do you remember when
all that mattered was
holding his hand

and smelling the sun
on his sunburnt skin
laid on sun-set sand

do you remember when
the only song you knew
was his second name

and now the only dance
your feet understand
is a stance with his toes

can you take me back
the night i cried
like how lampposts died

asking myself why
your moon only shines
when you speak of his smiles

could you take me back to sun-screened streets
where all that mattered were
our touching feet

Itim, malambing. Mga matang aking hambing
Nakatuon, nakatingin sa kanilang nakaw na sining
Isang ako, taimtim, mas tahimik pa sa gitling
Suot ang ngiting tila hiling akong ilibing

Ako't ako, nakatingin sa akin.
Takot akong tumingin sa akin.
Sangkot ako sa kaniyang adhikain
Kumakatok sa'king damdamin

Ilog ng luha, rumaragasa
ba't nga ba 'di mo na 'ko kilala?
Akong kasama mo mula simula
Ako't ako'y di ko na kilala.

she's the tender glow of the gloomy moon;
pale and vibrant and emphatic
it's her eyes that made this withered garden bloom
this rose's breaths are erratic-
eighteen was her name, her smile was embracing
and her age is my childhood love:
it's always young, and it does not displace
she is coming, she was here

one plus one                  will always be two
one plus two,                you hate me do you?
two plus three,              has it always been me?
three plus five,              i want to see what you hide.
five plus eight,              we fulfilled our fate
then there's eight plus thirteen.
if you stop, how do i begin?
for one plus no-one will never be two.

gorgeous face struck by the silver moon
mirrored fate is intertwining soon
he won't try to whistle a new tune
his choices are dryer than the dunes

he wonders why his heart is of gloom
when he wears all his finest perfumes
so a golden coffin was exhumed
but Romeo couldn't make his blood bloom

drowned for his reflection in the pool
he let his love for his picture rule
just to prove that he's nobody's fool
Romeo loved Romeo, a love so cruel

same old street, it's raining light
when will i suspend my sight?
powerless, yet still up for a fight
when all is wrong, just turn right

same old street, it's always night
when will i suspend my flight?
powerless, enshrouded by fright
when all is wrong, just write.

do you remember when
all that mattered was
holding his hand

like the smell of the sun
on his sunburnt skin
laying on the sun-set sand

do you remember when
the only song you know
was his second name

and the only dance
that your feet understand
is a step with his toes

can you take me back
when the lamposts died
the other night

and i'll ask myself
why the sun shines
only on the two of you

take me back to sun screened streets
where all that mattered was
our touching feet

We hugged too early
Felt each others' scars
Promised us the stars
Held hands too firmly

Now we know each other barely
You seem so distant, so far
Like a dying star
No treating us fairly

you're like poison in my hand
carbon in my blood
death was never this grand
holding your love, but dripping like sand

gulping down gallons of regret
enduring the sting, later we'll forget
as if our souls never met
i never noticed how the world was quiet

could've told me you were gonna run
so I'd never have to dive into these soda cans
our oath to be each other's suns
maybe it only lasted while it's fun

love is dark; a universe. a cluster of stars
so close, yet so out of reach
a glimmer of hope for something to reach us back.

when i'm inside your orbit
south is up, north is west
radiating the never-ending decay

say, what is it like up there?
overseeing countless cities of competition
of who's the brightest?

there's no true north.
no inside or out. just, just you
and me, and the lunar sunsets

love is empty. love is distant.

your love was enough
to devastate my youth

your love is enough
for me to try again

your love is enough

i intend to say
i'm good, i'm ok
i fix wounds, i make them heal

but can this doctor
cry for help
as his patients cry for him?

when he heals
someone else
rather than fix what really kills

it's only up to my imagination
what kind of pain really there is
under a wound on your skin

ink swimming in circles
inclined in trusting your shore
perhaps a little dip won't hurt
devouring sand as it waves

your mind is suspended
a hanging cave beneath the clouds
let the deep touch you, at least
and i'll be willing to surrender

the rain has thousands of drops left
but the clock will run out soon
would you come down and reach
and satisfy these killer whales

we always went the same route
six-thirty in the afternoon
we'll both be on our way home
riding orange-tainted jeepneys

and i never really paid attention
to the parked cars along our way
like how i never paid attention
to everything you say

i was on the same route
six-thirty in the afternoon
i was on my way home
this time, alone

love? staged.
lust? strange.

the poet is dead after finishing his poem

do you intend to confuse
in order to know who's more worthy to choose?
because i refuse to be played and be used

just when your perfect time strike
and you decide who you like
if you choose him, pls say sike

step. one, two
one foot away from you
blink. three, four
just what you got in store?
stop. five, six
there's nothing i can't fix
breathe. seven, eight
but surely, you can wait?

































think. nine, ten
you'll wait until when?

in a table, we sit

we all laugh, we all sin

the dish is regrets

and the plate is all but pretends



the fork is the spoon

and the glass was filled too soon

so we drank bottles of fantasies

mine was you sitting next to me



the knife holds anger

and you sit across me

should i cross the line

and stab you to wake?



pain is our water

and we can't live without it

so i stood up and pondered

"when will we start the feast?"

on a boat, fighting waves of doubts

on your ocean of lies and  its fiery souths

i was struggling to find the other end

an imbalanced pole on your world's ends



then you came down, like jesus reborn

you had all the light and the wings, I could have sworn

i snatched the wings and escaped your menace

so i flew until i couldn't see you anymore



the sun scorched my skin so i hid in the clouds

but they fogged up my mind like how you fog me up

your love lies beneath each thin air I breathe

so i suffocated until i couldn't breathe



my wings were tired and they couldn't flap another round

so i held on tightly to my parachute

I slowly drifted down, down and back down to your crust

until i found myself on your comforting waves



comforting waves of lies



so i drowned inside your depths

and i found myself trapped inside your flesh

on a bed for a night and insomnia for tomorrow

this is how we're gonna be, a forever daydream in every night

do you stop and wonder
why youre always so empty
but did you try to look for answers
or you just always let it be;
a storm with its quiet thunders

if you say you're happy
why do you feel just cracks
instead of smiles

pacing in the wrong places
trying to fill in those empty spaces
make your heart walk
and let the feet talk

hang my smile
and trap it in four;
enclosed with a glass
a love forever trapped in colours


an unending curiosity;
hang me on your shoulders
sketch my tears into a sweat
recolour me, blue, that blooms forever


pigmented rays of levels of feelings
a purple haze painted unintentionally
but you decided gradients weren't true
you said that love just wasn't for you


so just hang my smile
and you'll leave me hanging
paint another picture of me
with a love that's trapped in colours

brush my lips with more reds
make my smile look alive
let the youth touch my hand
allow the colors to dry

bury my casket along with my sins
and the poems i can never sing
get the black book and the priest
let the funeral of an art begin

brew the finest lies you got
the vengeance of the word
a ghost will haunt your dreams
a ghost that bears your name

the sick truth of a man
sought refuge to a face
a better death; to be betrayed
than drown in yellow paint

joy is fleeting, an academic one,
like colors in words, or the flavor of summer.
a hushed lull, ever gentle breathing,
propeller of hopes, up, hovering over petals;
a floating kingdom of bones and abstraction.

loneliness is a place for moonlight dwellers:
risk takers, and ambitious,
like waddling feet hanging off a cliff
carry tales and stories and you won't find it.
but baring phantom bruises is a sure pass.

pride, a vertebral thing, essential to my being,
a path i chose.
honor, a glittering sun that i think is vital,
a path not taken, but inherited.
these are the bones that hold me together.

time will eventually catch up to me
only if i don't catch it first.
im always only seconds late,
but misses thousands of frames.
so doubt, after all, is inevitable.

i have to cut my hair shorter,
because i have that choice.
but why can't i paint my face
a nice, warm smile
when im possessive of my choices?

i build these blocks that always tumbles over
every time i get close to making it a reality
it's a winning game, until it isn't, until it is.
sheltered within the waves of procrastinated

i discovered you in a scroll
and during the beginning of my journey, too
and then the slow, slow crawl
to forgetting the warmth of your enveloping tune

so much has changed
i don't know my name, rediscovering earth
to my own principles, i'm estranged
but i never forgot my birth

how you nourished me in your melodic womb
and held me while i fought hydras and shapeshifters
how you leaving the room
never meant you never left a lasting fever

i am weak
i just feel so ******* tired
so goodnight

i'm breaking it
down into pieces,
these strange encounters
when the clock strikes three

a wanderlust
not of the foot, but this lie-fed mind
elevating curiosity, of the safest spots
hinting the edges of the unknown

am i the biggest fool?
thinking that my dreams are too big
to fit in this bottle, eyes fixed on me
are my dreams too big for this small town?

know that you're home
but i discovered wheels
is it the call of my heart
or a shout of escape?

do i accept, and let it be:
the bar set low below my neck
or should i step inside an outside place
the city, and the lights, shrinking behind me.

I am cursed with a skin; I am the one to feel, the one to bleed.

There are days that I wish I instead become a hollow shell, a shelter for life that happens to seek me.
No nerves, no soul-just the rough dentures of nature. Trauma may scar but I would not feel it.
Some nights I wonder if this is all but karma I'm under.
Was I too greedy for emotion that I was given this soul bound with the mortal soil?
I long to be an actual shell, buried in the sand, somewhere in the ocean.
So that I would not have a place for sorrow about how I became so hollow.
I do not despise my skin, instead, I loathe the pain within and each feeling nerve that I have forsaken.
I am cursed with a skin; They make me want to cut myself, but it's not them that bleeds.

His lungs are heavy
each breath feels like a leap
off a steep, steep cliff
never too smart to foretell
how hurtful his next breath would be

The air is quiet
and the moon is swimming
ignorant of the raging winds
that are embracing each other
in his absence of motion

Had he been pretty or a little stronger
these thoughts, at night, come and wander
will this curse ever end, the curse of Between
it is hard to find footing without the extremes
he breathes dead air, when will he live?