The hard part was
trying to convince
myself that it
was the right
thing to do.

I have hands that won’t keep
to themselves.
They are always rummaging
and dancing and clapping
and snapping and opening
and closing and trying to fix
every
single
broken thing they can find.

And that includes you.

My heart is a bottomless pit for aches.
Not mine, but yours.
It’s almost a cursed thing, how
despite its size being only that of my fist,
my heart always finds a way to squeeze in
some new hurt into the spaces that
before you,
I never knew existed.
There they stay;
and like all things that stay,
with enough time,
become part of their surroundings.
I can’t tell whose cut is whose anymore.

Put me in a room full of people.
Blindfold me.
Spin me like a tornado.
Make me stop.
My outstretched fingers will be reaching
for the most broken souls in the room.

Call it compassion. Kindness. Empathy.
Whatever you like,
but there is a fine, fine line between that
and the way I bleed.
Oh,
how I bleed.
Forgive my boldness when I say
I won’t even try to make you understand
the fact that I do
somehow
understand.
Think of it this way: ripples.
And I always get the last one.

I’m still a child.
I like to play pretend.
I’m a doctor.
I’m a superhero.
I’m the one with all the answers,
all the weapons,
all the magical cures.
Take that!
And that!
Ha! Aha! Ha!
Ha…
Ha.
As the years wear on,
I see that my tools aren’t right,
and that my cape is too tight around my neck.
I don’t have all the answers.
No weapons.
No magical cures.
I’m just a girl trying to play the part that was never hers.

And it’s taken me three volcano boys,
a couple of glass-bottomed hearted girls,
and just about the rest of the world to realize that I
am not
the Savior.

My hands were not made to heal
every heart they rest themselves upon,
or to fill that vacuum inside every man,
one that nothing,
nothing,
nothing in this world will ever
make
whole.

So here.
I let go of every burden that’s been
causing me to stoop and to stumble,
every pressing weight that’s been
keeping me from keeping faith,
every heavy yoke that’s been
causing me to choke on things
I never should have let in
in the first place.

Yet I will continue to love you.
I have come to learn that love
has a lot of ugly before it becomes beautiful,
a lot of hurt before healing’s arrival,
a lot of you before any of me.
My part is done.
These fidgety fingers no longer carry suffering.
Here, let me see yours, though battle scarred and bruised.
You’ve been bearing more than you were built for, beloved.

I think it’s time to surrender.

This hour last week, we kissed the stars alive.
With you, there were no walls and no far seas,
No reason to doubt or to just survive,
My heart was with you, and yours was with me.

How cruel the souls of the gods above,
That they should mind our paths and our crossing,
That we should be the ones who fell in love,
A fate that led to a war-torn ending.

This hour last week, we danced to life the moon,
But we forgot that seasons come and go,
And now the red sun bleeds-- it bled too soon.
We can no longer love; I am the foe.

You hold your people's hate in your strong hands,
You shake and the gun sings of God's near land.

laslas lengthwise.
tusok tusok sa eyes.
lunok ng bubog
at buong itlog.
apak sa apoy.
utot ay iamoy.
huwag lang mabasag
and puso kong duwag.

There's something I need to get off my chest, Liz. Something I've been keeping from you for years. I was cleaning out my closet the other day, and I realized something. The painful thing about phone calls is that every sleepy groan could have been heard clearly if I were with him, and every word he spoke only to me could have been whispered into my collarbone. But what really infuriates me... is that the first person who got to love him didn't stay. Love is staying.

You have no idea how long I've stayed.

"What I'm trying to say is..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm in love with..."

Me?

"Her."

"Oh."

You see, the honest truth is that you're perfect for each other and that I wanted this to happen. When I watch how he lightly touches the small of your back as if he's afraid you'll shatter if he holds you too hard, and how your fingers comb his past out of his hair when you run them through gently, I wonder if your hearts are actually one but were separated at birth. I don't know, I might be lying, but I don't think I am. I don't think I am. All I know is that he was always yours and never mine---I don't know why I hold on, because you're everything he needs. But somehow, so am I.

Loving him and watching him love you has gotten me nowhere except everywhere I never wanted to be. I don't hate you for this. Really. All I ever wanted was for both of you to know what it feels like to have wings on your ankles and morning songs on your earlobes, because that's how I feel when he asks me to help him make playlists for you. I just imagine he's making them for me.

So instead of poisoning myself with hate, I'll teach you how to love him better. I need you to love him better.

Sing him to sleep and sing him awake. There is nothing he wants more than to rise and drift off knowing that he'll be safe in the voice of someone he loves. Sing him songs about mountains. He'll love that.

Bike to the riverside with him and bring nothing with you but a hand-stitched quilt a pen. Find a spot where the wind never stops dancing. Write stories on the leaves and the trees so that he'll know that he has a place to call home after you. You can name that spot if you want, but I know he'll name it after your favorite flower.

When he cries and his past comes creeping in, clutching his throat and burning his chest, don't say anything. Just hold him. Hold him and hold him. Wait until he's stopped shaking then, with your nose buried in his hair, whisper, "I still love you."

Maybe I should write all of this down, seal it in a mint green envelope, and mail it to myself. Then I'll read it out loud and will probably be crying my heart out but at least I'll be stronger.

But don't worry, I won't say anything to him, because I care about you, too. So I'll stay still. Even though I'd like to take a bus to his house right now and leave a post card under his front door with a poem saying that I've loved him a long time. Longer than I should have. But I won't.

Because I know that he doesn't have the strength to catch me.

m hmm hmmhmm hmm
the tune is yours to carry
in this wounded city with its
cr    a    cked        ribcage
that is trying to hold its heart the same

stillbreathing, still breathing


m hmm hmmhmm hmm
gawing sa 'yo ang himig na ito
sa isang bayang dumudugo
kanyang tadyang may  la  m a   t
ngunit nais pa ring hawakan ang puso

humihingapa, humihinga *pa