the glass stood tall once.  
       smooth, untouched,    
               shaped to expectation.  

then came the fall.  
the slip,  
         the drop,  
                 the ruin.  

hands hovered over the wreckage,  
  whispers of what was,  
    what could have been,  
       what will never be again.  

    no one wanted the pieces.  
           no one knew what to do with them.  
                they stared, they sighed, they left.  

      but someone stayed.  
             or maybe no one did, maybe just the dust.  
                    just the dust, and the silence, and the weight of absence.  

gold is a lie they tell to make it bearable.  

   it does not erase the cracks.  
      it does not restore what was lost.  
         it only makes the breaking visible.

   not untouched,  
           not perfect,  
                   but standing.  

   they call it beauty,  
             but it is only survival.  
                      they call it art,  
                                 but it is only memory.  

       if light filters through the seams,  
             does it mean it is still breaking?

i smiled when spoken to.  
         nodded at the right times.  
   dressed myself in fabric  
              heavy with approval,  
       let them rewrite my name  
                    in letters i could not read.  

   was this what they meant by righteousness?

           i stepped in line,  
             shoulder to shoulder,  
                  head to the ground,  
      voice swallowed whole.  

(do not stray.  
                 do not ask.  
                          do not falter.)  

   but when i prayed,  
             i found no voice.  
    when i knelt,  
                  i found no floor.  
    when i searched,  
                i found only mirrors,  
                           only echoes,  
                                      only dust.  

   was this what they meant by devotion?

         they said,  
  we will make you whole.
           we will scrape away the excess.
                   we will leave nothing but light.

   so i let them take,  
               let them pare me down,  
                         let them erase,  
                                   let them shape.  
(smaller,  
           softer,  
                      easier.)  

   but when i looked for myself,  
             i found nothing.  
   when i called my name,  
                         there was no answer.  
   when i reached out,  
                    my hands met air.  

was this what they meant by salvation?

Do you ever feel like your story is being written for you?
Maybe that’s why I write—
because when I look down, at least I know it’s mine.

How did I get so lost,
so far from what was once so bright?

Page after page keeps turning,
but my pen ran out of ink long ago.
Time keeps passing,
but the story unfolding isn’t me.

Maybe my story was never mine.
Maybe it belongs to someone else.
Maybe I’m just a book collecting dust
on a stranger’s shelf.

Maybe that’s why I write—
so that somewhere, buried in those pages,
there is at least one part
that is undeniably mine.

A life of many,
A life of not.
To know any,
To know rot.
I have seen,
for what I have not.
I have done to know,
That I cannot.
Escape my rage,
For I have wrot,
Is my own cage.
A nightmare,
That I broken.
A sage of mirrors,
For I have sought.
No reflection,
No dedication,
Anything I have knot.
Everything is futile,
For it is eternally mine.

Kneel beyond my throne, unaware it was born of lies.
Eyes linger on my every move, whispers shouting.
Am I meant to replicate perfection, or just die trying?
Cold smiles approach, thinking they have uncovered my tell-tale heart.

But I am a seasoned ghost.

Being raised to suffer, I have learned to hide.
To mold myself to fit the standards.
To grit my teeth and stand still as my form shifts once again.
Knowing the brief seconds of waking are a soft euphoria I will soon miss.

I wake to a dawn meant only for the dying.

I wake to reset my own jaw,
bending my bones backwards
with the occasional crack,
a ritual ensuring I resemble something human.

People believe I am powerful, successful, happy,
(but i am as fragile as frost on a window touched by morning).
My costume is convincing, but cannot change what I am.
Invisibly so, and so the pretending continues.

inspired by tony labrusca's portrayal of josé rizal

babae likes me contained.
me—a tupperware full of lumpia.
i'm soggy, *****.
*****—inday—i'm gwapo. fried uy.

sorry. soggy.
druggy. sorry.

my chest tattoos?
yes, they can be removed.
will that be provided in my—

nevermind. thank you.
she opened her purse.
hard candy.

waving me away.
sorry carb-eating lad.
she is just ******* hard candy.
cgeh. babay. cgeh bi.

jose, they say you wrote novels.
but i wonder—
did you ever write yourself out?

did you watch your own ink
bleed into the soil?
did you wish for something softer?

in the way i am devoured. hero forgotten.
in the way i am swallowed
whole—one piso coin
by lovers, by history, by a name
they gave me before i ever
spoke too. ii

the great thing about Bic-Round Stic M is that the ink doesn't bleed through the paper.

singing all day - will the willing to write songs and produce a great debut album.

where do i stand? anywhere—

where are you?

babe…

why must you ask such trivial questions?

then again, i grapple with an external validation problem,

curbed by a body—my own diary.

andy denson's diaries, tales—sweet.

thoughts flutter like moths to a flame,

yearning for the light of recognition,

yet finding solace in the shadows.

the pages absorb my musings,

ink drying without a trace.

Who am I …
the awakening perception scratches at me,
it's the splinter that hides beneath skin,
the melody that returns when it's quiet,
a mirror that only reflects in fragments;
scattered and shattered.
I am the curve of my father's chin,
my mother's discerning eyes.
I exist as a collection of meaningless comparisons,
yesterday's frustrations stitched into today's ambition.
Milieu named me "as expected,"
folded me neatly into a box labelled convention.
Murmuring voices pressed into me like a blanket,
coercive in reasoning, yet silently limiting.
I bent to the familiar until I no longer asked …
Who am I …
Growth is a kind of breaking,
expanding ideas form subtle questions,
like shedding old skin that has grown too tight,
tearing up roots that have withered in difficult soil.
I planted myself somewhere new and foreign;
I sprouted tender and green in the dew of awareness,
basked in the sunlight of small victories.
Who am I …
I am not the answer; I am the question.
I am the canvas unfinished.
I am not who I was, nor yet who I will be.
I am an earthquake
whose rumbling reshapes the world around it.
I am both the seeker and the treasure,
both the map and the journey.