On the day you were born,
the Force that bound the galaxy
spread a hush over the world
and a hole was blown wide open
in the heart of human language

like a gap in the Noise
filled with terrifyingly beautiful silence

that stretched wide as the maw
of a lion’s mouth
as it roared its majesty
for all to hear

and it shamed the writer who loved you
when all she could give you
were prosaic one-liners and vertical sentences
that were her sorry excuse for poetry,
when you are

exactly—
wonderfully—
precisely—

the kind of person who inspired feelings
better people tried
—though in vain—
to write novels about,

because there is no word yet invented
—nor will there be—
to describe the phenomenon
(of so much perfection
being contained in a single being)
that came into existence

on the day you were born.

And the last.

Shura,

While you’ve given me the humanity to write truthfully again, you also taught me that some things are so beautiful they refuse to be limited by even the most artful of words; among them, the happiness you bring me, how much I love you, and your own extraordinary existence.

Happy birthday, Axl.=)

Yours,

R.

I take an antipyretic
To cool down
My feverish skin
But I fall asleep remembering
You—
Yesterday—
Yes—
And the flames come
Right back up.

___

(4)

29th March 2013.

By now you should already have figured that an angry Reina is one of the most dangerous and downright scary things in the world. But just as there are different facets of the woman herself, so does her anger come in different forms—all of which you should do well to study if you want to live through one of her terrifying demonstrations of wrath.

First there’s the quiet anger, which is the most dangerous in that everything inside her shuts down and goes inhumanly cruel. And the frightening thing about this is that it’s the kind of anger that comes with action. One minute you’re all right and next thing you know, the worst thing you could ever imagine befalling you is actually happening, and it has her signature on it. And she’s watching your suffering from behind her steepled fingers, smiling serenely at her handiwork. She sleeps soundly at night too.

There’s also irritated anger, where she’s alternately inarticulate in expressing how frustrated she’s feeling and eloquent in curses, death threats, sarcastic comebacks, and painful realities phrased in words as dead-accurate as throwing knives. I wouldn’t call this harmless, but while she won’t actually act on those death threats (yet), she can cause serious damage to your dignity.

And then there’s this.

There are just some things in this world infuriating enough to make even the most levelheaded of persons lose control. The kind of things that make said levelheaded person stomp down the street wearing a murderous expression and cause people to literally stare at her fearfully and get the fuck out of the way. A word of advice? When you see that look on Reina’s face and you don’t know her well enough to defuse it, do the same. You just might last until the next morning.

Or better yet, read this guide on how to deal with a furious Reina Bambao.

• Let her yell.
• Let her throw things.
• Don’t tell her to stop yelling, or else she’ll start yelling at you and you’ll be sorry. And she’s probably not gonna be sorry for anything she says, because she’s uncensored-ly honest when she’s angry and that’s when all the frank truths that she’s too polite to voice on regular days will come out.
• Don’t tell her to stop throwing things. Because she’ll probably hit you. It’s never been proven before, but do you really want to be the first casualty?
• Better yet, usher her somewhere you can be alone where she can break a lot of her own sturdy, noisy, unimportant things. It helps the fury pass faster when she can physically trash something.
• Leave her alone when she asks you to. Stay if she asks you to.
• Don’t do anything annoying like blow raspberries or talk to yourself while she’s simmering (like Mr. Stupid Driver). Make like Mr. Cool Driver and just let her be, no judging or probing or offering unsolicited advice.
• Basically, just let the rage run its course. Like a seizure. And like a seizure, your priorities are safety: don’t let her hurt herself, you or everyone else within a mile’s radius.

Yes, she’s more than your regular vengeful, violent dragon. But no matter what havoc she may unleash when she’s livid, take it as a good thing because it means she still cares. Whatever happens when she lashes out is not the end of the world (maybe? I make no promises). It’s when she has stopped getting angry that you should be worried, because it means she’s stopped caring. She has no more feelings, apoplectic or otherwise, to spare on you and whether you continue to vex her or you get your shit in order is no longer her concern. She is 100% DONE with you.

And trust me, when she’s done with you—then it really is the end of the world.

FRIDAY MORNING:

NO GREEN BOOK AT ALL

____

SATURDAY AFTERNOON:

____

MONDAY AFTERNOON:

____

*Yellow flags mean pages not done.

**A typical Green Book takes about one to three years to accomplish. My RLEmates and I did ours in under TWO days.

***I’d like to thank Dr. Rowena Escolar-Chua for going above and beyond her line of duty in helping us get new Green Books; Skechers Shape-ups and Coke Light for my indefatigability; all the awesome batchmates who gave us pushes along the way; and my RLEmates for our solidarity and synergy in this greatest of crises.

****TO WHOEVER TOOK OUR GREEN BOOKS: FUCK YOU, WE’RE BAMFING GODS AND YOU’RE JUST PETTY THIEVES.