Alone. In the center
of an intersection.

He leads travelers
to their corresponding
destinations.

Yet he himself
can't seem
to move on.

She asked, "Why do you always look so
intoxicated?" It rendered me speechless.

Maybe it's just the bad posture, or lazy eyes
drooping to the floor, or the feeling
of being surrounded by people
in aimless conversations.

I don't intend to tell her. She doesn't know.

That owls are nocturnal
because they desire to avoid
the abomination that is the morning.

Flight over fight.

Everything is happening
in split-seconds. I'm afraid
there is no evidence
to these memories.

I need sleep.

I will never understand:
this asphalt road that feeds on
precious time, interweaving footprints
headed nowhere, the broken stoplight  
at the end of the street, or
the next **** thing
I'd see.

I could chase the moon all night
and never get there. I could light
another cigarette if it's to prove
that everything is more than just hurt.

I'd search the universe for answers
if I can, but sometimes
the very thing I'm looking for
is the one thing I can't see.

Impyerno.

Im.. im.. impyerno ang nadarama.
Nakabilad sa sikat ng araw. Taya
at buro pa yata.

Sabay na inaabangan:
ang pagkakamali,
at tawag ni inay —
mas importante ang nauna
ngunit parehas nakakatakot.

Sa isip-isip ko:

“Mahulog ka sana,
upang mataya na kita.”

Pero ang ninanais ba ay totoo
o para lamang masalo? Ang puso

at marahil
noon ko rin unang nalaman
ang agwat ng mga platapormang
inaapakan.

Malapit ngunit malayo.
Ako'y isa lamang kalaro.
Langit ka; lupa ako.

Today I've learned why
some stories have open endings
and how grotesque paintings
cost millions.

Like when I secretly
peeped through the glass
portion of the door
when she was nearing
the end of her routine.

She spun perfectly balanced
with the tip of her toe, eventually
settling in a form
of a bow rose hunter.

It was confusingly stunning.

I couldn't understand
half of what transpired but
I guess that's the whole point.

I get to dream
while she keeps her privacy.

I.) Faint scents harmonize
with various forms of language
which mortals find puzzling.

But we’re different, we know how
words wound. It smells like blood,
bittersweet if tasted.

II.) We're building walls around heaven
because we're afraid of needing
things we might be obsessed to.

III.) Others tried to reach the mystical place
above, but were unsuccessful.
They can only do so
when wings don’t prevent them
from falling.

IV.) Two worlds prayed for a chance
to break the barrier. It can only happen
when prayers quit needing words.

The artist itself is the only one
who knows the true meaning
behind his work. We’re free
to speculate but can never be
certain, yet judge.

If the world is a piece of art, then
that would be simultaneously coherent
and messed up.

Everything’s a theory:
its maker, if he’s really out there
in the open, if i’m just seeing things
in a wrong perspective,

or if all of this is even worth
thinking about.

These are pieces taken
from a mind of someone
falling in his own mind.

There are two significant bodies.
As the victim, one is tied
onto a wooden royal chair
while blindfolded; another
with scalpel at hand inflicting cuts,
sculpting flesh as beats
of Pornopop’s ‘Little Kafka’
play in the background.

Chiaroscuro. Lightbulb
in pendulum motion. From a distance,
there’s a bystander who can see
both of them in fluorescent smiles —
curious about the lack of cries
despite the absence of a gag.

Perhaps this is why poems require
too much words.

Here and there: a painting in progress,
an artist, an unidentifiable face on canvas.
You always remind me to forget you so
let me be your masterpiece instead.
And as the beauty of impermanence does
its work, his world fades away.

Benches as gravity
is to orbits, the only ones
left holding everything
together.

Modern day Copernicus
assigned her to be his
center of attraction
as if revolving around,
in circles repeatedly,
would make the clusters
of shimmering stars
of letters trapped in his mind
burst (being *****,
for he can only say much
when he’s too broken
to remember).

That moment could only
scam people who threw
pennies into fountains,
fail charms acquired
from temples of whatever
belief it teaches, and

stop lungs. Yes, breathing is
just another superstition —
he doesn’t need it to feel
alive, more so when
there’s someone beside him
who’s able to breathe him in.

That in silence, he pleads
his eyes to speak
his heart, but

conversations don’t work that way
with disobedient bodies.

Breathe in loads
of innumerable blades
of memory erasers.

Ah, the feeling
of being lost within
your own thought.

Wishing for just
a brief break— from time
and its fast pace (or
if possible, let it
stop. Let the world
stop).

There are familiar places
you can’t get used to
and sometimes
it will all just fade
with experience,
lessons, and

your most beautiful
mistake.

The goddess of dawn strikes
again, challenging her limits
when she has no need to.

Colored northern winds
conspire at the equinox — behold
this sight of abstract beauty, though
what can be seen can’t always be
touched; furthermore, my hands
don’t belong in the space above.

But I’ll make light
of this darkness.

Scouring the inexplicable view, I know
that in the next minute, I’d question
her unbelievable existence and wonder
about the things I’d give
to learn more about that sky.

“Take the straight path”, they say.
but the world never adheres to that.

Cliche as it is:
like moths to flame, the world
orbited endlessly as dictated
by its weary cycle.

The compromise is to never
get too close.

Afraid to burn, Earth
with its fragile body;
Afraid to burn, Sun
with its desire for attention.
Neither side moved
due to mutual benefits, instead
embraced the stalemate.

Something to break the chain?
Answers may be non-existent
because we live in the present
too much… or
perhaps meteors
able to eradicate everything? And
if destruction is the only choice then,
are we supposed to choose?

Right now, we follow
its cause — gravity,
that’s why we fall.

There’s this list:
an almost perfect year-ender,
a chord that didn’t fit so
you had to play it broken,
drafts written for the purpose
of being great poems
but remained as is because
they were missing powerful
words.

The deafening silence.
The feelings you tried to ****.
The misunderstood hints.

Or tropical countries waiting for snow
and insightful books selling poorly.

Somewhere, a boy caught up
in a scenery and bright sunlight.
He wants to be a photographer
but fails to capture passing moments.

“They were too fast”, he said.

Imagine thousands
of pictures behind these
red, mellow eyes.

The endlessness transpiring
in our throats. Spitfire.

Because maybe we were
starving; maybe we
starve for the words
we failed to say that day.

But if you had asked me
back then, how could I say no?

How could I not
make you understand?

We are sheer thoughts
living in a world
of make believe.

Walls of noise disguise
ticking time bombs. What sound
would carnage make when
it shatters into pieces?

By that time, I guess
we’re too broken
to even decipher;

too forgotten
to even remember.