Ha Riin in Praktis?

Noong isang araw, nabulahaw ako. Alasais ng umaga nag-ring ang telepono. Si Coms, umiiyak.

Hindi na raw siya makakasali sa rap, ke ngayon, ke kahit kelan (choke, choke), masakit na masakit raw ang ulo niya, mamamatay na yata siya, at ngayon ay may dugo na lumabas sa kanyang taynga. Panic ang lola.

Kung bakit kasi sa kung saan-saang aspalto nagsisirko. Katanghaliang tapat, kung kelan nagpupuasa ang mga tao.

“Ang titigas kasi ng ulo ninyo! Tigil na kasi yang rap-rap na yan!”

“Ayaw namin.”

Kanina si Coms uli.

“Me lumabas na namang dugo sa taynga ko, Kah Shei.”

“Lecheng tenga iyan...“

“Pero hindi na masakit ang ulo ko!”

“Bahala nga kayo sa buhay nyo!”

Kasisira kaya ng form. Heto at kaboses ko na mga nanay nila. Mas maganda pa nga boses ng mga nanay nila.

Para mo silang mga anak sa iba’t-ibang lalaki, sabi ni Berkis, habang nakangising tinitingnan ang mga shots na kuha niya.

Wish lang nila yun.

Dahil pag akoy naleche, pangtatalian ko sila, pangtatapon sa dagat.

Baka saka na sila maibenta.

Neruda and pedophilia

He doesn’t have a High School Student affairs division daw. I’m disappointed. Now there he goes tuning out at my literary citations before I could remonstrate that hey Child Rights guy, I don’t have either!!!

But there’s not much of it in literature, is there? There’s a plethora of Dickens on lice-infested street shits but who cares about Dickens. I do like Sappho though: You Monkey, I have loved you for long, even when you just seemed to me a small ungracious child. And Ensler: Huwag, Ate, ah ah ah ah, and a little of Wilde, though I can't recall any line for now. I had not read Lolita, and didn't read enough of Neruda. I only know that Neruda had a wife, way way far younger than him who went crazy living with him and went worse when he left her, for another woman, probably older. It was Jules who tipped me, and No, she was not arguing against inter-generation love, she is for it, more so if it's lesbian. Jules just loves some of Neruda, but perhaps his poetry cannot abscond him from his crimes, no matter how true how good it was.

What did Neruda write?

Love is short, forgetting is long. Because I dont love her, maybe I still do.

Seryusly wala naman tayo

Seriously wala naman tayong maboteng pinagsamahan, no, I don’t even remember your 17 years back until you reminded me. Mas maalala ko si Florante mainly because it struck me that he apologized to me that night over his brother’s impregnating and abandoning a first cousin’s cousin. Takot siguro isumbong sa hukbo hahaha. By that time, 1993, nangamatay na lahat ng hukbo ko kaya wala nang babaril sa kanya, ako na lang.

Kung minsan nasusuka na ako. And I just tell my friends, puwede ba you settle accounts with your men? Mga problema nyo sa mga lalaki ninyo huwag nyo na dalhin sa akin. Mga anak nila puro reklamo na kesyo they’re being turned into pawns sa fights ng mga parents nila. Kung minsan mas matatalino pa iyong mga anak nila telling them to divorce if they like and live their lives as they like my mistakes are my own you can’t live my life for me, Mom.

Parang yung sa kanta ni Carly Simon, my friends from college they're all married now, their children hate them for the things they're not, they hate themselves for what they are, and yet they drink they laugh, close the wounds hide the scars, but that's the way I've always heard it should be, so it's time we move in together, so let's drown in love's debris.

But no. Some of my friends they're actually happily remarried, four or five to men getting their second chance at post-revolution family life. Some are into lesbian relationships. The root of their pain now, as often happens when the new spouse doesn't have an expat salary to buffer the hard crunch, the refusal of their exes to take financial responsibility for the children's upkeep. Iyong ibang lalaki kasi iyon na lang paraan nila to get back at their ex-wives who they see as better off after the divorce. Kaya pagdating sa singilan ng pangtuition pahirapan talaga. Nakakapagod makinig. Leche at bakit sa akin ninyo dinudulog yan, ano ako, family court? Or can’t you at least keep the ledgers to yourselves?

Men and their horse-hung romance. From persuasion to blackmail. Meron pa iba diyan, tinenkyu mo lang at pinauwi ng bahay, pupromote pa bigla mga sarili nila: from spurned lover to literary critic. Why all pains? Why all resentments? Sabi nung isa, in bad grammatical construction at that. Why not write about joy? Sa Legaspi Street, sa San Pedro at sa Claveria marami akong Joys na kilala, ikako, gusto mo ipakilala kita? Twenty years in America and right now on psychoanalysis, babalikan ka lang para hingan ng joy and peace and love? Ano ko, Parish Bulletin?

Writing is about one last thing that when I do it, sabi nga ni Lia Lopez-Chua na seryusly wala naman kami, I feel more, rather than less, of myself.

Booby traps

In the 60s the men paid more attention to the manifesto you held in your hand than your boobs. Or so DP claims, the booby trap. They would be working till morning in their shorts and kamisetas giving their all to the statement of the hour and no one minded or noticed if someone’s nipple is leaking. Now that you are working and single and you go to work braless people think you are making a statement. You wish you can tell them that you are 39 and that you work hard and you don't give a shit about issuing statements.

a journal entry, february 13, 2003

He cannot read.

At least P can read. At least E can read. So they both know that I am both dangerous and in danger. He doesn’t.

But P and E don’t deal with me, he alone has the temerity to engage with me on everyday basis. So it’s him alone I can engage with in everyday terms. Praxis. With E and P no engagement is possible. No praxis.

But he oh my so ignorant beyond rescue. Only a little better than B the stupidest and the densest of the tribe. I should stop seeing them. A life gone the dogs.

I wrote Johnie. Douglas responded.

I said when you’re one who doesn’t separate your life from your study, it’s very hard to forgo the issue of your own class and sex.

It spoke to me, Douglas said.

Later, Johnie said: Oh. Your issues, which are emotional, sexual, and political.

Earlier, I wrote to Johnie something he could get: I’m back to Stupid Princess cut. He responded: So how did you look as Princess? Must be a pretty sight.

Oh The Impotent One.


A poem:

Where is the hangman’s
noose?
tie the pig.
Where is the hangman
he stole my cookies
Where is the hang
I don’t quite get the hang
Where is the hanger
things are strewn on the floor
My clothes
Yes they’re your clothes

How mad.
Dear
I must go to bed
Slip under the sheets
Under the bed
Some place
where one doesn't slip
Sleep
Oh Sleep
Big Brother
of Death


Assignment: Locate the oppression of women in the heart of capitalist dynamic by pointing to the relationship between housework and the reproduction of labor.

….

One night a dragging rain

Six o’ clock on a Friday germi messaging she’s at dunkin. She was all over herself with excitement the lady mayor punching a sheriff over a demolition and what about our i-can’t-write-fiction group we are forming. She made an announcement at fb and she got messages indicating interest, did I know, so not to object please. Then it rained. A slow dragging rain.

An hour of standing under the san pedro wing of rcbc and still I couldn’t get a ride. I got inside a net play station and checked my mails. When I got out an hour later the crowd waiting for jeepneys was thicker and the rain not any slower. Water has risen ankle-deep on the street. After another close to an hour of waiting I decided to get a ride at magallanes, pay for both ways, and so when I saw a jeep that had a puan ulas signboard I boarded it. It was on its way to r. castillo, way over the main thoroughfares. Passengers were disgorged one by one along the way until I alone and another passenger beside the driver at the front seat remained. With rain and flood bearing down on the old raggedly jeep I couldn’t help but feel like Noah’s black crow unwilling to go out to check on the world.

The jeepney got to an unloading station right by the shed and the driver turned to me. Asa man ka? I explained my case. He didn’t look unduly harangued. We’re not taking another trip back to the city! We’re parking here and are heading home! He didn’t register surprise or annoyance. Was even sympathetic. You can get a ride here, wait, we’ll find you a jeep you can take, he said.

I handed him my fare and went down the road foggy with rain.

payback time

Paminsan-minsan dami kong whatifs-whatifs, pero hinahalinhinan ko lagi ng hah, what if not, what if i didn't! Matagal ko na kasing tinalaga sa sarili ko na hindi pagpapakabuting babae at pagpapakabuting ina ang pakay ko sa mundo, kaya ayaw kong maguilty.



Ang explanation ni Indah, kaya raw walang tumulong ipamudmod ang kanyang mga tula, tungkol sa rape, sa mga abuso, mga pangungurakot ng mga upisyal ng gobyerno ng Sulu, at mga pagbubulag-bulagan na mga ustadjes at mga henyo sa NGO, dahil wala namang kita sa pagmumudmod ng poesia. Aminin na natin ba na wala nang ibang values ang mga tao ngayon liban sa gadji. Walang suweldo walang gagalaw na buto.

Fund-driven. Dati kakatakot na salita iyong fund-driven. Ngayon, iyon na ang order of the day. Sabi nga ni Tess, admin ng isang establisado na sanang research institution sa Mindanao, kaya ngayon, ang tindi ng tagisan ng talino, pagandahan sa konsepto, nakawan ng ideya. Ang me sabi sa kanya nun, ang dating boss niya na nasa funding agency na ngayon nagtatrabaho, na sigurado ako, kalahati ng merits kung kaya nakarating siya sa posisyon na iyon, dahil sa pagkadalubsaha sa pagnanakaw ng konsepto at mga hirap ng iba: mga sekretarya niya, admin assistants, researchers at mga writers niya.

Iniisip ko ito habang nagkakalkal ng ulo, kaiisip saan kaya ako magnakaw ng pang-absuwelto sa mga paniningil ng mga gelpren ko sa Jolo. Kasi nagkamali ako ng hakbang, nag-step yes step yes step no I love you, kaya heto, medyo sumasakit ang ulo pa’no takbuhan kapag hindi nabalikan ang mga naumpisahan.

Hindi na raw talaga nagwu-work ang charms ko, matagal na, sabi ni Miss Indah, at lalong hindi magwu-work sa no money-no honey policy ngayon ng mga tao. Aminado naman po si ako. Matagal na. Kung minsan lang nagmamatugas in u. Kaya nga yung huling lipad ko sa Jolo, sabi ko, last na ito, ayaw ko nang bumalik rito, kapag may mga gagawin pa ipapasa ko na lang sa mga old hands dito, at least kung uusad o sasalampak kaya, dih ko dusa. Hindi ko kasalanan.

Ganun kasamang intension, kaya siguro pinaparangalan.

Nasa bunkhouse ako, isang sakay mula sa pantalan, nakaupo sa Army cot at nagpapapak ng kuko, salamat sa isang daang pisong halaga ng isang gabing pagpapahinga at buong araw na pagkatutunganga. Goodbye Jolo, ayaw ko na, ayaw ko na talaga sa iyo. Nang magring ang aking mumurahing telepono. Si El at si Coms, naghahanap, nangungumusta. Kah Shei, huwag kang magpapalit ng numero ha?

Nakapromise tuloy ako.

Mga batang kalsada. Nangungutong lang ba, namemera ng totoong mamera. Pangload, pangtext, pangtugis ng barya-baryang ligaya. Payback time, Rayang, sabi ni Indah.

Feeling superior kasi ako sa kanya sa aking choices sa buhay. Hindi nag-asawa, at ngayo’y nagpakalesbiana. Sinasabi niya at ng mga kaibigan ko noon sa Abused Children network na siguro, kung nag-asawa ako, street children ngayon lahat ng mga anak ko. Lahat ng mga anak ko? Andami naman yata nun? Abortion rights advocate kaya ako, kahit pa ba matay ko mang isipin, pano kaya naging rights yung abortion, eh kahirap nun. Pero ang true, I did have mother rights and served time in the scullery, and please, when I was a mother, Mother of the Year awardee kaya ako. Peks man, sa kapanahunan ko. Until nagdisayd na in case of contradiction, one really had to go. So Go si motherhood.

Huling update, si Mikhael hanggang second high lang ang inabot ng talino at buto, si Maika outstanding sa Maryknoll High. Paminsan-minsan dami kong whatifs-whatifs, pero hinahalinhinan ko lagi ng hah, what if not, what if i didn't! Matagal ko na kasing tinalaga sa sarili ko na hindi pagpapakabuting babae at pagpapakabuting ina ang pakay ko sa mundo, kaya ayaw kong maguilty. Tapos, noong minsan, sa bunkhouse, nakarumeyt ko si Judith. Na dating taga-TFD. Nagdisayd daw siya na magpahinga, kaya nag-lawyer. Ngayon, you could say she has everything na, at least in the way of comfort, pero gusto niya sa PAO pa rin magtrabaho, hindi sa corporate law. You have to pay back to life somehow, sabi niya.

Kung minsan, kinikilabutan ako. Iniisip ko, for all that life has given me, and now that I have nothing and everything before me, ito na ba ang payback time ko?