Look Ma, I'm a Writer!

I. Addict

Inhale.
You're the victim
of your own sorrow.
Emotions are nothing but
electrical impulses interpreted
in the mind.

What you feel is
what you are
is what you do.

He who chooses
to wallow in his misery
is addicted to it.


II. Insane

Exhale.
You're the perpetrator
of your own destiny.
Emotions are mere thoughts
manifested externally
through action.

Actions speak louder
than words speak
louder than thoughts.

He who wants to clear
all internal turmoil should
breathe it all out.


*inspired by the song "Breathe" by The Prodigy

My son smokes.

Now that is probably the biggest insult to a man in uniform:
to have a pothead for a son.
Especially your first-born.

So I beat him
to make him see the folly of his ways.
I sent him to the best schools, and this is how he repays me.
So I enforced on him a new and improved
Drug-Free lifestyle.

However, when I woke up one morning,
the painting hanging from my bedroom was gone;
the first thing I saw in the morning for the past ten years,
a painting of my favorite band
painted by my son for my fortieth birthday.

And when I asked him,
"Where is the Sgt. Pepper painting?"
He just shrugged his shoulders and answered,
"You said Drug-Free."

Now that made me realize
my son is a true artist,
and what he does makes him no different
from my alcoholic sister or my philandering brother.

My son still smokes marijuana.
Just never in front of me.


*circa February 2004

Ako'y balisong.
Makintab at matalim,
maaaring makapagpasirit ng dugo
kapag itinusok sa iyong leeg.

Ako'y balisong
na walang silbi kundi
kumitil ng buhay.

Ako'y balisong,
maganda ang hawakang
inukit sa kahoy.

Ang paggawa ng aking hawakan
ay mas komplikado pa kaysa sa
paggawa ng aking talim.

'Pag ako'y nakatupi
ang aking silbi
ay pan-display lang.

Ako'y balisong,
matalim, maganda,
nakamamatay.
Ngunit ang nais ko
ay manatiling nakatupi lamang.


*Birthday poem for me, 2008.

I can't see you, but I can hear you
on the phone
in that sugar-coated voice of yours
that I last heard you use on me
fifteen years ago.
He is fifteen years younger
by the sound of his voice,
and you call him by an endearment
you used to say only to me.
Yes, I heard it
because I was listening.

You can see me, but you can't hear me.
You can't hear the machine gun of rage
going off in my heart.
You can see me smile at you
but you can't hear me mutter under my breath
that when you say you're going to the supermarket,
you're really going somewhere else.
You don't hear it
because you're not listening.

I can't see you, but I can hear you
through the walls,
through the paper-thin walls
of my own bedroom.
The disrespect of it all,
muttering someone else's name
as someone else's semen stains the sheets
of my own bed.
Yes I heard it.
I was listening.

You can see me, but you can't hear me
cocking my sawed-off shotgun.
You can't hear the adrenaline rushing through my veins
nor can you hear the loud ringing in my ears.
That sound is the absence of reason,
the sound of the dark cloud over my obfuscated senses.
Every atom of my body is cursing you to the depths of hell
but you can't hear it.
You won't hear it
anymore.


*Written and performed 5 Apr 2008, "Bigkas Pilipinas," Jam 88.3

I remember
her eyes:
sincere, yet deceptive,
intense, but far away;
her mouth:
spins sugar over words that
roll over her serpentine tongue.

She has a face that could launch a thousand armies
and that could sink a million ships.

And her body --
perfection incarnate.
Her skin radiates an unholy light,
every inch of her a testament
to the glory of a higher power.

She was the light that struck me blind.

The veil of darkness has been lifted.
Now I am enlightened.