Idle time breeds dangerous thoughts.
When at times I am left with nothing to do, my mind would run amok. I am even more dangerous when I have a pen in my hand and /a paper in my desk. It would be as if I would fall into a trance, and my mind would suddenly have full command of my hands.
Words spill onto paper, unbidden, uncontrolled.
Sometimes, I talk to God through writing. Other times I would just let the words flow, and would just be surprised at what I had written. Often times I would reflect on whatever’s happening to me at the time.
When I feel like it, I would write to an imaginary ‘someone’; the ‘Next One’ I keep waiting for. I would often ask him where he is, what he’s doing, who he’s with, when is he going to find me. Sometimes I’d tell him of how happy I am with my life- my job, my students, my friends, my family-, and would later on come to the conclusion that maybe the reason why he hasn’t arrived yet is because we are both enjoying our separate lives.
Maybe we don’t need to meet each other, yet, because our hands are too full of what we have right now. Maybe it’s not time for us to meet yet. I’d like to think that somewhere up above, there’s someone who plans all the meetings and hook-ups in the world. Maybe this someone has a cohort, and together they try to push people around, wondering who’d work together and who wouldn’t.
If they’re bored they’d play with the unsuspecting mortals; they’d try to pair the most incompatible ones together and see how long they’d last. Sometimes things would go according to their plans, other times they’d get surprised with the results. Sometimes they won’t plan at all- just push random people together and watch if they’d work. Trial and error. Hit and miss. Either way, planned or otherwise, these heavenly bodies- whoever and whatever they are- think that we are not meant to meet yet.
One day, while watching over my students as they take their exam (or seatwork- I can’t remember), the words escaped again, and when I looked at my paper, this is what came out:
To the Next One who’d one day make my heart beat:
We are chess pieces, you and i;
Fate and Destiny, the players.
We are standing still in our own boxes,
waiting for the masters to move us.
How many more steps,
how many more moves
Before I, The Queen
would be able to whisper
the words that would end this game?
“Checkmate, my king.”
The verse was raw and unedited, and as with all the other verses I’ve written, I tucked it safely in a folder in my laptop, and wait until it would summon me again for editing.
Months after I’ve written the verse, I found myself reading it again due to the fact that I wanted to use it for my final paper in Philippine Gay Culture. I tweaked with it, edited it, and attempted to contextualize it to the theme of the paper (which is, of course, gayness and homosexuality– or at the very least, some sort of adult or pulp poetry), and lo and behold! This is what came out.
To the Next One who’d one day make my heart beat
(and my loins stir in heat):
We are chess pieces, You and I;
Fate and Luck, the players.
We are standing still in our own boxes,
waiting for the Masters to move us,
watching the others fall
one after the other,
out of their boxes,
out of the game.
How many more steps,
how many more moves
Before I, The Queen
would be able to whisper
the words that would end this game?
“Checkmate, my King.”
-Checkmate, by Karren Renz Seña
2011
***
I always close the pseudo-letter with the assurance that just because I’m having fun without him arriving yet, doesn’t mean that I’m not waiting for him, anymore.
I still am. I always will. But waiting doesn’t mean stopping my own journey just because I don’t have someone to share it with as of the moment.
He’ll come around, or maybe I will.
***
These two verses finally purged out of my system, perhaps I can now go back to my fish tank and see what amazing species I have managed to breed.
Haven’t heard anything from you again. I hope you’re still doing fine even if you are no longer blogging.