Those Four Years Of Ateneo Life.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

four long years
at the ateneo de davao
exciting college life
and dormitory
living, sometimes i ask
myself: how did i ever
finish my course? how
did i ever survive such
an intellectual pressure.

somehow there is still
this self-esteem
remaining despite being
broken many times
from the humiliation
and demeaning treatment
of those
horrible professors.

now i am settled in
this position of confidence
and self-sufficiency
except the nightmares that
keep on recurring
giving me tantrums
at dawn time,

as i take deep breaths
and grasping of this
reality that i am now
on my own
building bridges and
getting out of tunnels
and taking ships
into a wider world,
a vast sky, an eternal
space that has not reached
that phenomenon of
bending light or
warping time or
drowning in black holes.