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My name is Dennis Iligan Merino.
I was born in the city of La Carlota, a place surrounded by sugar cane plantations in the heart of Negros Occidental. It happened that on May 17, 1966, the weather was rather uncooperative. I was born in the middle of a storm. Draw your own conclusions. All I could say is that since the beginning, I was a survivor.
I grew up with my grandparents. I grew up with my godparents who brought me to Nato, a barrio near the town of La Castellana, where my godparents were elementary school teachers. Maninoy and Maninay bought me Komiks, lots of it. I learned to read Tagalog from reading komiks. I loved those incredible stories in lands far away, illustrated, and in color, and where the heroes suffer but win in the end. Of course, I love a happy ending. I particularly enjoy it when the villains get punished. Yet somehow, they never die. Not that I had a secret wish to kill them all. No, my wish was for someone else to kill them all. I don't want their blood on my hands. After all, I grew up a strict Catholic. Or some form of it. I was actually a member of the Aglipayan church when I was in La Carlota. But when I visited my father in Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro, I went to the catholic church.
I went to Philippine Science High School in Diliman, Quezon City. I had very fond memories of the times I spent there. I loved most of my teachers, although I was not always the best student. Like most anyone else, I also suffered my growing pains at this stage of my life. I learned to have a crush at this time. Crush I mistook for love. And I was curious. Curious as to what life has to offer. One afternoon, I heard two Math professors from UP talk about career possibilities in Mathematics. They talked the talk, and mentioned that Actuaries get paid a lot. I have decided right there and then that that's what I want to be.
I enrolled at the University of the Philippines in 1983. I fell in love with Mathematics and I even took a few courses in Actuarial Science. But an actuary, I was not meant to be. What it was I wanted to be, I did not know at the time. In fact, the one thought I had, after taking my last exam, was that I was jobless. I was also young. And I was also in love. That was in 1986. And to think that just a semester before, we were the main participants of the bloodless revolution. The People Power. Where people and flowers stopped military tanks. Prayers and gifts stopped armed soldiers from firing their weapons towards unarmed civilians, who were ready to sacrifice their lives for their country. In the midst of the chaos, and with only a semester left in my degree, I wanted to shift to Pre-Med, to be a real doctor. I told you I was young. And I was also in love.
I went to Hopkins in 1988 and stayed there until 1992. It was there that I learned to be a human being. I became a member of a society. And a society that acknowledges your rights, your liberties, your freedom. It acknowledges even your own being. In this world, there are two kinds of people who sometimes do not appreciate freedom. Those who were born with it, and those who were born without it. The first time I tasted freedom, it was scary and it was rather funny. A friend reminded me that I do not have to make a loan just so I can make a loan because I was free to make a loan.
In 1992, I started my job as an assistant professor of Mathematics at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Now, I am an associate professor.
These poems were written over the past two years while taking a break from doing Mathematics. Once, in a writer's group, I claimed that I wanted to be a love poet. I still love to be a love poet. Perhaps to make up for the loves lost and forgotten.
Perhaps, I want everything. Perhaps I want it all.
What I know is that I want all memories.
I want all memories gone.
So I can start anew.
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