Blank blank nothing but blank
Sometimes I forget the happy things I used to write to myself
Out of anger
I wish I just got better
But nothing seems to change
I wrote, nothing seems to change
Why the **** does nothing always change?








Why?

Wrinkled blue leather
Laying on my fingers
A solemn sight
Such words it bears
Waiting to be unravelled
Waiting to be understood

Amidst the trickle of questions
I press it to my heart

Far, yet so near
Blurry, but so clear

I want to see it all.

Who said love would be easy?
Who said life would be a smooth ride?
Who said you'd never have to worry?
Who said it would never be painful inside?
Look at that wretched state of you
The flaws you don't seem to accept
The pain you've kept hidden under the blankets
The mistakes you never seem to forget
You think it'll be better when the sun rises tomorrow?
You think you'll eventually laugh it all off someday?
You think you'll never have to get out of your self-made misery?
You think, "maybe not today"?
We're all just trying to get by
And there you go, torturing yourself with cruelty
You wouldn't even want to impose upon your worst enemy

And yet

You blind yourself with blatant stupidity
Of all "I don't deserve"s and "I'll never be happy"s
Of saying "life has no meaning" without realizing
You could've just made meaning all along
All of that have kept you from seeing
How loved you were
How absolutely treasured you are
By those who stayed
And those you could make meaning with,
If you just wanted to

Still

You count the ones who left
The ones who caused you so much pain
The voices that haunt the deep recesses of your brain
Like they're the ones that matter the most

Aren't you a ******* laughable creature? You.

Someone who has so much love wasted inside her,
Thrown into a compost pit of potential joy she never realized
Because she was too caught up in writing the saddest story humanity has ever written.

Boo-hoo. The end. Sad ever after.

Welcome to life, honey
It's never going to be easy
It's never going to be a smooth ride
And it's one you only have a chance of taking once
So at the very least,
pick yourself once more,
and cherish the journey.

is a peculiar thing
  Someone who listens
     and has the patience
        to bear with all your
          pains and frustrations
             in this funny thing called
            

                             “life”


                           In a place so unfamiliar
                   a familiar voice brings you
             back to reality just by saying
         “you mean so much to me”
  enough to make you believe
and try and live and hope

                        
                           again

Maybe we'll make do with the pixels that bind us together
Two-hour talks we share in our own tiny version of forever
Thin but treasured screens that allow me to see your beautiful smile
Airwaves bringing messages, traversing thousands of miles
Just to get to where they need to be

Oh the stories they would tell.

Love,

things won’t always go your way
skies will sometimes come in gray
and maybe you can’t even change anything about these days

It’ll take awhile for the drizzling to stop
and the colors to come again
A little bit of time for the smile to come
for these doubts to end

but I promise you, love

I’ll be here like the sun that hides beneath the clouds
I’ll be here like a punchline waiting at the end of a joke
I’ll be here like the comma you write whenever you need to take a break,
I’ll be here like the bookmarks you randomly used to make
I’ll be here like a song waiting to be sung
I’ll be here like a rhyme waiting to be rung
and you won’t be seeing me every now and then
but I’ll be there with you in the dark places you’ve made for yourself
in between the lies, in between the sighs, in between the “I don’t want to try”s , in between the

“I don’t need any help”

cause you do

you know that

and it’s okay

So please remember, love, from where you are now, someone right here is telling you she loves you, and she will continue to

So hang on

;

love,
You


p.s. take a break too

I’m a maladroit young gal.

Did you just search what that means?

It means I’m clumsy. I mean, look at how my rhymes go all flimsy.

Words stacked together, never just in twos or threes.

Just a bottle of broken glass that was never meant to be.

That’s me.

That is my beauty.

So although the dictionary and society be judging all the maladroits out there

We don’t care.

Let us sip our teas as they cry in despair.

Cause they can only wish they were as cool as us -

Real as us -

Free as us.

Everyone seems to be faking it, really.

That’s why I’d rather be maladroit:

Maladroit and happy.

Who do you call when the police murders?
Who do you call when the murderers rule?
Who do you call for justice and protection
in a den of power-hungry fools?

Remember the woman who sold
her body at a checkpoint just to make the bend?
Remember the war veteran who was shot twice unarmed,
even with a mind unable to comprehend?

Remember the young boy who went outside,
only to get killed by four officers, for a crime no one really knew
Remember the countless “casualties”, unfortunate "accidents"
which never really made it through?

Some as young as six
Some as young as two
Some elderly, some misguided delinquents
while some, well, they never do

Dictators and human rights violators
“too old”or “too frail” to be punished
While Jeepney drivers aged 70 and more
take the whole brunt of the "fair" mallet

As thousands pushed into already cramped prison cells
are unable to eat more than once a day
While those rich enough to buy the law
can still throw mañanitas and “meetings” every single day

Yet these blue shirted and barong-laden fools
sometimes come together in TV

to bumble about civil service with mouths still smelling of
beer and of yesterday’s lechon kawali

Because remember, compassion is only
for those who can sit in a palace-worthy chair
Justice is only for the dead or for those
whose pockets are already filled with blood of the bare

And now who's suffering for the lies?
Who’s already taking the blame?
Who will listen to the cries of the forgotten
When our voices are no longer ours to claim?

As their guns point to our heads
with the smiles of “para sa'yo itong serbisyo”
Take off your blindfolds, your change is never coming
Only hell is here, in disguise of a fiasco

Today, I will cool my heart with a bottle of patience, compassion, kindness, and love.

Repeat this when you feel the anger bubbling up.

I mean, don't we all get worked up sometimes?
Doesn't the world get too frustrating sometimes?

It's okay.
I know how that feels.

But remember that anger is the enemy of the heart.
Anger destroys all that you've worked so hard to create,
so accept the reality that you cannot change the world.

You are merely a speck of all creation,
so why make an enemy out of it?

Be its friend. Be part of it.

Love against all odds, even when the voices tell you otherwise.

Let love cool your heart and mind like the ocean shore.
Allow it to heal all your wounds.

Rest. Smile.
Laugh at the world’s absurdity.
Live in all of life’s simplicity and beauty.

You don't have to be Buddha or Jesus to do this.

Just breathe.

Breathe in

Patience
Compassion
Kindness and
Love

Breathe out hate.
Breathe out that what does not heal you.

Only with all of these can you begin to make a positive difference in the world. No matter how small.

So start with your heart.

Be patient, be compassionate, be kind, and most of all, love.

Hold that bottle close to your heart.

All else follows.

If there’s one reason why I haven’t done it
It is hurting a child who cannot decipher
What losing someone means
I cannot be the first explanation
I don’t want to be
Yet why does it hurt to exist?
Why do I feel like there’s only one path for me
To be a mere name in the news
To be forgotten and be read by people who seek solace
Or those who seek pain
Will one less person in the world make a difference?
I wish I knew.

But yes, I do.

I cannot be selfish, right?
That’s how it is.

So I live until I find a reason not to.

Isn't it crazy
That we cross paths with some people
For a mere moment in our lives
Never to see them again
How big the world is
How many stories untold
If I live long enough
I wish to listen
To all these stories
I wish to experience
The bitter, sweet, painfully ironic
blip it is
To be human
7.88 billion more times

In love with sleep
In love with books
In love with pillows and blankets that protect me from the
harsh and cruel outside world


Oh, and of course --

In love with you.

I once wrote a poem
About how the world ripped off my wings at birth
And made it theirs
How it always felt like I had to be
Someone for somebody
Anyone but me, and not to care

But that's not right

Cause I was never a bird
Flying is a mere illusion
And I'm gladly standing on the ground
With everything and everybody
And though it may not be as pretty
Reality is still reality

They may have taken my wings
But I can still run
They may have taken my wings
But I can still climb the highest peak
They may have taken my wings
But I can still feel the gush of wind flowing through all the windows
As I fall, and I cry, and I stand up once again
And I wouldn't trade this for anything else
Not even the skies

I can hear the birds calling me outside
But I've finally found one more reason to stay
Inside

One time I saw an intricate bouquet of blue roses by the garbage room
I wonder how many other roses have been thrown out
Because of our human tendency to hope, to love
Or to hurt, with or without meaning to
It could have been a couple fighting
A rejected somebody
Someone who simply hated blue roses
A frustrated florist
These are stories I will never know

The next time we meet again will probably awkward as frick
Like if Jupiter and Uranus collided
In which they'd probably pass by each other because they're gas giants
(Or fuse into one big gas giant planet, but I'm too tired to explain)
And being in one room we'd might as well
Be two unmoving pieces of stone each waiting
For the other to make a move
After all the years without touch
(Cause a pandemic had to happen)
I guess we'd be stiff like that.

I mean, can't you see the stiffness in the way my hands
Wave at you wishing yours could just come through
The pesky screens holding us back
Just wishing they could make a crack at all the ice
My hands have been gathering throughout these years?

Cause it seems holding you will take ages
And I'm now left to read hundreds of pages of young adult couples
Huddling beside bonfires
Making it look so easy to move closer and closer
While realistically, we're stuck here miles and miles apart
Only huddling beside this hurt we call distance

By the gods, I pray to be a gas giant so I can permeate
Through all these physical walls
And give you the one long hug I've been saving since fall
Cause I badly need the body warmth right now.
Do I sound too hypothermic? I hope not.


...


But anyway, still and awkward hugs will do
I've noticed it's a bit cold here --
Is it cold there too?

I know you might've grown accustomed to it, you might even like it, but for just one night
Let me imagine what it's like
To warm you.

We are small blobs of imperfections and
I don’t care what the world says
I see this beauty, I hear this beauty, and
I will fight for this beauty
That we call love
They will try to bring you down
But I will raise you up
We will eventually realize
That this is enough
I am me and I am hopeful
And I will sing a hymn to all the soulful
Poets out there whose hearts speak in broken lines
All the lost
All the forgotten
All the love in us which has faded in time
Because the world keeps on shrinking
And our hearts keep on sinking
To what the naysayers say
That we gotta take all our metaphors and brokenness away
If we ever want to integrate in this society
And live happily, normally, as they see
And now we have forgotten how to truly live
Forgotten that it takes rising and falling to ever truly give
Our broken selves to the ones who need it the most
Which is in our own arms, how long has it shouted its throes
And now we need to tell the poet in us that we can try again
Write again, fight again, and be ourselves against the world
And someday soon, I know we will be heard
Cause although we are small blobs of imperfections
Perfection has always been a lie
We are who we are
And we can, and we will, write our own broken lines

And yesterday's doubts
I used to crumble at the thought of falling
Now I am proud
Of the courage I discover
Within the darkest sanctuaries I once laid
Tomorrow is full of hope
A new kind of poetry I unravel everyday.

“Aren’t we just like curtains?” I say
“How?” you ask

Well, curtains
We never really appreciate them
Until they’re gone
Not until we feel the bustling heat
Penetrate our skins during summer
Or when we can no longer hide ourselves
From the light and the world around us
When we’re already too tired to deal
With anyone, really
Because we took off
Those **** curtains

We speak of lines that spell diamonds
Majestic cars and palaces
But we fail to realize how this ordinary object
Can make a whole difference whenever
We wake up in morning
Sitting in bed, tiredly remembering what
We were going to do today
A small choice, packed with a lot of meaning
Whether we want to stay inside
Or go out and meet the world


Serving as a doorway
To the possibilities each day brings
These curtains show us the days worth living (and hiding from, if that's what you want)

And if you don’t find that ordinariness beautiful
If you don't find those moments where we stand up and try to survive the long day ahead of us
Often just waiting to see those familiar curtains again amazing
Nor can you see how curtain-like we all actually are
Then try having no curtains for a day
And see what I mean

My previous school’s canteen had a treat
called Custard Bun, just worth 20 pesos
One of the cheaper snacks, amidst a variety of 25s and 27s
There were times I skipped lunch due to a meeting
But during the five minutes left going up to the fourth floor,
I would dash towards the canteen, just to buy Custard Bun,
and pair it with the classic Calamansi Juice
What makes it special, you ask?
A cheek-like bun, whose only design
was a yellow custard swirl on top
Soft, and
Filled with a pale yellow cream
That isn’t too sweet, unlike its choco-bun rivals
What made it so different?
Perhaps it reminded me of the olden days
Which I sometimes reminisce about, between fits of silence
In this unfamiliar place
I remember, how like its sweetness takes me back to when I was a child
When I loved eating this bread called Graciosa, which was just a loaf of bread topped with
sugar and butter
How simple it always seemed then, how it never needed more
How in times when we get distracted by life’s complexities
Sometimes an ordinary treat is what we need to get by

I remember writing articles for a sports event —
it was night at school
And someone offered us a big box of abandoned swirl-topped buns
Still in their plastics
Untouched by the athletes they were meant to serve
I thought, how lonely they must be in the night
So I took one, and another, which turned to five,
Brought some home, ate some along the way
It felt like I finally found consolation, eating the bun,
Whose taste I could never put my finger to
And afterwards, whenever I passed the canteen
I always looked for it, for the bun that felt like home
And often see one hidden amongst others, just waiting to be
Found
The bun which I discovered,
Was named Custard
And I realized, even if I never tasted Custard in my whole life
It was like a forgotten friend, who came back from a long journey
And I just remembered its name

So if you ask me,
Why I love Custard Bun so much,
If you ever had that feeling of remembering something
Seemingly long lost, from eons ago
And you find it in the most unexpected of places
Bringing with it the most precious of memories
You’d understand so

In a new place, I hope to find it once again.

You and I
Holding onto different
Strings following different
Pathways sharing different
Dreams living different
Worlds

Yet how did we knot our strings together
Intersect and walk the same path together
Find our dreams in each other
Met in between and saw what truly mattered?

Love.

A calm kind of passion is all
I need to know
All I need to feel is warmth
From all this snow
In contradiction, we tend to thrive
in very simple ways
A heart (l/y)earning to last
For more than just a day

snugglewumpus
snookie cookie
munch munch
snarky warky
snek snacc
banana toosh
kelpy brain
lovable dork
marshmallow ****
but most of all:
my favourite poet

How many people die every second
How many people are forgotten every second
One day you will be a statistic
One day you will be none
**** it
Life is not meant to be taken so seriously
Just live
Just live
For one second,
Just… live.

IF I WRITE THINGS IN CAPITAL LETTERS
WOULD I FINALLY BE HEARD
WOULD I BE ABLE TO SAY THINGS BETTER
WOULD I?

because the candle is flicking out
I douse myself in gasoline
but all I get is
a momentary blaze

and it hurts

Apple orchards run through mellow forests
Yellow nightingales chirp new tunes
Leaves glisten warmly in the silence
Sweet unending rivers solemnly reflect the light of the moon

But at the heart of this alluring forest
An abandoned woodshed stands frayed
Uninhabited, still, lifeless
Lost and broken amidst countless days

Yet every now and then
The creaking of a door can be heard
The sound of a lost traveller looking for sanctuary
Deaf to the calls of the absurd

Wandering inside the once forgotten cage
Slowly warming its fading hearth
Painting the abandoned woodshed with unfamiliar colors
Piecing all its prickly pieces in the dark

Giving light to the once unsightly place
Footsteps now beginning to make their way
Towards the heart of the forest
Where nothing will ever be the same

Sometimes a furry face
Is all that you need to remind you
How lovely you are

There aren't many good things to say about mornings
A dire lack of coffee
And a groggy feeling that stays with you
Sometimes throughout the day
Telling you how lovely it would just be
To find a bed and immerse yourself once again
In a dream where things would be better -

There aren't many good things to say about mornings
The sun bustling through your windows
Hitting your face annoyingly with a
"Wake up! There are things to do."
And you check your phone and the ring it makes
Buzzes through your ears and you just want it to stop, stop, sto-

There aren't many good things to say about mornings
When you wake up to birds which poems say to appreciate
But really, you're not in a Disney movie
They chirp too much and it hurts your brain, unlike what the poems say
And it doesn't help when you wake up to urban noise pollution
And you can only wish you didn't have to wake up to this at all
To responsibilities, checklists, and a living hell -

There aren't many good things to say about mornings
But there are indeed a great few
What I found out recently, what loving could do
To this sleep-deprived heart of mine
It seems that coffee, darkness, a lack of birds, and silence
Are no longer needed to get me off this bed willingly
Because I've found the reason to

There aren't many good things to say about mornings
But when you realize you're waking up to a reality that holds this great few
You begin to see the beauty in tiredness, light, birds, and sounds
That you've never seen before until now
Because just like how there will always be bad things in life
There are good things too

Love.
Hope.
Cookies.
Cats.
Smiles.
Your favourite songs, books, and poems.
Your favourite shows.
Your favourite poetry site.
Your favourite coffee.
Your favourite food.
Your favourite voice.
Your favourite people.
Your favourite jokes.
Your favourite smile.
That certain somebody you're thinking of right now -

I know.

And it takes waking up to see that.

So although there aren't many good things to say about mornings,

I suppose...there are enough to get us through next one, don't you think?