In a country where marriage

is a commodity being sold,

like exported goods

and appraised gold.

When all of the men you have ever bared yourself to have succumbed to pawning feelings.

In exchange of convenience and familial approval.

The sadness hangs like unpulled church bells. The desert heat seemed unfelt by your clammy skin.

(The leaves outside the window rustled as if whispering back your unrealised dreams.)

You sighed and went on saying

between the distance of you and him,

in the silence and detachment.

you found your ticket back to your comfort place in prescribed pills.

For a moment, I am convinced

that this world was designed to favor Joseph and not Mary.

I wanted to blanket you

from this scythe wind

to shield your purple heart

to armor you from this men-molded mortar

to tell you to never fit

our rebellious bones

into the norms of patriarchs.

(You reached out for the rays of the sun like they were raindrops falling on your palms.)

if I tell you, the fortress

of our fathers has fallen,

will you laugh again, love?

Oh, please!

Laugh.

Let these men wonder

about the joy of being a woman —

that even if they try

and make us cry

our once hushed lips would ne——ver shape their names.

Memory Cleanser

About the Product: Erases unwanted past and allows people to live without any memory of life's pain, tragedy nor bitterness.

Time, Route and Dosage: Before 12noon. Sublingual. Nothing more than 3 puffs

Pharmacokinetics :  Segregates "specified memories" along with the people involved and turns them into beads of water. The whole process of memory cleansing starts when the sun's heat reaches its peak and ends after it turns into squeezed oranges splattered in the sky. The moment the salty water dries, no trace of leaving and abandonement will ever peep into  consciousness again.

Side Effects: Complaints of having episodes of bad dreams. No bad dreams has lasted for more than 3 months.

Doctor's Reason for Prescribing: Patient's Verbatim, “That quiet morning over an English breakfast when he said, I've made him feel deserted and how he has found sunflowers in someone else's smile.”

Signs and Symptoms: Sleepless nights, puffy eyes, feelings of rejection,  questioning of self-worth and the painful process of outgrowing another person's body.

Expected Outcome: His weight

on her lavender-lotioned skin , the warmth of his arms reaching her naked spine, his soft kiss on her blooming cheeks, the nights he made her feel more radiant than the moon, the many moments her laughter drowned the rain, the endless conversation across the waves of distance - all of those are boxed up and turned into beads of salty water, disposed by the process of evaporation.

Evaluation: After a week, the product was left unopened.

i...

i wonder where you are and if the universe has always been cold.

now, that line might not be adjacent nor congruent with each other. but our heart has always been perpendicular because we love in parallel lines.

funny how we let the barbaric ink terrorize our veins. now, we are in an idle state when rivers should never unlearn the ability to flow.

how could distance violate the law of proximity when poetry claws us by its hand and unweave the cloak of pretend.

we were defenseless.

and here i thought, you and i will never fall for the same trap. but i just did. yet i know you were much stronger. he has a tongue that could crack any armor and he strikes you where he could hurt you the most - the part shielded by arched bones. then he leaves you with the truth that lines could never curve into infinity.

well my case was a lot gentler. this is about a boy i met who told me he would love to stay as a boy when i wanted us to grow like vines reaching for the sun - intertwined and knitted.

when he turned away, he left no queries unanswered. yet, i felt that departure brought a feeling of loneliness home and bruised backbone can't help but curl into a question mark.

why do we have to see what was once beautiful eclipse into an estranged memory?

so Luna, where are you and has the universe always been this cold?

pray tell me how to forget. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking how I've never fallen in love.

Until you came.

I’ve realized this much when I received a phone call saying my mother has died. Everything lost its color that day - that everywhere I look I see all the paint retreating, vanishing like how waves backs away but never to kiss the shores again nor to crash its being into the boulders of what feels like home. My heart fattened with sorrow that I feel I could burst like thrown paint balls on the walls. My veins clogged with the heaviness with this sudden news yet thoughts of you lingered like oxygen in my blood. I am being reminded that you exist among this hundred of insignificant people and how each breathing cycle, reminds me of beauty and of disappointment of having to watch you go. I feel that there’s a stain on my Sunday dress that no amount of detergent, salt or rubbing can erase. That even if my hands skin scrapes, its existence never ceases.

I wanted to curl in sadness  by your side and let your silence still my shaking shoulders into comfort. But a year ago, I let your warmth go.

In this cloudless afternoon, I thought of how I never have felt love before you and how helpless I feel. Like my own body betrayed me for letting your presence linger on the lines of my palms, your heat in every curve and every uttered word echoes in my eardrums and how I remember the little things. Little things like how your mouth curves downward when i make you wait and those apologetic eyes when you realize you were being insensitive for a moment there.

I miss you.

It’s been a year and more yet i still feel the hollowness of the space you once occupied. I thought time can close all kinds of wounds. But I guess, there’s no kind of stitch that could stop a heart from bleeding nostalgia.

So I let myself embrace the realization that i lost the only man I have fallen deeply in love with and it doesn’t hurt that much anymore. Only sometimes, when the town sleeps - it gnaws and begs to be noticed.

and she breaks like rain,

sprinkling a piece of her

in every place

hoping the petrichor

could heal the wounds

drought has brought

but it takes more than rain

to make the rivers 

all over the wrecked cities

rise again.

and so every night,

she hides between vacant sheets

and how in silence, she weeps

I thought of you today

in  million ways

I thought of holding your hand

warming it with my palms

I thought of being with you

even when you've never expressed

such desire.

I thought of loving you

Yeah... Of loving you

Even if i think

i already have

since the day i read you.

I thought of giving my heart 

for you to tear apart

and i thought

Of making you feel my love

amidst your refusal

to love me back

I thought of the warmth

I love to have

a piece of sunrise

and a million sunsets

in a jar of you

I thought of how 

oranges and lemons

blend well

and how you would love the taste

I thought of telling you

all the fears

and all that i desire

and how you make me cry.

I thought of you today

and how this feeling

never sinks with the sun

never goes half moon

and never withers like leaves

And i've gazed up a lot of times

hoping some drunken god

is crazy enough

to rearrange our stars.

Author Notes:

from salt, lemons and poetry series

I do not know exactly how she must have felt 

when she arrived home and realized 

that the house looked like naked timbers

with saggy, baggy cheeks

that dripped like loose curtain, 

waiting for her to notice

that her cabinets hold more spaces 

and her mom's collection of lipsticks were gone.

Silence reached her 

to wrap itself from fingers to toes

making her curved into a C-shape on the hollow mattress

that seemed to transform into a crib

where smell of tears and stains of fears accumulated

And how she wished she could cocoon back inside womb

transcend time and reestablish the purpose of a navel. 

Back to the time when a jelly-like cord

connects a small heart and a big heart 

but time had passed 

and the meaning of connection got lacerated long time ago

with sears of trashed expectations

and cascaded lies. 

when she gets too drunk

and inhibition tucks itself to bed, 

that's when she'd scream

and find refuge into my slender arms

and she would ask her questions

with tightly close eyes, 

she'd ask me to enumerate the reasons

why people leave their children when they reach 20?

Or why sacrifice for 20 years 

and tread towards comfort and security?

Why do people get tired and become selfish?

Why did she become weaker after 20 years of battling wars

between deceit and distant truth?

Why count all the bleeding wounds

and not the  possibility of victory?

Why break all the promises 

and leave all the dreams we've built

for a so called, "better" man ?

Why walk away when you have 2 sons

and a daughter looking up at you

Hoping you won't let them drown 

on wild rapids of too much agony and indifference.?

Why?  why ? why?

Weren't they enough? Weren't they enough? Weren't they? 

Then, with a fierce flame burning in her eyes, 

she said, "I guess we weren't enough."

For a moment, i am tempted to tell her 

that someday everything will make sense. 

But what kind of comfort can future present to her? 

Someday can take days, months 

or even hundreds of years 

and the questions 

dangling like the fake galaxies

inside  her wooden crib

needs to be stopped 

from eating her faith in humanity

as soon as now.

But no matter where i look,

no matter how many pages of self-help 

and inspirational books i scan,

i still could not tell her the words 

that will remedy her cancerous rage 

or the gangrenous despair

feasting on her soul. 

My friend, after 5 years 

i still do not know the answer 

and maybe even if another 20 years had passed, 

and you throw those questions again, 

i'll still find myself a scavenger

trying to unearth sensibility in garbage cans,

unable to vocalize any single letter. 

But this i know, 

there's this comforting warmth in you

that encapsulated me 

in a way the sun can never outdo. 

Do not let the storm

blow the comfort your soul radiates. 

It WASN'T your mistake. 

And i'm still here.

Mori,

I am sitting alone in this cafe and I swear my head is crowded with thoughts of you. Whether I am alone or in another's company, I feel there's no way to breathe but to drown with the talking moments we shared (even if they weren't too much of them lately. I'm not complaining - yet.).

I roll my eyes all over the place and all I could think of was the time when we talked about how you'd like to own a bistro someday. We agreed on what shape the tables would be - round. I told you that i love round tables for they make the people closer and everyone sees each other's eyes whether it's sparkling like Armand de Brignac Rose or as lonely as an empty bottle of beer and how you tried to crush the exuberance I showed when you told me that you like round because it saves space and not because of the stupid sentiments I just poured out. You reiterated how simple minded you are and how dramatic i was. I let your practicality escaped into a cascading laughter. I know you were trying to tell me how your bones have been bleached out of romance.

 Let me tell you now, I know how "unromantic" you are.

I know the thought of romance causes allergic reaction to your skin. Remember when i told you how the word hello was invented? Without hesitation, you told me that Graham Bell never really liked that word and how he preferred "ahoy" over the name of his girlfriend. And i smiled because no kind of discouragement can change my mind, my dearest. Believe it or not, happy ever after is something i have in abundance within the confines of my soul. No kind of "faith crushing" can ever make me hope for less - especially about us (even if you don't think that way - well, i do.)

I also told you i like to fill the place with wind-chimes made of shells, bamboos and anything that can breathe out sounds. I love how it saturates the room with its rhythmic melody when the wind kisses its tresses by the window or how it sings when the door swings every time someone comes and leaves. I believe a person's arrival and departure should be taken notice of as a sign of his existence - a reminder that he has been here. Sometimes, memories become so surreal that she starts doubting if they have ever happened, if they have really talked, if they existed or if the conversation was real - like how shooting stars disappear in the sea quicker than the blink of your eyes. You were quiet while i told you these nonsense I was beginning to think i was making you feel bored. It made me think that if ever we were face to face, you'll try to hide every yawn, the itch to stretch your limbs and the urge to turn your other cheek.

I imagine too much - i know.

Then you'll tell me to stop thinking stupid things like you leaving or you finding another prettier girl with 2D breasts (whatever 2D means because 3D is overrated). You said, you don't treat me as an option and i swear if a heart can melt, mine would have evaporated to join the clouds. Yet, i never told you how i felt about those words.

Instead, I told you that i get jealous about you laughing more often with other women and you told me that you laugh the most with me even if my jokes were so overused and nonsense. And i realized how much i needed to hear that to feel better.

The feeling of jealousy was suffocating that it was easier to breathe after.

And I hate your busy days so i try to be busy too and i try to forget you but when i pick the pen, i scribble your name all over the pages of my notebook and i remember the bistro you want to have someday. I listen to my favorite songs and i hear the growling of your metallic music blending with the supposed to be soothing melody of my much preferred choice of music.

You invade the privacy of my thoughts every now and then and I hate how i don't hate it.

I really think it's you who I want to talk with about jealousy, about my stupid dreams, about my love for sweets and how coffee makes me dizzy. And, I want to tell you that I'd love hearing anything about your life even if it's all about flipping pages of Accounting books, watching 2D breasts, smoking and coffee, your bizarre taste of music, your imaginary 8 packs abs and how many times you wrinkled your forehead.

I want you to know I am interested - so interested.