With every blink,
Things will look bleak
But choose not to sink
You are the opposite of weak.

From hour to hour
Your sweetness spills
And life can be so sour
But your nectar refills.

Don't look so blue
But if you must, be the sky.
Maybe look up for a clue,
You can always try.

If you wore a suit of expression
Forged out of iron words
On the anvil of explanation,
One that comes out strong
And fits like your own skin
To armor up for introduction,
It would only cover more
Of what you already show
So instead you wear your heart
On your sleeves
Your perhaps unfashionable,
However durable sleeves
Made from the fabric of feeling
Woven by threads of thoughts
As if what you have on
Is yourself inside-out.

If you came out as a loud noise
Solid and sharp
Bringing only auditory effect
And no message to transmit
To the sympathetic nerves,
Not of beats but a mere blast,
And what's a sound
When it's not music?
So instead you come out as a song
Fingertips on guitar strings,
Soul in the playing
And story in the lyrics
A voice calling out,
Serenading,
Hoping to be an anthem
Or at least a playlist item.

Take your thoughts to the sink,
Pile them all up with the plates,
Grimy and greasy
Just like your mind
Which you can scrub all you want
With a sponge or a foam
Since there's no difference
Above sea level,
But the residues will remain
Staining your perfect little machine,
Robotic, malfunctioning,
Because manpower is always better
Than a cold bin
Where it is just you
Echoing your asking everything
Except for what you want
Because cowardice and pride
Are the oil of your psychomotor,
Running,
Missing,
Out on those
Who really don't need you in their lives,
Let alone
To do their dishes,
If ever, in case,
So what the hell are you still doing,
Waiting for the suds to drain,
Don't **** your brain
Like this,
Get a pen
And replace the dishwashing liquid
With real poison.

Brood of the journey,
Offspring of adventure;
Cradled in a crib
Of boat rides and bus drives,
Rocked in time with teenage nursery rhymes,
A million miles per hundred hour,
Marking dashed lines
Across the Philippine map
From Region IV-A
To Region V,
For four summer daysprings
And five summer nightfalls.
My umbilical cord recoiled in loops,
Through the roller coaster road,
Under the waterfall expressways,
Bumper-to-bumper with the hills,
Baby on board;
Pulled in my diesel pushcart,
Back to the womb of my motherland
And into the water that once broke
To give me my own air.
But I haven't breathed better until
Now that I swim again in her salty seasac.
How I have long starved my feet
Of her creamy sand
Which the skin between my toes
Suckle like breastmilk.
How short it has taken
For her colors to change
From seagreen in the dawn,
To aquamarine by ripe daylight,
To turquoise in the afternoon,
And to teal blue by dusk,
Upon having me in her arms.
I was as happy as a clam
When a welcome party was thrown
By the fish residence
And I was reunited
With my crustacean playmates
And their echinoderm pals.
During my stay,
I had the whistles of the sea breeze
As my morning wake-up call,
And by night
The sky is my ceiling,
Decorated with star glitters
And one would fall everytime
To turn off my night light
While the waves would splash
A cool blanket on me.
I would go on treasure hunts
To find the lost seashells;
Raiding coast-to-coast of the boundary,
Declaring tug-of-war,
Jumping in with both feet
And holding my breath,
Fighting the careless Captain Current
And his crew of buccaneers
Attacking in foams and spumes,
And I was unwavering,
Unflagging,
Yanking the *****
To victory.
With Merleau-Ponty,
To be free is to be situated;
But with these marlins,
It is dancing on the ocean floor.
Take it from the jellyfishes
Who just go with the flow
And follow the tide
Whether if it meant
Being washed ashore
Or sinking in the deep,
As long as their tentacles
Are free.
One day I visited
The underwater kingdoms;
Parts of Atlantis
Dispersed into an archipelago.
The Coral Cave,
Land of the soft and stony;
There lives the family
Of jelly-prickled corals
Who are all slimes and tickles,
Among their relatives,
The rose reefs,
Who are red as petals
But rough as thorns.
The Boulder Territory,
A colossal chamber castle
Filled with all the bathroom stones
To scrub your feet with,
But which upon being rushed in
By the cavalry of billows,
One would bruise themself
On the cliff floors
For fear of the enemy,
The barracuda;
Patroling the dark areas
Of the vicinity,
Lying in wait
For its next victim.
In the neighboring island
Just beyond the shoreline,
Is the Seaweed Seabed;
The base plantation
Of the seagrapes,
Natively Philippine Caviar,
Which are saltwater explosives
In the mouth
That come in bunches
Of crunchy, jelly green beads.
Last but not the least,
The Pebble Desert;
A torrid terrain
Of dunes and dunes of pebbles
Pink, peach, and pearl,
Cool in the eyes
As pastel *****
But hot in the feet
As burning coals.
Sometimes we create
The most beautiful things
To be mirrors of ourselves
Modeled from our brokenness
To cast back
A better image of us
In one piece
And be looked at
As something worth loving
If not something perfect,
And God must have been
Truly in smithereens
As to put together
A whole world of a looking glass
Reflecting His divine entirety
For us, His fallible caretakers
To see Him as someone
Worthy of our love,
Aside from perfect.
And I know that
He knows me too well
To know that
What I really mean to say
Is 'I love you'
When I would rather
Simplicity speak for beauty
And let majesty be mystic,
Than bother forcing
Some not-quite words
To fit His creation.
Sadly,
Even the starfish,
The child of the ocean
And the sky,
A blending of two worlds,
Yet still goes out on a limb
To be a part of a third one,
Can't stay too long
Where it doesn't belong,
And we all have to
Go back at some point
To the place
We just couldn't call home
Because we're always looking
For somewhere else.
But I have come to find
That home is not really where,
But who you're with.
So I shall never have to worry
For the Earth is three-fourths water
And the body is fifty percent of it;
The ocean and I
Will always share
The same whole.

Here is something
From someone
You'll never miss
Nor expect
Will ever miss you,
But still I wish
I could have had the chance
To be your friend,
But it's way too late already
For what can never be,
But still I wish
I could have met you long ago,
So that we would be older
And you won't be too young
To be this early,
But still I wish
I could have found out sooner,
But it was too sudden
And nobody saw it coming,
But still I wish
I could visit you now
But I'm far away,
Not only by miles
But from the list of people
You want to be there,
But still I wish
I could at least cry,
But who am I anyway
To mourn for you
When I am just a name
Who rings a bell
Without a sound,
But still I wish
I could just sing you a song
In my most sorrowful voice
Since it's all I could do
At times like this,
But what good
Would that do anyway,
When you won't hear it
Cause you're already gone
And I'm just another one
Of the many
Whom you must've thought
Never saw you there.
But I did,
All the time.
Since we were in junior high,
Until now.
And I have always known
You could be so much more,
And you would reach places
With that charming face
And that strength and grace
I will never forget,
But I just didn't think
That the first great leap
Would be to heaven.
But I know
That even until there
You will still shine out
From the rest,
And down on us,
And we could only look up
Every night
To see you smile.
But still I wish,
I could thank you
For letting me realize
How thankful I should be
For being still here
Even though we're frail
And life is harsh
And some of us don't make it,
But I'm sorry
You had to stop
While I continue,
But still I wish
I could do anything at all
So this would not have meant
Another lament.

Pull on one of the loose ends
Hanging with mystery
To unknot the two loops
Flaunting surprise
And untie the bow
That holds fast a box
Covered in paper-thin wrapper,
Fancy enough to be inviting,
Yet functional to be ripped up
So what's inside the carton
That has "fragile" all over it,
Sealed with adhesive tapes
That need careful unsticking
Or else the damaged goods,
Can at last be opened.
Now here you are,
A rare material,
Unprocessed as ever;
Unlabeled and unpriced.
Sold like a product in demand,
Given away like a free merchandise.
A special package,
A precious item
To be valued the most
For all its worth.
To every deserving owner,
You are a gift.

So the cold didn’t last beyond February, like how
You thought you could finish that poem in January.
Now you say you would for sure complete your list by April,
But you can’t even get yourself to make it through March.
And before you know it, June will ask you out for another date in school
And you’re still on vacation, playing games with May.
Then by August you’d be broken again,
And you’ll blame it all on July.
So you’ll laugh with your friends as you await October,
And hold on to excuses throughout September
Until you have December all to yourself once more,
To right the things you thought November could change.
But then it’s February waking you up in the morning again,
Knowing that you kept January up all night for
A new year’s resolution that is up to what only April can give
And March could never lend,
And you couldn’t buy on June
Because you invested it all on May,
Only to be double crossed by August,
And turned down by July when you ask for help.
So you place all your hopes on October
And refuse September’s offer
Because you trust December to be there for you
In case November leaves you on hold again.
Now it’s February calling for the last time, and you finally pick up.
You stopped dialing January for good
And you realize you don’t have to ring April too.
This time you know better, so you look forward to see March
And decide you’re no longer hiding from June
Because you plan to come to terms with May,
So by August you won’t look back anymore
And things will fit perfectly in July.
And when October comes, you won’t even notice it
Because you’d be so busy running through every day of September
That you will no longer remember how last December let you down
And how much November used to matter;
Because today you already know what February did not have to
Remind you and which you never actually needed January for.