Four fingers.

One
for the time I
walked in circles,
unsure if the long walk would be
worth it.

Two
for the people I met --
long live the brief moment
I had to plant something in you.

Three
for the best ***** ice cream
I ever had;
combining cheese with strawberry
and avocado was a beautiful decision,
Manong.

Four
for the empty stone chambers.
I am here.
One day I will fill you
with wayward ones come home.

Onward, soldier.
Onward.

That’s what they all
tell me, but
let me
slow down for a moment.
There’s a little something I gotta
say,

Thank you.

To that swing set in Greenhills Music Studio
San Juan City,
without you,
I’d never have learned that sometimes
it’s the other way around—
feet in the sky and head on the ground.

Mrs. Arambulo, the swing set’s owner,
who made sure I was well versed in
sonatinas and arpeggio scales
before I found out they’d already made
a piano that didn’t need tuning, and

Ma, who’d test my memory by
asking me if I
could recite
whole paragraphs at age four,
she’s why I remember things like
the smell of pilmeni,
the color of our first house’s carpet,
and nine page spoken word poetry,

to everyone behind that old kids’ show, Bayani,
watching it in my
second grade HEKASI class
would bring me to tears each time — no kidding,
you all paved the way for my homeland’s history
to make its home in my heart,

my English teachers from
sixth all the way to eleventh grade,
who all believed and still believe in the words I put down on paper
and spew out on dark stages armed with imagery and the Spirit,
you made me fall deeper in love with the way words can be waves
or flames,

Dad, who taught me
to climb mountains, to read books,
to let myself run free among the nations
but to always remember to leave a part of my heart at home,

to the four little boys I met in Hong Kong,
if we meet again, I owe you a better explanation to your question,
“Why do you dance?”
thank you for asking me that, and I’m sorry for my cowardly answer back then
but I’m braver now, and
I promise it’s for more than just fun or exercise,
it’s for this God I hope you get to know,

and to every Philippine history teacher I’ve ever had,
keep teaching like that,
we need more young ones who’d be willing
to die for their homeland,
you taught me that there is so much more to this country
than its own people tell me, so
burn on.
and make sure they catch fire.

Onward, soldier.
Onward.*

I’m not sure where I’m headed,
but I’d rather be uncertain of the road ahead
than forget
where
I started.
I’ve told you mine, now

tell them yours.

Sumisigaw at
Sumisipa ang mga
Awit at tulang
Nilalabas ng iyong
Daliring nanginginig.

Ganito ang pag-
Ikot ng mundong ito:
Tuloy-tuloy lang.

I have hands that won’t keep
to themselves.
They are always rummaging
and dancing and clapping
and snapping and opening
and closing and trying to fix
every
single
broken thing they can find.

And that includes you.

My heart is a bottomless pit for aches.
Not mine, but yours.
It’s almost a cursed thing, how
despite its size being only that of my fist,
my heart always finds a way to squeeze in
some new hurt into the spaces that
before you,
I never knew existed.
There they stay;
and like all things that stay,
with enough time,
become part of their surroundings.
I can’t tell whose cut is whose anymore.

Put me in a room full of people.
Blindfold me.
Spin me like a tornado.
Make me stop.
My outstretched fingers will be reaching
for the most broken souls in the room.

Call it compassion. Kindness. Empathy.
Whatever you like,
but there is a fine, fine line between that
and the way I bleed.
Oh,
how I bleed.
Forgive my boldness when I say
I won’t even try to make you understand
the fact that I do
somehow
understand.
Think of it this way: ripples.
And I always get the last one.

I’m still a child.
I like to play pretend.
I’m a doctor.
I’m a superhero.
I’m the one with all the answers,
all the weapons,
all the magical cures.
Take that!
And that!
Ha! Aha! Ha!
Ha…
Ha.
As the years wear on,
I see that my tools aren’t right,
and that my cape is too tight around my neck.
I don’t have all the answers.
No weapons.
No magical cures.
I’m just a girl trying to play the part that was never hers.

And it’s taken me three volcano boys,
a couple of glass-bottomed hearted girls,
and just about the rest of the world to realize that I
am not
the Savior.

My hands were not made to heal
every heart they rest themselves upon,
or to fill that vacuum inside every man,
one that nothing,
nothing,
nothing in this world will ever
make
whole.

So here.
I let go of every burden that’s been
causing me to stoop and to stumble,
every pressing weight that’s been
keeping me from keeping faith,
every heavy yoke that’s been
causing me to choke on things
I never should have let in
in the first place.

Yet I will continue to love you.
I have come to learn that love
has a lot of ugly before it becomes beautiful,
a lot of hurt before healing’s arrival,
a lot of you before any of me.
My part is done.
These fidgety fingers no longer carry suffering.
Here, let me see yours, though battle scarred and bruised.
You’ve been bearing more than you were built for, beloved.

I think it’s time to surrender.

This hour last week, we kissed the stars alive.
With you, there were no walls and no far seas,
No reason to doubt or to just survive,
My heart was with you, and yours was with me.

How cruel the souls of the gods above,
That they should mind our paths and our crossing,
That we should be the ones who fell in love,
A fate that led to a war-torn ending.

This hour last week, we danced to life the moon,
But we forgot that seasons come and go,
And now the red sun bleeds-- it bled too soon.
We can no longer love; I am the foe.

You hold your people's hate in your strong hands,
You shake and the gun sings of God's near land.

m hmm hmmhmm hmm
the tune is yours to carry
in this wounded city with its
cr    a    cked        ribcage
that is trying to hold its heart the same

stillbreathing, still breathing


m hmm hmmhmm hmm
gawing sa 'yo ang himig na ito
sa isang bayang dumudugo
kanyang tadyang may  la  m a   t
ngunit nais pa ring hawakan ang puso

humihingapa, humihinga *pa

as you lay in the mountain pass
breaths in heavy, choking gasps
trees bleeding
restless, reckless head throbbing
tell me


who did you see?