Happiest Birthday.
You introduced me to this.
I’m kind of sorry,
I had missed last year’s greetings.
So enjoy your day my friend.

Oh how respected!
How brave your soul is.
How marvelous you’ve been,
To me who’s despair ridden.

You of nobility or so it seems.
Of an esteemed Catholic family,
But alas you’re no queen!
Of procrastination maybe.

You whose ire knows no bounds.
Of your shrapnel-made tongue!
Remember those times, love?
Of how you hated social media!

Your hatred and trust issues,
How valuable they are to you.
Hatred of guidance counselors,
Led to hatred of God himself!

Oh how brave of you to oppose!
How mighty you are in your stand!
I don’t mean to judge, love.
You’re free to believe, or not.

You’ve become a pitiable ghost!
I suppose, maybe it’s just me…
You disappeared, love.
Where have you been?

From admiration and care,
To admonishment and hate!
You who left me in August!
Are striped of that description!

These aren’t anger filled lines.
It’s of disappointment, love.
We’re both cowards, right?
But why leave me alone!

I’ve been there for you in May!
Remember the ninth of eighteenth?
With you eating frozen watermelons,
While it rained ever so gently?

You cried and cried,
Shouting “I’m okay.”
I lied and lied.
Saying “No, you’re not.”

Why’d you become my August ghost?
Did you regret crying that night?
Why’d you leave me all alone?
It’s better if I just died…

Because I was just a friend.
Not even worth your words.
Because you left me hanging.
On the twenty-second of August.

I have come of age to vote,
Yet missed the day to register.
I have come of age to be wise,
Yet missed the day to remember.

I love my country dearly,
I live in it and am bound to it!
Yet a finger I couldn’t raise,
To those who deserve disgrace!

If not for my wicked heart,
Struck by apathy and antipathy,
I would have remembered,
The cries of my own country.

I lament the fact that I’m AWOL,
During the day of difference.
What can I do to redeem myself?
If my heart knows not itself?

My heart and head stand neutral!
With right or wrong just equal!
And there is no greater evil than me,
Who watches hearts bleed out.

There is no greater evil than I,
That see blue, red, yellow, and white,
Become pure in their sad colors.
A non-voter who laments to himself!

Become pure blue due to suffocation.
Become pure red due to old wounds.
Become pure yellow due to disease.
Become pure white as death visits.

Oh, dear Philippines my motherland.
I see, speak, and do evil on your body.
I ask the Lord for forgiveness and grace,
As the church rot from inside the gates.

My love for you is conditional!
I was born in your womb, motherland!
I serve you as I live on shame!
Yet my heart is grasped by ignorance!

Let my coming of age speak,
Let youth cry out in agony.
As I wait for my next chance,
To rid myself of this apathy.

To be left empty,
With shards of what used to be.
To be abandoned,
By a ghost of your own dreams.
It leaves you longing in pain.

‪I see people struggling with what they learned.‬
‪I’ve yet to learn anything.‬
‪My mind just feels empty and blank.‬
‪There’s nothing in it but abstract forms that ellicit vague and varied emotional responses.‬
~
‪Suddenly, without warning, “it” attacks.‬
‪But my apathy would invalidate “it”.‬
‪But “it” stays there.
Waiting until I feel again.
Until “it” re-triggers my emptiness and apathy.
Waiting to be filled only to be spilt and reduced to nothing.
An absence, a darkness, an abyss of unfeeling.
A deprivation of senses as if something has died.
“It” just does what “it” is intended.
At first, apathy dismisses “it”.
But soon, I regain my consciousness.
And “it” subdues my consciousness into apathy.
“It” is an endless cycle.
There’s no other word for “it”.
~
It is just “it”; an entity that lacks words to express, a phenomenon.
An anomaly within me.

She put her head on my lap,
As we continued to laugh,
Talking serious but subtle,
You told me “I like you”,
I was speechless again.
You took the words from my mouth.

I woke up, crying tears of happiness.

I found you then at a catheral,
A celebration of sorts was held.
My current friends wearing black,
My old friends wearing blue.
You were facing opposite our friends.
I saw you facing the ones in blue,
And as I approached them,
I started to cry once again,
With tears of suffering and pain.
The people in black comforted me.

I woke up, angry and bitter with tears.

I found myself in the future,
We were walking side by side,
Acting as if nothing happened.
I tried to confront you again,
With why you’d left me hanging.
You laughed and asked “What?”,
Then I tried again and again and-
You ran away.
Left me alone.
I knocked?
No one answered.
As if strangers once more.

I woke up crying with my dream come true.