we parcel ourselves
to trade with each other
through glances, gestures, and words
a handful of fears
and a sky filled with our desires.

we barter quotations of our lives
fruits and goods of experience harvested
after being toiled in the garden
where the sun lives and dies
all over and over again.

we even offer our silence,
we breathe deep while memory seeks
to unearth the pieces we lost or misplaced,
at times finding those pieces
we choose not to trade.

i spread our traded pieces,
yours alongside mine
and discover they share
bursts of red passions,
hues of blues,
warm white and cold black
on their skin and flesh and smell.

there is that space between us,
silent as the dead, distant
like the stars of no particular time
and i would like to fill it with something
crafted on my own, from memory of pieces
we trade and traded.

something like a bridge to span along
the ocean of gray space between us.

in everything that i see*

you are so much like the air
wrapping me around your fingers, invading
filling every empty pocket of my dry body

from old faded photographs
worn and eaten by the eternal mouths of time
leaps forth the winds
that strokes the embers of our memories

i find you in places that we have been
and i see you two, us
like ghosts who haunt final soft places
i find you, us, even in dark corners
where away from prying eyes
we bathed in each other’s nakedness
two flames lapping each other

perhaps, it’s only memories,
of what were once promises of forever
forever that is only as long
as one cares to remember, or forget

i find you in what my eyes see
i find you even in the darkness
where i seek for no company
insistent, persistent, you are like the ocean with her waves
from far away you rise and fall to touch my shore

i am a sailor overboard immersed in your sea

and yet, i cannot find you in me.

i do not remember your voice
and thus i can
not describe them with words.

but do not despair my maiden of silence,
though you have never spoken to me.
i feel your voice.

i feel your voice
as certain things are to be felt:
in the silence of one’s awe,
in the darkness when the windows
of the eyes are closed,
invisible, unpalpable
yet warm and certain
as blood flowing through
the tunnels and highways
beneath one’s skin;
earthly and aromatic
as the whiff of dawn’s winds
filled with the new memories
of fresh flowers and morning dew.

i do not love the way the crown of your hair gather the blossoms of summer, nor do i love the canvass of your face where artisans such as i can find color, shape and lines to sculpt, paint or write as poetry into the pages of memories. i do not love the slim trunk of your neck that connects to the branches of your arms capable of lowering themselves so i may taste your fruits.

i do not love the twin peaks of your breast in whose valley i could burrow myself and find rest, nor do i hunger to trace the path that leads to the center of you where the half of you could meet half of mine and become whole. i do not love the two poles of your legs where my tongue can become a vine twirling downwards to discover the roots of your feet holding you upright from the earth, thrusting you into the open sky to declare your place, of who and what you are to the senses, to the seasons.

i do not love the notes of your voice who echo what may have been the songs from the first day of the world, nor do i adore the twin suns of your eyes who could hold me into the warm season of your gaze and then plunge me into the winter darkness of seeing you not seeing me, ignoring me.

i do not love your soul, i do not know what a soul is, that metaphor for the one flame that burns inside of you, or so they say. you are not a metaphor. you are more than that.

i do not love you. i do not love you because i do not know what love is.

love fails. what is love  if not a mere word, four letters who attempt to become fingers holding in its palm the colors, taste, shape, and seasons of what you are to me: the naked sun, the dying stars, the dance of day and night.... the word "love" is not enough, and so i cannot say that i love you, and so i do not love you.

though i would like you to know that because of you i seek for the roots of my memories, the moment of my birth. because of you i become aware of a tomorrow where i will never be. i do not love you woman, but because of you i would like to hold both roots of my memories and the tomorrow i do not know and stretch it and throw it far behind the light of stars that my eyes could see.

synapse and nerves, signals  
fire fingertips to claim
the points of a star
to burn with friction
between pen and paper  

but since desire craves
no longer nor again
for warmth and affection,
slender fingers transform  
into a fist trapping
black holes and deaths of suns
for the rhythm of wrist.

after the hours of supper,
the heavy night tight
with the silence of human
bodies packed like sardines
in the can of a jeepney.

stopping somewhere in Bularan
a man and his little boy, or grandchild
asked forgiveness from the passengers
as if it was a sin to share the ride.

the passengers began to move;
squirming as if earthworms
crawling, or crawled on their skin,
even the pretty lady in front of me
suddenly shrivelled into ugly.

i could not know or sense it then:
from the kitchen furnace of the sun,
the aroma of salt and sweat
sautéed and stewed in their bodies,
the recipe of their daily fish
until it snaked itself into my nose
i confess i nearly choked.

and at that moment
i am reminded, like a fool
with a smile on my face,
grateful for the price they paid
so i may savour my favourite
feast of dried fish.

you used to share
only the distance and silence
until one of you decided to break it:

your voices began as awkward pairs
until each found its rhythm and began to dance

you gave tables a reason for its sides,
your gazes lingered and held mirrors
reflecting each other, shared lips
as you kissed the same cup
even rose from the same bed

now, your eyes are naked daggers
quick to gouge any new color and shape
seeking refuge in the pages of memory
every word, every sliver of voice
you once allowed to caress
deep within and between your ears

why is it that two strangers
can perform the miracle of welcome
yet everything between two lovers,
each brick, wood, and stone of the bridge
built in the wake of the broken silence
now lie in fire and ashes, the earth salted,
in the air a certain kind of stillness, a quiet
that makes even darkness weep and bleed?