You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2009.
…no hurt feelings
because what good is a friendship
when every answer can unknowingly provoke
making the good times and the hardships
the past has no value when respect is let go
constantly being put down to feed the other’s ego
it’s time to let go
it’s time to let go
and to go far away
the furthest distance will help avoid the pain
the more a person is loved the door is open for wounds
in the form of insult, in the form of envy and hate
it’s time to escape
it’s time to escape
and to end this bad habit
even if it means losing a friendship
because the heart was fed to much grief and too much hurt
there’s no more space to absorb any more and
it’s time to let it burn.
-rona aying llanos©
WARNING BEFORE YOU READ AND JUDGE THIS: This is an excerpt of a very long story, my first novel in the makes…I made this piece vague purposely for my benefit so I can be flexible as I finish the manuscript. This is RAW AND UNEDITED work so bear with me.
I was walking behind a procession of students. I am one of them, wearing a white collared short sleeve button down shirt and a black pleated skirt that hung below my knees. This must be some sort of field trip. Through the long procession of students I can see familiar faces, all are my classmates from high school, most are my close friends, but they all seem to be walking too far ahead of me to notice my presence.
We passed by an old canteen, familiar to me during my high school days; I guess the school hasn’t changed much since I was last here. I could smell freshly made steamed rice as if it was carefully cooked with the essence of pandan leaves, the floors were covered with bottle caps of different sorts, from Rc Cola to Sarsi , Royal True Orange and of course Coke. The lunch tables were covered with plastic table cloths that is pretty much tarp like, just colored with floral accents. The tables are stained and greasy; the feast must be over and we’re heading to the main event, the reason for the feast. I’ve concluded this procession I’m following isn’t destined to lead me to a social gathering centered on eating.
I tried to walk faster and pick up the pace to catch up with the others, I really wanted to say hi to my long lost friends, I have so many questions to ask, I wanted to know how they were doing. I can’t seem to catch up, why am I chasing them? Don’t they see me? I always stick out in a crowd being the palest and shortest, my racial features can deceive anyone, and in a crowd full of olive skinned Filipinos that looked more Spanish, Indonesian and Malay, I look like a clash between a Japanese geisha with the super white skin to a female version of Jackie Chan with my Cantonese features. I’m in my hometown now, in Cavite City in the Philippines, I should be easy to spot as an eyesore. Maybe I should scream to them, but nothing comes out. I get a sudden rush and urgency to run and chase after them, but my feet seem to be planted in one spot and all I can do is watch them walk away. And that’s when he grabs my arm from behind.
I turn around and I am face to face with this 6 foot tall guy. He has beautiful olive Guamanian skin, thick curly hair combed neatly back and dark brown almond shaped eyes, luscious thick lips both top and bottom, so kissable. I’m frozen where I stand.
“How are you?” he was looking at me closely penetrating my guards, but that’s how our relationship always was, deep and intense. He could just be trying to converse casually and was just looking for an answer to his small talk. I started to feel hot, forgetting everything else around me. “Well, what a nice surprise, I’m good. So, I take it you haven’t fallen off of the edge of the earth after all.” I might have had more sarcasm in my tone than I’d wish to let him hear, but I had to keep my guard or what’s left of it, if he hadn’t already seen through me. The History of our love was ended with a lot of open ends that were just abandoned. “So, where have you been?” I managed to pick my thoughts back to reality and compose myself. “I’ve always been here, Ma.”
Ma. What is he trying to do to me? We were supposed to be over, and any reconciling meet with him like this is supposed to be at a superficial acquaintance level. Ma, that was the pet name he used to called me, and I liked it. The last time he or anyone has called me that was over 10 years ago when we had no idea I would be forced to stay away from him. I never made it to my own high school graduation because of my relationship with him, maybe my parents saw the intensity and deemed it imprudent, but they can’t stop me now, not that I would think of rekindling something from the past with him. It’s too late now. But I always did wonder if he suffered as much as I did during the break up, and did he still find me as desirable as before? Well, I shouldn’t waste any more time pondering, now is my chance to get some answers.
We were staring at each other’s eyes like there was an invisible chain that linked us together trying to yank open our thoughts and entwine them. It looked like he was waiting for me to say something, but what could he possibly want me to say? To ask, even? I wanted to ask, no, I didn’t want to ask, I wanted him to know what to say and what I was thinking and to tell me that after everything and all the time that has passed if he still loved me and if he loved me the most. I do love selfishly.
We just started walking together falling behind with the rest of the group and ended up standing in front of a large square fountain filled with water and lily pods. The water looked clean, but nothing out of the ordinary little fish ponds, I’d seen one too many of these in other people’s houses. This must be another improvement they are adding to this school, the cause for celebration of course. An older lady came up to me and handed me green seeds, they looked more like air gun pellets, and she told me to “throw theses across the fountain and this will complete the opening of our latest addition in the science department.” Okay, okay, I thought, still feeling the presence of him standing right beside me that I could hear him breathe. I can sense the warmth of his body. Okay, focus; throw the seeds in the pond, simple enough.
As everyone threw their little pebbles into the pond, I noticed tadpoles swimming in the water and more to quickly they turned into frogs, hopping happily from lily pad to lily pad and just swimming around like there isn’t a care in the world, like they have no predators and nothing can inconvenience or harm them in their artificial habitat, what lucky frogs. Suddenly in a new feeling of awareness of his presence I became self conscious again and turned to look at him.
“Are you staying here long or are you going to run away from me again?” he asked. I sensed a hint of worry in his tone that maybe I might leave too soon for him to say what he has to say. I was dumbfounded for an answer to such a simple question, to me at least, the answer wouldn’t be easy.
I wanted to ask him why didn’t he fight for me and take me away with him. I wanted to know why was it so easy for him to just let me leave when my parents exiled me away from him. If he had loved me enough to turn his back on his friends, and even his family just to be able to be with me, why didn’t he fight for me, to keep us together, for us? In our relationship he gave me the freedom to live a normal life with my friends and to continue as a normal teenager while he suffered. I made nothing easy or normal for him during this time that I was his world, where the possession of my love for him seemed to be all he needed to keep going, and the short times we had to ourselves was a love of so many great loves combined. We thought alike, we adored each other and we were both physically drawn to each other.
With the thoughts flashbacking through my mind I recalled our first kiss.
“I’m going to kiss you.” He was sitting beside me in the bus on a fieldtrip we had to some planetarium in Manila when he whispered those words to my right ear. I didn’t know what to say, we were drawn to each other, or I was drawn to him and with his statement I was numb and waiting for it to happen. I wanted it to happen, I wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss him and be that close to him. Without waiting for me to answer or turn around to face him he gently kissed me on the right side of my mouth. It smelled like vanilla but felt like honey and I wanted more. “You didn’t slap me, that means it’s ok, right?” That wasn’t a question; even so, the answer was inevitable. I was now looking at him and he slowly gave me a peck on the lips. I looked away only to turn around too quickly and without thinking I met his lips willingly and kissed him back, and the kisses were sweeter than honey, they were lingering and hard, his vanilla scent made me feel heady and at that moment I didn’t care who was watching or if the catholic nuns in the bus with us were watching, or if I was going to get suspended for this behavior. It would be worth it. Why didn’t the nuns teach me that heaven was right beside me? Or is my version of heaven just too sinful, that it got vetoed in the sacred scriptures.
Here I am face to face with this guy I was in love with whom once we shared a very passionate love together. He bent over to give me a quick peck on the lips; they felt the same, soft, warm and sweet. “So where’s your wife?” I had to speak to break the spell I was falling into. “Uh, we’re not really married. You know how it is.” He stepped back and shrugged.
Our love was the kind of love that was intense. We couldn’t live or breathe without each other and everything was beautiful for as long as we saw them together, a pile of dung would look beautiful as long as we saw it together, to say the extreme. Like all great and intense loves it ended quickly. Of course love like these doesn’t end by falling out of love or loss of interest, it ends brutally with force, but ours didn’t end in the unthinkable, obviously we’re still alive and breathing, just rough enough for immense sorrow that once sank me into a very deep depression phase.
I couldn’t believe I was standing beside him again, after all these years. “Come with me.” He asked almost pleading as he cradled my left hand in between both of his. And I knew what he meant by that was more than a walk in the park or a cup of coffee. “I can’t.” I managed to say, but it was tempting, I was feeling high off of the warmth of his touch and the view of his presence, imagining what it would feel like to throw myself in his arms again and just let time stand still so I can stay with him…holding him would feel so good right now. “But, what about your wife?” I asked as I snapped myself out of the trance I was sinking deeper into. “Would you stop saying that? I finally have you here, it’s you, you’re here standing in front of me, you were always the love of my life, and if me standing next to you is a dream, then I don’t want to wake up. We can take off where we left off. ”
“But you..” I couldn’t think straight, I did not know what to say. I was torn between emotion and logic. I felt my voice drift till everything was muted, the surroundings blackened around me and his presence drifted away and my eyes opened.
–Rona Aying Llanos©
every now and then
a miracle happens
when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly
when a star shoots from the sky
in an eclipse the moon covers the sun
and a baby is formed in a mothers’ womb
death is fought the same time a new life exists
the way love is found in someone’s first kiss
-Rona Aying Llanos©
New ideas over and over,
Even when the writing stops,
Thoughts float like air,
I write about it because I breathe it,
I was there.
-Rona Aying Llanos©
He gave her flowers,
With kisses and a card,
Wrote a poem to show her,
That true love is not that far.
He took her to dinner,
Spent quiet evenings admiring her beauty,
He even told her how he wondered,
How by having her he could be so lucky.
One day the first argument came,
She cried her heart out almost going insane,
That how could someone that said I love you,
Say and show things only hate can do.
Finally a compromise,
To adjust to each others’ needs,
But compatibility was becoming questionable,
Love has turned to greed.
She could not bare losing him,
In the process she held him too tight,
He wondered about intentions and if this love is meant to be,
Because love grows and she hasn’t grown out of her insecurity.
By: Rona Aying Llanos©
Two worlds, two paths, two different patterns of life,
Lonely girl searching for affection that became a mother and wife,
Raised from the States to PI to understand to be a girl,
And smile so beautiful like a brand new pearl,
Then, there’s a boy with so many problems like death is on its way,
Been locked up over an over with no good luck array,
From a boy he was bad, to a man move confused,
Became anger built inside with a very short fuse,
How amazing I think in this chance I have met her,
From misery and pain, somehow we fell together,
If it’s fate let it be,
If it’s truly destiny,
May no one get between us in this story destiny,
And if time may say we belong,
Then acceptance we will bring,
Her heart to mine combine as one is truly amazing.
By: Mark Llanos©
The way our bodies fit is beautiful,
The way I desire you is sinful,
I want all of you for me,
In this world that parallels our destiny,
The way you kiss me so deep,
So beautiful my spirit weeps,
And my heart cries out a song,
Should have been you where I belong.
By: Rona Aying Llanos©
In the beginning it was easy, to resist
the urge to prowl,
No mixed emotions to consider, when the
scent of you was fowl.
I trapped you in the closet, 3 garbage
bags and a rope,
Be gone!! I told you once, because new
love just gave me hope.
Through the night I hear your whisper,
In my dreams your voice was loud,
Turned away the best I could,
All I could up until now.
I feel afraid to set you free, not
knowing how you’ll turn a bliss,
But the sensation that you used to do
was something that I’ve missed.
I’m confused, I have it great, should not
be urging what I need,
But is it need or just a greed for more
attention that I seek.
I know its bad, I know its wrong, I know
the consequence of this,
But still I walk close to the closet thinking
should I fulfill your wish.
I have my hand holding the knob, then
slowly open the door,
But then I wake up from my slumber,
sweating & smiling, thinking more.
~Mark Llanos©
in my sleep dreams come true,
when i’m a awake i think of you,
looking forward to closing my eyes,
to escape the reality my heart cries.
in my sleep there is no need to hide,
what’s impossible will be fulfilled tonight,
hoping not to wake from this dream,
and this helpless desire cease existing.
-rona aying llanos©
EverArtisan
