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He taught me form before feeling —

wrists locked,

chin down, 

no follow-through too wild.
Spoke in parables of greens and grit,

gripped the world like a 9-iron:

firm, exact,

white-knuckled love.
I bent to angles he approved,

measured wind,

not wonder —

and called it becoming.
A poem for a painting
Tita Halaman Sep 14
We never planned it—
we just came back.
Same beach, same breath of sea,
three kids chasing the wind
like it was made for them.
You with your wine,
me with a beer,
watching the sky throw joy
like confetti—
bright, weightless,
impossible to hold.
The sand didn’t keep us,
but it knew our names.
And when the noise of life
pulls them somewhere we can’t follow—
we’ll return to this shore,
where nothing was perfect,
but everything was real.
A poem for a painting
Tita Halaman May 8
As pain crawls in my nerves,
it moves like liquid colors on my skin.
Pain is bright, pretty, and invited—
for I know for sure
it’ll tiptoe once it sees my spilling courage,
overflowing with bolder defiant colors,
popping and bursting with sparks and confetti.

It won’t know what to do
with all this noise I carry—
not grief, but something louder.
The kind of ache that dances,
that grinds its teeth into rhythm,
that turns every shiver into a beat.

My body, a festival of survival.
My nerves, electric with memory and fight.
Pain can watch—
but it won’t settle.
Not here.
Not where hope throws paint like wildfire
and every scar glows fluorescent
in the dark.
A poem for a sculpture piece
Tita Halaman May 5
Underneath our ceilings,
We’re too busy to feel feelings

Crafting fires, sculpting waters
Assembling ways, breeding colors

Underneath our bloodlines
We’re the soldiers assigned to the war—
Juggling weapons, battling grief
Saving lives of our fellowmen

Underneath the hands of a clock
We’re the fastest in the race
But we’re the last to finish
Yet, we believe we're champions
With bursts of color, like party confetti
For we feel it
A poem for a painting
Tita Halaman Feb 24
A man, with cacti in his hands,

Sharp and silent, he dares to stand.

Adoring thorns, he's unafraid
He lifts the spikes with all their weight.
A lesson etched in each scar's trace,

Each ***** a shadow, each wound a grace.

To persist is not to flee—

It’s to endure the thorns, and still be free.
Tita Halaman Feb 19
They said:

Gather wood,

Strike the spark,

Craft the fire you seek.
But now,
With flames in my hands,

I long for the one I lost —
The playful glow
That needed nothing

But wonder to burn.
A poem for a painting for Art Fair Philippines 2025
Tita Halaman Jul 2024
Like a bold moth flying into the flame
I was unreasonably brave
Like a wide-mouthed jar
I was ready to catch all stars
I was a live wire, so thrilled to electrify
Yet my high heat, was a fresh face novice
Yet my bursts of joy, was an innocent mind
And it’s the poison who killed me
So today, in afterlife
I walk on eggshells, I’m weary
My hands are like the surgeon’s
Unhurried, steady
A poem for a painting
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