nagugma ak sa imo
i remember you once told me this
as we lingered on a riverbank
for the sunset

how can i unlove my mother tongue
when it sounds like a tune
that emanates from your lips

when the sky turned black and we see red circles blazing from warlike planes,
when rivers streamed deep red and we see no children running,
when the air smelled like gunfires and we see nothing but the wilting of flowers,
when small boys turned daggers into toys and we hear nothing but the shaking of the grounds,

know that my presense is always in the scent of orchids that get lost through your nostrils,
know that we breathe in the same country and i would cross seas even when they became a pool of corpses,
know that i will be the same child who kissed you under the moonbeams

i want to go to thrift book shops
or to libraries where the only sound i hear is the turning of pages
or to cafés where the aroma of roasted cinnamon screams through my nose
or to an empty beach where i can read as the sun kisses my skin.


just any place where my soul calms down;
where i can create my own reality
from the pages that meet my fingertips.

maybe we’re from different worlds
or from different time loops
and our souls just got lost
into being born in this cosmos.

i dreamt of you clad in warlike armor.
perhaps you were meant to be born
in a dystopian realm
where mynah birds are aliens
and you never saw
what the sky really looks like
in the absence of explosions.

because that is what you are,
your skin reeks of angst
your stare is a carbine
ready to point shoot
i would shoot their mouths
until they splash red, you said.

and i thought of me growing up
not knowing the smell of longing
because how wonderful would that be?
to live in a city devoid
of longing for peace
to remain young, walking
through an endless hallway of trees
without the eyes of scavengers
observing our bodies
forming an entity.

maybe we’re not meant to be
and maybe we are
but not here
where we hide like the cicadas
on grass awaiting the moonbeams
to blanket the whole town
of living saints who tell tales
about angels who burn cities
stained with people of our kind, loving.

maybe, in a universe opposite to ours, the mothers never warned us about the looming threats  of our potential demise  by stray bullets. we would have been raised unaware of the stench of blood  that have dried on roads. murders could be a stranger and any person could lead a village without the thought  of having him killed in plain sight.

because in this town, where flowerbeds are a kaleidoscope along the roads, where banyan trees serve the children a home, where the sky is always  a cloudless blue, we fear no monsters lurking even in the shade  of red harvest moon, but men in mask who turned pistols as toys.

sat on a rattan chair, my little self once posed a question to my late great-grandmother with dementia
“why was i named after a saint?”

“francis, that is to protect you from the threat of carbines and tanks that the hapons toy against us, filipinos.” she spoke like i’ve been warned.

then i remembered my half-japanese friend whose brain akin to a monggo bean.

i did not believe her.

how could i believe when my friend couldn’t learn my mother tongue?

fifteen years later, i learned that my late great-grandmother used to cover her visage with thick talcum, pretending as geisha to trick the makapilis

the makapilis were filipinos who sided with the japanese.
but they were worse.
they would bang your heads with their blood-stained fists if you refuse to speak the whereabouts of a guerilla’s leader.

guised as a geisha, my late great-grandmother would lure a makapili to her home. there, she would cut his throat with a dagger and let the makapili suffer in a pool of blood.

“if you love this country, that is how you cleanse it—eliminate the ones who betray it.” she once told my mother.

often, i think about her.

all along, my late great-grandmother had been warning us—it is not always the outsiders who will hurt you, sometimes it is the ones who reside with you in the same village, same home, or share your blood.

and that would hurt a lot akin to a gunshot piercing through your waist

you must always be prepared for such treachery, like a warrior who is always ready to draw a mighty dagger from her scabbard to expel those who opt to betray her and her land.

imagine this
you awoke to the chirping of mayas,
to the crowing of your neighbor’s chickens,
to the sound of vehicles jolting by the holes

you felt the amber light of sun,
kissing your cheeks
while it exposed the spiders forming
cobwebs on the corners of your room

what a pleasant day, wasn’t it?
to see children by the street
playing patintero
while you watered the bougainvilleas
your mother loved better than you

then you remembered it was Saturday again
and a friend’s mother would come,
selling a basket of bananacues

you quickly grabbed a copy of Jessica Zafra
from your bookshelf with a collection
of novels that you bought
from pickpocketing your father

you marched your way
down to your living area
through the stairs filled
with potted pothos and jade plants
your mother treated like little kids

today must be beautiful. you thought.
so you checked your phone,
hoping for an invitation to a beach.
because why not?
with this sky reminiscent of turquoise,
your skin yearned for the sun

instead of an invitation,
a forwarded message
popped in your screen:
the fourth murderr of the month.

a man shot dead in broad daylight
along the diversion road
in a barrio next to yours.

the spot turned red
as the blood of the man streamed
like a draining river.
people circled the murdered
as if it was news to them.
reality was, it had become a norm

gunshot after gunshot.
you heard them like bad songs on a stereo
and how could you turn it off? stop it?
you had no idea

you see, waking up
in this beautiful island is a bliss.
you get to watch the cinematic view
of a horizon where the sky kisses the sea,
while you stand firm on the pristine shores,
listening to the gentle rustle of palm trees

yet it was only a facade

on this island, where shores shimmer
like jewelry and lush greenery
abounds in beauty,
lies a darker truth

while the murdered men sleep
in agony of injustice,
the culprits loiter in this island,
smoking, plotting the next fire

vinegar, soy sauce, crushed garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves
i saw my mother mixed these
in a palayok softened to a gentle patina.

i’d like to help, but my hands
were already covered in bruises
from playing luksong baka.

“where have you been, boy?”
mother asked, as she raised the sandok,
while her eyes glued to the palayok.

i wanted to tell her i’ve been with a friend,
a boy, who pushed me into a charcoal pit
so my knees were black.

but this friend came to our house
carrying a small ointment,  bottled in green.

he smiled.

and i looked at him,  hesitant to give it back.
i learned that the ointment
was for the wounds i got
from his own mischief.

but he didn’t apologize.
instead, he sat on a dining rattan chair,
facing me.

“why is he here?
isn’t he ashamed of what he had done?”
i thought.

“oy hijo, didi nala kaon.”
mother, in a duster dress, spoke to him
while serving the paksiw,
we could smell its tangy scent
of vinegar and crushed garlic.

she managed to notice
that we might be in a little fight
so she told us that we must have our backs
for each other, always.

and we did.

twenty years later, this friend came back
to our house, redoing the scene:
carrying an ointment bottled in green.

“tita, don’t you know
he’s been crying over a stupid man?”
he spoke and laughed, childlike.

oh this boy, unaware of my charade,
as i fake drama, keeps comforting me
again and again and again.

mother served the same paksiw
and i found myself smiling,
watching him treat my home, a home.

abegail,
        you came in this orb
   a yellow bell in its bush,
                flourishing
you are beautiful,
      in the most delicate,
most demure but loud

you were a friend
         and i see you in every
wilting flower
     that i pass on streets
  because why does the world
only choose      the beautiful,
       in their most tender age,
                 to wither and fall

my man, god-like
no longer must you please me
your skin the color of dark amber
already has my eyes
and your breath, a scent of jasmine
turns the ylang-ylangs a stranger

no longer must you wonder
whether or not my heart
only yearns for yours
because i’m always yours
even when you turn my bones
to brittle everytime a spear
slung across your back for a hunt

beauty, as we call it, is seen upon the laughter of a child who plays marbles under the morning sunbeams

a dog that, amidst the scorching midday sun, trails its master selling sorbetes to the kids who wear smiles and bruises on their knees

the crowing of roosters and the chirping of birds while the falling leaves of yellow acacia listen as they gracefully descend to the land

beauty, as we call it, is already seen only when our eyes see no war but peace

on a fishing boat
our backs both sunburned
by the sun of May
we sang a kundiman
while we oared to the spot
where pebbles shimmered
like scattered ornaments

“quick. we must hurry.”
you spoke with enthusiasm
as the sun, as we saw it,
slowly nearing
the islands adjacent to ours

but how could i? when your torso
rendered me weak in the hands
you were god-like with firm shoulders
and you reminded me of Maka-andog
whose body akin to boulders

your lips are a red gumamela
it shines akin to a morning dew
it would be a waste
if you won’t let them meet
the mouth of the boy
who once told you
that his love
is like a boundless sea;
who once spoke,
facing the Baldicanas,
that he is but in love
with a warrior
who wears armor in a dress

meet me
at a roof of an abandoned store. there, we will linger until the sinking of the sun, reddening the sky. we will watch the people below passing akin to a colony of weaver ants, eager to find something to relish.

hug me
tight with your arms as the sun, a zircon red, turns our bodies a luminary akin to a tribunal of fireflies.  we won’t let go until we see no flower bed of asters and we hear nothing but the singing of cicadas.

kiss me
on my lips, a soft ripe mango. lick them. bite them until they turn crimson. show them how your tongue resembles a slender snake as the mothers, down below us, watching, perform sign of the cross.

remember when we played bang-sak within the hallowed walls of the kumbento that we used to treat as playground?

we marched our way inside the church but we couldn’t find a spot to hide from the seeker

“this way” you led the way going to a jeepney nestled beside the plaza.

we hid our bodies like members of a guerilla—afraid to be shot dead.

after all, that was what this game was all about—never allow the seeker catch us and shout ‘bang’ straight to our heads

but isn’t this what we are now?—hiding

to never allow their eyes to land on our bodies, both nestled within the pillars of an abandoned nipa hut;

to never allow them say words that serve as guns and shoot us both until we cry blood

I ask nothing but your warm embrace
to find its way back
to which you used to call your home, especially in a night like this
when the whole town
is enveloped by the thick mist
and the Amihan wind
slowly crawls on my skin.

i wonder how many people are jealous of the moon
how it can see everyone
and how everyone sees its beauty that permeates through all the other beautiful things
sometimes, i ask the same moon you loved staring at
“where could he be now?”
and hope that it would cross your mind that i still long for you, especially in this cold November night
because on this bermuda under a talisay, we could be loud again
we would be laughing again like nineteens
but all i hear now are crickets that could wound my ears
“where could he be now?”
i ask the moon sometimes, twice
but then i just wish you’re happier somewhere.

Someday, the sound of your name will fade into the tragedy of a forgotten harana.

You will be gone, and I will long to erase your memory from my thoughts, wash away the traces of times spent with you.

You will be gone like the kundimans once sung by our grandfathers to our beloved grandmothers.

You will become a scar, like a deep cut on my skin—permanent.

Someday, I will long to forget your name and the sound of it. And I will have a hard time doing so because forgetting someone you once loved is also forgetting the life you shared with them.

Just like our ancestors with their cherished harana, you will become a beautiful memory that happened to me.

we found repose on a banana leaf that you plucked from its tree that was beside a kamalig

i was busy savoring a coconut juice while you were busy murdering another fruit with a dagger

“someday, i’d buy us a house with high ceiling, tall windows, and a garden with your favorite flowers.” you spoke while you stared straight at a kubo that housed your childhood.

i’d like to tell you i could hide and live with you in a cave if this country is already breathing black

a home is a home only when i’m with you.

just tell me how much you like me to smile so i can keep smiling at you with warmth until you melt.

tell me about the type of songs you listen and the films you watch so we can earmark a day or two to revel in their magic together.

tell me of the days you are free so i can synchronize mine then we can be together again.

tell me of the things you hate, so we can make a team to steer clear of them and share in our mutual disdain.

tell me that you love the sky as well, stretched above like a vast azure dome, so we can both lie on the grass until sunset.

just tell me how much you like me and in turn, i shall speak the depth of my enduring affection for you, a sentiment that has blossomed ever since you first spoke my name.

in this noisy, crowded metro
where honking of jeepneys,
quarrels of vendor sellers,
rush footsteps of daily commuters
are loud (we could cut our ears off)
where we breathe not only oxygen
but mostly pollution.
i would die from a lung disease
or a stab directly to my heart
by someone who tried to rob
my outdated iPhone.
but with you,
in this perilous, criminal-infested metro,
with you everything is fine.
i would even kiss you
in LRT2 Pureza Station
before we claim our beep cards
bound to Antipolo.

isn’t it ironic,
to feel a quiet sadness
at the very thought of going home?

to go back home
is to return to our discreetness
to return to our discreetness
is to become a secret once again.

i remember, you once told me
you loved me
but i never showed that i, too
was falling in love
for a man’s love for another was
deemed a sin
and we hate to see our mothers
cry, condemning us.

i never wished to forsake home altogether,  
but just this once,
i long to stay a while longer,  
to remain by your side.
for isn’t this already home? 

they say home is where we find
our deepest comfort,  
so why would i bother to go back  
when i already feel i’m in my safest
just by being with you?

I remember that boat we once saw, drifting aimlessly as we rowed toward what we called our nirvana.

“Whoever left that boat alone in this vast sea must be a sadist,” you said, believing that even things have spirits, like humans do.

But just like that boat, you left me adrift in the waves of wonder.

I’m not sure where I went wrong, but suddenly, I awoke in the silence of the waves, drifting farther from you.