Paradox Park

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Using Ping...it's been 5 seconds since the last post. :P I still don't see the point. Am pretty sure my Blogger and Multiply are dead.

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:42:00 +0000

I'm using Ping.fm -- wondering if this really has a point.

Tomorrow (poetry in SNOOPY NOTEBOOK)

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:23:00 +0000

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will bounce out of bed at sunrise

I will wear my favorite dress.

I will fix my hair and wear bright earrings.

I will put on my highest heels.

I will speak in exclamation points and sing-song my "Hello!"

If it rains, I will dance until my arms and legs give out.

If it doesn't, I will dance until my head whirls and muscles spasm.

I will smile until my cheeks ache;

Give hugs until my arms are sore.

I will cry buckets and buckets of tears...

Because I laughed too hard at silly jokes.

I will sing loudly in the hallways, like always,

And I will smirk as if I have sweet secrets.

I will shrug every cold shoulder off with a roll of my eyes,

And I will swing my friends in my arms if I can lift them.

I will pose for photographs with dramatic flair.

I will compliment anything admirable.

I will force myself to take joy freely,

To smile even though I was tearful the night before.

Let yesterday mourn itself! Life's too short and time is flying

On quick wings, and I will fly after it.

To hell with regret!

Let tomorrow come!

I will embrace it with open arms,

And my heart will be full to overflowing.

I have so much love and laughter to give.

Fin.

Bayanihan sa Bayan ni Juan - RELIEF EFFORTS LIST and INFO

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:21:00 +0000

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM NC:

Relief Goods Needed:

~ Water (lots of it)

~ Bread/Cookies/Crackers (big loaves, and lots of them)

~ Milk (powdered)

~ Milk (powdered, infant formula)

~ Diapers

~ Easy-open canned goods

~ Energy bars (Nature Valley is available by the box in S&R Alabang and Fort)

~ Juice (tetra-paks)

~ Soap/Shampoo

~ Old clothes

~ Blankets

~ Cup noodles

~ Cereals

~ PLASTIC BAGS

Relief efforts are going on in the following locations all over Metro Manila (that I know of):

- VCF Fort (ENLI Building) - this is the big blue building across from Market Market!. Relief goods can be delivered to the MULTIMEDIA ROOM on the first floor.

- MGC New Life Christian Academy - this is just beside VCF Fort, and is a big green-and-cream building with a covered court. Not to be mistaken for ISM. They are accepting donations of WATER.

- Makati Gospel Church - 7650 Dela Rosa St., Makati City. They are accepting all sorts of relief goods.

- Rockwell

- University of Asia and The Pacific - Along Pearl Drive in Ortigas Center. They are accepting relief goods, specifically old clothes and blankets. Deliver them to the SEB office on the first floor. Please do not wear sleeveless/shorts/leggings when entering the campus as they are a staunch OPUS DEI school.

TO DONATE FUNDS - VCF FORT:

Victory Fort Bonifacio is accepting donations of canned goods, mineral or purified water, milk, and other items; please bring them over to the Every Nation Building at the Bonifacio Global City.

We are also accepting cash donations which will go to purchasing more of these items for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. If you would like to donate, here is the appropriate information.

Peso Account
Account name: Victory Christian Fellowship
Account no: Current acct no: 0821-0298-13
Bank name: Bank of the Philippine Islands
Bank address: Fort Serendra Branch Ground Floor Serendra Retail Area Bonifacio Global City. Taguig City

Dollar Account
Account Name: Victory Christian Fellowship
Account Number: Dollar savings account no. 0824-0542-58
Swift code: BOPIPHMM
Bank Name: Bank of the Philippine Islands
Bank Address: Fort Serendra Branch Ground Floor Serendra Retail Area Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City

Please send us an email at carol.almadin@everynation.org.ph to let us know the details of the deposit. (Name, Church or Organization You're From (If Any), Dollar or Peso Amount Donated, Date and branch of deposit)

Victory is now accepting credit card donations for our Typhoon Ondoy relief program. Philippine-based donors may call 8171212 (9:00am to 5:00pm Philippine time) and inform the operator you would like to make a credit card donation to Every Nation Ministries for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. You will be connected to a representative who will take down your information.

International donors (persons based outside the Philippines) may email their phone numbers to jiji.concepcion@everynation.org.ph. A representative will call you and take down your information.

Thank you for partnering with us in helping those affected by Typhoon Ondoy.

This has been a PSA from NC. Please help in the Typhoon Ondoy relief efforts. Classes are suspended until Tuesday for Metro Manila and until Wednesday for University of Santo Tomas. Any other updates - please reply to this post.

[Stolen]

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Lonely Driving [Poetry Repost]

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:57:00 +0000

A/N: Written by a character. Mentions a kissing scene.

Lonely Driving
A Poem by Nekomi Takazawa

Submitted in fulfillment of requirements for ENGLISH - Poetry Elective.

The smell of my car's leather interior,
And cherry lipgloss with chocolate stains.
I grind into the bucket seat.
The open road ahead, running uphill,
Torturing the tires on the asphalt street,
Tears stinging in my eyes.
Remembering the jets of sunlight,
Coming through the thick glass panels,
Illuminating the coffee stains, constant rings of bitter brown,
Circle after circle, they flash on the windshield,
Like a slideshow I can't stop, on a projector I can't see.
The red roses you said goodbye with flash in my memory,
Dark red like the blur of stoplights through my tears.
Jam the car in fifth gear, hear,
The roar of an engine, see the shine of foglights,
Is it you, I wonder, that blur of white?
Or my knuckles gripping the steering wheel?
The smell of alcohol in the fall, from when,
We first met, I'm held together and pulled apart,
By the memories that form my gilded cage.
It should not hold me still at all,
But I stay in its four dimensions, my heart beating like bird's wings.
Turn the radio on, feel the beat,
Like the endless rhythm of heel-toe braking,
We didn't last long enough to have a song, but the electric cantata
Makes me slam my car into the guardrail, like suicide.
Stare at the windshield, through the thick driving rain,
My car's too old to take this.
I gave up love for future, love for love,
Love for my falling star, cutting through the darkness
Unchallenged brilliance, I gave up the ultimate dream
Love is the ultimate dream, dreams never come true.

Sing along to the radio,
Slam my head into the wheel,
Hear the horns blare, hear your voice there,
Try to drive away all that I feel.
Stall the car in the middle of a storm,
I still smell your cologne, won't get up till I forget it.
Doctors can't fix this, I hope you end up to be
The only one who can, someday, I'm left wishing for a falling star
Uselessly I pump the brakes, heel-toe,
Sobbing into the dashboard.
So this is what Lonely Driving is like.
This is what Lonely Driving is like.
Watching the scenes flash on the windshield.
Remembering how on the last day I grabbed your collar
Forced your lips, dragged them on mine.
How you kept your eyes open the whole time,
Tasting the bile in my mouth, the salt in yours,
And how I let you go, laughed, and lied.
I said I was alright, and waved goodbye.
So this is what Lonely Driving is like.
I tell myself I'm such a fool, such a fool.
Jam my car back into gear, race my pain
On the downhill, but the pain always wins.
Through the blur of tears, trying to remember
My clumsy kiss, and wishing I was as drunk as when
We first met, still racing my pain
On the downhill through my tears.
This is all I have now.
This is what Lonely Driving's like.
So this is what it's like.

HELP ME - Songs Please!

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:15:00 +0000

Okay, I might be participating in the NaNoWriMo this year (even if it is against my better judgement), but I'm lost for good songs. The title of this year's novel is 'The Playlist', and the logline is Pride and Prejudice meets the chatroom.

But I won't get into particulars. Just give me a list of songs (and don't make them all love songs, just stick any cool song in there and screw the genre - classical, acoustic, OPM, Scandanavian Rock Orchestra...etc.) GO CRAZY.

Leave them in my comments. Best 30 get into Felicia's playlist.

XOXO,
N.C. (not GG)

[Poetry- Open, Faerie Tale] Happily Ever After is a Happy Lie

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:00:00 +0000

A/N: After my research, I read that faeries are often mean-spirited little devils, and not the benevolent creatures in fairy tales (BTW, I spell it FAERIE because that's how it's really spelled.) So what in the world would happen if faeries showed their true colors? There may be semi-offensive racist language but then again, the person who's supposedly narrating this poem is a bit rude anyway.

Happily Ever After is a Happy Lie

In faerie tales, there is never really a happy ending
I'll be frank, I know the truth
Those faeries are tricky creatures
They don't like their changelings changed back
So when a prince becomes a frog, he stays a frog
No amount of romance or "true love" can change that
And beasts too, they stay horrid forever
To slash at portraits of how they were once comely
You think a faerie would give him up to a pretty girl?
Are you daft?

And as for cinders, they stay cinders
To smudge your face as you labor for all eternity
No faerie in their right mind will help you
Turn to your earthly godmother and you'll have better luck
Perhaps with her failing eyes she'll sew you a pretty dress
And you can go in disguise to the ball, better yet
The spirit of your dead mother in a crab or fish
Plant its bones in the dirt, but then again
That only happens in Southeast Asia; Whitey, you're out of luck.

And come on, crystal shoes may come in pairs
But when they break they cut you, and you bleed.
What was once pristine white will be stained ruby
You were a fool to think that faeries would be
Benevolent enough to give you shoes without a catch
With faeries, there is always a catch...they are the great seductresses
Otherwise why are there so many enchanted princes and princesses?
Jealousy, I tell you.
They want the world in the palm of their hands
And they'll get it, if you're dumb enough to fall for their tricks

If your skin is white as snow and lips red as fresh blood
That poison apple you eat is probably going to put you to sleep for good
The Grimms had it closer to the mark, they did their research
The Evil Queen was probably a Faerie herself
They're vain little creatures, you know
So if you're pretty, stay away from the lands of Faerie
Or you might find yourself dead or worse
Turned into a warthog or some such animal
Or horribly disfigured, no matter if your heart is as pure as glass
They'll scratch at your face with their claws

Same thing if you forget to invite faeries to your parties
No one of them is going to help you get over your curse
And if you burn every spinning wheel in the kingdom, ha!
They can just enchant one out of butterfly dreams
Or better yet, jab the spindle into your heart
Cover your castle in thorns - the prince will never reach you
And if he does, he'll find a sallow stick in your bed
So much for 'sunlight', am I right?
You'll lie there dead and rot
And so will all the kingdom 'round you.

So if you really want a happy ending
You're not going to get it - idiot - reading faerie tales
You must step out in a gown you made yourself and not by mice
You must grow your own roses, and clip them as soon as petals start to fall
Use a sowing machine, not a spinning wheel
And NEVER eat juicy red apples, the green ones prevent cancer anyway
Just stay in the real world
There are no princes, but at least no meddling faeries will destroy your chances
At true love, for there is where the tales did not lie
There is such thing, and if you're strong you'll find it.

Fin

[Creative Nonfiction] He Used To Be Your Number One

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:58:00 +0000

To find yourself, you must lose yourself.

He used to be your number one. Your number one thought. Your number one (try only) subject of conversation. Your number one inspiration (or lack of it). But now you've erased him, and you have a void to fill.

He used to be your number one, till you erased him from your phonebook, deleted him from your YM friends, and attempted - just attempted - to stop replaying all your conversations over and over and over.

Then he started to hurt you, and a little voice in the back of your head - the little voice that keeps you from making a mess (cue Hilary Duff song stylings) - tells you that he's your number one again...your number one problem. And you can't seem to solve him - ehem - it.

Then you watch him fall, the same way you fell, and he becomes your number one again. Your number one object of pity. Now you can forgive him, when you see him that way. When you understand that he and you were one in the same, so things would never have worked out. So now you see him for what he was - not the prince you saw before he broke your heart, or the horrible monster you saw afterwards - but just a boy, just like you were just a girl, just like you can be both dark and light, beauty and ugliness, truth and lie.

You see him with new eyes, see him the way you never saw him - as a human, just like you, who cries inside when you cry aloud, and chases after a dream quietly the way you do so arms flailing and ready to conquer the world. You cannot love him again - it is not in your power, you have changed so much - but you can understand him the way, once upon a time, you dreamt you would. Because now you understand how much he is truly like you, yet unlike you. In knowing him, you know the face in the mirror.

You've let go long ago - you've moved on, you've found other number ones who've come and gone - yet he'll always be the special one. Because you see, he was the one who was most like you, even though he could never understand you. And so while you were hurt - you were cut till it bled, sucked dry till there was nothing left - you forgive. You see him live the same life of quiet desperation you have led time and time again, and you wish him the best.

For you know that fools like you and he need love, and if he finds it, then so will you.

Quickie Update

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:45:00 +0000

Stories in Limbo:

- The Umbra: Supernatural (Speculative)
- Set Yourself on Fire: General
- The Ace of Hearts: Humor/"Romance" (Life Stories, Second Draft)
- And Never Wake Up: Angst (War Stories)
- Tangle of Thorns: Angst/Drama (Murder story that is probably not going anywhere.)

Novels/Novellas in Limbo:

- Memoirs of My Past Life: Literary Fiction (To be scrapped and rewritten from the ground up)
- Quite So Bad: A Guidebook To High School Crushes: (Novella) Romance/Humor/Drama (Life Stories, based on "Phillip and Sara:)

Idea Stagers

- The Princess of Makati Avenue: General (Life Stories, Based on a friend's immigrating to Canada.)
- The Girls of Room Three: Chick Lit/Humor/Romance (Life Stories)
- Bookworm Summer: General
- The Pimple That Ate a Face: Speculative (Haruki Murakami "After Dark" Tribute)

How To Fake an Asthma Attack - Critics, Flamers, Insecurities, and Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:56:00 +0000

I don't really get that many critics. It's probably because I don't really get read much. My harshest critics may be my best friend and my mother, because sometimes people let their fear of hurting my feelings get in the way of expressing what I could correct in my work. I'll admit, though, that I'm not the best person to preach to when dealing with critics. I feel bad when I get critiqued, probably because I'm not used to getting it.

But I do learn. For example is the piece on my blog called "Porcelain" which I wrote during a workshop. I was critiqued quite a lot for that, and it hurt. It hurt like hell. Someone was cutting my baby and my ego to pieces and tearing me, it seemed, to ribbons. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes and feigned a dizzy spell so I got out and grabbed some water. My heart was somewhere in my throat, I could literally feel it.

It's horrible, getting criticized. But it's also right. Sometimes it can tell you that you're not meant for something (I'm bad at drawing for drawing's sake; it's not for me and I won't die without it so I know it's not for me.), and sometimes it can tell you to push on. It takes years, art. Writing especially, because people will always have the same basic construction (Unless there's some screwy DNA madness.) but words always change.

1984's Newspeak may become the latest rage. God forbid. I may die.

I do get jealous when the latest 11-12-13-year-old prodigy with a novel comes along and me unable to finish mine with its tangle of prose that needs to be scrapped and redone from the bottom up. I know, it sounds silly, but that's how it is. And despite my logical side telling me (According to a diagnostic test, that side is rather weak.) that everyone has their own pace, I'm only human. I have those little voices in my head that tell me I'm not good enough.

I am my own harshest critic. And this critic in my head tells me to stop writing because I - to put it very coarsely - suck. I am not one for coarse language in the written word, but it's all the truth I have to say. There are some critics you listen to and there are some you ignore.

In writing, you're not writing for yourself. You're writing something with the intention of putting it out there for everyone else's interpretation and scrutiny. With that in mind, get your best friend-slash-shrink on speed dial, pick up the pen, and start scribbling with others in mind, other voices. Your goal is to be understood, but not completely. And enduring work can be read many different ways.

I went to a writing workshop with my best friend, Pato, a while back. I like workshops because they offer starting points from which one can build one's own style. I don't follow them word-for-word, but they do offer pointers that I take seriously. And though this one had a bit of a new-age, "The Secret" feel, I liked the points that the coach, Tweet Sering, presented.

They are the following:

Know - self-reflection. What do you know for sure? Name it. Know what your dream, your idea is. Know yourself, because it's draw what you see and write what you know. This is the ghost-of-a-muse stage. Don't start writing from here!
Validate - Knowing exactly what to write about. Like when you hear a song and you think Hey, that's me! "When something resonates with you, it confirms your feelings." Get a quote, a song, start from there.
Attract - (This was a bit "The Secret"-ish so I didn't like it.) Brainstorming. Physical step. It's throwing things on to paper and getting things to happen. What do I want to say? Act on it!
Commit - Your first draft. How committed are you? Are you going to give up before you're even halfway (...My poor "The Umbra"), or are you going to fight?
Practice - Second draft, third draft, fourth draft...etc. You're talking to someone now. This writing is growing beyond just you. Try writing for an audience in mind. Your language starts to change and this is when you can un-kill your internal editor.
Be brave - Have the courage to share it. Name your emotions and motivations so that you become their master. Scream it! Shout it! Blog it!
Let go - Publish, blog it, leave it for the lions. A part of you has died in letting it go because it's the world's now. Your baby has grown up.

So fine. I'm not good yet. It takes time, and until I get to the point where the critics are my best friends I'll be faking a lot more asthma attacks and dizzy spells. But still, I'm at the beginning of a long road. Anyway, I've yet to act on those tips, but maybe I persist and I will. Oh, and I will enter more of those contests, because I love being out for blood.

Writing isn't a science, and that's what makes it beautiful.

[fiction-drabble] blink 2: hallway

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:05:00 +0000

Key's Note: Second in the *blink* Series of drabbles. Written when I decided that I have probably been contaminated with the poetic stress virus, and should take a break and shut up.

"Silence is the safest course for a man to adopt who distrusts himself."
~ Francois de la Rochefoucauld

I've been attempting to say nothing but apparently I'm stupid enough to want to tell someone how much I've been trying to forget. I walk around blindly, going any direction because I don't have one. I'm simply running from thoughts in a useless attempt to retain my sanity. I've already made a fool of myself in the quest to find someone to tell about my glaring issue, but do I really want to tell anyone anyway? Or am I just lacking attention, looking stupid, rolling around something I could simply forget with a laugh if I wasn't so stressed out?

[poem] bells and sculpted angels

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:22:00 +0000

Key's Notes: I thought this would be a 'dark' poem again, because I'd been writing 'dark' poems lately. But all my attempts to write a 'dark' poem failed miserably, so I scrapped all of it and started writing from scratch. My "heroic" efforts have led to the creation of this rather short but cute "ang-torpe-mo-pare-make-your-move" - themed piece. Enjoy the fluff!

~*~

Bells and Sculpted Angels

Through the blanketing of haze
"Take my hand." you say, bravely
And despite the tortuous maze
She'll stand beside you, maybe

"Take my hand." you say bravely
Through a meandering mist
She'll stand beside you, maybe
Or maybe forget all this

Through a meandering mist
All's quiet, take a chance
Or maybe forget all this
As you watch the vapor dance

All's quiet, take a chance
Amidst the bells and sculpted angels
As you watch the vapor dance
Embrace her as the music swells

Amidst the bells and sculpted angels
And despite the tortuous maze
Embrace her as the music swells
Through the blanketing of haze

Fin

~*~

The title of this poem is taken from the lyrics of "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" from The Phantom of The Opera. It's a pantoum, a poem with a pattern of repetition. For pantoums, the pattern of repetition is the second and fourth lines of one stanza become the first and third lines of the next. For more details, visit my page on villanelles and pantoums.

[poetry - pantounelle] pantounelle phantom

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:19:00 +0000

Key's Notes: I think I've patented this form, though I can't be sure. It mingles the techniques of a villanelle and a pantoum. So unless I find out that someone else has patented this form or this name, the form of pantounelle was brought into being by yours truly, Frankie Torres.

"Pantounelle Phantom"

You are a ghost that haunts my dreaming,
A shade that lingers silent, scheming.
You invade my sleep each night,
My secretive and shadowed twilight.

A shade that lingers silent, scheming,
Your wicked smile a knife-blade gleaming.
What horrid nightmares you excite,
My secretive and shadowed twilight!

You are the ghost that haunts my dreaming.
Lightly you kill me, always beaming.
While you block every source of light,
You invade my sleep each night.

Your wicked smile a knife-blade gleaming.
Head full of evil thoughts a-teeming.
You leave me with no safety in sight,
My secretive and shadowed twilight.

A shade that lingers silent, scheming,
Your propositions leave me screaming.
You've trapped your maker out of spite.
What horrid nightmares you excite!

Lightly you kill me, always beaming.
When you leave my tears start streaming.
I need you more than I can fight!
You invade my sleep each night.

My secretive and shadowed twilight,
You invade my sleep each night.
A shade that lingers silent, scheming,
You are the ghost that haunts my dreaming.
While the sun has yet to start a-beaming,
You are the ghost that haunts my dreaming.

Fin

I'm reading it over and yes, I know, sounds a bit...funny. Didn't mean for it to sound...funny. I meant it to be scary. And you know I don't mean 'haha' funny. I mean funny funny. Gyah. Well, that's been my best pantounelle so far! Hope you enjoy!

XOXO,
Key T.
Gypsy

[poem] before the afterparty

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:11:00 +0000

I pay for this party in tears and clenched chests
Like a giant weight is pressing on my back
And all around me are accusatory eyes
And people clamoring for answers when they will not give me theirs

I pay for this party in sickness and toil
I feel so alone, I can't even move forward
When did this become my responsibility?
When did this become my lone burden to bear?

I pay for this party with coldness and crying
My hands are shaking as they trip across the keys
My eyes are swollen and weak from weariness
All I want to do is sleep, sleep

I pay for this party in prayers so hollow
I cannot feel them even as they leave my lips
Yet through the haze of stress I grasp onto fading lights
If only, if only...so lonely, so lonely

I pay for this party in choked sobs and chatter
On all sides, my ears are full of the white noise
I pay with this all and the bitterness grows
And it chokes me, it chokes me, it chokes my heart

It turns my heart to stone.

[fiction-drabble] blink 1: duck your head

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:20:00 +0000

Key's Note: First in the *blink* Series of drabbles. To find out what a drabble is, click here.

Give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die.
Take him and cut him into little chunks
And he shall make the taste of meat pies so fine
That all the world will buy from Mrs. Lovett's.
~Romeo and Juliet, Sweeney Todd Version

They're wrong, I don't feed it. I've been ducking my head avoiding it so much that my back has a permanent knot in it. Always there, it lies in wait in the corner of my subconscious, rising up every so often like a bout of morning sickness. And like morning sickness, it nauseates me. I am pregnant with hating it. It lulls me into a false sense of security, lies dormant until...WHAM! It hits me - in the hallway, in the stairwell, a big slap in the face. It's like a fungus. All I can do is duck my head.

[poetic fit] believe

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:29:00 +0000

Every negative must have a positive. Since "The Pull" was so negative, I had to write something positive.

~*~

Encoded in a beat of similar words
From one attempting to transcend death

I find
We've forgotten simplicity
In an attempt to build a rhapsody
Of verbose phrases and rhyme

The same way
We complicate reality
Building on the negatives
Being enslaved by time

That scores upon our foreheads
Around our eyes
A line for every moment we believed it ruled us
Marking each passing, painful year

And yet life feels as if it passes quickly
Slipping through our fingers as we panic
To grasp it for a little longer
Because life is short yet years seem eternal

And life pulls us along
On the path we've chosen
Treading as if on petals, on broken glass
On shifting, transient sand

So we feel as if we have...
Felt a change
Made a change
Been a change

If life is to bear witness to how long
How long we struggle to effect a new thing
A victory against the things that hold us fast
Let life witness the length of our struggle with grace

If all the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players
May I use the overblown cliche, forgive me
Let us play our parts by living them

Method acting has its place, however painful
To believe really in the role you play
Though it may cost you on the stage
In life it keeps you living, keeps you growing

And if I have one more piece of
Ardently cryptic advice hidden in a maze of bad poetry
It's this...
"ANSWER TELL ** PRAY ** ANSWER ** LOOK ** TELL ANSWER ** ANSWER ** TELL"

Believe

Fin

Another bout of bad poetry! Ack! Am I losing my skills?

XOXO,
Key T.
Gypsy/The Metal

[poetry] the pull

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:14:00 +0000

I got so pissed off having to write a love poem in Filipino that I'm writing a poem in English about love and life and choosing to take life with what it throws at you. Semi-inspired by Pierce Laudencia's essay "Make The Weather".

~*~

Shut your eyes to the reality of the situation,
Where beauty is in madness and madness your destination.
Step up to the plate and face truth in the eye.
Accept the fact that what your heart speaks is a lie.

This is the price you pay for the deadly game you've played.
To be authentic there must be a shred of authenticity.
But you never realized the liability of your transparency.
We can all see right through you. I can see right through you.

I can see right through me.

This is the pull of life, get over it.
Do not choose to dwell on the things you cannot control.
Keep the pattern of your life unpredictable but guided.
Your heart is a traitor but it does not always lie.

Face head-on what attempts to consume you
Be it love or a feeling like love or simply the irony of the situation.
No man can be an island or an ice king forever.
There will always be something to shatter your defenses.

The walls you so carefully build up...they are meaningless.
At any point, you yourself will choose to break them for a cause.
And once that battle has been fought and won, lick your wounds.
Feel the backfiring of the plan you thought would see you through.

It saw you through all right, but at a price.

This is the pull of insanity.
This is a demon-dance on air.
You must, you must resist the fierce beating
In your head, like an Electric cantata.

You cannot deny what you have created.
You cannot deny your past.
You must move forward with the consequences, and the issues
The battle scars which will run so deep that they will rent you through.

You cannot use this pain as an excuse to turn off life.
Or hold it on pause, because life cannot be paused
It must be lived through to the next tomorrow
Else your whole life be in vain

The pain will teach you, as long as you master it
Without pain you cannot see pleasure
Or beauty without ugliness
The paradox of ironies that shouts and screams LIFE!

You must patch yourself up again.

You must resist.
You must resist.
You MUST resist...

You must resist the pull.

Fin.

I think this is sort of like "stream of consciousness" fiction except it's stream of consciousness poetry. I have no idea what the heck I was saying, half the time. Dang. Probably my worst work EVER. I'll delete this someday, just not now.

XOXO,
Key T.
The Metal

[Poem] Pretty Girls Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:11:00 +0000

Based on my feeling about the now-finished School Musicale and the upcoming prom.

Pretty Girls Dance

The scent of the air was sweet and tense
The sweat rolled in beads round pearly face
Painted with iridescent colors of false loveliness
Hair done up, pins in every nook and cranny

Swell of a song that keeps on going
Even past the first few notes of this song
That's younger than time, younger than rhyme
Yet it's been going strong for so long

It's the feeling of weightlessness when I spin
And I ignore the audience watching through The Fourth Wall
The fact it's a wall says it all, and I seize this opportunity
Because I know it's my last - very last, very last - chance to feel this

Like the Earth is spinning beneath my feet
And I'm lifted by clouds of magic and music
The notes swell with each step and I ignore
The fact that I'm teetering in stilletos that might catch my petticoat

But too soon the song is over and the lights are dim
It's supposed to be warm in the stage lights but I'm cold
I know it's over but as I exit in the dark I hold my head high
High-five my partner, thank you for helping me fly

Unfortunately girls can't soar on their own in waltzes.
But if they could, I would join hands with myself and fly
Across the boards as if treading air
And I loved the moment, the feeling, the dance, the stars in my eyes

It's the key to flying I try to capture days later
As I run up stairs and the wind threads its fingers through my hair
But it's different now, because the song is gone and the beat is off
And I stand there, in jogging pants, feeling graceless

Dancing on clouds of manmade smoke
Too bad it's my last dance for the year (for my high school life?)
The prom is looming but my eyes are starless
At fifteen I learned only pretty girls get to dance

Fin.

Random Update - Stats: A Sweet, Dull Pain

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:02:00 +0000

Okay, I've just finished the dang "Typewriter" blah and I get started on a new post...talk about making up for lost time. In fact I typed this "essay-story" about A Sweet, Dull Pain a few days back and have only just though of posting it now. Basically it talks about why I decided to write and A Sweet, Dull Pain and how the idea came to be. Really just a general working of my mind...and I find it a bit verbose. Still, it's pretty much just an update. I hope you can read the font, which is urania_czech, a typewriter font I'm quite taken with. Ping me if you can't.

~*~
The Story Behind A Sweet, Dull Pain

The sun hits my eyes. It's afternoon. I've parted the Venetian blinds with dirty fingertips and cracked and dirty nails, stained with red ink. The windowsill is dusty, and I sneeze, close my eyes for the briefest moment when I stop breathing. Then I open them...not tentatively so as to allow my eyes to adjust to the light. I open them as wide as I can, to stare out the dirty, smudged glass at the view beyond.

Not much of a view, really. I very rarely look out the window, especially this one. In fact, I very rarely look out windows if there is nothing there to see...unless I'm thinking. Something about the vast blue expanse through the panes of glass suggests thought. I like big windows for that reason, windows I can see through without having to stand so close to the glass that I feel like, at any moment, I could jump.

I don't think about jumping. I don't really contemplate death. Sometimes I contemplate the abstract nature of it, but not really death as an option. It's not that I have a lot to live for – mostly life's a day-to-day thing for me – but I don't really have any reason to die. There's no emptiness, no numbness, none of the cliché reasons to end it all. But whenever I look down through a huge window, something rises up inside me and I start to wonder...how would it be like on the way down?

They call them picture windows because when you stand at one of them, you look good enough to take a picture of. It's a cliché, yet very evocative pose – standing at a huge window and looking towards the sky, as if it is full of limitless possibilities.

But back to the present. Back to my dirty fingers parting dirty blinds to look through a dirty window. I'm doing this at random, to think. Around me, people are talking and laughing and walking around. It's as if at the window I can become absolutely invisible. Not that I mind. I usually enjoy attention but at this point, a little alone-ness could do me some good. It helps me think, and when I activate that part of my brain, thoughts bubble up to the surface as if they have been waiting for an eternity for me to loose them. Nothing really profound, however amusing. I could just pick a thought and let it lull me into a false sense of security in the fact that I am thinking. Just follow a train of thought into oblivion, for all I care.

The sunlight hits my eyes with a vengeance. It's strange...it's not early morning, it's late afternoon. My eyes have been in the light for at least eight hours. Yet the light hurts as if I've opened my eyes for the first time, just as my hand tingles as if someone has just squeezed it and let go. Every sensation coalesces into a feeling that confusingly means that I have either gained or lost something. I’ve been staring at the light for too long that black spots begin to float in front of my eyes. It’s nothing new, they fade in and out of vision from time to time.

I sigh and begin to close my eyes but a part of me calls my senses into alarm and they snap open, wide open, again. The sunlight is slowly turning from blazing yellow to a warm gold, streaks of it tickling my cheeks with warmth. Trains of thought weave in and out of my head but I can’t be tempted to dawdle on any of them. The ache in the back of my eyes – the back of my head – builds and wanes, each flash bringing it back. It is a dull pain, drumming in the back of my head and coming to nothing in the end. Pain is supposed to be a reminder, a warning. This pain seems as meaningless as the gesture that brought it about.

Staring at a landscape through a dirty window, Venetian blinds parted with fingers that sorely need a washing.

I move my eyes to the corner of the window, away from a cheerless view. It catches sight of the metal framework that creates the shutters of the window, painted strips of iron or steel – I cannot tell – that protect us from the elements but seem so fragile as I look at them. Dust has collected in the pockets of space between metal and glass. I wonder if enough dust collected, could it sufficiently push the panes out to sail down to the street below?

There it is…falling again. If not me, then a pane of glass. The sunlight can still find my eyes, even though they are turned away from the source of it. I stand there, at the window, in silence. It has only been a few seconds since I pried through the blinds…and it feels like it, but it also feels as if I have been standing there, frozen, for hours. Staring at nothing and thinking about nothing. Strange how so purposeless an exercise can evoke so many different words.

A ribbon of light catches a stone on one of my bracelets, and instantly the light is shattered – so dramatic – into millions of colorful rhombuses that dance on the cream-green wall. Hot pink, aqua blue, violent violet, and neon green slivers narrow and widen with each move of my hand. It’s been a long time since I’ve been fascinated by how light breaks into many colors, my first memory of it being a time when I pranced around in a purple shirt and matching jeans, studded with sequins that caught the light and caused the effect I see once again.

Finally, I tear my eyes away. I look back at the room that seemed so crowded when I was looking away from it but now seems almost deserted. Spots of yellow flash before my eyes, as if the sunlight is seeking vengeance for my turning away from it. I feel dizzy, for a moment, and touch my temple. The pain is back, throbbing hazily through my brain. I find I quite like the pain, despite my aversion to the sensation in general. It is a dull, thought-provoking ache that makes me feel as if I have lost and gained something. In a few seconds of damaging my eyes I have conjured up a phrase that seems utterly meaningless but absolutely haunting.

As I play the phrase over and over in my head, I know that it and what it promises will haunt me. I will wander around, grasping at storylines and characters, muses and methods, so I can fulfill its cause. It will cause me annoyance, misery…but I will not be able to stop talking about it. A part of me is afraid that it will join the ranks of the titles I never used, though they sounded so beautiful and held so much promise. It is that fear that drives me into a frenzy trying to call up plotlines for it, in service to it. One that sounds good one day sounds too cliché the next.

But I know how it will begin. It will begin the same way I began – staring out of a dirty window at a sun that had not yet chosen between setting and hanging clear and large in the sky. It will begin with an ache that builds at the base of one’s head and travels to the backs of ones eyes...a pain that is all at once annoying and addictive.

A Sweet, Dull Pain.

~*~

Basically it's just an update in essay/story form. I don't think this classifies as "autobiographical incident", seeing as some of it has been romanticized and fictionalized.

Funny thought. When reading the purposefully run-on sentence "Staring at a landscape through a dirty window, Venetian blinds parted with fingers that sorely need a washing." I thought of a person called Venetian Blinds who parted (a.k.a. lost) his/her dirty fingers. It's a funny double meaning, actually.

Anyway, that's all the write I have in me at the moment.

XOXO,
NC

Typewriters...

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:39:00 +0000

There's a weird need floating in and out of my head at present...it's the need for a typewriter. I know that sounds strange, because something absolutely outdated and very hard to maneuver, that has no chance of spell-checks or backspacing (things I tend to use very often due to my quick mind) - not to mention the lack of italics, which I am very fond of - should be repulsive to me.

But it strangely isn't...which is why I feel the need to acquire a good portable typewriter. I have typewriter fonts and a word processor (Q10) that makes suitably loud and annoyingly bang-like typewriter noises when turned on full volume, but I feel I need the authenticity of an actual typewriter.

In my mom's old office, there used to be a typewriter, one of those Olympia deals. It had rusted typebars and they would often stall. As a child, experimenting, I often had to push the typebars down, thus getting ink on my fingers. I didn't really mind though, I liked to pretend I was doing serious work like all the grown-ups. Of course, define serious for a child, it obviously wasn't a very good pretend.

I would start work on what I could consider my first every short story at that age. I'd skip lunch and vehemently take over my mother's computer to start tapping away at a short fantasy piece that involved monsters, sisters, and clothes. A copy of the story no longer exists. If it did, I'd like to read it.

All kids write fantasy, I think. Cartoons, Disney Princesses, all that stuff. I'd write my first actual story and begin to dream of getting published, simply because I wanted to prove I was the smartest kid in the world, a prodigy. I felt getting famous would prove that, something that remained up until recently, though only as a subconscious belief.

Anyway, back to typewriters. No, obviously I didn't type my first story on a typewriter...I needed a word processor with a good spell checker, seeing as I tend to type before I think. Even back then...obviously. Seeing as I was only three or four years old.

The typewriter was in the area where the printers were. My mom's old office was organized like a maze of gray cubicles, you know the type. My mom's current office is more of open space. Back then, the gray walls were everywhere, gray dividers you could see over and drop things from above. Near my mom's cubicle, which was nearest the door and had its own mini-waiting area up front, facing the pantry and bathrooms. The printers were near my mom's cubicle, so I was able to totter there on my legs quite often. I loved printing stuff, a love I still have. I tend to make hard-copies of my works so I can take them home and peruse them five or six times before getting utterly bored.

The typewriter was next to the printers, and next to its distant cousin of today, a PC that acted as the printer server. Sometimes I'd use that PC to type up thing too, to print immediately. But mostly, I just fooled around with the old Olympia. I'd bang the keys for a few minutes, get tired or bored or irritated, and totter off. I don't mean the word "totter" lightly. I was fat, as a child.

Now, about ten or so years later, I'm feeling the stirrings of that childhood "bond" again. It's strange, in the age of the Word Processor, where the spell checker is king, I feel the need to steal the electric typewriter (brand Canon) from the accounting department even though stealing it isn't really worth it seeing as it as an inability to type the letter Q.

And for this quintessential quirky quixotic quack, quitting q-words is quite a quandary, a quagmire even. I can't string together P-words like pundit Pato Pokalicious did for her Profile Page. The q-words alone wore me out, looking for nouns that begin with Q.

Back to the matter at hand.

It's strange how all of a sudden I am nostalgic for an age I never existed in...the age where typewriters were all you had. It's strange how my hands, my typing style, seems perfectly formed for the furious banging. I abuse my poor keyboard terribly, though I enjoy the satisfying click that sounds as my fingers fly across the keys. That's my form of music. Still, it isn't the same with the typewriter. I may load my computer with millions of versions of free typewriter fonts, install a noise that makes my keyboard sound like typekeys when I drum on them...but it's still not the same. There's something about an image of a woman, a woman writer at a typewriter that evokes a sense of the romantic. Don't tease me by pointing me in the direction of the quill - quills are itchy and you have to constantly "mend" them - because a typewriter has a heavy sort of powerful air that an inconsequential quill does not.

Anyway, this ends my three-day (yes, it took me three days to finish this ONE post) ramble on why I want a typewriter. Nothing really makes you feel like a writer more than the tak-tak-ching! Though I'm sure I won't be saying that when I'll have to live with a bottle of Wite-out.

XOXO,
NC
Gypsy

...WRITING UPDATE

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:51:00 +0000

Okay, I've been very bad this holiday season. I haven't been writing. *pouts* 2007's over and I STILL haven't finished my NaNoWriMo novel (I did finish the 50K words, duh.), and my other project, "The Umbra"...and I have this weird idea called "Twinology" which I'm NOT giving away for delicate and personal reasons.

Also left hanging has been "The Child Out of Time", the semi-sequel to "Phillip and Sara". Actually, I'm mostly annoyed at the fact I've left "The Umbra" hanging out of anything else and already I have the companion title, "Penumbra".

...Actually, I have millions of titles floating around my head, mostly because of my reading the AWESOME AWESOME As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway. Folks, that is REAL lit fiction. What I do is a pathetic carbon copy.

I don't want to go back to school, BTW. Nothing against the teachers. I want to take a hiatus and just WRITE but then where am I going to go with my life then?

On ne voir bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux... Did I get my translation right? It's supposed to be "It is with the heart that one sees rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." I think Wikipedia may be screwed up a bit. At any rate, I'm pretty much procrastinating on most of my writing, which is VERY BAD for someone who wants a novel out at sixteen. I'm NEVER going to be able to match Christopher Paolini at this rate.

*sad, sad*

Je crierai au monde pour m'entendre,
N.C.

Gray Eyeliner

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:07:00 +0000

Nick slammed the car door shut violently and sank into the gray leather cushions, her gray-rimmed eyes appearing almost blue in the half-light of the afternoon. She didn't understand why she chose to wear gray eyeliner again, but then she didn't understand half the things she did and said and she did and said them anyway. Her shirt was still black (it would be the third day she would wear black, almost as if she was in mourning), and her hair was still a messy combination of wavy and straight, although there was a new addition of a silver-slashed lock slicing across her face like a knife blade.

The driver scowled at her through the rearview mirror, but the dour, disillusioned teen shrugged and grabbed a navy-blue pillow that lay on the cushions. She curled up like a cat and tried to think about her prom dress, but that didn't help.

Annoyed, she rubbed her temples with her right hand with its prominent callus on her ring finger. A tattoo of a flower-filled vine snaked its way from the bottom of her wristbone up that ring finger, ending in a large flower opening itself up near her nail. The nail itself was painted in clear pink with the same vine pattern painted on top of that.

"Nice tattoo." one of her classmates (the one who had suggested she wear eyeliner) remarked. Nick didn't thank him. She was too busy staring blankly into the distance, twirling her lock of silver hair through the aforementioned tattooed finger, a line of glitter painted on her cheeks.

It was on the palms of her roughened hands too, not the hands of a pampered girl but the hands of someone who couldn't care less. The scars on her legs were hidden with unecessary Band-aids, big purple blotches marring pale skin.

She scratched at her wounds too much, had a twisted feeling of satisfaction when the blood ran and her nails were caked in that dark brown. It wasn't sadomasochism, it was a disturbing habit she'd had since childhood and she'd resolved time and time again to break it, but old habits die hard.

The car kept moving, and Nick held her eyes closed, listening to the drone of the engine as it navigated the traffic-filled streets. She remembered the low drone of her own voice, quiet yet laden with strength - the threatening, masculine kind, much like Wolverine or something. It was not the sexy, smoky, "bedroom voice" she'd learned to have, pitch-perfect, with an accent if she wanted. It was guttural and threatening and somewhat...sad.

But then again, she was sad, though she fought to hide it beneath a mask of cynicism and witty comebacks that she didn't care less. If she was averting her eyes from an annoying person (such as that boy she knew in her class with a ready cocksure, annoying, flirtatious smirk and eyes narrowed in a leer), she would pretend to look at her slightly-dirty nails. If she was crying inside, she would tamp it down to a deep, nasal breath as she closed her eyes.

She was doing that now, getting up and swiping at suddenly itchy eyes. A tear tracked its way down her cheek, an eyelash carried in the salty drop. Nick swiped it away and cursed. "Damn eyeliner." she said, rubbing her eye then patting it with tissue and, steadying her reflection in the rearview mirror, deftly reaplying her eyeliner with one fluid movement.

She capped the pencil and tossed it back into her bag. Outside, traffic was at a standstill. She hunched over in her seat, grabbing her ears and tucking her knees to her chest. It was a frustrated gesture. A frustrated girl battling with her need to feel and her forced instinct to think. Her too young-too old face looked drawn in the mirror after another exhausting day.

She grabbed her pillow again and tossed curled up into her original position on the seats. She tried to mimic sleep, making her breaths even and even loosening up her limbs. The drone of the car started up again, and she could feel the movement. In her mind, she saw a flash of red-brown-gold and the memory of her swiveling her head and knowing it was a false alarm and she was being stupid and blind.

In anger, she screamed inside and scrunched her eyes, little fireworks in her vision due to the pressure. She let out a breath amd clutched the pillow, thinking about her prom dress and her life and all the things that it was and would be. All the rules she ascribed to.

She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, ignoring the fact that the tighter she knit her eyes together, the more her eyeliner would smudge. She wouldn't sleep that night. She'd just lie there, in her bed, the same way she was lying in the car. Just pretending, because she always pretended. She always pretended not to care.

Random Ideas Pertaining To Sanity

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:43:00 +0000

Sorry I've been out for so long. The month-long NaNoWriMo run pretty much drained me of all writing capacity for quite a while. In fact, I was barely able to express my happiness at finishing the 50K run.

My novel remains unfinished, despite reaching 50,000+ words. I'm leaving it alone to stew for a bit, and writing short stories as I believe I have to let Solea shut up a bit. I think she's all talked out for the time being.

No one's watching television in the other room but it's on. I'm beginning to ask myself if my mom's office is haunted. If it is, it would make another interesting story. I'm beginning to notice that ghosts are taking a big part in the themes of my stories nowadays. Currently I'm at work on a story I may or may not submit to next year's "Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards". I'm not sure if it fits in horror, fantasy, or science fiction, but it features ghosts. There's nothing really particularly scary about it, and if it doesn't fit any of the categories I may just let it stew and put it into an anthology or submit it to Story Magazine or Philippine Graphic.

The story I'm working on (and I'm going to turn this post into a sounding board) is called The Umbra. I like its double meaning, the word umbra that is. It can either mean the darkest point in an eclipse or a ghost, something not physically there. Eclipses and ghosts both play big parts in this short story, and it's getting challenging because I decided my first-person narrator would be a boy, and I'm obviously a girl. It's sort of me breaking free from gender constraints - girls don't just have to write girl narrators.

I guess I'm practicing for the in-depth scene in my novel with my male lead, Jerome. I've had some practice, narrating as Chase, my male lead for the 'Hanging by A Moment' series, and as Roy Mustang in my FMA fanfiction, but in those examples I took a third-person first-person narration. Now I really have to get personal.

My narrator is a fourth-year high school student from a co-ed Filipino school. It's the night before graduation and he and his four buddies are meeting on The Roof (their meeting place) to view an eclipse. One of his friends has recently lost his sister, and is pretty morose because of it.

However, at the darkest point of the eclipse, time 'freezes' and the dead sister appears, as tangible and real as if she was alive. They take a photograph, and she actually appears in the photograph when it is developed. However, when the eclipse totally fades, the girl disappears.

So for the rest of their lives, the meet up every time an eclipse appears in the Philippines (yes, they fly in, some of them) and toast the dead sister and see her. One by one the guys die until there is only the brother and the narrator left...

From there, I don't know. It's supposed to be both romantic and terrifying. I have a freaky quote I'm going to use in the internal/narrative dialogue of my main character. It goes something like this:

Everybody has problems, some larger than others, some so big that they drive you mad. Considering that, and the number of people committed to mental institutions, it was not a big deal that I was in love with my best friend's dead sister.

Horrifying, right? Well, I gave that plot point away. Yep, the guy is in love with his friend's dead sister.

~*~

I'm trying to keep this blog entirely unattached from life and the world in general and trying to focus on just literary junk but honestly, I can't. If you're from another country or have been living under a rock, then you haven't heard that Senator Antonio Trillanes and General Danilo Lim holed up in the Peninsula Manila on November 29, 2007, in an attempt to stage a coup.

I watched the opening footage, where Trillanes was asking people to come and rally at Makati. The news showed reruns over and over, until I could no longer take it. It's quite sad to watch, Being a journalistic voyeur, a part of me can't help analyzing the senator's face as he spoke. The look in his eyes, the sound of his voice.

It's a man who knows, well, at the very least a part of him knows that he is doomed.

I'm thinking if I get the chance I would interview him for a short story or something. It would be interesting to figure out how his brain was working during the surrender. I've always been the ambitious realist, even though as of late I'm running into surrealism.

Anyway, that's my short current events note. I'm pretty bushed as is.

~ Solan Stormeye

50,000 Words In

noreply@blogger.com (Frankie "NC" Torres) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:31:00 +0000

The Singer

I've been procrastinating this entry for over an hour and now, grudgingly, I HAVE to do it. I have FINALLY finished the 50K needed to win the NaNoWriMo. And thought my novel is far from finished, I believe I am deserving of a break.

~ Solan