The only sound the breaks the night was the song of the wind.

Apart from that, the stillness seemed long and unbearable and forever. The walls had finally stopped screaming, and it began to shred its skin, hoping to discover a new hope underneath. Against all uncertainties, odds, and even sheer absence of hope. It bled silently.

The curtain, I'm afraid, continued to sigh and decided to keep its exasperation. I have tried explaining the matter, your situation, but it just looked at me and sighed. It never bothered to offer any response but contentedly suspended itself around the railing, embracing dust; dissolving itself in the labyrinth of the passing years.

Sometimes, it would turn to me and smile, the window. For a fleeting moment, it would allow the edge of its lips to curl, up, up, up, like birds flying then scattering then eventually exploding in the atmosphere until all that's left is the sky hovering above the trees and the remnants of its feather dangling on the leaves.

At night, like tonight, every night, the candle swallows the moon, and fades with summer . I have to ensure that every passerby should witness the fatal glow of its decaying cinders. But I put it there, near the window, not to amaze any passerby. Nor to invite anyone.

I put it there,
near the window,
for you to find your way back home.

You came into my dreams last night.
I can't recall the details
but I remember you.

Do come again.
I shall be waiting.

*I will...
to sweep you away.

I packed my bag
and stuffed some clothes
good for a week or two.

A camera for photos,
A book for company.

And pieces of hungry parchments pressed between the leaves
all screaming your name
demanding your scent
and making me restless.

You must be the sound of the train wheels
scraping against the railings
before it ceases.

It was organised
your room
when I entered.

A moment after,
the propped pillows,
the crumpled blanket,
your tired jeans,
my shoes somewhere disarrayed,
our battered whispers,
the traces of your fingerprints,
your heart beneath the bedsheet
and my last glimpse of you

they will forever remind me
of something beautiful.

In this room,
where the plant grows like seeds in the dark
where the frontier dissolves in the depth of the night.

Meet me, other side of the Earth,
in this dream.
In the presence and absence of sheerness
and all other things.

I shall be there,
knocking upon that window of yours...

And as I lay my body on the sheet,
lay with me, you invisible one.
For I will untangle my hundred worries -
one by one,
like twisted, endless rope.

All I remember
was the thin line
draping on my eyes
like curtain hovering around the horizon

and the dancing stars
of funny colours
all restless and reluctant
and the films keep

on rolling endlessly
and fading gracefully
in the fatal blackness
and softness

and coldness
of the pillow
crushing between my knee
and my chest.

But you promised to come back, long time ago.
You remember?

It happened again. The vulture came and perched on the sill.

But this time, unlike all the other times, it pecked on our windowpane. I unbolted the lid, lifted the frame, and offered some bread crumbs. It didn’t stir. I scattered the morsel on its feet, which it picked like fallen friends.

Aside from this long deserted corridor and abandonment lingering on my exhausted underwear, I wonder what I would have for breakfast.

I half expected that the stars would be reborn after its embers had disembarked. Like a dying flame on the grate, every night when you stir the coal and feed me with lies. In your flicker I have placed my heart, and let my flesh, my bones, my thoughts, be extinguished by its tongue. Only to be molded again, like months, like years, like centuries of false promises and interminable greed. All going on, forever.

And today, the sun had burnt itself into cinders. The ashes is everywhere. On our bedcover where we set the world aside and built an new one. On the wall which witnessed those infinite hours we had, those minutes when my bounty was as boundless as the sea, those seconds when you stared at me before you sleep. It lingers on the fabric of the clothes you last wore, before I heard the creaking steps of your departure, of which you were stationed in some distant place, of which you were told that your country was in grave danger, of which your patriotism is highly requested. Of which you complied. Of which you never returned.

You met another woman, I heard.

I hadn’t cleaned the room for ages. I desire to preserve your scent. Layers of sawdust are now resting on the looking glass, which had witnessed both our everlasting days and hideous crimes, which had shared my fear of you going, my anticipation of you coming back home, and my pain of learning that you were killed in the war, which the government had plotted in order to save the country’s dying economy.

You met another woman, I heard. And told her everything about me.

The vulture came everyday. I have known it for ages, had even fooled myself to befriended by it. The last time it perched on the sill was the last time I saw you, after you had received an order commanding you to join the military. Of which you cannot refuse. Of which, in this continent, we have no choice, but to abide.

And now, it’s here again. And had perched again.

The country requires the service of our eldest son, I heard.

The vulture told me.

Paced back and forth
relentlessly and around
in that room
inside my head
without a window
but with shelves
lined with ruins
and old books
beside the solitary bed
amidst the broken wings
of starving dragonflies.

In that place
with a way in
but not a way out

he breathes.

In flare and in consuming woods,
your kisses fell
like elusive embers.

In that flickering labyrinth
of watered avenue
which floods out of your chest

and poured unto mine,
beating faster,
and chasing the sound of your gasps

The sunbeams fell.
And all the leaves yellowed.
And all the years ceased.

And time spread its wings
Where we laid, spent
bodies strangled against the flowing current
Of both our hesitating and certain flights.

Then slowly, very slowly,
the sun burned itself
into cinders.

Because in every fleeting encounter,
we watch all these.

Each and every time.

Later, I will write a statement welcoming the graduates in the real world.

You know, that world they never told them about: the kind of world that will compel them to wake up at 5:00 in the morning, eat, ****, **** in a limited span of time, do a job repetitively for 8-10 hours which will eventually deprives them of their human growth and dignity in exchange of a mere salary - a portion from the total amount of money which the workers themselves had essentially generated.

Later, I will write a statement welcoming the graduates in the real world.
You know, that oppressive world they will inevitably despise
then eventually overthrow.

There is something peaceful
in University of the Philippines
at the end of the semester
after the rain

with nothing in it
but the sound of the night,
the occasional bouts of lightning,
the crunch of the footsteps,

and the passing vehicles.

And darling,
I would like to walk around the campus with you
while everyone
is far, far away.

But I think I would have to yield for now.
I can't think straight.
And struggling to keep my consciousness.
Indeed, I can barely hold unto it.

Good night.

I'll be waiting in my dreams.
In that world of endless happiness,
secret longing
and resurrected hopes.

Please, don't be late.
Don't be late.
Say you will still love me in the morning,
Before I go.

*I will love you in the morning of this day and the next.
I will love you on every morning you awaken,
and even the ones you will miss.
I will love you to the point time no longer makes sense.

We yearn for truth,
and seek beauty in life.

When we run out of words,
let our eyes do the talking.
Let the world silence our verse.
Let our bodies explain the actions.

We are infinite.
We are growing.
We are the essence of humanity.

I am yours, and you are mine...

We will search the world,
every rock,
and every path...

when there is no more terrain to cross

we will search the sea,
then the sky,
then the universe.

They convinced us
that title
promotion
wage amount
regard
and popularity


are all that matters.

And in retrospect,
You will find
the good things.

Once there was a girl
in a far away place
who wrote thousands
and thousands
and thousands
and thousands
of endless letters

but sent not a single one.

Her hands enclosed his
around the railing
of the crumbling wheel.

She could almost taste
the sweat of the people
suspended in mid-air.

Their arms against their arms.
The sky
over their shoulders.

Birds flared past.
Past the windows.
Past the veins

which wrapped her fingers
which wrapped his fist
like a world

being encompass.

“It seems to me
as if every word in English language
is inadequate to describe us,” she said.

“We’re perfect.”

How's the day so far?

Busy.
Busy.

Apparently, yes.

But....
BUT
I am thinking of you,
and your hand in mine...

As we explore the woods. Ha.
Because I kept on asking you.
To walk with me.
This and that far.

And so we explore this woods that grows inside our head
with each passing day.

I ache for you,
for your taste,
your skin,
your warmth.

Show me how we are made, my love.

*We are made of fiber,
of hidden moon.
In this tormented city,
we are made to dissolve,

in shadows,
in whispers,
in flare.

In this bedroom
with clattered papers
and dusty bags
and unwashed clothes and endless dreams

glittering and fading under the solitary light.

Truth is, I am somewhere else
somewhere near the shore
collecting sea shells
while the wind passed through my hair

my parts being scattered everywhere.

Maybe this is just a dream
this towel hanging lifeless on the headboard
the half-opened closet mouth gaping at me
the walls asking where I have been

the water bottle demanding a refill.

Maybe the truth is I am somewhere else
Somewhere, where sadness is far away.
Maybe I am sitting on a bench or inside my head
or in some star at 3 o'clock in the morning

*Waiting for your arrival.

You are
the bitter taste of coffee --
a lump of spite
and insecurity in my throat.

You murdered everything
long ago and turned us into rubble
yet you have not really moved on
from your paranoia

and cowardice
and bitterness
and hesitations
and poetry

that reeks nothing
but unrequited love
and cheap hunger for
pathetic attention.

You may hide behind
your computer screen
yet you cannot arrest your insecurities
from transcending these digital borders,

polluting my coffee
and forming this lump of spite
in my throat
demanding to be noticed.

Please, do us both a favour --
dissolve yourself into nothingness
and do not, don't ever
live once more.

December arrived
and knocked on the door.
And I slumped on the chair
and stared at the ****.

You said that I should work. You said that I should work hard. You said that I should save some penny, so I would have some, for the future. So, in our sheer effort to earn a living, we have practically forgotten how to live.

I guess, I must say ******* *******. In the first place, I am not even sure if I would still be here the next minute. Why should I worry about tomorrow?

Why should we care?


*Your Individualist Daughter

Believe me,
the blank page in front of me
the one attached on the monitor has its own face.
It makes my finger tremble,
***** incoherent words.

It looked bright, but vacant
as if married to someone
but without love
like life without meaning
existence without purpose.

For countless times I heard it sighed
a heavy, heaving sigh
a sigh that exhaled past lovers
dissolving on the creased bed sheet
and reappearing underneath the unwashed blankets.

Their egos bruised.
Their names old.
Their home in the labyrinth of yesterday,
in a village somewhere in the world
that revolves between their uneven breath.

Their stories stacked,
in the deepest corner of a human heart.

No one could unearth them.

Pure bliss, I'd say
Stare into the air
and think of you.

The masterpiece of my own volition.

So, I went to our old place
Days after you flew back to the US.
And all I can think of
are the various ways
to brace myself.

Then I opened the door.
Then I smelled us.

And that was life
this afternoon
here in the Asia Pacific
in our old place

with all our dreams
and all our books
and our tiny bed.

If I fall asleep,
I will summon you to my dreams.

*Aye.
Wait for me near the train rails.
Or old shed.

The sun is slowly sinking
a wreck on the ocean
trapped in its inevitable destitution.
Steaks of endless goodbyes
loomed over people's shoulders.

While atop the mountain
the streaks of glittering hope
eradicated the darkness
hovering round the wreck
annihilating annihilation.

Between them lay
various forms of forever
in the stretch of the ocean
in the interminable look in their eyes
as they stand on the edge
of the opposing precipice.

Their arms extended
under the same sky.

I do not do well without you for a whole day...
I think of you all the time.
Wishing you were here with me...
So I can lean over
and whisper how beautiful I think you are...
Then steal a kiss...

Just a gentle brush of my lips
upon the canvas of your neck and mouth.

I will always remember
your hair cloistered between my fingers.
The dimness of your room
Your half shadowed face inches above mine,
snow flakes on your forehead,
melting between us.

Your mouth half-opened
the entire universe trembling inside.
Your voice encompassing me,
all over,
tearing me apart.

I will always remember
how you scarred my skin
and how,
every single day,
I searched the trail of your breath

Between the years we could have defied,
Between the oceans we could have swallowed,
Between the destinies we could have cheated
Between the words we could have said,
Between the summers we could have captured

and stuffed in that small hole on my chest
screaming your name,
demanding to be eaten
by you.

In a hurry,
the legs of the ant traversed the length of the electric wire.
Half way,
the animal hesitated,

turned round,
met my gaze,
ceased walking
before finally walking away.

It must have understood my plea
to be left alone.

If I dissolve these words
among these clouds
drifting above me,

will it take the form
enough to tame the stars
so I could pick some

to be stitched
and wrapped round your neck?

Happiness
Is too safe,
Too ordinary.

It deprives me of my verses.

This space
between you and I
is exhausting.

No coiled, inseparable bodies.
Just this space,
and cold academic tasks.

Yes,
I desire intimacy.
Like an actual human being.

And right now
you were somewhere else
Eating lunch.

We are melodramatic
We are lovers.
We are romantics.
We are poets.

Aye. The romantics. The lovers. The melodramatic. The poets.

:)

*And they love each other

Until I dissolve
among the series of old verses
and forgotten scars.

In a hurry,
the legs of the ant traversed the length of the electric wire.

Half way,
the animal hesitated,

turned round,
met my gaze,

ceased walking
before finally walking away.

It must have understood my plea
to be left alone.

Nick, I am a bit drowsy.
But hey, listen.

When that day comes
your hair finally gone,
or the remaining strands turned grey
or white and wiry,

when that day comes,
I want you to know
that I will still love you.

Always remember that.

But I'm too intoxicated
and every word
seems never enough.