I can smile now. Although this just happens once in a while.

My plan is to tell stories of far away lands, of obscure spaces, of people I don’t know and had known. At first, I wanted to tell it through different point of views, from a child, an orphan, a witch, a soldier, a friend. Unfortunately, even though I am able to form other personas through these points of view, I see myself in them even more. How can I escape from myself? Or maybe, why do I want to escape from my self?

Maybe, now I understand a little. I wanted to be someone else not me, someone daring, someone radically different from my own. Apparently, no matter how I ran away from me, I go back chasing my own shadow. No matter what point of view I take or character I make, it is always me. Thus, I am happy. I am able to run away, yet always go back with me. I am home. My home is with me. I can always be me with myself.

With this, I have come to the conclusion that in stories I may write for the most part of my life time will always start with the word I. I may not always have to be me; but at least I am being true to myself. I do not have to wear masks or concoct selves for me,; the selves already exist in I. this I am happy.

But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.

Even when there is no one.

A story is like a letter. Dear you, I’ll say. Just you, without a name… I will say you, you, like an old love song. You can mean more than one.

You can mean thousands…

I’ll pretend you can hear me…

I am more than me.

I have a doll. I remember her now.

She owns the most beautiful eyes—black as night— I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Her lashes are thick and her lids close whenever I put her to sleep. She’s a princess with laces and ribbons on her white and pink dress. She has a little gold crown on top of her curly ebony hair. I envy her.

She looks at me, not with piety; but with despair. She implores—she wants to live. How can that be, I asked her, you are a doll?

Little did I know, she envies me more.

Everyday, she casts me a look that my innocent heart can’t fathom. What am I supposed to do? I can never be you. I am but a child. I have to grow up. The world is so vast for me not to see. I want to live. Please, let me be.

From then on, I kept her in a place where I can never see her. I was sad at first, I have nothing but her. Still, I have to do it for myself.

Now, she’s a vague reverie from somewhere, sometime. She was somehow erased from my memory. Until last night. I saw her. She lived, in me, in my dreams. She feeds in my deepest thoughts. She is me.

This maybe one of the things I try to forget. I was a doll—little Ms. Perfect, a little princess, encased in her own box, with no one but her reflection to accompany her. I was looking at myself the whole time. There was no doll. The doll is me.

You see me. You talk to me. You listen to my stories; then comes silence. This is us now. But maybe, this may also be us then. We’ve known each other for so long now. We’ve shared some secrets sifted according to what the other would like to hear.  But thinking of the times we’ve spent, we never really poured our souls to each other. We were never one.

            I never complain though. Still, what we have will never last. Or if it will, is never real. You never showed your deepest thoughts and emotions to me; while I continue to hope that one day you’d do. What am I to do if someone would not trust me? I would not let them to keep me.

            How could I stay in both our worlds? I never stepped into theirs. I hope, they never did see mine.

            Friends are lovers and beloved in one. One is neither a beloved nor a lover; always a lover and beloved; happiness and grief shared and celebrated by people throbbing the same beat of the heart. Sisters and brothers not by blood, but by a union of body and soul entwined to the essence of their cores.

Maybe this is just my imagination playing tricks on me; but then again, maybe not.

humility has been a virtue I want to master above all … But stating one’s claim of worth is a start of asserting one’s identity.

I exist in words and ideas shown in every paragraph I make. This actually makes me happy.

Soon, a life shall pay for the death—of a virtue, of a body, of a trust, of a friend the young maiden once loved.

The little boy knows not that he has a father. He lives deep in the forest with the young woman he now calls sister. He has no friends but the forest animals. The sister leaves him with his creature friends when his sister is up hunting and looking for food for the two of them.

He has no father, he does not need one. There are no fathers in this story for they always leave their children, especially there sons as they journey towards the end of the world—as far as possible from their sons. They hate their sons. For their sons are their exact likenesses. Two people cannot live in the same place, much less in the same world. This is the fathers’ burden, then the sons’ after some time.

There are no mothers as well, for they die the exact time that the babies are born alive. This is the fate of the mothers; their lives depend on the existence of the newborn. But even though the babe is born dead, the mothers cannot live through this for they believe it is their duty to deliver the baby alive. Thus, they take their own lives for atonement.

Suspiciously though, the boy looks like the young woman in the deep forest. Nobody knows about this of course, no one lives in the forest except the two of them. Everyday, he looks more and more like the young woman and the lady takes notice. How could she not? The little boy was the son of her beloved, but he is not her son. Thus, it puzzles her that the child looks not like her father (though she wished he could have been) but of her self. This is the wish of her beloved—to be forgotten by the woman he came to love, thus his son will bear the appearance of the young woman.

Both the father and the son have no memory without the young woman in it. Could this be fate’s trick? This we will never know. All we can tell is that there is a little boy living deep in the forest, without a father or a mother, but with only a young woman he now calls sister.

Writing has always been a pleasure for me. It makes me exist; a proof that I am not just a figment of someone’s imagination or an endless dream. I exist in words and ideas shown in every paragraph I make. This actually makes me happy. Whatever emotion I have on times of my writing jaunts, I feel free. Freedom for me is happiness beyond compare—happiness without the pang of guilt, pure bliss of living together with the consequences of one’s actions.

There comes a point in a daughter’s life where she would have to hate what she thought was her palace, her refuge. For now, what she sees is a battle ground of bitter memories and an unexplainable depth of regret, sadness, anger, resentment. Every angle of that castle brings tears to her tired eyes and leaves a burning agony to her forever troubled spirit. She always thought that everything would be okay whenever she returns home. Ironically it only adds to her despair. Funny how time really changes everything. The paradise that you have been craving for all your life turns out to be the hell you’ve been running away from.

Being exhausted is an understatement. At this very moment, I would give up my memory to get out of this miserable time for in every memory lays a monster that continues to eat every drop of my mirth. I don’t want to remember anything from the past for it will always open wounds that would definitely snatch away my sanity.

The truth that I hold dear then is not the truth that I am seeing right now. And I don’t want to see my self getting trap with what can be said as an obsolete truth. Truth is something that I want to get away from.

I never thought that surviving the war brings so much silence. We’ve stumbled on stories of blood, tears, screams, bullets and bombs; but not of the whimpers, the abandoned majestic ballrooms that once hold banquets overflowing of food and wine, the wailing walls now forgotten, the thousand deaths of the spirit trapped inside a weary heart, burdened by the life one is carrying. This is how we live—thirsting not for peace, but for death. Death that would end the suffering not of the body; but of the soul—this is a soldier’s wish, an orphaned boy’s hope, a dishonored woman’s creed, a daughter’s promise.

            She was the beloved daughter of the respected Colonel of a highly esteemed infantry battalion who has endured heavy attacks from the enemies of the colony. Now, her father faces the battle of his times—the walled city has fallen; his troops has to defend the last remains of the glorious city his wife has once tread upon, and his daughter’s little paradise. Everything is not yet lost as his men trooped ready to fight until the last drop of their blood.  He cannot meet the eyes of his daughter. His heartbeat throbs louder every second. The Colonel knows this will be the last time he’ll see his joy—a complete replica of his beloved wife. Today is the day he dies, death saluted him the moment he saw the first rays of the sun that morning; he accepts it with a soldier’s pride but leaves his heart to his innocent young one. In time, she’ll understand. The love of country is the love of one’s own as well. In time, she will.

            She knows deep inside her that the day has come. The moment she heard the cheerless songs of the birds, her fate has been foretold. She never knew her father well—the greatest Colonel of his kind—well enough. Nevertheless, she revered him as a daughter would. She had read the diary of her mother. She was raped, her mother. Still, her father married her, out of pure love. She never knew her real father. He was killed you see, out of anger, by this Colonel his mother loved with all her being. Has she forgiven both men? She can never say. Yet, this day is different. Somehow, anytime soon, forgiveness has to be given; freedom is at arms’ reach. No regrets, that’s what his Colonel father always says, no regrets.

            She was the daughter of the fairest maiden of the colony. Everyone knows she’ll be married soon to the promising young officer who awed her with his intellect and perseverance. She agreed to be tied to a foreigner that has understood her wanderings—she holds a secret that only she could keep. She never lived in a single world. She keeps a multiple of them. This she has told to the soldier. She wants to come clean to the man she has learned to love. The moment she decided to tell him her secret, she’s afraid she’ll lose him forever. But the soldier only laughed and asked her to be a part of her worlds. No doubt, she accepted the soldier’s proposal. She’ll be married to this soldier who pledged not just love, but acceptance and trust as well. This she first told her only friend.  She waited. But someone else came—same face, different intent. That afternoon she forgot the man she first loved.  That afternoon her chastity was snatched away by no one else but her friend, her first love. She fought with all her might. She lost all her senses. When the soldier came, it was too late. She never cried in front of him, still, she can’t help but shed tears not just for herself, but also to the person lying lifeless among the grasses. She was carried by her soldier as their tears poured like rain. Soon, a life shall pay for the death—of a virtue, of a body, of a trust, of a friend the young maiden once loved.

            She was the daughter of her mother’s friend, her childhood sweetheart, her mother’s young love. She was the fruit of regret, of resentment, of a loss. She needs to repay something that will never be replaced. Her mother died the moment life has entered into her lungs. Everyone has to pay. This is the only thing she knows of her true father.

            She keeps a diary. She writes all her thoughts. She never married. She just loved. She lived through the bitter memories by way of atoning to the sins of her kin, of her people, of her loved ones. Now she awaits death.

Knowing it can be very shattering, if the truth is knowable

All I know is that what I think, I write for fear of loss is forever at my door step, waiting.

 It made me love writing letters even more. The difference is, I only have myself to write… my thoughts can be doomed… lost in oblivion if no one else comes… I still have myself, forever will.

This is an extension of myself.  Another story of a metamorphic self, reluctant to accept changes then, but knows it’s necessary, for what is living without change?

I am not bragging, but when my being acknowledges your existence, you’ve found a loyal servant surpassing time and death. I vow devotion to the bond of friendship that I presume the two of us will embark.

They want me to marry (eventually), but I really don’t see the point in it. maybe I’m not just the marrying type. I’ll stick to where I know I will succeed best.

I can never live in one place and one world only. I have always been happy with my self and having another person would be difficult to imagine, especially that someone would have to share my life, my thoughts, my body, my spirit, everything.

When it comes to love, it is another matter. But again, it is never enough. It is a start, yes; but it won’t sustain a relationship long enough for them to die in each others’ arms.

My castle, oh my beloved castle—so far away, very far away. How I wish I can keep you forever with me in it with nothing but laughter and joy.

I’m trying to remember the days when I’ve loved someone more than myself. Sadly, it’s now in the depths of my memory, beyond the recognition of my heart.

 I am escaping to an alternate world I know I am capable of being lost. I would love to trade myself for a multiple of selves so that whenever I wake up, I am me

I’m stuck. My tears are flowing like river. Reality, truth, or whatever we call it, strikes me when I really least expected, when I thought it will never come at all. I’m devastated. Truth makes me feel useless. It numbs me.

I don’t want the things I need; I need the things I want.

sadness suddenly snatches away from me the feeling of joy, leaving me as I am always

 The paradise that you have been craving for all your life turns out to be the hell you’ve been running away from.

 Past love, lost love–whatever it was, t’was all gone.

As for me, nothing really started and ended—something just happened.

A Mr. Frapp/ Chocolate that would bring me to cloud nine then back to our beloved purgatory—earth with no one to have but ourselves and our beloved ones.

 I carry a burden that only I could keep.

Loyalty I know lies among those who love me beyond my own understanding.

For with life comes love, and with love comes living.

he taught me how to read and write, do my arithmetic at a very early age (3 years old) in a deserted room full of cut out letters of magazines. I would say this has been the most vivid of all memories, the seat of knowledge which started it all for me.

For almost twenty years, I was everybody’s girl.

Does it seem absurd that I am writing to myself?

You made an illusion out of the love you had.

I pity them for not seeing right through me the capacity of endless hate.

Blue roses are meant for the persons important in one’s life. How much more of me does he want broken?

read to feed one’s mind

learn to never make the same mistakes over and over again

live so that others may live; for change is forever at your doorstep