bittersweet in my teeth

"Sana lahat sila'y kaya kong kilalanin.

There was never a shortage of women in my life. Starting with my mother: man, I thought she was the greatest woman that had ever lived. Juggling three jobs at once to make ends meet, keeping up with the saintly shit that the world has passed on to her, being an educator when she gets home, being the 'all work, no play' person in her group of friends and so much more. Not even a stick of tobacco nor a drop of liquor. She was a handful and it's kind of sad since I didn't get to really meet her when she was here. She drifted along with the many women in my life that could have mattered more.

She had me thinking and philosophizing on the roles of women in the home, in the heart and in the mind. 'Son, you never hold a woman to a post just to beat her up and throw her away when you're done. That is a bad thing to do.' And I watched her put up with that abuse until she withered away, uncanonized by whatever church she ruefully believed in. She was gone now, so I thought I could honor her by standing with what she told me.

The many women that have come and gone in my life are not what I had imagined. I just looked up to the sky and asked "Why, mom? Why would you say such a cruel thing?' They were characters in stories that I've only read before. They were amazing, they were addictions, they were addicts, they were sinful, they were glorious, they were iridescent, they were physical manifestations of rules and exceptions. And those things that I just said of them were just part of the rolling summary.

What makes me wonder is that I stuck with those women. Maybe it still stems from those pointy words but they were flawed and pretty because of that. They loved me and I loved them. To make things clear, I am not objectifying women. No, no, no Sir. This is a celebration.

I was in love once with a misunderstood girl. She misunderstood me at the end, as well and ended what we had on a misunderstood night. We took each other in but I guess we really couldn't last for more than a year. She was long gone before I got the chance to explain things. Shit.

I was in love with a friend but I realized we'd soon have to outgrow that. Whoever said friendship couldn't be outgrown must have had very good friends.We outgrew ours. I really can't remember who said that, maybe I just made it up to make myself feel good for our times. We never talked after that. I guess we're still friends, though we still don't know that.

I was in love with a girl before, though it was too late to confess. We brushed it off. I knew her and she knew me but we were on different pages. We were both too late.

I was in love with an immoral woman with such crooked ideas of morality. We made each other cry but for good reasons. We both didn't want to be in the losing end. I sometimes wonder what my mother would have said if I told her stories about that woman. We had sickly truncated notions of good and bad. We never worked but we loved each other, all and the same. She was sweet, that was my utter downfall.

Another thing that bugs me is the fact that I'd rather replay those scenarios all over again rather than imagine new and perfect futures with women so perfect, so pretty, so cool and forgiving. Maybe it's due to the fact that I see those future women as 'not as real' as the women I've known. 

I was grounded by the fact that their existence were just thoughts of fantasy and make believe. I had cut my connection to the women in my distant and recent past. I guess I never got hold of what my sweet dead mother told me. It's that or I got it the wrong way."

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