05:10

5 °C|°F

Precipitation: 50%

Humidity: 89%

Wind: 12 mph

Chance of rain

Women who smoke.

"I restore myself when I'm alone. I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. And sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."

Marilyn Monroe

(Norma Jeane Mortenson)

1926-1962

Actress, model, singer

04:52

5 °C|°F
Precipitation: 50%
Humidity: 8%
Wind: 12 mph
Chance of rain



Men who smoke.

"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him"

John F. Kennedy

1917-1963

35th President of the United States

20:16

5 °C|°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 94%
Wind: 12 mph
Mostly cloudy

The way the sun is right now, is the same way when I used to be with you. With the long shadows, and that kind of bright, soft light you get when the sun isn't quite setting.  That's the light that makes everything better, everything prettier, and today, everything just seemed to be in that light.

And in a matter of minutes, that moment will fade. It will gradually melt with the ripples of the river, and the clouds would disperse like milk dissolving in my coffee. The memory of you will once again embark a journey in my soul. And I will lay you the brick road, I shall light its way. And when it finally reaches the summit, it will jump and fly and evaporate with the winds of my thoughts, and it shall fall like a torrential rain, back to the mortal world.

Memories and moments give us dimensions. Like the sharp edges of rocks, branches, thorns, envelope corners, experiences can cut through us like a blade on a butter. But on the other hand, we are also granted the ability to see beyond that reality. We can transgress that idea and turn it into something that would regenerate us. And simple things, they can remind us of that truth. Trees would shed their old bark, grass grows again under the snow, and birds, start migrating again.

I watched the day fade. And the last light of this particular Monday ebbed away like a temporary pain. I look at the clock and it's still ticking. We are moving on, today has been good.

03:01

3 °C|°F
Precipitation: 20%
Humidity: 69%
Wind: 16 mph
Chance of rain


Women who smoke.

"If you don't wear lipstick I can't talk to you. You need to have lips. They are important for getting men." 

Isabela Blow

1958-2007

Editor, fashion icon

02:50

3 °C|°F
Precipitation: 20%
Humidity: 69%
Wind: 16 mph



Men who smoke.

"Give me time and I'll give you a revolution."

Alexander McQueen

1969-2010

Fashion designer

2:28

1 °C|°F

Precipitation: 0%

Humidity: 75%

Wind: 6 mph

You open your eyes and greet a new day. You ponder on things to do after getting up and you move on with the aim of going through that day as smooth as possible. There could be a schedule or there could be none. But the truth is, we all have a pattern to follow or do from the very second that we start our day.

But like a crack in a surface, at one point in that cycle, the idea of escaping loomed over your head already like nimbus cloud ready to pour. 

We've been all stuck somewhere before. We've been monotonous. We've been preordained. But as humans, deep inside our hearts is that insatiable hunger to break free. 

When I was a young boy, I was probably 9 when I realized that there is a world waiting for me out there. Beyond the borders of our lonely town, beyond the hills, and the rivers separating us from the capital. I remember that before, an aunt who lives in Manila would visit us every quarter of the year, and with her were boxes of donuts from the city. I can still remember the exact taste of those donuts. For me, it was the taste of a life beyond what I could imagine. Every bite filled my soul with the will to discover that world. 

My soul was filled with dreams and visions of adventure that when the time came, and I was ready, I took that leap of faith and traveled to a place that is a stranger to me. The lights of the city blinded me when I met Manila. The noise,music to my ears, and the concrete like a skin ready to be touched and discovered. I was very curious and very eager. And I was observant. But as time went by, when I felt that every move that I was doing started being repetitive, I got scared and I felt a hole in my heart again. I wanted more and I was afraid then that I was being impractical. At first I focused to be normal. I didn't know that I was trying to fight my dreams and my fate. I didn't know that I was silently dissolving away with the rest of what is static in the city.

I always hated looking at perfect things. A perfect porcelain, a perfect glass, a perfectly knotted necktie. It has a claustrophobic effect on me. I want to break things, then put them back together. I'm always craving for a diversion, surprises, new discoveries. Monotony kills me like a nail drilling in my freedom. 

I believe that we don't have to be afraid of freedom. Life is a very unstable element. And we don't have a control over it. Control is an illusion. We're all like glasses filled with water slowly evaporating into the thin air. Without any warning, our glasses could run dry, leaving you thirsty for life. That open door is for us, make that step. And after the adventure, you'll realize that it has given you not just freedom, but the wisdom and courage to stay and break the order. 

23:56

1 °C|°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 70%
Wind: 8 mph



Women who smoke.

"It's the mistake you always make. Trying to love a wild thing. You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or to fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky."

Audrey Hepburn (Holly Golightly, Breakfast At Tiffany's)

1929-1993

Actress, humanitarian

23:21

1 °C|°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 70%
Wind: 9mph



Men who smoke.

"Homosexuality is so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. I haven never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing." 

Marlon Brando
1924-2004

Actor, poet, activist

01:48

1 °C|°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 56%
Wind: 9 mph




Silence gives me the ability to ponder on some things that are usually hidden by the everyday noise of the city.

Today, London granted me the chance to look back and remember where I came from.

From the time when I finally decided that I would ran away from home to fulfill a dream in the city, to a not so distant memory of friends' laughter and company. My life is an adventure in progress. I am in constant discovery everytime that I open my eyes to greet a new day.

I just graduated in college when I realized that life in the province was not the future that I am aiming for. Although I'm in love with the energy of nature, the hills, the brooks, the clear night sky illuminated by constellations and stars, and volcano (we live on the foot of a volcano), the calling of the city proved to be hard for me to resist. I have a very carefree spirit. Although people would see me as a quiet, wallflower type of a person, my heart is actually full of courage and the need to discover new things. I love learning things, seeing things, and listening to stories that cannot be found in the pages of books. My appetite for life is insatiable. But amidst those words, I remain very discreet about the yearnings of my soul. Growing up, I had the impression that dreams are just concepts conjured by an utopian mind.

A lot of times, specially back in the province where I grew up, travelling is just a dream. Being in a city like London or even in Manila is already considered a dream come true. It is both considered as an accomplishment and a blessing. For a lot of people  in our small town who heard about my sudden decision to elope with my dreams, my bold move was a curse. I heard soon after I left that people were disappointed by me, leaving my family like that and deciding to make such a bold decision. For a long time I felt that I made a wrong decision, but after a while i realized that I did not make that decision solely for myself. I understood that my life is also the life of other people connected to me. That if I stayed and didn't take that bus, fate would be interrupted and a dream waiting to be realized wouldn't come true. Now, in my heart, and I hope other people with souls speaking the same language of fate would understand, that there is nothing in this world that can be lonelier than the event of watching a dream slipping away.

Outside the window, the wind is freezing cold as it blows against brick walls, concrete pavements, and steel lamp posts. The temperature really cold, that you can almost see the dead branches of trees shivering. Everyday, before we sleep a dream is bound to start. But once we wake up in the morning, that is the time and our only chance to make that dream into a reality.

5:25

2 °C|°F

Precipitation: 0%

Humidity: 65%

Wind: 14 mph

They say that the best things in life are hard to anticipate, and even more to predict. They are like dreams. You dont know when they'll start but when they do, you'll just find yourself caught in the middle of it.

It can be both amazing and tragic at the same time. Being thrown into a labyrinth garden surely poses the possibility of seeing roses or dead ends along the path. 

Does love for example, takes us by surprise? Or is like a shadow creeping and closing in as the day starts to end? An emotion as strong as  love I believe is an instant feeling. And although others would contend that love can be learned while you're in the right situation with the right person, I still believe that it is a spark that can only happen once there is a union of familiar or sometimes weird interests. 

But should it actually start with all things that are beautiful? Sometimes, love can be determined by the unexpected presence of other emotions. It is not because one specific emotion isn't strong enough and then suddenly it turned into love. I want to believe that sometimes, some emotions are felt, directed by our minds to cloud a stronger feeling like love. When we deny to ourself that we love someone, we try to recreate another reality by producing another minor emotion to shield what we're actually feeling. It is fear sometimes, We'd rather shun away from the feeling and hide behind euphemisms. Sometimes it becomes too strong that we forget our real emotion and we turn away, we're hurt and we hate. 

When a dream is too good to let go, we'd rather stay in bed under the sheets. We'd rather skip the day and continue dreaming and it is acceptable. Why then in love we cannot do the same? Why can't we just stay with the emotion even if it's just a dream? If letting go is just an option, is it demeaning to stay in love even without the chances of waking up? 

One afternoon, I was under a shade of a tree in a park. And the emotion that I felt at that precise moment, as the light played on the leaves and branches was something that I would forever be aching to see again. It may be shallow,because I can always do the same thing, go to a park and sit under another tree and find that same experience again. But no, that moment is gone and I'll never be able to pull it back from that time. And the worse thing is, I was in a hurry and left that inimitable moment too soon. And so I think I'll never do that again. I will choose to fade with a moment.

 I will choose love. 

1:53

2 °C|°F
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 100%
Wind: 8 mph



Some of you are aware that I used to write a lot.

Everyday before I go to bed, I make sure that I leave a short poem for my friends on Facebook. But that stopped when I started running around trying to find something new that would excite me. Boredom kills me. I cannot be contained. It's true, sometimes I run away whenever I feel like everything seems to be too much for me. Back in the province I would sneak and climb our roof. I spent hours there writing and dreaming while I stare at the night sky. 

The kind of life that the city offered me is nothing but enlightening. It exposed me to the kind of knowledge that I have now. But although I was inspired by these places visually and mentally, it's always a simple haven like a tin rooftop that strengthened and taught my heart to dream and search for my destiny.

I try my best all the time to hold on to the kind of person that I used to be. And although sometimes without our knowledge, we are drifting from the simple yet good things that actually brought us to where we are right now, it is easy to go back by the simple way of remembering. 

I was reading a while ago from a pile of poems that I wrote before and I want to share this one again. This piece inspired me again not just to write but to dream and think of greater things. I guess when a moment so strong to avoid comes into your life, you should grab it and fall in love with it. Because it gives us the gravity that we need to find our own personal legend. 

I watched you finish a stick of cigarette

From the corner of my eye, I saw you puff

The smoke covering your face

Your hair, gray, under its illusion

Words failed to cross

they faded in the still air

Like the tobacco, turning to ash,

dark and then gone into the soil

This could be you leaving

Like the nicotine

tiny bits of you

into my own wind

you will again settle

like the invisible sediments

in my cup of water

8:16

23:55

4°C|°F
Precipitation: 20%
Humidity: 40%
Wind: 16 mph



Stared at the blank page like I just met a stranger. Transfixed into an empty space like looking at static signal only it was more quiet than me. 

Hello. 

I said as I light a cigarette. 

And as the first virgin smoke clouded my lungs, I can see it like a ghost reflected on its screen, vivid like crystal eyes. 

The page doesn't know every secret that I'm holding. Every word that I'm keeping.

But as its keys start to type away, clicking like a language only it can understand, It knows for a fact that it wont be long before every literature from my soul is recorded and kept within its memory.

In the old days, they say that if one has a secret that he doesn't want to share, he goes up in the mountain, chooses a tree and would carve a hole on its trunk. Only there he can whisper his secret and cover it with mud to preserve it forever. 

I climbed mountains, travelled miles, and crossed continents even. And I found this place. I'm carving a hole and would leave a part of me but I shall leave it open.

And so I make a pact with this stranger, as I try to remember what it felt like when I had my first cigarette. It will be my witness for every cigarette burnt because of literature. Consumed as I struggle to put into words emotions and ideas that can sometimes be volatile. And as I let go of that smoke, I really wish it would be a cloud, wandering with other clouds as it cruises in an open sky.