I’ll never forget.
MiniStop, Intramuros.
2016?
I had long graduated, the mortarboard
now a naked head of hair. The gown
now dilapidated jeans, and an overfitting
shirt. The fancy shoes now knockoffs
caked with mud and grime.
The little store was hot. Small.
On walls: baby cockroaches took chances.
Trash bags dog-eared below snack concessions.
A brown goop spun, the tungsten overhead
made no noise. Was there music? Was there
some commentary about love or crudeness on the radio?

Always self-conscious, I retreat to
the inner racks. Magazines lay there vacuumed, unpurchased.
Outside the picture window, an afternoon beamed its sun kiss.
I think I didn’t end up buying anything, because before I could,
some college boys entered. At the instant, I turned to them
and felt curiously incensed. This odd duality of envy and sympathy.
I was you, I’m me now. I want you, I’m not you now.
To look that young yet mature, to have a schedule.
To saunter inside the store before, during, after class. The
choice to enter, to parade, to be so vital.

The college boys, their plackets, collars,
their image. These hot-blooded men finer than me, stronger
than me. All handsome, winsome, reckless and brimmed with
swagger. Me? I stood examining the force, the association.
We’re all merely similar men, and I’m at a similar age, and I can
be a similar form factor. Mimic their teflon skin; shed my stucco,
leatherbound flesh.

And as soon as I attempted to undermine their specificity,
I lost my own place. I found that there’s no connection at all.
Other than I know nothing about the boys,
and the boys know nothing of me.