Papier-mâché

I am okay, for I am with my dog and its limited language. I am okay, for my parents hear me mimicking their months-old godson's undeveloped urge to express hunger. " You are as good as anyone here! " My mother with her should-always-be-agreed-upon tone. I am okay, for my favorite shirt can still be worn despite unwashed.  I am okay, because I could still say it: I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I will say it with a wide smile that stretches from North to South. I am okay. I am okay. For the sixth time, the seventh time, and in a millionfold. Putting periods before each word. I am okay.

The thing about scars is the fear of compromise:   one doubt is a million-year fossil that cannot be traced by carbon dating.   It is in the era of extinction—gone but never gone. In a modern land Of petroleum, extracted skin, poached coats, My blood upon the cheeks of every missed chance of living.   I excavate and it remains hidden. I bury my nearly decapitated legs and million-year-old burdens And see as it never rises.   The thing about scars is they made you believe time is a friend, But a friend is a foe.   Pain is a never-ending story that goes through the decades, centuries, Millennia. And scars are a branch of the strongest trees. A limitless sojourn of lost, and in every place they wander, the fire is cold.   Only to find out you are nothing but an extracted oil to be studied by hungry men.  

It starts with how creation happened: the origin of mankind that others like to be told in such a manner it is soft.   Let this be put in a contemporary costume: Play-Doh . A perfect, direct comparison. It is a well-known clay first manufactured in Cincinnati as something contrary to its current use.   This kind of toy has encountered wars, countless famines, economic relapse, false gods. Also, it has seen a conveyor belt of world fads that have emerged throughout the years.   In literary terms, this can be supplemented by such devices: figures of speech.   “Our experiences are like clay; we can be molded by it, we can be parted by it, we can be created from our plain form to complexity.”   … among others. Supported by whatever positive remarks. Such statements will be backed by how clay really is malleable; easily molded by hands. That we can be nitpicky towards the color, and we even smell it, and find some addictive in its odor. We would...

I understand that TikTok has already become the source or basis of various information, be it in life hacks, home renovations, make-up tutorials (skincare routines), etc. It has become a huge chamber encapsulating almost everything you may need to know in seconds. These information may also be embellished with filters—kudos to its technology—and such (which I often see and am not familiar with) for added entertainment, depending on the users.  While these algorithms—not only on TikTok—can be advantageous especially when we talk about targeting the 21st-century learners and their short-termed attention spans (research-backed: https://journals.physiology.org/.../10.1152/advan.00109.2016 ), the possibility of its fabrication cannot be overlooked as sharing of it to other platforms is as seamless as one can imagine.  Such misleading information that concern political discourses in less-than-a-minute videos that tend to be spread groundlessly, and the hindsight often lead to the em...

 In this closet I hide:  I pile my clothes— the softest black, heaviest white, bold pink, and dirty cream. They say I embrace rainbows,  They say I have the most welcoming windows. I do, but love, I am more: I am my brother’s heels that walk with him. I am my sister’s BMX that she recklessly drives. Their roles are my cigarette:  I inhale the nicotine,  I exhale the acetone that strips my cuticle. In this closet, I dress with my favorite apparels: Fitted trousers, Blouson jacket, cream shirt. In the afternoon, I wear my father’s cap, my mother’s wig, and my vegan burgundy lipstick. For everything that clothes me is a Lady Gaga song, a Sufjan Stevens that knows my bereft childhood, or a Sasha Sloan that gasps for air. And at night, I sleep with my completely naked body, and as I touch my skin,  I touch my most fragile dream. Everyday is found in this decades-old closet, But today you will find me outside its corners as I shout my name with a filtered voice.

Joelyn, my Surigaonon princess, Over the rainbows, you live with feathers of my joy. Eternity is their temporary I shall wait. Twenty years ago, we were Lying on our wooden bed, as you told me about the beach you love to wander. Yesterday are your arms I held, from your skin I clasped with my little hands, Now to the burnt memory of its gentleness. My Lianga, suppress my fire with your heaven-sent water; Our land, can I still be touched by your ground? Reeling with the leaves, I am still being caressed by its wind as it Envelops my cream skin. There were the Nipa huts and coconut trees, old CDs and comics Of our grandparents’ springtime and romance.  Give me as I ask for you; ask me as I give everything— Everything that has brought by how I burn every midnight oil. My blood sharer, how my blood shed, kiss it with the lips akin to mine. And for every year I wait for our bridge to come close, I emerge Only to find myself drowning with burden, seeking your redeeming lullabies. 

I was quite eager to tell how my mother breaks me everytime she stresses about how young I am to look sick. For illnesses are only for the old men seeking their wives' warmth and the wives' washed lavender-scented bed sheets prepared by their most-loved spouses. But, I am an old man made to reciprocate their duties, and a juvenile for a true care. A ghost in a sunny day, tamed by legends, besieged with loads, more likely to be told with an absurd tone. Woman, the pain is in the untasted bread after the fight, the unheard screeches of my echoing scars at night. The pain is in the cotton that holds my wounds, and I cannot carry my reasons to hold you. My mother, the light scares me more than you secretly peek from the sharp knives that cut my skin, My mother, they say forgiveness cannot be seen but felt, and I will always try to see you with your wings, and I will feel you through your words that slit.

  They say heaven could talk once you look for it; But does it still matter when I already have its impressions? They have the whitest cottons, that you can lay your head onto, don’t they? Animals do not live to obey the food chain. Science is non-existent. But the ecosystem is beyond reasoning: Branches and twigs are made of omniscience. The Kingdom lies where the river meets the golden rocks. It is all-powerful God of Israel’s. Weariness, there, is a forbidden fruit. Will it speak to me when I am uncertain if I could eat it from a burnt Baobab tree? There is Heaven, but my lips are connected to my silence, and my silence is an elegy to my broken nights. It is a papier-mâché which everyone bids. Sometimes said, sometimes sung, sometimes unspoken. The promise of paradise is only for the cleansed. The angels do not blow the trumpets from an omen; they sing for praise, while I hear earthly tunes of the winds. Nevertheless, the Heaven hears the blind’s cry, sees the deaf...

Tinititigan ko ang mga tao— sa kanilang mga uri, sa mapupusyaw na salumpuwit. Mula sa amoy ng silog, Sa mga inuming nakapatong sa lamesang bilog. Ang aking ulirat at ang pagkawala nito nang mamasdan ang pagbukas ng pinto na lumuwa sa isang lalaking pinatingkad ng kanyang kuwintas— isang dipa mula sa kanyang mámaháling saping tumapak sa seramiko. Minsan itong tinayuan ng mga abugado, doktor, inhinyero, guro… ngayon ng aking mga balahibo. Saksi ang buhangin na tinabunan ng semento: salabat na kable, kahel na tumupok sa tatlong-daang dumagan ang bingit, isandaang nasulasok sa ragasang sumingit.  Itulak ang pintong konektado sa mga bituka  na humimlay sa isa’t isa sa balikong tarangkahan, nawa’y aking mahila ang oras habang tinutupok ng gunita.

S taring at your rug where you used to rest your sleepy reality, My fur, I have been eager; You died the day when I had enveloped my skin with the sunset. You were in the latest video on my phone; I never knew I was shooting a pain— that from that day I would not anymore get a gain. I have never experienced nor faced death that would render such excruciating ache. Your slipped tongue was my admission— that I have always been inferior. I stabbed the air particles on that night,  for that was the least thing I could do. Scented candles, spoonfuls of sugar— I watched death for the first time, Wet hands, shivering January winds, did I ever do anything to help you survive? Rest upon my arms, No weight I shall feel from lifting you, but from this void ton that pulls me down. With your apparition, make me feel my relief; For no wine or vice that could get me out of this grief.