Like a bold moth flying into the flame
I was unreasonably brave
Like a wide-mouthed jar
I was ready to catch all stars
I was a live wire, so thrilled to electrify
Yet my high heat, was a fresh face novice
Yet my bursts of joy, was an innocent mind
And it’s the poison who killed me
So today, in afterlife
I walk on eggshells, I’m weary
My hands are like the surgeon’s
Unhurried, steady

Today,
I’m a thunder, diving headfirst to the ground
I’m wild river racing downstream
I’m a maverick rider on a lawless trail
I’m a boisterous revolution stirring the still waters
I’m a bold outlaw defying old rules
In these corners, I’m a garden breeding my own flowers
Breathing my own breath
Choosing my own colors

I clothe my wounds the best dress
In striking teals, ultramarines, and indigos
I put some hope, even on such illusory mess
In beams, in gleams, in radiance
Been dipped in deep dull sense
Stacks of years, chunks of logic
Aging, through rationality and dialectics
Maneuvering designs and tactics
And still we’d play new year jumping
til our legs can
For every inner child that lives
Year per year

Dogs can even smell the sadness in me
It leaks from my soul
It jumps out from my skin
Yet one step higher is where we always belong, don’t we?
One step higher is the gleaming golden trophy
And we’d craft our chances
We’d grow our wings
To leave them behind…

And I now hold them like water in my hands
For no matter how tight my grip gets
They’d still slip through my little fingers
They’d still drip, though I watch
I, who no longer control power
I, who no longer be mad
So toast to the peace!
The peace, I grant unto you
Til I change my mind

Always every anger was once love
Trickled down to our cheeks
A hopeful prayer through our lips
We put down the sword, we put down the leaves
Letting the palms be ashes
Fiery splatters, blazing splashes
A repentance kind of party
Is it really remorse and its beauty?
Why won’t you convince me?

It’s like climbing on top of the world that’s sinking
It’s like piecing together a shattered mirror
It’s like building sandcastles at the tide’s edge
It’s like walking a tightrope over a chasm
My mind’s a party confetti
Bursts of color, yet messy
And I keep celebrating small wins
Out of grief, out of suffering
And funny how the mind just keeps coping
A mad good party kind of feeling

Like bees drowning in their honey
Are the leapers and their ladders
Are the kneelers, the kissers
The free flyers of a big shot superior
The flower givers, the ally seekers
The fast eaters, the sweet talkers
Come, starve yourselves more
Be crazy ambitious, be *******
And we’ll wonder, we’ll ponder
What’s the power hunger for?

For it took just one soul to grow a life
A soul with womanly yet valiant mind
With her manly motherly undaunted might
With her unwieldy towering chunk of dreams
All alone, she raised me
Bruised and blemished badly
And, “a proud mama’s boy you are”,
you might say?
And, why would I even be ashamed?

Was knowing less, was bruiseless
Thus impetuous, hence careless
A high diver, a high spirit
Only to find out,
I have drowned, just in shallow chances
I have melted, just in shallow phrases
And it built me,
A tactical diver, a toned spirit
Less smiles, more doubts
In knowing love, in knowing life
Side by side

With beams from their teeth
With dripping flames they swallowed
With sharp yet tired eyes and feet
The well built chests, the hard made meats
The restless arêtes
They’d narrow their steep roads
Extremely narrow and steep
That I’d crave to pass by
That I’d die to live

Yet, we’re more of a black ant, than red
Kinder, haven’t you heard?
Safer, less likely to hurt?
We succumb our humble heads in scents and hues
We dye our bad blood,
Ambers, Fuchsias, Carmines, Blues
The game of cutting ourselves bleeding
Bursting, splats, like party confetti
To win the heart is to reign royal the world
To lick your dog-eat-dog ears with our flowery words

Assembling pathways, breeding flowers
Over clouds, I’m scattering colors
Shaping growth, sprinkling party confetti
Flying heights, for childhood’s happy

Little did we know, little smiles do grow
It’ll hug you, you’ll glow
It’ll succor you when you’re slow
Here, where my big leaps are for

Go show to thy inferiors
Go show to thy superiors
Display to them
Daylight, you repeat
Nightlight, you redo
Coming from you, only for you
Display to them
The real champ only competes
With herself

A word for my ally
The seeing me, eye to eye
Out of the masses of minds
Out of all bodies, out of all kinds
Here, clasps the rarity of being found
The rest, to my ever tortured mind
A word for my ally
Supreme, magnificent, sublime
We’ll dance, we’ll fly
Sniffing coffee, battling time
Stretching limits, bending spines
A word for my ally
My morning, my divine

Lick the Lilies, love the Irises
Kiss the seeds to grow gardens
Feed the leaves of your Fleur-de-lis
Bathe it under warm yellow sunbeams
Talk to them,
Talk with all your revolutionary fervor
To be on the rise
Can charm suffice?
A no surprise
You, wild yet wise
Carry on

Growing lines, stretching limbs
The eyes, I'll endlessly bury
The hands, I'll endlessly move
Flipping pages, sniffing phrases
I'll fold the skin, I'll bend the bones
For nowhere
But up

It’s eternal
A snake eating its own tail
She’ll be swimming in the wildfires with her hand-made wings
She’ll be soaring up to the skyline with her crafted fins
A hot head rising like a phoenix, Sylvia
Words do assemble her
like a scorching pyramid
What is that even? A kid
Too stubborn for rest

Your yesteryears — a stranger,
a juvenile crime, a tear hoarder
Rotting your bright-colored soul,
withering your wild
Sorrow was a disease, you’re too good to hide
Eyeballs ****** the pain you have as a child
Hurt, an illness, you couldn’t fight
‘Til outbursts

On the grounds of this, it’ll endlessly summon
Some worn out knees, forcefully bent to bloom
Brutally folded, to spring out crisp and sharp
Yes, yesterdays did think they killed a body
Yet, yesterdays just crushed it into tiny pretty things
No limb will truly collapse til she gets lucky
A worked out unprivileged, with her lovelier stories

For a dip of her toe in the clouds
She’d fiercely stretch til she’d rip up
She’d throw her bones, spread her skin
To rather die than never win
Dyeing a bloodline, infinite green

Crossed legs with her fingers crossed
A shameless allure, a power-hunger supreme
She’s been tempting the skin to keep craving to win, like an intriguing lipstick flower
in an evergreen

Head up in grace, suspended in space
To hold all breaths til I touched the summit
All or nothing I give, all or nothing I take
Smiles with my teeth or death of my faith
Oh fortune, how true?
I’m beaming

I, who keep leaving for a living
I, who keep moving with a cloud show
Filling the hollow, digging the shallow
I, who keep hurting my ears
I, who keep flying in tears
I, whose happy are lightyears

Grease-stained were his hands and toes
Yet cleaner than the cleanest from the castles of foes
Bruised knees, he was no one
Til he bruised it
More

Quitting the short-lived fun—swallower of lifetimes
Oh strict fidelity, deprived for stability
This dull party quitter
Bores the many for longer happy
This weary dull builder, built up!

In my father’s house are many mansions
Pigmented with white, pleasant and bright
Pure is just the heart who can get in
A gooseflesh scene, to cleanse such sin
To remind the wild world my father has been
In the near cold river, I’ll bathe my skin
Blessed I am for I am redeemed

On the grounds of this, it’ll endlessly summon
Some worn out knees, forcefully bent to bloom
Brutally folded, to spring out crisp and sharp
Yes, yesterdays did think they killed a body
Yet, yesterdays just crushed it into tiny pretty things
No limb will truly collapse til she gets lucky
A worked out unprivileged, with her lovelier stories

Flipping old pages, sniffing old phrases
Loosening up, unwinding
Elsewhere, elsewhere
With the weight of you
Tucked in my eyes
Pressed down on my shoulders
Elsewhere, elsewhere
Hope is the hardest love I carry
Hope birthed me, hope killed me
Elsewhere, elsewhere

Simula ngayon,
Pipilitin ko,
Gumising,
Sa mundong wala sa bukas mo
Simula ngayon,
Pipiliin kong,
Mamatay,
And damdaming niyakap ilang taon
Simula ngayon, ako’y magsisimula muli

At gaano man kabagal, ay bubuhaying muli
Ang pagkatao kong nawala sa ngalan ng dating pag-ibig
At alam mo balang araw, ako’y lilipad muli
Ng walang sakit, ng walang pait
Ng dating pag ibig
Simula ngayon, ako’y magsisisi...

Us, our lives in hard mode
Born unlucky to grow in a hard way
Systems, eating us alive
Folding us, wrecking our wild
Unbalanced, restless, uptight
Some systems, do not nurture creativity
And i’m a fiercely enduring candlelight
Here, we’re set to overwork,
Until,
We’re up there

She’ll move mountains, she said
Once she’s stable, she believed
Sniffing flowers and leaves
I’m confused, I’m intrigued

And her tone should smell like fresh petals
Her smile should scatter sunbeams and confetti
Here, she bet, all would want to stick around
She’ll flip her thoughts, she’ll bathe verbal sunshine
Right words, and we might all not want to die

Sure she’ll lose what she won’t take care of
She lost one, she lost two
Remorse, regret: She captured, she caught

Hence parties now aren’t just for celebrating
She’d blowout grief, she’d pop some tears
Here, she sings, she drinks, she dances
To forget...

When this world’s mess is mine
When i’m eaten alive by my mind
When it felt like quicksand
You’ll find my elbows bent
Palms up, hands raised
Standing, in a nearby church
Singing, “Ama Namin”
And I’ll live again...

I, who heedfully pick stems
Keeping me in, keeping me in suspense
I, do my all, do my all
And it should excite me

Your spirit’s high, your tongue’s cold
My soul’s deep, my mouth’s bold
A gentle love we knew that once grew old
Floating on your waters, spinning above my road
Have you ever thought about me?
I sometimes tear up
I sometimes wonder...

Yes! Hate’s only from the brutes
It’s not in our books, not in our books
Like this brotherhood of the dudes
Count on me, Count me in
I’ll pull you up!
With flowers!

Lovely is she, who kept cracking surfaces
Diving deep, then whirling to the unknown
Lovely is she and her tired eyes,
crowning her heavy head
Come, tell me lovely
How does it feel?
Learning on your own

Maybe home is nothing but a body pressed against you
Maybe, arms holding you so tight
Even at your worst

Why never did I fret?
Why never did I shiver?
Why did your worst times,
Only made me tear up, stumble?
Then, made me come back,
Made me turn back,
Home...

Pressed hands, knees bent
Quivering with folded limbs
I lie on the floor, I beg for more

The aftermath of this whisper:
The mindful and calm, hereafter

Hither, now, I'll picture the frailty
So hither, someday, i'll remember
Bothered and trembling, as we roll down
As the needy gets killed, and it's no fun

Like saints, I, too, gather prayers
Pleas, bathing in tears
Anguished sobs, bursting
Straight to my face, I’ll be counting the days
Stretching lives, extending breaths
Sparking hope, sparking deaths
Prolonging life, prolonging pain
The wealthy in grief, ruptured in frame

Strokes of hues laid here beneath,
Scream the sound a crowd can read
Every me, lives in a never-ending staircase
Head go dim and lit as the world spins wild
Here, lucky isn’t the famous child
Nor the baby born on a higher step
For lucky, is the mind with power
Fortune favors the mind with peace
What for are the stairs bordered with sturdy shoulders?
When one’s trained to focus gazing up
No matter how slow, no matter how little
If you’ll move and move, you’ll get there

Our different lives, our different views
She’d pack her bags and lace her shoes
I’d clean the brush, I’d squeeze the tubes
Oceans away,
She’d set up, I’d do interviews

As waves roll over
My nights grow shorter
Yet I’ll always stand on my cold feet
Sleep my nights sober
Tell and mean I so love her
Day by day, until forever
Taking steps, being better
In years, we’ll move closer
In time...

Words of a happy
So simple, so ordinary
We could’ve said, we could’ve read
Yet for our sake,
We’d rather not remember

Words of a happy,
Piling up phrases, I can see
Swimming through our irises
Eye to eye, we’d feel
We could’ve said, we could’ve read
Yet, world spins wildly
Hurting now seems routinary
Timing’s just unkind to the unlucky
So...
Maybe I’ll just see you again someday
Till “happy”, becomes...
A safe feeling to portray

Her and her indomitable will
She’ll bend and burn, and will stay still
For she, who can endure, can conquer
The patient, is the hopeful growing flowers
A squat in the storm, a breeding of power
A trailblazer who can also be a follower
And in time, you’ll see
What an ache of a disciplined could be
Beneath the curves of a tired bending body
The prize of her and her indomitable will