Elsmer, My Sister

(A Poem for my sister on her Birthday)

26 August 2012

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I have a sister

Her name is Elsmer

Not an ordinary name

Neither an ordinary dame

My Everything

(A Poem)

You can try to be the sun in my life
But I would still need the moon
And the stars to light up my nights

An Attempt to Stop the Pain...Don't!

Sitting in a dark corner of the room and nervously biting her nails, she wished the images would stop popping and the voices stop screaming in her head.

Images of her children crying, tugging, clutching at her skirt. Her husband cursing and yelling, "You cheat!" "You whore!" "Slut!" "B****!"

She couldn't take it anymore. She shut her eyes and covered her ears, and started to scream. "Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!" It was a long and agonizing scream...

Fists pounding frantically on her door outside. She didn't move from her corner. She stared at the door while gently lifting the bottle to her lips. With a few big gulps, she downed the tasteless liquid in a matter of seconds.

Numbness slowly crept in...enveloping her whole body. She started to relax. Carefully, she lied down on the cold floor. A smile formed on her lips, thinking tomorrow all the pain of the memories would be gone...

In Sickness and In (Mental) Health…Signs of Morbid Jealousy

I have never heard of the phrase “Morbid Jealousy” used as a medical term before.  Yes, I may have heard or even used it to describe my ex’s jealous thoughts a long time ago, but I never thought that it is actually a mental disorder.  And that my experience of what I called morbid jealousy back then was not even close to real “morbid jealousy”. 

I became interested in the subject because of a friend who recently tried to commit suicide because of her frustration and helplessness about her husband’s jealousy and baseless accusations. 

I Saw the Future of a Man from a Movie

There’s this indie film that I recently watched at the Cinemalaya 2012 Film Festival. It’s called Bwakaw. The story revolves around the life of an old homosexual man who lives in an old decrepit house with no one but his dog named Bwakaw. He named the dog as such because it was voracious, gluttonous, or ravenous, which is what the word “bwakaw” means.  Rene, the protagonist in the story, is a cranky old man. He has friends but he doesn’t treat them as friends. He keeps to himself and doesn’t like being disturbed for anything.  He’s irritable and prone to yelling, arguing, quarreling and even hurting people. Rene lived his life as if everything is in preparation for his death. All his things are already packed in boxes and carefully labeled to whom they’d be bequeathed.  And he already has a handwritten last will and testament, which he entrusts to the parish priest. He even has a coffin in his living room, which he bought a long time ago and had to keep it in the house because the funeral parlor had already closed down. He believes this is the best way to live his lonely life. A childhood friend asked him why he doesn’t think of things that would make him happy instead of preparing for his death. His answer was, “Nothing could make me happy anymore.”  Both he and his dog, whom he says his best friend, were sick.  Bwakaw was dying with cancer. Such was his sad life.