. grrrl .

kate, 18, is currently a junior journalism major at the university of the philippines, diliman.

she digs buffy the vampire slayer, pays homage to faith and eliza dushku, and drools over spike and james marsters' accent. she cried when tara died in "seeing red". she had desperately tried to dye her hair the exact colour of willow's hair for several times now, but miserably failed. every time.

when she's not abandoning everything else for the love of buffy, she also writes much, while listening to sarah mclachlan, tori amos, clair marlo, lisa loeb, lifehouse, the corrs, matchbox twenty, and evanescence.

she's single, and she (thinks) she's now tired of looking at the wrong places for the right person.

[she's crazy about webdesign, and she swears she'll marry the geniuses behind adobe photoshop and macromedia dreamweaver. check out her recommendations, as well as her other sites at linkage.]

Statues

She built a little statue made of marble
in her mind, where her perfect sister stayed,
with her clean report cards and 1.0's,
and all the other things she couldn't have.
She built her a little pedestal made of
concrete, on which her perfect sister stood,
with her feet firmly planted, towering at five foot two, being everything
she will always try to reach, but will always fall short of.
And so she built the little statue in her mind.
Maybe someday, she, too, would be like her.

Her parents built a little statue of their own, made of marble too,
in their minds, where their perfect daughter stood, unblemished,
untainted, fresh garland of sampaguita around her neck, her mistakes
miracles, and her words, prayers.
They built her a little shrine made of
concrete in their minds, in which their perfect daughter stood, still
with her trademark charming grin pasted on her face,
never failing. She is the one, the way
out of the pit, the helplessness.

She found the empty crumpled pack of cigarettes in her sister's
jacket, deep red from overuse.
She had questions she would never ask, afraid she'd ruin
the perfect picture.
She found the empty bottle of gin, with the cobwebs underneath her sister's
bed, sheet faded despite the weeks she never slept.

But they chose to ignore her
addiction and vice, because she was perfect, forever
with her dusty pile of certificates and rusty medals tucked away
in a box in the bodega. She could never go
wrong. They had built her
a statue and a shrine, she was everything
her family wanted. The answer.

But still, there were questions.

And so clutching the crumpled
marlboro label in one hand, the cap of Gilbey's in the other, she tried,
to keep the statue from breaking in her mind.