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I bet you're not going to read this

I don't think you'll understand
The pain that you put me through

I hate how you underestimate me
That you think all I do at home is use my phone
And play games on my laptop
I actually study too, just so you know.

I remember all the days you made me cry
I felt like my insides are going to explode

I hate how you would never compliment me on anything
Not how I look, not how I do in school or anything

I remember you telling me I was useless
That I would never amount to anything

You never really realized I was depressed and heartbroken.

You never read any of my poems.
Because if you did, you would feel sad for me.
You'd realize I don't fit in to the perfect daughter cookie cutter.
I wish you could stop trying to cut me into that.
And just realize that I'm different.
I'm not the honor student,
I'm not the best in time management,
I can't get my life together.

Sometimes, I just wish I could turn back time
And make sure you and mom never met
So I don't have to be born
So I don't have to suffer
And so you don't have to handle a misfit teen.

I'm sorry.
I know I don't say this often.
It's not that I don't feel it,
it's just that I don't know how to put it

I'm sorry for being born
For having me as a burden
For spending 16 years raising a
heartbroken, depressed, abnormal teen.

I guess you're right.
That I will not amount to anything.
Look at me now.
I'm in my room, writing poetry.

But after all the torture,
I know you did it out of love.
I know you said it out of love.
I know you were thinking what's best for me.
I know you said things so you can push me harder.

I love you, dad.
No matter what happens,
No matter what you do or I do.
You raised me to be a teen that knows how to express herself.

But if you ever find this,
I just want you to know
I love you.
I love you so much.
I still love you after everything.
I will love you even after everything.
Happy Fathers' Day! :)
One day my words won't be for you any more.
One day these words are going to be for me.
These words are going to inspire,
They're going to help heal broken hearts - and reader, if my words cannot heal your broken heart then allow yourself to seek comfort in the fact that you can use your pen to bleed.
Ink and paper will harvest your tears and make art out of your wounds.
You have love to give as vast as the ocean,
just because you are living on the crumbs of someone's love does not mean that you will starve forever, nor does it mean that you will continue to drown.
The Wordsmith
He looked exactly like the type. A boy who would grow up to be a man married to a woman who would raise his beautiful children, three or five of them, would soon find himself facing a mid-life crisis. Bored and lost, he goes out to find himself---in the arms of another much younger, more beautiful woman. Finally finding what he has always been missing, he divorces his wife, blinded by the intense emotion he feels for the younger one.

He forgets--- they all forget that the youth are restless.
And he would soon find himself alone.

Watch out for the wordsmith. He comes in a distinct form. Hair unwashed for a day or two, beard long and over-grown; normally hunched with a hand underneath his chin, eyes luxuriously grazing through the pages of his book. In his bag a journal or a sketchpad, or maybe even both may always be found.

He is loyal to none but one: loneliness.

Beware of the wordsmith, his words will echo through the bowels of your mind after he has been long gone.

2. The Good-doer
He is perfect; the sort of fella that makes up every parent’s wet-dream. He would have graduated high school with honors, went home before his curfew, received a college-scholarship, and attends religious activities zealously.
You would see him for the first time in a congregation or talk of some sort, engaged in a deep conversation with a friend or two.
They might’ve been arguing about probabilities and theories; existential questions and what-not. You’d give him a second glance… or a third. You’d notice the book he holds and chat animatedly about it.
He’ll be amused, or in awe.
You won’t be quite sure which.
He’s the type who has never met a pretty girl who can hold intelligent conversation about books.

Raised well, he treats women politely and correctly, through and through a gentleman. But he secretly demeans them.

Stay away from this sort.

He’s bound to marry a trophy: a lady of the same background, who knows nothing but to raise children.
Five years down the road, you would see his picture-perfect family. They all happily walk out the doors of the church.

3. The Player
No. He is not a Casanova, not a smooth talker, not the Romeo. He is the man who never grew up. He is the one who is plagued with the Peter-pan syndrome, in constant need of stories and games. He will claim to need you—believe him. He does. Every baby needs its care-taker.
You would want to be needed the way he needs you. You would want to worry and fuss after him but you will tire, the way all mothers do.
Soon, instead of being thankful, he will grow weary of you. He will isolate himself in the bedroom. Playing endlessly the games you have gifted him; emerging from his cave from time to time—only when he’s ***** or hungry—never when you need him.

Years would pass him by.

He’ll realize how sad and lonely he has become.
One day, they’ll find him cold dead on the bedroom floor.

4. The Seeker
He knows what he wants and makes sure he gets what he wants. A top-notch business man, a CEO of some company; grew up in a rich family. This man knows what he wants and makes sure he gets what he wants.

Be sure you can’t be bought.

Lock your heart, for there lies your treasure. Treasure this dragon will surely devour.

5. The Savior*
He has always been there since Day 1.

You had never noticed... till *it was too late
.
It's not a poem, neither is it a short story.
Bawat isa sa aking mga minamahal ay nagsilbing simbolo
Mga mata nilang palaging nakatingin
Sa kaluluwa kong nakaukit sa isang bituwin
Naninirahan sa malayong kalawakan, na hindi-hindi kayang abutin.
Paisa-isa silang lumalapit sa napakainit na mundong aking ginagalawan
Sumasayaw, nang-aakit.
Kumakanta, sumasabit
Sa mga libo-libong batong umiikot sa aking kalawakan.
May isang minahal ko dahil sa dula
May isa namang minahal ko dahil sa libro.
Isa namang minahal ko…dahil ipinakita niya ang totoo.
We’ve been walking on this journey for years now, and I’ve held your hand long enough to know that when I slip into quicksand or miss a step, it is not you who lets go. Your fingers aren’t the ones coated in doubt or in selfishness, gripping firmly only when it feels right, when it feels necessary. Your hands are not made of brittle bone, shivering and breaking when the cold starts to show. Teach me to never let go.

We’ve known plenty of good weather. Safe landings. Skies full of stars and days of endless wind. Scraped knees were never a problem, we always seemed to be in fields of yellow and green, surrounded by miles and miles of running streams. There were times when I would purposefully stumble, thinking that it would be okay, I’d land elbows first in the faces of dandelions anyway. Other times I’d stray, not because of greener grass, but because I was too caught up smelling that single flower to see that you were calling me to the next meadow, where petals of a sweeter smell and prettier colors stretch out like a seascape. Teach me to give up my little treasures and desires, for yours are far better.

Sometimes I get a little adventurous. I tell you I want mountains. I tell you I want to climb, that I want the strain and the adrenaline rush, the thrill of letting pieces of hardened sand and pebble carry my whole weight, the challenge, the sweat, the blood. I tell you I want to see things from the eyes of God. I tell you I want to struggle and overcome. I tell you I want the soul of a deer, to plant my feet firmly on the narrow heights, I tell you I’m alright but when I’m actually in the process of the climb, in the process of the waiting, wondering which rock do I grasp next, which path do I trust with my steps, I tell you I’m not ready for mountains after all. But you did not bring me here to watch me fall, so teach me. Teach me to keep my ankles strong, and my hold on you stronger.

And when we tire of mountains, you take me to oceans. You know how much I love the saltwater mysteries, how my heart sings when I get to feel clumps of wet sand beneath the soles of my feet. And you know how much I don’t know about the waters, you know that it’s hard for me to tell when an undercurrent comes sweeping like thousands of tiny *****, that I can’t spot the difference between high tide and low tide until the waves are lapping at my door, that I still swim after jellyfish no matter how many times I’ve been stung, and how I forget that not every beautiful thing has beautiful intentions, and especially how oceans also terrify the breath out of me. One of my deepest fears is to die drowning, but still you row us out in a weathered boat into the middle of the sea, no life vests or whistles, nothing. We’ve had calm waters and dolphin mornings, we’ve had rough rowing and storms brewing, and each time you managed to put the thundering and rumbling in my chest to rest, and each and every time you’ve gotten us back to shore. But honestly, there are days I want to jump ship, sail my own boat, find my own sea, and some days I do. Those days I lose my way, those days I’m half drowned, but I turn around and find you there. Teach me to trust the one whose voice the waves and wind know.

Now here we are in a different kind of sea, the kind without water. This pit is abundant in ***** yellow devils, illusions and false promises, but all I have are questions and weary feet. Why are we here? Where are we going? Why did we leave? How am I going to shake off this mirage? When is it going to rain? After all we've been through, this is where you're taking me?

My path is an endless circle, a cycle using my sight, my heart, my feelings, my stocked up wisdom to judge my situation and I come to the conclusion that you have deserted me. But you haven't. And I don't understand how you stuck with me through hills and valleys, and never once thought of leaving, but you haven't. Your shadow is cast on me and peace overflows. Maybe I've been asking the wrong questions. Maybe instead of asking you where the stretch of sand ends, I should be asking you to teach me.

Teach me to love you in every season, whether it be the harshest of winters or the wildest of heats. Teach me to understand that deserts make me thirst for water, that I need to be lost so that I may be found, that without a battle there is no victory, that seeds die before they grow into trees. But before anything else, teach me to let the sound of your voice to be what guides me through winding paths and roaring winds, not which road looks smooth or which sky looks dim.

We've been walking on this journey for years now, and I've held your hand long enough to know that all this time you have been teaching me to fall in love with my eyes closed.
A spoken word poem written for Sali Production's benefit concert for Resources for the Blind, Mata, last month in Ortigas Park.

Also, I can't think of a title. Help.
Nasumpungan kitang nakabilad
Sa liwanag ng araw, isang imaheng
Nakalantad, huwad na anyo ng
Ritwal ng pagpupugay. Sa iyong

Anino'y nakasilong ang mga lantay
Na tayutay ng hungkag na lipunan.
Nariyan ang puta, pulubi, butas na lata,
Gago't ganid na pulitiko, librong limot,

Bendor ng droga, banal na aso...
Lahat sila ay mga ”sila" na minsan ****
Pinagtangkaang silaba't silain sa sulo ng
Mapagpalayang kamalayan.

Kamatayan.

Nasumpungan kitang nakabilad sa
Nakakabagabag na liwanag. Isang buhay
Na moog ng kalayaa't kasarinlan,
Kanlungan ng mga supremo ng rebolusyon

Ng paglikha't pagsilang sa kakanyahang
Iginapos sa lumang mundong lalang ng
Iyong panahon. Kami na mga gamo-gamo
Ng lumang simoy ay patuloy na isisiwalat

Yaong hindi masumpungan sa lambong
Ng liwanag na pinaningas ng iyong dugo.

Nawa'y matagpuan ka nila.
She was a broken puzzle piece
Not knowing where to go or what to do.
She tried to find a place in the world
She wanted to "fit in"
But she could never interlock with other people

He was the miracle in her life
He brought the happiness in her life when no one would
He brought the joy in her life when no one would
He brought out the best in her when no one could
He was the most beautiful, loving, kind,
compassionate, humble person in the world.
He was the love of her life.

She found herself in the world,
She found where she wanted to go,
what she wanted to do,
and how she could do it.
He was her inspiration in everything.

One day, she fell.
She fell from his love, mercy and grace.
She was lost again.
But when she found herself again, he found her.

That girl is me.
I fell in love with my creator.
The creator who knew me even before
I was formed in my mother's womb
He knew my name and carved it in his hand.

Today, still, I fall from his love.
I run away and hide.
But he always seems to find me.

I have given my life to him.
I have surrendered everything to him.
My hopes, my dreams, and my future.

I love Him.
I love Him.

I
Love
Him.
Does it ever cross his mind
that he never even left mine?
A scribbled thing on my planner last year.
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