There’s dramatic music playing while I’m eating an Earl Grey Cheesecake. The crumbling of the crust inside my tongue feels like the slow crumbling of …
Cake for Sanity
Essays
Onion Bomb: When Setting Boundaries Make You Cry
I use nicety and being dense (or dumb) as a defence mechanism. While not all the time, it sometimes helps protect my energy in situations. …
Growing Up in Mindanao: Childhood Memories
Quite recently, I’ve been having flashes of my childhood memories growing up in Mindanao. My childhood memories are so rich with images of the country …
Stop and Smell the Flowers
It seems like everyone hates 2020. It has for sure exposed long running inequality and corrupt systems. And while a lot of people …
Manila and its Uncertainties
I don’t know if you will like Manila. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a dirty, chaotic, third world city. The streets are …
Growing Up Good
On my recent trip back to my hometown I found my diary from when I was seventeen years old, in it I wrote “My boyfriend …
Pebble in My Shoe
It’s fall where you are. Where I am there is only either the scorching heat or the lashing rains. I may be exaggerating a little. …
A Darker Shade
I don’t think we will ever witness the first snowfall of the year together or that I’ll run back to you the way I did …
Third World Worries
I remember the many nights spent walking in the heat and dust, sitting through 2-hour bus rides stuck in traffic, walking through the flooded streets …
I am Brown and Both
I understand that it was made in jest- that I could not be considered Mindanaoan or even Filipino because I left the Philippines. The thing …