My Love
I’m taking my chances this time like a ghost trying to cross over.
Hovering around, looking below, a hasty walk, distancing myself.
I no longer cry since I’ve begun my medication, no alcohol at all,
I am highly functioning now; never mind what others think.
Eyes, they look so cruel, lifeless, forlorn, at least when they look
At me; see me, feel me, emptiness; I am filling up my cup finally.
I understand now the moments you lost interest in books,
I wished I had saved you before you turned 180 degrees.
Lost my soul in the process of forgetting, just trying to forget.
I drink your medicine, and I lost my senses to weep and scream.
Not that I cannot grasp reality anymore, but I do not fret…
I still know my decisions and calculate my words, like a diadem
I wear while I walk hastily…like a ghost with the whole world
That’s all mine for the taking. I am as disastrous as you…my love.
Heart Transplant
Under water, no one can hear me scream
Covering up all the tattoos that remind me of you
I have survival manual with me to help me live
Earth moves so fast outside the window
Some people need saving and I am here
Wondering if the stars will fall down anytime from the sky
If we die together, will we have the guts to forgive?
I’m gonna find you, marry you, and live without regrets
Crossing the road, I lost my energy to look at different directions
That will lead me to where I’m supposed to be
I pick up broken people like collecting broken glasses
Faces looking back at me without any emotions, I’m to blame, I guess.
Some places need reconstructions to be liveable again
My heart is not yet ready for a transplant but it’s dying slowly.
Glamorized
She wore a red dress, tiptoeing on heels
Smiling through her eyes but gnashing her teeth
If I will tap her back she will start to cry out
Running away, she’s going to cry on the bathroom floor
Matte lipstick and messy red hair, trying to keep her cool.
Glamorized by the system, a capitalist slave
Working 9-5, going home feeling lonelier each day
Don’t you all worry about me, I’m a glamorized queen
Written in my head when I start to zone out and walk away
What am I doing here? I should be on the street.
Dolls, they look so white, glittery smiles
Skin so bright they blind the eyes of many men
Can’t blame them, who’s to blame? No one.
Women, keep your cool, men will haunt you down
Men, keep your cool, women will ask for more.
Glamorized by the system, they say climb the corporate ladder
Offer me huge salary in exchange of my empathy
See this bandana tied on my head, I am coming for war
When you expect me to obey, glamorized, I can burn this all down
I don’t care about your views in life, glamorized, if you can’t lend your hand to those who need them the most.
Rico, I Finally Said ‘I Love You’ to Someone Else
I used to say I wouldn’t be able to meet someone
That could fill my heart with sunglints and attention
I told you I love you and waited for your emails
You know what? I finally said I love you to someone else.
Nine years I have loved you, tenth year it ended
The funny thing about it is that, this time it is unrequited.
How are you now? You were my best friend.
I want to tell you how hurt I am today, but it’s worthless.
What will happen next? I have no f****** idea
Will someone ask me to dance and twirl me around?
To be someone else’s sky when they sleep on your lap
Someone I can send handwritten letters of hope.
Will I grow old ending our bloodline as a woman?
Will I fix my room and cook meals on my own?
I will travel the world and start being an activist
Willing to give my life and will scream of justice.
My calling is to lead people since gradeschool,
They push me and push to stand up for people
I’ve always been the one they look up to
But who can I run to when my knees start to shake?
They say pray to God, but who’s the one sent
To hold my hand just like how Jesus saved Magdalene?
Rico, I have moved on and will erase all the tattoos
Of the names of our dream children in my arms.
Will build high walls to exercise my boundary not
Built on ocean sands. My metamorphosis Franz
My wings are ripped out but my eyes still glow
Like fireflies charging during the day and spark at nightfalls.
Storm Warning
Hypnotized by clouds, I’m both cursed and graced,
Always finding myself pinned amidst a sea of people.
Now finally slowly unpinning myself…from guilt and shame.
Floating away sometimes, escaping the abyssal plain,
Learning to swim, resting my body, letting the air fill my lungs.
Days like these feel like a cloudy afternoon before the storm…
It’s calm. I’m safe in my room. I open the window to breathe.
It’s times like these, I want to check on you. But I simply don’t.
Is it too late now to explore new horizons and be redeemed?
Spring
I am a seasonal tree, blooming with lush green.
One day I shall be a dry one, leafless, slumbering.
For other days, I shall burst into blossoms again.
I crawl toward the heavens, ever unknowing why…
All things change, and despite the changing seasons,
I know full well that we all have limits and shall surely pass.
As our lives are destined to be, we die and another life begins.
Cruel fate never gets kinder, but only for a few people, I guess.
If I have a hundredfold chance to return, I always will.
Unlike trees, humans, once gone, their slumber is endless…
We don’t even have seasonal rest, to hibernate for weeks or months.
I want to be one with nature…to be free at last!
Protect Yourself, Woman
All the men who’ve glimpsed deeply into my eyes
Have asked me once in their lives this repeated line:
“Protect your very own self because you’re a woman.”
We’ve been burned and skinned alive for being one with nature,
One with the moon, one with the herbs growing all around.
Women have been the witches they hate to see prosper.
Alone, I approach you like an unflinching horse.
Do I look like I abandoned my side quests to safely come home?
Am I making you uncomfortable as I keep my dominance?
Did I hurt your ego by showing up whenever I wanted to?
Can you see a lionheart through my countenance?
Why don’t we sit down for a while with a cup of tea…
Why are you afraid of someone who wishes to be respected only?
I shall not submit to men, as if the heavens had not gifted me an infallible
Intuition and bold tongue to raise my voice when they raise theirs.
My Fiction Child
This broken system you don’t have to discover.
Failed plans, caught in the middle of conflict.
A child, an ideal home, but at this time I don’t dream.
I’m becoming a dead fish, no longer able to swim.
They’re pacifying the cries of desperation and losses,
Hiding bones, but the rain and drought pushed them up,
Pushing them more to flow and float on the streams.
We are the travelers of their abandoned ghost path.
Keep your secrets within yourself, hush and cover your ears.
Empathy is now, “Why don’t you call the police?”
Sympathy? Your friends no longer can listen to your rant.
Epiphany: Be numb or feel more? My only comfort is the ground.
Any high places show me so many roads and empty people.
You’re drunk as if you’re walking on the slim bridge to hell.
Couldn’t turn around; nobody’s waiting home anymore.
What have we done to each other? Why do fewer human beings care?
We talked about politics, how they follow their people like fanatics.
Whoever you follow is your circle, my friend; that’s just who you are.
I said I don’t use any social media anymore. It’s too loud and too much.
I don’t want to know you by scrolling feeds like food for men’s hunger.
These times feel like the ending of the human race.
You always ask me, “Who are these people?”
I told you I don’t know them as well; I only know them by their names.
Goodbye Sunset
The painted clouds and the shadows everywhere,
Being shaped by the remaining light of the sun,
And your hair, swayed by the constant
Greeting wind like a mother trying to calm her son.
You stole the warmth of the golden hour.
What used to be my simple and pure happiness
Is now the background of my desire.
The sunset will remind me of you and my sins.
Like a fever after running to the storm…
Like a hangover after fighting against myself…
I tried to disguise the feeling like the new moon.
I said I wanted to disappear; unknowingly, it is sooner.
Awkward Hi
I don’t know the proper way to say “Hi.”
Two letters that weigh like a hundred pounds.
My lips are chapped and dehydrated, tongue-tied
To this two-letter word: my key to sit by your side.
I don’t want to leave an impression on you
That I will always be by your side, as I am often lost.
What if you call my name and I’m light-years away?
I can’t even stay… there’s no port to hold my boat.
It feels like we are knowing each other less.
They say I’m a free soul, but I don’t even know myself.
Hi, hello… for all the witnesses of my decadence.
See no hope in this place, feel no warmth in my breath.
Descriptions and Prescriptions
She is so quiet and rarely laughs…
But despite her young age and innocence,
She worked so hard too early and for so long…
So hard, but her hands remained soft.
There was a famous folklore
In our island where we used to live:
“She was abducted by the elves
And was returned after three days…”
You were so quiet and graceful that even nature
Wanted to adopt you, and until now you are.
And you met him at the age of seventeen,
And the tiny him finally brightened your eyes.
I don’t know what runs through your mind;
It feels like a stream of pure water.
Until… the sky turned gray in your little home
And got flooded by offenses against gods.
We followed him as he walked to somebody else’s door…
I shouted his name because I had no idea.
We went home and you got your prescriptions.
You gave me your pills for us to sleep together.
He is my model of a loud introversion,
And I couldn’t be as dignified as you.
You beat your demons by leaving us alone.
He stopped being blue and erased all his hues.
If alcohol could cleanse all our wounds,
If medicines could mend the infections
Up to the bottom of our very soul,
I’d want us to take a family picture.
ANAMEMOIR 