Seriously? 6k? Pucha, naka 25°C lang yung aircon tapos gabi na nga lang pinapagana.

I was left to take care of my two younger siblings when my mom left for a month, my flabber was fucking ghasted looking at the bullshit that is the electricity bill—there it hit me—nothing's affordable these days.

Education is free, they say—Dreaming is free, they say. Forgive my french Mr. Speaker pero PUNYETA hindi libre mangarap. There exist a demographic of children where in their first thought before leaving their bed is "how will I eat today?"—These children never even had the chance to dream of being something, who's to even spend time aspiring when the sound of hunger is louder than their perceived chances of leaving the situation they were born in?

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Some people could not afford to pursue their dreams but some never even had the dime to spend on pondering about what they want to be. Hindi libre mangarap.

Every new semester we get asked "why did you choose nursing?"—the thing is, I didn't. The grown ups in my family encouraged me to take this program instead. They thought that pursuing arts would be a bachelor's degree in begging money on the streets—a cashless degree, they say.

I don't say I disagree though, our system built itself to discourage creatives. In another life however—the one where money never existed—I would have preferred back pains if it meant that I get to spend my blood sweat and tears on something that warms my heart.

To say that dreaming is free, we are assuming that every children were born in raised coddled, never experiencing disparity, never had to think about how they would eat the next day.

Libre mangarap—but Mr. Speaker, i fucking disagree. Not every children had the geographical luck of being born in to a 1st world country, some had to ration their foods, some born to take care of the many siblings they have, and some were born in a battlefield—never really experiencing what it means for one to dream.

Punyeta mr speaker, you're so fucking inconsiderate. Just because you had the luxury of having enough space in your mind to daydream doesn't mean that there aren't children out there already preoccupied with the circumstances they had at hand. Your obliviousness is sickening and your audacity triggers my allergies.

I am hopeless for a timeline where in every children had the same luxury as you to imagine a life that can be, to dream of a life that is reachable. For as long as we tolerate old men using young men as pawns in their little evil games, for as long as we constantly elect alligators in the office—another child worries about their survival instead of enjoying their afternoons, dreaming will never truly be free.

despite these problems though, we never really take it too close to our hearts, that’s true for the majority of the population at least. we still end up laughing shit off, giving birth to new memes each month—enough memes that every year, we get to have a summary of everything that went viral starting from january until december. yeah sure, fuck the people in our government but let’s try to dance our problems away—yung sayaw na mapapa “ooh la la” ka talaga.

philippines being as chronically online as it is, we’ve done just every damn dance trend there is on tiktok—brazilian dance has been viral for so long that i can’t even recall when it started, and just recently, we have “oooh lala baby” by baby dolls going viral. to say that filipinos are doing this as a form of coping mechanism would be an understatement in my opinion—to chase and join trends is in our blood now. filipinos breathe virality and, to an extent, escapism flows through our veins. i mean, what else can you do when you’re frustrated about how compromised everyday living is, but not everyone is mad enough to call bullshit on everything and go full on february 22, 1986— i’m talking pitchforks and torches.

perhaps giling giling is the only thing we have under control these days. we cling to trends and tiktok dances that we can modify with our imagination being the only limit. when everything around you feels so out of control, we gravitate back to the things we can handle. no recession can stop us from shaking this ass babyy.

filipinos being whimsical bitches managed to giling giling their way amidst these tough times—it makes me wonder—if we could all just brazilian dance and dong-digi-digi-digi-dong our way out this mess, maybe we wouldn’t be labelled as a thrid world country, maybe we’d still be the rising tiger of asia, the possibilities are endless. mapapa ooh, mapapa ooh lala talaga ako if our country’s unseriousness could help solve even 3% of our problems—but that’s only a thing for a different timeline.

if these things are enough to keep the filipino’s sanity and morale checked, who am i to stop everyone from enjoying it. although we wont get to solve our country’s systemic issues through these dance trends and ear worm music, it’s enough to blow us a bubble of comfort and peace—should we stay inside that bubble is a question for another day.

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all lower case, for today i say: fuck capitalism.

One thing about being part of a minority is the tendency to overcompensate. To get a glimpse of what being treated as a normal human being feels like. Ever noticed that it’s always the gay rich tito’s, the ‘“ayaw mag asawa” tita’s, even at school—just queer people performing and achieving faux gold medals and glorified pieces of papers. Achieving, not for achievement’s sake, but to compensate for a trait that they were not born with, compensate with whatever mental illness the society thinks they have.

Being average at anything brings you nowhere if the world already treats you as a liability—so queer filipinos, and queer people in general, have to overperform, overachieve, hold greatness by its throat and wear it on theirs—not to be crowned, no, just to be seen. To be loved the way their parents celebrate for their siblings getting a perfect attendance certificate, to get the chance of feeling that familiar warmth that they were never introduced to.

It’s like popstars and their album cycles constantly having to outdo their last work and reinvent themselves—queer people have to continuously rise from their ashes like a phoenix and offer something better than the feathers they’ve already sacrificed—except you don’t get to bitch about not reaping even 1% of the recognition that your heterosexual counterpart receives.

I wish that some words were never spoken, I’m talking about the lang, pero, but, sayang, and whatever recoiling arrangements of letters that are almost always gonna crawl out of other people’s mouths when they speak of queer people and of me…if they ever find out that is.

When you need to be everything just to be something, even my dumb ass knows that it was never fair to begin with. If respect and acceptance were to be a sort of race, the starting line for queer people is definitely a few barangays away from the actual line. Respect has to be earned and queer people were taught to hustle for it, twice as much as the common person.

I like kissing men and that comes with the user license agreement that I have to be doing well academically in return. Oh, you want to settle down with your partner who’s the same sex as you? that comes with the condition that you have to be providing for your siblings as well and you can’t argue otherwise, you two won’t be able to have a child of your own anyways.

There are checklists and expectations that you have to consistently go above and beyond, pay rolls of respect dashed upon you sparingly. This was never our fault, it’s just the human experience of wanting to be wanted—just that it’s going to be much of a challenge when they barely see us as humans.

Having been raised in an environment with comments and words of jaws that could bite, I often wonder if I’m only bisexual to have enough of an escape route for when I can no longer take any of this. Jumping from one mlm relationship to another whilst pondering of a life with a wife and a kid or two—maybe it’s just the internalized homophobia planted into my childhood.

They need you to be great at the minimum to be treated like others, like the ones who doesn’t have a pride flag on their bio, or pronouns that they prefer to use. To be recognized for that greatness, you have to be the one who invented the word “success”, anything below that is unworthy of their respect. That is the daily experience of being a faggot in a bigoted country.

I shot the first and third pics on my own, second photo is from little women 2019, i recommend watching it!

To never smoke

To never have kids

And lastly, to never drink alcohol.

(So bare with me as I try to justify my moderate alcoholism.)

I promised never to drink alcohol as a child, yet that promise is broken per 4 month interval max. Witnessing adults get drunk and go barbaric once intoxicated led me to believe that alcohol intake would serve me no good. Life is but a black and white value, many would consider drinking to be a habit one should not harvest from the orchard of possible hobbies—but this activity that left a sour taste to most people became the phonebooth that allowed me communication.

My first time trying to drink was a rather mundane experience, nothing to write home about. My first time getting drunk however, was when I finally understood what it means to embody the alcoholic mentally ill teenager undergoing a transitional phase in their life. There’s something so tragic, yet poetic, about giving in to alcohol intoxication during your formative years.

Curiosity got the best of me, you could say I folded under zero pressure. First shot, I didn’t get the hype. Second shot, my taste buds began to accommodate the bitter sweet blend of the liquor. On the third and fourth shot, I slammed that glass on to the blue green plastic table that each of our auntie’s had—a minute or two passed by and I found myself crying at my friend’s stories, none of which were actually that sad, they were jokes for fuck’s sake, but I found myself a way to cry about it.

Getting drunk that night is what I would consider to be my best mistake.

Words and thoughts started pouring out of my mouth—Which was weird, I’ve never been one to confide my feelings willingly. I said “shit”, but I can’t even remember if I actually got to say that or was I too intoxicated that I never really had the chance to verbalize it. I remember ranting, but my memories of it are vague enough for me not to recall what it was about. I saw visions I hadn’t seen before, everything was spinning rapidly like a long exposure shot of the night sky.

Though I can barely put pieces together of what atrocities crawled out of my heart to my mouth—my chest felt the weight of it lifting. I was sober enough at the later end of that night to recall my other friend hurling his guts out on the pillow that was handed over to us.

I was complaining about my eyes not opening on the way home as my other friend drove us back—intoxicated still, but had enough consciousness to chuckle at gastric juices that was released at that table. WEAK, I shouted playfully. I thought it was my

initiation ritual and a welcoming party to becoming an alcoholic, you know, to be one of them.

I had drank too much that my friend insisted that I skip returning home and just sleep at their place, but drunk just enough to feel the moment bleed into my long term memories. My friend who’s had more experience in drinking, was closer to a coma more than me during my first time.

I’m no stranger to inner demons, I’ve had my fair share of experiences with them. Battling them alone on a daily basis, tongue tied the moment I ask for help with heavy words building up my throat choking me. With all the bullshit I’ve gone through at the time, drinking alcohol per sometimes became my outlet for unburdening myself of my cryptic undecodable-when-sober problems. Without alcohol, I was unable to shape up my scars and bruises into words that would make sense.

I know that relying on this substance as an emotional vehicle would be no more sustainable than fossil fuel, but alas, it’s a canon event for an uptight goody two shoes to have their unhealthy leisure activities. Mama didn’t raise no kill joy.

In a world where wellness culture is becoming more and more pronounced—where strict meal plans are becoming eating disorders with additional steps, getting off the grid won’t be the end of the world. Not to hate on wellness culture of course, but I think we should be working out our hearts, limbic system, and our socializing skills before all that.

It might be a problematic take if I said: use alcohol if it helps release some of that pain or if it stops you from chopping it up there on your wrist or even just help with dissipating those destructive thoughts of yours. Not a very long term solution you know but taking a sip each time Elon Musk spouts another bullshit on twitter won’t hurt, just do it responsibly.

Just like the world we live in, everything is nuanced. No, alcohol isn’t some magical concoction that’ll solve world hunger, like, can we talk about the political and economic state of the world right now?? But it also isn’t some heroine induced drink that’ll dig you up a grave next week or whatever slippery slope you’ve got there under your sleeves.

In your formative years, you will be asked out to drink and socialize with people AND it is very important that you take this offer.

this had some very bad takes and scrambled ideas… ARREST ME MOSCOW

Why didn't my hair fall in to place the way theirs did?

Why didn't it have the shine the way theirs glisten?

Every day before heading to school; with my hair wet, I brush it until it straightens, not minding the ones that i ripped out of my scalp. I would put gel on it to not let it stand up. I didn't know any better, much less my mom.

I thought of course my hair IS straight, my mom's were… after visiting the salon of course. She'd spend a significant amount of money to maintain her straight hair, ironing it every day, brushing it, but it didn't stand up like mine did. I wondered what was wrong with mine.

I grew up with the notion that if i had cut my hair short for a long enough time, it would be “normal”, it would finally grow “normal”. That was an idea perpetuated to me by the adults that surrounded me at the time. They didn't know any better, much less did I.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a buzzed hair since I was a child up until around 7th grade. It was at that time when I began to rebel and wanted to choose what I wanted for myself.

My hair grew long, still, I kept brushing it and whilst not minding the breaks and the way it snatches the hair from my scalp feeling the pain of the tug caused by the brush.

For the majority of my life, I had forced my hair to conform to what I saw as the normal, the majority, what everyone else had. Nobody told me my hair looked like a mess when I'd brush it out and gel the center top to the tips, why didn't anyone tell me? Maybe what I was doing was right then?

Around highschool was when the undercut haircut started to trend, of course little old naive me went to have that very cut. Every visit to the barber shop was always a crying session at the bathroom when I get home. Why doesn't it look like theirs? Why does it only look good the first few minutes after the haircut? I didn't know and no one around me understood my confusion. It was as if I wasn't aware of a portion of my identity.

Growing up with asian centered media and their inclination towards eurocentric features wasn't a big help either.

Everyone on TV had fair skin, straight hair, tall, and defined nose. A blasian kid navigating their identity thought he'd have no place to even dream of someone out there resembling him and his features.

In a world where everyone wanted to be mestiza y mestizo, I was but a confused boy, curious by the way my hair takes shape and the way it feels.

Representation matters a little more every time I look back to my childhood memories.

Had there been actual Southeast Asian looking actors and etc on the media,

Had there been black people representation in our local media,

Maybe I wouldn't have been lost for as long as I was.

So I stopped brushing my hair.

I stopped conforming to what everyone wanted to be.

I figured out what was wrong, if it was ever wrong to begin with—I had curly hair.

It was at the near end of my highschool life when I decided one day to skip brushing my hair, instead I applied a hair product that I was unfamiliar with at the time. During that day, I didn't pay much mind, I wasn't aware of what effects it did to my head. But when i got home and saw my self in the mirror, I liked it.

I eventually fell into the rabbit hole of consumerism—as I tried to keep my hair the way I liked it that day. It's been almost 3 years since that day and I don't regret a single bit of what I've decided to do with my hair.

With the other shit that I've been through, I've also received a handful amounts of comments regarding my hair.

Some said it looked like pubic hair,

a steel wool,

a bird's nest.

It's microagression dressed and disguised as a silly little joke.

I had far worse problems and grew my fair share of thick skin so I didn't mind the racist subtleties in their remarks. I believe those are words let out by people who are just as lost as me during my childhood.

We are all a victim of societal norms and when the majority of the population worships eurocentric features, I couldn't be more surprised.

When I stopped brushing my hair, I stopped being affected by what the culture perpetuated to be perfection.

When I stopped brushing my hair, it wasn't a protest, rather, it was what was left from the little version of me inside.

The kid who had constant arguements with his father after getting a hair cut, the one always frowning at the sight of his hair after school.

It shouldn't be a privilege for a young kid to have representation in the media or anywhere else for that matter. When you push out a certain demographic out of sight, the children belonging to those demographic grow confused and lost of what their actual identity is.

I think brushing our hairs shouldn't be the only thing stopped.