I Am No. 2

Fiction by | July 1, 2012

My name is Linda and I am No.2

The last time I saw Jay, I knew it’s going to be the last time, at least the last time that we’re going to be the way we were. It was dawn, that fateful day in August 2008. My then husband came home the evening prior, drunk and unemployed. He just lost his job due to poor attendance. I tried to show him that I was supportive. I joined him in the dining room while he ate his late dinner and tried to ask him subtle questions about his day without magnifying the problem. We had been married for 2 and a half years, we have a daughter who is barely 2 years old, and a son from my first marriage. Yes, Jay is my second husband, and is about to be my second ex.

Continue reading I Am No. 2

The Bride

Fiction by | June 24, 2012

The antang was concluded, and Lele was betrothed to Dudim, the son of the lukes from the next Manobo hamlet. When Lele’s father broke the news to her, she nodded meekly, even forced herself to smile. But as soon as the old man was out of the hut, tears raced down her cheeks.

The girl glanced out the window and saw Saluding under a tree, staring back at her. His face was dark and his jaw was clenched. There was no longer any future for them.

The bamboo floor creaked and Lele recognized the familiar footsteps of her mother. The girl wiped her cheeks with her hands and Saluding walked away.

Lele’s mother must have caught the glances between her daughter and Saluding, but the woman acted as though she did not notice anything. “Come here, Lele,” she said. “Put this sudung on your hair. You have to look beautiful. Hurry, now.”

“I don’t want to go out of the house, Ina,” Lele said.

“Don’t embarrass your uncle, Lele. He is our lukes and he has arranged a good marriage for you. All he is asking you to do now is go to his hut and bid goodbye to your future husband and his father.”

“Ina, I don’t want to get married. I don’t like Dudim.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with you young people nowadays. When your father asked for my hand, I did not utter a single word against it. Look, Lele, there’s nothing more you can ask for. Dudim is a good hunter and not much older than you. You are lucky. Think of the previous kenogon here who was married. Her husband was the same age as her father.”

“Dudim is ugly and bosses people around. He thinks he’s more powerful than his father.”

“He may not be the most dashing man in these parts, but Dudim’s not ugly, Lele. You know that. And, yes, he seems too proud at times, but it’s just his way of commanding respect. Being the son of the lukes, Dudim has a good chance of succeeding his father, and people should recognize his standing this early.”

“He’s ugly, Ina, and I just don’t like him.”

“Stop acting like a child, Lele. You’re already fourteen, a woman now. And a wife soon.”

Tears fell again from Lele’s eyes. “My heart does not beat for Dudim.”

“I will hear nothing of that, Lele. You will learn to love Dudim, just like I did your father.”

“I will love no one but—”

“Lele! What you want will never happen. The antang is done; the elders have decided. You will do well to embrace your fate.”
Continue reading The Bride

Darkness

Poetry by | June 24, 2012

I mourn for those lost souls
for those souls are like mine;
Lost and with no one to follow
Vanished along with time.
I seek those wounded hearts
for those are like mine;
Drenched in the shroud of darkness
A melody without rhyme.
I thirst for love, but where is it?
Is it hidden? Is it gone?
How would I find it,
When all my deeds are undone.
There is more silence than silence,
More of me than me.
I should be in a beacon of light
But where could it be?

—
John Ferdinand Torralba is a 3rd year Bachelor of Science in Information Technology student at Holy Cross of Davao College. Born on June 6, 1994 in Davao City.

One afternoon, in a third world lab

Poetry by | June 17, 2012

I catch you bite your lip while you inspect
the test tube if it has cracks
and scratches. But I would like to believe
that you just check how well it resembles
your finger,and you remember how pleasurable
is your finger as it lingers on a thing
that doesn’t touch back, or sometimes,
on a thing that grips by surprise.
Behind you, I watch and enjoy the scene
as I pretend to boil the liquid inside
this round-bottom flask. Then you turn
to look at me, and I quickly pick
the thermometer to check the rise
in temperature of the boiling liquid
until it distills and purifies. I, too,
wish to purify my feelings into impulse.
I can see in the edges of my eyes that you
are glancing. And when it’s my turn to glance,
you get back washing your test tube,
by plunging the brush, in and out,and in, ahh
and out, ahh, and wet bubbles flow. In my seat,
I am intoxicated by the familiar smell of vapor
and the smell of something that, I know, comes
from you, comes from you, comes, come, com…
…until the rusty iron clamp breaks,
the erlenmeyer flask falls and spills some
unknown broths on the floor. The room echoes
the sounds of broken glass and a lady’s moan.
Until all I can utter is, ”sorry, this is just
a third world lab”. And you take me by surprise
with your response, ”It’s getting dark.
Would you like to finish this somewhere else?”

—
Paul Randy P. Gumanao studied BS Chemistry at AdDU.

Co-Creator

Poetry by | June 17, 2012

Today, I decide to become
a co-creator of God.
I decide when mornings come,
and the colors they will fashion.
I decide how the skies will be
in the dawn, noon, dusk and
during the last part of the day.
I decide where the winds blow,
what songs they will sing and
which blades of grass to bend.
I decide how water comes forth,
from the sky as rain, hail, or snow;
from deep within the earth or from
the vast depths of the teal ocean.
Yes, I decide on the color of things.
I decide how the flowers and trees
greet the daylight and moonlight;
what colors they wear, what hue
or tint of this and that; I decide that.
I decide how loud or soft the birds’
singing, the animals’ calling and
the thunder’s clapping, I decide.
I decide which nation leads and
which ones bow to its glory!
I decide who and what will come
to pass: life, time, or money.
I decide on peoples’ dreams,
their will, what future they’ll keep.
I decide on fate; I decide.
And oh, I decide on love.
I decide on who gives it,
receives it, needs it, wants it!
Even the glitters on a butterfly’s wing,
the order of the afternoon rainbow’s skin,
the number of drops of the scheduled rain,
I decide on that!
I decide on creation.
I decide what ends, what begins,
what moves, what sits still!
I decide this, yes, I decide.
Today, I decide to become –
a creator of
g  o  d.

—
Thirtysumthing, physics preacher, poem writer, instagram avid user (which disqualifies me as a photographer/DSLR expert) and lover.

Indulging in a Cup of Black Coffee

Poetry by | June 17, 2012

For JMS

I have had to come up with
various techniques to stop
myself thinking about how
to savor this hot and bitter
black coffee without
thinking about jaded thoughts;
the never-ending persuasion
of warm faces, of me moving
to their department ,
-wanting me to stop thinking
because there’s none to doubt about.
or the steam faint vapor waking like
loin girding shouts of unfamiliar souls
whom I only spoke with during a phone call,
or the barren poems and jumbled
metaphors, thirsting, waiting
for me to pen their existence down
on a piece of cold
and crisp white paper; to let them live
in a majestic universe
they deserve to own.
or the clear vision of you
and that girl walking in the rain,
sharing one umbrella,
trudging a journey, leaving footprints of bliss
stirring me to sudden melancholy,
or the lurid idea that stimulates me
to think , to go on
to taste the reality of fortune, of a ‘yes’
though my heart always
sip and drink down a caffeinated ‘no’
because in a pure, honest and
absent minded stupidity, I want
to stay because
I love you.
And this is the only catharsis
the sole epiphany
I have kept and own.
To continue
loving you,
To stay,
to stop thinking
and start finishing
a cup of
hot and bitter
black coffee.

—
Henrietta Diana de Guzman is a graduate of Creative Writing at UP Mindanao. She was a fellow for poetry at the 2009 Davao Writers Workshop and at the 2nd Sulat DULA: Playwriting Workshop at Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan University). Some of her works have appeared in SunStar Davao and the Best of Dagmay anthology.

Paths

Nonfiction by | June 17, 2012

Paths have a wonderful allure to me; inherent to all things mysterious and unexplored. I always wonder what lies beyond the bend, or where a path would lead.

As a child, I often went with my friends on bike rides that took us to the next barrio, choosing the meandering paths that went past rice fields and coconut groves. I still have the tiny scars on my feet and knees reminding me of the time my brakes failed and I improvised by placing my feet against the front wheel. It took a good while before I got around to fixing the brakes and it did not happen until I had to do it with my ass against the rear tires (unintentionally). I got new brakes after that; and the exploring continued.

I miss the paths of my childhood. The dirt roads, now paved, once took us to the mango trees from where we once thieved. Our slippers rested on the footpaths along the irrigation dikes where we floated the toy boats we had built from scraps. These are long gone now.

Why such memory? I do not grieve for my past; I miss parts of them. Any passage requires the leaving behind of something. And while I do have a few regrets, I must move on.

I think of life as a journey; a path whose length I do not know. I look back and remember sections that had been shady and cool, some were rocky and miserable, some best left forgotten. I see parts of the path that still resound with the joyful echoes of family and friends and some that were achingly silent. I remain convinced life would mostly an uphill climb and that going downhill is both a long way off and a rarity. I look forward and all I see is a bend — I cannot see what lies ahead.

Still, I walk on in wonderment, without trepidation and always with the knowledge both joyful and sobering that this path must somehow end. And when it ends, I must come home. Wherever this road will take me, I am content, for I know that the paths exist because Someone had already trodden ahead of me.

—
Jesse Jay L. Baula was born in Davao City on November 18, 1975 and earned his MD from Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City. He is a resident physician in Digos City.

Heller's Confession

Poetry by | June 10, 2012

Blame it on the god
for making creatures
conscious only for
an instant. The past
being a memory;
the future, a goal;
the desire’s requests,
imagination.
Because if I were
to be aware of
my existence in
all of dimensions,
I would sure subsist
in this world before
you have become
an institution of–
an incarnation
of classic authors,
a puppet of my
basic aesthesis.
One generation,
our mothers would breathe
us out; couples of
creativity;
couples born of words
as we memorize
a language; as we
fiddle with stories
lines, schizophrenic.
There would be no gap
between years in school.
I’d be eager to
relish walks in the
universities,
your hand clumsy on
mine. And in our youth
just a cognition
an innocent view
of how couples make
love. Slow move affair
like commercial films
you critic quickly.
I do not intend
to reveal secret
thoughts in between us.
The years together
defined love– for some,
pity, for me, lust.
For you, as teacher,
as educator,
there are millions of
tales in between moans.
I am grinning at
a memory, clear
but surreal, no fear.
You might grasp death which
arrives before mine.
While I write my name
on publications,
you finally take
Sabbatical leave,
in time for content
to preclude more dreams,
in time for me
to make more ambitions.
I am afraid. I
am afraid. I need
to confess. The truth
is fidelity
has been testing me.
With these dreams of you
It, a kinder state.

—
Glorypearl Dy is a fellow of the 2011 Davao Writer’s Workshop. She works as a consultant writer for an outsourcing company.