Give me lives I can possess, deeds and agonies and wounds,
people, ships, maps and clocks; give me children. Give me moments
rippling clear in dark blue water, burnt brown on the beating air,
give me the long and painful spirals
of glass-stained time. Give me words that sing
like drums and gongs and dying swans,
give me words to eat […]

by Mia on 8:34 pm, September 16, 2007 in writing none spoke

Holding the match your fingers tremble,
but drop it headlong into the water
and flit away like startled birds
when the world ignites. A yellow flame
leaps out of its mirror, dancing brightly
to a song you think you hear.
Note by note the seawater burns,
tongues consuming the marriage of ocean and air –
And you cannot breathe: your lungs exhale
your life […]

by Mia on 12:10 pm, September 12, 2007 in writing (7) spoke

(crossposted from the Read or Die Weblog)
Where many other books about the Marcos years are narrative roads lined with blood-soaked protest signs and guns, Katrina Tuvera’s The Jupiter Effect is a maze of mirrors, lenses, and shards of typhoon-shattered glass. Rather than paint with epic sweep, Tuvera has carefully composed a mosaic of the personal, […]

by Mia on 2:14 am, September 9, 2007 in writing none spoke

(Should be doing calligraphy, but had to write. Ugh. Took a fifteen-minute break because I couldn’t concentrate.)
–
(Glass, Hikaru/Iryoki present-day)
You wake angry at yourself for still being alive. Through your windows the morning sun streams in: pale, bright, hateful. The walls of your room look brittle, as if made of cloudy glass, and for a few […]

by Mia on 2:48 am, August 31, 2007 in writing (5) spoke

(cross-posted from the Read or Die Blog.)
Out of everything that Dean Alfar and the LitCritters had to say in their talk on Philippine speculative fiction at the Manila International Bookfair last August 29, what struck me most was the repeated emphasis on the relevance of speculative fiction in the Philippine setting: its importance not merely […]

by Mia on 11:59 pm, August 30, 2007 in writing none spoke

Random doodling, only with words.
–
[Sailari’s mother — vague, sketchy history-setting for The Thousand Gates.]
They said she was a great beauty, the Lady kh’Astre. There were, of course, many other things that could be said about her, but all agreed that she was beautiful. Because of her beauty they forgave the Lord kh’Astre for marrying her; […]

by Mia on 5:30 pm, August 21, 2007 in writing none spoke

Years from now, she will wonder
what would have happened
without that first meeting,
a boy finding a girl caught
between shards of sunlight
and cloudy glass.
What if he had not spoken
and she had refused to hear;
or if, that one night
under gaze of moon and vine,
she had crushed in her palm
his throbbing heart?
She will wonder how she lived
after walking away; […]

by Mia on 12:23 am, August 13, 2007 in writing (7) spoke

Cross-posted from the Read or Die weblog. I’ve been having trouble writing things — personal thoughts and stories, at least — lately, but I still read. And draw. And do calligraphy. Etc.
–
When I read, I try to match the book with my mood and the time of day. These are books I reserve for late […]

by Mia on 11:46 pm, July 3, 2007 in writing none spoke

(Read or Die is finally getting me writing. Que horror. What follows is a review I posted on the RoD blog. I first read the book in question while I was in the hospital, watching over Lola, and it left quite an impression on me. Something more than, “ha, that’s pretty witty/funny/incisive.” I finished it […]

by Mia on 2:08 pm, June 27, 2007 in writing none spoke

Final exam for Social Science 2, very rough draft. Being a contrary person, I chose one of the more difficult topics (Roszak’s A Dead Man’s Eyes from Where the Wasteland Ends, Habermas, Nietszche) instead of the relatively straightforward topic — one I could certainly relate to — on identity and the internet.
I loved writing every […]

by Mia on 2:43 pm, June 7, 2007 in academics, writing none spoke