Have you ever felt
you loved someone that
you hated the person?

Have you ever felt
you knew everything that
you knew nothing?

Have you ever felt
the overwhelming happiness and grace that
you manifested signs of sadness?

Have you ever felt
the burning heart inside
though you are soaked outside?

Feeling feelings,
i do not fully understand
what they are
but they color the blank sheet of life –

I jumped into a skin
and found old bones
a poets poetry
scattered across years.

When a tweet, no longer comes from a bird.
A message, no longer written in words.
A picture, determines your current worth.
A swipe, is not for payments against earns.

Your world, no longer restricted to earth.
Your voice, can control your universe.
Games, without company, a box.
Books, used to be written, forgot.

Love was in letters, not characters.
Eyes looked straight, not down.
Communication, in touch were sound.
Reactions, were not button frowns.

Food shared, not delivered.
Noise surrounded, not muted.
Hands shaken, not email awaken.
The world was claimed, but not hidden.

An automated world,
not an automated me.

What if life was played in fast forward?
Would you look more, out the window?
See the buildings, the missing trees?
The colors changed, painted in steel?
Focus on folds, beneath your cheeks?
Spend time with the once, called lonely?

What if life was played in reverse?
Would you redo things, differently?
Experience reality?
Change your lack of identity?
Free your mind of not feeling free?
Rethink responsibilities?

What if life was paused?
Would you be doing, what you are doing right now?
What is the first thing that comes to mind?
What about the colors on your brush?
Do you think that they are enough?
Are you still on the right track?

What if life had to be lonely?
Would you use your voice to speak?
Is there a reason to listen?
What rules would you want to create?
Would you understand heartbreak?
Would you bother to hit replay?

Either way we all reach the end.
But we write separate screenplays.
Decide our fate and how we blend.
And how we fast forward our days.

Hopefully we are not the same.
Get to use our voice and listen.
To lose ourselves would be a shame.
Or to move forward, not driven.

Remember, your life is in play.
And should not be thrown away.

She was art.
You wanted art.
Too bad I was just an artist.

Here's to the writers—

You have the power to paint words
Into beautiful art—
To be able to touch a soul—
To touch one's heart

You can make the stormy sky blue—
Stop the waves from crashing to the shore
You can make all the withered flowers bloom—
Turn winter into summer, a glimpse of gold

You can make someone's dark day colorful—
Gather hope to put in between your words
Make them feel that they are understood—
That they aren't alone in this cruel world

You can mend someone's broken heart—
Put love in between your lines
Let them know that they are enough—
That being hurt is just a part of life

Yes—
We can make a whole new perspective—
We can create a world of our own
And no, we don't speak only for ourselves—
But also for all the lost souls

—Thalia Bautista; Just keep writing

Atlas and the daughter of unknown origins*

My world revolves around you,
father,
you held the sky when I was born,
small goddess, I lay,
at your feet.
You cried and it was raining in my atmosphere,
I think you said I was lovely,
though my small ears could only hear
so far beyond the clouds.

I don't know what you've done,
some dreadful deed unrealised,
until I asked for you to kiss my cheeks
and you couldn't reach
so low.

I thought of you,
Atlas, Atlas,
protecting a face you'd never seen.
Stretching space into itself
so that I could breathe.
I thought of you,
Atlas,
when you didn't think of me.

I found Odysseus floating in the sea.

He looked like you,
he looked like Zeus and all his long-haired wives
and all their children too.
Odysseus the bravest,
the true.

(I loved him far too much,
before I knew what love could be,
a thing of claws and teeth).

Father, that man stole away
with all the bitter-sweetness of my name,

"I cannot do this anymore,"
Calypso, hide,
"I will tell them all you lied,"
Calypso, hide,
"you are a thing of shame."

Odysseus broke my heart,
Atlas missed the beat.

i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well

Life is on pause
A part of me missing
Half alive
Going through the motions
Sadness is in charge

Everything is as you left it
Awaiting your return
You left me half way
on the road to forever

I remember your smile
I remember your words
Full of love
I believed every single one

I no longer have illusions
You'll not return
Still I don't move on
I wait for the impossible

A steady rain is falling
No sunshine in sight
A flood of empty promises
and me without an umbrella