anchor salted harbor shelter stay

you pull up your anchor and
the rusted chains surface link
by link from the water. each
a memory, each a prey to salted
winds, increasingly susceptible
to fading from me. the oceans
come calling. the unknown
pulls you. it is as irresistible
as gravity of a million moons,
for you. i am the shore, love.
inconsiderate waves, insensitive
undercurrents intrude relentlessly,
they eradicate your mark
on my sand. i try to hold
on to you but i am water. i said
i am sand. am i harbor? only
for you but one never to return to.
and i lose you. link by link.
memory by memory. the horizons
pull your eyes. meanwhile i try
to hold on to the last link.
the first link. the best link.
i try hiding it in a shell. maybe
it will be a pearl - that morning
you came and looked as beautiful
as radiance of a million suns
to me, were you pulling towards
a shelter we mistakenly thought
you would want longer
than your stay



2015.nov.13

for all the loves we entrust to the ground

Let them judge if I offend when I choose not to walk solemnly on consecrated grounds,
I would rather trample and stomp on rain puddles and be condemned in the eyes of men.

For I believe all we bury are our loves that the body cannot contain in your absence.
I like to believe you are far, elsewhere, gleeful; and have no use for my desolation.

But if the afterlife is after all where we leave you, I walk as you’ve known me walk,
so you may hear the familiar tempo of my footfalls, and know I have never let you go.



2015.nov.02

remittance

if solar rays were to be
currency of your affection,

twirl the blinds open
preliminary to your leaving

— i shall take whatever
the morning star remits.

leave me to indulge, to sip
on rationed lux and lumens,

recollection in the dearth
of your attendance, until

day achieves dusk, and dents
in your shape on our cradle

unaided, unsolicited,
vouch for your actuality



2015.oct.08

elsewhere

                             i.

You deceived me into thinking it was the first
time I saw you standing out in that crowd, in
this park, I thought you reminded me of someone
beautiful I glimpsed when as a child I was
brought here to play.

It was also the only time we met when we were
as young as each other,


                             ii.

because inside the year that followed I found
you again and you were the same - same look,
same age that day a year back, this time without
a crowd to conceal your voice,

although I only caught a few words when
you realized I was gaping as you talked to thin
air, and you ran, around that huge fountain,

and what choice did I have but run after you,
only to find no trace of you at all? I began


                             iii.

to try to understand what manner of muse you
were, but you eluded description as much
as you eluded me. But I

had an idea and I composed the perfect note to
reassure you into staying next time, I took
great lengths to mask it from the rest of
the world, to make it so that it could only be
read by you:

I wrote it in fragmented words and phrases
scattered across a week in a way only someone
traveling forward through time can find, and you


                             iv.

agreed to a tryst. I opened slowly with learning
the things you liked, wary of chasing you away.
That when you let me in I was -
I was. I was.

You said, “Thank you for not bringing up
the V-theory,” and I said, “V-theory?” And
you said vampire, I said it crossed my mind and
I earned your smile, and I finally found


                             v.

courage to ask if you were a time traveler.
I was sorry that what I said saddened you, but
I was grateful that you stayed and told me how

myself and the rest of the world were the time
travelers - you told me

how the Earth moved on and forgot to wait for you
to land whenever you leapt off the ground. I was
sorry


                             vi.

to hear of the time of your childhood when
your father tossed you up in the air and you
disappeared from them and you broke your arm
landing in the same room a day later, I was

sorry to hear of the times you were accused of
cutting classes or the like, but I was curious so

I asked if you had learned to control it, and
you stood up from the park bench we were seated
on, and said, “Well, if I jumped an in-”
and you were


                             vii.

gone.


                             viii.

I waited for you


                             ix.

and I was close to erasing a sandwich off
existence when you went, “ch, I only lose an
afternoon,”

And with an endangered piece of sandwich in
my mouth you gave me a second smile and I knew
then that I fell for you, not for the stories of
time traveling and broken bones and the mysteries
and theories and science fiction and non-fiction
and magic,
just, you.

If only you loved me back. I knew I was


                             x.

a mere second to your years.

But I was content to listen to you, and when you
told me of something amazing you did, I was too
smitten to stop myself from exclaiming, “Wow,
what can’t you do?” And you regretfully had
that distant dreamy look, and you said,


                             xi.

“Skydive,”
And I never saw you again.


                             xii.






                             xiii.

I did not need to see you, even if I still had my
sight. I caught your scent, the same smell that
eluded words as the rest of you yet was my
anchor,

and before you spoke I already knew how you
would sound like, you sounded like a song trapped
in a sestina, the familiar rises, the familiar
falls, the same melodies of syllables flying off
but tethered to the ledge of your lips, all woven
across the years, and I was sorry that you

had to see me like this, and I was thankful for
letting me imagine I got a third smile before I
went,

and you asked if I was at peace here, and I said
HELL NO, and I asked if you could take me
elsewhere so you slipped in beside me and you
took me in your arms and you pulled me close
and we rolled off the



2015.oct.04

R

One day

she came home with a new religion, Rhian Ramosism,
built around the entity
The Awesomeness That Is Rhian Ramos,
and this posed a challenge to my agnosticism,

I mean, my occasional dabbling in
Gemma Artertonism doesn't count, does it.

"Holy shit, Rhian Ramos," was how she put it,
and with the internet as my arsenal I sought
to learn of the holiness of
The Awesomeness That Is Rhian Ramos,
and from there I divined a connection
to Glaiza De Castroism and I just happened to know
the High Priestess of Glaiza De Castroism.

So I lit some incense and sent a prayer,
"O Masterious One, will you grant me wisdom
to be enlightened?" but the Masterious One,
while knowing of
The Awesomeness That Is Rhian Ramos,
could not reveal everything,
she has not seen everything,
but she believes,

And I understood at last how faith must be like.
I understood I have to find it within myself.

I thought of investing in a full set of
trench coat, hat, and sunglasses:
I mean, I've never secretly traded coin with free will
for passage granted by a Pinoy movie ticket. I mean,
never since The Cuteness That Is Beth Tamayo days.

Here I am at the threshold of the cold,
the dark, the movie house, The Church Of
The Awesomeness That Is Rhian Ramos,
and the fear of having Filipino blood sinks in,

O God, what am I doing, what have I done,
I have sold my Filipino soul so now
I have to cast my vote for
The Awesomeness That Is Rhian Ramos
should she run for president

one day



2015.sep.22

rain thing

this planet seldom does this -
  rain thing -
when i’m with -
  whatsyourface -
it makes for rarer moments

of quiet contemplation, or
secret introspections
imposing onto

our small talks too
small for my tastes.

man, you make me feel like
a fisherman

hurling hook and line
aimed at that -
  moon thing -
playing for that one chance
that gravity gets
a brain fart and lets
me catch you -

i mean catch that -
  moon thing -

and i wouldn’t know what to do then, would i.

except, maybe.
grapple at my chest and
find a latch that opens
it. rummage for my heart and
hope it’s a document

full of words for things
hanging or
falling from
the sky,

and you.

can i crumple it and toss it,
what’s another crumpled heart amongst
the growing pile of my crumpled hearts.
can i start over again
can i overwrite my paper heart

eradicate the contamination of you.
totally, this time.
resist to not write you in this time.
tell me
will that make me
better?

can i be the fool with the empty heart
hanging on a line hooked to that -
  white round cheese thing -
hanging from the sky, wondering

what am i doing here standing like a fool.

but at least i'll be at peace
amusing myself with something like
giving things silly nicknames like -

  "moon"

  "rain"



2015.sep.16

weep, angelically

i want to touch you as much as stone
can desire contact with skin.
but i need you to close your eyes
a little bit, blink, because your stare
renders me immobile.

i promise this won’t last a moment.
i need you to not fear the half-second
darkness of a blink, the consequent
easily-forgotten brush of cold stone
lips on your cheek.

you can leave the weeping to me.
it is with much regret that i’ll feed
on your absence and send you far,
far backwards in time, but maybe
that’s when we belonged together
better, when maybe i was much less
harder. much less colder, and moved 
shamelessly under the gravity 
of your gaze.



2015.jul.01

demonym

what do you answer to?
you are nothing like my world has ever seen.
we are not from around here.
we are mere passersby overwriting each other’s
footprints amidst the traffic of us.

the thing is: i can inhale you sometimes,
within a short window in your wake,
when your scents feign interest in my skin,
when i sit downstream of you in this aether.
but what will they call us?

we could walk away unnamed,
shelved to neglect for something more acceptable,
folded between seconds to be increasingly
compressed, brittle, and yellowed in time.



2015.jun.05

slender

You half-expected
her to run.

It is midnight,
after all:
the clanging of the bell,
the prophecy of the tale,
could have turned
jeepneys she ride
into pumpkins.
Her entourage
into a zoo.

She is an Unexpected,
you’ve accepted that.
You’ve come to terms
with her not being one
of your delusions, not
another faerie trick,
the moment she stuck
around past sanctioned time
of having to be
together.

But she makes you
want to believe in
a little magic.
You kind of hoped
for the witching hour
to affect her somehow,
to leave you a glass
slipper that sets you
on her trail,
on a quest to find her
outside sanctioned places
to meet in,
to try, try, try,
to win her,
somehow.




Then you discover
it is you
being undone.
Your shields
dissolve like
leaves in the wind.
Your worlds
disperse like
sand emigrating.
Losing yourself to days
molding into morrows.

Still she makes you
yearn to believe:
that there’s a glass
apparel to leave
in your wake,
a trail for her to take.
And you try, try, try,
to hold on
to that slender hope,
that impossible slope,
that somehow,
somehow,
she likes you, too.



2015.mar.18

stacks

are we done placing
inches between us?
our meager attempt at evading
consequences of locking
eyes too long, the fear
of falling within few chance
brushes of fingertips,
the wayward scents and sounds
of one trespassing
on the other’s senses.

we’ve begun placing
time onto the distance.
stacking up seconds like playing
pawns and royalty over checkered
boards we play on, venue
of a platonic dalliance meandering
in a masquerade, gambling on charade
to wed with hours and tone down
passion to fondness.

are we ants building
a sea wall of crumbs
in the face of an ocean bent
on realizing our ruin, against
an implacable desire dwarfing
our reluctance? we've begun
covering the inches leading
to two roads diverging,
each cluttered with its own flavor
of loneliness



2015.mar.12

gems

I came to work that day to find they determined
I’m made of sapphires, like many of my co-workers.
There were also ones made of emeralds, aquamarines,
a couple made of fire opals, and one made of rubies.
I wanted to say, “Yes, I’ve known for ages that I
am made of sapphires, but can I be made of emeralds
instead as that’s my birthstone?” But someone else
beat me to it, big nice dude wanted to be big bad dude
and made of rubies, not sapphires. They proceeded
to shred his defense, through witness after witness,
through exhibits A through Z, reducing his erstwhile
spirited complaints down to whimpers, proving him
beyond a doubt made of sapphires, so I kept quiet.
I instead started to think of legal means to break
into a house somewhere in central United States, one
that’s prone to be carried away by a tornado and
slammed right onto a flattened, evil, unsuspecting
witch in a faraway magical land where I could bump
into a trio of odd fellow travelers who would happen
to harbor similar longings like mine and would gladly
walk with me to where a wizard is ensconced because
said wizard would grant wishes and I meant to ask
him to turn me into being made of emeralds instead
of sapphires, I meant to ask him to swap my heart
with a second brain and it would be better that way
because all these emotions for you are starting to
take their toll and get in the way of thinking
logically. But we all know there are no true wizards,
only poets and their blurry lines between truths
and lies. I contented myself with absent-mindedly
clicking my heels together and listened to
the clinking of loose sapphires in my feet.



2015.mar.06

the fortress

There is nothing left to say that can safely be laid out under the scrutiny of the public eye. I have exhausted all my means of crafting the message I needed to find you. If chance allowed for the words to reach you, for the words to touch you in the way they were meant to, then I am glad. If not, then you are the star whose attention I was never meant to bask in, locked in your stronghold. And if you are, I only hope that once in an age of peace, in need of fresh air you'd open the gate of your walls. And if you do, may you look around the battlefield that surrounds you, among the tattered banners of those who besieged you. And among the debris may you discover pieces of how much you meant to me, from a time long lost, and that will suffice.


2015.feb.27

sestina for moonbathing street dogs

I start with throwing a guess at your eye color,
This is becoming routine in our nightly tryst.
I am running out of names for brown, black, and grey;
Still I land none closer to the answer: wrong, wrong.
The rest of my night is spent chasing your shadow
Across this night-multiverse enslaved to your whims.

What would I give to decode all your shifting whims?
I could stare at you till the moons yield their color,
Still, your truths insist on staying veiled in shadow.
If only you would consent to a daylight tryst.
But too early I found that appeal to be wrong:
There is no black-or-white when it comes to you. Grey,

Grey: the weaving worlds underneath furs you wear; grey:
The storms on cold nights mirroring your tyrant whims.
If I can brave your rage to risk a kiss deemed wrong,
If only, if only. To steal your lips' color.
Yet I could not risk on gambling to lose this tryst.
Was this your wish? That I'd be shackled to shadow?

What would I give to dissolve into your shadow?
To be part of worlds you carry, lost in the grey;
Mindless being: one with you in a nightlong tryst.
To not suffer the punishing lash of your whims.
To be gone, heedless to existence of color.
To be none, unable to sunder right from wrong.

But, love: I never blamed you, how you named me wrong.
You knew I come with heart enveloped in shadow.
You read the darkness I carry, knew my color.
I don't blame you for cloaking yourself in this grey.
I know your look, I know you saw my kind of whims.
But, love: why keep me bound to this maddening tryst?

What would I give to reap the harvest of this tryst?
To unlock the quest to undo all I made wrong.
To once and for all solve the mazes of your whims.
To liberate us from the shelter of shadow.
To find you outside the borders of night and grey.
To hazard a lifelong stare, drown in your color.

I don't care how the light falls wrong in your shadow.
This tryst can be a dream. I'd settle in your grey,
Kneel to your whims. To forget the taste of color.



2015.feb.12

exhale

try, is all i can muster,
to armor my constitution,
i must resist you

deny, if you decipher air,
if i exhale your name too often,
a sigh named after you

try, to be the liar,
the devil to save you,
from my apocalyptic love



2015.feb.04

inhale

we came here for the oxygen.
we may have come from the stars.
for years we didn't realize it was from the green.
so we ate their young, then their limbs, then their everything else.
they never complained.
so we ate, ate, ate.
ate, ate, ate.
feasted on.

then we had an idea to have roofs over our heads and walls around our skin.
it had to be made out of something living.
the animals squealed too much, they loved their skin too much.
so we turned on the plants again.
we went to cut, cut, cut.
cut, cut, cut.

does the world seem less green to you now?
it's getting harder to breathe.
running out of forests to eat.
look up at the stars, now.
think there's a somewhere we can land?
somewhere to inhale the life out of.
we'll name it after this one.



2015.jan.25

reader

if i can open your life, like a book,
first i will need to pry, carefully, the covers apart,
a finger firmly on the spine, the edge of each page sliding,
a slow cascade sideways, against a thumb,
and i will need to free, to drown myself in,
the sweet smell of words in print.
this may be the only time to do this.

the dive comes after,

the words will come at me, in torrents,
i expect that, from what i know about you;
and i will be ready for this, and i will want this surge, but,
at times, i will have to resist your current,
understand me when i want to take this slowly,
when i will have to linger at every sentence, every word,
i may not have another chance to savor each.

if you don’t mind my pace, then,
let me ride your roller coasters,
let me clamber up your highs and stumble down your lows,

let me in.

because, for better or for worse, this all will end,
because, if i can open your life, like a book,
the closing is inevitable, (and i know it will be undeniably too soon)
and all the pages will cascade back to sleep.
all the words will fold back under the covers,
the roller coaster ride will come to a halt,
this fair season will give way to a world without you.
our climbs will have claimed the summit.
and our falls will have marked the ground,
and you will be a memory, fragile, susceptible to straying away,
in my mind that’s too much of a colander,
too many holes. all too flawed. all too human.
inevitably incapable of holding on to you.



2015.jan.23