Stirring the Embers

I am at the mercy of the hand that stirred the embers. Should I be grateful for this jolt in my life or should I be more grateful for being blessed with a hand that cared even only for a while?

I am tired of being the whore of that hand. A whore that is never penetrated yet passed along to a friend as if I am a property paid with a few dates and warm hugs and a fleeting kisses. Maybe I would like to take back what is mine and to be me again. 

But I am helpless at the hand that stirred the embers. When the winds are howling cold in the wilderness, to sit around the fire would give you comfort and the peace that will rock you to sleep. In the morning when all the embers are left of the fire, one only needs to stir it and feed it with wood to start the fire again.

He left me sleeping for too long- two long years.  Maybe the fire never went out during the long night for I never felt the cold. Or someone might have covered me with warmth in his absence. The truth, I can never tell. For I am at the mercy of the hand that stirs the embers.

Embrace the fire or leave and build a fire elsewhere. 

Even Friendships Need Some Watering

"some links are just so feeble that they have to be revisited and rekindled once in a while"

I have to apologize to a friend whom I have thought to be one of my closest but appears to be just merely ordinary after  looking back at all the memories we shared. I have to say sorry that I may have not been the friend that she needed and sorry for being a stubborn personality who always insisted on my desires on the course of our so-called friendship. I have always considered her as my older sister and have no qualms on confiding every detail of my life to her which I am sure was the same case with her. Or was it my all or was that my very skeptical self talking? Now I am wondering why I have not treasured that friendship deeper.

Her going abroad to work may have triggered my deeper analysis of our friendship. Maybe even her possible migration when she gets married may have contributed to this speculation. We met way back our elementary days when the measures of competition were the triumphs on quiz shows or on singing or acting  or oratorical contests. Maybe our bond came closer when we spent our college days at the same university. Sometimes, I doubt if she really intended to be a little closer with me then or was it that she just ran out of options of people who might reconnect her with our ili. We all grow homesick at times and it is a blessing to have someone to remind us of home or at least have someone who feels the same intensity of homesickness as we do. Whatever our reasons for deciding to get closer as friends that time are now immaterial, I guess we both found that friendship was worth it.

I am just so used to having her around and if I needed to share something, she was just a chat or a call or a text away. I am used to seeing her whenever I go up to Baguio or when I go home. We would always rekindle our friendship with our notorious bashing of other people and laughing at internal jokes that I think only us would find worth laughing at. The realization of an adage dawned to me that indeed, we get to realize the worth of people once we lose them.We did have some rifts before but I have always been sure that in one way or another we would end up laughing again at the silly jokes we are concocting about the lives of other people.

Those rifts are a lot different from the distance we have now. Even for hard core lovers, distance is an acid that corrodes- what more to a friendship with shaky beginnings? I have always felt that our getting together moments inside karaoke bars or restaurants are means to rekindle our bond. Now all these are impossible. I do regret the fact that I have cultivated a feeble relationship with an inspiring person. I have to admit that she has that boldness that I so long to have.

But I will never regret having that friendship with her. Whether the spins of our lives draw us farther from each other or that circumstances will corrode what we have- I will always be grateful for meeting a friend like her and for sharing some pages of her life with me. Thank you old friend. Till we cross roads again.