Ultimate Goal

My daily goal is to act accordingly in every situation I deal with. I admit there are times that I act poorly. In those occasions, I can only feel sorry, do whatever I can to rectify whatever damage I’ve caused then move on; there’s no point wallowing over something I cannot change. I just hope that, when the time comes for my curtain to fall, when I take one final look at the stage that was my life, I’d be able to say: “Well done!”

Fleeting Moment

It might’ve not been the words but the way I said them, I’m not sure, but I know I’d hurt you.

You were doing your best to tease me and I thought I’d better say something witty to let you know that I knew your game. Well, that was the intention; I didn’t mean to hurt you the way I did. I’d thought you’d merely laugh it off then turn your attention to the girl next to me. That you reacted otherwise was unexpected.

I can still remember how you looked. The muscles in your face twitched, followed by the blinking of your eyes. Then, like a smoke slowly disappearing in air, your smile ever so slowly faded, so slowly that I saw it linger in your lips a few seconds after it had left your eyes. You let out a controlled sigh, the kind that carefully releases a heavy heart’s burden. Then, unceremoniously, you stared at me intensely. Damn! You had my defenses down!

I saw your lips move, but your voice was so soft I didn’t understand what you’d said. I’d thought you’d punish me, but you didn’t. You continued to talk in that calm, controlled voice as though you were trying to make me understand. But understand what? You? Oh, I didn’t really understand anything, but your intense gaze had me nodding my head.

I opened my mouth to say I was sorry but it was then that you released me. Someone was calling you, so you had to excuse yourself. I could’ve sighed of relief then. I did, but not quite. I felt disturbed. For in that fleeting moment, I thought I saw through you. I thought I saw a dark, deep-seated void in your being. I thought I saw a lost soul—needing, yearning to be cared for, craving for things peaceful and comforting. I thought I saw a heart, torn and wounded, yet still trying to beat, though staggering in its motion. I thought I saw your pride, bent in its humility. That moment, I felt as though I was given the gift of wisdom to understand the depth of humanity—the many joy and drama it represents.

Yet, more than that, I felt the guilt stab me. What’ve I done? How could’ve I hurt you like that? How could’ve I passed judgment upon your person when I didn’t even know you? when I didn’t really know what I was talking about?

In that fleeting moment, I felt for you. But then that was because you scared me. I thought I’d better fire the first bullet before anyone could ever hurt me. That’s right, defense mechanism.

That moment may just remain as such—brief. We may see each other again, but we may never recapture the magic (or whatever you’d call it) that transpired that moment. Because by then, the stars would’ve already moved to different positions; things would’ve already changed.

Or maybe we’d realize there’s really nothing to say. That what transpired was just a casual talk, like a comment about the weather.

But still, something remains: you deserve an apology and damn if I don’t offer you one.

I’m sorry.


JhannHyanni
May 2004

Looking into the Mirror of Erised

If you were standing in front of the Mirror of Erised (Read Harry Potter 1 to find out how it works), what would you see?

Jhann, Hyanni, and Angel’s Unquotables

I was born a quadruplet, but my parents and the midwife who "birthed" my mother didn’t (and still don't) know. My certificate of live birth didn’t say I had a twin or twins(?) or whatever you call them, yet I know I have other selves: Jhann, Hyanni, and Angel.

We get along well together. Of course, we always have disagreements, but that’s normal, as we all have different personalities and beliefs. As siblings sharing just one body, we get on with each other pretty well.

One night, I eavesdropped on my three selves conversing. It was such an interesting conversation that I kept playing the highlights in my mind over and over. I thought I should transcribe it and share it with you. But you may quote not.
—Sherma

Ten years ago, I’d been told I’d one day come home a failure. And pregnant…unwed. Ha ha! Can anyone show me the child a faceless father and I conceived? Ten years ago I’d been told I’ll never make it, that I was too poor to even dream of ever making it. Luckily I didn’t listen. I shudder to think what I would have become if I had.

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Poverty, principle, and determination do not breed a weakling.

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I don’t have much respect for a person who cannot play clean — someone who’d stoop so low as to step on someone else’s toes and use other people to get there (Wherever that is). I could work, charm, bitch, and bluff my way to where I wanna be. But dammit, I play fair.

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What I am now is the result of all the pleasant and the dreadful things that life had dealt me — all the challenges I conquered, the trials I failed, the tears I shed, the pain I endured, the laughter that rang out of my lips, and the love that I shared.

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This is who I am now. Whatever I gained, whatever I lost, whatever is left of me, sum me up.
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I have been both very careful and extremely reckless in all my steps. That’s why I’m here.
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I know what I’ve got and I’d do my damn best to capitalize on it — to make up for the things I don’t have…and may never get.
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With the exception of my family, there is nothing I got in this life that I didn’t have to work hard and fight for. But then, I think I have more than enough.

The Journey

I am a restless soul who has come to visit this wilderness
Looking for answers to all the questions
I don’t quite comprehend
Trying to understand clues
to all the puzzles I come across
Finding reasons to all the things that happen
I may not find all
I may not understand everything
Still I keep walking
Feeling happiness to all the joy
and shedding tears for every pain
Riding the circus of the journey’s ups and downs
Getting acquainted with the gruesome face
of greed, deception, and betrayal
Falling every now and then
But still continuing with my trek, unfalteringly
Until this journey’s got meaning
Until I see the light
Until I finish the mission for which I’ve come and
of which up until now I don’t understand
Until the last piece of the puzzle’s in place
Only then that this soul rests.


Copyright Sherma E. Benosa

Angel's Wicked Side

(Warning: Contains foul language. Read at your own risk.)

I believe I am an optimist. You know, the kind who would look at a half-filled glass as half full, rather than half empty.

But there are also times when I just can’t help feeling lost. And restless. And helpless. Sometimes I feel that the world is so fucked up. That there are too many mean people around. That everyone’s just here, without purpose. That is, besides doing everything to make sure that the next person will have a hard time.

I shake my head, and command my goddam self to do what she oughtta do. Never mind that the world sucks. Never mind that everything’s been turned upside down. Never mind that she, too, feels fucked up.

Sometimes, just sometimes...

Life sucks!

About

My Page and Me

The Written Worl[l] of the Brainteaser is the ‘pensieve’ that holds my mind’s ramblings, the paper that keeps my pen’s scrawls, the simple note in the music of my life, and the rhyme in the poetry of my dreams.

I am a brainteaser seeking answers to my questions, and attempting to put together the clues of — and to find meaning to — the puzzle that is my life.

A proud owner of a crazy pen and a humble resident of the written world, I am a sojourner who travels through, and along, indefinable planes.

Do come, travel with me and be my friend…

Bits and Pieces

Spirit sailing
alone in the wilderness
bids goodbye, soon rests.
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Fate’s simply a plotted scene
played by the gods’ pawns
but my mind’s bent
to control my trails.
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I never needed love
and all the soft whisper and empty talks
until I found you.
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Beyond the stars
the soul of the night awakened
seeking for scars
my heart weakened.
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Memories tinkling my grave.
Sounds of sorrow whisper—
“I am damned.”
Sighing, I taste goodbye.
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Whisked to a star-strewn moment
I stood frozen
Sensing your warmth
Hot amber-glowing fire fluttered.
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You’ll never bother to look beyond the clouds
Without the reward of seeing the sky.
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His song of love whispered
softly and my heart warmed
and colored red.
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Sherma E. Benosa
Copyright 2001

Racing Against Time

On the average, I work 14 hours a day, six times a week, and stay in the office 130 hours of the 168-hour week. I should say that at the end of each week I am toxic and dead tired. I am, but only physically. Deep inside, there is an unexplainable feeling of restlessness that arrests me when I am most vulnerable—a restlessness that not even my exhausted body could suppress; a restlessness that fuels my spirit to soar high; and a restlessness that makes me believe that there is so much to do, in so little a time.

Sometimes I feel as though I am in constant race against Time, and that Time somehow manages to occasionally pull my leg by throwing at me extreme feelings of loneliness or happiness that make me want to stop and either enjoy life or wallow in misery. And when I do, I’d soon realize that I’d been tricked, and that Time had run so far ahead that I could barely catch up.

So I'd put myself back on gear again, exerting every strength I could muster, running as fast as I could, wanting to overcome Time and win the game. But even the most determined soul has its limitations. I too, am not immune to these. In every step I’d made, there had always been something in the way that I had to face before I could make another step. On most occasions, I’d had to move sideward in order to move forward.

“What am I to do? Am I not lucky that I have reached this far despite the things I had to go through? So I have not reached that which I’ve set out to achieve, but then, they weren’t realistic in the first place. Hey, I’ve managed to pull out of every catastrophe thrown my way!” So there go the excuses I’d made for myself for the little-above-satisfactory performance I'd put in. Tsk!

But who the heck am I kidding? If I were to be honest, I must admit that I had not truly exhausted all the possible options I could have taken, that I had let myself be detained by my perceived limitations, and that I had foolishly succumbed to the fearful little voice inside me which kept asking, “What happens if you fail?”

And so I’ve been extremely careful in all my steps. Where I should have leapt, I opted to look first, until fear of what might happen had enveloped me that I eventually lost the courage to jump. Where I should have readily moved on, I chose to look back and what I saw either tied me to the past or made me be wary of what was ahead, that in my moments of indecision, good opportunities had passed me by. Where I should have confidently taken over, I had let other people take control of the things that directly affected me, until I realized a little too late that I could have done the job much better.

It’s not yet late, though. One thing that I have learned lately about the concept of time is that, when seen in a different perspective, perhaps in the long-term scale, there really is no such thing as being too early or too late. This I say, because for years I kept postponing doing something I’ve always wanted to do, thinking that it was too early and that I was too young. So I waited for it to happen in its right time. Or shall I say, I waited for Opportunity to come knocking at my door and hand me the assurance that the odds were on my side. But it never came. Before I knew it, Time had already passed me by.

Then, I thought that it was already too late, that I was too old, and that I may never make it. For some time, I let myself believe these. Until lately, I came to understand that it is not Time that chooses when it is perfect for things to happen; it is I who should make Time be right for what I want to happen.

So now I am working double time to make up for the lost time. Soon, I’d be side by side with Time again. Who knows, I might even be able to trick him into slowing down a little. That should not be too hard. I have already started. So much more shall happen. Simply because I’ve decided it’s time…

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*I've been told once that time is not something to race against, rather, travel with—a wisdom of age that (not so) young people like myself have yet to learn. Part of me wants to slow down and find time to smell the flowers and live each day as it comes. But then, the other part of me would not want to look back to this day when I am much older and count all the opportunities I’d missed because I’d been busy romancing the sunset that I didn’t recognize them when they presented themselves to me. I would not want to find myself wishing to turn back time to do the things I should have done. There is nothing more tragic, I think, than to have might-have-beens and if-onlys one too many. Regret is that one thing I don’t look forward to dealing with.