THRAMKWLLP:

The poems are packing their bags for other countries, colder climes.
     Better to describe a handful of snow
          than to languish in the heat, edges blurring.

Better to crystallize into small smooth objects
     than to expand; better the fist
          than the open palm, or worse, the softened heart.

MFRTWAYTNLA:

because I had memorized a poem you had read as a child, because it was pinned above my bed, because until today neither of us understand it, because you wrote your life into a poem that I read before I met you, and because I did not tell you this, because it was pinned above my bed –

because the night was moving away, faster and faster, and the tide was retreating under our feet, because as you kissed my shoulder we were piecing together what little we knew about motion, because some divine hand was urging the world on even as we stood still, the thin firmament was sliding toward dawn, because the margaritas became a whirlpool within us, because you let me lick the salt from your mouth –

because once I dreamt of you walking toward me, making your tall way through the tall grass, because the dream took forever and you never drew closer, because I was left at the edge of the field, tucking into my pocket the strings that tied me to you,

because I could not pull you toward me, because my desire was as palpable as paper, and just as combustible, because you were an island and I was a folded boat, attempting your shores, again and again, the wretched rim of salt.

TWAWLAMDSMAM:

I am going to sleep:
      the sad theatre of my body sliding shut
      all doors — heavy glass and velvet, punctured wood –
      the muffle and the squeak of it all, and you,
            gangly night guard gleaming,

      the big light that you yourself are in charge of,
            how you allow yourself a stroll across the red carpet
            before you reach across me, take your time, turn it off –

      the last audience of my heart
            rising from their seats, stunned by the sudden dark.

TIASTMFNYWNIF:

Lovely girl with your teeth bared and bearing down
on one white knuckle, you could be picking your gums
for all I care — yes, there now is that sad mouth,
bright lips, your eyelashes sweeping your cheekbones
like a particularly enthusiastic janitor. Let me rummage
through your plastic make-up kit, let me snip the stray
threads from your hems.
            O where
do you tuck your used tissues, warm and damp
from that Roman nose? Can I bury my face in your
cast-off skin, accumulating like so many snowflakes
on the denim landscape of your shoulders?
Can you show me, o girl of the restless fingers,
what to seize, and then what to throw away?

WMBMFITBSL:

Mary of Magdala

Two men flanked the stone where the body had lain,
and when I turned to face the light from the mouth

of the tomb, another one was there, and I asked
about the body, offered to bear it back; already

I could imagine the weight of the flesh, the smell
of what had been blood, now ichor. And the man

in the light called me by name and I called Him
by His — do not touch me, He said, and I knew then

His body was not mine to carry; My God, I said,
my turn.

PSA x 2:

School’s begun, and I feel like I’ll never be able to catch up on my backlog.

I had a project planned but I still have to test if it’s going to work out. Terrible things lining up, though: thesis, theology, and other threadbare commitments we make over the course that is AB English Literature – why yes, I am a senior in the Ateneo de Manila, and the second semester has just begun and I’m trying not to fuck it up the way I did with the last one.

My apologies for the lost week. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t.

Have some music:
I Wake Up at 2AM and iTunes is On, Playing This Song.

Will pick up again tomorrow. Or maybe I just did.

P

PSA:

Habol ako, promise. Wait lang.

OICBHCOTS:

Welcome Home, Children

Before the Christmas lights along my street go up,
I gather together all the people I had been in past lives:

the Peruvian potato vendor, someone’s disfigured twin sister,
the red-headed young boy who had to push a dead deer off a cliff,

the gypsy who insists Transylvania contains no vampires,
the mermaid with feathered lashes, gladly soaking the upholstery,

the man who lived alone for months on end and doesn’t speak,
the bear hunter toting a semi-automatic, the bear.

By sundown, the food is laid out — the host gracious with wine,
the cheese, fruit. Meat as chunks of roasted animals, greenery.

They arrive in an uproar, some heading straight for the food
with mouths slack, eyes bright. Others are more delicate:

the 18th century Italian royalty pulls out a handkerchief
still scented with cologne, the mermaid looks discreetly away

from the salmon platter. The gypsy tucks his bare feet
underneath himself and proceeds to eat with his hands.

Only the twin without a twin remains standing, looking out
at the yard, thinking of having to return home without lights

to line her path. Who will open the door for her there?
What feast would be laid out for her hands, her scarred mouth?

–

after David Schumate

BBLLTHYDTM:

12. Choose a suitable design and hold to it.

A basic design underlies every scheme, as with love:
an outpouring of composition — to shape a sonnet,
to know exactly all skeletons. To bring flesh and blood,
the writer perceives the shape, the success.

–

from Strunk & White’s Elements of Style

PRTXSDBNR:

Glad geometry of rooftops.
The big city uninterested in math.