It's a dangerous world that we live in,
But a dangerous world we create,
Where the wrong are too often forgiven,
And the right are convicted of hate.

as the night quells, soft and gentle,
the incessant humming in my head subdues to 
a murmured hush, and the white noise is but 
a grey    fog  veiling hazy promises and barbed fears.

the darkness seems to hold its breath as you say: look 
       at the meteors,        they fall so heavily tonight!
it is because we all placed our wishes on them.

yet i only see your tired orbit
set in the horizon of your stony shoulders;
like shooting stars burdened by wishful thinking,
you bow under a burden of universes:
          phantom hopes and frayed strands,
          as if you were afire from within,   the moon
      alight in lining of your skin.

tonight the waning moon’s gentle glow flickers
as if in stop-motion, like confused blinking.
in a lingering afterthought I find —

in solitude time is all-consuming,
and i am in an hourglass; time, a thief,
creating a vortex beneath my feet
and in solitude i find myself wishing desperately again.


the darkness is so softly suffocating as you say: look
at the meteors, they fall so heavily tonight!

Woman, you have the backbone of an earth
and a faith that Abraham would have marvelled at.
You walk and you follow with your eyes above ground,
your feet leave imprints of peace.
Woman, you laugh at the sun
You bathe in rays that scorch because you know
That pain only lasts through the night.

Note To Self:*

If the world were to end tomorrow, today would just be today. Lunch would just be lunch, depending which day, the sun would rise and the sun would set and I would probably be leaving a lot of things unsaid, because how am I supposed to know the world is going to end tomorrow?

If the world were to end tomorrow, I would leave the idea of tomorrow to gather dust ‘till the sun’s fingers came to pluck it from my grasp, and I would not mind letting it go.

For if the world were to end tomorrow, tomorrow would be the most beautiful thing to ever happen to this world since God first sang, “Let there be light.”

And there was light. And tomorrow, again.



Things To Do:

1. Cook some hot, sticky rice for breakfast. These little legs of mine will be needing all the energy they can get for some spontaneous visits and last attempts at trying to save the child who dug his own grave and is now standing at its mouth asking himself if this is what heaven looks like.

2. Make my way to the resting place of the one I loved the most.
Smile. I don’t know if it would be wide or not.
Leave a note in green ink —
“See you soon.”
Hug the stone angel that used to give you comfort when you had just lost your mother.
Hum a hymn on my way out.
Leave the gate unlocked.
Let the street children pour in.

3. Run back to the walls placed in my path,
dance around seven times while singing psalms
until they fell
if
they fell
or maybe I would stumble around seven times
while crying and screaming mercy
until they fell
if
they fell.

4. Love harder. Carry around words of fire, vomiting flames of spirit and life to keep the virgins’ lamps burning, remind them that their groom is returning, He just needs to make sure that everything will be pure in time for their vows, and they need to remember that death is not the final destination, but only the beginning of a new journey in which everywhere you go, your car window view is a valley of dry bones coming back to life, and if still they refuse to listen, I will only love them harder.

5. Pretend as if I’m dying then whisper stories of hope into the ear of the kind stranger that kneels down to help me. For some people only listen when shouts have become echoes.

6. Ask around for directions and instructions on how to finish off this list I am making. Take the hands of whoever has the right answers or of whoever has at least one of the same on their sheet of paper, run to any place we can call shelter and sing praises. Quietly. Loudly. Sing with nasal tones and chest tones and head tones, sing until our lungs collapse beneath us, sing like our shakey notes can pierce the darkness, sing like the moon is still shining and the sun isn’t darkened and all the stars haven’t yet fallen, sing until we see glory bleeding from the sky and

7. Weep with gladness. For here comes God singing for the second time,

“Let there be light.”

And there was light. And today, again.

Here’s a secret about me:
I always look into mirrors whenever someone leaves
When a piece of me is locked outside my doors
Or when tears starts falling, I don’t know what to do anymore
I like seeing myself in my most vulnerable state
A time when I feel like mist let out of a tightly sealed jar,
I involuntarily tear myself apart until I am fanned out into nothingness
I like looking into mirrors to remind myself that my body did not disintegrate like how this feeling made it seem

I like staring at myself as I cry
Maybe to see the soldier who fired the first shot that started this whole war
Maybe to feel a little sympathy for the girl sitting on the ground
Maybe to realize that my tears will not reduce the reality of my existence
Maybe to assure that I may feel like shattered glass on the inside but it hasn’t surfaced onto my skin for everyone else to see

Because just when you think that it’s all over,
When the fighting and the screaming
The pointing and the blaming
The aiming and the shooting has been done more than it should have
And everyone else goes home to show off the skulls they killed their souls for or to simply lay their bones and pride to rest,
You get to stare at someone familiar right in the eye after washing the blood off your face
And you realize who your enemy truly is

And you start to fight a war no one really knows about
A battle that sets no time or date or emotion- one that simply comes
And it’s the most dangerous of all because it happens in your head and in your heart while you’ve been smiling all day long
It’s twisted and confusing because it canplllppidu happen even when you’re listening to your favorite song
And sometimes, it seems as if it’s over because you can’t hear the bombs go off
But truth is, you can’t really hit pause
People come along when the bullet holes start showing exit wounds and they ask you where they came from
You try to tell them but you think to yourself that the war doesn’t have to extend to another’s home
But even if you did, no one would really get it
And there you are with front row seats, paralyzed in your confinement cell you once called home, helplessly watching as the war rages on

And you scream for it to stop
But it won’t stop, it won’t stop, it wouldn’t stop
You’ve been screaming with your eyes closed for so long
That when you finally open them, you realize that you have brought the war inside of you out into this world because your heart could not contain it anymore
And you ask for forgiveness from the people that have fallen from the crossfire of your thoughts and your hands
You ask and you ask and you ask
But darling, maybe their forgiveness is not what we must ask for first
But yours
It’s time to shed truth to the lie that there are two sides gunning it out inside of you
Honey, there are no two factions, it’s all just you

So please, forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself for never trying hard enough because you finally started listening to the lies that say you were never meant for greater things
Forgive yourself for hurting other people because no one really showed you any better
Forgive yourself for failing to love because you’ve run out of heart to give
Forgive yourself for settling for less because you’ve grown tired of walking around
Forgive yourself for not always knowing how to fix yourself because who in the world knows how
It is only when you have come to terms with yourself that the peace you find can finally settle in
Forgive yourself because not everything's your fault
Forgive yourself because you have been forgiven
Find your worth in the One who calls you by name
You are beautiful, strong, capable, saved, redeemed, sought for, enough, and whole
You are a masterpiece, a warrior, a prince, a princess, and an ambassador of the Most High
You have been picked out of love to start a movement that will open the eyes of those who have glued them shut and chose to live in darkness rather than to see the war in this world

Let’s start a revolution of peace from the inside out
Where the young and old finally announce ceasefires within themselves
War becomes a foreign concept, no one would dare seek it with anyone else
Battles start when we begin becoming someone we were never designed to be
Find yourself in your Father and know you will be if you let it be
So if you want to call for peace in a world that has forgotten,
Child, first remember that you cannot give what you do not have

Here's a list of things I've given up on:
1. Hitting that high note in one of Mariah Carey's songs
2. Sleeping before midnight
3. Dieting
4. Add exercising to that

We met in highschool. Setting humility aside, I'd like to think that I was the smart one trying to head everything and anything that needed a leader. She was the new girl in our class who I sat next to and who would always give me chocolates. The first time we met, I told her we were gonna be bestfriends.

5. Painting
6. Learning how to beatbox
7. Not buying anything- and when I say anything, I mean anything- during a sale

I'm straight. Let's get that...straight. This isn't a story of how I fell inlove with my bestfriend. Well, I did, sort of. Because you can never really call someone your bestfriend and not love who they are. We were sisters who always made sure to fly together on our way back home and back here. We always brought each other along because we were a part of each other's story. She gave me flowers when I broke my heart. She told me I was beautiful but only in the right times because she knew that I never really learned how to accept a compliment. She held my hand although I relented thinking that no one likes to hold sweaty palms.

8. Staying within the luggage limit
9. Believing I'm always right
10. Pride

I can continue telling you the beautiful story of what once was and you'd probably prefer hearing that because no one really likes talking about endings, the places you land after the falling. Because it's horrible. It's terribly, terrifyingly horrible because you never thought you'd hit the ground. Because when you're falling, you feel infinite and alive that you forget to remind yourself that no one really lives up in the air.

11. Becoming a Dove girl
12. Acting like a "girl"
13. Crying

She told me she didn't want to fix it. That it was tiring and we should just leave it alone. You've probably heard this before from the lips of a lover but imagine it spilling out of the soul of your sister- the one who gathered all the pieces when he left but now, picks it up only to throw the shards at your face.

14. Calling
15. Telling myself that I'm okay
16. Being okay with just being okay

I'm okay. There are some nights that I remember her- how she hated eating vegetables, how she loved the color teal, all our plans of going to Paris just to eat lunch, all the promises we made and said we would never break. But do you notice that even in pinky promises you'd eventually have to let go? People let go because it's easier. It's easier than trying to find all the shards with your vision blurred because of the tears welling up in your eyes. People let go because people forget. They forget the first times. They forget that some masterpieces are made from mud after seeing those made from glass. They forget who you are to them and start considering who you can possibly not be.

17. Blaming myself
18. Asking
19.
20.
21.

She decided that I was a rock too heavy to carry still. But it's funny because as I looked around, everyone was carrying one. I guess, we just have to wait for those people who won't mind how much we weigh because we fit perfectly inside their palms.

Darling, enjoy the falling, but be ready for the landing and the crashing. Keep your feet straight and your heart guarded. Chances are it will shatter but try anyway. Because sometimes, there are people who meet you on the ground. They don't always catch you in time but sometimes, they do. And you will  breathe easier and you will finally discover that your lungs were not made for the thin air up there because it was designed to hold so much more. And one day you'll thank them, not just to convince yourself that you've moved on but because you truly, genuinely, mean it. Maybe one day, you'll even get to write a poem about them. It'll come. Trust me.