You make a fool of death with your beauty and for a moment I forget to worry.

I wish I could write just as easily as my breath flows.

let the fireworks fly and light up the sky
when you decide you need to stop crying.
let them hear the booming of color and might.
when you admit that you have feelings
and when you forgive yourself for pretending.
it's time to stop pretending

If I get lonely, I won't blame you.
I'm wrapped in a blanket of gloom.
If the rain falls to my face,
and you don't offer an umbrella,
It's my fault for not approaching.
If I converse with myself again
instead of chatting with my friends,
I'm bound to think I'm alone
Even though I'm not.
I'm a turtle carrying my own home
Yet I can't get inside.
The key I'm trying to find
Is locked within its walls.
I won't break myself to find home,
I'll forge a key instead.
I will open the doors
So I can let you in and I can stop
being lonely.

Come over, I'll show you my world.
My world's designed to grasp self-worth
And to embed its purpose in my aging soul.
It's made to rotate and shift from light to dark,
another chance to redeem and to leave a mark.
A thousand heavens flock into one star
And the star smiles subtly at the dying heart.
Obsidian chains coil around the beating heart
and my world is choked but the star
keeps smiling and my world keeps going.
I give and sustain, it lives and maintains.
I will not die in vain because I am
ready for obsidian chains.

The ghost is stranded in the thriving desert.
The ghost is trying to find asphalt paths.
The ghost climbing over dunes, sweaty with effort.
The ghost is lost but it never looks back.

The ghost finds water in spiky poles.
The ghost seeks comfort in the burning sand.
The ghost prays for stars when the moon shines alone.
The ghost is lost but it never looks back.

The ghost looks for home every day
but the farther it's gone the more it's astray.
The ghost sits in scorching contentment.
The ghost is thriving in what is now its home.

Filipino:
Ang sumusulat -
Lumalamig ang puso,
Nag-iisa lang.
Damdaming tinatago -
Nagsusulat ng tanka.

English:
The person writing -
Her heart is getting colder,
She's isolated.
Her feelings are her secrets -
She is writing a tanka.

easy to tap the letters
easy to insert a laugh
easy to type i love you
easy to lie
easy to fake apologies
but it's hard to be real

the weather's amazing
my wallet's not empty
i have good company
i've never gone hungry
roof above my head
healthy and not dead


but where are you?

We're really just trees
We can grow
Sprout out new leaves
We can be tall
Our trunks are not weak
We could break
Filed smooth and neat

I'm used to myself and not getting help because I'm way up the
shelf and none of you can reach.

I try to talk, I break the walls that build up again so no one can breach.

I set my moods on fire so I can say that I'm not tired,
so I can say that I'm fine and I don't cry sometimes at night.

Funny how I water down the frown forming on my face,
set my lips to a sincere smile and it's the best lie I don't have to say.

People surround me and they laugh too, but they're all corpses designed to look like clowns:

watering down their frowns and putting on a facade of youth and energy.

I know they're tired, too.

I know they too suffer from the same pretense I have to go through when I'm not being me.

On a day like this, when voices are louder than the sound of trains on the train tracks
and peace is harder to find than attending to the imaginary impending doom of a Roman attack,
I look for a silent sanctuary,
and I hope to never get back.
It is silent when I come but I sit down and make my own noise.
It is noise that's always sounded better than my own voice
and noise that I've always welcomed during days of distress and comfort alike.
It is noise that blocks out reminders of a ticking clock
and a running time.
The sanctuary is not silent; it is noisy,
but it is noise that I will always welcome.

Rainbow-filled eyes and sin in my heart, watching girls and filling my head with fantasies. It doesn't drag me in straight lines, it takes wavy, wobbly steps. Girls, what pieces of art, so easy to indulge in. No bones and *****, just parts like mine, staring at faces all day, making no regrets. How unfair of God to disable other girls to see this kind of beauty, this kind of attraction. How unfair to have been given such a terrible gift instead of satisfaction at false limits. Desire, my security a liar, for attraction like this does not guarantee freedom from the wrong. Please, Lust, play nice with me. I don't want to have to cup girls' heads in my hands, smothering myself in all their tasteful smiles and tongues. Some would look in distaste, the disabled, the ungifted. Them and I, our uncommon views watch us battle over the love that has been hated since the beginning. Old policies, restrictions, forgotten over time, the rainbow rising after the spiteful thunderstorm.