Can't Let Go

Don't give me that stare,
It rends too much to bear.
Reserve that perfect smile,
It is a poison in beguile.
I'd drink it, though I know.
I'd stare at it, till I turn to stone.

Prison Library

In the library of solitary life
there is
On an old wooden shelf, chapping
It’s pages kept to itself
Gasping for breath that no one has given its letters.

A hundred silent touches
Each were mistaken; only false hopes
The book shall never be read.

When the library opens
It is still, and it waits
For a hundred dozen fingertips
There is one that can lift it from
The dusty wooden shelf.

The Clutter Junkster

Korea-related posts:
Dedication Post
1) Creature of Habit
2) Hope for Joy
3) Frozen in Time
4) Precious Wound
5) Ironed Fashion
6) My Name is Rain
7) Winning Moment
8) Life on Film
9) I Can't Touch the Things that are True
10) Kaleidoscopic Bibimbapish Post
11) Two Faces of My Girlfriend
11) Chronicles of Northern Kimchi 1 of ~
12) Chronicles of Northern Kimchi 2 of ~

Post-Korea Stress Syndrome
1) Time in a Bottle
2) For a While
3) Still Single
4) Thesis Acknowledgments
5) A Tribute to the Triad
6) Prince Caspian: A Must See
7) Halo-halo for the Rainy Days
8) Family Reunion
9) Lying is A By-product
10) Gladiators in My Dream
11) Turning a New Leaf
12) Is There a Bane to Being Brown?
13) Serve the People?
14) Lament of a Call Center Agent
15) A Mechalife
16) Aliens in the Outfield and Tesla's Death Ray

I Remember Saying this Line

a month to go before leaving Korea...

"I am grateful to become a victim of a fairytale that has an implicit promise to never end..."

A Mechalife

Ticking till the batteries run dry,
With arms
Rotating faithfully till it dies,
Whose life is like a clock?

It never misses a single second
For when it does, it shall be discarded.
Whose life hangs
On rigid concrete pillars?

From a burning house,
Nobody saves the servile clock
For there are many to replace it with.

The clock ticks away,
Like a bomb that won't explode,
In the silence of the night it reigns,
Only to be drowned at the break of day.

-Elliot
An essay eluded me tonight, hence, this.

Serve the People

When I was studying the dynamics of migration, I completely felt disdain towards the concept of brain-drain. I told myself, especially after watching in awe the Serve the People banner unfurl from atop the DL Umali Hall in UPLB, that I would work in the Philippines for a year or two.

I was a romantic idealist. I could have gone up to the mountains.

But the acid of an empty gut corrodes even the most pachydermous stomach lining. I want my brain drained.

It is my personal ulcer.

Don't think that I'm happy prostituting myself at the intellectual level.

For me, belonging to this nation is more than just a symbolic drama ; it is both an imagined and real phenomenon that I want to actualize.

Should I stay and endure the throbbing sore? I might. If only somehow I could purchase an anesthesia, for I had given up looking for a cure so long ago...

----------UPDATE------------

Amicus, in his comment, invoked the most piercing lines from Panatang Makabayan:

Ako'y kanyang kinukupkop at tinutulungan upang maging malakas, maligaya at kapaki-pakinabang
Paglilingkuran ko ang aking bayan nang walang pag-iimbot at nang buong katapatan

Yes. I will pay my country back. Kahit na kung bibigyan mo ng pagkakataon ang bayan na hindi ka pagaralin sa UP sa ilalim ng subsidiya ng pamahalaan...Ang salitang "kinukupkop" dito ay nangangahulugang taimtim na pagnanasang pagyamanin at linangin ang kakayanan ng isang Pilpino. Ngunit siya nga ba ang nangyayari?

Turning a New Leaf

For me, tearing a calendar leaf is very symbolic. It means that I cannot recover the lost days. And in those days are moments to remember, moments that you would try exchanging your present with. I didn't care less about months flowing by when I wasn't yet working. This sensitivity was just exacerbated by my days at the office. Now, my point of reference for the changing days and seasons is not the rising and setting of the sun. I now look forward to the pay day. Before, I wanted to halt the ticking of the clock for it means growing old, losing something you've known to be valuable, and venturing to the uncertainty of the future. Now I wanted the clock to tick faster so I could go to the bank itching to enter my PIN. Well, in the future, that's the only thing that's certain: you get money bimonthly. I was conditioned by circumstances to be materialistic and I'm hating it. I know that time is more than this, that the future could promise more than what is written on my paycheck. Yet, this is how I think now. Time, run fast so I, too, can run fast to the bank. Heck.

...and the Book of Moments continues to loose its leaves...

Lying is a By-product

I hate liars. I hate lying. But I sometimes can't help spouting petty lies. I think I made another one today and I was convicted about what the Bible says: Liars go to hell. I thought about it for a while and I realized that lying is, in and of itself, not the sin. The underlying reason why one lies is because one does not do the right thing. Lying is a cherry on top of sins galore.

I know, Jesus said that one should not tell a lie. That is a categorical statement. No exceptions entertained. However, there are morally ambiguous situations where one can't help but to tell white lies. And I'm sure that you've heard people saying that there's no such thing as a black or white lie. Black, or white or pink, some lies even result to desirable ends and some are just plainly benign. I wonder if one tells the truth, even if in the short- term it would have unpleasant results, perhaps in the long-term, it would result to a more positive outcome, or an eternally rewarding repercussion in heaven.

Anyway, one thing is clear to me. I lie because I do wrong things. I told myself: "Do the right things and lying would become unnecessary. Period." But then, would that mean I can't stop weaving lies?

I can't touch things that are true...

Kaiinstall ko lang ng Google Earth on my laptop just to show my father what it can do. Hayon, punta kaming Paris, Cairo at kung san-san pa. When he went out of my room (baka napagod at di na-keri ang kata-travel),I decided to stay on Google Earth for a few more minutes. It's statistically expected for me to visit Korea, and I ended up landing on Daejeon University. Though the map isn't updated to 2007 geography (andaming kulang na buildings sa DJU) it made me recall Aslan's line in Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian:

"Things never happen the same way twice."

Point is: We need to grow in many different ways. But I'm such a creature of habit...

I know for a fact that kahit maglulupasay pa ko sa loob ng subway, when I get back to Korea again, things will never be the same for a number of reasons. Worst thing that could happen when I'm already there is when these words are pushed from my mouth: I had been better off in the Philippines.

Yeah, I shouldn't be expecting a fairy tale-themed life in this life. That's why I made a wish in my previous post.

Kimchi Tidbits Poetries and Sayings #2

A Hope for Joy

There was a boy
Happy, mellow and coy
Running down with
A clattering jingaling jing
Golden bell a sounding.
Under a blue whispy sky
Hearing
Stars smiling and true
Wonderfully twinkl'ng
He hears jingaling jingaling jing.

His feet sweeping
Running a rushing
Down the velvety hill
Blades 'o grass
Whooshing, brushing they sing.
He felt really good
As his feet like the wind
Blowing thru the blades
Longing, rushing to spring.

This boy earnestly awaiting
Season, Spring a coming
Glistening snowing flowing
A drip of hope fulfils
A waiting.
From a branch now
Blooming flowering living.
That boy, oh so
Happy mellow and coy.

-elliot