Papier-mâché

Everyone calls my mother by how I call her: mommy . Sweet, dearly Mommy! But mostly, I call her by how she is always right, as she still makes fun of my fire: " Son, pour your blood onto something else "; Sweet Mother, goodness gracious, Mommy! My mommy loves a husband clothed in reeking patriarchy; regardless, he is a Plath's "Daddy," and my Mommy's love for him is a Shakespeare's until-death-do-us-part. Then he comes home, and she dies every time he speaks. Poor, Mommy ! Is love that delight? I have known love as how it looks like a two-sided coin: with rusting ridges, still I use it to pay the fare, but it is not fair: distance still wrecks. I am far from where they are, I am near my Mommy and we will never meet.

  My love, the month is here:   Can you hear The cacophony of harmony? The harmony of dissonance?   They come to greet us, but   we sit on our feet, and on the Bermuda grass we sing, we sway with it as   you hold a yellow rose, and I hold a plumeria,   You grip me with thorns, And I do it with my rebirth.   Voilà! These flowers of us will bloom, from every strand of our hair to the footmarks, and April will be our dress.

The thermometer and the Mercury, I touch while it is fragmented. Syringes and how they are accompanied by comforting words. Is it my death to begin with or my life to live? So, when did it all begin that the flatline has become my habit,  and the zigzag creeks I never want to befriend? A trapeze and my unharnessed body, A life of flights and my displayed fears of soar on concave mirrors. Will you tell me how my veins are a life of their own? Those spaces do fulfill their promises of recovery, and not a sentence with periods.  Tell me, I am sane along with my compulsions, that I am more worthy than any receipts of the pseudos. Of some thousand bucks as gratitude, I am more than the hundreds of pills I should be calling friends.  Ten thousand consistencies, million more, or maybe five times—five times counting the vase I always want to shatter seeking the righteous one that hides the magic pill. Am I sick?

I. PIGURIN Sinasayawan ng mga tao ang piguring gawa sa gintong tonelada ang bigat Animo'y buhay sa sariling kamatayan ng mga pumapasan―isang luhod, dalawang pagtaas ng mga kamay. "Ay, ay! Ito ang rituwal ng kanilang nakaupong anito. Ito ang awit at ang sayaw na Na ang tagpo ay sa hilaga. Ang sinag ng Araw ay wala sa  Libong dasal, kung 'di sa mapambuhay nitong mga galamay. Subali't Umulan man ay wala pa ring apoy ang Araw na magpapainit sa nilalamig na mga kaluluwa. Landas sa kanilang magliligaw sa kagubatang lumuwa sa kanilang paghihirap. Ang pigurin ay bababa mula sa limang-talampakan niyang pedestal. Mula rito, Ni anino ay hindi makikita ng mga tagasunod, ngunit at Ang buntot na gawa sa limpak-limpak na salapi ay kikinang at makikita ang pagkabahag nito. Narito ang tanso ng traydor, ang ginto ng ganid. Lahat ay Gawa mula sa paghihinagpis at pagmamakaawa ng kanyang lipon. Kung ito ay susukatin ng mga paa, hindi sasapat ang libong pulo ng bayan; Ang kaliwa ay nakaturo...

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.