or In One of the Bars in the City*

You remind me about the brightest
spots here in the city. The spots that used to be your
memory, lavishing into the thought of the moon,
how it chiseled itself for the night to claim
it as its smile. So, this night, perhaps,

is a freckled smiling face. Your face
to be exact. How the stars scatter
correctly to form your freckles because
of your genes. Beautiful, sparkling
on the clean sheet of your skin.

Yes, this is how you remind me
about the city that seen and told

our story. How each wall of each skyscraper is
a page to tell a chapter. The flashing headlights
of each vehicle, how they became our crayons.
We are merely children playing, drawing pictograms
on counter doors. I mentioned skyscrapers. I was wrong;

there were no skyscrapers in Manila. Only in Makati.

But that never changes the fact
of this city, an open book for all of those

muggy nights when you religiously
places your lips against mine and eventually
against my skin; when you first made friction
talk. And it spoke every language I knew so fluently

that even our moans are words fit
for a poem. Ridiculous, jaded, fading,

but still, this mug of beer sparkle against the spotlights
of this bar. And yes, you are

sparkling like a city so alive
at the dead of night.

Tongue scalded by coffee I am finally
awake today. When the sun’s kisses burn my skin,
and I am finding a new threshold for this. This flint
spark where it outshines the moon at the dead
of night. Lost in the forest, trudging thoughts through
woods where luminescence is nonexistent. A gas tank
explodes in the middle of the city. See now how my mind
trudge thoughts of light? Heat?          Pain?
Thundering through my cranium like mad dogs barking,
this is summer. Summer, where heat dilutes my vision.
I am awakened. The sands crept to our feet as it replicates
each of its curves, took their body heat and turned
everything to Mexico. Jalapeno lips, I make them quiver.
Quiver like tasting a spoonful of wasabi. Quiver your name
to the sound of the hottest song on air. Pretending
it was some ice to cool off my scalded tongue.

See how I am trudging? Because this had to be
enough to make my mind a rustle piece of abstract, visions
flint spark, when you near me, pressed
your palm against my shoulder. And I swear
that was when

I felt warmth
for the very first
time.

The sun sets, burns
the immaculate blue horizon,

as we stare blankly
on our reflection in this
water.

Sadly, like the sky,
our reflections dim
to nothing
but silhouettes.

We drift away; and

Apart.

I.
The problem is the wind: how it easily transports
from monsoons to monsoons, growling the heartaches
that smudged the letters all too easily. This is merely a reply.

II.
A flock of hummingbird escapes
the night I learned
how to sharpen a quill the way
I sharpen a scalpel. How it became sharp enough
to carve a meat. How it became good enough
for dissection.

This is the trouble with too much
skin. My skin had kissed yours so much
that it memorized how you twitch
each time we touch.

III.
This is merely a reply to reply.
Or how it should be.

Because a mound of papers filled with
poems describing how my heart yearns

to hear your voice is good enough
for silence to take over, for you

to sew your mouth and hold
your breath. This is good

enough.

IV.
I want to hear your voice,
an old song that makes my lips quiver
and sing the way you do.

V.
But you became a stifled mortuary
the way the winds came tonight.

And I’m sure, you were
Struck.

A city landscape painting punctured my eyes:
cars flying, neon lights spreading across the
city like bruises. Yellow bound skyscrapers form
golden teeth for this mouth of a city—

a city—a melting ***

—where everything waits

to inhales air from midnight whispers, asks the stars
to fall tonight for people waiting for pixie

dusts to land on their palms. And tonight,

the city will grant that miracle. Tonight,

the stars will fall, and all
will be neon bruises

spreading across a limp body
of a city.

I feel the wind crash against my skin,
enter my nose and into my lungs. I am
alive today. My eyes are fixated at the thought of

those Narra Trees, standing proudly
in the backyard; how the wind rustles
with their branches; how the noise becomes
music, whispering through my ears. I feel
safety. Safety, like the way I lay

at my hammock—the way I trust
the ropes with an arm-strength
of a man; how they held me so high

that I could touch the sky, like freedom
soars across horizons in form of contrails.

Today, I feel love
and I soar to the

Universe.

Over at the café, we are alone
at sharing our own thoughts, and hot coffee

easily drifts towards our tongues. This is the time
that the bats replace the birds. And we hear

crickets call one another. Tonight,
the moon is high yet huge. Though

the thought of a celebration: a cheesecake
two cups of coffee, friction, we ourselves take

the knives, slit each other open. Hear
our hearts beat the same anthem

we hear every night. So we let the blood
flow from these hummingbird chest,

ooze to the pavement like honey. It
glints against the moonlight, a river way

filled with rubies. And we can be sure our insides are

finally healed. For the demons had
set foot against our will

and into the wild. This, indeed, calls for
a celebration. Friction,

we let it speak.