kahel amarillo

Isang kundiman

[kosmogrl]

[bakwaaas]

[kahelamarillo]

What was false, and what was true?

I could never imagine my walls painted blue at 1am

Living 1230.8 kilometers away from my home, my beloved aging parents, and my angsty little sister, carrying 11 jobs as an exaggeration. It must have been absurd if my seventeen year old self would know how I’m living, the exact total opposite of how she’s been spending her days but

not really

one time in 2012, she begged the Lord to let her try that life. Just for a quick one. A momentary taste of what her heart has been longing for.

But mother would tell her that the heart is deceitful above all things. That the last thing she will ever do is to trust it.

But one night in Malolos, six years ago, she faced a decision she thought she’ll never take.

‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love’

Dear Artificial Intelligence, can you write a version of this famous hymn, coming from a perspective of an ex believer, who left the faith, who left God and is now looking at the old life she has :

Once, a Fount of Every Blessing

(To the tune of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing")

Once, a fount of every blessing,

Tuned my heart to sing of grace.

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Called for songs of loudest praise.

I would sing those sacred sonnets,

Lift my voice with saints above,

Praise the mount I thought unshaken,

Mount of what I called His love.

Here I raised my hallelujah,

By a faith that felt so sure.

Clung to hope, to holy pleasure,

Dreamed of grace that would endure.

They said Jesus sought the broken,

Wandering far from God’s embrace.

But the world I’ve come to live in

Knows no blood that saves by grace.

Oh, those days when freed from doubting,

I once sought a holy face.

Clothed in certainty, devoutly,

Sang of endless love and grace.

But the silence filled the heavens,

No deliverance came my way.

Now the angels I imagined

Fade into a lost refrain.

Oh, the weight of grace once borrowed,

How it bound my heart and mind.

Chains of goodness, laced with sorrow,

Held me to a faith unkind.

Prone to question, yes, I felt it,

Prone to leave the God I knew.

Now my heart, though free, still wonders—

What was false, and what was true?

[kahelamarillo]

Here's to having myself again

This year will be my last year in my twenties. An end of a season, an era, and as I conclude it, I wanna go back to the things that make me happy. Things that made me who I am, things that define me. I want to be unhinged in a good way. Go back to my roots that kept me grounded. I want to write again, make poetry and songs, read non-fiction and fiction I've always wanted to read but didn't make time. I wanna write without having the hesitation that somebody will read this someday. I wanna make playlists again just for the heck of it. I wanna go back to making illustrations, to having fun all by myself. I wanna enjoy daylight, feel the sun on my face again. Feel loneliness just like how I romanticized it. Feel the grief over and over again. That's who I am.

Last year, though I've shed too many years, I never took time to pause and feel the things I'm meant to feel. I was too busy and I let time pass by me.

...and oh I just knew now that when the crema looks like this. Most likely it's under extracted.

[stlowens]

George Seferis, tr. by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard from, “The Return of the Exile.”

[kahelamarillo]

How could you make the line “Take Me to Church” sound so religiously rebellious. Only Hozier can. 

[creatinghelen]

I am a mosaic of everyone I have ever known and loved and touched and I find fragments of them in my playlists and how I make my tea. we may not know each other any more but we will stay connected like this. I hope a fragment of me is with you too.

[kahelamarillo]

September 16

Maybe it’s the little things that hurt. The delayed replies. From an hour to a day, to days, and how long? Maybe it’s when you stopped apologizing for disappearing and when you come back you just pick up from where we left off which i know is supposedly a good thing but it’s not. Rehearse, rehearse, and I will finally be good at it. 

[deadithurts]

andrew garfield saying, “i hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that i didn’t get to tell her” about his mothers passing is so gut wrenchingly beautiful because we rarely talk about the love we want to express but can’t, not because you’re not brave enough to say it out loud but because they’re not here to listen to it anymore. calling grief the love you never had the chance to share makes it less of a burden and more of something you want to keep and not something terrible you want to move on from. i love love how everything about grief always comes down to “what is grief if not love persevering?”

[metamorphesque]

   — Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1964

[text ID: I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it.]

[metamorphesque]

why do all the words sound heavier in my native language? scratch that. why did I choose to seek refuge in a language of another instead of training my tongue to bear the heaviness of my own?

[kahelamarillo]

goldenville, Aug 26

10:57pm

how do u forget somebody u meet who is such a force to be reckoned with. they are the first thing you think of when u wake up in the morning, and the last one you think before u turn the lights off. they themselves dont even believe the mark that they leave you with. 

how do u slowly get over. how do you ignore seeing slowly releasing you, fading their love for you, and doing it in broad daylight. how do u forget when they tell u that they don’t forget. how do u forgive yourself for letting ur heart be vulnerable for that shortest slot of time. 

but you wake up in the morning. at around 8am. you get up, drink water, and you try your best. that’s what we do. 

that’s what we do. 

[metamorphesque]

What the Living Do, Marie Howe

[kahelamarillo]

Andrea told me how “namamahay” is her favorite word. And while that is hers, mine is “nagpapatila.” It’s a special kind of waiting. Waiting for the rain to stop so you could proceed to wherever you want to go, and whatever you needed to do. Until the rain stops, you could only wish and anticipate things. 

[kahelamarillo]

Postcard from Elyu, July 2022

Pain and loneliness linger like a fucker. Why can’t happiness stay for a little bit. Just a little bit. 

[kahelamarillo]

July 23, 6:59pm

It is the mental list you make of the things they like and do not like. Incase they drop by and make an unannounced visit. It is the little things you pick up along the way, like the nuances in their language, the way they cuss, the words they unknowingly repeat. Hold on, Hold on. 

[feral-ballad]

Ari Banias, from Anybody: Poems; “Bouquet”

[Text ID: “Today you want nothing / because wanting / comes too close to feeling.”]