To maturity

Let’s tell the world there ain’t no Santa
the old balete hungers for world’s soul
the wind howls, its trumpets ablaze
I can taste the sweetness of the season a mile away
as the hot summer sun coats us in its sticky remains,
the saccharin remains of leaves flouncing like the skirt of maidens,
the sweaty sun-drenched stench of boys.
It was always running late,
huffing and puffing all the way. 

Old tendrils flake at the brush of youth’s finger
Fingers in a flurry flipping till noon,
the shabby script
of life running its course.
The world is our baby, our boon,
our ode to maturity,
a surface yet unwritten.

Media vita in morte sumus
Autumn waits
As the veins on that old balete sways.

A lock piqued (version 2.0)

Remember when we spent the day
breezing through the streets
like leaves in the wind.

I complained
that the dust had wedged its way
between my toes, and you in your shoes offered to trade.

Remember when you
wore those ridiculous jeans,
I laughed ‘til I hurt at the seams.

But you had yours that same month
when one day we both got drunk
and, like a fool, I sung our night astray.

Remember when we ate
at the restaurant by the sea,
our faces misted with salt-spray.

We found the filth underneath our table;
Disgusted, I swore we wouldn’t pay
and like mad men, we laughed as we escaped.

Remember when we snuck in
the cinema, there was some foreign film
We couldn’t understand a word, a line, a scene. 

We spent our time memorizing
the spaces in between
our knuckles, the webs between our fingers.

Remember when we decided to hide
from the rest of the world.
We hid the key away.

But we couldn’t find our way out,
got locked in the other,
got in each other’s way. 

I screamed at you then,
our spaces too close and
I felt you taking what little breath left I could breathe 

Like adversaries, we battled
In our tiny room we fought
For what was mine, what was yours, what it meant to stay ‘me’

We found our way out.
At last, a reconciliation.
But it was never quite the same. 

So remember when we sat
at the brink of the bed;
fingers laced, we wouldn’t be getting up that day.

And we talked about that time
we promised we’d be going places;
together, we’d explore. 

But there would be no more exploration;
we talked about staying in bed
nothing less, nothing more.

Dear Infatuation,
Dear Excitement,
Dear Life,
Dear “YOLO”,

I will breathe you in, snort you, inject you into every vein and pore until all is whittled and dry and incapable of harboring any sort of vibrance. But responsibly, I swear. I want to be Vibrancy itself, a personified being of pure energy, as if everything that was good and exciting and high-enducing in the world was bottled up in this human body, made to remind human kind that everything in life is OK but not OK all the time and that in itself is just OK as well.

Fruhlein.

Dear, Lechon.

We are fooling ourselves. I want to but I don’t want to, you want to but you don’t want to. We know the other knows that the other knows this. 

But you’re greasy as fuck, not very good for my health, and, to be honest, there are better food-things out there that could probably give me just as much (or more) pleasure. Other food things that go well with my many appetites. Plus, sometimes your skin is rubbery, impenetrable, inedible. 

But I do want a taste of you. Every time I come home. I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Lechon is always best in Cebu.

Fruhlein.