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