be hated passionately and the memory, that picture of perfection, would efface and be gone to the hereafter. It would be better if he didn’t come back. Of course. The better to preserve the idea of a responsible, loyal, loving husband.

Humiliation

By: RDV


Twenty million bucks. How could twenty million bucks disappear like that? How could it vanish along with the adolescence of the Amir children? We’ve heard tell of things going quickly soon as they come. But twenty million bucks, is it one of those things?


The Amir family had been lucky insofar as gambling was concerned. So when they won the lottery it came as almost no surprise. The surprise, however, lay on the amount they won. The loot incommensurable. It was vast beyond words. Fortune came in excess, so they said. And so they thought.


Fast as the news traveled, the relatives came flooding their door. They, generous, naïve, welcomed everybody. It wasn’t right, as was intelligently observed by their friends. It wasn’t right that they’d go open-fisted on hungry, free-loading friends and relatives. It seemed like everybody got a lion’s share of their unexpected wealth. Most especially the father’s mother, who made sure she could squeeze out her share for her plastic surgery.


In time they continued spending money like water. People weren’t sure why they never even covered their life insurances, why there was no educational plan for the children, why they didn’t even allot some of the fortune for traveling. Nothing. All came to nothing. And they realized that the money wasn’t there to stay. It was gone, all of it goddamn it. What was left is the renovated unit. What was left was the family members. And the memory of the twenty million bucks. And sighs of what could’ve been.


Even the house was on mortgage now. The three boys were all fathers now, with nothing to feed their children, with no education to bag them a decent job. All in shorter time than a blink of an eye. Their parents probably thought that twenty million pesos would be enough, that they could spoil their children and permit them to bum around instead of finishing their high school. Now there wasn’t even enough to send any of them to college. And they have impregnated their girlfriends, which meant nothing but higher cost of living. Truants. Hormone-driven good-for-nothings. Where are you all headed now? To your two-bedroom unit? You couldn’t even buy your babies milk.

They still owned the property, a farm, they bought in some provincial land. They could sell the house to pay off their debts and move to the farm. Only life wouldn’t be easy there. The boys could find work in construction companies. After all there was only marginal chance of a better-paying job than that. And who would take them with no educational background to speak of? Of course, that’s why there are jobs like that which require strength and not too much of thinking. That’s why they should move now because the new owner of their unit had been lately pissed off by the delay.


Thrown out just when they won twenty million? Unfuckingbelievable. What an outrage! Twenty million bucks. One is often asked beforehand what he plans to do with it.


Think.

Told You So

By: RDV


It started when she met that man-whore. Everyone was saying she’d better watch out. But no. She had to get out of her way to ruin her life. She was in for it. Everyone could tell.


Rico, if you must know, was sexually active with his then girlfriend, whose name was Aileen by the way. They weren’t just active, they were pioneers! For some reason people knew that Aileen had had 4 past abortions. It was a fact acknowledged by anyone within or without her circle of friends. She wasn’t ashamed, nor did she try to hide the fact that she was fucking 20 and already had a 3 year old kid she’d been raising on her own. She was loaded for starters, which is why nothing was so difficult for her. She could mother all the babies she could make without a word of reproach from her rich parents. Just that, how come all the endometrial-scraping she’d gone through didn’t make her less fertile? Just curious because I thought…anyway, nobody knew if she and Rico had had babies. They had probably but the thing is, Aileen wasn’t at all that loyal.


And neither was Rico so what’s the point of finger-pointing?


They were still in a relationship when Rico found love in a virgin named Tina. The first time he laid an eye on her jugs he vowed to the world that he was going to take a hold of them, by hook or by crook. How many nights did he spend masturbating about Tina’s breasts? How many times in his wet dreams did he suckle on those? A million ad infinitum?


So when the opportunity came to present itself, he wasted no time in getting her to his apartment. There was no trace of hesitation on Tin’s face. Only the self-same hunger was there. She desired him too, doubtless, only he was hands-off because he still hadn’t cut ties with Aileen. But who cares? This guy could do virtually anything. He could fuck anyone right under his girlfriend’s nose and no one would be sorry about that.


And fuck Tin he did non-stop. One time they almost got caught red handed when in a one minute slip, Aileen came knocking on his door. About 30 seconds before he and Tin were inside, arguing mildly about where to take lunch. They decided they’d go out for bite instead of having something delivered. After that they were put in some more endangered situations, from which only hell knows how they escaped.


In time Rico sought work abroad. Aileen had been long gone. A vapor trail. He and Tin could now freely frolic anytime they wanted to. However, upon returning after a month, Rico stopped contacting Tin. Tin hadn’t been better than a wet blanket, she’d been mourning for the guy you’d think he’d been given up for lost. The one thing she didn’t anticipate was his cold-hearted return. Maybe he got tired of her over the course of his stay abroad. He hadn’t been calling her for two weeks since he touched down the country. Didn’t say anything, didn’t even SMS to say he was still alive. Tin almost died. Of a broken heart whatever. A common friend came to talk her out of her lapse only to be thrown things at. Nowadays that’s what you get for meddling.


But the thoughtful friend thought of a better idea; she introduced Rico to a hot chick she knew back in high school. Wouldn’t you know, he ran after the chick soon as she said her name. oh fate. The friend reasoned that at least that would serve as the finality, a closure between Rico and Tin. Poor Tin having lost her chastity over a fucker with an uncontrollable prick, a fucker who consumed the union like there was no tomorrow. Bottomless hunger. Well, it was due her one way or another. Nobody said the snare was not cruel after all.


As of now though, Rico’s hot on the girl’s track. He’d been told to get lost but hey, he wasn’t going to stop at fantasizing, was he?


Stand by your uncontrollable dick. That’s what you’re famous for.

One Short Summer

A part of me is
Chipped away and
They say that it now
Roams the surreal.
Like the quaintness
Of a rhyming poem
I remember how
You reacted when you saw
My scarlet headband.
You think I’ve forgotten
The suspended stare
I fought so hard
Not to laugh at.
You were an idiot,
Shaken inside,
Believing and being
deceived
That you fell in love.
A pebble in the sky
Had thrummed you,
Changing your world
Just like the pebble
That bounces on the
Surface of a puddle
After the rain.
You thought it was
That easy;
I always knew you
Were just being naïve
And forgetful.
Now, in retrospect,
I wonder if you’re
Laughing at yourself
Even as I had
When you first
Told me those
Words,
Banal,
Broken,
And unmeant.

Smoke Gets in your Guts

Afraid to tell him
That the jaundiced sheets from
Which he woke everyday
Already stank of nicotine.

Finding for ways
To make him know that
He couldn’t rub off
That smell from his body
Because years of vice
Had made him sweat it
Already.

Scared of what
I would find if
I forced him
To go see a doctor.
If nothing was wrong,
He’d go on;
If something was
He’d go on anyway.

Fearing indeed
That something
Had earlier started
To eat him alive.
Someday, there’d be
Nothing left of him.
And the staggering lungs
Would go first.

Or tell me they
Already have.

Coward

By: RDV



Take her at face value. She’s 30-years-old. She hasn’t even had a boyfriend. Not even once in her life. Not even a whimsical half-assed romance with someone on the internet. Not even a joke thing kind of fling. Not even a dare.


She wonders if she’s afraid. It’s not that she’s afraid. It’s just that, nobody will take her. Really. That’s the whole and bitter truth.


Actually by now someone should’ve already made the luckless mistake of proposing. Hell, she earns fifty thousand a month, damn independent with a sure-fire shot at the future. You’d never ever get hungry if you married this woman. Carnal issues would by then be best left abandoned, but it’s assuredly good money. Assuming one has iron guts.


She’s off the cuff for anything like it. Conjugal life. Marital status. Maybe that’s the long and short of it. She’s been in love more than once but the potential dies along with the perfume she puts on every morning as she goes to work. The one time she had the courage to go goo-goo on a guy was messed up by her inexperience and nerves. She was about to make reservations in some haute cuisine restaurant a road down their work place. It was about to go all smoothly. About. Yeah. Right in the end she realized that backing out was much simpler.


And it probably was.


After that, all prospects lay gasping for breath.


Even now as she stood in front of the mirror, all she sees is a cloudy barren life. Who would ever take interest in someone who can’t let her hair down just for fucking once? Here she is, frizzy-headed, not knowing how to use a fucking hair-dryer. Her beauty cream bottles lay unused within arm’s reach. She doesn’t even know how to begin reading the damn instructions on the label. Hell, if that’s the price of beauty, all this bother, wouldn’t spinsterhood feel bloody great after all?


Maybe.


Thus far, nothing in this world has influenced her enough to be bent in that direction. Being a girl through and through. It sure is a hard job to be done with.


Never mind. She has money to live on anyway.

Matters of Deception

by: RDV


What Nat never understood is Isah’s claim to be a virgin when they met. She believed her alright, what with all her cutesy meekness and everything. Isah used to cry to her on the phone about some guy who wasn’t free but who was running after her. She made the impression that she was virgin in the head. She was smart at school, and very level-headed, which should be enough testimony to her pretense.


What Nat failed to understand is, Isah’s innocent-effect and all that shite. Bullshit. She’s the one who said that she’s never going to let anyone’s prick near her. When they met Aldrich he looked anything like a sex-machine. He was a sex machine waiting to happen. He had a girlfriend at the time. Her name was Marie. Marie was a virgin when she met Al but then by some miracle of fate, something happened on the night they became you know. Because what Al wanted, he always got.


Then he was ready to throw off Marie because he saw Isah. Isah was very, very reluctant to be touched, or so that’s what she said to Nat. Nat, ignorant and pitiable, believed every word Isah said. God, did she really hang on to Isah’s words? She must be drunk then.


Three days after AL ditched Marie, he blatantly came running after Isah. You know what Isah had been saying all along? Well, they were bullshit. She and Al weren’t yet officially an item when she sucked his dick. They were at the back of his SUV. He was fresh from his breakup. There should’ve been waterworks but no! There were just hormones. Lots of it. With the way Isah recounted it to Nat, you’d think she loved the taste of dick down her throat. Oh she loved it to bits. And she was a virgin, she said. And she hadn’t had a boyfriend before, she said.


What bullshit.


Later that night, there was already penetration. So you see, all Al had to do was to make her suck his dick so he could get her at his place. Whew. Isah had told Nat that the first time was goddamn painful. Yeah right. It wasn’t only blood that rushed out of his poontang. She said there was some tissue-like stuff coming out. Solid material. Whew. It went on like that until the third day. Probably her vagina got tired and just stopped bleeding. Henceforth she and Al had a very sexual relationship. In fact their relationship was based purely on sex. They’d shop for porn together so they could do all pleasurable positions, in the most dangerous parts of the house or wherever you please. Even people have remarked that Isah had gotten miserably skinny. Most of them guessed the reason why.


Gosh the relationship had been a joke even before they knew what a joke meant.


Well, there wasn’t any substantial story to it. There was just sex everywhere. Isah insisted that she was a decent person. Whoever believed that now when she agreed to suck some stranger’s dick on the first night. And you claim that you’re a virgin. Well screw you.


Nat found all this hilarious. Of course, she stopped hanging around Isah because all the latter started caring about was to fuck. Nat knew then why Marie was lucky to lose Al to Isah. It was a good riddance.


As for Isah, it would take long before she knew that she was just another phase. Like a fad.

Breadwinner

By: RDV

It wasn’t easy to go back home when your name was hers. All throughout her stay abroad she’d been wondering why her checks bounced on her. She had entrusted the bulk of her toil to her sister, incidentally a teller. She couldn’t quite believe her surprise when the millions she thought she’d safely hoarded in the bank were lost.

God all of it was lost.

Her surprise was furthered upon learning that her sister was then facing a suit, of a similar case. Word on the street was, a friend had also entrusted his money in the sister’s care only to find it siphoned. Nothing. Which is why she was now on house arrest.

To add to that, it seemed pretty natural that she’d support the sister. Yeah, the felon. And her family. Where she placed all the money remained a mystery. Or maybe half of it was. The thing is, everyone was pretty sure the sister had done nothing but to shop for signature clothes, almost on a daily basis. Funny, how spending took its toll on her like this.

To add insult to injury, her father was also someone to look out for. Hell, he demanded money from her like she was an ATM machine or something. He was a bum, naturally. Life didn’t provide him with enough humiliation to care for his ailing wife. Instead, he went around gallivanting, flirting with underage girls and impregnating the whole neighborhood. Even his bastard he couldn’t support, and hence had to rely on her second child.

Second child. Fountain of life. Breadwinner. Connect the dots.

The house she’d been causing to build all these years threatened to see no finality. There was just not enough money to get it done. And the finishing touches proved to be that pricey. It seemed like there was no work to see the end of.

Underway is her youngest sibling’s child. She’d have to support that one too. And the whole family.

It wasn’t enough that at seven she was the one to take care of everything in the house, including looking after the young ones. It wasn’t enough that abroad she pulled her tails off only to provide them the luxury they so craved for. She bought them cars, yours truly. She bought them food to eat while the father did nothing but to nurse his dick while his legal wife salivated, untended. While she worked there night and day, with no sense of respite, only the sweet dream of homecoming. Which turned out to be a complete nightmare.

And this is the thanks she gets. Headache. Her pimples causing a major concern. Stress.

When is this all going to end? When is life going to pay the unpayable debts it has incurred on her? When?

Seventeen

By: RDV


She was seventeen.

At seventeen it takes more than anything in this life to be happy. At seventeen finer appreciation for things earned is harder to find, to reason with.

She thought that was all. She thought life was just a long-term partnership with frustration. She thought life didn’t give anyone chance to be a better person. It has imprinted a lasting impression on her, and the picture it made wasn’t lovely.

The rain pattered down, making beelines down the streets. It felt so good. The night was fairly young when she stared out the window to see.

She couldn’t get past the thick miasma called fog that had been stationed in front of her window. It seemed rather to eat the whole room in one bite. Like a vertigo.

But she could feel, so potently, what was there. She knew, even before her mind could calculate the precise answer. She could build up the picture piece by piece. There, holding each other, in warmth and in death. Their smiles the new standard of offense to confront her with.

Did they mean for her to see them like this?

She smiled. The scene didn’t even give her an upstart. She smiled again. Mostly to disprove them. But hey, could they see?

How picturesque. Their happiness no longer so apart now, but one and the same. How she couldn’t feel like that in this lifetime didn’t bother her. She always thought she’d feed on other people’s mishaps. What was happening now though was quite the opposite. She felt nothing at their delight. Unstirred, cold as death, at the sight of things she didn’t care to think about anymore. At least.

Lovers in the rain. It was like a good joke told at a wrong time. She laughed, not because her ignorance was staggering. She laughed because she forgot already how to be hurt. She laughed because she had been salved, there, in the middle of the night with all the wind howling and the impossible happening. She was bent in that direction henceforth. Positive thinking.

Drops of rain ran after the other. She smiled. At seventeen.

Get a Job

(Companion piece to Breadwinner)


By: RDV


Who did he think he was?


Who was he to demand money from her?


Hey, man, you never even bought me one single Mongol pencil when I went to school. That was my mother. That was my aunt. That was my grandmother. My grandfather. Your father. Where were you? Just where were you? I don’t remember you landing a job and going home with a paycheck on a given day. Never.


And now you’re fucking fifty something. I’ve gone to that corner of the world where money is easy but the nature of the job, ambiguous. No description. Just like my relationship with you. It couldn’t even be called fluid, because fluidity suggests positive, right? But hell, nothing’s so positive in anything you lay a hand on, you defiler!


Well mister, because you wouldn’t get a job I was forced to be your money cow, your fucking work horse. But now, you can no longer drag the horse to the water so they say so I’m giving you up altogether. You and your band of freeloading fuckers.


What’s that? Oh, a thousand bucks to date that seventeen-year-old slut? No? Then what for? You think I don’t know? You’re the one who doesn’t know. I’ll tell you some more you don’t know. You seem not to know a good deal of things.


Let’s start with…oh yeah…do you know that the person I call my mother got a stroke because you were a philanderer? Why did you even marry her? Just for the record there is a prerequisite for marriage and that is called monogamy, something you have again and again failed to stand by. Why did you marry her? So that you could go through that matrimonial farce just so you could finally take a hold of your inheritance, meager as they were? Well good, because they’re all gone now. The only bad side to it is, you’re pestering me for money.


I should’ve been married with a nice family now. Just that you’re still hanging around my neck, pulling me down, flaunting me my responsibility as your daughter. Hell! If daughters were born to pay their good-for-fucking fathers’ bills, fun or otherwise, then what’s the purpose of work?! I can’t settle down because you’re around, insisting on your luxury which I can’t even provide for myself. You think that just because I have a well-off boyfriend I could support the bulk of you? Puh-lease. I didn’t win the fucking lottery. You think you’d even hear of me when I win it? No such luck.


Oh god. you’re useless. The bunch of you. The picture of a conjugal life down the drain. Under the present circumstances, how am I to get through?


Where do I begin?


By killing you?


That’s fair enough.

Buzzes and Words

If bees were as pretty as words
I wouldn’t mind being stung
Over and over again.
Because words killed me
From birth, and woven
Into me from said time
Are words, undying, murderous
And merciless.
Words and buzzes.
The difference lay in
How hard they strike,
How weakly we receive them.
As for me
I had been taken captive
A long, long time ago.

Firstborn

By: RDV

She picked up the phone--No, that’s not even how it began. Her tea cup broke, which was already an omen of a thing gone bad. So when she held the receiver close to her ear, she wasn’t expecting to hear good news. But she didn’t expect to hear something this bad either. At times like this, it seems like relying on superstition was enough. It knocked the breath out of her, just like that.

How one suck at the marrow killed her first child, then going on thirty, was the mystery. True, he wasn’t healthy, physically or otherwise. Overweight and often ate in excess, his son wasn’t much of a child one boasts of. He didn’t have a job. He was more on the burden side. His past girlfriends called him a pig and he most probably was. But of course, that gave no one license to laugh at him. Chances are, there’d be more sighs of relief than cries of mourning when his wake was held.

He died in the city of Baguio while taking a vacation trip with his friends, who apparently were thick enough to fraternize with the likes of him. On the night of his death, his company revealed that the last meal he’d had was his favorite, bulalo. He was sure to clean out the bones, like a dog would, and he was more than sure to take more than his share of the meal. At something past midnight, he’d stopped breathing. It was morning when one of his pals took notice of how cold he was. Well, that was the end of him. At least he certainly loved his last meal.

He was delivered home shortly after. A day passed before his death, their next door neighbor, a friend of his mother’s, died of cancer. The street had two to grieve over, but his mother, most of all, harvested pain. Even if he was never a good son, there always would be someone to cry in his death. After all, mothers bear children for that purpose, inter alia. Children are born to bury their parents. Should it be the opposite, there is always guilt to answer to.

Right then, the mother had plenty of it. And apart from brooding bitterly, she was finding it hard to recount the good things that his son did while he lived. At the end of the day though, she was convinced that she was too jogged in the head for recollection.

But in greater reality, she knew that he didn’t do many things of worth. He was an armful of
headache, like the father who left them. And he was her son, unfortunately.

You're So Special

The child sat on the floor
Playing with blocks, toting
Little plastic menagerie from
Inside the play bucket.

The child roared,
Speech devoid,
Mongoloid.
Her eyes slanted
Across the pallid
Fishy cheeks that know
No expression.

Overweight, the fat
Never simmered, never
Squirted out of her skin.
Her walking,
A pitiful excuse
To get from
One point to another.

Sated, abated,
Brain deflated.
From cradle to grave,
The mother’s arms
The only warmth
She’d accept.
Smiling, she learned
Only in dreams, where
In pregnancy her mother
Never made mistakes

Disdain

I stand as I hold this place in scorn,
The atmosphere, having failed to keep
Me away from nausea.

There isn't much to see when I
Open my eyes to peruse it.
There's always much to hear
When I perk my ears alertly enough.

Complaints that know no source
Come colliding against my thoughts,
Mingling themselves until
I could no longer tell which
Were mine and which weren't.

Contagious, malicious, Calamitous.
None of where I reside
Is ever salubrious.
I was in the same vein
As the people who came to
Thrive in it,
The people who showed
No shame for the incessant
Whining and the subsequent livelihood.

I was the focal point
Of all this dread.
I was the stifled breath,
The frustrated sigh
That spoke unheard,
Unseen, unnoticed by all.

At Your Mercy

Is there a cure to sorrow
Each time the fun ends?

I plead complicity
To the heartbreak
I know not the end of.

I laugh at which I know
Will scorn me for what I am;
Vulnerable but stone-faced.,
Gullible but a smart-aleck.

My head wanders off to where
We never trudged together
Until I come across you
And you say hello.

I find myself wishing that hello
Could be associated
Universally with those
Three words
But when I think about it
I begin to discover
How far I’ve lagged
Behind my spirit.

Besieged by the improbable
Entranced,
I ask how you’ve been
Trying perhaps to
Purchase your pity
With one single smile
So you’ll come
Back to me.

You say you’re fine,
Smiling,
Ignoring time,
Relaxing, not raising
An excuse to get going.

I hold fast to hope,
Clinging tenaciously
Reconstructing my memory
To picture the first time
We met.

But the films fly by,
Fleeting, light,
Just like the night
You said goodbye,
Just like the words you released
And kneaded into me.
Merciless.
Up to then I haven’t
The haziest notion
How much
I hate you for it.
Now my anger dances in flames
And I wish
For the drowsy
Passage of time
To go backwards
So I can snatch
Goodbye from your mouth,
Put it to mine
And let it end you and me.

The Matron

By: RDV

She always thought that she was pretty. She always thought that she was beautiful for all she was worth. The way she held herself erect amid the crowd, one would think her stateliness rivaled that of a queen's. That is, from the far or back view.

Of course she was keen to know what people thought of her. She always assumed she was doing them favor by flaunting her elegance. In parties, she donned in designer’s clothes and other pricey and classy accessories, infinitely glamorous. Her makeup was often well done, not too thick, nor too scant. In her glides was often marked a certain grace known to the upper class.

She abhorred the poor to complement all these, which, if you ask any level-headed person, was stupid. She was well off as a single woman and when her peak time of marriage arrived she pledged herself to a potential millionaire. She landed a job on the taxing department, whose easy access to any kind of corruption suited her coal-scorched conscience. Her husband, true to her anticipation fattened her pockets and bank accounts. Finally in her 53rd year, she was perched atop the corporate ladder from which she could easily obtain anything. By the time she retired, her personal wealth had become insurmountable one might as well measure the sky’s breadth.

She and her husband married for different reasons, which weren’t otherwise revealed but whichever, the union lasted. Both were thankful and so were their two daughters who strove to preserve the not-so-spicy marriage by hook or by crook.

Another fact about her is that she was rarely pleased by children, never by her non-relatives. When her husband brought his nephews to their home, she fumed, looked as them as they were pieces of garbage she was preparing to dispose of and unabashedly asked her husband to drive them all of home, the sooner the better. Presented with no choice, the husband agreed with a more visible reluctance.

Apart from that, she never liked what her husband had put her through, I.e., going for provincial visits which she dreaded on account of mosquitoes, untidy surrounding and general lack of civilization. She preferred the city, she claimed.

But even then in spite of all that submissiveness, her husband held a secret so powerful it would snap the marriage into two once it was built in the open. He willed to forget the secret, that terrible corpse, if only to dust his mind off impurities. To him, his wife was fucking ugly. He watched her without understanding and not without effort, great deal of it. It sickened him the way she’d show off, glittering jewelry and linen close to drag. It made her criminal each time she went out, offending people with her face. And he who molded everything to his will couldn’t shape his wife out of that dismal ugliness, which was contaminated.

It was no longer a fact that surprised him that each time she’d materialize in front or adjacent of him, he’d mentally beg the lights off to be spared the horror. Sometimes in bed, with efficient determination, he’d feign drowsiness so they could sleep and shut their eyes finally. Now retired he was slated to put up with the sight of her, which he deemed to be the last on god’s green earth he’d appreciate. Such abomination in living he never imagined, the husband couldn’t help it but to pray at night hoping to heaven or hell for providence or fortitude that’d allow him to withstand her. For now, for all we know, he couldn’t do it without help, not for anything.

‘God, of all things impossible, this is the challenge you gave me. Why?’ he cried as he doubted his own sanity. How he wished he could stand just a strand of her!

Water Shroud

by: RDV


The quiet road lay packed on either side, alternately, with family cars. The two-way fare, barely resembling what it was meant to be and looking more like a zigzag obstacle course, seldom received indifference from its residents; there were always complaints filed against the parking situation of the village and only passersby felt cushy enough to pass its inroads.

Selma pulled over an acquaintance, who appeared to be another baby-sitter from the block. The latter had the baby strapped in a stroller, securing it with the belts as if not learning how to walk weren't enough. Anchored by Selma's clutch on the other hand was two-year-old Sammy. Selma thought Sammy would behave well enough by her side. It was a Thursday afternoon; the orange sky looked pretty and there wasn't a need for an umbrella to be shielded away from the sun. It must have been a perfect day for howdy-do's.

Selma and the other baby-sitter chattered on as both their minds marched off to somewhere they could relate to, a common ground on which a conversation could be enriched, on which to detract attention.

Being a full-time baby-sitter had had its ups and downs. Mainly it was the downs that were often seen and so to forget that, one should color her afternoons. For Selma, a little walk and exchanges right and left always gave her a clear presence of mind. She had done this more than sometimes, enjoyed it and considered it part of her job, humble as it was.

They were in the middle of the talk, quite unfettered, when Selma marked the vacancy of her hand. Flinging her eyes sideways, Selma couldn't locate Sammy. Her eyes instead, as if programmed to, veered to the direction of the street where a high landscape was engineered and whereon a swimming pool, six feet deep at most, was not fenced. Since it was a quiet afternoon, it must one of those days when a sign that read 'no swimming' was propped up beside the pool to inform the people that it was currently undergoing chlorine treatment. Hence, no swimming.

Selma stopped dead, knowing half of what came to pass, hardly accepting it and simultaneously dreading it. Sammy probably vamoosed away when she wasn't looking. But yet, when was she looking? Selma stood stock-still as though the atmosphere changed its hue and rendered her motionless. By then her friend had noticed her mumness and subsequently read her. Then by instinct or by impulse, Selma, not giving it the benefit of the doubt, ran up the grass that led to the pool. It didn't take long to discover that what she guessed and feared wasn't upset. She rocked back, still quiet. She didn't want to utter what she saw because saying it would make it true and tattooed on her history.

Away from Selma's nightmares, there on the surface was Sammy. She floated peacefully like a victim would after a long and tedious struggle and eventual surrender. Selma knew that it was too late but she was detained in that moment in time where the shock comes in trickles, silently, so it can be digested. Selma didn't say anything or move, because if she didn't everything would be as it was, which was much, much better than what's to come next.

The next thing she was that she was circumscribed by the family to whom she owed a debt unpayable. They were in the living room, drenched inters, every single one of them. Selma launched a thought hard but all thoughts and reasons repeatedly backfired. And when they did, they struck hard. She could hear a raspy weeping, whatever was appropriate for such occasion. For the first time, she failed to embrace Sammy's presence. She's completely gone now, Selma resolved amidst fountain of tears.

A blow landed on her stomach just then. Doubling up, she could see Sammy's father's face, taller than ever, lachrymose, which lent him mastery. He said something worse than a condemnation but of course his mouth seemed choke by sponge. There was no use to parade her guilt in any of the various ways she practiced; this family, it'd curse her whether or not they saw the end of things. And what excuse was adequate?

Sammy was their baby, the only girl in the family of three boys. Looking at them, Selma could find no view of happiness, in the present or otherwise. Their faces seemed to solemnly vow to never forget and Selma, more than any of them, knew the incontestable truth behind it. They loather her now, in more ways than she could keep track of.

It was then a thought closed in on her like parentheses. There at the far end of the room was the mother, on her throne. Somehow Selma knew that she would be there. She was and was worse a sight than anyone. She was howling continuously like a parrot that’s been cackling too long it has already forgotten how to stop. She was looking so frail she could’ve been knocked down with a feather. True, she was of more sensitive constitution than the rest combined.

Now with Sammy gone to where none dares follow, trying to absorb what remained of her family proved to be too much. They were at a back-to-one mechanism. From then on they would pick things up in reverse, retracing their steps to when the girl wasn’t yet born. They would learn to value more profoundly the things they could lose, or forsake, with the substance of mourning coursing long inside them. They would find ways to retrieve happiness, having been left with no strategy for such a heartbreak. But things would never be the same.

Alas now, Selma learned how it felt like to ruin one’s family in one go. Given half the chance she would like to be hurt more because one punch wasn’t justice. She wanted to be bludgeoned at their hearts’ content but that too wouldn’t do. Perhaps the reason she was there was not to be punished physically, but to be tortured by the sight of grief, plenty of it. Yes, it would be better had she died and gone straight to hell; worse, she was alive and in hell.

Wiping her tears, she stretched up to pack her things. None said a word, nor did they know what was on her mind as she dragged herself away.

Tondo

Bedraggled, defiled, more or less
Missing
In the unending sea
Of anonymous homes.


Each block
No more than a copy
Of what he already passed by,
He already saw
Crumbling an inch
Away from private territory.


The squalor, the stink
Taints the nostrils
Making it shrink from
The face, a palette
Of misery, a canvas
Of remorse.


Tomorrow, old age
Is confronted;
Yesterday, it was
Anticipated;
Today it was received
With nonchalance and disgust.


In the clump of the looted land
The child was born
Fatherless, jobless
Mother, siblings
Countless, crying amidst
The pee-smeared
Overused cradle
Now losing two legs.


Underfed, premature, susceptible
As the newborn bird,
The child learned to walk,
Was forced to by
Poverty.


Age one, his bare feet
Wandered on the
Worm-ridden path
To the continuous
Alley of mendicancy,
Of stigmatized homelessness.

A Poem Bordering on Crap

Melting, soon as it touches
The water
Deceiving, soon as it looks at you.


The ice that smokes like
Life that brushes
The air
For no rhyme, reason or cause
In perpetuity
In mourning
In gaping for oxygen
Dead.


Like hands that file off
The scales of burden
That never vanishes,
Cold spring, dissolving
And grateful.


Like life that wearies
On and on
For no reward, no respite,
Like suffering that
Stays in the race,
Hardening,
Purifying,
Darkening the way
out

The Hole on the Roof

I am afraid to peep at the ceiling
Because there I’ll see
The hole on the roof.

The hole on the roof
Pretends to be a rectangle.

The hole on the roof
Transforms into a ventilation
Shaft
When eyes see it.

The hole on the roof moves
At night, creeps
In the dark, not to be seen
By light, by day
By humans nocturnal
And their gaping, dilating eyes.

The hole on the roof
Holds the secrets of the home,

The hole on the roof
Has seen many a bliss,
Many erotic wonders
The movies, fiction, art
can’t provide.
Many blood drops
Have tumbled from
The hole on the roof
For

The hole on the roof
Is alive, it keeps
On spying, guarding its
Treasure of whispers and sights
Until you set the barricades in and

The hole on the roof
No more.

Over the Lines and Oceans

By: RDV

On a typical day, her mother’s phone calls always gave her the tantrum she never, ever needed. As far as she could tell, the voice rang malicious and scornful and blew her stack each time it penetrated her ears. She wondered why, when all it ever uttered were things within the realm of the ordinary. Abigail wasn’t sure if it was the raspy texture of her mom’s voice or the very urgency in her tone that annoyed her. Perhaps both, as she never liked huskiness and never adored being ordered around like a dog in a tether. But whatever it was, when it came down to the particulars, her mother irked her. Yes, she had enough of it to last her another eternity. Speaking of which, she had enough of running back and forth to the grocery picking up bare necessities, hygiene-related products of the cheapest brand and even extra meals for every afternoon. Economizing everything was also a burden, a mental burden.

She had always been tired, I'd grant you, day in, day out, no fail you bet. That was her, to a tee.

On the surface of her bedroom mirror was plastered a sheet of paper, on which were scribbled down the timeslots of the shows she had since then been loyal to. Lately, she’d been finding it difficult to attend to them. All because of the chores! Thanks.

The maid, in other news, had been given the axe. Or should we say the maid took the initiative to withdraw. Either way, nothing arrived as a help. The timing, good or otherwise, was ignored. Between you and me there was just too much work to be done, she said as she stomped her way out, her last words sounding bittersweet, her steps eager to be gone. To what did she owe the toil anyway? To that average pay not even enough to cover her personal expenses? True, it was not her headache to take care of everything there, filthy laundry, ironing, piled-up dishes, cooking and even borrowing kitchen utensils absent in the house. Even defrosting the stupid ref! All of it was hardly part of the deal. So when she announced her resignation a day or two prior, it was with pleasure.

All was nice as you please but I’m outta here. Right.

The state of things had then begun calling for reconciliation between the continents-away mother and the well-on-her-own daughter. The edges were sharpened; things were made clear; the probation order had been pronounced. Her embarrassment was scarlet, her mother always harping it on her, implying things as such but never expressly said anything. She had a way to her, a way to insult, a way to hit it home and make the sour aftertaste linger. How could she? In her point of view, Abigail could’ve taken residence someplace unknown to her relatives if not for her younger sister who was still straggling in high school, vulnerable, painstakingly dependent, thriving in parental captivity, by and large. Unlike her. Blood is thicker than water. Still.

Gosh. Too much work. Too limited locomotion. She could no longer manipulate things around the house single-handedly as she did before. Her college was barely over and she was what? Going on twenty-three? Everything was guaranteed by nothing but hope, far-flown and fanciful. With work and few subjects in hand, there was only so enough time to earn her degree. And there was scarcely time to take care of the household, which was now crumbling in dilapidation. Well she could give up the job, provided she’d take her mom’s income, which her ornery pride would never allow so long as the earth lasts. The thought of being yet again indebted in any regard to her mother lay thick on her, and she dreaded it with shame and anger. Hence, she wouldn’t permit losing the job, which incidentally was not related to the soon-to-be procured degree she was aiming for. Underemployed. That’s what she was. And the weight of it was strapped on her back, along with many worries she dared not build in the open.

God knows she tried. She did what she could out of the leeway awarded to her.

She was trying still. And die trying. Getting killed in the effort, it was just the kind of thing she would do.

Self-support, it was about that to begin with, right? It’s all or nothing. Ah, she’d take it, all of it, fuck it.

In her toil, the intent crystallized, growing inside her as though to fix itself for an atomic explosion.

Alcohol Therapy

By: RDV

Okay so they were major broke now. The formerly hot wife who used to parade with her legs bare and shiny, both sexes stupidly ogling at those assets, had now gotten to be a picture to avoid. In a very bad way that is. No longer was she pretty--with her face all of the time speckled with perspiration dots--quite the opposite as was insistently told of her time after time. Her hair which was slick and light before now fell frizzy on her back, if it ever fell at all. It kind of looked like all stood out like pines on her head. Even her husband had said how much it resembled an upturned floor map waiting to dry in the laundry. Needless to say the torso was much less lively. The hourglass shape had morphed into something akin to a decanter, slim on top, unspeakable all the way down. The smile was tired and most of the time fake, like spurious pants bought at imitation stores that get ripped off at the slightest use. The eyes were devoid of shine and appeared to be replaced by two black holes peering below her lids, like predators too weary and starved they’d no longer bother to pounce at their prey.

It pained to dwell on her outward looks. She danced pretty well back in the day, and she might still or not possess the knack but god, things had gone out of her and out of control now. If she had time to brood on the past, she’d rather do it when she was six feet under. Time, too late, expired, like her. Whatever desire she still had for erstwhile hobbies lay moribund now, with rekindling seeming out of the question. She was no longer among the people that knew her well. She’d retired from the knowledge longer ago than she could figure out. Her job abroad no longer hinted at welcoming her back. She had aged, her service was over. No other decent-paying job ever showed signs of taking notice of her. She was that, too invisible one could heedlessly strafe through her.

The chronically and mentally impaired son demanded utmost devotion. There was not enough stipend for a helper what with all the absence of source of income, and the husband gradually proving to be way out of value. Obsolete. Like an out-of-date device in the 29th century. They were the same pea in a pod, as the proverb goes. In her heart of hearts, she knew it pained him. But pain was part of everything after all. To endure it was their job. To add to that, there was another child in line on his way to puberty. He was considerably neglected, yes, which caused no end to her regrets. Thank god he didn’t crave for attention.

Hell, curse their mortal souls.

Assuming to be in control, tonight, she took the car keys off the peg. A binge, yes, would sound lovely. She had thought long and hard for what to do, but she’d never come across with this lapse. Just that nothing ever came out of anything, good or bad. God is good, though forgetful, she carefully added. That was the rule. Live with it.

And so she drove, going on 60, 70, uncounted in the next minutes. She braced herself fast until she pulled the brakes in front of a pub somewhere remote. Perfect getaway. Not luxurious but it would do. She got herself a martini on the rocks, which tasted like crap dissolving on her tongue. There was a touch of sourness in it, which she didn't deem artful not being a connoisseur of wine, but an amateur taster or drinker. The smoke of the bar sifted through her, slow, soft, sashaying. Even her taste’s faculty got damaged by fucking motherhood, the misery that came as its side package.

She thought of herself as a girl. None of her dreams matched what had occurred in the overall conjugal life she had conscripted herself to, unwittingly. She was in love, changed; how was she supposed to name the mess in that? How was she to foresee the devastation of a looked-for future? Between her wedding and today, the best part was still to be ransacked and revealed. But she doubted if there was any. It was like a cannibal, the marraige; only with the cannibal you know who it wants to eat between itself and the other. Her union after all turned out quite typically; a fuck-up just like any other.

Intoxication wasn’t that an efficient of an escape, temporary as anyone knew, but temporary was fine. And it lasted even within the duration of a blink. Her head thudded on the table, the throb of misery. An epiphany shot up like a launched missile. One minute she was way above exhaustion; this next one, there was an end to it as there is to this affair which she for now put behind her. One glass was all it took. It hit her like a brick wall. It felt good. This alcohol therapy. Life. She was the last person who'd hang on to those words.

For the first time in many years, a peaceful sleep descended on her.

Divine Reproof

By: RDV

Mother of three, wife of two, neither of whom went under legal marriage rites with her in tow. In public, one could’ve easily dropped her the name whore, which she was in some Middle East, war-torn country some lifetime ago. But time effaced everything, and fewer people had called her that at the passage of time. But not entirely, as the word goes. Somewhere in her heart, she held fast to that misnomer, deserved or not. Whore. Her face had started to want in some respects. Wrinkles had boarded on her skin pro bono. She saw herself less and less, like the fading ghost of her generation. And nothing she ever did then fled away from her head. Even the bearded, bath-deprived men she fucked for twenty dollars a night waxed alive in her memory, vivid, unchanging, constant. The bills they shoved at her were still in her pockets no matter how hard she pushed them away, in her mind.

It was then she heard her daughter’s scream. Supine on the sofa, she could ruminate upon no other but that forever-thrashing scream of her daughter. It was the second of the Tres Marias. Her screams shook up the neighborhood, tearing against the occupants’ senses, as they were reminded of a dog bite or something else more tragic. But then it was just the girl of the whore, Aila, who was born hysterical. The mother pulled herself up, walked in modest steps, knowing that nothing worse than an un-bleeding scratch went to torment the little girl. Her head raw and her migraine short of two minutes of nursing, she peered outside.

Her daughter Aila, was frolicking on the wet slippery floor of the garage. She was unharmed in one piece. None of the scream purported to give the scream justice, only discipline. Good deal of it. Approaching, ferocious, the mother yanked the girl, pretty hard, inside. Once again her scream encompassed anything else heard and the atmosphere, the whole of it, until no molecules remained untainted by her vocals. The whore fetched her whip. She could register the shrieks still, thin and high-pitched, as it gathered more and more volume. Ah, the scream that never failed to draw a scouting-for-rumors crowd of on-lookers. She wondered why even a mere repetition of flagging seemed to them a whole new world, these nosy neighbors. True enough, passersby started stationing themselves up front for a scoop or two. Just when will they ever get fed up with it?

She continued lashing at her daughter every which way, most of which she was careful to make painful. Rendered partly inactive, the girl’s legs glowed pink and striped. Her crying subdued albeit became more passionate, felt and punctuated by hiccups so pathetic to bear. The whore was never a goody-two-shoes mother, with anyone watching or no.

In time, she plunked herself down. It didn’t occur to her to be pitiful; she was too worn out. Rest had more often than not become a rare visitor of her diurnal agenda, sleep even less, that even her rising and revolting conscience hardly received any attention. The worst part of the night was when her uneducated mind was challenged by the daughters she lived for. It was when she would put them to bed with no bedtime story to shush them with. Her imagination wasn’t pretty much to speak of, and anything else was deficient. And with the youngest intermittently waking up for a bottle of milk and crying just made everything impossible. All of this was absurd, unheard of. Just like the life of milk and honey.

Just then, in the midst of these thoughts, she was clouded by a silence she’d never encountered before, nor thought she would. Aila had fallen headfirst into a deep slumber and won’t be rousing, for sure, after a great while had elapsed. Heaven be praised for that.

The whore let her ears catch the symphony of nothing, ingratiating herself with the imaginary buzz that came poking at her eardrums. The sound of silence, it was almost empowering.

In any event, work didn’t end here for her. Plenty of work and harvesting to do.

She stretched up her knees which were already made unaccustomed to laxity over the years, debilitating and brittle. The outside distraction had scattered by now and the vicinity cleared of scavenging gossips. All was silence still.

Domination.

She waded her way to the garage where playing buckets and plastic tubs sprawled all over, giving an air of a crashed and quickly abandoned backyard party. Uninteresting, the sight was. No wonder.

She was to undo the mess her daughter just completed, when surprise…the most unpleasant of its kind came bobbing its head in front of her.

Her third and youngest child lay lifeless in the kiddie pool. Face down, her back was blued all over from too much air and water fighting for turf inside her. How many minutes had passed then? 30, 40? So rest and thrashing came with this price.

The mother, in confusion, clutched both ears as if to protest what her surrounding so tactlessly presented to her. Her legs turned to jelly as she banged on the floor, her eyes watering for all the world would know, her throat jerking for the same reason one barfs out her recent meal at the sight of a road kill.

Alas, death came down, claimed its award and swooped off faster than one can tie his shoe laces.

Forgotten for a fleeting minute while whipping, the child, not but one and a half years of age, dead. Dead at the drop of the hat. Death curled inside the daughter that was now gone, gone forever. A spectacle enough to give any mother an incurable disorder. Or maybe there wasn’t need for it to begin with. Maybe it was because of that fiction why all these came to pass.

The answer remained hiding as the mother bent down the pool and spooned her bundle of joy, now misery, out of the ankle-deep water. Too bewildered to scream. Ugly, flabbergasted, wizened by stupidity. Her age swiftly floated past her.

Two houses away, a neighbor dialed a Child’s Protection Agency, complaining without cease of child abuse by corporal punishment, excess thereof, it was hastened to add.

The mother hadn’t yet thought of what to say. To those prying eyes, interrogating austere voices, to the father who never came back. Nor had she predicted what was set in store for her in there. Nor did she know anymore how to form a decision. Whose fault was it? Before, she was quick to transport blame; now, she was none of it. None of herself at all.

Not knowing what results to pray for, she released the child form her arms, picked the things up, gradually, as if it would help detain time, so the fullness of the shock wouldn’t come all at once. She brushed her arms of the lounging impurities put there by too much pain, chores, baby-sitting and by the automaton she made of herself. She looked around the day she thought she’d never see. The nightmare was no longer a storybook waiting to be opened. The nightmare came and went. Realizing thus, she went on with her business, working with what her inferior power could offer. All was meager after all, just like her hindsight.

Alas, that made the two of them dead, abducted to the other side.