// December’s Oath//

*I was supposed to be sleeping but then I got inspired after listening to Belle & Sebastian. I don’t exactly know why. PS This poem has got no connection to me in any way. Pardon the awful rhymes.

December’s Oath

Bury my heart in the pestilence of your love

Don your crimson veil of guilt

Shower my body with the light of your indifference

In your garden of apathy my amorous flowers wilt.

I loved you first that sunny spring morning

When the last of the snowflakes had melted on the ground

You, too, had thawed my heathen heart

And like spring, smiled for another beginning, of a love newly found.

Under watercolored summer skies I whispered you love songs

Not knowing these eager verses would only slip out the other ear

And far away the wind would carry them

Out into the emptiness these words would be forgotten then.

Your whims of desire — I gave you all and I gave you more

Each rapturous thrust moving in rhythm to the lonesome ocean shore

On the blackest of those autumn nights beneath the dying stars.

How was I to know they were signal lights

To our remaining hours?

Because your love’s a fatal potion

For which no antidote exists

On your lips a viper’s poison

An enslavement I cannot resist.

Let me drown in this ivy

Let me wallow in this disease

From these shackles of love obsession

My soul would never leave.

Now in the wake of your departure 

On this nippy December eve

Rests what is left of me in a heap of lifeless gore

Without you here, it is unimaginable what this life’s for.

So I took it away.

Bury my heart in the pestilence of your love

Don your crimson veil of guilt

Smother my body with the light of your indifference

In my forgotten grave my amorous flowers wilt.

// TESTimony//

Note: Please don’t tell my mother about this post. She’ll be likely to cut my allowance by half, or send me back home for good.

I lost my phone. Again.

8.15 AM. I was on my way to the jeepney stop. I distinctly remember feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket just before I hurried to board the Ikot. When I finally settled in the front seat, I felt the same heavy feeling I did just a month before when I realized my phone of one year and three months (a personal record) got stolen in a crowded Katipunan jeep. I tapped the side of my shorts. The bulge in my pocket wasn’t there.

After I checked my bag twice or thrice - all the while trying to prevent myself from having an asthma attack (I don’t even have asthma!) - I decided to conclude that those kids I passed by must have seen my phone conspicuously sticking out and very discreetly took it. Kung maka- judge naman ako noh. Nagpa-panic na kasi. Either that, or the phone just fell from my pocket. I just felt very helpless, hopeless.

So many things went through my mind then: Babalik ba ako sa sakayan? Tatanungin ko ba yung mga bata kung kinuha ba nila cell phone ko? Kung pwede ba nilang isauli sakin? Paano kung may importanteng magtetext? Aangkinin pa ba ako ng nanay ko? 

I was nearing the Maskom jeepney stop when I decided to stop searching my bag for the fifth time. I noticed that while I was all worked up with this early morning screwup, at the back of my mind the song “Lord Of All” played. I surrender, I will yield. So I did just that: gave up searching and panicking and just prayed. 

Lord, I know this is just a test. It’s just a phone; I can replace it. You’ve taught me a very valuable lesson today about being more careful with things and I thank You for that. Sana lang po hindi magagalit Mama ko. O sana hindi nalang niya malaman. Pero malalaman naman niya talaga e; siya yung lalapit sa Globe para mapalitan ulit sim card ko. Basta, sana maiintindihan niya lang ako at ang katangahan ko. Thanks Lord.

I also recalled Matthew 6:25-34 which I read the night before. It’s about not having to fret about one’s troubles. Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? I prayed early this morning that I may apply these verses. My devotional book also called for complete surrender. Only by surrendering can you be fully equipped. God works in mysterious ways. Haggard nga minsan e. 

The moment I finished praying and just before I told Manong Driver to drop me off near Maskom, I suddenly had this impulse to check the small corner between the seat and the door, the place where drivers usually store their car oils and cleaning towels. Since I already established the finality of losing my phone, I was kind of hesitating to stick my hand in there. But I gave it a try anyway, I mean what’s there to lose?

So I stuck my hand and felt something. It was soft, round and inflated. A ball. No. No phone. I tried again. Nothing. Then on the third try I felt something. I retrieved it (not minding the grease and dirt on my hand) and mother of all that is great and pure, I was holding my cell phone again. 

// Temptations//

Presently I’m in QC Memorial Circle playing third wheel in my father’s luncheon meeting. I have a 3-hour class in 20 minutes and I’m supposed to be leaving for UP in a while. But all I’m thinking right now is skipping class! It’s not everyday you get to see your dad, even if it means his attention being divided into 95% work, 5% daughter.