Clichés

I skulk in coffeeshops in vain.

Long walks on the beach

It’s ironic, that despite living in a tropical country, you can’t stand the turf n’ surf.

You look awful in a bathing suit. You always get sunburns on your skin. Sand—and crabs, and bits of broken glass, and polluted flotsam from the sea—stick to your toes. The sandcastles you build always get washed away, in an apt parallelism to dreams and wishes and plans you’ve made.

But when it’s quiet, and the moon sits atop the velvet black like a queen, as you watch the dark waves roll softly…

…Alone, you are content.

Crying in the rain

It’s kind of unfair that when fictional heroines do it, they do it prettily—eyes glimmering with leashed fire, clothing pressed damply to ample curves, skin lustrous because of a strategically placed streetlamp.

You blotch. The moment tears come, a sniffle is sure to follow, and before you know it, you have a full-fledged cold, and maybe, just maybe, an asthma attack.

(Breathe.)

And come to think of it, the rain is probably polluted as well.

Well, damn.

Wedding bells

At this age, Mother says, in another culture, you would have been married already!

You have a moment to think, “Holy cow, we’re allowed to date?” while your sister mouths to you, “Mrs. Bennet?”

So as your mother continues on her diatribe on suitors, the lack thereof, and her three older children’s apparent ineptitude with the other sex—

(She still doesn’t know about the stalkers you’ve had, not in detail, at least)

—you spend the rest of dinner daydreaming about wedding bells, and a possible Darcy.

Guys next door

You hate your village.

When you had to do a survey last year, it took two days (and it rained the entire first morning) before you could finally get enough answers. The only silver lining in that expedition was the two cute men living two blocks away from you.

Alas, it is not that kind of community where bake sales and basketball games let boys meet girls…or maybe it is. You, after all, are the hermit.

But who can blame you? Next-doors were your cousins, and a colonel who spent midnights cursing loudly into the phone.

Not a good combination.

Star-crossed lovers

Romeo and Juliet were idiots. It squicks you to realize Juliet was 13 (Dear God, eight years older, and STILL alone), and Romeo was a filthy little boy (glove upon your hand, indeed).

Tristan and Isolde are forever ruined because of James Franco, and while you adore Hades and Persephone—the Goth shtick works, to a certain degree—you have to wonder about her mother’s hold on her. Unnatural.

Cupid and Psyche. Too classic. Beren and Lúthien. Too eternal. Buffy and Angel. Too dead.

By the time you’ve ran out of pairs to emulate, you hope you’ve met you other, unrequited half soon.

A Trip to the Ayala Museum with Mimi

All photos taken from Ayala Museum's Website. Because I am Lazy.

Gold

Sometimes, people look in askance. Despite your mother’s business, you hardly wear jewelry—and if you do, they’re nearly always plastic.

You do appreciate gems, of course, just not in the way most people expect. As you stare at the glass cases, with sheer sheets of metal woven into intricate braids, you can almost see your ancestors’ lives imprinted in the yellow gleam. They’re in the richness of the royal regalia, the little circles and hoops of the elaborate earrings, the delicacy of paper-thin diadems…

Then you see the golden chastity guards, and your thoughts come to a screeching halt.

Diorama

All the world’s a stage, and all the men in it merely players.

You agree with Shakespeare, and thus, as you stare at the models depicting key moments in your country’s history, you think of the lives before you. The unsung heroes of unfinished revolutions. The statesmen, poets and statesmen-poets forever etched in the annals of elementary textbooks as black or white.

A brief glance at the full-scale heights of founding fathers makes you smirk.

Hey! You were taller than them! Haha!

Painting

Nothing transfixes you like a painting.

Even if your mother and those two art galleries say you’re talented, you know you haven’t got the skill or the time to produce a real face (or even a decent cartoon), so you stare at oils of pastures and beautiful women with a burning longing.

You imagine, in another place, another time, maybe you’d have packed your bags to dwell on the C’ote de Azur, or perhaps Paris, and live the life you’ve secretly always wanted, perfecting your art at the risk of all.

But then, you’d never survive as a starving artist, so when you come home you merely stare at your abstracts, and resolutely pick up the pencil.

Fossilize

Listening to “The Last Man” while thinking about 3-million-year-old three stumps is not a good combination.

It makes you think about life, and time, and how insignificant you are, in the scheme of things. It makes you dream about reincarnation, and Troo Luv, despite your Catholic upbringing.

And a line from a Rupert Brooke poem makes the romantic in you squeal:

“One mote of all the dust that’s I shall meet one atom that was you.”

Pottery

There are a lot of ceramics in glass cases.

It kind of makes you want to be a bull.

You chuckle out loud.

Band Candy

Muse

Your time is running out.

It’s so strange that the closer you get to your (deadliest) deadline, the more inspired you get…for other writings. As you pound out statistics and factoids from the keyboard, your mind is filled with imaginary maps and scripts for future comics.

You conclude your muse is essentially a schizophrenic witch.

Queen

Once, you wore a tiara to school.

Never mind your university has running priests and Zorros and annual naked men loitering around campus, and never mind your college is the most flamboyant of them all.

You wore a tiara. To class.

It was partly because of a dare, but you know better than that. You have a tendency to do these kinds of things, after all. Maybe it’s because you’re (not-so-secretly) guano crazy. Maybe it’s because you’re bored. Maybe it’s because, despite your pro-democracy and slightly-to-the-left leanings, you’re still the great pretender.

On your notebook: “I AM a pretty princess.”

The prosecution rests.

Rivermaya

Your mother grew up in a tiny, countryside town—your aunt told her Australian daughter it was “a ghetto”—and your dad was the type who would walk a mile from school just to use the toilet at home during breaks.

You, on the other hand, grew up a city girl, admittedly clueless in many, many things. But unlike so many others, you take the time to smell the metaphorical roses, and occasionally watch birds floating in stagnant water.

Because you know, in the blink of an eye, everything might change.

Brownman Revival

You exhibit certain aspects of your personality with different sets of acquaintances. The geeky side of you, the dork side reserved for lightsabers and fanciful ninja-pirate-princes, is known to a select few. You natter on about boys to girlfriends and gays, and babble about…well, everything to your sister.

It’s only when you reached college that you remembered the news and patriotism and issues, and the revival of your ideals was such you forgot not everyone cared for such conversation.

It cost you some friendships along the way.

But be cool. Be steady.

Maybe you were better off without them anyway.

The Smashing Pumpkins

It’s nearing Halloween again.

You used to love the holiday. As a little chubby thing, you would totter around the village, eagerly snatching up sweets, watch us the community suddenly turned into a host of witches, and goblins, and white sheets with holes cut out for eyes.

There was an annual contest for the residents’ children, with a prize going out for the best costume. In a photo, you look absolutely adorable as a bright orange pumpkin.

But your sister won the contest two years in a row, standing in the same garish purple fairy dress, basking in their love.

Life can be unfair.

Because I Enjoy Being It

(a girl, that is)

Dress

You wanted to be a fashion designer when you grew up.

Earlier, you wanted to be a model.

There are pictures of you, a chubby—but fierce—girl, hip thrust out in an indefinable angle, dainty (pudgy) hands dramatically splayed, in ruffles or polka dots or hideous organza.

Those days are gone. You now have a standard uniform (jeans and t-shirt), which is a far cry from the-middle-school-tomboy-years, but just as changed from your frilly, fabulous prepubescence.

(But secretly, you’re still the girl who loves to wear dresses.)

Lipstick

You’ve made a whore out of Snow White.

You think that as you stare at the prints, photos, apparently, designed to show your creativity. (Or lack thereof).

As you look at your picture, wincing upon imagining your mother’s reaction, you decide it’s probably that particular shade of crimson.

You knew the makeup artist had an in for you.


Flirting

Don’t think no one has noticed. (Or do. It makes for great romantic comedy, if celluloid would translate into real life).

Tucking your hair behind your hear, you gaze coquettishly at the object(s) of your affection. The glance lingers slowly, slowly down. Making sure you are the only person in that stall, you approach. Slowly. Sway your hips.

Once in front, a hand rises to lingeringly touch. The caress is almost obscene, but once again, you think no one’s watching, and so you make your move. Leaning forward, chest exposed, you pick up…

…the book, and gleefully skim through it.

You are an absurd little creature when it comes to bookstores.


Blushing

It’s the envy of many, especially in this white-obsessed, foreign-beauty-loving country of yours.
Clear, pale skin isn’t all that great, though, particularly if it reddens easily and you (used to) train often.

The men think you’re flushed because of them, which makes you want to stab them through the heart with the phallic symbols they’re so fond of, or shriek and pretend to be lesbian just to get them off the notion you may have a teeny (eensy) crush on them

Never mind that it’s actually true.


Period

It’s burning white vision bursting at the tops of your eyes. It’s nausea, shivering and plunging at ten thousand feet. Pulsing, pounding pressure, starting from the low centre of your body and radiating downwards until you can’t move, can’t do anything but lie limply on the bed. Every step taken is an epic battle in itself. Cold sweat becomes rivulets pouring down your spine.

Considering this happens once a month, it’s shocking how you’re considered “the weaker sex.”

Gun

In retrospect, you shouldn't have pointed it at your head.

(At least, not in front of your parents. Nevertheless, bravo for not telling them if you had to pick a way, it would be something invariably less messy.)

Now you're never going to learn how to shoot, stupid.

Que Horror.

(It being near Halloween, and all that)

Vampires

When you were younger, you had a fascination with vampires. You researched Vlad Tseppes and Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Carrying delusions brought about by too much Buffy, you took up (and quit) various martial arts in preparation for Slayerhood. You’ve made jokes about local fanged undead—the better halves, as they were—and devoured awful literature (read: mawkish supernatural romances) about the creatures of the night.
Then again, they are the stuff of make-believe, and you much prefer fictional bloodsuckers to the metaphorical ones in your life

Demons

Inner demons.
You’ve heard the phrase. It’s for the baggage (you try) to hide from the rest of the world, wrestling with them night and day for some semblance of peace.
You wonder, what happens if the demons win?
You’re afraid you’ll find out soon.

Witches

Things happen, and of course, though they’re out of your control, the blame is squarely placed on you.
So this is how it feels to be burned at stake.

Sanguine

How ironic there’s a word that refers to “cheery” and “bloody” at the same time.
Or, if you turn the glass half-full, how fitting.

Blade

God you want to gut the little weasel.

The First Cut is the Deepest

Syllable

“I learned the truth at seventeen,” the song warbles, soft, lamenting, as you stare at the ceiling of your room, spread-eagled on my bed. It seems to fit—in the seventeen and four years and counting, you’ve never been a beauty queen, never felt the eyes of a lover linger on your lips.
And so you stare at the ceiling and dream, dream of boys with dreamer’s gazes and poet’s smiles and artist’s hands with a really nice set of pecs, as they bend down to lie down in your bed and whisper the three syllables you so badly want to hear.

Vaccine

From when you were very young, they’ve given you shots for chicken pox. Small pox. Protection against bacteria that would have slain you centuries, or maybe even four decades ago. Later, there were the shots for tuberculosis, for the prevention of breast cancer.
You don’t remember the infant shots, but a phantom twinge echoes in your shoulder in remembrance of the last. You avoid looking at the needle, but from your sister’s whimper it must be at least two inches—maybe more. From that one glance, it seems awfully thick.
A brave little girl, merely three times seven, you scarcely feel anything beyond that first prick, and the immunization is over in a moment.
Fleetingly, you wonder if there’s a vaccine for loneliness.


Aide

It’s when you’re helping your friend bolster the flagging organization, as a somewhat useless aide-de-camp, that you’re hit with the realization.
This isn’t your story. Your role in the universe will always be relegated to The Best Friend, the Joan-Cusack-type Older Sister, the Angsty Misunderstood Daughter, and happy endings, like it or not, will always have to be lived vicariously.
Because you are sidekick, and it’s the heroine, in the end, who gets the boy.


Alarmist

Sometimes, it perplexes you when people say you’re a leader.
You have a tendency to panic, to react immediately, arms flailing about. You get frustrated at incompetence—especially your own--, and during crunch time, your statements have an alarmist tinge.
Deep down, you know you’re more suited as a foot soldier.


Cub
Just before you go to sleep, and moments in between waking and facing the new day, you imagine having a family of your own.
The face, the hair, the build of your husband-to-be varies; his gaze, ardent, is the only thing unchanged.
An infant wrapped in swaddling clothes lies between you. Or is it two, three? It does not matter. You feel a surge of love to this as-of-yet-unborn children whatever the shape of their eyes or the color of their hair or the shade of their skin, and in your mind’s eye the babies are perfect, and more importantly, yours.
And come heaven or hell, mama bear will protect her cubs.