Confessions

I love this city. This city never remembers days, only moments. Life turns swiftly, as if on the point of a knife. Time rushes murky and silent, swollen and thrashing like a typhoon.

I love this city, deepening in smoke, darkness raising a withered hand to bring down the curtain of ash over a festering river.

I love luminous cars crawling home to buildings that stiffen against the wind.

I love that the city is a nightmare that hovers on the margin of my mind.

I love that this city is cat-quick solace, that it ticks like a heart out of control.

I love its chewy lemony sunlight and its brooding saffron sunsets, the one benefit of pollution that dazzles.

I love even this, even the boiled-down despair, the impossible choices we marinate in addiction because nothing else makes it seem better. Amidst the horror, avarice, pettiness and all the pretty layers of mendacity; amidst the heartbreak I love this city.

I love it because it belongs to me as much as I belong to it. I love it because whenever I think of the Philippines, whenever I think of home, I think of Manila.

I love it, God help me, but I do.

I cannot stand it.

I cannot withstand it.