aikiro-notes

[aikiro-notes]

Nightwaves

Nightwaves and the apt fortitude of a wishful and inebriated mind Fill empty spaces meant for naive and precious times.

Nearly all my musings are dedicated to a somber silence and of an absence so that one day, surely one day they could belong with you.

None of these books, nor dreams... nor even the philosophies of any romantic, dictator, or priest can convince me of better ideas than the thought of falling.

Light leaks into my eyes... with May reaching near I stay longer in the fabric for too many hours were spent I've thought to prolong the chance of nocturne.

[aikiro-notes]

Joy

When does one get used to pain? Not the physical kind, but the type that brings its silent onslaught as a transparent layer into a person’s reality. The things that once brought me joy have become mementos of what once was. I type to keep myself distracted from the oncoming force that will surely take me like a tidal wave, crashing onto the rocks beneath, drowning me with its impossible grip. Before I realize anything has happened, it’s already too late. So what can one do about this? 

[aikiro-notes]

A Poem

For a Father’s Day,

No one at church seemed as excited

as they were when it was Mother’s Day.

It irked me--

“Why are mothers worth more?”

Surely they bore us,

but don’t fathers too?

Or are we too guilty to acknowledge

the burden we put on our fathers

instead we divert all our adoration to the women

who will want it more

and of course they would want it more

because men don’t give as much of a care

for flowers, or for compliments.

They are silent,

but that doesn’t mean

we should stay quiet for them as well.

It’s their fucking day.

They deserve it, too.

[aikiro-notes]

East Los

Hello again, Late Nights.

You’ve become elusive, a wandering friend. To me, you’ve become just like them all: the friends who, inevitably, are growing apart from me. You were all too familiar, even as I type these down, now a similar tone is dawning back to me, like the first time I ever wrote a post on Tumblr in high school in my Aunt Maggie’s house. You were never forgotten because I always came back no matter what. I’d be alone with my thoughts, uselessly rambling through aimless pages, and deeper and deeper did I go further into this nebulous world of information, digitized into sounds, lights, and words. So familiar now are my associations to Late Nights that they become a ritual--as I do now--I will write next to a small white box surrounded by the subdued blue background, and next to only a dim lamp. That’s how I spend these times that have become so rare now...or maybe not?

[aikiro-notes]

Friends with the Moon

There’s always a passing tide, in my thoughts, a slow motion, velvet-y wave that gently flows over me. In forms of deep echoes in the silent darkness, the stars, and the hazy moon. They look so bright, so distant, and their waves, the passing tide, calls to me: it caresses me in its slightest motions. A mother’s touch. Nothing can really replace its purity. A sadness, of things no longer there. Only in distant dreams and forlorn memories. But its chords embedded deep inside you. A passing tide, sparkling like moonlight on the ridges of every undulating wave. Beneath is the endless ocean.

[aikiro-notes]

Satie

A quaint part of high school was when I made arrangements to carpool with Aidan to swim practice at 5:30 every school morning. I’d wake up in the very ungodly hours of February’s still pitch black mornings--groggy as hell from doing a hellish amount of AP homework-- I’d fumble around in the unbroken darkness until I managed to put on some clothes, bring my swim gear and bricks of school books, and of course a banana (you don’t want a full breakfast before practice, but it also sucks if you swim completely hungry).

Aidan would never fail to be outside by 5:30 (or 5:35 give or take) in his old Honda CRX. Every time I left Aunt Maggie’s house, it felt like I was sneaking out to do God knows what, but I remember particularly how poignantly smooth the grey sheet of fog enveloped the immediate neighborhoods: the grumpy old Mexican man’s house across from us, his unsightly green fence which looked more like vomit during daytime, the distribution of foreign trees in our street: they all seemed so hazy and distant despite only being a few feet away. And how the only two street lights around us which provided the only sort of visibility to this scene--the meager amber glow it offered only illuminated enough for me to make out the outlines of surroundings and enough to see that there was indeed a Honda CRX waiting for me to approach it.

Then one day while we were driving along Coldwater Canyon, Aidan was quick to notice that I was playing Gymnopedie No. 1 on my iPod through his sound system. “You like Erik Satie,” he asked in the form of a statement. That’s when I learned to pronounce the composer’s name properly when he said it with an emphasis on the “ee” part, like suh-TEE. It dawned on me that Aidan was not only a swimmer, but also a musical prodigy, so of course he would be versed in classical repertoire, or so I thought. We let Satie play the familiar notes while the droning hum of the car and our mutual silence accompanied him until we reached the pool.

I still remember that particular day when that familiar melody stayed in my head even as soon as I dove into the glistening azure water.

[aikiro-notes]

Spirals

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been recalling this vision which I wasn’t sure was real or not. I would be inside a large spacious building that led to a long hallway that would spiral upward, and the whole structure of the space generally centered on this spiral. From atop the structure was a window that flooded every exposed corner of the entire place with natural light. Vividly, I would remember looking to my left-hand side and looking down to see how far the spiral has gone, and on my right side would be a different hue of warmer light that provided some spaces for art.

Then on no particular day at the office, I ended up searching the Guggenheim museum on Wikipedia when I was clicking related links to Frank Lloyd Wright, my father’s favorite architect. The reason why I couldn’t consummate my vision being real was because I didn’t know if that place really existed, and because this was actually my very first memory that survived infantile amnesia.

When I began to connect the dots, I started realizing that the memory was associated with a lot of things: I was with my mom, it was during when the both of us visited the US for my first time when I was around 2 or 3, and I remember we stayed for a whole year and visited many of my cousins, aunts, and uncles. During that particular trip, we visited my Aunt Lolita in New York, and that’s probably how we ended up going to the Guggenheim.

But in the process of forgetting and forging new memories after that, all that was left of this memory was the white, spiraling hallway--as smooth as light--and me ascending that long, almost unending, encompassing spiral, and kind of like dreams, it would repeat itself over and over again, like a gif in 3D.

Maybe this is why I love museums. I’m always entranced by the speckless and immaculate white walls, but I never did understand why I was magnetized by their presence. Maybe it’s because those white spaces have always offered me an inviting sense of hospitality. Maybe those same spaces enveloped me in a reassuring way, as if their purity were to say that I was welcome, and that being lost in their spaces was not being lost at all, but being pushed to find out where it all led to. Although most of the museums I’ve been to since have had square rooms that had multiple floors and set up as mazes, my mind would keep replaying the transitional spiral of me going up the Guggenheim and seeing its white spaces. Maybe, as this is my first memory, this is telling me that I should go back to New York to relive this, and see what effect it will have on me.

[aikiro-notes]

Egyptian Tombs

When I was five years old, it dawned on me that everybody will die. This realization came to my innocent psyche while I was running around the house after dinner, expending my energy on useless motions by running and whipping my limbs in ways only five years olds find entertaining, and then I stopped in the living room where all of my family was nested in relaxed corners of the room and only the visible light from the television was casting shapes on their silhouettes, like stationary dolls with fixed gazes at moving pictures. The images seen on the T.V. screen showed a reporter, or an archeologist (I can’t remember exactly), giving his account on what was happening behind him: an excavation in the lands somewhere in Egypt where explorers have found the tomb of King Tutankhamen. The images would cut between wide shots of people chiseling and brushing and pointing flashlights in the dark and then to shots of short interviews of each person who seemed important enough to talk about their involvement with this archeological discovery.

After consuming this for more than a few minutes, the thought of death came to me as a sudden rush of panic, but such a novel panic that my naive infant consciousness didn’t know how to react to such a brand new concept—

Death.

Who these people were trying to discover was somebody who had passed. Someone no longer breathing, no longer moving or expending energy, but someone who had been here but is no longer with us. The thought of someone’s existence ceasing was bewildering—like, someone can be awake and be doing normal things, and next thing you know, it’s just complete and total darkness and no possibility of being alive ever again?

When the explorers had revealed the golden coffin to the viewers worldwide, through the tiny view of our television, I wonder if it ever occurred to any of them that a tiny Filipino boy in a rural province in the Philippines would see this and then realize, in a jarring, inconceivable slap to the face that only the totality of the void can bring, that death shall meet all of us: our mothers, friends, sisters, pets, and ourselves.

Somewhere in my thought process, I began to think of darkness. I remember thinking to myself, If people died, it would be like closing your eyes for as long as you can, but only this time you wouldn’t be able to open them again. I thought of it as being confined in a small dark closet all by yourself. Instead of awareness, all you could do was be. But unlike the ephemeral state of sleep, death was an unknowable distance—a cessation of time that has met a completion at the moment of your passing. The complete and deafening knowledge of our existence coming to an end.

Imagine, being one of my family members in the room, probably watching this documentary for pleasure or for educational purposes, and probably not realizing that the small boy standing frozen in the middle of the room is having his mind blown to all sorts of directions with the unfathomable idea that all of you will be dead someday. Not soon, and most probably not tomorrow, but him suddenly understanding the fact that everything must come to an end.

When I pulled away from my initial shock, I was able to relax my neck and look at my sisters and brothers and see if I could see in their faces the same disgruntling reaction that I had just experienced, but it looked like they were already aware of the void that is the nature of all things that exist in the present. I saw no reaction from them, only the acute attention of their fixated eyes to the screen that could only communicate that this documentary was particularly fascinating to them.

Then I regained my ability to move my legs. I slowly paced around the room to test if my misplaced movement in the sparsely lit room would get somebody’s attention and possibly approach and talk to me, read my mind and reassure me that everything would be alright, that death would not come today but in a very, very long time—but I did not receive such blessings in that moment. I was alone with my thoughts, and it was a very uncomfortable situation being the five year old kid that I was.

[aikiro-notes]

A Rebellion

I quit my job this morning. In one fell swoop, the routine I was used to, the daily commute, the formalities I had to invoke everyday, the social anxiety...they all went away, but also with it left my woes, the lies I’ve been telling myself, the cage I had put myself in. So I begin to rest easy for now.

On the night of July 4th, my friends and I went to Hollywood Hills to see the Los Angeles landscape sparkle with phosphorus and smoke. We drank some Pacificos and smoked Marlboro Golds. A little later we opened our bottle of cheap André champagne that was quite remarkable, and then at one point in our candid quietude, I placed my arms over my friends’ shoulders and said, “I’m glad we could still do this despite everything.” Then something snapped in my brain.

Despite everything...despite what, perhaps? When I said that, did I really mean it, or was this the deep-seated realization that I was lying to myself all along? I had lied to myself, and worse off, I said that same lie to my friends I cared deeply for. At least to myself, “despite everything” was completely off the mark when it came to all things considered because, as a matter of fact, nothing was alright. I wasn’t glad. Despite everything, something was terribly wrong. I had betrayed myself.

The rest of the night, my thoughts felt like a phantom had entered my neatly organized house and decided to leave everything the way it was except for an unspecified change--the phantom tilted a vase by 2°, repainted the eyes on my famous portrait to look the other way without anyone else batting an eye...something terribly amiss only to me, the vigilant protector of my mind. My own words had set me off on a downward spiral, and nobody else knew a dark tempest was brewing inside of me. I kept it hidden until the very next day.

Tuesday morning, I went to work as usual, but something lingered. The spiral continued even though I thought that sleeping it off would work. Clearly it didn’t. And so I hid it, a mental grip over this glass cylinder of hot steam, pressed so tight on the container that for the rest of the morning, my mind focused on not letting go. I couldn’t let myself or my coworkers down, I told myself. I held onto it, making sure I kept my “normal” façade look convincing even to the new employee. But then my thoughts started leaking into my mannerisms. My anxiety was starting to surface despite all my resistance. I stood awkwardly shaking hands with people. My replies to everyone were absentminded. On the surface, I kept a distant gaze so no one knew I was concentrating on something very hard. I had to keep my cool. Then it was lunch time, and I darted towards my car and I started crying.

I’m a fucking liar! I let myself down, and I thought I was on a roll. But all it was was an imaginary being who replaced the real me. Someone in uniform and suede oxfords who drove my car to work everyday was faking the Aikiro I supposed I was. This wasn’t me. But it was me who had put myself in this very position. And then it dawned on me: this is my own damned fault. I had sold myself on the very lie I tried so hard to evade. The American Dream. Wow, what a phony. That shit never existed. And yet here I was, going to work every day, 7-4 (I was going crazy over this schedule), saying “good morning sir,” “yes sir,” “of course,” and “have a good rest of you day” and pretending I was part of a “greater good.” Fucking bullshit.

The next few days I didn’t go to work. I attempted to, but my brain was fighting my body for complete control. It rebelled, it released the locks on the doors of my deepest darkest fears: my hardwired social anxiety over authority figures, assuming the utmost worst of every social interaction despite it actually being nothing more than people wondering how I was doing. Everything was wrong in my head for a time being. I fucked up hard thinking that I was in it for the long haul, that there was nothing that would get in the way of my goal. But it was myself who was the obstacle. What was the goal? To earn money? But to what end? To the point where I would have no control over my time? But wasn’t it me who said yes to everything? Good lord, you need to say no sometimes, Aikee...So then I decided to give a big resounding no. This was the start of my rebellion.

I had given this decision due process for a week’s time before I gave it a verdict. I collected information, gathered different perspectives from my peers. Different people shed light on the question that I was trying to answer where the summation of all their sentiments was a collective encouragement to go forward with what I truly believed I wanted to do: to write. It may not be the safest route to take by leaving a complacent, decently paying job behind, but I was losing myself into the hole that it was. I’m too young to make ultimate choices. My choices at this stage may either be good or bad. And who’s to say that any of my choices were good anyway? All I can say for sure is that I reclaimed myself today. It may not be the wisest choice, but it is for the sake of my sanity.

I left the office unscathed, confused at my boss’ reaction to my quitting. But it didn’t matter anymore. I had my clean exit, I faced my fears, and that in itself is an accomplishment to me. 

Moving forward, I know now not to take my free time for granted, and since I have a lot of that right now, I’m going to write.

[aikiro-notes]

A Letter to an Unknown Friend

Dear You,

The world has already come full circle since the last time we spoke, but either way I am writing you this letter to sort of reconnect--to find our way back to the realm of communication. In any case, how have your Sundays been? Have they been pleasant, or have they been cold? Have they been the times we spent aimlessly walking the streets near the middle school at 2 in the morning, thinking of nothing but timeless youth? Oh, now to think those memories would be the best ones I would keep to recall your face and to summon back your presence in my mind. You were so quiet, but not the quiet that people would mistake for shyness. No, your type of silence was underscored by a sense of deep comfort--the way I find myself in a lover that reassures me that each moment isn't for anybody but for us. And I relished that you did find comfort in me. I always thought I came off as overbearing, and then I knew you a bit better and inertly understood that your silence was you accepting me. I would have to wonder though...about what DO you think about. What words escape your thoughts that linger in idle review, only to vanish before it manifests as your lovely, soothing voice? Are they of the same tone as I in which I write this letter to you, dear friend? I know much has changed between us ever since we moved apart to look for better things and forge our own futures, although I get this itch once in a while to think about your present state. We have made new friends, experienced things we never fathomed to cross our youth. We've come and gone through different relationships, and I am certain I know about yours because you'd be the first one to tell me about this new love interest. But alas, since it has been more than a year when you two broke up, I haven't really caught up with what you have now in your cranium.