She comes in colors

Purple rain

There was a cool shower outside, the kind that makes you crawl into your blankets and dream the afternoon away. In an effort to remain (semi-) productive, you power up your laptop and start reading your old stories.

Almost immediately you wince, and your fingers twitch, longing to delete the lurid manifestations of your younger self's fantasies.

The prose is so purple, you expect eggplants to start shooting out of the screen.

Yellow fever

Shivery hot, hot, hot.

Against your better judgment (lies–you have no better judgment), you watched “Ninja Assassin,” a film about a Japanese nin out for vengeance, played by a Korean popstar.

It was as you expected–stilted dialogues, wooden chemistry, and decent fight scenes. Still, you enjoyed it, if only for the Korean's pretty, pretty face and dynamite abs.

Damn, son.

Green Mile

As you drive home from school, you sing along with the radio. You giggle, snort, and yell out profanities. You snicker aloud at unknown Freudian slips, but when you tell the joke next day, you receive blank faces.

It's not easy being green.

White Horses

It's almost Valentine's Day, and you brace yourself for the Mushy. All around you, your she-friends giggle over their boyfriends, guys A-B-C, random encounters with the other kind, and the “sexy-eyes” technique, while man-pals talk of reservations, pretty girls on a Saturday night, sans the sexy-eyes technique.

You fail at love life.

Still, you console yourself.

Of them all, you're the only one who can still touch a unicorn.

Red Head

Election season is upon you.

Two years ago, you viewed the circus with a mixture of dread and exhilaration. With friends Left and Right (and those politically directionless), there were always clashes of colors and principles, with you splattered with the remnant pigments. On your part, you were steadfastly orange, slightly tinged with more vermillion.

Now, you look around and see blue. Blue alumni, blue parties, BlueSkies. And you are content.

But sometimes, secretly, your heart beats red.

Alter-Egos/ The Words I used to write

1. Tuathanidana (Lj)

As a kid, you had a borderline obsession with all things make-believe—primarily, the gods and goddesses of ancient past, and the soap-opera madness of their lives

Because of a sugar-induced script written with friends, a stuffed toy named Fero, and crazy prepubescent hijinks, you also had a fascination with purple cows.

And then you discovered your Celtic namesake, she of the bovine emblem, flamboyant following, and virgin status.

Kismet.

2. My Spazzy Girl (Xanga)

Everyone who has watched the movie said they saw you. When your coach handed you a copy of it, you decided to take a look. Promptly, (a whiter, prettier, thinner version of) you show up on screen, drunk and demented in a subway station.

Since then, you’ve watched her every movie. Since then, you’ve cried at her every movie. Still, that first film stuck, of a lonely misfit driving people crazy.

Just as silly, you’re keenly aware you’d do just the same thing.

3. Silverfoil (Tastyword)

At the height of your delusions, you imagined yourself winning competitions, getting plaudits from people worldwide. But even as you imagined that Olympic medal, your fantasies were satisfied with second place.

You also started a private, utterly secret account, wanting to be known for your rapier wit and brilliant insights into love, and life, and beyond, rather than open only to the usual family and friend.

The blog didn’t last long.

Neither did your dreams.

4. Summer Fling (Blogdrive)

There are movies wherein a girl goes on vacation, falls deeply in love in some exotic locale with some exotic local (preferably rich, tall, dark and handsome), and the local reciprocates in kind.

Alas, that has never happened to you.

But hope springs eternal.

5. Drabble Diary (Blogger)

Latest, greatest, most pretentious.

Searching for Ever After (or, why Disney has ruined my life)

Sleeping Beauty

There is one blinding instant of pain, so unlike the prick of a needle, which then dulls, bit by bit, to a pale shade of agony. The wound never shows through your skin, and so no one ever kisses it to make it better.

And so instead, the morning comes. The world itself is an endless dream, and the thorns are covering you, bit by bit.

The voice begs you to wake up.

Cinderella

It’s a frequent daydream, that masked ball. All conversation stops, and their eyes as one rest upon you. A path is made, and he walks toward you; you feel the heat of his hands through the silk. In perfect silence, you dance.

But the scene changes, to just you and him, and as the clock strikes thirteen the gown vanishes, leaves you as you are, in jeans and a wrinkled blouse and with panicked, forlorn eyes. The world falls down, and eternity shines in his hand. Then he pulls you into a silent, perfect dance.

Long live the Labyrinth.

Snow White

Growing up a kid with a paler complexion than most, it’s no wonder they started calling you that nickname. It did strange things to your sense of beauty, especially when you found out that one incarnation had a sister.

Princess fair, white as a sheet, flight over fight, passive and menial, blood and lips, sleep and death.

You would have preferred to be Rose Red.

Beauty and the Beast

Upon seeing a picture, your mind goes several ways.

You can rail at the blatant typecasting (the ignorant villager as the villain) and bemoan the evils of the bourgeoisie while sipping at your Starbucks and typing at your Mac, and this is why you can never have a boy with like passions or background.

You can sigh at the golden dress, the pretty ballroom, and plan the dream proposal, and this is why you’ll never click with a man that isn’t gay.

You can hold the supposed intellectual standard to you heart, and this is why—

OMG FURRIES.

The Little Mermaid

If you should turn to sea foam, so be it.

As long as the right person kisses the girl.

Couldn’t have said it better myself

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate (Dante)
You are just itching to use this line.
You imagine, perhaps, a dark, dank cave, or maybe a seemingly innocuous door. And then a slight turn to your fellow spelunkers, or fellow lawyer-hopefuls, and that muttered, ominous phrase.
Most will ignore you, some will roll their eyes, and maybe one or two kindred souls will recognize your wit and reply in kind.
Your sister laughs when you voice this wish, and calls you pretentious.
You can’t help agreeing.

Come to my woman’s breasts, and unsex me here! (Shakespeare)
Once, you were shoved into your friend’s ample bosom for a class recitation.
It is not an experience you care to repeat.

O pagsintang labis ng kapangyarihan, sampung mag-ama’y iyong nasasaklaw! (Balagtas)
Of the four national texts you were mandated to study, you can only remember one stanza of the second.
(Because the one with the bird features a hero that gets it on with three sisters, the one with your name has absolutely no likeable heroine, and the sequel gets the rest killed).
It’s ironic that’s the stanza you remember; the idea of anyone shouting about “the power of love” makes your hackles raise.

I know ever so many people, and until one of them dies, I couldn’t possibly be friends with anyone else. (Charades)
You’re not the type to utter flirtatious rejoinders to straight, attractive men (the non-threatening homosexuals, though, you’re free to tease). Despite all outward appearances, you’re still that shy overweight girl who thought Prince Charmings were real, and is afraid of them morphing into misogynistic bastards.
But your stories and writings are littered with characters who whisper sweet nothings to each other under the guise of urbane wordplay.
Maybe when you’re older, and away, you can slip on a little black dress and slip into a dark crowded bar, sip on some bubbly and raise your eyes to a beautiful stranger.

Though we cannot make our sun stand still, we can yet make him run. (Marvell)
Your soul cries for adventure, for wide, open spaces. For your life to be something more than a circumscribed path to mediocrity.
And so, you do things, from time to time. Silly things. Stupid things. Once-in-a-lifetime, wow-you’re-insane, dear-lord-you’re-amazing things. Anything to alleviate the mundane.
You sometimes think, if your reckless immolation results in the utter ruin of what makes you you, you think it worth the sacrifice.

Fail, or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

1. Laptop
As if sensing there was no more need for frantic thesis typings, it died a day after graduation, and only resumed life two days ago.
The isolation has been good, you think. Detoxifying, even.

2. Dye Job
You casually mentioned to your mother that you wanted a change. Maybe Barney purple. Screaming red. Not quite taking the drastic-cry-for-help-hint, Ma opted for "golden brown." Despite this, however, the herbal mixture didn't take, and it's only in direct sunlight that you can see a reddish tinge.
Go figure.

3. Maturity
The fist slide of your hand on smooth, silk-flesh makes you cringe, and it takes you back, back to that awful moment when you were thirteen that you've never told an adult (that you subsequently spilled to your cousins and closest friends), and that less traumatizing but still mortifying moment when you were twenty (two years ago).
You cringe, you stammer, you rock back and forth, and the come to your rescue, saying you're still a minor.
In essence, you probably are.

4. In sickness and in health
You vomited, had irregular bowel movements, and the aches and the pressure seemed as saturated as your sweat. Then you got better, as you do every month.
*
Four years ago, you underwent this very same exam, with hardly any changes. Well, you think in retrospect, at least there aren't any leering frat boys.
*
A week later, you vomit and egest again.

5. Knowledge
Is power.
Not that it's apparent, aimlessly channel-surfing documentaries and science programs with your body lying supine on the bed, slowly melting from the summer heat.