We stand by the window, side by side, looking for the white-winged creatures you once called angels—or I imagine you are, since your stare is as distant as the moon at midday. You do not notice, of course, that mine is focused on your disheveled hair that keeps on playing tag with the wind, the strands covering your cheeks, and your ear, and your brows, and your…

I can almost hear your breathing, the painful heaving of your emotional chest—I ask myself, if she falls, will I be there to catch her? Silence is my response, but my answer is clear. If you fall, I will not be there to catch you, not in this lifetime or the next; for I will be the one to push you. I will claim that privilege.

I shake my head in disbelief. I should tell you that you will not see the angels today.

The window is closed now. You are no longer standing beside me, but I still see you—as my mind wants me to see, no, I will stop seeing. I close my eyes—just a second, a mere second—just a fragment of a minute, perhaps shorter, longer, faster, or slower.

No, you will not see the angels today. I will make sure of it.

The Victim to the Accused

To say

I trusted you

is heartrending, absolutely

heartrending and lo, I had thought,

when I saw that you are

it—

I had thought—

But no, never did the

disappointment come, and I knew—

I know I knew—

I know I was not to say

I trusted you, my friend.

I never did.

You are the python,

you are the wolf, and

you are the devil in a pin-striped suit

wearing the stare of the innocent,

and never—did the disappointment,

the misery of knowing, arrive.

You need not

speak, you need not save yourself

for not even God nor the angels will.

Justice, to execution!

The Accused to the Perpetrator

My good sir, I humbly

ask of you to come, in pious ten

steps or two—forward, my good sir,

if there is still a shred of

humanity in your perverse

reality—free me of this sentence.

I am without fault, if fault

resided in that single moment—

I am without fault.

You are watching me writhe

in agony, I, the indicted,

the accused, but you are well aware:

I am not the architect

of this altered labyrinth that

continues to ruin the roots

of my passive existence as a friend,

as the guiltless. It is only you

that have the culpability.

I implore you, good sir,

do not deny me of life,

of life that I tread on with the

cleanest of feet and the

steadiest of hands.

My good sir, I will

bear no hate, bear no semblance of

it, if you make amends

with the truth—but quickly—

Quickly, before sunset

and before it is too late.

Justice, please vindicate me.

The Perpetrator to the Victim

I owe you no remorse;

what I did,

I did so with glee.

For I thrive in malice.

You are oblivious to it.

You, a casualty of my consensus

with the evil of man. My first

and not the last—the experimental

hatchling to my dubious

schemes and the fuel to my

ascent to greater madness.

Of all these you are ignorant,

to your eyes I am not to blame,

with not even an inkling

of knowledge that I was there.

To plot.

To desecrate.

To severe.

You will lose a friend—

no, you lost him—

you are the victim and the accomplice,

the denied and the denier!

But do despair,

do despair—

There is no Justice!

Hush Into The Dying Of the Light

Gone are the good nights for the dead left spite—
the foolish men and tortured martyrs;
please—hush into the dying of the light.

Witness the wild and the grave pass us by
with rage as weapon and torches on fire—
they are to fail and eventually die.

But alas, though wise men need their sight
to stir the rubble and start a war they
still do not go silent into the night.

The good nights are gone and lost to fables,
and the clever will know better than move
in between the crossfire and the chaos.

Whisper into the setting of the sun;
cats that prowl and stalk beneath the shadows
outlive the dogs after the day is done.

Gone are the good nights for the dead left spite,
and all but the calmest will perish so
please—hush into the dying of the light.

-----

This is a response to Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Mishaps

Our Father,

do not twist the rope tightly—
ever so tightly—

Not yet, not yet.

Let us wait for my
fingers to cross the tunnels of
hardship and abide by my
vows until 

death
do
us
part—

No—do not twist,
twist ever so tightly,
ever so—

suffocating

hampering my labored breathing,
giving in… slowly… and please
do not twist the rope
ever so tightly—

around my neck.

You felt the tip of the pen—
not yours—
scratch the grainy surface
of the table.

Thin. Translucent.

You took up your spoon
and it made
shy contact with
your lips, but
you were careless, and had let
the cream
drip—turning your words
into unrecognizable
blotches.

Smudged. Soaked.

You gave up and quickly
grabbed the
plastic cup for a drink.

You thought you were
cautious enough,
until you happened to glance
upon a girl
with strange locks and
even stranger
face markings—a bit of
the ice
slid into your mouth, and
down
to your throat.

Choked. Coughed.

The Feminine

Call her...

As if she is smoldering, ablaze—a closely patched,

short-lived, highly coveted incendiary concealed by a

haze of smoke, charred within moments of being

lit. She will not hear you scream; she will not be

even aware of your exhaustive gaze, but

you will still call for her—and beg on your knees.

Call her...

Just when the tarnish of the lethal rain concludes

over a torrent of downside, hell-torn puddles, and

visible streaks of morning dew. She will be

intent on moving into the backdraft and the aftershock.

Call her...

Knowing that she will be a hundred-fold maze of

ravishing riddles. You will suppress every

idle attempt on a white-scarved surrender and a

zero chance for an encounter—that which in

zealous desperation will lead into a stale-mate—and

instead you will utter in silence: she will remain

an unsolved dilemma, a work in progress.

Call her...

Vexatious, and you will still be at fault; name her

innocent, and a trial you will hold. You will expect

nothing short of broken syntheses and peripheral

accounts, unwary of your inevitable defeat.

Until Midnight

The wind carries the ashes

of a time long forgotten,

the memory of the finest

turned to dust;

but do ring the bell, scatter and tell:

it’s almost midnight.

The night will hurt the sharpest,

the time I was forgotten,

to dine in a phantom feast

my shadow casts;

but I brought the spoon, platter too soon:

it’s almost midnight.

Soon the dawn will shatter,

and the sun will turn its head.

But until midnight does not happen,

I shall worry no longer.

The feathers of black in place,

the crow and of the raven,

to hear the flapping of wings

that will not last;

but you will not be—able to see:

it’s almost midnight.

Soon the dawn will shatter,

and the sun will turn its head.

But until midnight does not happen,

I shall worry no longer.

Soon the dawn will shatter,

And twelve will be good as dead.

But until midnight does not happen,

I worry not, no never.

Intimacy, The Non-Existent

We will be left unattended,

unscrutinized by

no-one other than ourselves. Still, I beg her

pardon, if I cannot meet her delusions of

perfection with even a murmur of common

resonance. I wonder if she is aware that her

piece of our puzzle wields a dagger—a blade

with the sharpness of tortured flame and the

sting of a desert wasp. I do not blame her,

but I am not deserving of a trial. There never

was a home, and never will be. The slope is

too uneven for the first brick to be laid.

Similar to the illusion of collaborative precision

simpletons conjure, the presence of a spark

is ignored to flicker on its own and eventually

meet cosmic death. We are made parallels,

strangers treading on either side of the shore,

and neither know of the other. And if we ever

come close, she will be the floor to my ceramic,

the gravel under my feet, the sliver of hope to

the terminally ill. She does not need to pull out

her knives; I already emptied the barrel of my

bullets. She leave doors open, I step on mine

to see my back riddled with transient holes

and her stare ever so vacant. I seek comfort from

her cutting silence and the scrape of her pupils,

and she—love for her is my silent disapproval and

the tinge of regret that marks both her soft palm

and my cheek. But we do not mind this charade,

for we are but children playing a game of

pretense we can never finish, and I commend

her for dealing the first decisive blow

when she spoke of the truth,

of her own truth.

---

This is a response to

Intimacy, Of All Things by Shubhs Shubhangi

Take this, Valentine!

Tomorrow

two suns will rise

face to face

and

I will be able to walk

over your shadow,

and you on

mine,

with our fingers, which often

pointed to nowhere,

clamped like a

piece of a shattered

chain from a

dungeon prisoner—

You will put

your scarf over my

eyes as a blindfold, and

lead me through

the steepest curve of the

hill—

But we will not reach the top,

not before the

suns go down

in a hush

and a ruffle, in a crackle

and a tear—

And before you

know it, you will be

walking, dragging

a half-chain

without no-one stepping

over

your shadow and mine's

with the scarf

tucked on your waist

like the tail of 

a predator twice

removed—

as the fourteen moons

emerge in

the mirrors of horizon.

Bitter Almonds
v2

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And then
when it came

CRASH

—ing down, your eyes,
those
pathetic rusted underwater
anchors reeled at the
sight. It was the shards, five—
no, six—
make that six billion! Funny, you did not stare.

FUNNY, YOU DID NOT.

Or could you not? Would you still?

Did it hit you
HARD in the face? Was it
like a brick smashing
in your five—
no, six—
make that six billion
orifices? But you

YOU STILL DID NOT STARE.

Or could you not? Would you still?

Did it cause you
to rampage, like a
deranged lunatic out to desecrate
the five—
no, six—
make that six billion
orifices of each. And.
Everyone. But you

YOU CHOSE NOT TO STARE.

Or could you not? Would you still?

Did you see or were you
too busy to even
look, with your
eyes

FILLED!

BLACK!

SEETHING!

but not with the darkness,
I OWN DARKNESS
and you,
you shall not have it,
you will not have it,
I WILL NOT ALLOW IT! I will
say it five—
no, six—
make that six billion
times and even at your
wake I will not proceed to
the last page and give you
the satisfaction. But you

YOU DID NOT STARE.

Or could you not? Would you still?

But that's enough of the
questions, this is not
my inquisition, and pain—
pain is not yours
to keep no matter how hard
it did hit
your five—
no, six—
make that six billion
lies and a seventh
of deceit.

Now move those frozen lips.

It's your puppet show to run.

Totalitarianism, Twisted for a Bit

You

whose voice
linger
in my subconscious,
and my conscious,
eternally
humming that tune—

Tonight, we are young...

You

whose seat
next to
mine
are riddled with
scratches
of your pen’s ammunition—

You

who painstakingly
reminded
me of the ticking
of the clock
close to three,
and a quarter more
of the words
written in that inexplicable foreign
book—

You

with a flash,
and a snap—


The apple of neither green nor red;
neither sweet nor bitter—

but an apple,

the Apple

nevertheless.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dedicated to my friend, Krizzia Mei Esperanza
who captured our lives
not just with a camera

Malady, Melody, Melancholy

Your music, bordering on
mellow and the
memorable, makes
meaningful masterpieces
from
your mind that
often meander in the most
mysterious of manners;
meekness and modesty might
be your mask, but
underneath is a myriad
of misdemeanor: from
the mischievous, to the
morose,
to the macabre.
Here
you are to meddle with monotony,
and meticulously
mediate the miscontrued and
the mediocre—that
which even
the mechanical
cannot beat—

You are simply mad;

you are the malady—

the melody—

and the melancholy—

The multi-colored Miss Ashley.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dedicated to my friend, Ashley Saludes
May you stay as you are
and as mad
as the Hatter

Of Boots and Dorks

Before I try to escape the bonds of marriage which I know I will be forced to be in (sooner or later), I’ll make sure I have two houses built already: one specifically made for couples—an effective front, and another for me to find sanctuary whenever my would-be wife will have her period, or if she suddenly feels the urge to kill me with a kitchen knife after I poke fun at her horrible cooking. This alternative dwelling of mine will be kept secret from the world and away from the prying eyes of the general public—my friends included (who I am sure will find it hard to resist playing pranks on me). Of course, this second house will be filled with thousands of books from every possible genre there is and will be; however, don’t think I will marry my books instead if I don’t get tied up in an eternal hellish relationship with a girl, because that would be just weird and plain crazy. Or if I do get married, I’ll tell her that I have sex with my books, and that, I am sure, will freak her out and hopefully make her file a divorce.

And my children? I will not tell them about my secret hiding place, but if I feel extra kind I may give them some of my books (the cheap paperback ones). I will not force them to go to sleep at night and will allow them to do whatever the hell they want as long as they leave me at peace. They will have to be able to read and write at the age of three, learn proper grammar at age five, and must be able to spell ‘rendezvous’ and ‘psychology’ during their first year in school without even batting an eye. They will know when to talk back to their teachers, and break rules at their convenience. I will not have them dancing like an idiot inside the house, and will ground them if they choose to quote Shakespeare, or recite ‘Trees’ by Joyce Kilmer. They will be excellent storytellers and liars and will be the best fictionists of their generation. I will not encourage them to write poetry, but if they fall to that point of no return wherein they try to describe almost everything in words unutterable, I will not save them, and most probably leave them to rot thinking of other ways to express that one word, the bane of all poets: ‘Love’. And even in their grief I will not share my chocolates.

And if one day I wake up in the middle of the night and hear my teenage son’s pen losing its ink to countless, worthless attempts on writing a love letter, along with his whispered curses at God and his silent litanies on how he is incapable of expressing his fleeting emotions into inked sentences of endearment...

- Or if I walk in the hallway and find my daughter’s newly-bought books lying on the floor, with their pages torn and full of scribbles and side-comments on how the story should’ve turned out...

- Or I see my youngest ripping off the pages of a Twilight book and crying at the sight of a sparkling vampire...

- I will not worry about it and will happily go back to my own devices with a feeling of utmost pride, thinking: Ah, it must run in the family.

And if I don’t get married at all, and most of I wrote here become no more than a nightmare I’d rather not have in this lifetime, then I must be the luckiest boy in the world. I will write a book on how I triumphed over society’s evil expectations and about my trip around the world looking for the perfect things to kill, mutilate, and obliterate boredom, and then I’ll die happy and carefree and ready to meet whoever bastard claims to be the almighty Creator. And then live on for the next life.

---

This is a parody of
Of Books and Words by Ashley Saludes

Parasol

I tried to
evade
the countless arrows
that came down to strike
but I knew it
was
futile—or rather,
quite stupid of me to actually
think I had
even the energy to spare.

They were blunt, and
they never pierced through,
but I knew they were
deadly
nonetheless.

The invisible archers did not
seem to stop for even
a split second. There was
no time to catch
breath
nor measure my
survival rate. 'Not
a chance!' I could hear them say.

Hundreds—no, thousands
of their ammunition
landed on my eyes.
'Thieves!'
They almost took my sight,
if not for the only
face armor
I did not forget to wear.

I felt vulnerable when they
scourged my back,
arms, and nape
like the whip of a seasoned
sadist. All I could do
was run.

I went into the battlefield,
unprotected,
unprepared—
and although blood was
not
spilled, I realized that
it was warfare I could
not possibly win

without

my—

Mistletoe

in the midst

of swaying
hips
and
marrionettes
of modern
music

her black-marked
pearls 
darting

left
right
left
right—
center

of intoxicated
youth
and blood
fountains
in aluminum

the heart
of
her heels
beating
and

not a
moment to
lose

of laughter in
disarray
and
she—

her pearls
fell
deep
into an
ocean

and
chance

all
alone
under
the

mistletoe

Matagal nang sawa sa akin ang tula. Isa itong katotohanan na mahirap itanggi, o itago, sapagka’t patuloy akong ipinagkakanulo ng aking panulat; sa bawat letrang itina-tatak nito sa papel ay patuloy na nailalantad ang lihim na hinanakit ng aking mga salitang ibinubuhos sa pamamagitan ng tinta. At kung piliin man ng tula na bigyan ako ng pagkakataon, madalas ay lumalapit ito habang ako’y abala sa ibang gawain, na kahit pilitin ko man na maisulat ang nasabing tula, maling mga titik at larawan ang aking maiuukit sa papel, dulot na rin ng kawalan ng konsentrasyon.

Itinuring kang
punla
na inalis
sa
pasong
ipinagtaniman
sa’yo,
at—

Noon pa lamang ay alam ko nang malayong magkasundo ang tula at ang aking isip. Madalang ang pagdalaw ng tula sa aking utak, at biglang na lamang itong naglalaho ng walang paalam. Sa kabilang banda, abot-tanaw pa lamang ang tula ay ginagawa na ng aking isipan ang lahat upang iwaksi ito paalis.

Napakahirap pilitin maging ng aking mga kamay na makisama sa paglapat, hindi lamang ng tula ngunit pati na rin ng mga ideya sa papel. Simula pa lamang ay akin nang napansin ang panginginig ng mga ito, pangangalay, o biglang pagtigi

I hate baby-sitting.

My younger cousins were playing with wooden bamboo swords. They noticed me watching intently, and so, forced me to join them.

I saw it as a waste of time—exactly what I was aiming for.

Of course, I was going easy on them... at first. But with every swing, with every swerve, with every slice, every silent whoosh of my sorry excuse for a sword against thin air (for I was careful not to hit them), my strikes got faster, and faster, and stronger... Through their innocent eyes I was slowly being transformed into a villain: evil, unsympathetic, treacherous, scary! I chased them from the living room to the kitchen and back, and the high-pitched laughter of children and screams of staged terror filled the house. And then as I was nearing one of them, I raised my sword, did a blind swing—followed by a sickening thud as wood meets collarbone...

Someone wailed. The roar of an engine was heard. I ran for my life.

I loved you, I love you, and I will

It caused me great sorrow when you left. To even ask if I was at fault—with my eyes foolishly set on less important matters—that I failed to recognize your presence even though you took on sheer lengths just for me to notice, is meaningless. The only thing I got a clear glimpse on is my lack of self-worth.

Had I known that you were there, I would have ran as never before, with not a care in the world but for only you, nearer and nearer and nearer, until at last, we come face to face—indeed, my tired legs and sore feet, and even the searing heat of the sun would not matter—and then my lips, trembling, in slow paces, would reach your blessed entirety, savoring sinful sweetness and heaven alike...

But there is no use for wishful thinking. You were gone. I will have to live a life full of regret (for I deserve such a fate), and if by chance the hands of Destiny decide to once again open their clenched fists, I will be here, waiting, and waiting, for you, with bated breath.

Until we meet again, my dear ice cream.

Sa halos araw-araw na kinakausap mo ako ay hindi man lamang sumagi sa aking isipan na sagutin ka ng matino. Oo, inaamin ko na minsan ako'y nabibighani sa iyong mga sinasabi. Na minsan ay nais ko nang mahulog sa iyong mga patibong. Ngunit mas pinili kong manahimik upang ikaw na mismo ay lumayo, sapagka't alam kong masasayang lamang ang aking panahon kung bibigyang pansin ko ang iyong mga salitang madalas ay walang kabuluhan.

Ang hindi ko pa rin mawari ay kung bakit pilit mong pinagsisiksikan ang iyong sarili sa buhay kong tiyak pa ring uusad kahit wala ka. At kahit alam mo nang inaaksaya mo lamang ang iyong oras, hindi mo pa rin ako nilulubayan.

--

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--

Iyan ka na naman.

Hindi naabutan ng takipsilim
ang bukang-liwayway

at

hindi nasilayan ng araw
ang ningning ng buwan.

Find me.

Find me when the wolves' howls echo on the decrepit walls of your hidden attic.
Find me when the waves crash on the grainy shore of an ill-tempered lake.
Find me when the wounded spider weaves a home with its last dying breath.
Find me when the land turns black with the ashen remains of those who died in combat.
Find me when the last droplet of rain scales back to its cloud with a vengeance.
Find me when the wind takes its final form and turns everything to dust.
Find me when the shards of broken glass lies in wait for the chance to draw blood.
Find me when the rope clings to your neck as it leaves a mark on your fair skin.
Find me when the darkest night sheds light to the brightest of your days.
Find me when the only leaf starts clinging for its life on the single branch of your hopeless soul.
Find me when poetry ceases to exist.

Find me when you have found someone else.

Find me when you do.