Flag Ceremony

Lined up
Height inching
ID tags hang
Blare of recording
Mouths open and close
Puppets of puppeteers
Right hand rests
Each beat to restlessness

Habit

Let's all do the tsk-ing. It's relieving. Trust me.

Explosive

I am in desperate acts. How hard is that? I will do anything. I can release the pins and the caps anytime you want but not this heart attack, not this heart attack. Please, I just want you back.

Daily Digest

Okay, I'm drowning in the absurd. I know for a fact that sooner or later, I'll probably eat all my words. Therefore, I must muster to open thy mouth and master the art of chewing. Masticate each in perfection so as not to trouble my throat.

Pacemaker

Cold as a stone. An empty chamber. I hate heartless people. People who have hearts but don't let other people listen to its beat.

Again

And when that day comes, my thrombocytes might not win. They have started to drop down.

You Can Probably Tell I'm This Desperate

Miss, you look nice today. I like your dress. I think you have a date later.

Miss, how long did it take for you to fix your hair?

Miss, are you in a good mood? I can lend you my stress ball.

Quotes

A parent told me, "I want my son to be an ant in this school. We want to be like ants. Normal like everyone else."

I should have told her how sweet her boy is. He always has ants in his pants.

Retrieved

I take it back. I cannot and will not be selfless. I tried really hard. My fists are still clenched. My eyes could not close.

Break

I'll write here. I feel rather safe.

Sensory Overload

What does she know? I never should have cried. Never.

The Wait

All of it might be a blur. Might be.

The Word/Wordy/Worthy One

He comes crawling at night
Like a scheming serpent tendering the glistening apple.


A whisper.

Eat it, savor it, die from it.


He roasts, boils, grills it.
He bakes it with a cherry.
He feeds me with it.
He can slice it and bit by bit, put it in my mouth.
He lets me chew, swallow and choke from it.

I always hunger and hunger for another recipe, a new drown.

On Hiatus

The Witch is.

For now.

So many good things happening.

Maybe.

Snap Back

Or so I thought I was falling. Failing and ailing. There will always be that single, if not the last, nerve that will send you to restart. Not shutdown.

The world can sometimes give you a minuscule space to move around.

Box-office

Despite the murderous heat, a long, long queue of people wanting, needing.

A small bag of rice for the day to see life's next attraction.

El Terible

I have a stalker in the office.

Joy.

Please Crowd Please

Crusades of superlatives.

"Pare, hindi siya suma. It was that paper that made him cum laude. Terible, pare!"

+++

The in-betweens.

After every song, there was an applause. Mid-air of two hands meeting, I think of you. Why. How. Now, what.

+++

For the first time, my beer really tasted intensely bitter. First time. It did not surrender to my needling need to forget, forgo.

+++

The music was commonplace. The guitars, the bass were very, very familiar.

I was dressed in shit. I was posing like shit. I don't want to please anyone. Please.

+++

Homebound.

+++

Before shutting my eyes, I was forced to do the math.

The only valuable remainder was Mikey. Cute and geek.

Concatenation. Deflection. Preoccupation.

1. The Battle of the Fields is still on. To rice or not to rice.

2. Motorcyle-riders' deaths prove the fast ones never win.

3. Hooray for the idiots who tried to save the world from global warming! Now, can we have free freon-fucking conditioning?!

4. Thou shall wear decent clothes in school. Even if it is summer. I'm tired of hags and grouches and their fabricated grin.

5. Can someone suggest Gabby Concepcion, instead of inducing hostilities between TV stations, consider profiteering from artificial insemination for women who foolishly dote him.

6. It's beach-ing time. Scary.

7. I so heart neon in this heat.

8. GMA should blame the lag messages of SMS network to "skip" the Palau President from terrorist-testing procedures.

9. Let me admit one thing, I don't know anything.

10. I can't wait. Take me to. Let's go... Quiapo, baby!

Blank Verse

I'd rather not write today. Patience must be served to the public.

How to Remember

"Press one for the admission's office"

There goes your oppositions. As nails scratch on the blackboard. You give me this unrelenting shiver. Spinal. Encompassing. I could not speak. You said I could remember. Eventually. Even without you, I will.

"Press two for the registrar's office"

My memory thrives on a habit. Memorize to remember: an actor behind a script to deliver, practiced speech to declaim, banal prayer for each rosary bead.

"Press three for the accounting office"

That is not what my memory wants. You said words can have no meaning without memory. Dictionaries will fail us. That is not what I need. You said. I need to remember what is lost. Forgotten. Retrieve the unwanted, picture all the shame, revive the suffering. We remember the savior nailed on the cross. Heroes shot in the park. Celebrate those. Consecrate our shattered hearts.

"Or stay on the line for assistance"

The Fool's Revenge

I promise I will be there. You have to wait. Walk around if it takes more than an hour. Or two. More than your street of patience. But not so much. Do not appear like a panting dog, salivating. Or like a dunce on tenterhooks.

You should know better. I adore you.

It is probably obsession. Like eating chocolates when you know there is always the expanding space for fat. It is never infatuation. I do not fall for those temporary tricks. All substituting. Always. I am habituated by your words. I know they are not the same. The every day is not the same. That is why I am affixed to it. The poison changes its flavor.

Bear the heat. I will not take long. You can ignore it. Like a fruitless tree that provides shade. Like unhammered nails in a coffin. Like this day that fools will never forget.

Deconstruction

How do you kill words?

All we can do is replace. Take back. Try to make one forget what was uttered.

How can you erase words in one's memory?

I want it gone. I want it to go away. I want to destroy it. Dismantle it. Tear it to letters.

So it cannot form anymore. So it can no longer muster itself. To procure minds, lacerate hearts, kill thy self.

Sorrowful Mysteries

Mother, I cannot pray any longer. Not with you. I now become tired, easily. The prayer is the same. The words are the same. Your words are the same. There are more fun things to do. More than to just sit and wait. For false hopes, failed promises.

Mother, I am not your life. Stop lying. You have your own. The umbilical cord was cut. A long time ago. We will go on our separate ways. Soon. I have my own heartbeat.

My breasts have become bigger. My glands will have milk. My lips will be kissed. My hair will be stroked. Someone else, mother, not you. Not anymore. Always is a word to change. I will change it. I will change.

Do not cook anymore. The food you serve has become stale. My taste buds ventured to the peculiar. Your effort of delicacy no longer excites my nostrils.

Enough, mother. Stop seizing me with these haunting echoes. Let go. Let go of woes. Let go of me.

I need your laughter, mother. That is your best farewell gift. I am your burden. It is time. I need to pain. I need to learn your sorrow. Your death is my birth.

Queen of Sorrow

I've never seen my mother happy. Since my birth, the deadly silence has captured her, coaxed her to sleep with sorrow.

Tonight, the moon, again, witnessed my mother's sadness. Amidst my bursts of laughter. Even with my smack of temper. Her patience is my territory.

I don't hate my mother. I hate her loneliness. I hate it when she cries every time I bite her nipples. She could have squeezed and drowned me. In milk. To my expectant face.

I hate her when she threatens me with father. I always resort to my childish outbursts. She should have hurled hurtful phrases instead.

There is nothing but loneliness in her face: lined with wrinkles, pallid because of sleeplessness, withered by muteness.

Mother, it is okay to flinch. You can always hurt me. You can always hate me. Get even. Don't you know I hate your lie that I am and will never be a mistake?

To The Blabbermouth

Try opening your mouth. Let me examine the terror of your throat. Will you unleash the long-kept vile? I need to know if I've fed you anything. Anything to be spewed out.

Do not avoid. Succumb this once. I've been living in massive fear. I always cringe at your sigh. I quail at each gulp. I choke by your choke. I shrink at your blow.

Become desensitized. Just be. It is my plead.

For awhile. All I want is your perfunctory pause.

Patience

I am terrified by this haunting holocaust. The clock strikes every nerve, every pain. You will never be where I want you to be. Never the distance. Never existent.

I am sick as an old song, desperate to be played. Many times. Golden times.

But now is waiting.

A gasp. Prolonged hiccup. Stretched silence.

I pull and stretch for that awaited snap.

And you tell me, the world is elastic?

Restore

Make me restless. Occupy my body. Ask me to bite. Command me to run.
I cannot have space. I hate lulls and blanks.
Not in this time. Not with this heart.

Initial Revenge

The water from the faucet runs too fast. I forgot to turn it off. The pail brims with unneeded water. My body needs more.

The water overflowed and went down the drain. My memory of you is still contained. It doesn't go. It doesn't inch towards the rim, towards the forgotten, drowning in the unknown.

I am distressed at the wasted water. Just like when you would tell me to stay put and act my age. I wanted to flow. I wanted to pour everything. To you. We could fill up this dry world.

But you corked the bottle.

You have always closed the valve. When the pail is full, you become the handle. Closed. Tight. Secured. Unyielding. Not a single drop escapes. Nothing stealthily falls. That is why I always thirst. I crave the stream. I become a growing desert. Something is lacking. The water is not enough. Always. You are not enough.