i want to think in philosophy,
to speak in prose,
to act in proverbs,
to admire in odes.
i want to love in sonnets,
to feel in poetry,
i want there to be literature
in every part of me.

manila, a home forever in my heart
tokyo's* electric soul on my mind
bangkok's heat and energy in my bones
seoul's autumn breeze in my thoughts
hong kong's thrill in the pulse of my veins
shanghai's mystique in the way i feel
san francisco's color in my dreams,
i keep with me all the places i've seen.

has your song ended?
have the instruments been put away?
has the singer gone to rest?
is this the end of the day?
are the dancers all tired,
the floor no longer filled?
do the spectators never come,
because they've lost the will?

will i never see you dancing,
waltzing through the room?
will i never hear you singing
under the light of the moon?
has your broken heart unlearned to love
all too quick and soon?

days fly by quickly
like leaves in the wind
but let's not worry—
together we can watch them drift away
time promises of more beautiful days
and by your side i will stay.

the moon is beaming in the dark
with tiny stars as little sparks
it shines with pride, in graceful hues
when night time falls and starts anew

but the moon is kind,
it does not boast
it shines so brightly
to guide, at most

and the moon loves greatly,
it loves the stars
because it lets them shine too
so they are seen from afar

he laughs without a care,
knee slaps and applauds in boyish fashion
he speaks only the truth
with an electric presence you'd keep your eye on
he lives life in technicolor
and you'll never get rid of him—
'cause the boy's got rhythm,
the boy's got soul
a beautiful one at that, enough to make me whole

the morning is kind...
silence fills the empty streets
where drunken people like sailors
once roamed,
now they sleep soundly
with the early breeze cradling them

bakeries and flower shops open,
the mailmen and delivery girls
make their way through quiet neighbourhoods,
the early birds rise
with a vision of coffee and breakfast,
and the sunlight is gentle on the skin—
go outside or sit by the window to feel it.
it kisses you,
inviting you start the daw anew.

a tropical soul
in winter for the first time—
happy with a heart so warm

in the city is a maze
where two lovers meet
in their dreams and daze
secrets hide beneath linen sheets

a kiss on the cheek
and two hands intertwined
two souls found solace
they never thought they'd find

and it's the kind of love
that's quiet and profound
they don't need much
but for one another to be around

i spent my childhood
with a conch shell in hand,
i'd be near the sea
even on land

for when i'd press
it to my ear
i'd hear the ocean
loud and clear

and that's when i realised:
i could have the world in my hands
if i believed enough
i could get to distant lands

i've always wondered:
how did a pretty soul like yours
grow in the confines of concrete walls?
are you sure you did not grow
under the kind light of the sun,
amidst fields in the breeze?
are you sure you did not grow
among the sea under blue skies?
are you sure you grew up
being mistreated for the way you looked?
are you sure you spent your youth,
working all too hard from dusk to dawn?
are you sure you were not trampled on
by the world and all its cheaters?

how could you, such a pretty soul,
have grown with all you have endured?

you've had a long day,
you are bone-tired,
your heart has been emptied
of its feelings,
your mind has thought
all it could ever think,
your soul is no longer glimmering
like the stars overhead.

so darling
tuck yourself into bed,
exhale the weight you carry in your chest,
close your eyes...
*rest well,
sleep easy.

i once tried to catch a shooting star
i saw it from afar as it came closer,
i prepared to jump and catch it with all my might
and i was too late:
i held on to its tail
and i wasn't strong enough,
it slipped from my fingertips
like a dream that ends at dawn

and that's when i realized:
some dreams just aren't meant to be—
but that's no reason to stop me
from waiting for other shooting stars to pass by

pick yourself up
after dark times, fighter
life's still got a lot to give
and things get brighter

the world turns quickly;
you and i are on different highways,
you are meant to be on silver screens
and i am meant to live normally, never to be seen

i could keep falling for your eyes,
i could keep admiring your pretty soul,
but this is the truth,
hidden in between the lines of my longing:
*i can't love you forever
but i'm going to love you for a long time

to the brilliant minds of the warehouse
who embraced all oddities
in painted nails and tattoos,
whose hands worked wonders
and made masterpieces,
who loved the world
and spoke up
in technicolor and loud sounds...

you will always blaze brighter
than the fires that took you

perhaps if i breathed deep enough
i could inhale the entire universe
and for a moment's worth
i'd feel the stars swirling in my chest,
the seas dancing in my lungs
and the winds running through my veins

and perhaps, if i exhaled just as much
i would breathe out the world
from my skin and bones,
and let it take the weight of sadness
that i carry in my chest.

i feel the size of my heart
growing bigger and bigger
yet i feel still feel so small
in this sea of people
in this world
with trees as tall as buildings
and people as lovely as the rain

i. when we die,
do our bodies become lighter?
do our souls fly away,
taking with it the weight our lives have carried
and leaving our skin and bones to drift in the wind?

ii. the other day i held you in my arms,
your eyes hollow and your voice a whisper;
you said it was just as a bad day,
i knew better than to believe you and i was afraid—
then suddenly, you were as light as a feather

you're seventeen years old
it begins with confusion and ends with thinking
you're too old yet too young
you want to be set free
yet you want to hide at the same time

you're seventeen years old
and you feel the gravity
of the sleeplessness
tug on your eyelids gently,
saying "go to sleep" during the wrong times

you're seventeen years old
and you think you've found solace
in the noise and silence
but you somehow hear the heartbeat
of cities far away
and you feel small in your own bedroom

you're seventeen years old
and by now you thought
you would have learned to love,
and you have learned to love
in the right ways but for the wrong people
and still you haven't learned to love yourself

you're seventeen years old
you've done the worst and best
and you need to be reminded of this:
you are still growing
and you will be okay.

the enchantress is on the hunt tonight—
behind her veil hides a porcelain doll's face.
when you smell the fragrance of dreams and death,
you know she is coming.

be wary, you are doomed:
take her spell,
be dizzy in her love like moonlight
let her song deafen you
let her magic have you dumbfounded
let her poison seep into your veins;
"honey, you don't need necromancy to know i'm your fate, your future" she says,
as she brews her poison
to be sipped like wine.

the enchantress is on the hunt tonight
she's out to get you,
there's no way out except in,
into the twisted world of the strange occult queen who always wins.

i suppose nature has not yet kissed
the moon rocks and space dust
on the surface of your home,
so if i flung some flowers to where you are,
would you notice this earth girl calling?
and would you, in return,
send me some space dust in a jar
so we could defy the laws of gravity
and let our love go beyond the stars?

i'll leave
                        pieces of
                                                           my
love                                                                               everywhere
                                                                ­                                                    like
                                                            peta­ls
            in                                                  ­                the                 wind
                            and                    i        ­                                                         hope
you              find                                        the­m                        and                
                  kn­ow                                   i                   wait                        
                                                    for you.

i only ever feel the weight of my heart
when i look at his face,
when i hear his laughter,
when i listen to his song—
i know i'm in love
with wonderment and fascination,
but with those feelings,
shouldn't the heart feel light?
indeed it might,
but here's the catch:
i carry the weight
of knowing
i'll never get this love back.

it is rare to come across
a mind quite as beautiful as his
it overflows with wonders
so he sets them free
through words and tunes,
this symphony-blooded boy
commands piano keys
and guitar strings with passion
so much that he could move
planets and mountains
the way people would for him.
his heart, although it runs on a lack of sleep,
stands strong through every night
spent thinking and writing and creating.

so if you do come across minds like these,
know that you are lucky
for you are glancing into universes
held within a single being,
of which are lived out through song and dance.

i only knew i loved the stars
on that night in Batangas—
my sisters and i rested our tired bones
on the dewy grass of a cliff,
we rested where the sea met the sky.

we looked at the stars.
"look, you can see the milky way right there,"
my oldest sisters said
as they traced the sky for me,
i saw it for the first time, in the dark
and i felt so big yet so small,
i learned to read the skies
from two people who knew how to
watch the world.

and i only knew i loved the stars
when i came to learn to see them
as i watched them
with the people i loved
beside me.

deep in the forests,
in dead-silent houses,
in deep blue seabeds,
in dusty shelves
and empty streets,
you shall be light
you will rebuild yourself
among silence
you will do all the things you want to
and be all the things you wish you could
you will be fire
blazing brighter than you
ever thought you would.

while i was sailing freely
under pretty blue skies
on a calm blanket of water,
who tied an anchor to my ankle
and pulled me down
towards the torturous sea floor
eclipsed by darkness,
in the depths of my mind?

i searched all over the seven seas
as if i were searching for Atlantis
and i found the answer, i had forgotten:
i did it to myself
it was me, it was me.

why should i have to carry the weight of the world
when i break under the weight
of my own being?

how did you do it?

how did you catch her eye
when she was too shy to even lift her head
to look at the world around her?

how did you get to know her,
how did you get to learn of the little things about her,
when she barely speaks of herself?

how did you break into her little heart,
when she built walls around it
because she never felt pretty enough?

how did you change her mind
to stop believing that life is not meant
to be lived in your own,
when she had always been content with being alone?

how did you get her,
a lonely, solitary soul
only in love with books and dances,
to fall in love with you
as you did with her?

in baler where the sun shines and the waves visit
is where freedom bathes under the blue skies
in the seaside realm of surfing

simple hotels line the shore
where you can run to the beach fronts
after settling in little white rooms,
and in the blue water
wait tanned, youthful surfing instructors--
local boys of the province who've grown up
with the salt water as their playground.

get on your surfboard and
join the waters,
"mag-timing ka sa alon,"—
"wait for the waves", the instructors say
and lie down on your stomach on the surfboard,
and when you do get the waves you ride them fearlessly,
you are lifted, invincible,
by the hands of the philippine sea.

and if you don't surf,
the smooth sands are there,
calling you to lie around
under the seaside sun.

and when night falls
and the waves are reckless,
you can sit on the sand
with a bonfire and some drinks—
watch the stars
with the sound of the tides as your music
and do not fear;
for in the morning
the waves will come rushing
back to the shores of Balers
to give anyone freedom
as they always do.

i want to know you enough
to know how you like your coffee
i want to see you enough
to watch your face light up at the little things
i want to hear you enough
to listen to the words you'd say when nobody's around
i  want to feel you enough
to know how it is to intertwine my fingers in yours
i want to be around you enough
to understand your being, so beautiful and complex

but as silly as it is,
although we're lifetimes apart,
i still seem to find you everywhere:
in sunsets, in flower beds, in the rain,
in the things i love
for you make me feel the same way they do—
yet this isn't quite enough.

somewhere in hollywood along route 66
stood a cheap motel—
an asylum
for rockstars and their groupies,
artists and and poets and strangelings alike.
the morning only saw its residents,
drunken and drowsy,
and its black-tiled pools as dark as the night;
yet the nights were its prime
when the artists would gather
in the name of music, dance, recklessness.
the syringes would pierce their skin
and the alcohol like ocean waves
washed out the most of them,
and events too unspeakable were the norm.
the motel never attained 5-star ratings,
but it become the playground
for fleeting moments, wild nights,
brewing grounds for creation.
these nights were so loud and colorful,
but only remembered in hazy visions
and muffled sounds.

and so all those nights end here, today:
at the south of The Strip
where some modern, ordinary hotel now stands
once used to be the mess
that the likes of Jim Morrison
and Tom Waits called home.
its guests would have burnt it down,
but they would've wasted their money,
and who has the time anyway?

ladies and gentlemen, the tropicana motel—
a stop over where
wild minds and wild hearts would meet
and eventually go their way,
the place where these legends
of music and madness
came to play.

radio blasting Bowie
and the manila heat so strangling,
messages streaming in
only to be ignored,
deadlines pile up
and so do the dreams
and the skyline,
visible from the window
is a reminder of what's beyond
the mundane and this difficulty,
a reminder of what i've yet to see.

i got a second hand film camera
a pentax k-1000
already it was slightly rusted
and stained in some parts
but i didn't mind
it made me think about its story
and the stories of the ones who've owned it before—
where has this camera gone?
what has it seen?
did the previous photographers behind it
love it as much as i do now?
whose very hands have twisted the lens,
fixed the camera's focus,
and pressed the shutter button?
who else has meticulously loaded and unloaded film into it,
time and time again?

and more importantly,
will i be able to capture wonders of life
through its lenses
in the same way others might have done before me?

do not tell me to stop feeling
when it is what makes up my entire being
do not tell me to stop loving
when it is the only form of my healing

i've always had a hard time loving myself
i guess it started with the way adults used to tease me about my chubbiness
and how sensitive i was as a child

after all, i've always had traits i never liked
chubby arms and thighs, a button nose
a mole on my right cheek, a sensitive heart
a wishy washy soul
i can't even draw

then one day,
i thought about how my skin healed after i burnt it really bad from hot water
and how my body kept me warm in the Tokyo breeze late at night in the spring weather
and how i've used these very hands writing this to wipe all my tears

and how my heart, in all its fragility
still fights on and loves
despite all the pains i've felt

and so i realized:
*if this very body of mine can love my soul
and fight to keep me alive and alright,
then it is only right that i love it and accept it

you are so young,
caught in a world
of stage lights and school deadlines
of rushing and huge crowds

but look at you:
you are a fighter,
you move with such passion and grace,
you laugh without a care,
and you are light
to the people around you,
you are so important, so special
and you were made to be as bright
as the fire dancing in your heart.

so continue taking on the world with no fear—
you are appreciated,
you are loved,
my bright little star.

a little girl once wanted and thought she could keep the entire world. every night she cried at the sight of the stars, her heart burst whenever the flowers would bloom, she'd dance in the rain whenever it would so much as drizzle.

one night, when her little heart began to overflow with so much yearning, she walked to a cliff by the sea with a jar in hand. she opened the jar, holding it up to the sky and watched the delicate universe make its way inside it all so gently. immediately, she capped the jar and was amazed that she held the world in her hands. for many days she took it around with her, leaping through rivers on stepping stones and walking through sea shores in the light of day.

one day, suddenly, the bottle fell from her hands and her heart stopped. she could not believed she had dropped it. she picked up the jar, and suddenly it seemed as if the universe was wounded. she could not believe she did such a thing.

on the night of that unfortunate day, she made her way to a mountaintop with a heavy heart and her vision murky from tears. just as she was high enough to touch the clouds, she carefully chose a spot and stood firmly, still sniffling a little bit.

"i did not take care of you when you trusted me. i do not deserve you, universe." she said, her voice shakey as she uncapped the jar. "i am sorry."

in the same manner she caught the universe, she held her open jar towards the heavens and watched the universe pour out the bottle in wisps—the stars and planets and all of space and time dispersed before her eyes and again, she began to cry. she wondered how she was even able to keep such a beautiful thing and how she had failed it.

days passed and the girl was lonely again. as she strolled past plants and vines, they would wilt in sadness. the sun would shine so palely in the morning that even the moon could not console it. she was so sad that even nature joined her in silence.

on one morning, she woke up feeling a different beating in her heart. she stood up from her flower bed to look at her reflection, and to her surprise she found something shining just right under her left shoulder.

there, she found the universe had come back to her—not in the same jar it used to be in, but in her heart.

"do not ever think you do not deserve the world just because of your shortcomings," she heard the universe whisper, her hand in her chest. "i have found my way to your heart and here i will stay."

and that is how the girl began to carry the universe she had so loved in her heart, forever.

you lead
i follow
you run
your speed
i can no longer keep up
you're living
i'm sinking
you're shining
i'm fading
you were the compass
but now i'm more lost than ever

the ocean watches and it knows.
it knows of the mermaid who sings
of loneliness and strong tides,
she dreams of a sailor in constant travel.
her heart runs deeper than treacherous trenches,
her saltwater love for him overflowing.
she hears his song from deep beneath
and sings her heart out like he would listen.

the ocean watches and it knows.
it knows of the sailor who
has danced from coast to coast,
he braves the sea storms,
the continuous thunder,
because somewhere in the middle of the sea
he hears a lovely mermaid song
as if she were calling out to him.
so on sunny days, leaning by the starboard,
he hums a gentle tune in response.

the ocean watches and it knows.
it knows of the sailor who waits for his ocean darling,
it knows of the mermaid who longs for her land lover,
and beyond everything it knows that
the currents shall bring them together someday.

two like beings made from the same stardust
two souls meant to be one
but separated by the laws of space and life

now they spin on neighboring orbits
of different speeds—
on some days they come close enough to meet but they never do.

perhaps he sits down on his bed
eyes heavy from a long day's work

after the bustle of being
and the brightness of lights
and the noise of people
i suppose it gets lonely

maybe he wants someone to listen
maybe he looks to the sky
wishing that somebody out there
would listen

but little does he know
that somewhere not too far away,
someone sits by the windowsill
wanting to offer an ear
willing to give time
and would do anything to be the one
he would run to

trained to protect
armed in heart
dressed in courage
camouflage clothes
brave hearts
murdered unjustly
brave hearts
who were put down
by the gunmen
brave hearts
caught in the web of conflict
when they were the fearless
who only wanted
to keep us safe

i wish we had spring
so that you could take my hand
and keep my heart warm