I just want to drag that blade across my skin
Something, anything!
Just so that I can feel again.

I miss the numbness and blood
And the waves of sadness are coming in like a flood.
I'm depressed and every day just causes more stress.

Yes, I am young
But I have been hurt by people's tongues.
So leave me here to die.
Because today, I don't want to say good-bye.

I never got to meet my father...
He died when I was nine months old,
But his presence, I always felt
While I was growing up,
Even up to this day...

He would often visit me in my dreams,
Told me not to worry or despair,
Took my hand,
Told me I could go with him..
Which I almost did...

A few times, in high school
I felt a light push on my back
When my Home Economics teacher
Almost caught me nodding...I was
Too bored, to focus on her sewing lessons...

I was always saved from falling
Each time I climbed the guava tree...
I feel some kind of force stopping me,
Standing ahead of me,
Whenever I cross the street, even now...

My late aunt said she found me
Looking up and giggling
When at three or five years old,
I played by myself beside
My father's tall and sturdy book case...

I see his face when I go through
His dwindling collection of
Edgar Allan Poe books, including his
Law books, and a few western pocketbooks left,
All, with mottled pages now...

The matrimonial bed he shared
With my late mother is still in use...
His portrait is hung on our wall...
Today, the fifteenth of June, his birthday,
I look through his eyes, and-----

In silence, I greet him,
"Happy birthday, papa,
Happy Father's Day, as well."
In my mind, my father lives,
And my own stories of him therein dwells...

Sally

Copyright 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

As the black ashes fill the sky
And the sun ceases to shine.
As the temples beseech the mercy of a false god,
Here I stand upon this soil, baring my soul.

Whisper to me what your eyes have seen,
Show me the end and the beginning,
The rational and the irrational,
The superstition and the science.
Take me to the edge of the universe,
And pour out your heart to me.

As I stand under the light of a burning star,
Time and space unwinds and merges into one.

Here I am, with you, at the edge of the universe,
Gazing out into what seems to be the wonders of time.

He was far too disorganised
driving too fast
here and there
with no particular place to go.

She was a neon light
flashing
in the black Mojave night
a celestial mansion
alive
with such sweet smells.

He now had a purpose
a story to tell of
a
thousand fantasies
hotter
than the hinges
on the gates of hell
sparklers of desire
flaming through neurons on fire.

He was lite up
like
neon
in the dark Mojave night
all he could see
was
delights
in
every window burning bright.

Her fingers beckoned him
her eyes pleaded
her breath said
yes yes yes
her
body
danced and swayed
perfect harmony with all he craved.

He moved closer
moment by moment
movement by movement
to
take her to places promised.

He reached to take her hand
there was one
exquisite flash
disintegrated
shred into ash
on the pointed arrow
of
her forever flames

Just like that.

She stood waiting.
Waiting as the stars await the suns eventual death.
As the desert awaits that one translucent drop of absolete euphoria.
Her lips cracked open,
A sliver of fragile hope escaping its tremors.
Fluttering away.
She is surrounded by exquisite misery,
Drowning in hysteria.
Day folding into night,
The moon running circles.
She stood waiting,
With the sound of stinging memories reverberating endlessly.
Touch, smell, touch, love.
All catapulting into that final crescendo,
Where all those moments
Flow into the sea of those hauntingly beautiful words,
**I Am Here