my cp # is 0915 553 1466....

Net has been down in the office and that explains the reason why I have been offline for the past weeks…

This means that it’s a disaster, considering it made me miss the latest episodes of the anime series im following from TV Tokyo and TV Asahi…waaaahhhh!

It’s the end of the year, the end of things, the breaking of things, if I am to view it from my other self. Just a couple of loose ends and its gonna be a new year…hohum…

At least it would be nice to be home for a change, a rejuvenation of sorts for the project that lies ahead of me…

And yeah, since the net is busted, that’s the reason im leaving my number so you can, if you feel that you have to absolutely do it, send me a message or give me a call.

Best wishes folks. May you all find the happiness you deserve.

Poetry : While You Were Sleeping

While You Were Sleeping

d. steine

i discovered
the shape of my desire

to navigate the waters of sleep
without signal flares, rafts, or life jackets
like you do.

with you.

Notes from Work

Notes from Work


Why is it that one of the worst things that you could ever label a man with is something about being a woman?

I believe that it is indeed something one should ponder on in a world that has seen the breaking of borders through and in technology and yet human relationships have never been muddled, distorted, twisted.

What is it about being a woman, about being feminine that most men find so bad about? Are men’s egos that fragile and weak that a hint of femininity is one sure way to have a few bruises, broken teeth or worse, a life wasted?

And don’t start me off with the stuff about men having a feminine side, which they say is a good thing to cultivate for this notion means (though not many have mentioned it) that women also have a masculine side (a virtue that most men, and even women don’t really find admirable, except in a few cases). I never thought that traits, human traits could be categorized as being solely belonging to the province of either men or women. Human traits. Keyword here is human, not men or women. I feel bad about the way so called having a “feminine” side has been used as if it was a bonus in a guy. That is just so much crap if you ask me.

Metrosexuals?! A great concept one should admit for the increase of sales in beauty products and other fashion related stuff. Image, that all it is anyway, and deep inside of us we know that image doesn’t make it cut. Not even barely.

What’s so bad about being a woman anyway that the male ego could not just take? Anyone and everyone loves a woman, and just rightly so. Other women love other women for their human traits, though if this ever goes to the question of acquiring a man, they becomes reasons for resentments. Lesbians do love women, for in the end they would want to settle down with one. Homosexuals love women too, for who are they trying to emulate anyway?

Men love women. Of course they do. Of course I do. But it is worth pondering too about how this love for women is expressed. More so to the point that this love leads to loving other women and what a great wreck it creates.

Working for the cause of women for the past two years is a work I love. Being the only guy in a women’s office is one reason for me to be proud, at the same time a big responsibility that I should never let go. One would not be wrong to say that perhaps I chose to work in this field out of personal guilt, as a way of trading of for my past sins for everyone close to me knows I have a lot of bad episodes of whose reruns and remakes I would not want to experience again. But seriously, call it what you want, but it’s not everyday that a man could do a work that needs to be done, of fighting not a fight that is only worth it because it is worth winning but because it is worth fighting. I have seen and hear and known a lot of men talk about getting jobs that would make a difference to the world at large and yet who end up only working to change their own private, personal an oftentimes selfish world.

Every man has his work cut for him, especially in working for the cause of our women. Not because it is cool, not because it is different. Not because it is a bonus for wooing women (believe me, chicks dig this. Oops, I think that word was not appropriate!) Everyone man has to do it, and do it for love.

Love you say?!

Yes, do it for love I say. Do it indirectly for the woman who deserves all the love you can give, the first woman in your life.

Your mother.

Or in my case, my four mothers, 14 adopted sisters, five (or what it seven?) serious girlfriends, one ex-wife, i-don’t-care-to-remember flings and one night stands and the one who loves me and for whose love I shall always live each day and night to be worthy of.

Because a real man loves a woman.

Not just in songs, or movies.

Not just in mere poetry.

Poetry : The Wings of Huggin & Munnin

The Wings of Huggin & Munnin

d. steine

I understand it is uncomfortable

To live forever in a tropical island

For not all truths born in summer

Are indeed ripe and sweet fruits.

Flags had to be changed on familiar ships

Before sailing away to the name of a new bay.

The fragile kite cast against erratic winds

Had to find its way back on broken twine.

Here, now,

The shore around this island

Remembers and rediscovers

The waves as it always were before

Strange voices and small

Footprints arrived and staked

These empty spaces.

It will only be a matter of time,

Only the winds now tread on the sand

While sea foam frolic

On unmarked washed out shore

Ripe fruits on tiny branches

Twirl with the dance of winds,

Revealing their halves pecked

From the return of once frightened birds

In the silence there is a whisper,

A voice so much like a lullaby

Cradling everything on its wings.

But in the silence also descended

The wings of Huggin & Munnin.

Like the pool who remembers

The pebble who fell and on its wake

Sent dying tremors in circles,

This island could not sleep nor forget

The summer that gave birth

To more than just truths and fruits.

Just like in the heart of that departed ship,

That is also a heart,

This island will never be forgotten

While she waves and wonders

Where do birds go when they die,

Or while navigating the new waters

With the navigation of dead stars.

Moving On / Moving Away

Moving On / Moving Away

Fuck the plan! fuck the schedule!

Nah, its nothing much, just my way of expressing my “surprise” at how things work out in regards with the last post I had about not knowing what to do. It seems that this world still conspires to make the things I desire elusive.

So, those 3 works I mentioned are still inside my head, buzzing like bees, or like flies. And as much as I would like to swat them flat, its not that easy, as if work and other daily realities are not enough that something like this has to, strong enough to nudge my schedule by a few days or a few weeks, depending on how I take it.

Once again, I am moving on. Once again I am moving away.

Its weird, the last two birthdays that I had were spent in different places, not to mention all by myself. I was wishing that I could celebrate 2 consecutive natal days in one place, but alas, I am asking too much to be granted that. Admittedly, godless persons like myself still wish for some divine blessings, especially when im asleep, but who am I kidding?

I have learned to love this city, especially the places where I have slept, the rooms I have called my kingdom, my solace, even if only for a while. Somehow, I feel as if I am losing something, no, much like leaving a part of me in these places I reside and depart from.

All I know is this: things were always shifting and drifting, charting their orbits but none have been clearer to me than now. i guess I am going crazy, is all. But then, since I can still say I might be crazy means, I hope I get this right, that I am not yet totally crazy. But just a few nudges and I would be a perfect fit.

Nah, im just incompetent, is all.

I fucked up. And yet for some reason knowing that puts a smile on my face.

You read this far?! Thank you!

Circa Distancia - Poetry : "Reminders for Mei"

Reminders for Mei

d. steine

Because dying is like Heaven

While living is Hell that defines it.

Because everyone loves the flower

Yet never remembers the fragile seed.

Because if one is weak and travels

To where it is night while at home

It is light, then how weak

Is one who preferred to never to go away

Until he realized he could no longer stay?

Because ice kings and queens were born

Wet and warm into soft loving hands, and so

Finger traces and lips prints inherit

The ancient memories to unlock the tears

Even from winter’s eyes.

Because

Because there are a lot of reasons

For one to discover and claim

In the deaths of seasons, in washed out pain.

What Do I Do?

As much as I would have wanted to post something this week, things got out of hand.

It’s not so much about not having any idea of what to write about, but it’s an overload of memories all trying to vie for some position of recognition.

I don’t know why, but since the start of the week, I have been plagued not by one nor two but three ideas for future works groveling and screaming to be written down.

I remember that in the old days (yeah, I am old!) I would not hesitate to write them down one after the other. But I have been careful with the pull and push of memory, and so I thought that if I let them stay as they are, they would remain there.

Big mistake.

Anyway, hopefully, these would be the works you would be seeing after this post:

a) The memory of a girl who had the most beautiful penmanship I have ever seen.

b) It was not a pick up line and even if it was, it did come out naturally and worked out perfectly: the woman in whose eyes I learned to swim.

c) Because I understand why things have to die, I endure one woman’s silence and apathy.

Nuff said, im a government slave and works are waiting.

For Farrah...

I cannot really remember the exact details of the moment I met her, but if there is one thing that I am all too sure is that, as long as my memory serves me well, whether I am a slave in heaven or a prince in hell, I would always remember.

She sent a couple of things then: durian candy, a nature calendar from Toyota, a booklet on kind and soft things and one of the novels that made an great impact in my life, To Kill a Mockingbird. She also sent me a snapshot of her so that we might have an idea that we both indeed were a) human and b) existing. I had to take her word that it was indeed her who was in the photograph, considering I can only barely make out outlines of her female form, and the first thing I thought when I saw that picture was that it was either in the ritual of “hello” or “goodbye”.

Along the way, we traded stories of our lives, of the tragedies that befell us, the choices right and wrong, sweet and bittersweet that are always a part and parcel of human life.

But because our cities were not mere neighbors, we went the way as most people who are distant: we let the winds between the distance carry our voices to who knows where while in separate and distant lives we struggled and strived.

But everything is in orbit, planets, stars and constellations. And the path that diverged and went on separate and opposite directions could only meet again in a world that is round.

I may not remember the exact moment, but I do have an idea of how the years have been to both of us. It would be so easy to tag it with labels such as “cruel”, “sad”, or “interesting.” But one thing that I know is that we have strived and we are still alive. And in this world that is a lot of things, being alive is one very good thing.

There is magic in knowing people: that even as they are absent in sight and sound, they still remain, faint but palpable, yet nevertheless there, waiting for the emptying cup to be filled again before the ritual of separation is held again.

Even saying thank you seems to be so small for how you have remained there. Still, I thank you.

I only hope that my friendship and love is worthy enough to be the gift not only this year, but for all the other years that are still to come.

In the high ideals of “Nindotism”, Happy Birthday Farrah!

Circa Amor - Poetry : "Burning Reasons for a Queen"

Burning Reasons for a Queen
d. steine

Because even the strongest of ice
Could be broken and melted to wash
Away the dirt and dust of yesterday.

Because this world is like that flower
Whose petals could only unfold and blossom
Along a stem whose skin is laced with thorns.

Because your smile is not meant
For absent eyes nor your voice to be
Stranded in the mouth of the harbor,
Like little boats without wind or sails.

Because I have been loved like no other,
So do you deserve to possess the love
You sought and never found
From my own.

Because even in your absence
I find refuge in the tomorrow we promised and so
I desire for you to rediscover your own.

Because your dreams may be yours,
But I would like to chase and witness
Their birth like the light of stars

Distant and silent
As we are now.

Circa Amor - Poetry : Trust

Trust
by d. steine

We were nearing
The depth of the night

The gate to your room was already locked.
Mother could not meet you in my house.

I wonder if you were able to see my face
When you told me of your desire

To witness the waking of the sun
Beside me.

Wary walking along
The silent and empty streets,
There was a music playing: in your voice.

I found courage in how your arms
Twirled like a fragile vine
On my arm.

The bed was yours because I could sleep
While sitting on the wooden chair

Until you patted an arm away from where you lay,
With your soft hands and small fingers you traced
The lost map for my smiles and laughter.

In the dark
While you were sleeping
My fingers ached to discover
The shape of my desire
Never to be alone again
I rediscovered when I met you.

But your dreams are never mine
To frighten and chase away
In the dark.

Then your arms sought for the pillow
With whom you endured the waves
While you sailed the night’s ocean
In your solitary sleep,

The pillow whose absence
You chose to replace
With me.

Circa Amor - Poetry : I Know

I Know

d. steine

I.

I was not a seer on the night

I foretold the end that was to come

In our beginning.

I only saw and heard

With mortal eyes and mortal ears

Your fragile promises sailing

In the uncharted and dangerous ocean

Waves thrashing between our islands

So that it may reach me.

I slept under the light of dead stars

With dreams of holding your hand

While we walk the land like the sun.

II.

I woke up and saw between us

The earth spitting jagged mountains and hills.

Wild fires of memories dancing in mad abandonment--

The waters clothed in ashes, rising as mist

To wall off the hands of the sun.

The wind whispered something in my ear

I did not hear for it came without

A trace of your summer blossoms.

While we were sleeping and dreaming

Someone gave birth and I do not know

I do not know if it bears my name or your’s--

Our name or that of another.

Since that day

I have been going on and on and I have found and lost my way over and over again and I met strangers and friends who tell me I should go out and smile again instead of just talking with myself who knows I might find what I am looking for in this world that spins or dances or twirls and along the road I came along pathways that told me you were out there and that your hands and kisses now belong to someone else and I wonder if you remember me when I go to sleep at night and my hands and fingers tremble in its craving to be held down by yours while my head aches and remembers the unrivaled softness and warmth and refuge offered by your twin breast every time you held me against your chest that no pillow or mattress could ever replace and I have dreams of waking up and the first thing I see is you watching me with your burning eyes that tells me you have been watching me while I sleep so that I would be safe from the mares of the night that stomp their feet and it would be then that I would realize that you are not there and that I am going to be late if I don’t hurry up because the sun had already began its walk of the world and I remind myself I promised that I would go on and write the books of my life for my friends and myself and my son and I would live until I could not do it anymore and not before then and so I go on as I have been going on and on …

I do not know if I am a fool

For though I have seen

The breaking of a world

I look up to the dark heavens

Where there are no gods or goddesses

Because the dark clouds that hover

Promises the fall of rain

To wash away dust & stains.

Like your promise.

You will come back to me, I know.

III.

For every left I take

I remind myself to take another

To make it right.

you will come.

back to me.

i know.

I endure the loss of each day

Soaring in nicotine,

To wash away the pain

I swim in caffeine.

You will come back to me, I know

And I wait for you

With sleeping eyes and awakened ears

You will come back to me

Even if only to keep

Your fragile promise

To tell me

Farewell.

I know.

In Progress : Poetry : "Intimacy"

Intimacy

I lay there, still and silent

Like the ruffled blanket

Longing to be ruffled again

With the imprints of last night’s love.

With your eyelids of heaven and earth

Embracing each other, I savored

The blooming and harvest of your dreams

With every caress of your breath on my chest

Where you lay listening to the emerging

Voice who would only speak your name.

Note: things can only get worse. i mean, it gets longer and longer to finally come up with a few lines good enough for me to publish and read by myself. the process is indeed exacting the full payment. but then as they say, its better to spend hours just to write a few good lines. and though i nearly gave up because it was just too elusive, im glad something came up.

i wonder how the finished form would be like...

things can only get better.

Uncovering Covers

it has not been easy, nor do i think it would be in the coming days.

but then i always knew with a deep certainty that something only means a damn if it was alongside its ugly and opposite reflection.

project life. my life. and its only fitting that death would be in the picture. not the usual death, but the different kinds of dying that is as varied as the different ways for living.

going through the creation of the book is akin to giving birth. and yet why do i feel that at the same time something is dying inside of me.

i guess im just tired.

anyway, there it is, the cover for the poetry book (i just finished layouting page 97..) whew. its finally out. its finally born.

"Falling into Love" is what i call the image, something that i found after digging up what i call the Sihaya Collection. the image represents everything i hope the book would be: sweet, melancholic, tragic, blissful, silent, screaming, a promise of forever, the reality of a moment.

cheers!

Leaks...

because in more respect than one, this is somehow how im feeling for the better part of my life.

away from the smiles and belief, there is indeed that shallowness, that doubt, that shame that defines who i am.

and yet, for all of them that are there, i am still here.

this song has been on my player for quite a long time now, and i guess for a very good reason.

"The Gift"

Seether, Karma & Effect

Hold me now I need to feel relief
Like I never wanted anything
I suppose I'll let this go and find a reason I'll hold on to
I'm so ashamed of defeat
And I'm out of reason to believe in me
I'm out of trying to get by

I'm so afraid of the gift you give me
I don't belong here and I'm not well
I'm so ashamed of the lie I'm living
Right on the wrong side of it all

I can't face myself when I wake up
And look inside a mirror
I'm so ashamed of that thing
I suppose I'll let it go
Untill I have something more to say for me
I'm so afraid of defeat
And I'm out of reason to believe in me
I'm out of trying to defy

I'm so afraid of the gift you give me
I don't belong here and I'm not well
I'm so ashamed of the lie I'm living
Right on the wrong side of it all

Hold me now I need to feel complete
Like I matter to the one I need

I'm so afraid of the gift you give me
I don't belong here and I'm not well
I'm so ashamed of the lie I'm living
Right on the wrong side of it all

Now I'm ashamed of this
I am so ashamed of this
Now I'm so ashamed of me
I am so ashamed of me...

My Anime-ted Weekends

I’m approximately 500 km. away from the place I call home. No blood relative in sight. The friends I had here have gone on to distant places, some are busy with school. I live alone. I eat alone. I do the laundry alone. I sleep alone.

So what do I do?

Escape.

First it started with pirating softwares. If all those companies ever got to touch me, I might end up in jail for the rest of my life, if not, then I would be broke (as if my present financial situation is not bad enough.) then it went to music. Then anime episodes just a few days after being released from Japan. And though I have expanded my treasures to scanned comics (finally got my hands on almost all of neil gaiman’s works, and other vertigo titles like preacher, fables, and just finished reading all 70+ issues of LUCIFER), I keep coming back to animes.

ANIME = any animated film made in Japan. I hate western animation, they lack animation and seemed to be stuck in adolescence.

Death Note, D.Grayman, Black Lagoon, Kiba and etc would be keeping me company this weekend.

(I need a break from the Life Project, and I am having a very painful time admitting that poetry seems to be quite elusive these days.)

p.s. drop me a buzz ok?

No Closure

No Closure

As how things go, nobody would make a fuss or pause to think about the implications when things end up happy. I have observed that happiness is in some way like a big wave, it drowns us on the sensation of bliss that it brings. Not that I am a pessimistic person, being happy is a good thing in this world many has labeled crazy. But I have also seen what happiness could do that is something that I do not really approve of. Because we are drowning in the glorious sensation of happiness and joy, we only want for that feeling to continue, to savor the last drop from the glass of water for the thirst on our throat, so to speak. And because happiness is subjective and personal, the world that happiness spins in each of us only lead us to set our glance towards one road, and what a narrow road that is: our own self.

As I have said, not a bad thing, bliss and all, really. But not my cup of coffee, I should say.

As how things go, they also tend to end the other way around, far and opposite from the warm poles of happiness.

Things go on, they say. As the stars, planets and comets orbit, charting their own lives, so the same happens for human beings. Things begin have their end, everybody know this. But an ending is not itself: it also serves as a point for something to begin. Scars come in all flavors, events mark and wound us. Life goes on, things end, and we are never the same because of that.

Pondering on it, it all boils down to memory. The persistence of memory is one of those mysteries in the universe that I would like to unravel. I have been trying to for quite a long time, have experimented on various ways and yet to no avail. I guess that’s why they called it a mystery in the first place, that it is not in finding the answer, but more of like the search for the answer that matters.

Events that change and mark us, especially those we find distasteful, always linger. And yet I must admit that, when asked about how I feel about a certain event in my life, I have replied that I am over it, that I am done with it, that I have found closure. And I am all too sure that I am not alone in this. And yet, speaking for my own self, I have come to realize and accept a fundamental truth about what I have replied whenever asked about how I feel about this certain event and so forth in my life.

Closure is a lie.

I envy those who can say with pure conviction and belief as unshakeable as the existence of God that they have found closure. I envy how they could have closure amidst the persistence of all those memories.

I wonder if closure is like a new shirt that you wear and discard afterwards.

I have heard, and perhaps you did, about the analogy of the stone and the pond. As a stone, or pebble falls to a still pond, it creates a ripple that surges from the center. And in time the ripple would fade, and the pond still again. Someone once said that things are back to how they were, but someone replied that it is not so, for though the pond may be still and silent, the pebble is in the pond.

Ok, I guess that was hazy huh?!

I realize that I have no closure at all. Perhaps I am crazy, that I am damned to be the only person to feel like this. Or perhaps others also feel this way but prefer the comfort of being blind, of being numb, of remembering to forget.

Because as how I see it, there is no way to kill memories, and as long as memories are there, even the thing they call closure exist like a locked box. And locked things can always be opened with the right key, or there are always ways to open something even without a key.

My closures, I must confess to all of you, were lies.

And I believe that the only closure that I would ever get is when I could no longer remember how they marked and changed me, how they made me happy and mournful, when nothing matters anymore, because I myself do not matter anymore.

when i was gone....

Its not that anybody missed me, but I just came back, because I have been gone for quite a few days.

I mean, what was I supposed to do with a free two-way ride, an a-ok-ed permission to be absent from my boss?

Incidentally, it was also the feast of the city that I love (whether said city loves me or not is a topic for another day). And since most of the people who matter most to me are there, what else was I supposed to do.

Cut the chase, I did the most sensible thing to do. I went home.

And just in time. Nomad-Wanderer-Vagabond that I am (note: that’s from metallica), it seems that there are things that I could not and should not and would not let go off, like a problem that needs to be addressed, me being the “man of the house.”

I got to meet some of my sisters and brothers, but to bad that I missed a lot of them too, and thus I owe them a visit in two months.

Going home is like, as gump said, like a box of chocolates. Indeed. You will never know what you would get. Or what it would taste.

Hmmm…on another side-note, I met one of our clients from the project me and my baby sister is currently in partnership. Admittedly, the said client looks better in person, not that I am saying that my sister’s layout and digital skills are not enough: they are actually, but I was still surprised that the said client looked..hmmm..livelier, vibrant. And when I told my sister that I was waiting for her to do the “by the way…” lines, she informed me that the person was our client. I countered that that was exactly my point, that she was our client, and thus I should have been introduced. To which my sister replied “you have ulterior motives..” awww, that hurts..hhehehehe, but she is my sister, and I can still count the times that I should have listened to her and didn’t, and thus ended up with a whole lot of shitty stuff. Ok ok, I am guilty, case closed.

Birds are still flying over the late afternoon skies of zamboanga. I remember that I wanted to write a story about these birds, for even until this very day I do not know where they remain for the rest of the day. Like that line from an old smashing pumpkins song “we only come out at night….” Seems to be what the birds want to say. Another reason why I remember those birds because I have been victims of their shitbombs, something that they freely share with the people and the road.

Walking around the city, I do not know, but I knew less people, well, I met less people that I knew and knew me and thus I had this feeling that I didn’t belong there. Lots of new and fresh faces. Same old garbage problems. Same old MO-bros being so tough whenever with friends. The same shy smiles from ladies, or the occasional stare. Old buildings made new and new buildings made old. Lots of mister donut outlets. Traffic.

Still, this is home, and I love it. Hmmm, I wonder if it loves me.

Lately, I haven’t had the time, nor the budget, to buy pirated dvds, whether movies or Japanese animation. Well, the anime piracy scene has been sluggish lately, and this has forced me to pirate what I want to watch all by myself. and so, I brought a couple of titles with me at home to watch, and im happy coz I ended up watching it with the family. Lil baby sis ja even asked me to copy the 7 or so remaining episodes of LAST EXILE into the pc. Hmmm..since I am a pirate, I might as well bring the other titles home for the long xmas season.

One of my cousins is getting married soon, and though it came as a surprise that he is marrying earlier than his older brother, people tend to ask me if I have any plans of doing the same. Waaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

My sister has a new 8 mega pixel cam. I am still trying to convince her that her old 5 mega pixel cam is not worth lugging around. I mean, why take pictures in 5 megapixel when you can do it in 8 megapixel! I am still to convince her.

I was not able to meet and talk with one of my sisters, Julie, though I was able to wink at her and she the same when one of my fave couples lae and yep brought me to her workplace. It was a surprise, and it was a good surprise. Sister Julie never looked happier. Of course, she made me promise that when we catch things up, we are gonna drink till we drop. Oh boy, I hope I don’t drop first, I mean, kuyas are supposed to be the last one standing right?

Music brothers junkyard won best bassist, best vocals and best drums (drum rolls please for brother da for making it two in a row). Yehey! Question is, when are we gonna release the album? Paging fellow unholy trinity brothers bon and macky! You have the voice (as proven by winning the best vocals category) but when are you two gonna write songs again?

Speaking about songs, bro yep somehow forgot the chords they made for the lyrics I wrote. Shame shame shame. He says, in defense, that he is sure that macky must have forgotten them too. Shame shame shame. Ok, I have only written one complete song since we last wrote great busted music together. Shame shame shame. Hmmm, that’s very shameful for the three of us, so we have to fix that when we get together ok?

I saw brother hadz, and he is still fine, as always. He still has in his possession the sandman covers collection that I covet. And like my sis, I am still to convince him that the best place for such works of art is with me. Hohummmmmm…..

I heard tisay is gonna be back soon. I will know when she does. Miss you tisa!

I just checked the anime files I missed for the past 5 days I have been gone and they are a lot of them. This only means that next week im gonna be busy at work: busy setting up my download list.

I miss…nahh, forget it.

Whew!

Blue blooded Vagina Warrior + BigWig Theater Blues + Going Solo

Because I am a blue blooded VAGINA Warrior.

And proud of it.

Yesterday, I finally got the slot as organizer for next year’s performance of the Vagina Monologues, which would serve as one of the highlights during the celebration of March as Filipino Women’s Month and March 8 as International Women’s Day. It’s a long way off, I know, and yet I’m busting my head in trying to hold all the ideas that are rushing forth.

this year’s performance was very good, and as how things are, I would like next year’s to be even better and bigger than last year. Question is, am I man enough for the job?

Last night, while I was thinking about it, I was able to laugh on how crazy I must seem to people, or how twisted my mind could be at times. At some point last night, I laughed when I realized that I could say that I am working for Vaginas, which I currently am doing. And I do love it.

Theater stuff like this makes me remember of how it was with dear ole BIGWIG. It was a short run, I have to admit, but if it comes to passion, even the shortest time could burn up so much creative juices and fuel. Bigwig, born from the shared passion of brother lazarusmoth and sister amijan, gave me memorable experiences. Being light and sound director was not bad, considering we were starting from scratch. Whew..i miss those days….

Now here I am, more than two years after the last staging of Sartre’s NO EXIT, 500 kilometers away from home, all alone.

Am I man enough to do it?

Well…

I am a blue blooded Vagina Warrior, and as long as there are Vaginas out there, I am gonna make it work.

p.s. to those who thought that being a Vagina Warrior was being disrespectful, oh dear, poor you.

p.s. # 2. im outta here

Gaps and Pauses + Poetry: before your eyes

I was trying to write a work with an entirely different subject in mind. It had to be something about the foolishness in hoping that things would be as we desire it.

What follows next is supposed to be the first paragraph that would serve as an opener, as the table where one would make a sacrifice, or a slaughter. But then I took a pause after I wrote these lines.

And there lies the rub.

Somehow, that pause made other changes and when I tried to get back and continue the original theme, I just could not find the ability to do so. Of course, its possible that I am not that strong, or I am just suffering from one of the problems that afflict a starving, struggling, striving poet: no its definitely not “writer’s block” (whoever came up with this writer’s block thingy sure is just plain loco in the cabeza) but its simply perhaps that I was just being lazy.

Still, I must admit that though it’s not what I had in mind, its not too shabby. I don’t know if I would do a revision, but for the moment, while I’m pausing my soul amidst all the gaps that the road ahead me is filled with, I am happy with this.

Hope it’s worth reading.

before your eyes

d. steine

before your eyes fell

on me with their smiles, i only

knew of a beast

in the shape of this man,

just like before your lips

and your fingers becoming each other

kissing and touching me, i never

knew that even scars could be

beautiful, their rough and old outlines traced

by your soft and young flesh.

there was only so much empty space

where i knew no one was listening until

you pressed against my voice

your delicate ears, shaped like sea shells.

there was only silence until in your voice

i heard the foam and frothing of far

away love raging in waves

to reach my abandoned shore.

A Certain Kind of Life, After Death

Though I must admit that it brings a certain tinge of pride in myself for those who are in awe of my mediocre works, I wish there was some way that I could show them that the path that I have traveled to where I am now, the experience and the life that I am living in, each of my breaths that always edging closer to its end, I wish I could show them that these things that are essential to me are indeed the dark reflections of those that they hold in awe.

I have always known that it was never going to be easy carrying a passion, especially when doing so would lead one to a life that most would never dare to experience. And yet for some reason, I have chosen to be like this: the stones on my path hurt my feet, the light only reveals shadows and shapes that are the same shadows and shapes that haunt me in the darkness.

Dear friends, I must tell you though you might never understand that what you thought was a gift that I possess is not solely that. I want you to know, and thus I will attempt to explain to you that as much as this is indeed a gift, it has its price.

And throughout the years, it seems to me that the price is a burden that becomes heavier by the moment.

I must tell you, that if my works, mediocre as they are to my own eyes though beautiful to yours, it is only because I, and only, and forever it would always be I who will know the stench, the piles of rotten things, the darkness that had to be there first before the light could ever be born.

Still, I would like you to know how difficult it has been, and perhaps a clearer way of telling you this is not solely through words, but through actions, and fragments of madness and dreams, faint wisps of hope.

There have been many moments when I wished I could be ordinary like most of you are, when I wished that I could be blind, that I could be deaf to these sensations that pull and push and swirl me.

Yes, I do know I could do it. But then, having lived for so long this way, after having paid such high prices would be as if nothing if I just give in to the urge, to the most common instinct of our species, and that is when one is tired, one must lie down and sleep. I could do so, but not yet.

My life project is in full swing, and I realized that at the end of it, I could find a certain kind of peace, a small but certain kind of bliss, a certain kind of life. But only after a certain kind of death.

I would like you to know that though I may not rid my body in this world after the project is done with, I still wish for a certain death.

And that death is that of the life, is that of the soul that made everything about me beautiful, that made everything about me pure.

Perhaps I am just crazy, or just barely enduring the hellfire that burns me from the mere traces and fragments of someone who used to love me.

What I want you to know is this: that after the great life project is done, I wish for the death of the starving, struggling and striving poet whose face and name, and soul you all know as those that belong to me.

Who knows, when the poet in me has finally died, perhaps the man, who always had the heart of a child, could finally be alive.

Unveiling....

Against The Dark of Death: Unveiling the Fires of Project Life

About four years ago, I began to taste the price asked of me for the choices that I made in life. There I was, a frail man walking the streets of Zamboanga like any other person, and yet deep inside I was a cauldron of destructive and vengeful urges, of madness swirling all over my head, a despair unlike any I have known before or imagined, my burning hands, once the pride of my existence stretched out, groping out into the emptiness where no one was.

It even came to a point where I loathed the person that I have become that I thought to myself that the best thing I could ever do to stop the hating and the loathing was to rid myself from this world.

And somewhere along these dark and brooding days, Project Life was born.

As known by some friends, Project Life was a double edged sword, at that time. It was my attempt to write down and chronicle the things that I have witnessed and endured in my life as a testament that I did exist, and not only that, that I made a difference, that I was present not only in the world but in other people’s lives as well. Of course, the price for the chronicles of my life was ultimately its inevitable ending. And that was an ending that my friends found distasteful.

My hand was supposed to come from my very own hands.

My life project, thus I call it Project Life, and it is simply the compilation of two books, one that I owe to someone whom I wished that I could have held in my hands, the other one for my own, the compilation of all those papers that I have stained throughout my life as a starving, struggling, striving poet.

Life though, has a few twists and turns left for me. I met new friends, found and lost love, reborn yet with some parts missing, even to the extent that I found myself a resident exile in this city. I am glad I am alive at this time, though four years ago I never thought I would make it this far. Along the way, the life project grew, slowly, but it grew nevertheless. And now, after so much time putting it off, trying to savor and recapture those that I will never again have, the bells have tolled. And I need no reminder that time is walking.

Just in case the writings would be bland, I am going to ask help from a couple of friends to create what I believe would be stunning separator pages for each chapters of the project. JeezusKrieste, Myotosai, LordAshe & DreamFilter, if you guys are reading this, you have a year to make about 3 variants ok? Lazarusmoth, I wonder if you would do the honor of writing an introduction of sorts, the kind that would serve as a mirror to what I would write myself…

[ T H E L I F E P R O J E C T ]

The Making of Bones:

The Life of J.K.R. Kanindot

Mothers – this is in honor and gratitude of my four mothers, and all those mothers who I have met along the way. With this, I somehow wish that I could give you a smile amidst all the tears that I caused you.

The Scent of Sisters – I have been blessed with so many sisters.

The Consistency of Love – Love unmasked and rediscovered.

The Chains of Brotherhood – Amidst all the bottles, the cigarettes and cups of black coffee.

The Sonless Father – this is self-explanatory, I guess.

The Making of Bones – a trip back to where it all began, when it all began, why and how everything began, before the end.

and

I Confess I Have Been Loved :

The Poetry Collection of Damon Steine

[-------- end --------]

And after all is said and done, I honestly don’t know what is going to happen. But then, there is still time, and with that I might just get lucky.

I sure hope so.

...........

Because I was taught to fashion words to be more than just a series of letters joined together, like carriages stringed and pulled forth by the train of our desires in the great railway of life.

Because I was able to discern that words become nothing more than just mere graffiti, more painful as an empty page is to a poet when they are bloodless, just mere outlines inscribed somewhere to lead someone else nowhere.

Because I have seen how words, brittle like dry sticks could serve logs feeding bonfires of madness, shame and passions.

Because words are the last to go, even in memory, I do not want to leave you replicas or forgeries. Because I cannot always be with you but only my words, they are fragments of who I am so that you will never be alone.

I am chasing many of my stray words. Lost as they are, those who would find them would also be so. And as they were born from me, so they should also die with me.

In moonlight or sunlight I wave my fingers, as if invisible tendrils connect my hands to my words I set forth to walk beside you. Remembered or forgotten by you, they know who they are, and will continue to do so, to endure the price of living, and that is dying with each and every moment. Like I do.

Because I am my words, so have I believed that you are also yours.

And I am waiting.

Mediocrity + Confession + Poetry: Your Solitary Hunt

I know it’s not a healthy habit, but I am fully aware of the “mediocrity” of my works. Well, most of them are, or so I tell myself. I am aware that even those that I deem strong enough to walk the open world on their own are revealed to be misshapen and malformed, as they are replicas of my soul. But that is ok.

I have lost track of the number of works great and small that I have written and left with the many women whom I have been with. It is my fervent wish though, that they still cherish those moments, even if it leaves the taste of ashes on their mouths.

I have never been fully aware of what power good or evil my so called poetry has brought forth in to this world. Many have complimented me, so much more than those who condemn me, and to batting an average of 6 out 10, I guess I could say that I am not doing that bad for an old guy.

I have been accused, and I confess to some extent, of using my poetry as mere bait, as traps. The funny thing is that those that I did fashion as baits and traps did not catch anything at all. Instead, it was the other works who were set out free to fly as birds do were the ones responsible of bringing back someone new to me.

I never really knew how powerful poetry could be, even my own. Even when I was found in the arms of a woman, whose very arms were brought to me by the wings of my free poetry, I really was without a clue as to the power of words, of creation.

That is, until I received my first poem.

This one comes from my brother, lazarusmoth, and as brothers are, he sees through the bone. And as competent as my brother is in his craft, as the poem below would show you, I and my craft being the theme of the poem affords me to have a smile on my face, that amidst the mediocrity of my own choosing, I am still worth something.

And now, the masterpiece:

Your Solitary Hunt

I remember the way you can sit down on the rough

steps and write your hunched verses,

the way each jagged stroke burns

black ink in the page,

paper trembling a staccato silence, a bird clasped

in the firm hands of a child,

fear in every heartbeat.

I remember the way you set your traps and stalk

every word, the way you lose the world

in your solitary hunt.

Spiral of predator and prey,

spilled blood, fire and pitchforks

in your poetry.

I remember your frantic gestures for a cigarette,

your eyes locked on the chase of wayward words,

fingers groping fire.

Notes from "Resident Exile" : My Chosen Poison

I guess this is something I have always known, buts it’s just that I never really looked it up.

Until now.

So, it happens that I have come to thinking, and realizing, that that which makes us sad are not those things we find distasteful, it is not those we deem as betrayals, or faults committed against us.

I have always been fascinated with people. I don’t know if this is something that usually happens to children, but as a child I have always been curious about how people go on with their lives, about how they interact with other people. You could say I found it all natural for I was there, surrounded by people I call family, each with their own distinct and varied characteristics, similarities and opposites, and yet they seem to get along well with each other.

And if there is something that could change life, then it would also be life itself, and that is a life of another’s.

It’s a whole different perspective when you open up to the possibilities of sharing life with someone else. As if not having the answers to the questions that we have in our own lives, letting someone inside could only make things even more complex, troublesome. And yet, with this complexities and troubles come the possibilities of something new, something that is not solely mine nor solely yours, but something we could call “ours”.

But as much as opening up life can be for good, there nevertheless is the possibility that it will end in misery and tragedy. And in this brief and human world, the possibilities become realities all too present until the last sunset of our eyes.

In the end of a life shared, they say there is the possibility for a new life to begin. I agree. But before these two separate and different lives, there is that space in between them. It does not belong to the past life or the future, but belongs only to itself.

There is so sadness like abandonment and betrayal. I have believed in this and lived with this kind of tragedy for so long. And to think that I was, somehow, wrong.

I have come to realize that it is not the abandonment or betrayal that is the reason for the concoction of different violent emotions swirling inside of me. It is not abandonment, nor betrayal nor faults committed against me that throbs like an invisible wound.

It is not abandonment or betrayal that is the cause of my sadness.

Rather, it is the persistent memory of all the good things there ever was, of all the laughter, of all the trials, of all those moments o knew that I was not alone. It was all those moments when I was happy, when life was not solely mine or solely of another’s, but a life that was ours that haunt me.

How ironic that it is happiness that is the source of my tears.

Because the memory of all those moments when my life was shared with another were the most fulfilling, and the truth of its coming to an end, of never being able to continue what was left off yesterday, of possibilities blown off, ahh, that is my poison.

Because even though things may go like the moons, the stars and the planets and comets all going through their orbit, and end does not always mean the possibility of something new being born, of something that would grow away from the ashes of yesterday.

Week Ends + Invitations + How to Make an Iligan Quilt + P.S.

Its Friday once again, and another week has passed by. The past 5 days have been grueling, but for some reason, I still could smile. Its not everyone who finds a job that they truly love. And it got me to thinking that jobs themselves can be categorized in some way as to for whom you do the work.

Working for the cause. Working for the person. Working for the money.

It would be sweeter if I could get the last one as a bonus, but having the first two is way worth it. I have always said that I love women, and now I’m not just talking the talk anymore. My boss, as well as my officemates, treat me like a little bro they have to take care of. I don’t really know until when I would be working here, but there is still a year to go from the deadline I set myself, a couple of things are still waiting to be accomplished, well, there is still time. I guess.

Friends have been continuing to pour their invitations to go places for work, all which I have politely declined. But the good thing is that my friends understand why I have to do this, why I chose to do this, and are indeed happy for me.

Brother Lazarus, here’s one for you. =)

I have walked away from so many things in my life, and thus have also been the recipients of walk outs, especially from those whom I wanted to stay. To all those women I loved and still love, thank you. I mean it.

It’s the weekend and yet there is no free day scheduled, save perhaps for Sunday (which is actually laundry day for me). The reason for this, the same reason why the week has been busy, is that there is an exhibition of quilts that are office is handling, and tomorrow is the big opening day.

Fiesta is just around the corner. But then I wonder where am I going to celebrate it?

P.S.

The last poem is a new one by the way, and I am still unsure if I was successful as to how I wanted it to come out. It took me more than an hour, and I don’t know honestly if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Well, for those who read it, thank you, and I would be grateful if you drop me a line of two.

Lights out.

Circa Ara - Poetry : Born Under

I have never been afraid of playing under the rain.

It was raining that night.

As a child alone in the safe dryness of my room,

I stretched my small hands outside the window

Where the wind lent their wings to the raindrops

Whom I waited for with my open palms

After I had learned not to trip over my own feet

Mamang told me I should go outside the garden

I should wait for the rain, she said

I should meet them, and play with them.

Thus, I began to discover a world born under the rain:

I met frogs who until then I only knew as the voices

Who kept long raucous conversations, especially during wet nights.

I met earthworms, farmers who travel

Short and slow to new lands

While the rain irrigated the dark gardens they toiled below.

I spied on solitary spiders between dry leaves,

Silent and still as if contemplating,

Sleeping perhaps, and dreaming of new designs to weave.

Playing with the rain, I discovered their solitude:

Unlike the light, who is like the wind

When the roam over my skin, rain drops fall solitary.

They greet me with caresses, sometimes with a nudge,

A poke, a slap, at times like an embrace,

Yet when joined together they form an entity so much

Like as if they were fragments of a personality.

Playing with the rain is like meeting a person

Whose raindrops are called doubts, fears, glances & smiles.

No one can really tell what the rain would bring,

Of what each of its drops could inscribe

In the pages of one’s memory, of realms

Born between the before and after its kisses:

For many it’s only a wetness to be wiped away,

Like coffee stains or a secret shame.

For others it’s only the teeth marks of the cold

On one’s flesh, whose outlines longs and remembers

The fires of a lost embrace.

Thus may be the reason why many

Would rather bask under the light.

To live their lives only to listen to stories

Or dreams about possible lives, or perhaps

Only to read in a poem about discovering a world,

A world born under the rain.

It was raining that night.

being sorry

(this was supposed to be my real entry until I “turned Japanese”)

The reason why I rarely say “im sorry” is that I know that there is nothing that my apology would do. Aside from that, “im sorry” is one of the most abused phrases in the world (I bet you know the 3-word phrase that must be the most abused of them all!). it has lost its meaning anymore, and I am not keen on using bland phrases. Duh!

Anyway, I do feel sorry, just like anybody else. You just have to see it from my sad eyes.

There. Im still hungry. Bye.

Turning Japanese

Tuning Japanese

“I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so”

- Turning Japanese, by The Vapors (1980)

Not much to do on weekends or on free time, so I “waste” it on watching episode after episode, title after title of anime series I pirate over the net.

Somehow, it feels as if am in Japan, considering I wait and watch for new episodes every week from the 5 or more titles I’m currently following.

But there is actually a good thing about watching anime. What would you expect me to do, watch all those telenovelas or horrible news on tv? Though speaking about news, I see that the Pope still don’t get it, hence the broadcast about or related to his apology about his recent blunder (the apology being a blunder in itself) is quite funny. No, its stupid. But since I am off the airwaves of both radio and tv, I have to settle to my modified entertainment system (courtesy of the city government hehehe)

I think I quite lost track. Anyway, the good thing about watching anime is that it is a good source for learning a new language. Hmmm, actually Im watching anime because it’s the better choice in my current status, and the thing about learning the Japanese language is for me to understand and enjoy the series that I am watching. Admittedly, having subtitles is good, especially with the quality of subbers out there, but somehow I would like to watch movies like I used to.

Anyway, im hungry now, and im off to enjoy the night and the holiday tomorrow watching the whole season of “wolf’s rain”. i know im not making much sense so thats why im outta here.

Circa Loco - Poetry: Open Doors

Open Doors


'Twas only when I no longer heard her voice
That I heard mine
Screaming her name
Kristine

And I wonder if she loves me still
As I have, and am and always will
And though I fear her fast fading echoes
I hold on to them like the air that I breathe
Whom without
my soul would choke
on the smoke of loneliness
and despair
I hold on to them like her voice that I remember
Her voice that was the warm embrace
From the coldness of this everyday winter

My thoughts fly,
As do my hopes, but not like before
Our silence seems to be closing
what were once
Open doors.

What the Pope said and Why I Left...

I wanted to keep myself mum about the grave and should I say stupid comments that the pope made which has triggered global response. And yet, when I think of it, it is things like this that serve as one of the reasons why I left the church.

Either you are in, or you are out, as the cliché goes. And I chose to be out of it.

I wonder what the pope was thinking when he made those comments. I mean, he was supposed to know better. Of course, many would say that he was just human. Yes he is human, and it is also for such reasons that I left too.

Humans do mistake. But just because you are a human being does it mean that you are licensed to make mistakes.

And as if quoting from a dead 14^th century emperor was not bad enough, the apology that the pope made only served to make things worst. If you are take a good look and use your gray matter to figure it out, the pope seems to be sorry for the reactions to his statements and not for the statements themselves.

Someone has to take responsibility somehow, and like it or not, the pope has a share for the violence that has sprouted around the world. And I wonder how is he going to make up for it. By mere prayers? I guess so.

If you are reading this far, and you are that kind who takes the faith as deep as you could, you might say that I am damned and I would be punished by God.

But then, I have always told my friends that God doesn’t give a damn if you believe in him or not, or if you pray to him or not. Your belief or disbelief does not change him. God does not need anything. That’s why he is God in the first place.

But then, a lot of people think and believe that they need God. And yet their belief does not change anything.

And why did I leave the church? Because it is a power structure, a control structure by human beings toward other human beings, a congregation of jackals and wolves clothed in sheep’s clothing, No, I take that back, worse than jackals and wolves.

To believe in a faith who has a leader like the current pope? Are you kidding me?

Notes: So It Must Be...

It is only fitting, and thus no reason for me to bawl over, that the fate of those who believe is a life that one must endure, a life that must be lived.

Even as a child, I have always believed most in the certainty of one, and that is me.

It is not that I shun the presence of those around me. Rather, it is when I started seeing the balance of hope and despair on those who love me that I vowed unto myself that I would always nurture the same balance that exist within me.

At times I try to remember when it began that I started believing and living a life wherein I knew with the utmost certainty, as a saint would believe in a god, that I was always to be alone.

It was not a life of shunning those around, as I have said, nor did it mean that they shunned me, for as I have also said, and I will always claim this, I have been loved to the levels many men would never know about. What it was, and I know this will always be, is about believing in myself, that I would matter, that I would be worthy even if I am to be judged from the scrutiny of my own brutal honesty.

It is about making the most about myself, for what could I share to you if I was nothing more than a facsimile of someone else, or just a cliché of a line, or just a cardboard character?

But then, intention and outcome, as has been pointed out to me, rarely go hand in hand.

And so it must be, that the fate of those who believe is a life that has to be lived.

Draft from the chapter "The Consistency of Love": Bleeding Poetry

I did not know I was bleeding poetry until she arrived that night, garbed in her white, led by drops of my verses to where I was.

I have always preferred the glow of the Moon, or if in her absence, the smiles of the stars. But the glare of the lamp mirrored from her eyes held me, reflecting into and deep beyond the hollow caves of my own eyes, deeper into me, until it felt warm.

She would have been a bloodhound on the third night, save for her voice, her smile and the way the light played with her eyes that made me wait for them so that they may play with my own.

I did not know she knew my pain and my shame even before she heard my voice, even before the fingers of her eyes have traced the surface and edges of my face that was and has always been and forever will be my mask.

She found me, bleeding of poetry from the wounds invisible as the ghosts that haunted me.

I found her, the woman whose eyes cupped the light and poured them into my own so that they may illuminate and reveal to her the map I charted.

She was never the Ice Queen they told me that she had been. Her voice was the wind that swayed me whenever she called my name, her touch sent my blood raging that my sad face remembered the shape and traced one smile after the other. Bleeding of poetry, I let my blood verses flow into her cupped hands, the same hands whose fingers traced and caressed the outlines of my scars.

But one could not and should not always bleed, even if it is poetry. And one could not and should not always drink, even if each drop serves to trace the path that would lead to where resides the face of mystery.

At times when I close my now lonely eyes, I remember when I listened to her heart that trembled in the wake of the tempest of our brief life. My chest was against her breast, my cheek pressed against her own as our tears found each other.

Separate tears that joined together fell alongside each other from two separate chins.

I do not know where she is now, or if she even remembers me.

She is gone, as I know I am away from her, as I always knew that we would be from the moment we arrived.

I no longer bleed poetry.


to I, who is along side J.

Deleted

Deleted

One of the lessons that I have taught myself is that acceptance is ultimately just a state of mind. Memories may abound, lingering and foaming up at odd and unexpected moments but then, as it was in the mind, in one’s memory that common and simple objects become defined to be so much more than just food for the senses, then so it must follow that it is also in the mind that they are to ultimately die, rot, and disappear.

But then, as I have also taught myself, I could be wrong.

Now, I wonder if it is the only way, that to pave the road and walls of acceptance in one’s mind, one should shatter the structures that exist in the real world, as if the tearing and cutting down of bridges and ties in the physical world would help and serve as the very materials for the building of the structures in ones mind.

I am no stranger to the currents and possibilities of human life, and the complexities that it can spawn when it sets its fingers and arms and legs to intertwine with another’s. And yet no matter how much I have taught myself, no matter what I have learned, for whatever they are worth, I still cannot fully immune myself from the actions of those with whom I have bound myself, especially when those bounds are made from the fibers of what it is to die intertwined with the beauty of how it is to live and love.

Odd, that the most painful experiences that I have had in this physical world are those moments that the five senses could not detect, and yet for some reason stains itself on one’s thoughts, horrible like blood being suddenly sprayed on my face.

I have survived the onslaught of fists and feet, their bruises absent, as if they never existed in the first place. And yet why can I not learn the lesson of how it is to be cold, to be immune once abandonment comes knocking on my door to keep me company?!

In this cyberworld that I have waited for, where my bones where partly made, there is something about being deleted that hurts unlike any physical discomfort.

I just got deleted. I just got abandoned. And yet I dare not turn the ice king in me who only waits for me to bow my head so he can take over.

I guess being deleted means as simple as that. Like garbage that gets thrown to landfills, we delete those that no longer matter to us.

And to think someone once said I was not thrash. But then, if there is something that I have also learned is that people lie, even in the midst of making love.

But of course this is only me, but if being deleted, if destroying the bridges would mean that I could gather the rubble as materials for the walls and roads of acceptance, then who knows, I might just teach myself that lesson.

Possibly.