I write to understand myself. Because Blogspot means we are published writers. Because phone cameras and we are photographers. Because Instagram and we are models of our own lives. Because VSCOCam and we can be editors. Because ALLIS and we can sculpt our own cheekbones. Because we are told we were all special snowflakes. Because Asian parents and teenage rebellion.

My baby, and my books. This is the town with the house with the woman with the fire inside. She arranges her mornings with needles and flowers, becoming quieter. Everyday wishing there is more to life than this great lone pine. They do not talk to her anymore, nor do they visit her with apple pies. The future is a gray seagull, they say, the sun has gone to another.

Like the fading cheshire cat grin; like the eternal mona lisa smile. Like waiting at a party for. Know no one there and. My fingers worry at my phone like. The teeth-marks on my lips and. Like biting down on cotton after. A wisdom tooth extraction and. Of the taste of metal in my. But dig in deeper and come.

Consider me a true-blue island girl. I was born in the Philippine island of Luzon, in a. Surrounded by acres and acres of rich farmland. A few months later, my parents and I moved to the city of Baguio, a lush, pine-tree studded mountain paradise that I would be my perennial home for the next 20 odd years of my life. I still think of Baguio with much fondness, and occasionally, tears in my eyes.