Drunken master

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

I remember your name. We were young and passionate about many things, but reserved in our feelings for each other. Restraint was the operative word, having already committed to relationships with partners we were comfortable with, and on the whole, desired. You would strum your guitar under a mango tree directly where I could see you by my window and sing songs that pertain to unspoken love, thrown in the wind, unsure whether it will be caught. The beautiful woman beside you cuddled tightly, without understanding the temperament of the moment and the messages that floated in the air. I listened, and I know you know I was listening, because the songs you were playing were the same songs we hummed together riding a motorcycle against the wind and the mist that splashed on our faces before the break of dawn.

We never talked about how we felt, but we felt it gnawing mad in the hormones that refuse to be contained. They were contained, by sheer will, the pangs of guilt, the impact of insecurities and the decency with which we honor our commitments. In sublimation, we became very close friends.

I remember the first time I met you. You were nursing a broken heart and on the mend, according to your friends, from a very long engagement. In your journey, you found comfort in at least two relationships, and the third, a damsel in distress, who you thought you were rescuing from a life of exploitation. She looked innocent and pretty, and she did not look like the person who could have realized the exploitation because she was also enjoying the attention from the very people exploiting her.  At that time, she was 16.

And then she left. You were heartbroken, a politician encroached on your comfort zone and your ego was shattered along with one rib that cracked in a fist fight with his bodyguards. You lost to a man who could not use his fist because he had rheumatoid arthritis, and he was at a ripe old age of 76. He was accomplished, confident and commanded the respect of the other drunken masters. You were impulsive at 25, and with all your intellectual pretensions, you left your brain in that bar, swaying towards the hospital with an empty skull.

 

Drunken mastiff

I remember how I met you
at a farm, holding a glass
of native wine
knocking off words
from your chest
whispering, out loud
a woman’s name
vomiting away memories
on the hardened soil

pity, I thought, firm muscles
crawling like a baby
sucking at wild weeds
a dog searching for cure
for a malady that has none
but the saliva of a bitch
already sucked dry
by another drunken mastiff.

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