Everything's Better

From Twin Shadow's tour cover

"Pucker up, darling. I forgot my good night kiss."

I feel like everything is better on two wheels. 


Conversations are more memorable as we zip by cars. Everything is just a blur yet everything is stamped on the back of my eyes. I just have to close them to remember the dashes of tail lights and the oncoming head lamps.


The sweet smell of gas burning and the whirring of engines make me cringe at the thought of it. Cold night winds blew your hair to the other side, I flick it and tuck it in your left ear. 


That side part of your face is my most favorite. It's what I get to kiss when I sneak up behind you and give you an ambush kiss and a lift.


What now? 40, 50, 60 going on 70. I can't hear you. I don't need to, you hug me close and tight enough its an assurance and constant reminder.


What's weird is that every time I ride alone, your scent lingers and the feel of your weight is still there. It's good the first few months, now, it's just sad.


You're the one zipping by me now, on someone else's two-wheeler.

And I drink and I smoke and I ask you if you're ever around, even though it was me who drove us right in the ground.

What Makes a Writer?

People often act all fuzzy and glittery when they say that they've got a writer friend. And that their friend is one of the best they've ever read, they ever will read for that matter. There's nothing wrong with that. I know, that's a disclaimer but I just have to let that one out before I go on with this stint.

Words are, of course, somewhat hard to transform into works that people will actually (or honestly) understand. You can know all the worlds in a language, memorize the dictionary with every possible usage but you will find it hard to piece them all up together in one (or multiple) coherent, sensible bundle. Yes, writers go under a deal (not a lot for all, not a little for others) of thinking, scrapping and editing their thoughts and ideas about the vast menu of topics to dip their calloused fingers into.

Of Canned Goods and Old Clothes

Growing up, weaned in religion and charismatic duties to the church, it has always been sort of a norm in our hometown. Sunday masses, offerings, confessions, baptisms and communions; everyone was at the local chapel by 7am on days of obligation.


Going to a similar school with head administrators wearing flowing clothes and hidden hair reinforces this notion and belief. We have to be urged by a deeper force to do good, think good and breathe good for others, for greater glory and lastly for ourselves.

Put That Book Down

There is always that feeling when you hold your first book for the first time after a reading hiatus. You grip it in a funny way. It feels crisp (more so if it's fresh from the bookstore racks) even if it is dog eared, it looks clean even if it has coffee circles, smells excitingly new even if it stank of mildew. And yet, all these feelings recur in whiff of replay. Everything seems familiar, everything feels right.


Flipping the first few pages, leaving from the time you went AWOL, images surge right back in. Like you're being sucked in by that old friend of a black hole you so spent sleepless nights with. It's like a dirty reunion between two lovers after shots of whiskey: the emotions are there and the feelings are stamped and broken in but the outcome could not always translate to a happier morning after. You just create this mental image that the author describes, and you so vividly reimagine. As far as the emotions go, they linger for a while and then they brush off. For feelings new and old, they stick like spit after a wash of cold beer and a mouthful of starchy food.