seventeen should be the age of learning and falling in love
but here we have a boy
whose life was taken
whose call for help was loud with all the might
that the wild heart of a 17 year old could ever have
tama na po!
may test pa po ako bukas!
and these calls ended
in gunshots
in fabrication
in ignorance
as if there had never been anybody like him who dreamt of a tomorrow.

and it is hard to silence anybody who's seventeen and just about to thrive
but here they pinned his wings
shot him dead and cold
never stopping to think that they were not the authors of his story
that they had not one right to end what could have been a beautiful story right there and then,
only a decade and seven.

seventeen should be the age of learning and falling in love
but not anymore;
it is the year he called out for his life
only to have it taken by the hands of the merciless
of those who do not know better—
all his wild dreams ending in silence.