Specked on the toes
or heals of a plate.
The horse is waiting. You don’t know it —
you should breathe in & out in situations like this.
Situations lead to more of them. You smell like Axe. My breathing hasn’t been consistent
-or monitored enough to know the depths of the soul.
Scroll down or turn the page depending on what era you are in. There is infinity on the back of my hand.
On your other back there is some tension. Taste like sweat. Southeast Asian flavored — not in an overly ****** or fetishized way. You and me are the same.
The other you called me an intruder. I know by nationality — not blood. So, you are partially right.
On the other side, you get a massage. We’ve taken turns with other versions of ourselves. Plenty of work in the 21st Century.
A job. Updated resume. For someone who might love you in that moment. Truly love that job. On the back of your real back.
A *******. Not a quickie. We work. Free labor. We use our hands to make things. All jobs are hand jobs — don’t be a pervert. I thought you were a nice person. Don’t sexualize everything? What job isn’t a *******?
Why is it so hard? Why is it so big? Why do I have expectations?
We met at a mall. Or you picked me up. My feelings are present. Your feelings back there. You and me are scared. Because jobs that are tiring can be scary.
I miss all of you. You’re back and my back. My stupidity and my wisdom is yours too. The back seat smells like SafeGuard. Breathe in. Brea- Calm. No more scared.
You just ate. That’s how we flirt in the Philippines.
I had black pepper on my foods because it’s used on the front of a dish where I’m from-
When I eat, I don’t burp from the back. You sprinkle the front of the food on its back.
On the front of the back of the phone is an anticipation.
People I know of back home are dying. There is black pepper. No one I have been really close to has passed yet. In the back of your mind you know it’ll happen.
I back up a bit from the table and you. I always think I am smart. I always think of crying when I get home. But I am too smart to cry in public.
Back up — back up. Black up. Sprinkle Black Pepper on food. For you. Backed by support from followers like you.
You may be familiar with my back. Or vice versa. What a beautiful time it is to eat Black Pepper in September!
Wondering what is going on in the back of their minds. You tell me to get over it.
Try the Black Pepper in a town near you. Sides go great with a little back back dash of the Black Pepper. Yes I am ok.
You need salt. I need salt. Back away. Because moderation. Just use Black Pepper. It is your job.
Black. Then front. Top it off. Then back and black. Self love advice — taking everything with a grain of (bath) salt.
Which Black Pepper is the best Black Pepper?
Back and Black. Duh.
Forward through the congestion of Cebu City — I back up but not enough. My new job is to sprinkle the Black Pepper on us. After the commute.
Crazy?
You’re crazy, babe.
You…
Baby, I know I am crazy.
Sike.
You bet.
Because of the motorcycle makes me feel dangerous and cool on your back. I drove too. Danger. You. Never mind! Never. Mind. Men are dumb. That includes me.
That means everything men do other men and women they pursue is dumb. Black Pepper takes their mind off that front and back to the front. People are dumb. Di ba?
Black Pepper is Black Pepper. Nothing but Black Pepper. I love me so much. You too. You told me to love myself more. So I ate Black Pepper.
You aren’t always looking at palm trees, or nature, like I do. Back on your phone. Black pepper grounds the tree.
Now from the back to the other back I calmly sneeze.
Where has life taken you in regards to others? The backs of theirs.
It is not hard to believe in the world of form — because Black Peppers are on my back.
So is the back of your motorbike. I smell Black Pepper on my upper lip. There is Black Pepper sprinkles. Everywhere. I use the back of my wet hand to wipe the back. You wipe the front.
— in the back of my mind, I’m glad most of the Black Pepper is covered by my clothes.
Sleeping on back back — exhale. Exhaling from both the nostrils. I remember the time I garnished a dish with Black Pepper in the Upper East Side. I felt gross. I remember that moment in the back of my mind.
How could anyone hate you if you’re back?
Black Pepper eaters never seem to care too much. So you — don’t back up that with a fact check. Back up. I am not crazy.
I love the blacks. I love the peppers. If you back the love too — it’s a job. You too will know love from the back.
— Sprinkled with black pepper and backed by gold.

.                                                  Inch by inch,
                                            cruel word,
                                      indecision,
         ­                       pressure,
                        spin an avalanche
                    around my grubby life,
              cocooned, cold
          my sight
        goes
      black.
A crack, amber light bleeds
into my shrouding chrysalis.
      I struggle,
        tearing silk,
            escaping
                to smell the sun
                      taste its nectar
                            and
                          ­        see
                                        I am
                                              a
              ­                                      butterfly.

Soaked from the rain.
                                         Surrounded by figures.
                      Invisible to all.
                                                I heard it:
'You want to be loved.'
             The gray clouds enveloped the sky.
                                    I shook my head.
       Everything was crumbling.
                                                             Emptiness.
                                            Worthlessness.
                             Complaining.
                      Hatred.
              Distain.
       Apathy.
                                          I was seen,
                       But it wasn't me.
                                                                       Stop looking.

                                  The grass withered at my feet,
Turned to mud behind each worthless step.
                              My suit worn down with grime.
          Stained with dirt and blood.
                                  It looked nice,
                                             The stains were covered.

                    The voice:
     'Not loved for how you are.'
                       'But loved for who you are.'
                                     'Despite who you are.'
              'You want to belong in your existence.'
                              'You want you,'
               'The real you,'
'To be loved.'
            'Not the manufactured you,'
                                  'Not how you look,'
                                                 'Or how you act,'
                                                                   'You.'

                I laughed at it's words.
Feeling the urge to ***** and cry at the same time.
                                      But only smiling.

                                               Then I said no...
                                ...I said no...

I.

All I can say is that it is a hum
Reverberant, droning, consistent
Quiet thrumming along the surface
Stirs me awake and then it fills me with
Ichor and I sip, sip, and sip (until I'm drunk).

All I can say is that it is a hum,
Quiet droning, a hushed whisper,
Loud screaming inside the head,
A piercing headache, sometimes a discordant wail.

II.

You sit on the porcelain lip of the tub
Hooded eyes lowered, your fingertips
Pressed together like the steeple of a church

I think: Yes, this is what Renaissance painters modeled angels after. Your skin is like a rose-tinged alabaster, your cheeks Suffused with blood. The painter took a measured time with you.

"Do you honestly think you'll be okay on your own?" You ask.

Silence, she greets you.

III.

Hasn't my mother violently
Ejected me from the nest
I'm only a few months old, a nestling
Wings awkward and clumsy
Beak agape for masticated food
(I'm not ******* ready yet)
Ejects me
Her beak threatens to pierce my shell

This is dejà vu.
I've conversed before
Different room, different domain,
Different speaker, a sicker listener
I'm as sick, sick as **** now

Mind, she hums, crescendo
Crescendo high like a choral piece
Orchestral, and this is resplendent
Everything is gleaming
Your face encased in a soft glow
Halo of light
Your face, cherubic,
His face, Romanesque, was sculpted like a Bronze Age statue.

"Your mother didn't give you the right set of tools. My mother at least gave me–" he falters.

IV.

I remember calling the ex 28 times in the span of 2 hours.
The policeman, he counted.
Thrashing on the floor, weeping like Persephone must've in Hades, like a fallen Mortal reborn as a minor goddess
Stripped me, he did though, of my wings
Avian feathers streaked with years-old blood

My tears, why yes, they're bleeding rivulets.
My ****-brown eyes alight on the bleach
Yes, sweet death

"Stop calling me. I'm ******* another ***** right now," the ex says.

V.

Memory is so faded,
Plays like a scratched and worn cassette tape

Mind is a-humming, humming, my mind is
Orchestral choir, church choir, Pentecostal
Now, I eat ichor, ravenous, now I am Closer to God and she is a woman,  
Draped in funeral attire
She weeps, soundless, a Seer

"I don't know," I say.

"The med isn't working," you reply
Cherubic face shifts and morphs
Melts into soft glow light,
One with the halo, is the halo

Nothing makes sense, everything else does too. My mind races, cassette tapes
Whirs, skips, images flash, I weep
Weep like Sisyphus
Eyes spilling rivers of penny-tinged
Crimson, sanguine ichor

One day he'll taste it and hate me,
Loathe me, the jade-eyed serpent
Poison-fanged
I'll clutch his scales until my fingers are Cut, welts, mottled bruises, fading scars
I will be punished, am punished
The illness, the eternal Boulder on the eternal hill, it rolls and rolls, my mouth agape

I await my cyclic fate ordained by the Higher God

VI.

How many men have I lured into the chamber?
Drunk on sweet wine or mead?
Petrified into osseous
Their gazes failing to avert from my Penetrative stare?

He was an errant General, beautiful but stupid, his mind a one way road, his temper unpredictable and flighty
Oh, how I loved the duality of him
We philosophized
Theorized on the Gods
Laughed at their follies
Wondered at the mysteries of the universe, Her deep annals

Oh, how I loved the physicality of him
Tight, corded muscle, his back like a Wound spring, Bronze hand
Grasping a silver sword

Hark! His rounded shield is lifted, my hideous reflection stares back at me
My eyes, widened, the cup of manna Clatters, soundly in the chamber
Reverberates
Bounces off my throne of skulls

How many men have I–?

VII.

"Can you honestly say that you can take care of yourself?" You ask from the place atop the lip of the porcelain tub. Your hands, a steeple, a church spire
Perhaps, you are a lesser God, perhaps we are all falling Lucifers, wingless, blinded by vengefulness and betrayal
Perhaps, he too is–?

"Am I an infant to you?" I ask.
The headache splits
The pain demands, claws at the side of my skull, dances across my nerves, liquid iron on my tongue

Because when did I?

Oh, Sisyphus you weep! You, who slaughtered so many!

Oh, Medusa, you wept, you beautiful serpentine harlot, you *****, you–
The choir is a strong crescendo, Ascending, ascending, ascending
Lowers like a thrumting and heavy bellow
Deep, rich, and full, timbre

"Everyone, all your life has said you were crazy, but I don't think you are, I–"

VIII.

The tapes skip, voices garbled, muffled, Indiscernible and distorted
Mind shrieks, lower now, quieter now, Barely audible, a fading whisper, your halo Recedes, soft glow dims

Your hands separate, the steeple, no, the Spire collapses.
Held breath hitches,
Serpentine tendrils become wisps of hair, Cloudlike

We are lesser gods, not quite mortal, not quite divine

The itch demands to be felt, protests
And I, I scream endless into a dark chasm
My voice, it does not call back to me
It does not–

"I don't know."

I see vivid, my vision flowered
All the colours, i call them ours
Afterimages and my poems
Branded on my eyeball's moments

Blue does spread like food colouring
Dropped in my vision spluttering
I close my eyes to escape the noise
But all it changes, is the background choice

I see the bright blue sky
With floaters, sparkles and vivid lies
And sometimes my hands are dissapear
Beneath shadows leftover from lights bright near

But all in all it is alright
After all i could lose my sight?
And that is without mentioning my ears
that have been ringing for years.