Soledad or Beatrice

Once i hoped that in another universe, or in another dimension or maybe in another lifetime I could be with you for eternity. We may not have been able to make it in this life, but in another we probably could. Don’t you think?

You moved away and for years we’re not talking. Not even a simple hello. But recently, your name appeared again. I can feel the love again through our “haha’s” and “I missed talking to you” phrases. In a few months, you’ll be home you said. You said you want to spend your days here with me, only me. I promised you, “just go home and I’m yours!” when what I really want to say is “I still love you.” But that phrase scared me so i reinvented it by saying “I’ll plan our trips when you get home” or “we’ll play in the arcade again like we used to.”

You’ve always been my Soledad, my God given solace. But you seem to be my Beatrice too, someone I will always love but only from afar.

Poetry of the Oppressed

Lately, I seem to fall in love with Button Poetry. It’s a group of poets who do performance poetry or I’d like to call it, the artistic performance of the oppressed. The later part is maybe because I think watching the performance poetry regarding oppression are the most stunning performances I’ve seen so far.

The thing that draws me to button poetry is because I love almost all forms of art, from performance arts to literary, to design to prints, photography and so on. I used to participate in creative writing, but kinda lost the passion along the way. I used to think that art is my only way to survive since I grew up troubled. Now I’m 26 and I’m still in trouble in so many ways, I think.

Now I know why I love performance poetry about oppression or why I lost my artistic side. That’s because I, too grow up oppressed. I learned the word silence before I even learned to hear my own voice. I learned that shooting stars are just dead sporadic meteors before I learned how to make sincere wishes. I was pushed to learn the science of everything before I fully enjoyed the wonders of the world. Everything should be properly explained and all actions should always fall into the norm. So I grew up a skeptic which eventually, I didn’t really like. I lost too many people and too many opportunities because I was a skeptic and cynical about almost everything, but mostly, because I grew up afraid that I might do something wrong or that I may not be able to defend or explain why I did what I did. So yeah, I’m still a little bit in trouble.

Despite everything, I learned not to hate the adults that surrounded me when I was little for making me who I am right now. I understand that they also have no idea how to raise a child, especially when that child starts to learn how to think for herself and question the things that surrounds her. But this I promise, if ever I’d be lucky to bring another human form into this world, I would let her/him be whoever she/he wants to be and promise to support her/him whatever the cost. That she/he will be able to choose her/his own identity, whoever she/he wants to love, that she/he can make her/his own mistakes whether she/he can explain it to me or not.