lesser islands

i just like the phrase. who knows, i might come up with a story with it as a title, or whatever. "whatever"? where have my words gone? (dramatic, o captain my captain.)

lesser islands. it came to my mind as i was nearing my stop on my way home. lesser islands. i thought of islands road-wise, and i thought, how about those surrounded by water? then i'm thinking now, yeah, the lesser islands that get submerged during high tide. lesser islands. of course i could be geologically wrong. 'lesser islands' sounds like desert island.

a few years ago when i still dabbled in writing fiction (as a primary hobby, yeahyeah), there was this phrase that i couldn't get out of my mind: "lately, the ponderosa." it was supposed to be a title of a story. it's difficult to think of a story when the title comes first. so, up to now, it's just a phrase.

many of my friends know the reason (i actually have a lot of reasons, but these don't matter now) why i stopped writing. it's a shallow one. it's so shallow i actually promised --no, swore--i'll join the palanca this year.

walking away from the office today i thought of what i'd told martin this afternoon during a chat. i told him i was practicing my watercolor. i said i can doodle okay, but i was never good at coloring. then i saw the trees growing along lacson, and i thought hey i should learn how to draw trees really well. i like trees. i see trees everyday. there's a lot of trees in the mountains. then i thought i could write by hand a little something, a literary sketch, a short story or whatever (whatever) that starts with "there was a man sleeping in the back of the truck" and i'd draw a nice pine tree along the border of the paper. then i thought, "f*ck, damn cheesy pine tree in an edgy urban story, what the hell are you thinking?"

then i thought, as i crossed the boulevard, i don't know what comes after prepositions anymore. propositions? oh, stick to the subject.

when i got home, i sent something via twitter. it cost fifteen pesos. that's what you pay for being mobile. except that i was on my bed. then, in the bathroom, i felt like stringing a long phrase of expletives because i felt rotten.

on twitter i said
"it's happening again, the listless wandering about. the falling action. falling. in how many ways can it be done? staring off to space." there was supposed to be a "mind blank" after that, but i guess i exceeded the max number of characters. which is a good thing, really. emo much? gar.

some months ago i feared being/letting myself be 'happy' (so all stories had been filtered/ simplified to an "okay"), because if things didn't turn out the way i'd hoped, or if i read wrong, it would have been more difficult to bounce back. so i decided to let things be, and to just be caught in the rain when--if--it happens. the three confidantes--susa, martin, and jonar--know this only too well, the forced self-pulling down after i had just beamed up to raincloud nine.

so, is this falling action the result of a recent trip to outer space, and gravity's come to claim me again? or maybe it's just me being overly dramatic (oh, sure, emo) because i can't effing write or draw trees? or maybe--maybe it's high tide and just time for the lesser islands to sink and hide a bit.

what?

see you in the morning.