i am afraid to be myself;
what if we turn to stones,
sans warmth and space to breathe,
how am i then to face the mirror?
what if you choose a different path
i was never made to walk on,
how am i then to fare on my own?
what if we were only meant to pass by
and not to stay with one another,
how am i then to look at myself
without seeing your reflection by my side?

i am afraid to show you my all;
what if at the end we’d only crumble into illusions,
how am i then to be myself again?

so darling, please be mine for always.

you can go once you heal,
or you can go now so you heal.
whichever it is,
i hope you're in the process,
and i hope you accept what comes along,
and be understanding of what leaves.

That writer doesn’t tell the truth
from every pain blooms abundance
and with joy it withers words

Yet that writer has all the honesty
breathing in air of emotions
sinking deep into genuineness.

mayhap the reason I feel heavy during downpours
is because I left uncovered the hole in my heart where you dug.

Sa t’wing sasapit ang sariwang umaga
Ang himig mo ang aming ninanais marinig
Hinihintay ang hagkan sa umaalpas na luha
Nagsusumamong mahaplos pagod na tinig

Inang Bayan, paumanhin sa aming sinapit
Bagamat nakatakas noon sa pagkakatali
Panibagong gapos ang mahigpit na pumilipit
Ngayon nga’y ang lahat ay muling nahahati

Kaya sa iyong kaarawan, maaari bang ika’y humiling?
Kaayusan ng bayan, nawa’y makamtan namin
Daop-palad, kami’y paglapitin at pagbatiin
Gulo sa bawat puso’t isipan, sana’y pawiin

Katulad ng kahapon, ang dilim ay matatapos
Bukang-liwayway ay muling masisilayan
Ganoon din sana, ang tunay na kalayaan—
Muling masisilayan.

Lahat naman tayo may kinakatakutan,
mula sa mga simpleng bagay
hanggang sa malalaki.
Anong gagawin mo?
Iiyakan mo na lang?
Puwede naman.
Pero sana kahit gapang lang,
naisin mo pa ring umusad.
Isang hinga, isang abante.
Dahan-dahan
hanggang matuto at bumilis ka.
Wag kang tumakbo,
lakad lang at baka may makaligtaan.
Ang hangin na
tumatama sa mukha mo
ang tutuyo sa mga luhang bumaybay
sa pisngi mo.
Kapag narating mo ang umpisa
ng panibagong kabanata,
subukan **** lumingon sa nauna,
palagay ko nama'y
may matututunan ka.
Tingin mo ba sa sunod na pahina,
mag-sisimula ka ulit sa mahina?
Hindi na,
'wag na,
hindi ka naman siguro tanga.
Kalma lang,
narating mo 'yan
dahil naging malakas ka;
bakit iisipin **** ika'y mahina?

one of the heart-wrenching questions
you could ever ask yourself:

what happened to me?

I am my own hero
it’s often exhausting,
but I’d rather be exhausted
than be misunderstood
and misjudged.

It’s white, it’s black, it eats a lot
It purrs on the sight of another cat
Sits anywhere like a king on top
An active cat but still gets fat

A pet so keen that ofttimes judges
Watches every move you don’t do best
Strive, darling, strive, lest
Being chased by world’s greatest pest

Oh no, cats are not pests
No, cats aren’t the pests.

Ano bang nais **** mabasa
Ano bang nais kong maitala
Marahil ito’y tungkol sa mga bulaklak
Mahalimuyak, wari pa’y simbolo ng galak
Maaari ring tungkol sa mga ulap
Tinitingala at hangad ay mayakap
O kaya naman ay sa mga paruparo
Susundan ng tingin saan man dumapo
Ilan lang ‘yan sa mga tuwinang paksa
Mga usaping purong halaga ang tinatamasa
Kumusta kaya ang mga pangkaraniwan
Ang mga patay na dahon sa putikan
Bisikleta ng ordinaryong mamamayan
Lapis na panulat ng pangalan ng napupusuan
Iyong madaling nabubura, hindi nahahalata
Kabilang sa mga madalang bigyan ng pansin
Mga bagay na sapat na ang isang tingin

Kumusta kayo?

Kumusta tayo?

Siguro’y nangingiti lulan ng duyan
Kalmado, mahinahon, malaya
Tago sa ingay ng karangyaan
Simple, payak... nawa.

No, it is not your heartbeat
Nor is it the tapping of your feet
It's calm yet clamorous
It’s silent yet sonorous
A rhythm complex to dance with
A melody I deliberately hid
I just could not name it
But I patently feel it
Hum me our love song—
A harmony we'll never get wrong.

Sa maliit na awang na mayroon ang bintana
Tila ba naging labada ang puting kurtina
Kanina’y hinahangin pa ito nang bahagya
Ngunit nang dahil sa ulan, bahagi ng tela’y nabasa

Ampiyas lang naman kung tutuusin
Madaling matuyo, isampay lang sa mahabang salamin
Pagkatapos pagpagan maisasabit din
Balik pangharang sa malamig na hangin

Malapit na rin pala ang paglubog ng araw
Kanina lamang ang langit ay kulay bughaw
Repleksyon sa munting bintana’y nakasisilaw
Mayumi sa paningin, kay gandang matanaw

Kasabay ng pagbuhos ng ulan ay ang paglalim ng gabi
Gayunpama’y nanatili ang awang ng bintanang katabi
Tubig ulan sa dalawang kamay ay dumadampi
Marahang sinasalo ng ilang sandali

Lumipas ang oras at ang ulan ay tumila na
Ganoon din ang pag-asang matunghayan ka
Aking bituin, nagkamali ako ng hiniling—
Hanggang sa huli, ampiyas lang ang sa’kin.

you,

the light from the other side of the tunnel,

if these feet of mine go numb
and i can no longer walk to reach
what’s ahead of me,

may i ask you to please burn brighter?

blind me with luminescence
fill me with colors of hope
clear my stone cold and rugged path

and i, to you, shall smile genuinely
and i, to you, shall nod... gratefully.

A lift from the ground
by the hands of the Father
from far above.
With so little faith,
in every crumble I stand back up.
I say,
Thank you, my Maker!
I fail,
but I have You who are truly The Greatest.

An eloquence in silence I have mastered
Wet monsoon cannot compete with me
Even the passerines as they chitter get flustered
For I am fluent in speaking hushed misery.

soul opened still fine
though the key wasn’t a match
the heart is, perhaps

You had her
yet you asked for more
perhaps a silver diamond
or a golden stone
what was she, you scorned
'a bronze medal
you didn’t want to display'
a gem,
fragmented and astray
a treasure,
that she has always been
and later realized on her way
a prize,
who you wish stayed.

Sitting still with eyes that wander
The mind is sane yet lost in a wonder
"Coffee spilled from a broken mug
Though the stains remained to fog
It is now bared from a steamy hug."

Sitting still with rested eyes
The mind was unclear but now is wise
"No need for a mug, need not to hide
A coffee so precious must be spilled
To tame the wild."

my tongue is craving for alcohol;
my esophagus is getting dry from all these cryings.
my liver concurs;
don’t worry about cirrhosis, it says,
you’re already gone before it occurs.

the feeling of belongingness is not always found
in the things we thought would be our solace;
it’s important to bring our truest selves
so we wouldn’t be out of place.

hayaang makawala ang emosyon
na ikinulong sa mahabang panahon
pagbigyan ang sarili
na maging totoo kahit sa sandali.

catch me professing
the solitude crawling
all over my body,
insist to me
that everything will be alright,
force into me
the perception of getting by.
love,
why don’t you advise
all the lies
you have incessantly
been telling to yourself?

please give me something to write about...

petal of a withered flower
you dance with such grace
though the wind carried you away,
away from your roots
far from what you’ve traced.

I hope
that when our paths cross once more
you won’t notice my hands
reaching out to touch yours
I hope
you divert your gaze
and never look back,
continue your journey
without holding still the remorse
of a failed love story
I hope, sincerely,
for you to live life fully
without having once cross your mind
the thought that we were not born in this lifetime
to be one another’s burner in times of storm.

The ocean carries me as I lay my back to stay afloat
The tranquility, the emptiness, the cold embraced me
Oh dear, it was as if I am held tightly yet freely
As my hands undulate back and forth making silent noises
I heard the wind murmured to my ears, commanded me
To open my eyes and see the unbelievably majestic view
Of the clouds forming a figure akin to mine
Suddenly, the gloomy, dark ambiance magically shines
“Is this real?” It was.

i plant seeds of solitude
water them at 12 noon
it sprouts every midnight
dies when you’re around.

The clock keeps ticking but it remains in one place
My mind keeps running yet stays in its old phase
I'm pacing back and forth but my feet never chase
My soul never got out, yet I am out of trace.

ten twenty-five of the clock,
in the evening of September,
there were still gentle drizzles
but the heavy rain, the foggy sight
had vanished from the view
of my broken jalousie window

ten twenty-five o'clock,
in the morning of May,
i could hear the birds chirping,
singing, perhaps, their favorite song.
i gazed upon my sliding window
and saw the mesmerizing swirling
and falling of leaves,
dancing gracefully, beautifully.

ten twenty-five o'clock,
i fell but it wasn't a sight to look at,
i crashed and so do my sliding window...

spring season isn't near enough,
my jalousie window still has some of its part
but maybe in the morning of May,
i will be gazing again to see the dancing leaves
through my altogether broken jalousie window.

She felt like nothing but a vast empty land
with cracks on every part of its soil,
wished for some drizzles,
yet the clouds let a downpour—
the spaces, the gaps, were filled
by the huge and rapid drops of rain.
It was overwhelming to see,
it happened so suddenly.
With enough courage, bravery,
she let out the emotions, slowly, achingly.

i cry out for freedom,
not from the government or
from the society or from
any other thing that holds
absurd rights of caging
one believed free spirit;
i cry out for freedom
from the only thing i
cannot escape,
from the only thing
that has all the rights
to embrace me,
i cry out for freedom from
myself—
my body, my mind, my heart.

i never knew silence that much
until that very afternoon
when i tried so much
to hold my teardrops
and hide the sobs
that were exploding inside
my weary body
and my wrecked soul

i wonder,
if i was found dead that day,
would they think 'twas suicide
or would the police say,
"she was slain by the silence
that was enclasped within her solitude"?

Her life is a constant wonder
with soul incessantly wandering
the blues of the deepest voids,
oblivious of the turquoise-blue
it could've found in the shallow of the sea.

She has a mind that seems recondite,
abysmal and profound
she still searches for the meaning of each word
for, to her, it doesn't seem much wrong
maybe the reason she is not understood by many
is because she is not trying to be.

Life can be hard to decipher sometimes
one won't be certain of living
with the absence of existence
yet the other one is certain of existing
even without living.

a skeptic and a believer
in one cracked soul;
a not so lover of words
and a poet in one beating heart;
a grotesque and a beauty
in one complex mind;

it’s a person against the world
and a human against himself.

it’s the silent murmur of the breeze
and the gentle enclasp of the cold
around the frozen heart she holds.

Don’t we all hear the same sound
of a raging stream
Don’t we all feel the cold breeze
of September’s wind
Don’t we all see the stars shining bright
when it dims
Don’t we all smell that flower’s scent
when it’s spring?

The sound of a flowing water wants us to know that
we still have its melody when we hear nothing
but bones breaking
The touch of zephyr wants us to know that
we still have its warm hug when we need
to feel a thing
The view from above wants us to know that
we still have its solace when everything
our hearts see is darkness
The scent of the flower we hold in our hands wants us to know that
we still have its beauty even when we feel like
everyone’s stabbing us with its torn, cutting our flesh.

We are alive even if we don’t feel like we are.
Love still flows even if we live from afar.

as i sat on a soft
and mowed lawn,
i saw the morning light
of the becoming dawn.

as i closed my eyes
to make a wish,
i remembered you as my star,
gone but alive in my mind at least.

If what we write is what we say
then maybe my words could make you sway
If what we write is what we say
then maybe you would stay.

If what we write is what we say
then maybe I’d no longer think of you as I lay
If what we write is what we say
then maybe I’m no longer writing you this way.

it is not the poetry perse
that we depend upon as an escape
it's  the words that we use
to keep our aloof soul safe.

we are the visible boundaries
between our hearts.

"If you could only hear my genuine feelings within these locutions,
If I was only good at expressing my exact emotions,
Then maybe I wouldn't be giving you these mixed signals
And maybe I wasn't left with the segmented petals."

I wonder how many times the owner tried to find this letter,
I wonder how much effort was made before he gave up
Or did he even find time to look for this? Did he even read this?
I wonder how he felt.

I wanted to tell him, "Don't give up!"
Don't we all show confused emotions?
I wanted to tell the person who wrote the letter, "Take the risk!"
Aren't we all eager to know the after-possibilities?

Yet, I can't.
There are reasons behind every action.
She's perchance too hurt to give her whole soul,
He's perhaps too tired to have another heartache.

Most things are transient
We will never know when this one ends,
Defy the rules to create memories
Forget the world, build your own wish.

Paint the walls, scream your thoughts
Dreams may not come true, at least you fought
Cover the red ink with a cloth
It’ll stain, they would know if they sought.

Don’t close your eyes until dawn
We still have time, we’ll reach it soon
Enjoy the night, dance to the tune
When it’s over, let it be known.

'Wag **** sabihing mahal mo ako
Kung noong mga panahong hinahanap ko ang yakap mo
Ako'y tinalikuran mo't iniwang nakalutang
Sa pag-asang ako'y iyong babalikan.

'Wag **** sabihing mahal mo ako
Kung ang pagsuyo mo ay mas malamig pa sa yelo,
Ang ulan ma'y bumubuhos
Ang damdamin ko'y nauubos.

Tama na ang paikot-ikot na laro
Wakasan na ang ugnayan na dati'y kay lago
Hiling ko lamang, nawa'y ang ating luha ay matuyo
Sa lakas ng hangin dala ng ating pagtayo.

Here’s to the father
who did his best for his daughter to feel secured,
who shielded her from the bad guys in her night terrors,
who worked hard everyday,
only to get shouted at for ‘excessively' asking
about the man in her life.

Here’s to the mother
who cooked the food her son loved,
who did the laundry every Wednesday,
who guided the steps he made,
who loved without asking for anything but to love her back,
only to get shut off of his life because he says,
“You care too much. I’m a man now!”

Here’s to the lady
who cries herself to sleep
for feeling guilty of what she did.
Here’s to you
who want her father to feel loved
but timid to speak the words
and to show him the truth,
so you yelled at him instead.

Here’s to the man
who stops his car to calm himself
who thinks of coming back to his mother
and tell her, “I’m a man now, but every man needs a woman, and it’s you my mom.”

Here’s to all the parents in the world
who freed and comforted us from the fiends
of our nightmare,
of our youth,
of our life.

Here’s to the young ones (or even not)
who think they are better off alone,
who think they are old enough to be on their own.
Here’s to all of us
who have been wronged.

he was always misunderstood
no one tried to be with him for good
if you’d ask him what he likes
look at his eyes, notice the sparkling lights.

don’t leave when he says he wants to be alone
hear his voice, its sound, the tone
he was always misunderstood
hold his arms, hug him tight, i wish you could
because if i were you, i would.

I stare at the night sky, hoping I can catch a shooting star
Wishing it would grant my wish to hold your scars
The pain of yours I regret not touching whilst I still can
If I could only bring back the time,
I’d hold your hands much longer than the ink of a pen.

Forgive me for not telling you this for you to hear
These scribbled words are the evidence
That I care for you, had you seen it clear?
The eccentric beating of my heart,
May it reach you and God’s providence.

Your presence may not be in sight,
But the love you left us will continue to fight
We will surely win the battle of life.

And God made Adam and Eve
their eyes met for the first time
but their hearts collided
even before the stars exploded.
The Lord calls them His creatures,
I prefer calling them humans
who truly loved without wanting anything
but giving each other everything.
This might not be the biblical story,
but this is ours.

darling, you may not understand,
but it's more heartbreaking to leave
than to be left behind.

May mga oras na alam **** nasaksaktan ka
Ngunit hindi mo malaman kung bakit ba
Mga emosyong ayaw magpakita
Kahit sa mga mata'y hindi ito madama.

                             May mga araw na ang iyong puso'y nangungulila
                             Sa mga memorya ng ulan na tumila
                             Nagmumuni-muni habang nakahiga sa maliit na kama
                             Hindi malaman, bakit ba nagkaganito na?

May mga gabi na mapapaupo ka sa inyong balkonahe
Mga titig ay nasa mga tala na tila may sinasabi
Ang hiling **** kaytagal nang naisantabi
Ngayon kaya ay mangyayari?

                Oh, aking sarili!
                Minsa'y kailangan mo ring magpahinga
                Sa mga problemang dahilan ng iyong panlulumbay
                Iyong harapin ng positibo ang hiram na buhay.



*There are times that you know you're in pain
Yet you can't figure out the reason you feel lame
Hidden emotions, unclear, unseen
Even the eyes can't give the look of what you're feelin'

                               There are some days when your heart feels empty
                               Yearning for the memory of the downpour that had stopped
                               Meditating while lying on the bed that is tiny
                               Asking yourself, how did this happen, it feels so rough

There's this kind of night when you'd sit outside at the balcony
Gazing at the stars that seem to be saying something
Your wish that was set aside and buried in your mind
Would it be granted now?

                My dear self,
                Sometimes you need to stop and take a rest
                From your problems that sadden you the deepest
               And face the positivity of life; "our lives are borrowed,
                  don't let the eyebrows be furrowed."

and if i longed for a sense of belonging
i would just lie down, facing the ceiling;
i am my home
here is where i belong.