alternate route

although removing warts, zits, blemishes,skin impurities and unwanted lines for a number of days were painful enough to strain my eyes and to stress my hands and my fingers from moving too much, the rewarding experience of seeing a unique map of experience from each of the faces i digitally operated numbs the pain and motivates me to explore more maps of the human experience.
i just learned that if the windows to the person's eyes were intentionally closed and appeared to be blank from your view, just zoom in to the small lines of the face, often concealed by cosmetics, embedded on each person.
there you can discover a map of the complexities of the person's life, heart and mind.

marathon

i say, we never stop.

never cut the chase.
you can rest,
you can sleep, but never lose
the focus of your senses on your target.
do not worry too much.
help will come along the way.
at start, keep your pace slow and steady.
conserve your energy and build momentum as you get
near the target.

just keep chasing your dreams.
they will soon get tired.
and if they do, grab them with all your might
and never let them slip.

never lose the fire of your passion.

***********

my last day at the heroes' hill was quite a fulfillment.
finally, i got my salary.
earlier, i did an impromptu hosting job at an inaugural event by san miguel.
on monday, i will be professionally capturing the selective and directed emotions of people.
on the following days, i will embark on another journey which
(as stupid as it sounds) requires me to look good all the time.
wish me luck on the chase.

dear writer

i guess you are more loyal to your wordplay than the strength of our friendship.
your manipulation of letters, phrases and words has evolved in such a way that it became too powerful to ruin the concrete foundations of trust.

i am completely aware that you are the god of your own language, but you are wrong to think that you can lord over the heart and the mind of other people.
you have used the charm of your words to feign sincerity and get the affection and attention you seek.

you have taught your words, armed with its sharp edges, to pierce the blank canvass of a person until it bleeds with your ink.

it’s just sad to think that the letters that formed our friendship is slowly being erased by the scratches of the sharp edges of your words.

you are dear to me that’s why i trusted you some of my treasured stories.
we created poems, stories and narratives of our adventures.

but since you have used my words as your own, i doubt if i could ever write a perfect rhyme with you.

sevenexthree

twenty one days after my twenty first year of existence on earth, i woke up twenty one times richer. as new sets of cells dominate my physical body, it slowly dawned to me how fortunate i am to be three times richer in dreams, hopes and friends as compared way back when i was seven.

seeing the planetary alignment, witnessing a couple of eclipses, enjoying the blue moon, experiencing the bliss of flight, winning a couple of awards, being caught in depression, fear and anxiety, flunking a subject, acing a major academic paper, getting a job, riding on the unstable raft of the relationship called love, gaining and losing friends and acquaintances, and trying to experience every bit of being a human is really nothing in a span of twenty-one years.

i remembered how my former university professor would always remind me: “you have not yet made any mark on the history of this planet. you are just a speck of dust at the universe.”

true. i am nothing but a single being struggling for survival in almost all the aspects and areas built by the human civilization. i am nobody to those who do not really know me but my twenty-one years of experience has taught me to be a somebody, to be twenty-one times stronger, to be someone who could leave a mark in the history of the world. thanks to all the people who have been a part of my life since i first breathe oxygen from this planet. to all of you (family, friends, high school and college friends, blog mates, officemates, neighbors, acquaintances, professors, room mates) who have made my life meaningful, thank you very much.

down the heroes’ hill

it was over a month since the hermes of the heroes’ hill called me for work.
my task is to give birth to multiple spawns of fused shapes and colors from tabula rasa. each day, i would paint and manipulate digital images of the ideas and the concepts of the gods of heroes’ hill.

the eight basic colors had been my friends since my parents gave me my first box of crayola so managing them and producing multiple shades from them is no sweat. although heroes’ hill has required me to squeeze buckets of creative juices each day to offer to the higher gods, i accepted the challenge like an olympian hero.

on the first day of my journey to heroes’ hill, it dawned to me that possessing heroic qualities (like patience, bravery, sacrifice, determination and selflessness) is a prerequisite. everyday, you engage yourself in a race with other heroes chasing time to report to their own gods. you struggle your way against titanic trucks blocking the road, you break the thickened walls of dirt on the streets and you involuntarily give yourself a large dose of the metropolis pollution.

heroes’ hill stands in the north-eastern area of the smog-clouded cosmopolitan. reaching the place on time is a reward considering the obstacles along the way. the gates welcome you with the bland atmosphere of creativity where you can rarely hear the muses sing. the blank, white-washed walls would tell nothing except that they are bored seeing the same shade of color each day. the air conditioning units had long decided to rest in the nest of dust and cobwebs near it. some computer units would choose to act like slugs in the morning, testing your patience and your sanity.

my first impression of heroes’ hill is that it is a place for heroes who selflessly sacrifice their time, effort and power to get the monthly blessing of the gods in order to sustain the needs of their family. but i was wrong. on my almost two months stay at the place, i discovered it to be neither a place for heroes nor martyrs, but rather a place for masochists.

without any hesitation, i would craft outputs as the gods instructed me. sometimes, i would spend hours in the place to finish the heaps of tasks assigned to me, despite the fact that i am working beyond the time stated in my contract with the gods. i would always coerce the last drops of my creative juices without being paid. heroes’ hill is not a fan of overtime fees.

this coming tuesday would mark the month-long duration of the delay of the blessings from the gods. i tried to ask the company hermes about the cause of the delay but he is also not sure of the situation. this is injustice! working for nothing at the heroes’ hill alerted my stress levels. if only i could stage a coup against the gods of heroes’ hill, i would. but the herculean size and authority (literally and figuratively) of the gods of the place and the consideration of our very small number (six heroes/martyrs/masochists) made me scrap the coup idea.

heroes deserve something better. the heroes’ hill is a faux place for heroes. it is a base for masochists who are contented with their under-compensated and compromised lives given the fact that they have their own families to support.

a hero is someone who is willing to compromise and sacrifice his/her own comforts in exchange for the safety, good health, and life of his/her loved ones. a hero is way different from a masochist, who despite shedding tons of effort from his system to serve the deities, is not compensated, and is contented with his/her condition.

i may not have the power to bring down the gods of the hill, but i have all the power to make a choice. i quit.