i want to see my bones
and i want you to feel them
please, please. tell me i’m skinny,
i need you; i need you asking about the weight i’m losing
that i need to be losing
skinny and you’ll love me
you’ll love me if i’m skinny
please, wait and i’ll be skinny
i’m trying. i’m trying so hard.

***** covered hands
blood dripping from my nose
shaking
please, can’t you see that i’m trying?
don’t give up. not yet.
please, don’t give up on me yet.
i promise i’ll be thinner than her
thinner than everyone
please, wait. wait for me. i promise i’ll be skinny.
i promise.

i’m too fat for love
and i know what you think about me
because i think the same! i can see the rolls
i can feel the weight
i promise i’ll be skinny.
give me time. give me time.
all i need is time.
emaciated.
i want my bones to show.
i want to be used as a skeleton in a science class
i want everyone to see it
i want to show how skinny i can get
i promise i’ll be skinny
please, dont judge me for my extra pounds
they’ll be gone soon
i promise they’ll be gone soon

can’t you see i want this?
i’ve never wanted anything more
my hands are *****
blood, *****, sweat, tears.
my stomach is empty
always.
can’t you smell my breath?
my clothes?
my hair?
the scent of ***** lingers
i’m ruining my insides
so you can see my bones
please, see me.
please, can’t you see me?
you won’t look because of the fat
and i’m sorry for the sight you have to see
i promise you’ll soon be able to rub
your bones against my bones

i need my bones to show.
i need them to cut skin.
i need my bones to show.

even if i feel good all ******* day
and am determined to be happy
i end up crying when everyone is gone
and i can sit and remember things that taint my mind like venom
things like separation
and apart
and family
and mommy
and daddy
and little sister
and home
and please
and cutting
and help me

and then i am crying
again
like i always do
even if i just had
the best night of my life
anything could happen
and i would still cry

this halloween
i am a clown with a tear on her cheek

It's 3.56a.m. and I've got something to confess.
You've once asked me if anything's wrong and if I'm alright. I replied with a "yeah, I'm fine."
I lied.

You see,
0000h marks the start of my torture
As 0100h sees my tears.
0200h hears my secrets while
0300h watches me bleed.
0400h tries to comfort me, and get me to sleep before 0500h.
0600h I wake, questioning my existence all over again.
It's a vicious cycle,
One that I can never step out of.

My smiles in daylight are lies,
Deceiving enough to let people think I'm alright.
But truth is I never was, and perhaps never will be.
I love too much and fall too hard.
Words that pierced my heart resonates in me as I lashed myself with pain and anguish.
Taking pills akin to M&Ms; while downing coffee like water to substantiate my status as a human – I need water, air and love to survive.

Every personal question people ever threw to me,
I answered them all
despite them not getting any answers from me.
The answers and thoughts in my head
doesn't leave their sanctuary that easily;
They murdered me with their constant bickering.

Perhaps, at the next 4.07a.m. when you're awake,
try asking me those questions again.
i might spill it all out to you

(c.c)

I've never seen sad eyes like those.
I want to kiss them dry,
still those moving lips,
and calm those trembling hands.
You're broken, I know.
I'm broken, too.
You're fixing yourself, I know.
I'm fixing me, too.
I can't help you win this fight.
But I'll be a step behind,
holding your hand,
or pressing my hands to your back.
This is your battle.
You may push me away,
but I won't be far behind.
It hurts, sure, to see you
looking straight through me,
while I peer through the tiny
keyhole, into your heart and mind.
You keep everything locked up,
hidden.
But when the nights get late,
and the alcohol numbs your veins
and brings back every
bump, bruise, and cut in your
poor soul,
you take my hand,
and I give you pieces of my heart
to fill the holes in yours.
I may not be the center of your world,
I may never be.
But I would never want to watch someone
orbit around me, day after day.
But, oh, what I would give
to be the stars,
the moon,
casting a soft, warm light
onto your dark world.
I want to hover over you in a
billion shiny pieces.
I want my heart to be the luminous moon,
full of craters and shadowed valleys,
but steady and guiding.
A solid fixture for your eyes to focus on
when the rest of your world
is turned upside down.
As the darkness descends,
I'll cover you with my light,
scaring away the things
that haunt you at night.
As I wrap my arms around you,
your heartbeat slows,
your breathing deepens,
and you drift into a place I will never know.
I'll be holding you when the sun comes up.
And when you kiss me good morning,
I'll savor the sweetness in your eyes.
These moments are fleeting,
because night comes so fast.

My head and my heart
know only one song.

This song has no title
no artist
no album
no genre
unless you consider every person who had ever whispered this song
from cracked lips and dried up throats
or had hummed its tune in monotonous habit until it became nothing
but a humdrum sing-a-long, pass-it-on
religious routine with each letter sounding
outlandishly familiar to something forever etched in their memory.

My mother taught me this song
when I was two years old
because a decade minus eight is the age where you start remembering things like
the shape of your mouth when you’re forming the letter O
how it’s supposed to feel when it’s been struck and
how you’re supposed to not fight back
how you’re supposed to accept that you’re the weak one
how you’re just supposed to always and forever just sing
this one song.

“This
is the song your father
and his father
and his father’s father
and all their grandfathers’ great grandfathers
sang.
This
is the song that began
our end,”
is what my mother told me before she taught me
and before her lips could form the first vowel
before her throat could carry the first syllable
I knew.

I knew that this song
was a fallen hymn
drenched in desperation
its words only there to fill in the deafening silence
and like cheap cement
only meant to repair
but not to mend.
A tune that would put you to sleep
in order for you not to notice
the truth swept up under the rug
A ballad of blood
and ash
enough to fill up your lungs
and flow through your veins until its lies crawled up,
tainted and tattooed your skin
to produce scars for the world to see
scars for the world to label me
and say,
“Ah. She is her mother’s daughter.”

And when my mother finally sang the song,
I could feel the deceit and betrayal electrifying the air
adding to the illusion this twisted symphony
created that this
is the only song we can sing
this
is the only song
we were meant to bring
with us from cradle to grave.
I could hear hatred
notes of ignorance
chords of discord
something was wrong with the harmony
and I cried,
“Change the song!”
My mother sang on.
“Change the song!”
My father started to blend.
“Change the song!”
My grandmother came as a third voice.
“Change the song!”
My grandfather started to tap his feet to the beat.

And I realized that more than three hundred and thirty three years ago
someone had hummed a fa
had pressed a piano key
had written one verse
had been forced to scream out the bridge with chains on their wrists
crevices on their faces left by the tears that ran down the same path
enough times to make riverbeds
had passed the song down to his daughter
and her daughter
and her daughter’s great granddaughters
and had never stopped writing the lyrics since

There was an awkward rest in the song
as if someone had dared to stop continuing
had put the pen down
had tried to write truth instead of lies
but had died with the song of insurgency
and I asked my father whose blood it was
and he answered,
“Someone who asked questions.”
So I asked him who I was
and he answered,
“Nobody.”

But here I stand
here you stand
knowing the truth that has resurfaced
after being smothered by greed and power
century after century
curse after curse
thorn after thorn
I grew up asking questions
and I’m asking them again.
Are you going to be the first one
to erase the words?
Are you going to be the first one
to drown them out with freedom shouts?
Are you going to be the first one
to lay the pen down?
Because if you won’t, then I will
so that one day, my daughters will know
and carry this in their hearts,
Ang  mamatay  nang  dahil  sa  *iyo

I'll write forever
just to get to
where you are

words are steps
sentences are bridges
if paragraphs are boats
may this poem fly
me to
you

(A.H.Z)

Th(i)s life feels like a dre(am)
(a)nd days feel (li)ke fore(ve)r
but if there’s another world
where i am (with) (you)
please wake me up.

(A.H.Z)

Dear You,

I am writing because I have written so much about you that one more word or sentence or paragraph won’t make a difference to the mountains of text I have dedicated to you. I have gone through verse after rhyme after phrase to find you in betwixt and between the 26 alphabets that make up this language that we speak. There are never-ending metaphors and similes and fantasy worlds in which you live as the sea and I am the anchor that is sinking, or you are the sun and I am the moon that timidly lives in the shadow and reflection of your light.

However you will never know that any of these exist. You will never know how you saved me from myself and showed me love in ways I never knew existed. You will be unaware of the girl who has thousands of letters and poetry and prose dedicated to your mere existence - from the hairs on your head to the way you move seamlessly along the ground. You will not recall the promises you broke that I still remember, and you will never read any of the emotions or feelings I have confessed and penned down over and over again. You will not, even though subconsciously I will tell myself you have, because I would like to stay in the memories where you understood me with just one look; in those moments where I truly believed we were the lock and key of each other.

And even though things are like this at this very moment, I still believe you are mine as I will always be yours. I have imprinted the sound of your voice and the echo of your laughter on my heart; engraved the words you used to sing and say onto my skin. I have made a thousand paper cranes to match up to the thousands of excuses I have made for our drifting apart. I have formed bridges of prayers and tears to hopefully find my way back into you, staying up night after night to watch the sunrise illuminate my room; hoping that somehow the rays will penetrate the dark of my soul and I will finally become as bright as you are to me.

I love you. Maybe this was meant to be the most important thing to tell you first, but I believe love can only be said in so many words. Don’t worry about me. I will continue writing prose and stories of how we were and what we lost while you move on with the same vitality in your step. I will stay in the past afraid of the present and keep our memories in my core of my heart so that wherever and whatever happens, you will be there with me.

Regardless of everything, I love you first, last and always. No matter how far we go, where we are or when we depart from this life there will forever be a part of you that lingers inside my heart. I will always want the best for you, and I will always want you to be happy, safe and well.

Yours always,

Me.

(A.H.Z)

I am tempted to let you enter this room which is my being and soul, but you see - the last person in here trampled over the grass, uprooted the flowers and tore down the lights. He brought storms with him in place of the windy spring air and poisoned everything he touched with his fingerprints; permanent stains on a fragile heart. This is why everything smells cloyingly of rain, grass and roses here, overbearingly so.

He has stayed for years, coming and going as he pleases, so often so that the hinges of the door of the entrance are rusty and breaking apart. The gates used to be white and intricately laced with wildflowers that screamed freedom and naivety, but now they are wilted fragments on the remnants of charred wood from the lightning and thunder.

When he returns and lingers for a long long while, I take pity on him; placing a candle on the table and fixing a lamp above his head. I give him water and food and nourishment, emotions taking over any rational thought. I give him comfort and attention and answer any whim, demand or request. I give him all and everything I am simply because he is who he is, and I am who I am. During these moments he is sometimes pacified, and destroys less of me than does in times of anger and desolation.

But if he becomes too tame, too kind, too gentle - without warning, he will disappear. He will disappear into the dark but come back in radiant light. He will leave with an apology in his eyes and a smile on his lips, but return with fire in his soul and anger on his tongue. The storms he creates are violent and threaten to collapse the walls of this room, but never do.

During his disappearance, other people like yourself try to enter this place, but he takes the key with him and locks the broken door. I have an extra key to escape, but it is dangerous in here - glass shards, broken smiles and plaster masks that litter the wall and floor - so I never let anyone in. Only he knows how to tip toe around the chaos and ruin to find his way back, and allowing visitors in here would hurt them, so I stay alone till he returns. It is safer this way.

-

You will ask why she does not run if he is destructive and as deadly as she says. You will wonder why this girl refuses to escape from the storms she is terrified of and return to the spring. You will relentlessly beg her to stop watering the roses whose thorns ***** her so, but it will all be futile.

Because regardless of what you ask, she will answer out of the same conscience that makes her care for him endlessly; love, love, love.

(A.H.Z)

why is it that every time a boy passes me in the hall
i feel guilty
like i owe something i haven't paid
like i ought to have something but i haven't taken the time to get up and get it -
embarrassed.

boy,
why does the back of your neck frighten me
why does the suggestion of your frame
make me wish i was not existing
what is it about you that is so
*******
scary

i am a goddess
a wisdom
a prose
and yet i cannot look normalcy in the face
you are nothing special
but you are enough to untie my laces