#makatakataka

[makatakataka]

How can I not be nice to people when it's the least I can offer? Everyone's living a fucked up life, and I am more than sure they need the littlest appreciation. 

- yenyen

[makatakataka]

Monochrome

A lot of people ask

What’s the color I like the most

I said that I don’t do favorites

But that’s wrong

I can’t say the reason then

For I didn’t know

But now I think I understand

I like the violet

Before

It is my childhood

It was my brand

It was a thing 

I called my own

Violet  is now a reminder

That once I was naive

It was fun and unburdened

I wish I could keep 

But everyone must carry on

Then I thought of blue

But it was plain

I couldn’t keep red

It whispers too much gain

The yellow is a tone

I could only dream of

It’s the color that ascends

From behind the shadows

What I want is the shade of gray

The cloud that pours

When heavy it rains 

Sometimes it’s light

Although never bright

And when there’s only much

It unloads but remains afloat

I wish I could be gray

So I wouldn’t break

So I will only sway

Not up from the fires of red

Not down to the empty blue

The hues are radiant 

But no not the gray

It’s the tint

No one expect nothing from

It’s the reason that resides

Between the white

And the black

If it’s gray

There is no pain

I want to feel gray

Just for a moment

I want to know 

No sadness

I want not a color 

That would fade more

I want no happy 

That would end

I want to not

Make people proud

Only to be a disappointment after

I want to be enough

For others

And not too much 

For myself

I’m tired of hoping for more

Reaching for the bright light

And falling back to the pitch black

I want to feel numb

For a short time

I want to not feel

Anything at all

Gray is the fine line

It is the in betweens

A place where I

Would not cry

Would not smile

A place I hope

That would stop my thoughts

That can zip my words

And empty my emotions

The gray is not 

A  boring thing

Sometimes it can be

A temporary salvation 

The gray is the place 

I visit so often

It is so familiar

That I named it

After my poem

[makatakataka]

but if i wear who i was will you promise not to strip me off it.

earlier this year i was surprised by the result of my ustet. i passed. i passed without having to review so i believed i am just lucky. i believed this is for me. but two months now in the university of santo tomas, i feel like the biggest fraud. it feels like i have manifested this part of me that does not actually defines who i am. i am trying to be like them. and i know i am not, but i want to belong. belong and make connections and meet people. how can i do that when i am not a beautiful people? not a white teeth teen. everyone is so fancy and i cant stand it. i cant tell if they too are just pretending or if its really who they are. told myself i need to be different from who i was, i have deviced my on destruction by being my own judgement. i really do not like that.

[makatakataka]

People decides to be angry because it's easier than to unpack all the underlying emotion they carry. We are afraid of the pain it will cause us so we give it to others. We choose to wound others in the hopes of them sympathizing with our own suffering when instead, we can heal ourselves and ask those significant others to help us. But we don't. As to why i'm not sure. Are we embarrassed or something? Of what, being human?

-yenyen

[makatakataka]

Nasa parte nako ng buhay ko kung saan gusto ko nalang yumakap ng yumakap ng mga tao, mashado konang ramdam ang sakit ng reyalidad

[makatakataka]

Enrollments, time jumps, and black shoes

Feature Story

by: Brenda

If I were to go back in time and see myself almost three years from where I am today, when face to face classes were the default, the first thing that I would say to myself is this; store your black shoes somewhere nice.

It's the night before the first day of school and I've just found my shoes, covered in cobwebs. The one is a house to a cockroach, the other is not black but grey in dust.

It was July 25, 2022 when the enrollment in Taguig Integrated School started at 8 am in the morning. Not exactly, but by the time the men in white opened the gates ten minutes later, a mass of paired parent-and-students came rushing to enter, not wanting to be preceded by other enrollee’s guardian. It was not a race, but a habit. Filipinos like to either be the latest to arrive, or the first to cross the lines. And at that time of the day, when the trees surrounding the entrance were outmatched by the sun, it was the latter. I remember the term used by my friend who’s one with the earlybirds; it was siksikan out there. And it remained as so until Ma'am Poblacion came to rescue.

The guards, whose jobs were not only to guard, distributed the enrollment forms to each pair. It must be filled up before proceeding to the next station. The twist was that everyone needed to bring their own pen, otherwise wait until someone finishes their form and ask if you could borrow. Until now I didn't know what was my LRN number, but I was forced to memorize it when it was asked in every other enrollment sheet I have answered.

Next stop: reading assesment. On the afternoon of the same day, my guardian and I proceeded to this building in which as a student, I was told to enter a room with the other students who were waiting for their turn to read. The thing was, they didn't know that I was the student, they told me that parents were to enter this another room. My father was oriented on about what to expect this school year. Halfway through the pharagraph I was reading, they asked me to stop and marked my paper done.

The school is big. It's a campus, ok? The story seems like there wasn't an error in the whole process of enrollment, but I needed to ask atleast 4 personnel, to get to which station I needed to go next. I had it easy, some parents have children who have no idea what building is what.

"Anlaki mona, Brenda!" It was the last stop, and my teachers were the recipients on the bridge between my grade 9 performances and fourth year of high school. We fell into four lines, each had teachers behind a make-up booth, representing the grade levels in junior high school department. After giving my card and photocopy of my birth certificate, I got into this staring game with my teacher before she handed me a paper. It was marked "enrolled".

Last thing I know is that I am a grade 7, I blink, and now I am cleaning my shoes for the first day of school tomorrow. I'd be going as a grade 10 student, it felt like jumping through time. But I am glad that the first day of school this time is finally literally. First day in school, it feels like the meme.

[makatakataka]

Watch me go AWOL for a week or two then flood your dash with teenage hormones later

[makatakataka]

Juat realize how ungrateful i am by watching a whole video because the caption said so, but not following my mums instructions