Close

I'd love to be close to you.

As much as I can get close

To a photograph.

In a way

that I could count the fine lines,

the pores,

and how your iris dilates

when I come close.

How you inhale

Or exhale

In a minute,

and if the number changes

When I'm a little more than

3 feet away.

I want to know

the way your sweaty hair

Drops the dew on your temples

On the sides of your face.

I want to count those

so I could remember you.

You sound like my 1st grade handwriting.

So many stops,

so many slashes and dashes,

So many of those,

So many interlude that hums I hear.

Mimics a song unheard for years.

I want to be close to you

Either like the pages of a book

New or torn or tattered

It doesn't even matter much

When your surface and mine touch,

For a minute seemed years

I want to remember

But as I stare at you

With defined spaces in between,

I can only close what's left.

After all we have always been close,

Of a different kind.

Two Loves

My two loves don't pull my both arms in opposing ways, 
but the feet that wear high heels on the right, sneakers on the left, 
and which I would walk with no problem. 

They are either this and that, 
the maybes and possibilities of my 5th grade Science project: feasible. 



They are what an adulterer is envious about. 
They know each other, be friends with each other, 
while rolling in the same bed that I lay.

They are the silence that spoke to each other 
over coffee inside the cloud that lingers above my head. 

They are the very hands that tickle my side 
and pamper the other, 
the same hands that decorate my hair with glorious braids,
I'd be mistaken as a goddess. 

And if the two shall flee, 
I'd cut myself in half, so we'd never be apart.

This is what you make when you spend an eternity queuing in NBI service center

It's still 5:30 am but I'm already starting my day queuing at J Center Mall. I consider this a happy consolation; I wouldn't have to go to Tuburan for my NBI clearance. 

Government office, wherever they may be, has always the same pattern. You go there early, fall in line, and wait. WWWWAAAIIIIITTTT for 48 years. No breakfast, no early morning coffee, no early morning texts, no calls. Frustration at its best. 

So much for the unfulfilled cravings, I tried reigniting my creative self while I thought about queuing for my future. I grabbed a sheet of tissue I got from some coffee shop and scribbled words. Words to phrases, phrases to sentences. It's in my Mother Tongue. 

Sa akong pag-inusara,

akong gikalingawan ug pilo imong mga sinina.

Ako na kining gipang labhan ug gipang was-wasan.

Humot tu-od, apan ayaw palabi ug pagpasingot.

Bisan unsa pa ka limpyo,

mabasa na gani sa imong duga, 

mura ra gihapon kini ug wala.

Ampingi baya imong bisti nga pang ilawom.

Dili lalim iyahang obligasyon.

Dili sayon ang tigpugong sa gigikanan 

sa kinabuhi ug kalipay. 

Ug kana mada-ot, unsaon na lang?

Akong gilain imong kamisin.

Kwelyado, V-neck, ug polo,

para dali nimong matultulan and imong isul-ob

nga mahinumdom ka's atong mga suroy.

Kining polo nimo nga puwa,

ang una nakong wala kinahanglana,

kahinumdom ka?

Apan, una pa. 

Tulo na man lang diay ni imong karsones?

Imu na tingaling gi-una ug hatod

sa primiro niining kaban. 

Hapsay na ang tanan.

Ikaw na lang ug sulod sa bagahi-an. 

Mupid-ok na ko ginagmay.

Lawom na ang kagabhion. 

Ayaw kusga ang kasikas.

Ug sa imong pag-biya,

        palihug sirad-e ang pultahan. 

I have no title for this poem and I have no intentions of giving one. I'll just let it be. Forgive me for being a sucker when I'm sad.