Translation follows

mahal kong tequila,
iniibig kita.
ako'y pinakamaligaya
kapag kasama ka.

at sa 'yong piling
ako'y nahuhumaling
walang ibang hinihiling,
wala ring nagsisinungaling.

mahal kong tequila,
mahal ka ngang talaga.
kung ika'y naging mura,
pagkain ka ng masa.

dahil sa 'yong piling
wala nang problema
calamansi at asin
ang tanging kasama.

masarap pa siguro
kung boyfriend kita.
aba, Jose Cuervo..
ang ganda pa sa mata!

Rough translation:

My beloved tequila
I love you.
I am happiest
In your company.

In your embrace
I find extreme closeness appealing
No more requests,
No one lies.

My beloved tequila
I've paid for so dear.
If you'd have been cheaper,
The masses would cheer.

Because in your embrace
Problems are no more
Lime and salt
Are our only companions.

It would be a treat
If you'd be my boyfriend.
Hmm, Jose Cuervo..
The name fits!

My previous school’s canteen had a treat
called Custard Bun, just worth 20 pesos
One of the cheaper snacks, amidst a variety of 25s and 27s
There were times I skipped lunch due to a meeting
But during the five minutes left going up to the fourth floor,
I would dash towards the canteen, just to buy Custard Bun,
and pair it with the classic Calamansi Juice
What makes it special, you ask?
A cheek-like bun, whose only design
was a yellow custard swirl on top
Soft, and
Filled with a pale yellow cream
That isn’t too sweet, unlike its choco-bun rivals
What made it so different?
Perhaps it reminded me of the olden days
Which I sometimes reminisce about, between fits of silence
In this unfamiliar place
I remember, how like its sweetness takes me back to when I was a child
When I loved eating this bread called Graciosa, which was just a loaf of bread topped with
sugar and butter
How simple it always seemed then, how it never needed more
How in times when we get distracted by life’s complexities
Sometimes an ordinary treat is what we need to get by

I remember writing articles for a sports event —
it was night at school
And someone offered us a big box of abandoned swirl-topped buns
Still in their plastics
Untouched by the athletes they were meant to serve
I thought, how lonely they must be in the night
So I took one, and another, which turned to five,
Brought some home, ate some along the way
It felt like I finally found consolation, eating the bun,
Whose taste I could never put my finger to
And afterwards, whenever I passed the canteen
I always looked for it, for the bun that felt like home
And often see one hidden amongst others, just waiting to be
Found
The bun which I discovered,
Was named Custard
And I realized, even if I never tasted Custard in my whole life
It was like a forgotten friend, who came back from a long journey
And I just remembered its name

So if you ask me,
Why I love Custard Bun so much,
If you ever had that feeling of remembering something
Seemingly long lost, from eons ago
And you find it in the most unexpected of places
Bringing with it the most precious of memories
You’d understand so

In a new place, I hope to find it once again.

“And only the azure painted sky to shake the rain from its sound,” so the plain falls, opening its mouth through a bed of headstones dotted with the hollowed trunks of magnolias and cedar at afternoon and that cameo of calamansi velour interwoven with the softest glaucous velvet. Inside that whirlpool of sacrosanct textiles a blur, that shocking shrill of coolness catches the skin- this hole-covered schmata oozing cesious acronychal threads pull tight across the hooves, branches, and stream. Only the thin repelling flume of winter’s height eschews this ianthine material over the sinews and map-lined bones. A corpse shortening its gaze, eyes stone-free, empty of nictitation. Nothing stings more than autumn’s filemot sins scraping sideways down a tiled balcony, and the dove’s beg like circus rats, shaped by the finite breaths of decade’s old poetry edging its moods like a bold inflammatory conflagration of the  de-evolution. While the fulvous trammeled dirt abounds.

Some say it widens quick
as my fingernails grow and
by the time I die the height of me
has been added to its width
so toss me off the ship
slip me past seaweed grasps
and test this hypothesis.

Some say it can fit in Everest
with a mile to spare
while I did not find the time
or, perhaps, care
to feet it’s summit this tick of the Rolex
this pound of pressure applied
per inch of capillary.

But even here
where bathyscaphe meets hydrosphere
where sunlight is cinema
where goblin sharks gobble darkness
an anglerfish pours it's torch
over basecamp wishing
loneliness was an antidote
for altitude sickness.

My how magnanimous magma
makes me miss my mama,
subducted and spewed out
drawn down from cold to heat
and reborn as calamansi cocktails
at a shackbar on the beach.