You

used to be
a person

now, words

You are my coffee

The doc says no alcohol.
No coffee.

But this liquid slides down my throat
it's bitterness
turning sweet inside me

Coffee is a little like loving.

Like loving you

Blog reading in 2011

I'm not going to write about coffee this morning (because there's only hot water in my mug right now).

 Inspired by K, here's my list of blogs that kept me going in 2011:

1. http://karuna-tinydancer.blogspot.com/
this is Karuna Chandrashekar. poetry sprinkled with the most gentle and the most beautiful things, followed by a heartache

2. http://thinkinink.wordpress.com/
stories, poetry and other stuff by Pranaya Rana. here's where i go when i want to pamper myself with some good writing

3.http://sneezestar.blogspot.com/
here, when i need to feel brave about who i am and draw inspiration for life. thank you, Shradha Mukhiya

4. http://gooeyjournalism.blogspot.com/
here, just to find a part of myself and to find Ayushma Regmi

5. http://www.nepaliketi.net/
here, to listen to Sradda Thapa's arguments that help form my own

6. http://davaodiaries.blogspot.com/
this is my room-mate and my soul sister, Germelina Lacorte. i wish i could be as frank as her in my writing, without wondering what J would think about it

7 http://guffadi.blogspot.com/
you all know who this is. this one, to give myself an update on the world around me

almost there

old books
and the warmth of the comforter
- perfect way to wait for the calendar to change

but first, Coffee

nothing happens without a mug of coffee

nothing
-not even poetry

so here,

in the bittersweet taste
of heartbreaks,
there's always that hope
in fingertips, clinging
to fingertips
-like they are what keep
two minds together

(whoever decided coffee was a drink for the confused?!)

P.S. it is :)

:(

walking a short way across the bridge to the office building at 5:30 in the morning was a killer. yes, december mornings are beautiful. but they are also annoyingly cold. walking across the bridge, my thought turned toward street children and dogs :(

kennel cough

when kanchu falls ill

-i die

The night bus driver

do you remember

the cutting winds

that sliced through

the slits

of the wind-screen of the night bus

as you huddled inside your jacket,

the limbs of the stranger on the next seat,

dearer than the ones you'd just said goodbye to?

do you remember

how the morning light waited

on the baited breath

of the wee-hour travellers,

who skipped the darkness of the night

to make a passageway for you

into dawn?

their hands searched

fires

lighted by the road-side vendors,

as the jogis smoked their pipes

and struck chords

of solitude in disarray

their feet,

stiff with chilblains,

knocked the frost on the grass

to kick-start another life

their tongues,

burnt with a small lie,

searched for a reason

to purge

and their eyes

squinted at the sparse hint of light,

as the December morning

stretched

like the open, open grazed fields

you drove across Jhapa

just as the night bus drew closer

to the journey's end.

Lindia Benningfield 

Early Morning 

the sky

it seems took cue from my insides today and spread over us in patches of cirrus clouds

it was so beautiful

and i wondered if in that beauty, it still hurt

Coffee

P.S. My only respite on days of incoherence. 

L A Z Y

it is one of those mornings, when you feel like doing nothing.
n  o  t  h  i  n  g

the house is a mess today
my stories are waiting to be written
the books are waiting to be read

i'm a little
s
                                          c
a
            t
                                                       t
                          e
                                      r
               e
d

December mornings :)

are certainly more beautiful than anything else i've ever known

even the warmth of the blanket feels like an embrace you cannot abandon 

Dear Coffee,

I'm failing miserably at the dermatologist's instruction to give you up.

My heart does a silly sommersault when I see you swirl in froth at the bottom of my mug, just before the hot water from the flask brims you to the top.

I take a sip and I'm home again to the bitterness of loving you.

morning

hot water
slides down
my system

it's sweet sweet

and the first thing
i need

disgust

the tissue paper

patched with tears and  mucus
dies up
before the electric heater

i've run short of tissues
-so reuse to reduce

??

what will change
after these 24 hours?

you?
I?
or the spiking of words?

elusive 56

who are you?

are you this splitting headache
that celebrates
my falling apart?

fie!

the soothsayer
says
life evolves
out of short phases
that
trip and stumble
at a period
set
a couple of paces
away

so
the journey begins
- this one
with an ellipsis
and will end at one...

Stranger

Dear stranger,

I see mischief beaming in that smile, as you sit bent over a piece of writing, your face, framed by big curls.

If we met, would the persons beneath our skins embrace each other like our words already do?

Love,
P

P.S. Confession. I just google-stalked you.

Breakfast

Stumbled upon a site by a foodie that's all about photos of things that look delectable. It's just what I sorely need but do not need on a hungry Sunday morning. But how much I agree with her when she says:

 This is my outlet to share two of the things I love the most: breakfast + morning light.


Sometimes, I've dragged myself out of bed, only at Baa's offer of the lure of a good cup of peppered/ginger tea and cheese omelette and soft, warm toast and potatoes in their crisp jackets.

P.S. And this prayer was answered! My colleague Srijana ji just shared a huge tub of vegetable momos and cheese and mushroom pizza! Yes, it's only 6:30 am :)

Dearest Germie,

Sometimes, I think of the patch of sunlight that shone on that building we could see from our bathroom- the first hint of the morning for our eyes, that had become accustomed to reading under the light of the electric bulbs. Even at six in the morning, we had to turn on those light. You would tip-toe against the floor boards early in the morning, trying hard not to wake me up. But half awake, I'd hear you on your phone, talking to Ja sometimes, but mostly to Sean, in a tongue, I knew wasn't Tagalog, but something I'd started to recognize for its rhythm. I loved how the rhythm naturally slowed down and tripped when you talked to Sean and it made me think, some day, I'd sound like that, speaking to my little one.

Space. There was a lot of that in our little dorm in Katipunan. We were free, connected to our families only in our hearts. We were free to wander for hours in the National book store or the little book store next door to us, like it was the ultimate way of claiming our identities. How much we sought from the world in those evenings that ended in a 20 minutes walk back to the dorm from the Uni! We were free to spend the night, talking to the undergrad kid who thought Derrida was an emo. We were free to think we would take the MRT one morning and keep moving out of Manila.

And we knew it was a time of our life that would never return.

They're building beautiful new bungalows behind our house here in Kathmandu. I hate how they fragment my view of the sky and block light and breeze in my room. The morning sun now appears on the walls of the newly constructed houses before it does in the garden. Every morning, I stare at the sun shining on those buildings and think of Manila mornings, that began and ended with you. I guess, I miss you.

Love,
P

P.S. And right now, the thought of biting into a soft, warm pandesal with melting cheese, while sipping a cup of Spanish style coffee is driving me out of my wits. They were always a part of our breakfast conversations.

half awake

it's Sunday morning again and i feel an obligation toward you. between loathing the 4 am alarm and looking forward to a very long day, it turns out i developed a love-hate relationship with this day of the week. for some reason, times drags on Sunday mornings for the first half, bringing the entire week to rest. i become the cursor on the screen, resting where i abandon it. i am free to wander inside my mind. and i keep arriving at you.