Screw Resolutions.

I have decided not to make resolutions.

This year, getting thinner, seeing the world and sleeping earlier are going to have to take a trip to the wastebasket. 

 

Screw resolutions. You never do half of it anyway. 

Make forecasts. 

2014 will be an unforgettable year, and it will be one of best ones. It might not be the year I magically turn smoking hot and beautiful, but it will be the year I would gain my confidence. I may or may not lose some weight, but 2014 will surely be the year for morning runs and less rice. I would do this for myself, so I can finally know the true meaning of self-fulfillment. It would be the year wherein I won't let society shape my self-perception. Slowly, I'm letting my insecurities go. I'm allowing myself to make room for improvement. Due to my friends' inspiring persistence,  it will also be my first year as a fashion blogger and Instagram user. As a blogger, it would be the first time I would reveal my face in my entries, and I'm proud of it. After all, I promised I would start acknowledging myself as  beautiful, didn't I? 

2014 will be the year I may or may not avoid caffeine, but it will be the year I would have to cut off my daily trips to Katipunan so I can save up for the many things I want. It would be a year of concerts, theater plays, shopping and book hunting. This year will also bring about opportunities. I will venture into designing fandom shirts and hopefully, my creativity pays off. I can see a lot of doors opening for me. I just have to be wise in choosing which ones to enter. 

2014 will welcome more sleep before the second year of my college life begins. There will be more academics, but the weekends would be dedicated for rest. Although I have decided to devote more time to my bed, I know 2014 would also be a year for more parties, late night hang-outs and sleepovers. Like its preceding year, 2014 will be spent living the moment and seeking for that Great Perhaps. It will be 365 days of infinite memories, out-of-this-world antics, completing bucket lists and never-ending surprises. 

2014 will be my year. 

I don't need to make sure of it because right now, I already am. 

Cheers! 

ALLEGIANT

There are a thousand different ways I could write this review, yet I find none of them sufficient to explain the glass case of emotion Veronica Roth has put me in. 

Saying goodbye to a series has its perks, but more often than not, we face the ultimate struggle of trying to grasp that its end is not quite "the end" and that the conclusion to a well-loved saga may just be a mini conclusion to the real thing. Nothing is ever certain in books, and I guess that's why people like me are a sucker for things like them. It's because books reflect parts of our lives that we want to happen or we don't want to happen. It's because we identify ourselves with characters---their demons, their triumphs, their self-discoveries. It's because books are just like real life. Nothing is ever sure or stable. 

 

So instead of writing a usual review, I find myself writing my journey with a trilogy that changed my shelf... and my life. 

 

One choice can transform you.

 

One choice can destroy you.

 

One choice will define you.   

I made that choice two years ago when I picked up a book called "Divergent". 

 

I was in a high from "The Hunger Games", and I was starting to fuss over dystopian worlds and what would happen to us if we were not too careful. I remembered my first copy being paperback, and I remembered sniffing it out of habit before even indulging in its words. 

 

I also remembered the looks I got when I had my hands on the book. I remembered the stares of curiosity, the eyes lifting and positioning themselves to get a clearer view of the prized piece I was holding. I remembered the short struck-up conversations, and I remembered recommending it even before I finished it. 

 

It was that good. 

 

I remembered fangirling over Four. I remembered wanting all guys to be like him---brave, strong, broken yet able to love. I remembered squealing over the Ferris Wheel scene and laughing my head off at Tris's fear of getting intimate with him. I remembered jotting down the quotes I loved in my planner and joining the fandom together with my bookish soul sisters. 

But that was not the end of it. 

I made another choice when the second book came. 

When I made the choice to read its sequel, the fandom was beginning to grow in my community. I remembered seeing a copy of "Divergent" in almost all of my high school's classrooms. I remembered the book virus spreading rapidly and people asking me questions about it, begging me not to spoil them. I remembered the all-out fangirl wars over Tobias and how we aligned ourselves into different factions. And I was happy. I was happy because I did not only have my soul sisters to spazz with in the event of a "Divergent" attack. I also had these people---my classmates, my school mates, even a cousin. People began to understand why I now see trains differently, why I would also like to jump from them and to them instead of standing on the platform and hopping into a seat. People began to understand that my obsession over Ferris Wheels have been taken to new heights and why four has become a lucky number for me and my kind. People began to understand why I recommended this book in the first place---for its action, for its romance and most of all, for its snippets of bravery and the importance of choice.

And so I was left with the second book; much thicker than the first. 

Although I loved it as much as "Divergent", I still preferred it when Tris was an initiate and learning to be Dauntless, learning to be brave. I preferred Capture the Flag games over the conflict with leaders and running and hiding. I hated it when Tris and Four fought and lied to each other. I hated it when they were yelling at one another and Four has become too patronizing that sometimes I think he doesn't trust Tris and treats her like a little girl. It was not what I was used to in their thankfully "non-instaluv" relationship. It was not what I loved about them both. 

But the ending satisfied me. The big reveal was all worth the drag. And so is Tris's bravery and Four's trust in her. It satisfied me enough that I traded my paperback copy of "Divergent" for a hardcover edition and placed the two books side by side in my rapidly growing collection. 

And when the date was set for the third book's release, I knew I was about to make that choice again. 

And so here it is---the end of my choices. 

I do not regret being one of the first to read "Allegiant". In fact, I am happy about it. I do not regret staying offline in blogging sites and avoiding the hash tags because I did not spoil myself. I do not regret remaining blind until I hit chapter 50---the inevitable chapter that caused so much pain in my heart. 

But it was beautiful pain. 

This is what Veronica Roth's epic conclusion offers to those who wish to read it---beautiful pain. Beautiful pain in terms of a greatly written series coming to a close. Beautiful pain in terms of a character we've all loved and treasured meeting his/her (I won't tell!) end. Beautiful pain in terms of learning the truths about forgiveness and choice. Beautiful pain in terms of making the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good and for those you love. 

"Allegiant" is all for beautiful pain, and it is what the ending to a dystopian trilogy should be because a dystopian society is a beautiful society---marked with scars instead of smoothness, with rough tides instead of the calm. A dystopian society is beautiful in all its pain and in all its tragedy, in all the bad choices its leaders make and all the revolutions their peoples take part in. A dystopian society is beautiful just because its broken and everything that is broken can find a way to fix itself.

Like it always does. 

Like it should be.

 

Veronica Roth, I know it's a one-in-a-million chance that you might be reading this, but, I knew I made the right choice when I picked up your novel.  

And to all those who choose to finish it with me and the rest of the fandom, welcome to perdition. I knew we liked our choices.

Palakad-lakad

Kay tagal nang palakad-lakad

Wala pa rin sa pupuntahan

Tila ba'y pangakong huwad

Sinasabing tuwid na daan

Bugbog na katawan at paa

Walang pangalan, walang mukha

Gumagapang lamang papunta

Sa bibig ng mga buwaya

Kay tagal nang palakad-lakad

'Di rin naabot ang pangarap

Kahirapan ang siyang tumambad

Hustisya't di pa rin nahanap

Ang bibig kanilang tinakpan

Ang mga mata'y piniringan

Mga kamay ay ginapusan

Hinataw at pinahirapan

Kay tagal nang palakad-lakad 

Pinaasa sa pagbabago

Lamang pa rin ang awtoridad

Talo ang masang Pilipino

Nilinlang, ipinagkanulo

Kinulong, tinago, kinitil

Binenta, nilason, niloko

Kalayaa't boses siniil

Kay tagal nang palakad-lakad

Sa kanilang pagkagahaman

Tayo ang nagbabayad

Sila nama'y nagpapayaman

Kay tagal nang palakad-lakad 

Dinaya at pinagnakawan

Inabuso't iniwang hubad

Ngunit patuloy sa paglaban

MINERVA

When the clock struck 12 and I turned 17, my eyes were wide open, the taste of gin burning through my lips and throat, licking my insides with tongues of fire. I pick up the chaser and a tangy sweetness fills my mouth as the shouts of my friends  ring in my ears along with the beats of Vice Tone and Tiesto. 

Cheers to being 17. 

I sway a little, and blood pounds in my ears as I bring my hands together and holler for the first few minutes of entering another chapter of my life. I have noticed the changes—skirts instead of jeans, sensitive topics instead of safe, vodka instead of Coke—and I found myself tangled upon the brambles of growing up in an complex, entropic universe. I was one year behind being legal, but I acted as if I were, indulging in alcohol and truth or drink games. But I have always been like this—carefree, young, reckless but alive.

In the first hour of Day 6,208, I have taken my first full shot of gin and braved to ride a cab alone at 1:30 in the morning—tipsy with a headache beginning to erupt in my temples. In my first hour of being seventeen, a black car already stopped by with a stranger offering me a ride. A clerk at the convenience store flirtatiously asked my age as I picked out another bottle of gin for my best friend's sister, and I confidently assured him that I was eighteen. I have sung and shouted as I crossed empty streets with a few people looking at me as if I were crazy. Maybe I am. Text messages and birthday greetings flooded my screen before my phone died and I got home. I was given a chance to have a new name in which an intersubjective consensus existed among my friends.  I ordered my favorite cup of coffee with hopes that I would get home in one piece without the dangers of the night claiming me or my innocence. 

And I did get home. I got home safe and happy. I got home to where my Mom was still waiting for me, enough to realize how much of a child I still was and how much I was rushing to grow up. 

But I am growing up. I can feel it. I am growing up in a sense that I am taking in more responsibilities and treating each day as if it were the last. 

Truly, I am carpe-ing the fuck out of that diem. 

I look at the mirror, eyes red and a tired grin splayed across my lips. I let my hair down, and it tumbles over my shoulders as I fall into bed and stare blankly at the ceiling. 

Goodbye, sixteen-year-old me. Hello,  new seventeen-year-old self. 

A PROPER GOODBYE

I am being constantly bombarded by goodbyes this week. And it's tiring, to be honest, to watch faces you might remember or forget come and go as you count the hours to your last exam, to the final day when you would never have to cross paths with that professor that made you go through hell and back, to that much-awaited trip to the beach or the bed where you can pump that fist in the air after that first five months of school.

Even though it's only two syllables, it's tiring to say that word that might just end it all.

One of my classes taught me how to practice proper goodbyes.

Looking back, I realized I was never good at it. Usually the word came out in distorted heaps, half-smiles, smudged makeup and teary eyes. Goodbye was not a thing I excelled in. But I guess some things do deserve a proper goodbye. Some things like the crazy people you'd do underwater stunts with, the kind-hearted madman who doesn't give a shit whether you pay attention in class, the nameless boy in the school halls you've secretly had a crush on, or even that eccentric, good-looking professor who told you about proper goodbyes.

Every beginning deserves an end, and finally, the cycle is complete.

And you just stand there, permanent as you are, as the world changes before you. In less than a month you're thrown in a new class with a new set of friends. You'll be hanging out in different places, preferring strawberry iced tea over cups of coffee, your best friend's advise to smile with your teeth over grinning without, and long walks under the starry night over staying at home and hitting the sheets. Every day will go about like a movie on a constant fast forward till everything's new again in a blink of an eye and a hitch of a breath. There will be plenty of #throwbackThursday's and #flashbackFriday's,and memory after memory will keep resurfacing in your head as your friends become friends but not quite friends and the hellos turn into a series of goodbyes that made you wish you've never said 'hello' at all.

For a girl who has heard over a thousand goodbyes and learned better not to get emotionally attached, I should be immune to the anti-permanent structure of the universe. But I guess, like some terminal diseases, there is no cure for a proper goodbye.

MASTERPIECE

I was an ordinary slab of rock—hardened and aged—with jagged ends and uneven features. I was flawed and nothing special, nothing but a mere testament to the cycles of nature and a witness to the conspiracies of the universe. 

Until his hands found me. 

His fingers gently treaded along my surface as if I were something that would not wound him, as if my edges were not sharp enough to pierce his skin and let him bleed. The warmth of his fingertips seeped beneath the coldness of my skin, and I felt an inner glow pulsate through my hollows and fill them. He held me like I was a piece of metal and not a slab of rock. To him I was as strong as steel and as rare as platinum. In his eyes I was as precious as gold and as valuable as silver. 

So I let him mold me. 

I let his hands memorize where I ended and I began. I let him shape my coarse edges into graceful contours and subtle arches. When his chisel's pointed edge chipped me too hard, he would murmur soothing words to what others would view as inanimate, and when his tools left marks on my skin, he would tell me the tale of Pygmalion and Galatea and how sculptor fell in love with his work and I would listen to his comforting voice all day as if it were a salve to numb the pain. All the while he was working, sweat gathered upon his brow and concentration masked on his face. He carved intricate details on my surface, and all the while I told myself that I was nothing special, nothing more than rock, nothing more than a torn and twisted chunk of Earth. 

Until he made me beautiful. 

Until I saw the look in his eyes that reflected one word. 

Masterpiece. 

And he loved me. 

He loved me for the rivulets of curls cascading down the curve of my back, for the fullness of my ivory bosom and for the slight arch on the spot above my navel. He loved me for my slender fingers, for my rounded hips and my carefully gilded limbs. He loved me for the fine line of my jaw, for the bridge of my nose and for the hollow of my cheeks. He loved me for the unearthly expression I wore, for the spark in my eyes and for the shape of my lips. 

He loved me for who I am, and I loved him back. 

And I was happy. 

I watched his eyes light up, two pools of burning stardust gazing at the deep recesses of my soul. I felt his lips graze my cheek and hover on the spot above my lips till his mouth meets mine and I feel so, so alive. I listened to his witty anecdotes, to his romantic ballads and snippets of poetry. I watched him rise to the heavens and soar with his dreams, and I prayed with my closed lips that he never falls. 

And he never did. 

He took me with him, parading me and telling the whole world how much he loved me. I felt extraordinary bliss, and the world was a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors that grew brighter and brighter with each passing day.  I felt as if it would never end, as if we were to last forever and surpass what lies beyond the infinity. 

But I was wrong. 

As the days passed, he grew restless, and his eyes glowed with a different light that reflected the inferno wrestling with his soul. His lips no longer spoke of my praises nor peppered my skin with kisses. Rather, he spoke of how I was too old-fashioned, too bland and too lackluster.His stories were long gone and replaced with cusses, with wails of misery and cries of pain, and when he looked at me, I knew that he no longer loved me, and I was crushed though fully intact.

He said that it would never end.

I thought it would never end.

But I was wrong. 

I watched him roll on his downward slope of dreams and wept silently for his pain. I listened to him compare me with other sculptures, and I took it all in, wanting to drive his chisel deep down my heart and end this wicked torture. I watched him fall from the heavens and land on his back, unable to get up from the madness twisting and turning his very soul. 

 Until another slab of marble came, and his hands were put to good use. 

With the same tools he used to make me, he sculpted her and made her far more beautiful than I was. He adorned her hair with pearls and seashells and carved a cloth that flowed from her shoulder to her hip. Her eyes held a luminous celestial sparkle, and her lips were curved into a perpetual smile that was meant to entice the hearts of men. Her figure was of perfect proportions, and her skin was flawless and unmarked—a manifest of how he took his time to create his new Galatea. 

I watched him bring his ideas to life. I watched the look of satisfaction cross his face, and I was moved by how he looked so happy and so beautiful. I watched the same sweat gather on his brow and transform his face into a mask of pure concentration. I watched him reclaim his dreams and begin believing again in between lines of poetry and the story of the sculptor who fell in love with his work.  I captured his face in my mind and memorized its angles, so that when he finally forgot me, I would have something to remember him by. 

And when he was finished his new art I saw the same look in his eyes that reflected one word. 

Masterpiece. 

Nights like this

There we were, sitting on the cool AS steps with the hazy twilight hanging above our heads and the roar of the jeepneys orchestrating with countless conversations of students. Two of us were in our high school uniforms, and the last girl in the group was sporting a pair of shorts we'd always take into controversy. We were asking ourselves what would happen if there was a zombie Apocalypse in school, and we were associating it with the game, "Dumb Ways To Die." We debated on who would die first and who would survive, the other girl in the uniform usually being picked to turn into what she called the "Father Zombie." While the adorable characters were singing and dancing in my phone's brightly-lit screen, we identify our deaths with them—the other girl in the uniform pressing the red button out of curiosity and the girl wearing shorts grabbing her toast with a fork. I, on the other hand, would be the stupid one who took off her helmet while in outer space. 

In the middle of Shontelle's "Impossible", I look up to the purple sky tinged with dark blue. Then, absent-mindedly, I say, "I love my friends." One of them replies, "Let's have more nights like this."

Nights like this—carefree, relaxed, nothing to worry about except the deaths of teeny little characters making fun of their stupidity. Nights like this are what I crave for. Nights like this are what I love. Nights like this allow me to escape the real world, hitting me like anodyne and taking me to a realm where there are no dark histories and pressing problems. Nights like this with people you are happy with, with people you have learned how to love. 

I want more nights like this. I badly need nights like I long for more nights like this. Because these nights become burning coals in the blank pages of my life. These nights drown in a spiral of memories as they ignite me. As they fuel me. 

As nights like this become ME.