I was there.
Every time you need me, I was there.
When your world seems to fall down, I was there.
When you need a shoulder to cry on, I was there.
When you lost your sense of control, I was there.
When you got nothing left to do, I was there.

I was always there for you.
But just like Thinkerbell who always with Peter pan,
Still, he chose Wendy.

And you chose her.

I hear talk, of the cruelty, and heartlessness of humans,
but I see things on a regular basis that disprove this.
There is no cruelty in a childs kiss, the gently caressed cheek
that puts a smile on your face.

But, today I saw the clincher,
a RIP sticker,
for
A Squirrel...
It hit me like a punch made out of "What the ****?"
I didn't know whether to smile and break into tears,
or shake my head in curmudgeony disbelief.
A memorial sticker for a road ****...

Would an animal do such a thing.
I think not. They'd eat the thing
or just as some leave it to rot.
A Road **** memorial sticker
is about the craziest compassionate thing I've seen...
Animals don't memorialize us when we die...
Of course, that's not true.
I remember my dad's old mangy bloodhound...
and how, after he died, she moaned everyday, at the time he used to come home from work.
For weeks she did it, just sitting  by the door
and moaning.
Until the sun set,
then she would slink and lie at the foot of his chair..
She died two months later.
And if that isn't mourning I don't know what is.
Maybe animals and humans aren't all that different,
we just mourn differently.

How old I was I can’t remember well.
But too old for a vivid remembrance, of pain
for me, and death for you.

Whiteness of fur spoke of purity,
blood painted whiteness, Red--
rusted beatings you bore,

Whimpering, wriggling your body
tied on that rope, hanging on that “santol” tree,
bearing witness, wounding your skin,

In agony, you were wrestling
with metals, they folded, they bowed,
clasped to your neck, the rust.

Hide! said my Mama.
Don’t look, she added.
Hide I did and look I did.

In-between those bamboo slats, I saw:
the whiteness of your body;
blood painted the whiteness, red, like the rust.

Sweating.
On that bamboo stick I held, I gripped my hands
also brown, like the lining on your neck.

Tears unshed, sealing my lips.
Like boiling water, trapped on that ***, that these brutes had prepared
scalding your skin,

Dogs fed on dog, these brutes were
singing in worship of “Tanduay”, a bottle,  their god.
Drumbeats wanting, but laugh,  and laugh they did.

Like a good master they called you, Azucena, an innocent girl.
Voice lilting, luring you to your death,
Azucena... not the provincial bus, that will transport you to your grave,

Azucena... not the white “liliums” that abound the heaven, or your grave.
But a name, a noun, to feed their protruding stomachs, stinking,
to wash their rotten soul, perhaps.

Azucena,
Asocena,
But that’s not your name.