MILK. As the eldest child, I know that my parents planned to give everything that would be best for me. I remember some baby stories from my mom like how they always had to change milk brands because I would cry out loud back then when I taste the same milk they fed me for weeks. I wouldn't drink that anymore for a reason that still remains a mystery even today. And today, I don't have to worry no more. Milk? Why should I? I don't even drink milk anymore. Maybe the last time I did it was a decade ago. I am irritated. Down to the bones. I always feel like puking myself away drinking it. Maybe one reason for this is what happened one kindergarten morning 14 years ago. My teacher told us to bring our parents together with an empty pack of lactum a day after that. This event I think is a tradition at Surigao Children's Garden. Mom gave me the empty pack but not her direct and complete presence. She told me that she would come an hour after. She had to do works in her office. So there I was, with heart filled with darkness and hate, I tried falling in line but I kept on staying at the end until my mom would come. The sponsors wouldn't give the toys and the milk unless the child has a parent tagged along. Those who finished early kept teasing me for being parentless at that very special event. At that very fragile moment. They laughed at how I keep looking at the main door only to realize that it's not my parent coming in. When the last one on the line was done, I just sat down on a corner. I tried to suppress it but the weary tears couldn't stop rolling down the hills of my naiveté. I thought of how my classmates are bullying me, how the event is injecting me with an undesirable pity, how my mom is thinking selfishly and how milk is going to slip off my existence. Deadlock. I concluded. But when everyone seemed ready to go home, my mom still came. The attention her coming needed. I allow you to imagine how it blew that way. She got the toy and the milk and handed them with apology to the trembling hands of a crying little boy who is her son. Childishly, I grabbed the toy and the pack of milk. The sentiment to be dealt later. On the way home, she noticed why the milk was missing and I just answered her that I didn't go there for the milk but for the toy. One of the most painful excuses I have made my entire life. I swear I never hated my mom for that. I understood. I hated the milk. And, I hate milk.



COFFEE. My dad always woke up around 3 a.m. at nights of my last elementary years. Even my mom also stood up. They had to do our business that way. People came to our house bringing whatever they caught from the sea. My parents had to weigh, list, put ice and deliver the fishes somewhere else for profit. And sometimes, loss if not breakeven. Life has always been tough. When mom realized I was old enough, she sometimes woke me up too to serve coffee along with breads to the fishermen. It used to happen when many caught-ups overwhelmingly came and letting only my dad do the works was a very bad idea. I hated why I had to fill that task and protested about early waking up. I considered sleeping that time as the paramount of pleasure any child should enjoy. My mom's judgment that I was old enough to do it contradicts my earlier opinion. It was also a thing that while I consumed lots of breads, they deprived me of tasting the coffee. I would sit there half-asleep in front of many people I know and some people who do not even bother to ask my name. "Not for your age!", they all reasoned out. Until high school finished, it's worth telling that I had never sipped coffee my whole life. A small horizontal line in between and here comes college. *chuckles*. I can just laugh at how I compensated 16 years of coffee-free life with sharply scheduled I-will-die-soon-without-coffee nights. It is already my age. I believe. At my room at the dormitory, I always shared coffee only with the outside rain every night since my roommates always did overnights somewhere. I'd admit that sometimes, when my stomach seemed annihilating itself in anguish, I still went with coffee even the knowledge that it worsens the pain was there. Things get worse during exams and quizzes. Even at rest evenings and watching movies at night, I still borrowed heater to fulfill my self-demand for coffee. What other choice did I have? Oh well. There's coffee. And more coffee. Even if sometimes tears drop on my cup and coffee drops on the book I am concentrating, I think of how I will always have to deal with this hard caffeinated life I dared to lead. And will always do. I always will.

POWDERED CHOCOLATE. This one pours the greatest extent on my heart. "Milo": the name already says it all. Some nannies in the past, back when my parents could still afford them, yelled real hard on me for being worse than stubborn to eat whatever it was that accompanied rice in my plate. Of course, they attempted feeding me vegetables but I still resorted to meat. And sometimes, I even refused eating meat. I think of how it must have made me sick after eating the same food for months. One of them however found out that I become another person when I eat rice with milo. She saw how I wiped all the worries off my mind when I started pouring milo down on the rice. She said there was nothing but happiness painted on my face when I was eating it. This continues up to the point of my staring now at the container of the powdered milk. Moments flashed slowly. I can remember myself waking up alone at home. Everybody already went to work and school. I open the refrigerator. Nothing. Look at the table. No trace. I then go to the nearest store begging them to give me a pack of milo and promising to pay them later. It becomes my breakfast. It becomes my life. I also remember myself racing to eat rice with milo after a tiring swimming at the sea. After school, I was there pleading my mom or dad to buy another pack. Even during High School, when odds weren't favorable enough to have something to eat at lunch, I would secure a pack of milo and the rest was peace. Once, my godfather, after my elementary graduation, gave me 500 pesos as a gift. I remember allocating 200 to buy milo solely. I was that opportunistic. I just made sure that I wouldn't starve to death when there's no one left to feed me but myself. That's the mindset of yet an unproven elementary valedictorian. Pain of hunger is next to losing someone you love. I jolted. Even on one of my darkest nights, milo had a radical part. I was about on my second year high school I think when my parents quarreled badly and decided to separate with each other for the meantime. I was left at home with a sister while my other sisters went afar with our mom. Dad was drunk that night. A fisherman came. Dad asked me to do the stuff: to weigh, list and put ice to the fishes. It bothered me a lot because tomorrow would be the exam day. "What if people will come rushing in? I won't finish studying. I will sleep so late. I'll be late for exam tomorrow. I can't do well.", these words were playing hide-and-seek on my mind. So with much hate and disgust, I did the tasks without the heart. It was even raining. I sobbed while doing them until one fisherman noticed and asked loudly why I was crying. When he went off, my drunk dad stood up. I trembled. He barged down. Badly mad. Threatening. He pointed that old gun to me! Yeah, I knew I had to die. I almost fainted. He still continued yelling for about 5 minutes with the gun set straight to me. Eye-level. Time paused. My eyes were closed. He dropped his arm. Went back to sleep. Like nothing happened. I mentally did a self-rescue to the sanity that almost left me for real. It could have been my life's last 5 minutes and I was just standing there speechlessly ready to meet any fast bullet. Rushing to the kitchen, I was shaking while I filled that plate with rice and the milo. I quickly went inside my room and sat beside my sleeping sister. I hurried eating it. Every spoon meant much hate, nerve, dread, fear, and lost love. I even drank my own tears. I thanked milo for being the only thing that comforted me. Something that still happens. Something that I have always thought about since I pulled the blanket and covered my head that night.



The milk in the cup is my Self-denial. A cup filled of coffee is my Learning. And the cup which has chocolate in it is my Acceptance. This cup will yield something you stir in it. It all depends on what you put. This cup is called life.



Exactly 12 a.m, my phone declared. I decide to take it. Pour hot water. Stir it. Then smile. I sit down at our table and take a deep look at our house. Some Ke$ha plays on the dvd. With the cup still in my hand, I grab the remote and change the song. When I look around, there's the mirror. I stand right in front of it now. I stare at my face. I stare at the cup. I am smiling again and thinking that God keeps a lot of memories on small things to let people realize that every second will be big in its own time and in its own perspective.