i am sorry that the world looks down
on your skin
on the darkness of it
calling it ugly
unsightly
i am sorry
for the comrades you've lost
(mothers fathers sisters brothers
innocents)

i am sorry that
people shame you for
the color of your skin
as if you can do something about it
as if it were a curse
when all it does is symbolize
the strength
the tenacity of your people

i am sorry that society
breathes down on your necks
burns your fingers
whips your backs
i am so sorry so sorry
for everything

to every family that has lost someone to the war on drugs, i offer you a piece of my heart. take it and make it yours.

when the other children ask if i miss you, i answer no. how can i miss someone who has not even left? you are still alive, i feel it; i know it to be true. you live in the paper thin walls of our home, a ghost lingering on the dining table.

(i'm sorry there's hardly any food laid out. sometimes mother forgets to buy any or her hands shake too much for her to cook -- i don't know if it's from the cigarettes or the lambanog. brother is always out nowadays, trying to make money. he leaves before the sun is up and comes home long after mother has gone to bed. i think they're like this because they can hardly bear to look at your seat without dying a little more.)

grandmother tells me to talk some sense into mother. "just because he died doesn't mean she can let her children die too. she is just sad. she needs someone to talk to." what she means is: comfort her. but i wonder. what comfort can you offer a dead man walking?

sometimes i stare at the sky from the hole on my ceiling, and i wonder which star is you. is it the bright one that is always at the center of my vision? the one a little ways to the left? on better days, brother joins me and takes my hand in his. i swear it's almost like you're back, laying beside me.

it's hard without you here. we miss you. when i see the other children and their fathers -- whole, unhurt, *alive -- i feel a pang of pain. it's like hearing the gunshot all over again.

i don't know if you were still alive then, but i was the one who called for help. i screamed until my lungs gave way to the torrent of pain that filled even the spaces between my bones. i don't know (nor do i wish to) if you were still alive or if you had already had a taste of sunset.

it's a little funny. you had promised me we'd go to the lake that day. just you and i. you had gotten a job the week before and you wanted to celebrate with your favorite daughter. (i didn't have the heart to remind you i was your only daughter.)

and i want you to know i am holding you to that promise. when we meet again. in space. heaven. eternity. in whatever version of the afterlife we end up in. we'll go to the lake.

just you and i.

i wonder how you do it
how the words can slip so easily from your chapped lips
how your mouth wraps around the vowels and the consonants so snuggly
as if your mouth was made for that purpose and that purpose only

****. *****.

i wonder how you can say  these words
without the slightest hint of remorse
no guilt in your tone
no regret in your voice
void of all emotion except scorn
hatred

do these words **** ***** ***** harlot scarlet woman roll off your tongue
as easily as your glory bes your hail marys your our fathers

does your hatred come as easy as saying your amens?

maybe it’s because she hides iron fists
in soft velvet gloves.
maybe it’s the authority dripping off her tongue
like honey
slow, and sweet and overwhelming
maybe
just,
maybe it’s because
she’s a woman.

i am capable of anything
because I am a woman
and the blood in my veins
is centuries old
one part iron, two parts *magic

listen to the sound of my voice
the lilt and the odd mix of Filipino and American
(i blame my parents and all the Winnie the Pooh
they forced on me)
listen to the softness
to the uncertainty
listen to my voice
hear the o's and the a's and the odd way i say
my e's
listen to the sound of my voice
while it still sounds like
dripping honey and daisies in the wind
listen to my voice as i speak about rocket ships
and the moon

in between the i'm sorrys and the forgive mes
and the screaming at three AM
the plates colliding with paper thin walls

in between the heated glares
the fire in your eyes that has cooled down to sputtering embers
a reminder of a flame that once threatened to burn the world down to ashes
that was how much i loved you

in between all of the glass shards
that've made a home in the wreckage between us

i wonder
if you regret any of this
if you spend all your shooting stars
on wishing we had never met
the same way i do

am i pretty enough for you
when i stain my wrists crimson
as i cry myself to sleep
my demons greeting me with
skeletal arms that are always open for me

am i pretty enough for you
when i rub myself raw
in the hot spray of my shower head
as i cleanse the grime that coats my blemished skin

am i beautiful enough
will you finally write sonnets about me
wtite epic tragedies
plays in my honor

darling i am a walking apology
im sorry i cant be beautiful enough
but maybe if i cut off the parts of me i don't like
the fat that hangs off my belly
the jiggle in my thighs
the too flat nose

you'll finally love me back

i guess missing you came in stages
none of it was overwhelming
it was just there
a you-shaped hole right in the center of my being

first came the sadness,
everyday was waking hell
and i'd remember how much you joked about leaving me behind
now that it was real i could hardly function
but the sadness didn't last for long

after that winter i was filled with fire
it was anger that numbed my senses
anger at you
at us for not honoring the promises we made

now it is autumn and i lay my head to rest
in the arms of my new lover
she does not have your smile
or the softness of your voice
but she is.

i wonder which star you are
despite it all
i still wonder about you
Cassiopeia seems to be bidding me to sleep

plant your feet firmly on the ground
let your roots spread out
let your bark harden
so that children may carve their names on your trunk
that lovers may reminisce the time the scratched their initials on you
when life was simple and pure

touch the clouds with your branches
let your leaves wither
in the fall
but let them grow back
in the spring
let them turn green then brown and red and orange
all the colors
let the snow gather on your branches
white and stark against your bark

beware of forest fires
the flames that lick your green green green
leaves
and the men who carry
blades across their backs
shouting
"timber"

     grow, love
                            **grow

for some reason i always write the most in january. the words seem to flow out of me --- a tsunami, monsoon, typhoon --- of words I've been aching to bleed but never have the time nor patience to set free. words that have festered in the crevices of my mind for who knows how long. words that I've kept close to my heart, like a pendant, a talisman perhaps.

and it's not like I'm complaining. writing, after being away from it for so long, makes me feel like a soldier coming home to his wife. he bears the marks of war on his skin, in his mind, in the hollowness in his eyes. he is glad to be rid of the gunshots that riddle his sleep, glad to be back home in loving arms, but he cannot shake the feeling of being inches away from death, no.

writing again is coming home, but it's not the same. there is a rustiness in my fingers, in the muscles that make this thoughts into coherent strings of symbols. there is an absence i cannot shake off.

but God knows i will try.

every night i wish on stars
i wish that i had been born with endings
because all i have are beginnings
too many to count
loose ends
fraying thread on a patchwork quilt
i am all beginnings and absolutely no endings
and i wish more than anything
that i wasn't
i wish i was more than reckless abandon
more than leaving things to the wind
more than crumbling buildings
more
i wish i was more than beginnings

she has so much love in her heart
a portion for her mother
another for her father
two parts for her sisters
and the rest for every one else
she spreads her love so thin,
so far and wide that
she forgets to love herself

on some days
i feel like my body is a museum
a collection of oddities---
     crooked teeth,
           mismatched eyes
i think,
maybe i am just an amalgam of
skin and bones that jut out too much
arms too skinny to be healthy
skin too pale to be normal

just a collection of oddities

on those days i feel like i will never be loved
my mother cringes when she wraps her strong arms
around my fragile body
my father frowns at my sorry state
when i look at them i realize that
no one will ever venture into my seas for they are far too
     rough
            icy

looking at the mirror reminds me of the turbulent waters that
my body holds
the stormy oceans that lies beneath my sun damaged skin
reminds me that i am a grimy museum, all dusty and crumbling

a collection of oddities