Note: this and the following poems without dates were encoded into my records on the same day, but were not written on the same day.
you were a buoy over a coral grave & i the air under its rocks. i floated to you, helpless at the inevitability that i was always going to fall backwards into the sky wanting to be with you.
you became the moon with the tides & i the seasons, mercurial. we have our own clouds now. you tell me about the latest wave, about the stars, about the earth you circle around & i clear the skies for you if only to bask under your glow unhindered.
do you understand? will you know? the clouds tell me to tell you but they only know what i tell them of you when i give them leave. i fear you think i only love a side of you i got to see from beneath.
i duck through the gates wanting someone to see
no one had.
my escape had been too smooth
i say, did you see? did you notice?
you welcome me back like a lock sliding into place
we are in your room.
your house makes me feel like a toothache,
but i sit there at the foot of you rbed
and numb it for the fantasy of a kiss
i play big spoon, let you lay on my arm.
i ache to be held so i hold still.
i remain awake, count your breaths.
i try to excise the emptiness in me,
douse dying coals with emotion,
spark them with your flame.
i try not to panic when you open your eyes
and it extinguishes.
Note: This is technically a fan-poem for a fandom I used to be in (you can find it on my main Ao3 if you don't believe me) but I liked it enough to put it here.
| (english) | (filipino) |
|---|---|
| the empty house at the end of the street feels a lot like you. it has countless rooms taht i can only guess what the remnants are, some where you can hear an isolated guitar strumming, some you kissed me in-- where you told me we'd leave together in. one holds the shape of you in the middle of an empty bedroom. | 'pag nakikita ko'yung bahay sa kanto, naaalalakita. paniguradong may mga silid na hinala lang ang laman; dinig ang ugong ng nag-iisang gutara sa ibal nag-iwan ka ng halik sa iba-- sinabi mong sabay tayong aalis sa iba. nakaukit ang anyo mo sa gitna ng isa. |
| i walk past that house & cannot deny that i am haunting it. | 'pag napadaraan ako, 'di matangging minumulto ko 'to. |
| try your hardest but you can only bring the memory of a ghost with you. & we had some good times, shared some laughs & our fair share of bruises, but you deserve more than whatever i've become, stubbornly rooted that i am in the corpse of an incomplete monster that consumes itself over & over. | subukan mo man, 'di pwedeng pakisamahan ang patay. naging masaya man tayo, nagpasahan ng ngiti, nagpasahan ng pasa; kung ano mang naging kalabasan, 'di mo ikabubuti. nakaugat ako sa buto't balat ng bangkay ng halimaw na paulit-ulit na kinakain ang sarili. |
| so, i let you leave. | kaya lumayas ka na lang. |
| after all, i can only haunt a house once you've left it, as the house of you slowly becomes a part of the monster, | sabagay, 'di ko mapalilibutan ang bahay mo kung nasa loob ka pa, habang unti-unti itong nagiging parte ng kasakiman ko, |
| & the cycle repeats itself. | hanggang sa sumunod. |
Note: This was a slam poem I wrote and performed for Women's Month in 2020.
I'm trying to remember when I decided she was my first love.
When I think about it too much, I drown,
Not in the cliché way where all the water goes into my lungs
But in the way that I sink, with neither purches nor leverage.
There's this gravity that pulls and leaves me feeling grimy afterwards taht just ruins the rest of my day, and she wouldn't want that.
She barely even wants me to stay up writing this so,
The first time I realized I wanted her was when a friend confessed to her.
(In hindsight, it was probably the books. She read something, and I tried it for her without even thinking or considering that I wasn't much of a reader back then. But I digress, it was the confession.)
I don't know why.
Admiration, maybe.
A little bit of envy at her composure, control, poise.
Gender assurance.
(I remember my mother seeing her off, years later, when it was storming and chool suspended. She needed a ride home and it was along our way, I assured her. [That was anotehr thing about her, her decompression,
Because she was never that small a person and she didn't shrink herself, so to speak, she just took up the least space but commanded all the attention.]
So, we drive her home. She jumps out of the car with a quick thanks,
And my mother's forked tongue slithered out and whhispered, "Why can't you be more like that?"
I couldn't explain that I was built wrong for someone like her-- to be, I mean.
To be someone like her. Do I mean that? Anyway,)
A friend confessed to her,and I was sitting there, listening to her trying to brush it off.
She told me how ill-advised that friend liking her would be,
Like this was all some experiment that needed professionalism
And I couldn't parse out this raise dbrow on my face, the widening of eyes, the slight scowl, me avoiding her gaze.
It was an ugly, shameful emotion, this little green thing, but I was this ugly kid who knew nothing outside their worldview.
The thought of having to share her with someone made me feel like the world just took a step too far on conspiring against me.
The thought of her actually reciprocating the confession made me feel worse.
So I made like a frend request and ignored it.
The second time was when I had sometime away.
Not that I used the time between to think about how much of my attraction was healthy or not, but it's worth noting.
We were in different sections, but shared the same friend group.
The guy I was crushing on at the time seemed just as enamored with her as I was (and honestly, I get it.)
But when she came back to me, started talking to me again, it was like she never left,
And the whole world started to seem a little clearer, brighter, more colorful.
And I realized, it was all wrong.
Not her, never her.
But the setting,.
The misery it was all bringing me.
She was,
She told me to talk God.
I think she just told me that because she knew I didn't talk to anyone else about, well, anything.
And I was starting to spiral by then.
I was getting-- I felt like a firework.
Violently loud and bright, trying to get people to look at me, see me, hear me.
Sometimes her windows were closed because she got tired of looking at me, and the people I surrounded myself with were getting bored of the same thing over and over again.
You know that taxidermy look everyone gets when you start rambling and you know they're not listening to you anymore?
That.
So I left.
Everything.
Her, them, all the stupid nuns that kept telling me that if I kept begging God to stop me from actively wanting to kill myself, it'll all work out.
All I got out of it was anxiety, depression, and a boat load of trauma to work through that had nowhere to port in.
She came back.
She's a yo-yo, y'know, just bouncing away then back, and away, and back.
She was mad this time.
Wondered why I pushed away, wondered why I couldn't even be there for my birthday when they all visited--
(Alright, in my defense, I was at school, okay, I wasn't a total fuck-up, pardon my language.)
I told her that I was tired of being a firework.
I just wanted to be the shore.
Hushing, lulling, back and forth.
I wanted people to be on alert when I suddenly start retreating really far, really fast, I wanted people to be with me, however short a time, and when they eventually left, think of me, miss me, want to return to me.
And we'd grown apart by then, maybe three, four years.
I was out of the closet, if not to my parents, then at least to my friends,
And she actually already knew I liked her--
(Yes, I told her, we can't all be recluses and I take all my chances, since there aren't enough queer girls who want to be with me so hush.)
And now...
Well, you know how first loves go.
I don't even have to try to remember it, I just do.
I just stand there and the memories lap at my feet, pulling me slowly, sinking, into the sand.
Note: This was a scrapped entry for Sunny Side, an egg zine!
there's a measure of strength that comes with restraint. it takes you more than three tries to break it open-- you're not certain enough to understand how much force you need to do it just once. but that's okay. you think it harkens to that line about the stonecutter.
so really, is this about strength or resilience?
there's a measure of patience that comes with flames. if left too strong, you'll end up with a little paradox of a thing-- both over and underdone. so make sure to fold it, to get each side acquainted with the heat. you really should stop doing this when you're left wanting so bad, your hands shake as you fold.
so really, is this about patience or abstinence?
and thus, the final measure: prudence that comes with preparation. how ready is it to be served, to be seen, to be consumed? you've prepared the components for the act of assemply, but afterwards, where does it go? what do you do with it? were you so consumed by the process that you forgot its function?
is this about preparation or direction?
if i had been given the task of taking care of myself,
eons ago, under layers of graves and sediment,
would things have been different?
after all, i have always been good at compliance,
of subsuming and accepting a great deal of weight--
gravity, secrets, history--
what difference, then, is love?
bring a hammer down on a fissure and fracture them from me then,
the crack to my fault line: smaller, more fragile and easier to chip at.
would they have greeted the sunrise with a smile,
full of an excitement that i couldn't afford myself?
would i have had the patience for them when they hurt me,
picked them up and told them it'll be over soon,
as i layered over the new craters given to them,
in the clumsiness of their attempts at loving others?
would plains become reefs, trenches become valleys
had i felt the gentle pressure of a love i hadn't earned?
on the day i move out i'll be wearing a dress
everything that ever mattered to me fit in three bags.
i am trying not to be dramatic about this.
relatively speaking, it'd be as if nothing had changed. i'd still be living with family, trying not to let the loneliness get the best of me, staying up late, starving myself ocassionally.
i'd pluck the joy fresh from the ground and watch as it withers in my hands, wondering if i had done that to see it die or to watch it live.
i'll wrap my loneliness with a bow and pretend i was designed with it.
so on the day i move out i'll be wearing a dress
exiled indefinitely? here are five signs that you stopped being your parents' child the moment you expected to be one!