Tayo dapat kamo
ang mga pangalan ng Zodiac natin.
Ano ang iniisip mo,
na ang mga tala ay iaayos ang sarili nila
para sa ating dalawa?
Wag ka nang umasa.
Pero gusto ko ang ideya.
Sige, tayo na lang
ang magpangalan ng ating kapalaran.

Lift it to your lips
& let what falls adrift in the form of ash
dissolve in the wind
as dried bone thrashing,
bashing against dust & grit.

Pull; take a long hit.
Dregs to be kept until last in the bottom
of your broken lungs,
taken as deep as breaths:
to rattle against your teeth.

"O", takes the lewd shape
of your chapped mouth as you break free
from your caged-in chest,
skeletons left sat, to wallow
as ashen bones & yellow teeth.

Hold your knuckled joints
against tenderest flesh of your upper lip
& sniff, as if a try to void
all signs of violent backslides
to clandestine nicotine meetings.

Flick blanked eyes to lit but
dying embers ground between sole & soil,
& morosely swear never
another, not one more; after
this next one, this last one, never.

In
and
out
my mouth
you go

feeling every inch of my warm heat
with your inanimate cold
with a streak of burning mint
and brutally
like a finger made of plastic

scrubbing my teeth,
scraping my tongue,
sliding against my hollowed-out cheeks
mercilessly,

and my gums begin to bleed
and the mint is stained with blood
and the white has become pink
and it burns
it burns

but I guide you.

Looks like burnout
Tastes like failure
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

Waste paper & ink
via corporate endeavors—
no doubt noble.
Vicariously sit still
or swivel around—
Oh, corporate freedom!
The aircon's never felt this
cold,
the coffee never this
expensive (& free, but
a mirage is a mirage.)
the elevator never this
wild & brimming with life.

Braindead oblivion
is a natural high.

At this advanced stage
of our labiodental skirmish
& alveopalatal explorations
Words won't come anymore

Only mangled morphemes going
in & out of you going
in & out of me
Only tangled utterances tripping
over themselves in utter haste
Shapeless & shameless

Proper articulation is abandoned
along with all other senses
of propriety

& The critical period is past
& The critical period is coming

& Words won't come at all
but even if they don't

Using my tongue
I can still make you

(I was bored I
couldn't feel things I
started to cut myself last night)

Red razor blade streaks criss-cross
on the terrain of my wrist;
like the grooves in my skin,
magnified and coloured.

Drops of blood formed
in the paper-thin slits
not like geysers, or rivers,
but mountains of bright crimson.

(The sight is interesting the
pain is exhilarating the
fear is mind-numbing)

This morning,
the bleeding lips
sealed themselves.

(And tonight, I will do it again.)

I hate the way the wind steals centimeters of my cigarette,
hate the way it shares my moment of silence
without me even knowing. I hate how it just
comes, unbidden, & sets everything aflutter,
unsettling things that are easily shaken
(like leaves,
like trash,
like me)
& leaving in its wake a trail of overturned things,
messed-up things,
displaced things.
I hate the way it ruffles my hair,
blows in my ear, touches my face.
I hate how I can't see it even though it's there,
& I hate how I can't see it even though it's everywhere.
I hate how it just comes & goes,
without saying a word,
without making a sound.
I hate the way the wind's left me;
dishevelled, & caught unawares,
cigarette blown away.

I hate the wind for staying so, so silent.
I hate the wind for not staying.
I hate the wind just *so ******* much

the seam of your undershirt,
stretched straight across the valley’s crest
of your back, creasing through
the fabric of your shabby purple
sweater, highlighted by shadows cast
upon your form by the languid yellow
of the streetlights lining the street at
six in the evening, when everything
is blue & black, & dumb gray
is the atmosphere, ringing with the
revving of the cars passing us by
in streaks of red & blindness,
blurring past us, to the rhythm of
the rise & fall of your shoulders &
the sway of your hips, perfectly in
view as you walk ahead, unaware
of my stare, boring deep into the
dip of your spine’s abyss, thinly sheathed
by the taut stretch of your undershirt
draped over by your flimsy sweater,
mauve in the dim light, & through the haze
of gray escaping my lips, forming a wall
gossamer-thin before my face, streaming
in between my vision & your form, your
image of purple, mauve, silent, in the
blue & yellow, of black-brown bob hair
glinting in the sharp pierce of the dull
fireflies overhead, dead, undancing,
fixed atop their posts as beacons,
but jaded, faded, & damp,
like the purple of your sweater.

It’s a lift that people get on
when there are a hundred floors
to climb; even Armageddon
can’t get past these sliding doors.

People press whatever button
that will send them on their way
to their meeting & discussion
& their business for the day.

Until one day, someone skipped church;
barely missed the sliding doors.
But the lift stood still, shook, then lurched,
slamming people to the floor.

& then people sat up to perch
on their knees & start to pray
that they’ll never again miss church
if they don’t run late today.

stumble over the rhythm you create
as if it wasn't yours.
trip over the syllables in haste
as you attempt to overtake them
before they run out of control.
this is not poetry;
this is just plain crassness.
you're a verbal klutz,
and it hurts our sensibilities.
you can't hear what you're saying,
you are driving blind
in the blizzard of words
and you have the audacity to think
you'll get out of this unscathed;
somehow revered
because of your valiant effort
and mediocre product.
a bad combination,
and you're bound to be
called out on it, for sure.
luck won't cut it.
you have to know what you're doing
and you have to be good at it.
so if you have nothing to say
that you'll be saying right—
nothing that will squeeze flesh
through clothes or break skin and teeth
or kick and scream—basically,
don't
even
try.

I am a crevice.
Everyone steps Close—
never in,
always on.
How can you?
It's Too Small.
Nothing in it will fit
But It.

I am a cliff.
People are Afraid,
of course.
To plunge to their demise
by Accident.
But would they skirt the edge
court the precipice of darkness
if they didn't want to know
Where it Ends?
When it Ends?
How it Ends?
If it Ends?

Of course, of course,
they never find out.
They never Move.
Nothing happens.
It tends to happen.

Then I become an abyss.
People are attracted
to the Mystery,
but they know it's Dangerous.
So they never fall in.

People can be wise,
holes can be empty,
and vice versa,
and what other adjectives
have you.

It's all the same.
Those who Almost fall
only futher Rip
the fissures apart.
Nothing is filled.
Nothing is healed.

As I lie awake
flying inside my universe,
I wondered what it would feel like
if my lips, buzzing high,
grazes against yours.

The very thought
is not at all lewd;
it is modest, intimate,
and beautiful.

Shivers run up
and down my insides,
just the same.

The high is nothing
compared to this.

Feeling this, this, is my flight.