"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world"
-Oscar Wilde

The world is so fine when you're young, it makes you think it will go on forever, then you grow up and find out that everything has an end..

At times i wish that someone should have published a book named "A Complete Dummy's Book On How To Live Life and Avoid Pain and Failures" but then that would make my journey less interesting. For had i not crossed the bridges of sorrow and failure, had i not known the beauty of loving and being loved, had i not reached my threshold of pain, i would not be able to sit here right now and say that my life with all its twists and turns was somehow worth living.

I made my choices, and some were outright insane and stupid and led me to paths of oblivion, but somehow, amidst the sound of shattering glass in the background and the spiteful glances of snakes hiding beneath the tall blades of grass, I have no regrets. There should be no regrets in life, as long as you acted out according to your passions,.. another twisted philosophy I picked up from someone.

Somewhere along the road I lost myself, I forgot which fork or path I chose. I barely recall how I even got here in the first place. If I try to retrace my steps, I know I'll be more lost than I am right now. And the past, when I look back at it, haunts me like a ghost refusing to die and stay dead.

I'm back here at the crossroads of my life, remembering things I wish I could bury or just throw away into the sea. Because pain is not the worst thing in life, they say, forgetting is. And as I try to recall each fragment of memory, I hope that I can make sense to this madness called life that I've gotten myself lost in.

This is my journey, every stop and stumble, every joy and sorrow are chronicled in these pages. All the laughter and tears and all the things in between are part of what makes every step of it as wonderful as falling from a building 400 stories high.

If you get lost or if you cannot understand the meanings between the lines, don't worry too much. I am not seeking to be understood, nor to convert you to my cause, I don't even have one,

So sit back.. keep your eyes closed, but your heart open.. this is the crossroads, you can always choose to go back, or if you're brave enough, you can discover the secret places in your heart that you never even knew existed... till now...

"Still at times I wish, when I am all alone, that somehow you'll think of me, by the light of the moon"
- from a poem

so many thoughts enter my mind as the sun starts to set to give way to the rising moon. thoughts of the day that has passed by, thoughts of the years that has gone by, and thoughts of the future to come. with these thoughts come a rush of other memories, of people and places and events that has once been the present to me. now they all belong to that unreachable alley in my mind.

as i gaze at the moon, i recall how it witnessed my life in silence. as a child, i remember how i used to run away and hide behind the trees, hoping that i could escape its radiance. yet, i never did outsmart that one big eye in the sky. wherever i went, it followed. it comforted me when i wept in defeat and rejoiced with me when i laughed in triumph. at times when i feel depressed and alone, i just sit outside with the company of the moon and somehow i know that i could make it through the next sunset, and i could see it again and bask in its moonbeams.

there were times when i did not see it appear in the night sky, and during these times, i wonder if someone else in another part of the world cares like i do on whether or not the moon is there, and grieves the way i do whenever i don't see it. i sleep with a smile thinking that if i meet a person like that, i would have found a true friend, for even though we are separated by miles or oceans, the moon will be our guiding light that would link us to each other forever...

sublime, in stillness you break my walls
the stones crumbling, falling but not fading
you blind me with reason, non existent and unknown
and in passing you've stabbed my wounds
deeper than i've expected
who are you who dare climb my walls
who so boldly crosses the threshold of my pain
could you have stolen the key to my wrought iron gates
or have i, in feigned indifference, accepted defeat?
resigned to my fate, i hide in the darkest corners...

"why has God done this? since the night is intended for sleep, for unconsciousness, for repose, for oblivion, why make it more charming than the day, sweeter than dawn of evening? and why this slow and seductive moon, which is more poetic than the sun and seems intended by its very delicacy to illuminate things too fragile and mysterious for daylight, why should it come to make the shadows so transparent? why should the loveliest of songbirds not go to sleep with the others but linger on to sing in the disturbing shade?"

i hear the trembling of the rivers
as night turns to day
once again you rejoice
you who are such a lover of the night
tend to forget the solitude of my darkness

you embrace the sun with such exuberance
and loathe my moon with such passionate hate

still i give you freedom
to shower yourself with the clouds of daytime
and drown your pains in the blinding light

for i who knows how the world turns
shall expect your tears after sunset

i've watched you hide in my velvet shadows
a thousand times before
your heart soaked with bitterness
and your eyes filled with sorrow

no! you cannot run away from me
you may forget for now but not forever
my solace will lead you back to my embrace

i alone can give you comfort
away from the noise of day
yet you fear my coming
you are afraid i see too much
you know you cannot mask your feelings from me
--- that is why you hate me

you prefer sunlight
with all its illusions and mirages
where reality is colored with white light
and your pretentious smiles erase their doubts

i shall remain..
night will always fall at sunset
and then my friend you shall see,
when you are tired of pretending to be happy..
i shall stay and hold you
and dry your tears away...

I woke up and saw people wearing white hovering around me. If this was heaven, they must have made a mistake :) I blinked once, twice, trying to adjust to the lights, everything was blurry, my mind, my vision, the voices behind me felt like they were from somewhere far away. 

They asked for my name, the date, my phone number, my parents, and all I could see were dark red stains while I felt my head throbbing like crazy.

I could put all the pieces of that day except for that moment right before I lost consciousness. It's like a missing part of my life that I have no recollection of, just a big black hole in between living and dying.

In the afternoon, I was trying to finish some work but our seniors decided they should treat us out for dinner and drinks as part of our welcome party since we just joined the team. I was feeling a little faint because I was anemic and it was that time of the month but I didn't want to be the odd person out so I joined them.

The night was a blur of music and old friends called Cuervo, Stolichnaya, Southern Comfort and a few other exotic mixes. As usual, the effect is like caffeine for me, it makes my senses more acute, my memory sharper, everything is clearer and abstract things make sense. So when they dropped me off at my boarding house at around 11pm, I couldn't sleep, algorithms were dancing in my head and I all I wanted to do was go to a computer shop and type everything down.

And that's what I did, I worked till around 1 am then I was craving for some food so I walked to a nearby burger joint to order some sliders. I took out my money to pay, then there were stars, and everything was black.

From what the nurses told me, some hospital interns went out for midnight snacks and as they were walking back to the emergency room, they saw me passed out, lying on a ditch, my head bleeding. They took me to the ER and tried to revive me, almost flatlined but I came back.

After a series of tests, stitches and MRI, they finally released me on a wheelchair.

And that kids is why you shouldn't go out walking alone late at night :)

i walk past unpainted houses
back to where we used to sit
the tree blooms as stately as before
the grass, though, thinner, than
the last time we sat on it

newspapers strewn all over my room
im painting sunsets on midnights
as lonesome as this

and why, i asked myself why
do i write about those sunsets that i never see..
then i ask myself, oh, how
we have come so far, so far
from all that we could ever be

picking up shadows and colors
im capturing fragments of moments
but the moonlight mocks me

retracing my steps, i try to see
past the moonlight, the sunset,
the shadows, the madness
but im blind and im mad, and i feel
that im broken, broken, broken

dreaming of sunsets that i never see.

first light awaking
promising a new dawn,
a new beginning
while some stars shed off
their bright gazes,,,
the moon yawns in deep resign..
the skies tremble with my
heart's longing
dusk has come and gone ...
the sun is dawning
thorns wither with the new light
now i know why i live
i live to cry,
i live to die
i live to love...
and cry again...

good night, sweet dreams
and sleep tight
may tomorrow be just as good
as tonight,

to bring us closer..

before you go,
i'd like to know
does your heart still
long for me..
or has your love grown cold?

if you should wake,
and then find out
that what you
once felt is gone,

don't worry, i'll still care
and hold you close to me..

but for now,
good night, sweet dreams
and sleep tight..
i pray time will bring us closer

bring you closer to me...

good night.

and this is the first poem i made for school

outside the wind seems to whisper
a prayer to the skies
that one day i'll come back
before the candle dies
i feel the unseen power
that drives me to my knees
whenever i remember
that my time is near
now curtains are being drawn,
and all the bird have flown
left alone is my bare soul
awaiting to depart

1996.03.01

i went away with night
alone
to be lost among the stars
and the waves of the sea

i went away to forget and
be at peace with myself . .

but you my friend , roused
me from my dream
you made me remember that
life wasn't kind

that i cannot forget
forever . .

i chose this path believing
i would lose the pain,

but then again perhaps,
i went away with pain alone

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream"
- Edgar Allan Poe

twas solitude i found
in this quiet refuge,
where no woes exist
and pain subsides
and the only sounds that rule
are of birds in flight
and of fallen leaves
crumbling beneath my feet.
here shall i rest
my troubled soul,
and calm my wandering,
confused mind
here in this garden,
this haven of peace...
as the soft wind hugs me,
and lulls me to sleep.