Kudos sa mga babae na nag-te-twerk sa tiktok wearing their pekpek shorts para ibida ang pwet nila. That is very nice pero, I’m into a different fetish na talaga ngayon; nag-mature na ako, as a perverted guy.

What i really like na is yung mga naka-polo shirt uniform na mga babaeng cashier sa Jollibee, na tantsa ko nasa early 20s ang edad.

my god! how beautiful they are.

I love how they stand there not liking the job pero dahil wala silang choice, they force themselves to like it, and so learn humility in the process. They smile and greet you pero if they were really honest to themselves, they secretly hate the customers and all this cashiering for they find the entire affair morally demeaning.

I can see it in their eyes, particularly in their eye makeup.

Their application of an eye makeup is a sign na there’s an ego still trying to resist this cashier job. An individuality trying to resist the mold of conformity. A spirit trying to resist the drudgery of machinery.

At least, one of them knows this.

One of them knows this because she’s read George Orwell’s 1984.

One of them would have read him because she’s a working student taking up political science.

She could be a bright one, too — yung ever since elementary, she’s a valedictorian pero now, in her early 20s, she finds all the medals she’s been earning have only become a depressing, psychic load to realize a greatness she thought she had.

Tapos, dahil sa hirap pa ng buhay — like, mama niya lang breadwinner sa kanila who’s an OFW, papa niya na-stroke pa, tapos naging president pa si BBM — she had to do this sacrifice of working her ass off to provide for her dreams.

By that we mean, have her ass there stand for hours, greeting customers she don’t like and pressing buttons that kills the soul, occasionally explaining ilang manok ang nasa loob ng isang bucket or what constitutes a C7 or, again and again, na wala nang Coke; Pepsi na lang.

Ang ending: she’s sleep deprived trying to balance the 24 hours between her responsibilities to family, academics, and work. that’s why she has this eye makeup to hide the eyebags. She applies this tiny blemish to look like a slut because deep down she knows, na even if she’s become a voice-activated automaton, there still exists a spirit inside her that wants to be regarded as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, as vital to life, what George Orwell called the sex instinct, that primordial force that pushes us to be sluts.

oh how sad … and yet, how beautiful.

It makes me want to ask her out on a date and then sa Mcdo kami kakain as a revolutionary act against the system, Jollibee, that oppresses her. But I’m sure, as she is a PolSci student, she’d argue na Mcdo is just another oppressive system.

But unfortunately, I cannot do that because we are in the cold, capitalist world of a red-orange fast food chain lit by fluorescent lamps; of jingling coins in the cash register; of faulty microphones; of stressed out floor managers; of dirty kitchens; of crying spoiled children; of people who have given up on their dreams and now have flocked to the consumerist comforts granted by a multi-billion food enterprise advertised by a happy, chubby bee.

a cold capitalist world.

In such a world, she’s a cashier and I’m a customer.

In such a world, I cannot be a romantic poet.

In such a world, I cannot take her hand, kiss it fondly to remind her of her beauty, put a flower on her ear and then invite her to a horse ride out to the countryside as we gallop away from all this madness.

In such a world, all I can say to her is, “garlic pepper beef, isang order. Coke yung drink. tsaka isang regular fries.”

In such a world, all she can say to me is, “wala po kaming Coke, Pepsi lang.”