Fragments of the Quiet Mind

It wasn’t supposed to feel this heavy. We were just moving out. A change of address. A few boxes. A goodbye email. That’s what the memo said. But the soul doesn’t read memos. The decision came down with the usual cold efficiency — political maneuvering dressed as “strategy.” Someone upstairs, removed the scent of our coffee or the soft glow of kindness at the front desk, decided we were better off elsewhere. More aligned. More brand-consistent. Whatever that means. I packed my things slowly. Not because there were many — a mug, some folders, a forgotten plant — but because everything in that space had stories tangled in it. The smile of the security guard who knew when you were too quiet. The landlord who once fixed the busted ceiling fan on a Sunday. The hallway where I paced during panic attacks and found calm in the hum of old fluorescent lights. How do you walk away from a place that remembers you when you don’t want to remember yourself? People call it “just a space.” T...

  Way back in college, I found myself drawn to book sales at Centermall, that old mall in Baguio with creaky floors and stubborn echoes. I’d roam those cramped aisles searching for something steady, something that might outlast me. But grief—grief rewrites the rules. It taught me that what I thought was permanent was never really mine to hold. When loss came, it didn’t just take someone from me. It tore apart the foundations I built around them—the coffee cups we shared, the songs that used to stitch moments together, the streets that once felt like home. Everything I thought was solid softened and shifted beneath my feet. I realized memory isn’t a monument; it’s water—always flowing, impossible to grip. The silence after the calls stopped was the first crack. It wasn’t just absence; it was a rupture in my story. Grief isn’t a moment—it’s a slow dismantling of certainty. The past I trusted became a stranger, and I had to learn how to live with someone who knew me less than I thou...

The 2025 elections just ended. Not with fireworks, not with riots—just the quiet unraveling of yet another chapter in our nation’s long and complicated dance with democracy. There’s something different in the air this time. Something subtle, like the way dusk falls before you even realize the day is gone. You feel it before you name it: a shift. Not seismic, perhaps not even visible to the untrained eye. But there, like a whisper at the edge of a crowded room. People have grown wiser. And no, this isn’t naive optimism. It’s not the kind of blind faith that wears campaign colors and chants slogans. It’s the kind of wisdom that comes from repeated heartbreak—from choosing hope too many times, only to be betrayed by men in suits and smiles. From believing in change only to see it morph into the same old trapo politics dressed in newer fonts. “Pain is a brutal but effective teacher—especially in a country where memory is often the first casualty of every election cycle.” But maybe ...

  Sometimes, life feels like trying to hold water in my cupped hands, spilling faster than I can catch it. There’s a tension in that, a strange pull between release and regret. The thought that everything is fleeting—that nothing I build or love or dream of will last—sits with me often. It’s not always a heavy thought. Sometimes it’s light, almost weightless, and yet, somehow, it presses down all the same. If everything fades, does it matter? I ask myself this more than I probably should. But maybe the question is wrong, or maybe I’m just afraid of the answer. I wonder if we’ve been looking for meaning in the wrong places—in permanence, in legacies, in things that don’t move. What if it’s the movement itself that matters? On certain days, the fleeting nature of life feels like a gift. Decisions don’t carry the same gravity; I let things go more easily. I can savor a moment without needing to trap it, knowing it’s meant to be brief. And yet, there’s this undercurrent, a kind of s...

  While cleaning out the garage, sifting through the debris of forgotten years, I found an old photograph tucked into a small box, yellowed at the edges, stubborn against the dust. I knew it before I even looked — the weight of it humming in my hands. A snapshot of a boy I barely recognize now: hair a little wild, a smile a little too sure, eyes chasing something just beyond the frame as if he believed the world would always wait for him. I wonder what he knew back then — or what he hadn't yet learned. How many choices still lay untouched before him, how many hearts would be gathered and dropped along the way, how many nights would stretch endlessly beneath a sky too wide to hold all the questions that would come. A boy smiling without knowing the cost of wonder. A boy chasing after futures that would later burn themselves down to ash. I am not haunted by what he hoped for — I am haunted by the purity of his not-knowing. Sometimes, I envy him — the unbroken faith he carried...

Some ghosts wear zippers instead of faces. There was a time I couldn’t go anywhere without you. You were comfort on bad days, silence when words felt too sharp. You made cold mornings softer. Loneliness easier to carry. I didn’t question you. You were just there. Always. We went through everything together—late-night walks, grocery store breakdowns, bus rides where I tried to disappear. You hugged me when no one else knew how. I kept you even when you started falling apart. Even when I knew you were past your prime, unraveling at the edges, losing color in places that used to feel like home. You stopped fitting, but I made excuses. Called it loyalty. Called it love. And still, I held on. Maybe out of memory. Maybe out of guilt. Or maybe because I was afraid of what letting go might say about me. But the truth is— I don’t miss you now. Not really. Not who you’ve become. You're stretched out. Sagging. Smell like an old version of me I’d rather forget. You don't ho...

We were down to the last box. The walls were bare, echoing in a way they hadn’t since we moved in. There’s a strange silence to empty rooms — not peace, not absence, but something heavier. Like the air knows what’s no longer being said. I sat on the floor where the couch used to be. There was a faint imprint on the carpet — the ghost of comfort, or routine, or both. I traced it with my fingers like that would help me remember who I was when I still belonged here. You don’t realize how much of your identity gets stored in spaces — in chipped mugs and drawer handles, in hallway shadows and the way light used to fall at 4:17 p.m. And when you leave, it doesn’t all come with you. Some parts stay behind, hidden in the corners you forgot to clean. The real abyss isn’t the fear of what’s next. It’s this: The stillness between no longer and not yet. Where memory becomes unreliable, and the self starts to blur. Everyone talks about the grief of endings, but no one warns you about the sil...

I sat alone on the worn couch, remote in hand, staring at the familiar opening credits of a show I once watched every week like it was a lifeline. Tonight, the laughter felt hollow, the jokes like whispers from someone else’s life. I wasn’t here to be entertained—I was here to visit an old version of myself, the one who believed this story held answers. Rewatching a show I’ve outgrown isn’t about reclaiming warmth or comfort. It’s about tracing the slow unraveling of who I used to be, like sifting through dust-covered photographs. The characters haven’t changed, but my gaze has—older, wearier, carrying the weight of roads taken and roads abandoned. Sometimes, growing up feels less like moving forward and more like leaving behind a self who was never fully ready to leave. There’s a strange grief in watching those scenes again—not for the story itself, but for the self who once saw herself reflected in it. We return not to revive but to mourn, to honor the ghost of who we were before g...

  Certainty feels like a promise we make to ourselves—something solid, unmoving, to keep the chaos at bay. But how often does it really hold? We tell ourselves we know who we are, what we want, what the world is, but then something shifts—a chance encounter, a quiet realization, or even just the slow erosion of time—and everything we thought we knew suddenly feels small, brittle. It’s unsettling, this unraveling of the known. Certainty doesn’t break with a loud crash but with a quiet crumble, like sand slipping through our fingers. We tighten our grip, thinking we can hold on, but the more we cling, the more it falls away. And then we’re left standing there, palms empty, wondering if it was ever ours to keep. But maybe that’s where the truth lives—not in the things we’re sure of, but in the spaces left behind when those certainties fade. It’s strange to say, but I think there’s a kind of freedom in not knowing. Certainty pins us down, defines us too neatly, while uncertainty leaves...

Time moves with a relentless rhythm, An unyielding current, quietly pulling me through the sands of time.  I often hear that life is fleeting, that moments slip away faster than I can grasp them, but there’s a deeper truth to this: it’s not just that time passes—it’s that I change with it, and with each passing second, I’m forced to reckon with who I was, who I am, and who I’m becoming. What is it about time that feels so heavy? Perhaps it’s the realization that I can never truly hold onto a moment. I cling to the idea of the present, as if it could last forever, but it drifts like sand, slipping through my fingers. I spend my life trying to capture it, trying to freeze it in place. Yet, the more I try to keep time still, the more it eludes me. I’m never quite here; I’m always a step ahead or a step behind, forever chasing a future I can never fully reach, and a past that keeps fading into memory. And still, there is something beautiful in that struggle. Time teaches me to app...

It always starts the same: light through blinds, the click of the kettle, the soft groan of plumbing. You don’t realize you’re building a ritual until the ritual disappears. Then suddenly, the absence has shape. My old apartment had a window that faced nothing special—just a brick wall, faded graffiti, a stubborn weed that grew through concrete. I used to stare at it while waiting for the toaster to pop. I never thought I’d miss that view. But now, it visits me uninvited. In sterile hotel rooms. In the blur between meetings. In the quiet moments before a notification chimes. We think we miss people or places. Sometimes, what we miss is the version of ourselves that existed in those hours we never thought to notice. Mornings are forgettable by design. They're repetition, maintenance, routine. But there's something sacred in their silence. The way the world is half-asleep, and so are you. No performance yet. No crisis. Just the click of a spoon against ceramic and the low hum ...

Minsan napapaisip at napapatanong ako na sa paglikha ba ng art, music, or sa pagsusulat e mas naihahayag natin ang tunay na concept ng kalayaan? Di ba sa ARTS as a whole eh walang limitasyon, walang hindrances ng policies at laws, kundi guided tayo ng ating mga ideya lang. Kahit na ang ating mundo ay puno ng difficulties, insecurities and absence ng certainty, sa paglikha ay nadadama natin ang kalayaan at dito, pwede tauong magpakalunod sa mga emotions na tanging art lamang ang kayang mag express. Malaya ang taong gawin ang kanyang nanaisin,  Subalit hindi rin maiiwasan na sa kalayaang yan eh merong mga bagay na nagagawa at mga salitang nabibitawan na nagdudulot ng pain at difficulties sa ibang tao. Eto ang dahilan kung bakit marami din ang nagsasabing kailangan nating ic ontrol ang ating kalayaan dahil baka meron taong nasasaktan sa ating mga pinagsasabi or pinag gagawa. Basic civility , ika nga.  Pero di naman din ibig sabihin nito na kailangang manahimik ka na lang at ta...

I saw her on the escalator. She was coming down as I was going up. That small, cinematic distance—just enough time to recognize, remember, and rehearse a lifetime in the space between two floors. Her hair was shorter now, the shade lighter, like the kind of choice you make after surviving something no one clapped for. She looked firmer in the shoulders, like she'd learned how to carry herself after being dropped too many times. More put-together. Less hesitant. But her eyes still had that old flicker—like she could still vanish into her own head mid-conversation. She was with someone. Maybe a partner. Maybe someone passing through. He had the look of someone she trusted with silence. The kind of man who didn’t ask her to shrink her dreams to fit a dinner conversation. I watched him lean in, say something only meant for her. She laughed, and it was soft, real, clean—like she no longer had to apologize for her joy. Then she saw me. Just a second too soon. Her expression shifte...

I remember walking home that night, keys in my pocket, but my mind somewhere else. Not on the usual routine, not on the streets or the streetlights — but on a hashtag I’d been seeing everywhere: #YesAllWomen. It caught me off guard. Because I’d never really stopped to think about what it was like to carry fear like a second skin. I’m a man. I don’t have to walk faster. I don’t have to rehearse rejection in my head. I don’t have to dodge the way a stranger’s glance can weigh heavy, or how a joke can sting deeper than it seems. But the stories poured out—millions of them—carried on the backs of women I know and don’t know, stories of exhaustion, of rage, of invisible wounds. Stories about the daily calculus of safety that no one should have to learn. I had thought I understood. But #YesAllWomen taught me how much I hadn’t. It’s easy to think violence is only in the news, or in the shadows—something far away, someone else’s problem. But it’s woven into the ordinary—the classrooms, t...

Ang karakter ng isang tao ay di nabubuo in an instant, kundi ito’y nakakamit sa pamamagitan ng mahabang proseso at mas mahaba habang pasensya.  Sa pagbuo ng isang matatag na karakter, kalakip nito ang kawalan, heartaches na nakakapang-emo, masasakit na aral at syempre sandamakmak na kamalian.  Mangilan ngilan lamang ang mga taong kilala kong may malakas na karakter dahil di lahat ay nagnanais makaramdam ng sakit. Ang pinakamagandang istorya ay isinilang mula sa  hindi maipintang dusa at ang pinaka appreciated na pagkapanalo ay yung mga winning moments mo na iniluwal mula sa pasakit. Kanina habang nagkakape, meron akong isang former student na isa na ding instructor ngayon (yehey so proud of her!). Nakiupo sya sa pwesto ko at sabing: “Sir, ibang iba kasi karakter mo kapag nagtuturo ka. Gusto kong gayahin estilo mo.” Bigla kong namiss ang pagtuturo. Mag iisang taon na din pala akong atrophic and I am struggling to make sense of this fudging world.  Habang nag iisip, ...

There are people who reappear in your life like forgotten melodies—uninvited, unexpected, but strangely familiar, as if time had simply paused between verses. I received a message from someone I once quietly loved. Not in the way songs describe love, but in the way certain names make you look up without knowing why. We were young. We had no language for what we felt, only small gestures—saving coins to share cheap candy, sitting on a bench that didn’t belong to us but somehow did. When she left, I was too young to understand what leaving truly meant. But it was my first rehearsal with absence, and like all firsts, it carved itself into me without consent. It wasn’t the kind of heartbreak that made you weep into pillows—it was quieter than that. Like a door left open on a windy day. Years passed. I thought the memory had dulled until her message reopened it like a wound that never healed properly, just scabbed with time. She said she was back in town. Wanted to have coffee. Wanted t...

Sometimes, there are moments that just hit me, like a sudden gust of memories that reminds me of things I’ve tried to forget and perhaps hide in the compartments of my mind. Also, it’s in the stillness— in these calm, unguarded moments— all of it comes back to life. Before I know it, the weight of those memories hits me, pulling me into a space where I’m left standing at a crossroads, with nostalgia on one side and reality on the other, wondering how I ended up here, caught between what was and what could have been. Chasing dreams sometimes feels like balancing on a knife’s edge, and in the rush, I end up hurting those closest to me without even realizing it. I sometimes get so locked onto the goal that the quiet chaos I left behind slips right past me. It often feels like I am wandering through an endless maze, and with each turn, it feels like I’m losing pieces of the world I once thought I had figured out. What once shimmered with hope now feels distorted and distant. Justice and lo...

Puff… Hoping Rising Breathing Delightful Wishful Blissful Gratifying Transforming Loving Tragedy Agony Teary Falling Parting Dying... Dying... Parting Falling Teary Agony Tragedy Loving Transforming Gratifying Breathing… Rising… Hoping… Blow…

There’s something sacred about revisiting old wounds, an ineffable truth to the passage of time that allows one to see what once was with a clearer, more tender eye. It’s been seven years since I last stood in these familiar hallways, and yet the sense of familiarity lingers as if time has frozen. But this return is not the reunion I imagined—it is instead marked by sorrow, filled with the chaotic rush of emotions as I navigate the corridors of memory and present. I had returned to this place for a reason I never thought I would—a hospital visit for my father, a moment that grounds me in a very different reality than the one I once inhabited. The school that nurtured my idealism now feels like a relic, a reminder of who I was—a young teacher still struggling to make sense of myself, my ideals, and my failures. I had come to this school as a fresh, wide-eyed soul with unshakable principles and an unwavering optimism, but life, as it often does, chipped away at the fortress of idealism...