Sa aking pagiisa alaala mo'y aking kaulayaw

Ang dilim na bumabalot ay ang bisig mo

Ang dampi ng hangin ay ang marubdob **** halik

Hinahanap-hanap ko ang amoy mo

Ang marinig muli ang iyong halakhak

Maramdaman ang marahan **** paghinga

At ang init nitong kumikiliti sa aking leeg

Ang pakinggan ang musikang likha ng iyong dibdib

Sa marahan at maharot nitong pagkabog

Nilalangoy sa bawat tingin

Manaka-nakang mapapapikit

At ikaw nama'y patuloy sa pananaliksik

Lulunurin kita sa aking panunukso

Ikaw nama'y patuloy sa pagsuyo sa aking mga labi

Nilalaro ang guhit sa iyong palad

Inuukit ang ngalan at ang gabing iyon

Nakasanayan na ang paghagod sa iyong buhok

Linya ng pagngiti ay kabisado na

Hinaharana ako sa gitna ng dilim

Kay higpit ng iyong yakap

At ako'y napapasinghap

Bawat bahagi mo ay naging parte ko

At bawat parte ko ay naging bahagi mo

Tayo ay naging sanlaksa

Nanganak ng mga “ako”

Bumuo sa “tayo” ng uniberso

…

Maayos na ang kobrekama

Malamig ang titig nito

Punyal na tumatarak sa dibdib

Dugo ang bawat paghinga

Bakas ay nilamon na..

Tanging sa isip na lamang kita

makakasama sa tuwina

Nagngingitngit ang aking mga kamay

Mata ay pilit sinasara

Ang katotohana'y ikaw ay malayo na

Pinalaya.

Ikaw sana'y lumago

Ang dilim ang magkukubli sa pagluha

Ang hangin ang bibingi sa sakit

Humayon ka ng mag-isa.

I never lost my virginity
At the age of 19
To a boy who promised
That it will not hurt
I never bled
I never bit my lips
I never cried

I never slept with a writer,
Musician, chemist,
An engineer or even a *******
I never tried a pregnancy test kit
I am not scared
Of those two red lines

I never loved my best friend
Or those strangers
Who painfully ripped my body
I love those stains
Of a long forgotten past
Embedded on crumpled sheets  

I was never molested
When I was 5 or so
It was just a game
I never cursed that night
I never hated my brother

I want men to crave for me
I never wanted their affection
I don’t want to ******* **** them
On streets in the middle of the night
With cat calls

I am not depressed
I love my scars
I never took ******
Just to sleep at night
Or wept in the middle of nowhere

I am a strong woman
I am not damaged
I ******* hate this life
It’s too beautiful for someone like me  

This is not a poem
Of a broken girl
I am okay.
I wanna live.
I am not a liar.

A happy girl
Wrote this
Waiting for her prince charming
To free this damsel in distress
From the tower of anguish
And to live happily ever after

A card given by a stranger
With a poem written down clumsily
“Don’t die like a rose,” it says
A girl sitting at the back
Holding her sketch pad,
pencil, watercolour, and paintbrush
Lines, curves, dimensions—
Submerge in a nightmare
Lost in a maze of
Unforgotten memories
Her body is damaged
Skin peeling off
As she tries to find her way back
“Don’t die like a rose,” it says
She has nothing left
Only a pile of poems,
Stories, drawings
That holds a secret
Everyday misery becomes
Her good lover
It sings as she sleeps
Cuddling her in the darkness
Of a room filled with ghosts
Misery showers her with
Anguish of morning kisses
“Don’t die like a rose,” it says
There are no longer fireflies
That stay in her eyes
Her lips are out of colour
Unlike her drawings
Spilled with red, orange,
green, and black
A world she creates
Freeing her soul
Letting it soar to join
The hues of a sunset  
“Don’t die like a rose,” it says
But beautiful stranger,
She died a thousand times
Death is her friend
She’s been waiting for
To take her away
In those vast universe
Of stars, daffodils, cigarettes,
Metaphors, violins
She longs to run in the meadows
Where grass dances
As she smiles finally

September 7, 2015

From the shell
I hear the ocean waves
I know it's calling me
Come here, you little one
Listen to my song
Come here, you little one
The seashore is waiting for you
Feel the sands consume your feet
Come here, you little one
Pick up those starfish
Keep them it's my gift
Come here, you little one
Let me kiss your body
******* tears
salty like yours
Come here, you little one
Build me a castle
I promise I won't erase
Come here, you little one
Write your name
As you stumble with pebbles
Come here, you little one
I'll take you wherever you want
May it be at the depths of my soul,
Explore my vastness
You'll see how much you mean to me
Come here, you little one
I offer you a rest
Sail with me
Come here, you little one
And you'll never be alone again

I saw a little girl
By the window
Blowing bubbles
Small and big
Upon the street down
The sun was beginning to rest
Kissing my face
With golden rays
I looked at her
And she smiled at me
I envied her—
I kept on walking
Ignoring the sounds of murmur,
Footsteps and laughing
I’d been sleeping all day
But no matter how
I tried to escape reality
I always woke up
With dreams  
That bothered me.
Little girl by the window
Let me be just like your bubbles
I will soar up the sky
And pop in a minute or two
Thank you, little girl
Keep smiling
The world is yours

I looked up
And saw the sun at its zenith
But I'm so high
There were rainbows
Dancing before my lips
I remembered how you kissed me
For the first time
You were not that good
But I'm so high
I don't care
We both get drowned
From a blazing fire
Within our own skin
We're so high
We've made love until the
Sun goes down
With a tinge of pink
There's no more rainbows
Only Charlie the Unicorn
With his awkward voice
I cried for irritation
But you laugh
And nailed your stare at me
I search your face
For a star
Only to found out an unstrung guitar,
Mess in your room,
And unlit rolled of paper
But we're so high
You turned on the light
You wanted me to go home
The sky was falling
I can hear Van Gogh's singing
As he cut his ear off
The dream catcher crying
Of all the memories its hanging
And we're not high anymore
I was soaring up above
Serenading the lonely moon
We create our own oblivion
When we're high

These are memories not to be told. Even the random words spilled across these sheets.
You and that night are strangers to me. I am trapped in a labyrinth of anger, vengeance, and disgust— I can still feel the weight of your body, how your lips created small sounds as it landed on my skin. A punishment I did not deserved. A game I should have not played. I hated the moon for it silenced my screams that wanted to say everything. Unknowingly, you killed me that night. You took away a parcel of my childhood. Ever since then, I was not myself anymore. And my body is now a mere vessel for a broken soul.
Lately, I have been waking up to nightmares— surfacing from the bottom of piled boxes of forgotten memories. I want to keep running away. Even my feet are bleeding. I always look up at the stars above hoping that they would soon take me. But I am just nobody.
On at the other side of the world, a little girl is crying. Her hands are trembling with fear. Someone has devoured her body. And yet, she is still alive. And a boy next door is banging his head on the floor boards. Blood is dripping and dogs are barking.
A man hides a knife in his pocket as he knocks on his daughter’s room, calling her name softly. A group of boys holding a girl they just picked up on the streets. Showering her with wet kisses in exchange for buying the strings of sampaguitas in her naïve hands.
A wife clutches the sheets of the bed as her husband slides inside her. She sees his eyes as the color of the rose he had given her on their first anniversary. She no longer knows the man on top of her. She bites her lower lip to keep herself from weeping. She is in her sixth month of pregnancy.
He looks up at his hanging body. They’ve been together for six years. And he doesn’t what went wrong. The church says it’s a sin to have relations with the same ***. Society despised them as if they were mere dirt in this world.
A college girl lies in an unknown clinic with a woman standing beside her. She is surrounded by bottles with fetuses inside. Her boyfriend cheated on her. Her family is waiting at the dining table staring at her vacant chair.
All these are happening all over the world. You are not alone with the struggle. Keep holding on.

I was lying on the stone bench
Where crickets serenaded
The naked moon above
I stared blankly at the vast sky
With a lit cigarette in my hand
Smoke moving upwards
And drowned in the midst
Of the dark
A lonely star caught my eye
Gleaming as if crying
How I wish I could fly
And kiss the northern star
We will explode
And fall unto the ocean of
Bliss and oblivion
Take me now, lonely star
For I, too, was aching

A lamp post.
Light reflects through the window.
Trees shadows.
A firefly.
Closed museum,
Vacant tables and chairs of a café,
One pack of cigarette.
A book.
–
A girl sitting alone.
Struggling to write—
To fill in the emptiness inside her.

She lit the last stick,
  Playing with the smoke

She is lost
And sick.

Of laughter’s by a nearby crowd

Through the bushes hides a cicada

Singing the song of the night.
…

Stop staring at the sky
There are no falling stars to wish upon.

Go home.

Before loneliness struck your heart

No one wants you.

And your bed is a deathbed waiting for you.

Mom, I wanna go home
Open the door to your daughter
Don’t say anything
If I look like a mess
Prepare the bathtub
I have to wash away
All these touches and kisses
From those strangers
Who made me their graveyard
But no matter how I rub
It seems to live inside my skin
Mom, I wanna go home
Without the tinge of alcohol
In my dress
Smell of smoke that crawled
In my hair
Blood shot eyes
And a missing underwear
Mom, I wanna go home
Leave this life in the city
Crowded of lonely people
To see the fireflies
In our mango tree
To cross the old bridge
And afternoon naps
With the music of cicadas
And the feeling of lying
Against the bamboo floor
Mom, I wanna go home
To get rid of bed sheets
And used condoms
With stains of my period
Moans not from tickling sensations
But cries of a miserable heart
Mom, I wanna go home
To escape the nightmares
Of **** lullabies
Of lit cigarette
Of men who bled for my body
Mom, where are you?
Where is home?
I couldn’t find my way back
Please help me.