A Home at the End of the World.

A Home at the End of the World

Where I don't have to feel guilty about every other thing I do.
Where I love yous and I'm sorrys are not as rare as moments when the family is TRULY complete.
Where I join Mama and Vincent in painting the walls white.
Where I don't throw back tantrums to my brothers.
Where gender is not an issue.
Where my friends and I have the resources to put up a show.. to have more vacations out of town.. to skinny-dip again under the moon.. to cook tomatoes and pasta and meatballs and fried bananas.
Where I don't fall for guys who are too weak and are too afraid afraid even to see their own selves.
Where I can watch as many movies as I want without shelling out money.
Where libraries don't close at night.. where books are as cheap as P10.
Where poetry is not a luxury.
Where I can do theatre all I want.
Where marriages don't end.
Where every house has a little garden at the back.
Where imagination is not barred by money.
Where laughter is not corrupted.
Where I can cry and be truly proud about crying.
Where God sits beside me in the living room and hugs me, and looks at me in the eye.
Where fruits and vegetables do not grow dark on the sides.. where they stay forever fresh, forever green, forever dewy and glossy..
Where everyone is beautiful on the outside.. where everyone has healthy skin, shiny hair, sparkling eyes.. where everyone is graceful on the dancefloor.. where people don't have to look in the mirror and see that there are aesthetic conventions.
Where furniture's designed for everybody, no expensive piece of chair, of dresser, of table..
Where I don't have to continue wishing.
Where hope is as infinite as the sky.
Where there are no unfair deaths.
Where young cousins don't sleep with you and imgine they are your lover.
Where teachers don't tell you that goals can be reached by working hard.. where they tell you that there are biases and prejudices that one dream-filled and hardworking aspirant can't counter even if he dies with his hands open with all the honest work he did.
Where everyone has a room of their own.
Where anyone can dance naked under the soft glow of the moon and night lights.
Where shoes always come in pairs.
Where black is black, and white is white.
Where flowers don't wither and die just when you needed a single bloom to comfort you.
Where young children don't die of cancer on the eve of your 20th birthday.
Where grandmothers don't get bedridden and die.. where grandmothers don't get so weak, even a light blanket is too heavy.
Where fathers will always be at the house.. where fathers don't have to work with a gun on their hands, their lives dangling like bait for hardened criminals.
Where people don't have to steal from others just so they could buy a kilo of rice.
Where students don't complain of goverment corruption while they get low grades ...while their parents slave day and night just to send money for a week's allowance.
Where commercialization of the media does not compromise mass education.
Where Filipinos are Filipinos, Americans Americans, Japanese are Japanese.. where history does not leave some races scarred for a hundred, thousand years.
Where the world runs at an undisturbed circle of peace.
Where asking for peace is not asking too much.
Where every child gets to say his bedtime prayer.
Where there are no homes for the aged.
Where I wake up with dreams of gardens, and red, throbbing and very much alive hearts, where I wake up with a kiss on the cheek, where the sheets are always white and dotted with pink and purple blooms..

Where I take a pen and write anything I want to write, and wake up knowing that no one gets hurt with what my words and stories I have to say.