Poem 17

Grim

A happy ending
is a story abandoned
at the right time.

*

In a castle where everyone knows their place,
the mouse is happiest.

*

Trade fins for feet
for a faster trip
to the funeral.

*

How long she guarded
her porcelain heart.
How quick it broke
at the lion's touch.

*

Beauty counsels: Put your mask on
and never take it off.

—Razel Estrella

To care and not

So ryokans. Trainee explained to me that in this traditional Japanese hotel, guests are taken care of from arrival to departure, and every minute in between.

The bed will be rolled out at the proper time, he said.

Very different from my experiences and expectations at hotels, where I would simply show up and do whatever I want. Starting with throwing myself in the bed.

It's an eyebrow-raising way of caring, and yet it totally makes sense. Some strange days I crave that kind of caging. Let others think for me so I can shut my brain off — at least the part of it that worries too much, even about things like how to really have fun.

Somehow I already do it in the smallest of chunks, when I go to the hairdresser's and the nail salon to tell the beauty technicians, Ikaw na bahala (I trust you). Then I disappear in the moment without forcing myself to.

Maybe I should extend the practice. Submit all control and allow things to happen to me. Trust is a special kind of high.

Poem 16

Reminiscence

Long ago a child of five
walked towards me.
She didn't look hungry.
Rather her eyes
betrayed an appetite
for something that the over-priced
café had failed to offer:

a chance to ask
how vast a world
divides the two of us,
she in her innocence,
me in my negligence to want
what I earned;

or to make a playground
where we assign new roles
to dining objects over-used.

The encounter was real, though
details were subject to change.
She could've been wearing white
while I might've been lying
about being alone.

My habits live on,
like going out mid-morning
to relish a dry town.
Deep into the sky silence,
she visits
as she were — always five,
taking a seat
without permission
at a table inside my mind.

I wish I was the same ghost to her,
alive in a whisper and fits
into crannies none can feel
nor understand, not at all
a filler but a fullness
briefly possessed.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 15

The Missing Day

How curious must it be
that down the endless
reach of time
one was born on the 29th
of February.

What day in this year
will they call Mine?

Peeling the month off
the calendar reveals
My special day: on the 10th
of March, (dear me!)
I turn 40.

May I please lose my birthday, too?
Not for reasons of youth
nor of desire to reverse
the phenomenon of my being here.

Rather to spend the weekend
in peace, free of countdowns
and counting blessings,
meanwhile filling in the invisible
debit column.

Be rid of history's toy
shackles. How lovely
must it be to measure a life
no more.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 14

Work

However meager
I was eager to earn
and spend money
on objects that fill
an emptiness.
A table for the sun
to drop light on.

Last night we talked
about legacies.
Leaving a good name,
so the children
who'll inherit
this funny earth
would know whom to adore.

I said why care
about what people say.
It's none of my business
to love the living
when I'm dead.
You filled the room
with laughter

and derision.
I almost quit
when our shouting matches
no longer gave the thrill
of winning,
that I might as well play
tennis with a wall.

But we've held on
to each other for years.
You putting concrete on dreams,
me disappearing into my own,
hugging the clichéd cup
of coffee with my palms,
at the table

I bought with my first paycheck.
Birds sing unseen
from where I sit.
From an office building
You are thinking of me.
A loveliness achieved
through a life's work.

—Razel Estrella

The bookstore

A co-trainer once talked about losing her appetite for books — They don't hold the same magic for me anymore — which I thought was sad, if unimaginable. The opposite of death is desire, after all.

Somewhere between that conversation and a point in time I cannot locate, I, too, had a cooling off with books.

A feeling of betrayal grows. Like turning your back on someone who has given you so much. Even though these books owe me nothing.

Then you miss the self who glows at the sight of a rare copy, and being the first to read a new title.

We are allowed to change. Cut the cords of passion. It is the books themselves, though, that continue to assert their worth.

Bookstores have dwindled in number, and in those few standing, the actual book shelves have become fewer.

Meanwhile, I, force of habit, enter one whenever I'm nearby. There are still authors and series that I look for, though gone is the urgency to buy. To own and be possessive.

A couple of years back I made a conscious effort to read (at least) a book a month. Because we are what we practice (and what we pretend to be), and I want to be a life-long reader.

My collection's complete

Last year the fiction and poetry have been heavily replaced by music notations. I also want to be a life-long piano player, an ambition rekindled (as much as I hate to admit it) during the pandemic.

I am happy to be reading with thoughtfulness, proud that I make sacrifices to carve out hours for this discipline. Incidentally my excitement towards book-hunting returns. It started when I found two old editions ofMikrokosmos after visiting several stores.

Later on I ordered the missing volumes from a local music shop. They were only able to supply me with another two volumes, though both were brand new and from a good publisher.

My fantasy of owning the entire Béla Bartók collection came to fruition three days ago. I tagged along with my sister to a faraway mall in the North. There at the bookstore that shall not be named, I saw a single copy of Volume III, and then picked the least damaged copy of Volume V.

The trip felt familiar. Hope, giving up, managing expectations, digging through piles of paper, hunching over, squatting, efficient sales staff, ignorant sales staff.

Why not just go online-shopping?

Walking to and around a store and being heart-broken (at worst) gives me a rush; waiting for delivery to arrive stresses me out. So do the greater hassles of exchanges and returns.

More importatnly, I need to see if it fits. I need to touch it. Weigh it. Ensure a damage-free product. Ponder how much imperfection I am willing to embrace. What else? For me online shopping — call me conventional — is just less magical.

The corner rack

When I mentioned my love for cooking to a trainee, he asked for advice: How can I fall in love with cooking?

Before we begin: I am no foodie. Neither am I adventurous, perhaps not even as open-minded about food as I wanted to be. The reason I got into the habit of cooking daily is I wanted to eat what I like, how I like it, and when I like it. As the proverb goes, "If you want good service, serve yourself."

I am no good cook. No way for me to tell, since I don't cook for others. My niece likes my pancake and sunny side up, while my sister eats my saucepan-boiled brown rice without complaint (nor praise). Those are the only feedback I receive.

My motivation has always been beauty, and that's how I framed my method to my trainee. Maybe start buying quality kitchen tools. Those that look and work so well they almost beg to be touched.

Marketing has become its own artform nowadays, and this post by Kinto summarizes what I've been trying to say:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by KINTO Europe Official (@kintoeurope)

A kitchen you want to spend time in⁠

Fill your kitchen with things that you love, one plate, one mug, one canister at a time. ⁠ ⁠

And voila, cooking becomes a pastime, not a chore.⁠

Thing is — and because it all seems a fairy tale (gather nice things, feel nice) — knowing what we love takes time. Your first pan is your test pan. You will eventually want to upgrade. How do people stay married with the same person their whole lives? Upon further reflection, I do continue to use the first and only set of dinner plates I bought for myself. Looking around, yes, a lot of things have stayed with me.

Because of financial limitations I learn to love objects for what they are, and when they are. The wine glasses, no matter how careful I am, will break. That said, I won't drink Merlot in a ceramic mug.

It goes without saying that the kitchenette is my favorite and therefore the busiest area in my apartment. And within that space, the corner where everyday ingredients are — spices, soy sauce, vinegar, olive oil, coffee, pasta, dietary supplements — is a sight to behold.

I don't own any paintings. Chalk it up to my ignorance. I am not equipped to appreciate them. But every day, my eyes are drawn to and are satiated by that corner rack. How it fits in the puzzle that is my home. It's my real-life still life. Except nothing about it is still. Each day it is new. The bottles are moved ever so slightly from yesterday's meal prep. The paper coffee filters, from a thick block of white is now thinning, and will soon need replacing. So does the jar of curry powder.

My trainee also mentioned how cook books and cooking shows deceive him. The 15-minute breakfast is in fact 40 minutes, and that excludes cleaning up — the task that all cooking fairy tales leave out.

Do my pretty plates make washing them a pleasure? No. Instead I've developed an acceptance towards these menial tasks. They keep me upright. My body moving. What do I save time and energy for anyway? Sometimes we're not aware that we are already living our dreams, because we fail to account for everything else. My ambition is to live in a beautiful space. This is a beautiful space, and keeping it so constitutes living.

The letter box

As soon as she read the inscription, my editor dropped the card in the bin. I was shocked by the act and nonchalance. How could a hand-written note be discarded without thought.

I expressed my horror, to which she replied with her own amused, What's wrong? Causing me to blurt out, Do you also throw away mine? Not our exact words, though, as this happened years ago.

What I remember and know for sure is that she is one of the most loving and loyal friends I have, despite her ruthless attitude towards Christmas cards.

I'm just slower than everybody else.

Discarding letters is something I forced myself to do when I moved to my own place. I held on for so long to long letters in yellow pads enclosed with photos from pen pals who remained strangers, to doodles from high school friends who turned into strangers, to my first love letter from a secret admirer.

That was a lot of paper. Private. I was beginning to see the wisdom of my editor. The more these sentimental objects linger, the more they accumulate, the harder they are to destroy. Do I burn them? Is burnt photo paper toxic waste? Should I buy a shredder? How much is a shredder?

Why do I hold on to them, anyway? It's not like I'm in the habit of rereading or making a conversation piece out of them. This genre of documentation seems like a cousin of FOMO. A fear of losing beautiful memories.

Last weekend I had to exorcise a box-full of letters again. For a different reason. Nowadays I'm more discriminating with what I keep. Whereas previously I wanted to exercise being free of the past, no matter how happy it was, and in more practical terms, to live in a clutter-free home; now it's about cutting ties.

Sorting through my smaller letter box brought the right kind of surprise.

Apparently I was exchanging letters with a former crush who moved to Japan. In my memory the whole affair was one-sided. But if these stamped envelopes and postcards were any proof, somehow we had an intimate connection.

I also realized that it's clever to have writer friends. Theirs are the letters I should memorialize. I like words; they are good at it. Oh the many eloquent, convincing ways I'm told I'm amazing!

Then the genuine emotions. There is sincerity in length, a pouring out of unfiltered feelings. There is kindness in brevity, sparing both giver and receiver the burden of feelings, which, for the moment, is best carried by white space.

Poem 13, 2022

A Good Job

To give dignity back to work, a word
sullied by greed and abuse, a route
so wrong and so hard to end
it doesn't amuse
even the hand of power.
I want to work, to finish
a product efficient,
a service so useful it disappears
into everyday. I want to be
a trusted, unmysterious yet complex
machinery, cruetly-free and fit
for heavy duty. I will get tired some times
and rest, and someone else, happy.
Great heroes, like their work, are invisible,
forgotten though we walk on it.
Mine, less humble, cries
for attention,
for you to please —
if you were pleased —
spread the word.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 12, 2022

None of the Lights

I answered with reluctance when you invited me
to a bonfire by the beach with young girls and a local
who, despite her kind demeanor, reduced
me to a stranger by the minute.

"I like nature," I said, while pining
for the city's running water.
"It will be fun," you breathed, letting the waves
and its musical muscle win me over.

My feet never felt lighter against the rocks,
walking towards hazy faces gathered in a circle
that will soon dismantle as all things do
when built on sand.

We took our time, understanding
the patience required to start and keep a fire.
We reaped rewards,
for long we lingered at full flame.

Crackling wood hypnotized and snapped
me back into the moment, safe in the weight
of your voices. Embers each of us I thought
indistinguishable. Inextinguishable.

That amber night still consumes
my waking days. I struggle
to solve the mystery of how we stumble
upon company so good and with so short a history.

None of the lights now warm the neck.
Holiday drones fail to dazzle.
Fluorescent tubes reveal diseases.
Marketing firms snuff romance out of candles.

Gone are our childhood fireflies,
trapped in jars and picture books.
A lover's eyes blink in doubt.
Polished glasses shine half-truths.

And what of the sun? Certain
to arrive, to nourish, to harm, to fill
a side of the world with color,
none of which brightens this faraway noon.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 11, 2022

Pulse
(A love poem)

In the beginning was a pulse
that came right
before any breath
to birth a song or a word.

It throbs even as the music
and the argument
take a pause
from asserting themselves,

unfinished in their wish
to be understood.
It beats underneath
the bones.

It lives long
after the end, found
in another story
in someone else's voice

or wrist, like mine
when you touch me there,
you know years ago
and years ahead

we sail on the same boat
kept afloat
by this inaudible god.
No need to say it,

whatever we mean.
What matters most is passing
between us
unheard.

—Razel Estrella

Losing teeth

I was so ready to lose a leg. Without it, I could still do my two-most favorite things in the world: swim and play the piano.

I was convinced with my answer to the hypothetical question, If you had to lose a body part, which would it be?, which presupposes trauma. There are, after all, useless parts of the body.

Wisdom teeth, for example, are pulled out like clockwork as some sort of initiation into adulthood, because they serve no purpose. If they do, perhaps it's to make our lives miserable. It sure made mine.

Nothing had prepared me for the news that my second lower molar had to be removed, thanks to the impacted wisdom tooth that crushed it lifeless. I would wake up with terrible headaches that I initially chalked up to me hating going to work; until I later on connected it to my decaying teeth. When I started to get a tingling sensation during dessert and while drinking cold drinks, I took a trip to the dentist.

My heart sank when they explained the situation. What followed was a torturous week of anxiety, disbelief, and every emotion so far away from the relief I sought when I sat on the dentist chair.

Color me regret. It wasn't like I hadn't had dental check-ups in the past and was advised to have my wisdom teeth removed. Fear was the main reason that I kept delaying it. (I had LASIK twice and it was a walk in the park; but there's something about slicing and stitching up gums that terrifies me.) Then it was too late.

False safety in denial. Maybe the dentist was wrong. There should be other ways to save my tooth. If there was, I wasn't made aware of it. A huge cavity was way below the gumline. Two other dentists and one accommodating nurse knew not to keep my hopes up. If there was a miracle procedure to save my tooth, I bet I would need a miracle to afford it.

What I briefly wrote above is what I want to escape from. Thinking too much about what could've been. My mouth is mutilated, my wisdom tooth gone, and so is my second molar, which is the real loss.

This will sound dramatic and shallow but what I'm going through feels like my first real dance with death. I was shocked. I resisted. I miss my tooth.

I have read many eloquent pieces on death and loss and other such crises, yet it's different when it's happenig to you. I guess we should be thankful that it will always be different for us, that the most common experiences are still unique to us. Otherwise, what's the point of living.

It's been three weeks since my oral surgery. Early on the surgeon warned me that I might easily overcome pain, but I shouldn't underestimate discomfort. Indeed, I didn't take any pain killer 24 hours after surgery. However, not being able to fully open my mouth (trismus), sleep on my side, not spitting! — these are a burden. How I've taken for granted the satisfaction of yawning.

During those days, I found solace in vulnerability. When my body is not in my control, my mind vacations. When I am sick, I find a kind of pleasure in succumbing to disease. For once, I am allowed to be weak.

Now I am halfway healed. Gone are the days of blood clots. The wound closes. Clarity returns — hallelujah migraine-free mornings! — so do my worries. Now I have to face this loss. Now I can run my tongue on the toothless gum. And I feel a mental pain.

This morning I cooked a decent meal again from scratch. I was enjoying my brunch until I remembered, Wait, I'm lacking a functioning molar; am I having problems chewing? As if I was telling myself that there should be something wrong.

I'm writing because I want to grieve and move on. I figure I should treat the tooth loss as an actual death. I took the extracted teeth (the second molar and remnants of the broken third) home with me and had a good look at them. It's best that I don't hang onto these tiny bones, keep them like a totem of I-don't-know-what. It's best that I throw them away unceremoniously. This blog is totem and ceremony enough.

This is a new chapter in my life. I never have chapters, but THIS merits chaptering. My personal history is Before Oral Surgery and After Oral Surgery. BOS/AOS. Is there a Lost Teeth Anonymous I could join?

There is so much I want to say to people who will understand. I wasn't prepared for this and so I don't know how to carry on. Fear is in every stage of the journey. I was scared of surgery. I watched lots of post-recovery horror stories. Most of the time it is I who scare myself. That time could've been used for something better, for proper leisure.

With the other changes going on with my body, I guess all I could do is take care of myself the best way I know how. To nurture myself without fighting nature. Part of me thinks that it's downhill from here. But last weekend I was at the mall and got excited strolling through the kitchen section — as I've always been. I fantasized about the pretty tools I'd buy next. The mini drip kettle, featherlight can opener, tongs, containers.

I've lost something important to me and I am sad. Unsupringly, sadness can exist with thrill. And loss, always in a dance with life. I take it back, what I confidently whispered in the air while my mind ran through what-ifs — Lord, don't take away either of my leg, please.

Poem 10, 2022

Tooth

Which child's heart
didn't throb, eyes
didn't widen
at the taste of tooth
rocking back and forth
the soft slide of gum,

a tongue toy
barely hanging
upside down.

When they are gone
the little ones cry
the merriest good-bye
dressed in hello.

Who's ripping the days off
a calendar now?

Hanging on

to a single tooth,
nicotine- caffeine- blood-
stained measure of youth,
like all pleasures
may disappear
once it's gone and the pain
killers kick in.

Emptiness
earns our affections,
that tomorrow
instead of nothing we see nylon
in its place
or perhaps a toss
between porcelain and gold,
a ghost changing its clothes.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 9, 2022

A Few Good Years

The genie said three wishes.
Quick was I to search my mind
For the things I most desire:

Wealth,
Perfect health,
A long life sans accident.

Every now and then we dream
Of a windfall or a prince
Who'll whisk all troubles away,

And within the dreaming find
Cracks brought on by the hard weight
Of wanting to make it work

In both worlds — the real and make-
Believe. Hush, my mouth. Don't wish
For what you must grant yourself

To your self. I can't travel
Back in time, nor can I see
Danger in the dark where men,

Women and pleasures collect.
Is it not a dream-come-true
When fate and you have settled,

Where at its end the heart starts
A new desire? That is why
I told the genie my wish

Is to have a few good years
Where sleep is easy and friends
Are near; my feet are light here

Coming home to a knowing;
A few good things in a string
Of days, after which may break,

But not before ecstasies!
Some helpings of a good life
To remember and reclaim.

—Razel Estrella

Note: Another version of this poem ends with the additional one-line stanza:

Else to die on.

But I'm a masochist and I like torturing myself.

Poem 8, 2022

The Vocalist

The rest could only imitate
what he alone
and all alone could do:
sustain, vibrate, reach
unnamed colors of the soundscape.

In the next practice room
he hears the pianist
and the teacher struggle
to paint from black and white,
tangled fingers on keys
waking hammers hitting strings
drawing nothing.

Technique enables
feeling is a lesson
no instructor has taught them.

Meanwhile the singer learns
it on his own: accepting
regimented seasons,
declining decadence
as a way of washing his instrument.

Yet on performance night,
he becomes a student
who croons in front of a crowd,
hits and holds a high note,
and sees everyone in the room
as well as himself
remain unmoved.

Years of drills unable
to abate his fear of coming out
with a heart.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 7, 2022

Superboy!

You have a liking for high places
Dissecting plain skies
Looking down on people
Dissolving into borders

Because you wish to fly
You build a habit of jumping
Too good for the ground
Disinterested in the center of the Earth

Or whatever may be underneath

Your kink is empty, nothing
More rousing than open air
No walls for secrets to lean on
Can I be with you up there

—Razel Estrella

A lamb with a sunset in the clouds

So I have gotten into the habit of recording my piano practices because reasons (that have got to do with skills development and, admittedly, vanity).

This morning I countinue my journey into the Mikrokosmos. Yep, I do every single exericse in order. These mini etudes give me a quick sense of achievement. There is always something I could take to the finish line within one sitting or, at most, a week's time; say, sight-reading on day one, bringing out the dynamics on the next couple of days, then finally keeping it up to tempo. It feels good.

My newest favorite from the series is Number 48 – In Mixolydian Mode. I really enjoy teasing out the music here. Though it has a prominent melody, it's pretty bare when it comes to phrasing and dynamics. I'm proud of my interpretation. Extra pat on the back for me when the music I hear in my head and eventually play matches Béla Bartók's one-minute tempo.

Later this morning my niece drops by the apartment and hears my recording of the piece. Her comment: "It's like a lamb with a sunset in the clouds."

Well done me.

Yesterday

it was raining outside, and I was outside.

I liked that I had shoes fit for the weather.

Inside a Starbucks the pleasures of cliché: new Ishiguro, cake and cappuccino. Pathetic lady waiting for her man. I didn't want to be seen dead in this unpoetic coffee chain; but I didn't want to die at home either, so I stayed.

Street kids drew penises in three strokes on the glass wall. Elsewhere in the canvas a heart, then letters that led nowhere.

No words, no sense, except from the book I briefly read.

The rain couldn't get a sound through the building, though it sure made its ice felt.

Poem 6, 2022

Before Sleep

I want to be dreamless at night,
no thrill, regret, not a single secret.

I want to be in bed
Without delay, nor yet unhurried.

I want to lay in silence,
Because music is desire.

I want to be empty
Of today, the past, and tomorrow.

I want to feel the coldness
Of the cruel weather-maker.

I want to hear my breath
And none of your voice.

I want to see the dark
Before closing my eyes.

I want to rest
For now and not live a life.

—Razel Estrella

Poem 5, 2022: Pictures to Show

Pictures to Show

The article calls for being present.

That instead of taking photos of the bee
Sucking on sunflower,
Lock your eyes onto the living
Shaking ugly thing in front of you.

See, the seconds spent aiming the lens
At the subject is time enough
For the latter to flee the scene
Of the would-be sublime.

Then you lose both
The picture and the pleasure
Of looking and locking
Wonder in your head.

*

Another article warns us
Of lives unlived through untold stories.

Better false than forgotten.

At thirty you must have a lot to show
For daring to age. Objects to fit
A highlight reel, or to catalogue
In a poem about growing old.

Flaunt minor successes.
Meals to tell your taste and status.
Your hard-earned confidence
Underneath the dresses.

Friends who are nothing
And everything like you. The one
Job, source of pride and stability.
House, husband, babies.

*

These recording devices,
Phone, paper and paint,
Are far less destructive
Than the naked eye.

I held the gaze of a boy
On the other end of the table.
A handsome creature
Alive in front of me

And already a changed man in my head.

—Razel Estrella (19 April 2022)