my father and i are alike in a lot of ways
but his panic attacks are worse
and i can see him freeze
and beat himself up in silence
behind the steering wheel.
*he's sixty years old

Hello Manila rooftop
Manila quiet and Manila cold.
I am at the quiet part of the city
While cats roam by
and I hear nothing.
Cars rare
Jeepneys none.
Even if I’m looking from above.
The vertigo tempts me.

and maybe i really am

but i'd like to believe it isn't true
but everything's been a race
and my eyes blur
and i'm waiting for the crack of dawn
for the justification
and not the crack of a soul dead tired
i don't want to be tired

in my waking moments i move
someday i'll take a break

my greatest fear
is mother and father
reading my journals

see through lines
deliberately unreadable

because i write the unthinkable
     'i might not marry someday'

and the perverse
     'i wonder what's it like to **** this girl'

and the abominable
     Amber is a woman trapped in the wrong body
          and
                        she
                  ­               is
                                     suffocating.

i choke on the silence
because it is woman's role
in Saturday sermons

because i cannot borrow my brother's slippers
     i am not needed outdoors

because when i spoke for the trans waiter with the pained smile
     they blamed my sociology
     and not my compassion

mother and father, bless your souls
i'd rather not have you read this

and believe in the 'i love you's

                               because love is the greatest commandment
                                               *but we spit on the ****

when you told me
you've been growing your orchids
for ten years
i realized
years don't count
in how well i know you
and those flowers
have seen your days
more than i did.

we have a mutual understanding that we will always be part stranger to each other
then apologize and move on

but i am made of the same stuff as you
and you are the only person
who makes me like phone calls.

I want you to sit and rest your fingers atop mine
and together we will make a melody.

I want you to press my keys and let the hammers
hammer my heartstrings, letting waves reverberate and
shiver down my spine.

I want your weight to press down my pedals and
make our symphony rush into a crescendo.

Our music will be that of great stars and winds and warm nights,
and your hands will run back and forth my black and white stripes -
striking chords, stacking notes as if they were black heads kissing.

Our symphony will be written on paper-white sheets that
blanket over your body and mine.

On white sheets we will leave black trails that
will soon be played by another, and
our music will linger.

Silence thickened the air as I saw you press the keys of another.

My heart shakes like
The bottle I pour my coffee into.
I remember you and I drown and drink
the ocean trapped inside, brown and
two and a half times lighter than your skin,
two and a half times more than the coffee I should be drinking.
That night was our last in the same room.
You sat beside me to escape your sleepless lonely limbo.
My head throbbed and the way my heart raced then

and the way the storm crashes the air and breaks the trees and blows the rooftops
        and drenches the world -

is the way
I refused to swim in the brown seas of your skin.
The waters might wash rafts and boats and lifesavers
to the shore where I am standing
But I know that before the sand and the trees
there was a sign that said
‘No Trespassing’.

Intoxicated I stumbled and grabbed a raft of brown arms
and stepped on the black stones of your face
and slipped into your sandy smile and
buried my face into your green shirt waves.

No Trespassing.
The words loomed over my head
like the clouds that filled up the sky so much
that there was no sky -
and somewhere out there, like God in the clouds, she was
looking at me,
looking at the way I grabbed a bottle and swam in her seas.

you said 'don't lie to me
i can see your eyes'

so we sat on the jeep stop and
talked about feelings i'm
not sure i had.

you wanted i cry on your shoulder
cause you knew my loss

i was unfeeling
'can't do that on demand'

but suddenly it was 9PM and i was an ugly mess
sitting on the ground smoking menthols
wondering what the **** just happened

i was always the shoulder to cry on
so yours was a foreign place

but thank you for taking me places

my last poem was from five months ago
and i actually typed 'years'
because maybe deep down that's what it felt like

no tears have been shed but
the rain seems to do all the crying.
i said 'someday i'll take a break'
and i fear someday will never come
because i keep searching
and i constantly end up
discontented.

the cursor mocks me and the books block me.

First poetry in red.
airs and violins nearby, in my
head.
rest prances around.
unwilling to help.
sleep does not exist;
it does not cover me.
I am jealous of the world.
sand covers their eyes
while I,
while I.

McDonald's, our saint of comfort.
We offer you this prayer of thanks
for welcoming our downtrodden souls
and nestling our hungover hearts
into your soft couch *****.

May the late night mistakes of our youth
blossom into something

greater

and maybe noble.

I will never forget your bitter breath
or your clouded eyes.
the fabric of black
and your dark warmth
will always be with me.
but your smile and words,
what are they?
I stand lost.
maybe I should forget.

What could tomorrow be kind to stranger lands down on the soil to tread mills and chills of the heart might repeat and never looking back on glass black starred and scarred, the fear that I feel warms up the clouds and makes the sky rain. Blue and windowpanes shut the pain from the door of a head shooting arrows gushing ****** fantasies pink and light displacing darkness that set the moon loose, win the favor of the stars and the taste of bitter explosions in space lead to the return of weight, pinning down the needles through hands that stand alone, let’s be alone together?tires and wheels tire away in lands near, steer clear from crystals that freeze and make smoke sting.scorpions shine bright yellow and here we go again, light. It is a cycle with no edges that wrestle round a spinner. We are winners and the meat we bring sound like the bells that tremble, scared and white, blank and point at the mirror where three point back black blank and laugh

bound by fear of the asleep
dislike of the light
make this spring song stop.
tinkling bells not pleasing
I am restless.
a broken cradle song plays
scratches behind
the lights are still too bright
the song on an abrupt end

Why do they call it being 'absentminded'
When you're present, more than ever, in your head?
Maybe live somewhere else instead.
My share of conversation's dead.
In one ear and out the other.
Swim in space and float in water.

sweat and rain and no colors.
lightning makes the sky white for a while.
shadows on places and sleep on dreams.
lusting for sleep; not getting
any. I should watch the
lightning show.

like i said
'you' is an empty shell
and i try to break free
of habits and irregular
heartbeats and hitching
breaths and oh did i
mention that today
i stepped on an
empty shell?

i stepped on a 'you'.
at least i wish i did.

i think people are more interested in themselves

than the swarm of bugs on the streetlights
crickets on the road
or the explosion of sprinkle stars up the dark sky

but i guess that's common sense

With the frenzy
of a stereotypical lovestruck fool
I pluck flower petals
of my existence.

I am okay. I am not okay.
I am okay. I am not okay.

Not sure if finding
or placing meaning,

if living,
or always failing.

I am okay. I am not okay.
I am okay. I am not okay.

When finally there is no more to pluck
My days have already been

spent.

I am okay. I am not okay.
*I am okay. I am not okay.

poetry is never a constant refuge
neither are dark cold bridges
there are some irregular breathing patterns
heart palpitations
and shaky hands
poetry can't heal
or darkness can calm down
the heart races on and fingers twitch more
jagged shaky breaths are still there
headaches plague still
isolation does nothing,
mother nature leaves you be
the insomnia threatens to manifest
once more, for the umpteenth night
eyes shift front and down
fingers desperately hold on to pencil
in awkward grips
as the letters scratch
from awkward angles
no pill or drink heals this
nagging plague,
this something i do not know
does it have a name?
the singer whispers
as this poem ends

distant laughs
overheard from distant
rooms just like
this one and
this one night the
back of my tongue bleeds
scary and i spit
blood and it goes
right down the
drain through the sink
and i feel my eyes
burn cause i don't know
why and my knees are
weak and wobbly and
i almost forgot how to
spell 'knees'

but i grab and hold on
to poetry

i spoke to God
behind the big blue wall.
then i got off the ladder
and walked away.
then it rained.
hard.
and i was happy.