Author: Chiaski

An American Dream—from the Heart of Manila

Published by Chiaski

I first began thinking about studying abroad in my junior year of high school. In America, particularly. It felt like the safest option in terms of diversity and accessibility, and was entranced by the prestigious Ivy League dream (I knew about Harvard and Yale before most local universities, Western media influence and all).  One day, I brought it up to my mother and was pleasantly surprised with encouragement. If we can afford it, go for it. In 2017, Town & Country Philippines released an article called “The Best and the Brightest: Brilliant Minds From the Class of 2017“. Questionable title, they’re definitely not “the best and brightest” but the point on their international education stands. The universities mentioned in the list are all selective–they’re not those kinds of schools that accept anyone that can pay the full fee and boost their international student count, a metric often used in top college rankings. If you do a quick Google search for a school, you see their acceptance rates–or you know, you know that Harvard is Harvard because it’s …

a poem for the evening sun

Published by Chiaski

I believe in God the Father Almighty, in false things and delusions; the tap water running to drown out the sound of the shivers at seven. In the quiet moments and the bare body on the camera or the lost prophet in the home and altar. Reciting His name again and again will absolve this household of sin, we believed.   I believe in emptiness, in ajar mouth and rewired brains. Tap dancing on the throe of loneliness and kicking bags over fences; the presence of smokescreen or radiation in June evenings–the same infallible empty. Like buckled belts and car crash memoir, weighing life for small games and chances and the redundancy of trying.   I believe in belief, in healing towards the dead. The picket fence and the turn towards atheism, boys equating running and late nights to freedom for the drone of the system to repeat itself again. Where momentarily my verse becomes a soldier, the escape or done vow to something again–the summer solstice and the painted moon towards revival of mankind …

to my dream

Published by Chiaski

The truth hurts worse than anything I could bring myself to do. Oh, dream schools. I made this weird promise to myself. I held this weird sort of belief. If you take enough time to think when your minds are in that chaotic dearth, you see the sky clear again. You see the world rise once more. You see beauty against pain, reason to triumph over conflict, the light cascading and piercing through—symbolic of hope: in good mornings, fully-rested naps in the middle of the night, good food and the extra pound or two post-buffet, your heart tumbling, twirling, and fighting after the climax of a movie you’ve seen over and over, teenage freedom and believing that you are in love. What I mean to say is, there are many feelings that we believe are pristine and pure. Convincing ourselves these are unique sensations, looking forward to moments of happiness and sense in an otherwise bland and decrepit world. These are innocent reasons for our being, which I firmly believe are the ones that drive …

heart rates and gold

Published by Chiaski

My idea of self-worth has often been defined by superficial things. For the most part, life has been a journey of understanding who I want to be and what I want to be a part of–grasping onto things that make me feel bigger and significant. Everything we live through is fragile and empty and I am daring to do something that would make me feel alive. This is a confession to you. This is part of the footnote, or perhaps the conclusion. This is something intended to be bittersweet, or something like that. This is something you would never read. … I am confident that humanity’s goal is to love and create. When I was a child, all that I could think of was to write. It was disastrous crayon-on-walls and pen-on-arm, but it was something that I was proud of. Happiness was the tangible stain of ink and the feeling of color flourishing through everything–as if wax would compensate for emptiness and loneliness. It was through the sun with shades on the corner and …

Vagrants (dream schools and whatever)

Published by Chiaski

So, I finished my applications. I gave in and dropped one, so my Common Application list only reads (19) instead of that sweet, maximum (20). How did this happen? I told myself after clutching January 1 supplements that I am never, ever going to do that again. I’m going to finish my January 15 ones right away. Did that happen? Of course not. It’s a new year and I cannot remember the last time I’ve arbitrarily assigned something to be a form of renewal. Not new numbers, not clockwork, not time or dates or anything that can be quantified, really. My rebirth is in something far less tangible: in moments of realization while staring at the bedroom ceiling, in showers or the procrastination before one, in long drives home when I can’t fall asleep and instead feel the leather of the car seat tugging and marking my skin when normally it should be numb and I should sleep and drift off and feel nothing until that certain pattern of turns that I just memorize and wake up …

specter .1

Published by Chiaski

Over the weekend, after sulking into an existential abyss of holiday depression (my regularly scheduled Christmas one that just kind of happens because of traumatic incidents that happened in my adolescent, formative years) I got an idea for a game.

EMO COUNTDOWN 2017

Published by Chiaski

Greetings. It is 11PM on a Sunday night and I am dying. Normally this doesn’t happen until about 4AM, which is why it’s quite strange. Here are my top emo songs of the year, not necessarily from the year, but of the year. Get ready to go down and get wild. Your local emo (TRUE EMO NOT FAKE EMO LIKE MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE AND AMERICAN FOOTBALL REAL EMO IS PAGENINETYNINE AND BLABLABLA… kidding) is about to show you what true torment in the form of soundwaves and lyrically-induced existential crisis is all about.

Outside Gate 2.5

Published by Chiaski

Outside Gate 2.5 Here, I am the rich. I, ilk of captive grasslands; interim of conversation and strangers of shared descent. This discomfort will follow – as oxide stains the validity of tonsils, leaked of coarse throat, straining, frugal with desire to be heard. I abuse the story I come from. Here, a gun asks for a namesake. His crippled hips grin of a lawless history, scorned of the 70s. Hands shuffle us inside. Tell us for a moment, we must finally scream for our own selves. I, voiceless for a future, has entanglement clock our sameness, our waning fear of living. Inside, they pick up all our mangled selves, sputtered of wax; and so we become ember, holding onto life again. We become your voice, ascent to fueling the ends of times, like gunshots splayed of freefall towards streets. Here, I am the rich, burdened of word – further, they tell us not to fight again. Further, they say we do not seek them. To this I wonder the requirement of boiling my skin, …

Standardized

Published by Chiaski

I like complaining about this arduous process that I don’t even supposedly have to subject myself to; it’s 1:17 AM and I’m anxiously waiting for it to hit 4:00AM (or 3PM EST) so I can receive my subject test scores. I realize here, that I am consumed by the process in one way or another. The worst part of it all is that I am letting myself be subject to it, and doing nothing but falling deeper and deeper into an endless, self-deprecating mess of numbers, words, and rankings. Here lies a coalesced ramble of feelings about being jammed into numbers, figures — and wondering if there ever really was anything more. Thinking back to the roots of it all, I try to remember why I fight. Like everyone else was, at the age of seven or so — I was meticulously crafted to live for the only guise of praise from only my parents. Their words were the highest honor – and still now, countless people live in the shadow of not receiving that …

Tales from Uzushiogakure

Published by Chiaski

I used to scoff a lot at the fact that I had no binding attachment to some oversaturated series on the market. The engorged entitlement in estranged mothers and fathers bringing home Harry Potter box sets or superhero pop figurines to fulfill their childrens’ temporary obsessions didn’t really compare to my interest in just making things on my own, or my faint interest that lacked that touch of physical satiation — the kind that would let me bring the toys to school and gain some self-confidence with that sweet, unrivaled fifteen minutes of classroom fame. After all, when Lisa Frank and sticker-ridden clearbooks lost their marvel, the only thing that could account for such was that market validation. Then, I remember that I did have something in my youth, actually. Except it falls on the entire premise of being a complete and utter weeaboo. I then remember that at age seventeen, I am literally as captive to it as I was at the age of ten. I can’t help but to bring it up due to the …