The mythful, innocent, fresh,
Painful,
Reflection of the foolishly isolated,
Stubborn,
Passionately light, sea
Cleansed my condensing soul and lure me to
Its royal seat,
In its authoritarian pride.
To its greatness;
To my desperate need;
Instead of a fulfilling admiration,
I struggled, in all anxiety,
To leave an eternally visible trace,
A scar,
A mean,
In the order in front of my almost fearful
Sight.
Though, all is lost:
As I stomp my helpless hope in the soft,
Ignorant,
Lifeless, seeds of sand
The sadly benighted,
Or, rather,
Merciless,
Fluid,
Took in, in its reign,
The task of erasing,
Tracelessly, my deeds.
Leaving me with meaningless existence,
Waiting to rot and vanish, down further deep

Before I met you

I was merely an unaging larva

Adept at hiding

Terrified of living

That always closed itself in.


It wasn't until you suddenly rushed in

that I finally gathered up the courage

The desire, the hope, the need

To burst from my suffocating casing

And flew right to thee,

Thinking you were just like me.

But when I did,

I saw what I didn't want to see

I saw the fragile mirror

That your kind eyes were reflecting

And found myself to be

Not the beautiful butterfly I was expecting

But an ordinary worker bee.


So I worked and worked

With my every breath

Persevered for you to notice me

Pleaded that you stay with me

Instead you flew away from me

And the wind under your wings

Carried away every little thing

Sunshine, earth, and rain

Till I finally withered in Spring

Till I finally accepted my fate and gave in

Became a drop of honey

Content just to be

The unseeable sweetness in that warm cup of tea,

I used to see you land in.

My mother's blood was spilled
long before I was here. 
Just as she bled forth
like her mother's.

There has always been a price
maybe, for all this turning around
through all his stories I kept
on buying, and cherished.

I barely recognize
the real value
of my own
blood.

After my child woke up to mountains
turned into poisoned orange fields.
And towers howling empty through
the skeletons of proud and fearful
monsters of the Next Big Racket:

I sat down and knew things will
never be the same again
no matter how much I ate,
or whatever I wore, or where I lived.
We have died a long time ago.

Why I am still here with you is
a question only I can answer.
Everyone else has lost
after the successive attacks on
places where we used to speak freely.

Tomorrow, they say our hearing will no longer
be the same and that our children
will no longer remember us. I would have loved
to sharpen you another blade or shine another
weapon for your next trip, but there is a wider net
that has stolen my hands and the lamps
which I use to work through the Night.

I know you struggle every day and we barely
remember each other's faces, doing as we are told.
I spend time sitting down with my wounds, some of which
you blew down on me when you were too high.

One day or day one, you would say when sober.
Others remind us gently still, we were made for this.

Through all this muddy waters and chaotic mix of dung,
blood and sweat. We are lotus flowers, stardust.

In another story, a grown-up has learned to slow dance
with his lover as the world falls apart around them.

Clothes of all kinds
on the sidewalks
sold for crazy cheap prices.

Kids and old people alike
scramble fast towards through mountains
of bargains, this once inaccessible
and highly prized scene of Fashion sense,
separating the haves and the have-nots.

I was born with skin color, names, and belongings
that no longer made sense when the time came
to decide and become.  I ran to meet a friend at a corner
a long time ago when the Ukay surplus clothing stores
were just starting out.

He carried a plastic of hiking boots
and a pair of stylish jeans. Laughing and smiling
at the exchanges. A pair of running shoes
and a jacket that was already too big for a woman.

I am half-Chinese and a half Filipino-Spanish.
I have only learnt to speak Filipino my whole life.

The best advises I have received is that there is no right or wrong,
that labels does not always help.
That no matter what, I should just go
and "Live my life", or "Sing in Full Voice, Until Then".

Attentive to a fault to the work or person at hand.
Because of routine and living demands, sometimes I
only pay attention to what is available or given to me.

Like the quest for the Spices of the East, I could no longer live the same way when the time came. I had to learn preservation and other flavors.

In a Asian Food Show, someone shares
How some later generation Chinese had to study their own native language in secret between 1966 to 1998.  
Stories of how their migrant or refugee heritage have made them scapegoats of many local tensions.
And varieties of words and ingredients also native to Chinese and later generations that lived offshore.

Many of us now in the thrash of our collective songs
towards healing and full living as humanity, continuing
refugees and wanderers in our own ways.

Where we see our indigenous-selves and our oppressor-selves,
is not as difficult as we are usually made to,
in a world of artificial
demands and surpluses.

One old song gently reminds me
in many languages singing,
as another bowl of handmade noodles
breaks open into countless random pieces:

We are only passing through earth.
Made to experience, and let go of our fears
and limitations.To gather our remains so that
it is inanimate buildings and objects that are used
by the living instead, and nothing is left behind.
To not leave a trace. To learn how to love.#