1 I am sorry for I have made Manila my backdrop again.

2. In pictures, I rarely show colors,

3. except when I am missing you. In the hues

4. of Baclaran, I got lost for a moment,

5. with its rush and reeks—

6. like a premonition of torment.

7. There is a woman in Harbor Square

8. almost entirely naked, with only her **** covered up.

9. She starts singing against the loud nightclub above Starbucks.

10. When asked for tips, my friend and I could only give a twenty.

11. Manila Bay reminds me of the pier near home—

12. both abandoned by the promises of high-rise hopes.

13. I tell Regina to look up in the night sky,

14. an airplane passes by, and we do not catch it on camera.

15. Instead, I shout at the top of my lungs, “HI MAMA!!!!!!!”

16. and tell her that I’ve been doing that since I was a child.

17. Calling my parents as if they could hear me

18. over the distant engine.

19. They’re in the clouds, I’m in our waters.

20. And in these very waters, my currents are unassuming.

21. All the people I have loved and have loved me

22. left me to chase airplanes, yet all my camera knows

23. is the bangka that sails me back home. Or the train

24. that takes me to stations of forgetting. Or the Carousel

25. that hops in corners of patience. In these very cities,

26. there is a certain uncertainty that only

27. my shutter speed can capture: hazy, ghostly, mapless.

28. Maybe love is faster than light and sound.

29. I was once told by my tarot reader Cecile

30. that my palm was a map to stardom. Apparently,

31. I was going to be known for my words. I do not

32. believe her. These maps in my hand seem all wrong

33. because they do not bring me to your knowing.

34. I write EXT. KATIPUNAN - NIGHT,

35. and wait for the words to come out.

36. Selfishly, there is no word I remember but your name.

Mula sa Coronet (Study) ni Daniel “Dansoy” Coquilla, Early 2000s
“Eklips” (2022) sa UP Vargas Museum

Sapagkat ang Maynila ay isang malaking prusisyong hindi nagwawakas. Bawat singit ng kalsada’y may sangsang ng kasikipan, busina ng pagdadalamhati, alingawngaw ng pagmamadali, at balisungsong ng pagkaligaw. Nagsisiksikan ang mga mukha ng pagkauhaw habang ang langit ay saksi sa kanilang karera palabas ng lungsod. Sakay sa nangangabayong gulong at namamangkang dahon. Ang terminal ng buhay ay pugad ng mga pasaherong nauungusan ng mga higanteng parisukat na makina.

Hindi nagsisinungaling ang kabulgaran ng tinta ni Dansoy: mapanghusga ang kalawakan sa mga nagkukumpulang deboto. At sa pagyakap ng malaking anino sa nagluluksang syudad, magliliyab ang mata ng mga mananampalataya—kapit sa manibela, nakatingala, nagbabakasakali sa kapusukan ng buwan.

Self-portrait is all the things
I have been and yet
to become:

a sunburn
waiting to heal
and blend with the rest
of my skin, a scar

in my armpit
from a summer lump
that almost made me
miss graduation—waiting to grow
back until I can finally afford
health insurance, my dead

strands of hair with roots
so vulnerable they drain
my bathroom of menstruating
floodwater, soaking
my feet at every shower.

Self-portrait is all the places
I have been and yet to be:
a boiling beach, a university,
a house so small for a woman
like me yet cockroaches
treat as a mansion.
A dermatology clinic, an abortion
hospital, a flood-free city.

Self-portrait is all the smiling faces
I leave in each place I have been
and yet to be, and all the sorrows
I take with me in each
passing healing.