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

I realized tonight
that you are everything I wanted.
As we sat there in silence,
I looked at you for a moment
and I smiled at you.
And I don't know if you saw it
but know that it was real.
I felt like it was you and me all alone in this world.
Like we were driving on an empty road.
Going nowhere, no destination in mind.
I want it to be like this always.
If you felt it, I hope you wish for that too.
I feel better than okay with you.
I want to feel like that all the time.
And when I am with you,
I know the feeling will stay.
Because with you,
I am home.

Outside I'm just a woman
inside, just a girl that is lost
.
I seem to have direction
but maybe it's a lie with a cost
.
Setting myself simple goals to follow
as I need a continuous plan
.
It's to tell me where I am tomorrow
incase I've forgotten where I am
.
I can easily fool myself
and it's been working for a while
.
I just don't think too much
about the woman wrapped around this girl
.
Does she really know what she's doing?
Do I have any other choice?
.
Although I'm a woman physically moving
the little girl has lost her voice

Needles sting
And pupils dilate
Cold alley ways in Seattle
Always set the perfect stage
For a trip to heaven
On a sheet of glass

Sirens wail in the distance
But to me, they are soothing
And my hands are blistering
And my knees
Well, they tucked in a while ago

This habit will break
This glass will crack and burn
Dissipate to emptiness
Wash out of my veins and my Wrists
My poor wrists

A door always opens
But my feet are melting
Molding into the ground I sit
Stuck in one place
Eternal
Addictive
Torture

I imagine that people say my name
They say, oh poor Hollow
Pretty and smart
She'll come around
She'll come around

But out here
In these black veins
And tainted blood streets
Hope is a dream
And dreaming is unwise

And who sleeps anyway
You can't sleep on glass
No, it pokes and stabs
And you ache and cry

It will take you
Break you
Crumble you
Shards of dust

You will shatter
And you will be
Nothing more than nothing
Just a broken soul