i forgot to say. thanks for everything. really. i mean it. and im sorry.

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.

- Billie Holiday

Set the Fire to the Third Bar

I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths Jobby that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My finger in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have travelled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
and I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

why can't everyone just let me be happy without having to explain why?

now how about you let me go?

It's funny how we talked about search pages tonight.

You don't believe in them, you said. Cos no matter whose name you put there to search, it leads you back to my page. So it's useless searching for someone else when everything leads you back to me anyway.

Funny. And I hope you're kidding.

sometimes, they come back.

they wait until you are at your weakest and redeem themselves.

toothbrush

i don't usually go out drinking whenever i got work the next day. two nights ago, however, i came home not as sober as i was expecting. i was not supposed to drink, but the beer was just way too inviting.

i brushed my teeth, and on my way out of the bathroom, i saw my toothbrush floating in the toilet bowl. i didn't even know how it got there.

i stooped down, and watched it that way for quite some time. i was comprehending things slowly. 'my toothbrush fell into the bowl. my toothbrush fell into the bowl. my toothbrush fell into the bowl..'

almost a year ago, i was the happiest person i could remember. simply because you made me. what happened, exactly? since we fell apart, everything else seemed like a lie. you were the only truth i ever held on to. but now that you've gone, i feel so vulnerable to all these lies. unprotected and unsafe.

holding on to the rim of the bowl for support, i stood up and picked up the toothbrush to throw it into the waste basket.

im tired. really, i am.

the longest time i ever spent in front of the toilet bowl, and through it all, i only thought about you.

absolutely, ultimately misled.

do not let your guards down.

sometimes, all it just takes, is for you to stop believing.

the heartaches. they line up and wait for your attention. now that you have learned not to trust, you have to not trust more. gots to look at them all in the eye. some people are fated that way.

ultimately misled.

i have lesser things to write about.

maybe,
maybe,
the heartaches are getting lesser too.

philippine daily inquirer

this is taken from the philippine daily inquirer. so true. read on.


Being Jane
Crisel Consunji

Philippine Daily Inquirer
March 03, 2010

I WENT INTO THIS WHOLE ADVENTURE TRYING TO FIND my Tarzan. I ended up finding myself.

A few months before flying to Hong Kong to work, someone asked me, “What do you plan to do there?”

“Oh,” I answered. “Perhaps I’ll visit Disneyland and find my Tarzan.”

My friend laughed off my silly reverie. “You’re kidding, right?” he said.

“No,” I said with the straightest face possible. “I’m sure he’s out there somewhere. He has probably evolved out of his loincloth and is now looking for his Jane.”

The joke was that perhaps I would finally meet my Tarzan, the hunk of a guy who would literally and figuratively sweep me off my feet. Maybe—just maybe—when environments change and new people are shuffled in front of your eyes, the man of your dreams sort of materializes before you.

So after I packed my bags and hopped on the plane, I looked into the first mirror I could find, and said to myself, “Crisel, you’re going to find the love of your life.” I was very sure I would find someone who would swing above the ravines of life with me.

That’s where the joke ends, though not the humor.

One thing I realized during the last two years of being away from home is that whenever we go off searching for something, we never find what we started the search for. We find something better than we ever hoped.

Surprisingly, in spite of the fact that I was free to do whatever I wanted, had Lan Kwai Fong (Hong Kong’s night-life district) a train ride away, and was surrounded by people so diverse that they would do the United Colors of Benetton campaign proud, I found that I preferred the peace and quiet of home to the late-night parties of the city.

And then it hit me: There is so much romance in being alone.

Have you ever tried going off to the bay and watching the sunset, without ever thinking that you need someone to share it with? Have you ever tried getting lost in a jungle of people, only to find that the noise outside does not drown the strong force of your silent thoughts? Have you ever tried to stop searching for love everywhere else, and begun to realize that you have all that you need with and around you?

In a weird and crazy way, I admit I have.

And in that time, I realized that there was still so much room to grow, a lot of experiences to learn from, and time to discover who I am, and who I would like to be. And that’s the whole point: to love another person, you must know how to be one. And that only happens when you have had enough time to figure out your own life.

I am still in that process. And well, yes, once or twice I actually considered giving my heart away—and once or twice I may have shed tears of frustration. But at the end of the day, I realized that nothing and no one should come between me and my heart. We all choose to risk—and we all should. Because risk tests our courage, and pain strengthens our resiliency.

But at the end of the day, we all come to the discovery that our hearts are very precious. And at one point in time, we have to make it stop searching, hold it still and remember that love does not want to be found. It finds us.

And it will find you.

Don’t be frustrated if no one seems to want the heart you are putting out there. Someone in the universe deserves it, and in the right time, he will be revealed to you.

Don’t waste your time offering your heart to people who will not see it for what it’s worth. Instead, hold it and nurture it. Nurture the love inside you, and save it for the person worth giving it to. And when that person comes, you will be so happy you gave it whole—without the scratches—and lovingly nourished by all the patience you have spent on striving to be a better person. Let our prayers not be that we might find the right one soon, but rather that we might become the right person for that person destined to be with us for the rest of our lives.

Call me hopeless, but I believe it’s true. You don’t have to wait for Tarzan. After all, he might still be figuring out whether he wants to walk on two feet—or four limbs. (And what would you do while the monkey contemplates his life?) But as long as you find the Jane inside of you, you will never be afraid to swing through all this.

Jane, you’re beautiful. And you’re going to be just fine!


Crisel Consunji, 25, is a Filipino performing artist currently working in Hong Kong. She originally wrote this as a Valentine’s Day introspection, and found that it appealed to many young singles.

dance with you by Live

Sittin' on the beach
The island king of love
Deep in Fijian Seas
Deep in some blissful dream
Where the goddess finally sleeps
In the lap of her lover
Subdued in all her rage
And I'm aglow with the taste of the demons driven out
And happily replaced with the presence of real love
The only one who saves
I wanna dance with you
I see a world where people live and die with grace
The karmic ocean dried up and leave no trace
I wanna dance with you
I see a sky full of the stars that change our minds
And lead us back to a world we would not face
The stillness in your eyes
Convinces me that I
I don't know a thing
And I been around the world and I've tasted all the wines
A half a billion times came sickened to your shores
You show me what this life is for
I wanna dance with you
I see a world where people live and die with grace
The karmic ocean dried up and leave no trace
I wanna dance with you
I see a sky full of the stars that change our minds
And lead us back to a world we would not face
In this altered state
Full of so much pain and rage
You know we got to find a way to let it go
Sittin' on the beach
The island king of love
Deep in Fijian Seas
Deep in the heart of it all where the goddess finally sleeps
After eons of war and lifetimes
She smilin' and free, nothin' left
But a cracking voice and a song, oh lord
I wanna dance with you
I see a world where people live and die with grace
The karmic ocean dried up and leave no trace
I wanna dance with you
I see a sky full of the stars that change our minds
And lead us back to a world we would not face

just like alanis

i left the house at 5:30 PM for my 5:30 PM class. as usual, i blame the alarm. not that i was asleep. i just needed to be reminded.

so, i crammed my way to getting ready, taking a cab instead of my usual means of public transportation. 15 minutes before 6 and i was half running to the elevator that takes me to my floor.

and we have no class. now isn't that lovely?

sunsets

i remember your sunsets, and how you have talked about having to spend the rest of them with me one day.

i miss talking to you nonsense. like, one time you wished that we would both be stranded in one island together. no wi-fi, no cellphones, no one else. that way, you will have all my attention, and i will have all of yours. and i would sit there, listening to you, wondering how someone could ever sit there long enough without falling for you.

you have made me your life goal. with that, i have nothing else left to say.

but maybe holding on too much doesn't do both of us good. maybe, we would both wake up realizing that we have wasted way too much time waiting for each other.

so today, i am letting go. finally, letting go.

but your sunsets. how could i possibly let them all go?

august 06, 2008

dont make me hate you
for something i should not hate you for,
like how you would look at me so deeply
and just casually leave me aside.
believe me,
i think all of this over when im alone
and i hate you for making me
bleed, recover and cringe
all at the same time
not because i dont have time to arrange them in stages,
but simply because they come all together in knowing you.
it hurts when i get close,
but it even hurts more when i dont.
i just think
that when im older
ill think more rationally.
but im already older,
and maybe this is me thinking rationally..

noggie

two days ago i was awake for 51 hours. then i realized i havent eaten for 22 hours. no, i am not suicidal. so, when noggie (my boss) told me he is resigning, i was so light-headed i laughed. "right," was my only response, shrugging my shoulders. and then i saw his resignation letter. signed by super mario. and suddenly, i felt sad.

we call him noggie/nognog. basically because he is dark and sunog. but we love him anyway. he is dumb for the most part, but he loves us back. that's impotant.

one time, i left my email open and he sent everyone an email using my outlook saying '"im hot and sexy." this happens all the time. also, there was an open love letter sent to someone with everyone copied from a poor colleague's outlook. so basically, when you get an email saying "i am a stripper," you know someone has been had. the worst was when someone used my IM and messaged a male friend of mine saying, "lets have sex. just as friends."

thats another demotivator. no one will pull me by the arm anymore to go with him to the smoking area. i will have no one to backbite the other bosses with. no one is gonna yell at me to go get a week off because i am getting thinner.

but ill think of it this way. i can leave my email open more now.

jeez.

super mario

my boss does not have a neck. seriously, i have no idea how he is able to move his neck from one side to another. his head is connected so close to his shoulders, it distracts me everytime he speaks in the meeting.

my workmates call him raphael - i mean, yes, the teenage mutant ninja turtle kind- but i prefer calling him super mario. i don't think he walks. he bounces.

super mario is not generally-liked. when he asks to talk to you, you know you're doomed.

now yesterday, i was arguing with my workmate about the functions of f5 and f9 in outlook. when the emails keep flooding, you learn more than what you're supposed to in outlook.

"hi, how are you doing?"

it was a trick. super mario was asking me how i was doing. that could not be true.

"are you okey?" again, he asked.

i looked at him, wide-eyed, wondering if he was true. his face was so close to mine, i felt like he was gonna eat me anytime. "do i not look okey?" i asked back, confused.

"i am just asking if you're okey."

"do i look sick?"

"can you just answer me if you're okey?"

"i'm okey!" i answered, way too quickly than i normally do. it's the i'm-okey-now-get-the-hell-out-of-here kind.

he smiled.

i smiled back- the world's fakest smile.

super mario just asked me if i'm okey. gah! i'm doomed.

the Discipline Office

i love the smell of our Discipline Office. it is not too fragrant, not too artificial smelling - in fact, it does not have any scent at all, which makes me like its smell.

i pushed the glass door open when i came in, and the Discipline Officer gave me his usual nod and said hi.

he knows me by my first name now.

seeing him talking to a student, i took the seat at the corner and waited for him to be done. i was so bored, i started texting people in my phonebook in random.

"..would you agree?" was all i caught when i noticed the Discipline Officer was talking to me. i had heavy metal on both ears, i had to take the earphones off and lamely mumbled, "i'm sorry?"

"i said," he repeated, "that the use of any electronic device/gadget is strictly prohibited, she had to extend her community service before she gets completely cleared.."

"uhuh," was all i managed to say, turning off the ipod.

emotional junkshop

when i don't ask, it's not always because i don't care

most of the time,

i don't ask because it's better to leave things as confusing as they are.

i have learned,

that the answers that you get from confusing situations often hurt,

so it's better pretending as long as we can.

so, go on

let us go deceive each other while we can.

we lie our way to the truth because it's the only way we know how.

until then, we are okey.

we will be fine.

in the meantime.

yeah you know how we're gonna die, baby. we're gonna crash and burn. -overheard from the radio

nonsensical wishes

i wish more people would wear flip flops, so there would be more people with cleaner toenails.

i wish everyone walks more, so we save more fuel and we would know more about what's going on in the streets.

i wish people would promise less, so there would be lesser promises to break.

i wish everyone has earphones, so no one has to use loud speakers in public places because not everyone likes Lady Gaga.

i wish old people would be treated better.

i wish we start loving each other just because, without having to answer 'why' all the time.

i wish everyone would find joys in the simplicity of things, like the feel of the sand against the feet.

i wish people would value the conversation more during coffee and not just the wi-fi in the coffee shop.

i wish people would learn to tell lesser lies.

i wish we all go back to reading and spend less time online.

i wish people would stop telling me "everything is okey," when it isn't.

if only i knew what i know now.

just today, i was told i am smart.

so he asked, "when can i see you again?"

i said, "i don't know. see? i am not as smart as you think i am. there are a lot of things i don't know about." i said this laughing.

then he asked what i know about love.

i said i know none.

suddenly, we were both serious.

and i went on explaining. "everything you know about love, you unlearn when you start falling. you unlearn everything until you are left with absolutely nothing."

then silently, he added, "yes. so why don't we reeducate ourselves together?"