Ever felt so guilty about having done something you shouldn’t have done? How do we overcome such guilt? How do we forgive ourselves? Every crack of dawn and every approaching dusk, we fear being reminded of our wrong doings. All we want to do is forget that it ever happened. Sometimes, we live every single day with a constant reminder of such things and feel so lost yet liberated that the truth is out in the open. We feel so caged yet freed from the burden of bearing a hidden confession. We feel so ashamed yet lucky to be given another chance to once again become that person we know we want to be. We feel so neglected, undeserving of trust and at the lowest point of self-esteem yet we feel the power of our prayers would give us another life to live it like we could never again commit such a sin.

This poem emblazons the message underlying in our struggles to surmount our better selves from who we used to be. We know we will conquer our hardships and can see ourselves on the greener side of our own emotional quotient but let’s not forget how many doubts, fears, questions, rejections, isolation and punishments it takes for us to climb in order to stand right at the top. That top spot is very much ours, we very much deserve it, and we have every single step from the quagmire to the sky to credit for our liberation.

This is my second Filipino poem and probably my longest work yet. It looks unfinished really. As much as I want to finish it, I ran out of words and creative juices. This basically sums up the experience of my first cigarette. And it was... not bad.