May your year be measured
by revelations and not resolutions

May you see your uncountable gifts
than boastfully count meagre goals

May you on uncharted waters walk
than by uncertain stars fearfully chart

And may you in power compelled to fly
than all powers beseeched to comply

Most of what I wrote here is from two
or three years ago
Two years ago when I was the girl
who dripped anxiety like a leaky faucet
And poured all the excess into her poems
like little sticky notes detailing the confusions
and little joys of life

Now,
Now I'm still a confused, anxious girl
but maybe I can fake it better?

Or maybe I really have grown
So that I no longer need the multicolored sticky notes
Dotting my life
Where I can hold it in
or let it out more constructively

Constructively?
Is poetry not constructive?
Or is it my biases again
idk idk idk

I spoke to an old friend the other day
I have a poem about them
There's another girl I never speak to
but back when I wrote about her she was my friend

I don't know where I'm going
and these poems remind me where I've been

For that matter I don't know where I am
Not enough
Not where I should be
Yet
But yet has yet to arrive and
       seemingly
n
        e
                  v
                             e              r                    
                                                                ­will
...
I'm rambling aren't I?
Well,
The gist of it is
I am somewhere else, not where I was
Nor am I where I should be where I want to be where I ought-
I have a poem about ought don't I?

For those of you who've actually made it to this point in the poem
I applaud you
Because I don't know where I'm going
or where I am
But my poetry seems to be showing me where I've been

Stop
STOP
Enough says the me that insists everything must be productive
There's no point
There's no point!
You're not a poet,
You're just a girl who is supposedly an adult
Ha
Ha ha
What a joke

Is the self deprecation necessary?
             Is it though?
                 Or is it simply a tool to hide my anxiety
                             under a blanket
Can't I just appreciate what I have? Who I am? But
I'm not good enough
            not nearly good enough

The other day I wrote a sorry essay
        apologizing for all my shortcomings

Don't get me wrong
I love my self                       You'd better too    love yourself that is   It's important
But                 I don't seem                              good                     enough

Sigh

Yes, I verbally said the word sigh
I'm still rambling, aren't I?
Because I don't know where I'm going
nor where I am
But I do now know where I've been
      and I suppose it's just a matter of moving from there

I may take baby steps,
                 like a waddling penguin
But so long as I know where I've been
I can keep on moving
so that I can grow

One day my wings will open huge and wide
One day
One day I will no longer be that anxious little girl
One day
Why not today?
Because today's not that day
But, one
                 day
It'll happen
and if it doesn't...

I guess I'll still be chasing that one day
Because I don't know where I'm going
or even where I am
But I do know where I've been because I write about it in little sticky notes called poems

I lay with melancholy,
A emotion that is dark and unholy
Leaving you with a sense of dread
Almost wishing that you were dead.

It doesn't matter how hard you try
It seems you can't find the light
No matter what you do,
You always find yourself in the dead of night

You look in the mirror again,
Tears streaking your face,
Why cant i make amends
Instead of always having this chase

You play hard to get,
But you play to well,
You get forceful,
Only to beat yourself down.

You look at your past,
Your forced to see what you did
Like a knife to the heart,
Twisting and grinding.

You beg for mercy,
only to be denied by yourself
You beg for forgiveness,
Only to be beat down.

Don't you see.
This all starts with you.
As it must end the same.
Until you contend with yourself.
You shan't begin to contend with others.
Lest you be beat down twice.

The sun has become harder to bear
this late April morning.....under
a perfect blue sky, the sun is bright as ever,
it slightly ****** the skin,
grass takes all the heat but is just as green
and still sways to the blowing wind...

we're showered with many tribulations,
bombarded with dim scenarios...revelations

of despondency, death, desperation,
......and of man's evil inclinations...

fear and confusion filter through holes
and tiniest crevices of grounds and walls,

we make do with small corners,
just to create spaces apart  from each other

we hear warnings...talks in apocalyptic
tones...we learn of events cataclysmic,

yet, we ignore earth's stormy winds and waves,
telling us.....begging us to change our ways.

we breathe, we can see, we have ears
clearly, we choose what to see and hear...
........................................................
­.......................................................
.........­.................Spring's sky is all over,
but, the lilt, the spring feeling, is nowhere
.......................................................
.­......................................................




Sally

Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
April 5, 2020

I will never have good financial standing.
My wallet must feel besieged,
Like the sacking of King’s Landing.
Money just flies through my fingers;
Like the angel of death,
Bankruptcy always looms and lingers.
I spend it on escapades and exuberance,
On journeys to escalate my studies of life,
To forbear nothing from its tutelage.

I will never have a peaceful, settled life;
No 2.3 kids, no doting, darling wife.
Neither will I have a Golden Retriever;
No picture-perfect moments,
No Instagram photo captioned ‘she’s a keeper.’
I will go the edges of the world;
I will unfurl hammocks, as the jungles get deeper,
As I hear the whispers of life,
And my ears strain to listen like receivers.

I don’t care about losing either of those prospects;
Uninteresting endeavours, uninspiring projects.
To me, only love deserves mourning;
It is the primer of all things,
The driver of all of nature’s calls,
The reason why the mockingbird sings.
That must be why my heart can’t stand the quiet,
Why I’m like a viral riot, an epidemic insurrection.
That must be why I’m mourning an unrequited connection.

You are everything I will never have.
I will have an empty heart, and empty hands.
If it never happens in this life,
I hope I’ll get to see you again in the next one.

can’t be caring for no one
these revelations
these revelations
opened my third eye
to the mess people truly are
faking their love every time
just to get into someone’s bed

these revelations
these revelations
got me calculating peoples’ intentions
in the deep corners of my mind
will you pull me on a string?
manipulate my heart?
steal my saved hundreds?

•••••

these revelations
these revelations
serve a higher purpose
i know bad energy when i feel one
i won’t let myself get near one

a curse hidden in disguise
a blessing in plain sight
these revelations
these revelations
got me running inside my mind

“poet, it’s your day,” she says.

groggily growls the growler,
“what’d ya mean?”

“the sun came up today early,
but partly cloudy interrupt-us has arrived subsequently,
worse, the Great Swami Interpet predicts rain comes
heavy this afternoon on our journey home.”

he reflects upon his craggy, scraggly image that is
reflected upon the cold brewed black coffee.

replies carefully without thinking,
“today I will commence writing under
a new guise, a new name, a different persona!”

“whom shall we be today then?”

“come back to bed revelation poet”


sunrain

halo, halo
flooded by musky greens
that wipe out the bitterness
to your taste
hands tight on my waste
and lifting me
to sit on a shredded pillow
the window open
the walls damp
the chill once again comforts me
embracing an icy touch
you cut my hair
a head of bleach falls to the floor
my black roots remain
fragile breaths come from the trees
awakening once more
creeping their branches into the room
creeping under my tunic
the sky clears and I am soft
the pillow empties of its feathers
removing the inside
releasing the weight