Ikinulong mo na sa'yong sarili
Ang patinig sa'yong pangalan
Kung paanong itinatago ng 'yong mata
Ang katotohanan sa mga katanungan
Napangunahan ba kita ng sigaw sa'king puso,
Kaya nasambit **** di lahat ay totoo?
Nasukol ka ba ng 'king binubuntunghininga
Kaya tila naumid sa tugon yaring dila?

Giliw, di yata nalimot **** ang salita'y di pulos patinig lamang
Kaya binabalewala mo ang tunog sa mga pahiwatig
Giliw iyong alalahanin na ang lahat ng bagay may sariling tinig
Sa musika ng 'ting buhay, lahat nauunawaan sa kahit iilang pantig

it is summer and even the grasses
start to wither in the dry heat.

i am broken like
an old iron gate,
i have ornate scrolls and twisting
roses.

in the long, hot hours,
the sea roars softly
and i long for you
wrapped into the hollows of the sun.

little pieces of me gathered into
you scattered like a
blue sky.

little pieces and i know i am only
of fragments and love.

My mind keeps pictures of you up on its walls
                            again
                         ­         and again
I find my thoughts drifting down that river of memory
orbiting around you, like forces of gravity drawn
to the idea of us (if there even is an us)

If I could then I’d lock you outside my brain, leave you out there to rot
in the abyss, where your words couldn't penetrate me
and your lips that work like anesthesia forbidden to numb me again

I won't do you the injustice of romanticizing your imperfections
You're no nebular, you're a black hole, a gaping flaw in creation
Your eyes that held millenniums of history, now hold me no future

You made me forget what it feels to have stability
To not walk out of a room and forget why I left
You make me want to shred the skin you touched
Like a reptile, to become reborn, purified from my past.

There never were any butterflies in your stomach, only parasites
but you fed them to me readily like a disease

So no, I won’t dedicate you another love poem
                 no I want (deserve) better
This isn't what love should be
I’ll write you a poem where the words convulse on the page
and you’ll forget to read it (you always do)

trying my utmost
to not nurture this fondness
of you, oh, dear you!

i think we still exist
somewhere in the universe
behind the sun
where all of earth’s abandoned
soulmates go to rest
i think i can see us
when i look up at the sky
and squint directly into
the rays of light,
your brown eyes burning
into mine

i think we are together
in the time that trails behind
the present, dancing
in circles until the last stars
fizzle out

i think that our promises
seeped into the soil, like
february rain, our souls sown
together, tucked in
beneath the world

i think what we had is
somewhere just out of reach,
pulsing in the dim spaces
between heat lightning

and although, in this lifetime,
we became nothing but shadows,
monsters that linger on bedroom walls

we are there, we are alive,
and we are still in love.

If I were ever
to damage
myself
it would only be
so that I
could bleed
poetry.