Where I'm From

I am from pressed uniforms, from Faultless and Easy On.

I am from Mama'a Baby by Burberry

that nobody sells anymore.

I am from Papa's Saturday newspaper and naps on Sunday afternoons.

From Tita Rosalie's, "Nysha, Nysha, lavandera," and, "Carrots are good for you."

From when Kisha ran with her injured hip and came in second place

I am from the mossy walls around the garden.

From the bright yellow allamandas and

the smell of pine after the rain.

From dried acrylic paints and unsharpened pencils.

I am from Asia.

From the Hainan Islands and Philippine archipaelego

From Grandma Nena's rice with the occasional cooked ants

From Hainanese Chicken Rice and Sinigang soup

I am from church trips only during christmas and the bible collecting dust in the storeroom

Collecting dust with the stacks of photo albums,

Black and white pictures,

Sepia, polaroids

coloured

Set aside but not far away

The memories building up

Thickening like the bark of the tree

A new ring

A new memory

Screaming at the Water

*based on the March 11,2011 Japan Tsunami & Earthquake.

As Yoko and I walked back home from school, we heard the audible sound of the tsunami alert. People along the streets came out from their houses--with babies and children in tow--and started to run to the nearest evacuation area. Yoko and I joined the crowd and held hands to facilitate finding each other in the moving bodies of people.

I heard a sound. A rush of water not so far away. The group began to panic. There was a cry from an old lady behind me. Wailing from a baby. The adults' voice trembling as they told their children to hush. And as the panic surged, the crowd scattered in different places leaving us in the path of the preceding flood of water--with no evidence of decelerating. Time was crucial.

I ran to the nearest tree, Yoko behind me, and quickly began to climb.

" Wait for me!" Yoko shrieked as she struggled getting her legs on the branches.

The tsunami was nearing us, fearing for my best friend's life, I extended my arm and shouted,"Grab on!"

And just as her hand touched my palm, just as her fingers gripped my wrist, a great colour of azure slammed against Yoko out of the tree like a bowling pin.

I screamed Yoko's name, searching the deluge of water and copious amounts of debris for any sign of her.I screamed till I felt a pang in my throat. I screamed till I didn't even know what I was screaming for; was I screaming for Yoko to emerge from the waters? Or was I screaming at the water, demanding why it had to wash my best friend away?

Night by Elie Wiesel

Reviewed by Nysha T.

"Night" meaning the darkness the memorist was living, in the harsh conditions of the Holocaust. The concentration camps. Caved in, with no way out, that place locks you, your mind, away from the world--none of them knowing what goes on behind the heavy iron gates.

This is the memoir of Elie Wiesel. A Jew, from Sighet, Trasylvania, who tells us his terrifying story about being transported to and trapped in the wrath of concentration camps with his father during his teenage years.

Separated from his mother and sisters, it is a vivid narrative depicted through the observant eyes of a boy in a way where you know the treatment of people, how they lived, the pain they faced, stringed with powerful words and thoughts.

He came to realize being kept away from humanity, and getting beaten, the fear of it happening again can numb your emotions. It numbed the memorist's belief in his god as he grew questioning what He can really do. It numbs till the only thing you think of is your ration of food and living for yourself--not for anyone else.

I think it is painful to know how life was like in a concentration camp. (If it would be called a “life.”). It has gripped me with a painful respect to the people who have survived such a horrific experience. It is the revalation of what goes on behind the gates. How some were forced to do things that can erase their emotions. And how some, through all these sufferings, sometimes succumbed to insanity, and death.

LINES THAT YOU LOVED.:

"How long had we been standing on the freezing wind? One hour? A single hour? Sixty minutes?

Surely it was a dream." (Page 37)

"All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again." (Page 95)