A Poem for Three Voices

Setting:  A Maternity Ward and round about

FIRST VOICE:
I am slow as the world.  I am very patient,
Turning through my time, the suns and stars
Regarding me with attention.
The moon's concern is more personal:
She passes and repasses, luminous as a nurse.
Is she sorry for what will happen?  I do not think so.
She is simply astonished at fertility.

When I walk out, I am a great event.
I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me.  I am ready.

SECOND VOICE:
When I first saw it, the small red seep, I did not believe it.
I watched the men walk about me in the office.  They were so flat!
There was something about them like cardboard, and now I had caught it,
That flat, flat, flatness from which ideas, destructions,
Bulldozers, guillotines, white chambers of shrieks proceed,
Endlessly proceed--and the cold angels, the abstractions.
I sat at my desk in my stockings, my high heels,

And the man I work for laughed:  'Have you seen something awful?
You are so white, suddenly.'  And I said nothing.
I saw death in the bare trees, a deprivation.
I could not believe it.  Is it so difficult
For the spirit to conceive a face, a mouth?
The letters proceed from these black keys, and these black keys proceed
From my alphabetical fingers, ordering parts,

Parts, bits, cogs, the shining multiples.
I am dying as I sit.  I lose a dimension.
Trains roar in my ears, departures, departures!
The silver track of time empties into the distance,
The white sky empties of its promise, like a cup.
These are my feet, these mechanical echoes.
Tap, tap, tap, steel pegs.  I am found wanting.

This is a disease I carry home, this is a death.
Again, this is a death.  Is it the air,
The particles of destruction I **** up?  Am I a pulse
That wanes and wanes, facing the cold angel?
Is this my lover then?  This death, this death?
As a child I loved a lichen-bitten name.
Is this the one sin then, this old dead love of death?

THIRD VOICE:
I remember the minute when I knew for sure.
The willows were chilling,
The face in the pool was beautiful, but not mine--
It had a consequential look, like everything else,
And all I could see was dangers:  doves and words,
Stars and showers of gold--conceptions, conceptions!
I remember a white, cold wing

And the great swan, with its terrible look,
Coming at me, like a castle, from the top of the river.
There is a snake in swans.
He glided by; his eye had a black meaning.
I saw the world in it--small, mean and black,
Every little word hooked to every little word, and act to act.
A hot blue day had budded into something.

I wasn't ready.  The white clouds rearing
Aside were dragging me in four directions.
I wasn't ready.
I had no reverence.
I thought I could deny the consequence--
But it was too late for that.  It was too late, and the face
Went on shaping itself with love, as if I was ready.

SECOND VOICE:
It is a world of snow now.  I am not at home.
How white these sheets are.  The faces have no features.
They are bald and impossible, like the faces of my children,
Those little sick ones that elude my arms.
Other children do not touch me:  they are terrible.
They have too many colors, too much life.  They are not quiet,
Quiet, like the little emptinesses I carry.

I have had my chances.  I have tried and tried.
I have stitched life into me like a rare *****,
And walked carefully, precariously, like something rare.
I have tried not to think too hard.  I have tried to be natural.
I have tried to be blind in love, like other women,
Blind in my bed, with my dear blind sweet one,
Not looking, through the thick dark, for the face of another.

I did not look.  But still the face was there,
The face of the unborn one that loved its perfections,
The face of the dead one that could only be perfect
In its easy peace, could only keep holy so.
And then there were other faces.  The faces of nations,
Governments, parliaments, societies,
The faceless faces of important men.

It is these men I mind:
They are so jealous of anything that is not flat!  They are jealous gods
That would have the whole world flat because they are.
I see the Father conversing with the Son.
Such flatness cannot but be holy.
'Let us make a heaven,' they say.
'Let us flatten and launder the grossness from these souls.'

FIRST VOICE:
I am calm.  I am calm.  It is the calm before something awful:
The yellow minute before the wind walks, when the leaves
Turn up their hands, their pallors.  It is so quiet here.
The sheets, the faces, are white and stopped, like clocks.
Voices stand back and flatten.  Their visible hieroglyphs
Flatten to parchment screens to keep the wind off.
They paint such secrets in Arabic, Chinese!

I am dumb and brown.  I am a seed about to break.
The brownness is my dead self, and it is sullen:
It does not wish to be more, or different.
Dusk hoods me in blue now, like a Mary.
O color of distance and forgetfulness!--
When will it be, the second when Time breaks
And eternity engulfs it, and I drown utterly?

I talk to myself, myself only, set apart--
Swabbed and lurid with disinfectants, sacrificial.
Waiting lies heavy on my lids.  It lies like sleep,
Like a big sea.  Far off, far off, I feel the first wave tug
Its cargo of agony toward me, inescapable, tidal.
And I, a shell, echoing on this white beach
Face the voices that overwhelm, the terrible element.

THIRD VOICE:
I am a mountain now, among mountainy women.
The doctors move among us as if our bigness
Frightened the mind.  They smile like fools.
They are to blame for what I am, and they know it.
They hug their flatness like a kind of health.
And what if they found themselves surprised, as I did?
They would go mad with it.

And what if two lives leaked between my thighs?
I have seen the white clean chamber with its instruments.
It is a place of shrieks.  It is not happy.
'This is where you will come when you are ready.'
The night lights are flat red moons.  They are dull with blood.
I am not ready for anything to happen.
I should have murdered this, that murders me.

FIRST VOICE:
There is no miracle more cruel than this.
I am dragged by the horses, the iron hooves.
I last.  I last it out.  I accomplish a work.
Dark tunnel, through which hurtle the visitations,
The visitations, the manifestations, the startled faces.
I am the center of an atrocity.
What pains, what sorrows must I be mothering?

Can such innocence **** and ****?  It milks my life.
The trees wither in the street.  The rain is corrosive.
I taste it on my tongue, and the workable horrors,
The horrors that stand and idle, the slighted godmothers
With their hearts that tick and tick, with their satchels of instruments.
I shall be a wall and a roof, protecting.
I shall be a sky and a hill of good:  O let me be!

A power is growing on me, an old tenacity.
I am breaking apart like the world.  There is this blackness,
This ram of blackness.  I fold my hands on a mountain.
The air is thick.  It is thick with this working.
I am used.  I am drummed into use.
My eyes are squeezed by this blackness.
I see nothing.

SECOND VOICE:
I am accused.  I dream of massacres.
I am a garden of black and red agonies.  I drink them,
Hating myself, hating and fearing.  And now the world conceives
Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love.
It is a love of death that sickens everything.
A dead sun stains the newsprint.  It is red.
I lose life after life.  The dark earth drinks them.

She is the vampire of us all.  So she supports us,
Fattens us, is kind.  Her mouth is red.
I know her.  I know her intimately--
Old winter-face, old barren one, old time bomb.
Men have used her meanly.  She will eat them.
Eat them, eat them, eat them in the end.
The sun is down.  I die.  I make a death.

FIRST VOICE:
Who is he, this blue, furious boy,
Shiny and strange, as if he had hurtled from a star?
He is looking so angrily!
He flew into the room, a shriek at his heel.
The blue color pales.  He is human after all.
A red lotus opens in its bowl of blood;
They are stitching me up with silk, as if I were a material.

What did my fingers do before they held him?
What did my heart do, with its love?
I have never seen a thing so clear.
His lids are like the lilac-flower
And soft as a moth, his breath.
I shall not let go.
There is no guile or warp in him.  May he keep so.

SECOND VOICE:
There is the moon in the high window.  It is over.
How winter fills my soul!  And that chalk light
Laying its scales on the windows, the windows of empty offices,
Empty schoolrooms, empty churches.  O so much emptiness!
There is this cessation.  This terrible cessation of everything.
These bodies mounded around me now, these polar sleepers--
What blue, moony ray ices their dreams?

I feel it enter me, cold, alien, like an instrument.
And that mad, hard face at the end of it, that O-mouth
Open in its gape of perpetual grieving.
It is she that drags the blood-black sea around
Month after month, with its voices of failure.
I am helpless as the sea at the end of her string.
I am restless.  Restless and useless.  I, too, create corpses.

I shall move north.  I shall move into a long blackness.
I see myself as a shadow, neither man nor woman,
Neither a woman, happy to be like a man, nor a man
Blunt and flat enough to feel no lack.  I feel a lack.
I hold my fingers up, ten white pickets.
See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks.
I cannot contain it.  I cannot contain my life.

I shall be a heroine of the peripheral.
I shall not be accused by isolate buttons,
Holes in the heels of socks, the white mute faces
Of unanswered letters, coffined in a letter case.
I shall not be accused, I shall not be accused.
The clock shall not find me wanting, nor these stars
That rivet in place abyss after abyss.

THIRD VOICE:
I see her in my sleep, my red, terrible girl.
She is crying through the glass that separates us.
She is crying, and she is furious.
Her cries are hooks that catch and grate like cats.
It is by these hooks she climbs to my notice.
She is crying at the dark, or at the stars
That at such a distance from us shine and whirl.

I think her little head is carved in wood,
A red, hard wood, eyes shut and mouth wide open.
And from the open mouth issue sharp cries
Scratching at my sleep like arrows,
Scratching at my sleep, and entering my side.
My daughter has no teeth.  Her mouth is wide.
It utters such dark sounds it cannot be good.

FIRST VOICE:
What is it that flings these innocent souls at us?
Look, they are so exhausted, they are all flat out
In their canvas-sided cots, names tied to their wrists,
The little silver trophies they've come so far for.
There are some with thick black hair, there are some bald.
Their skin tints are pink or sallow, brown or red;
They are beginning to remember their differences.

I think they are made of water; they have no expression.
Their features are sleeping, like light on quiet water.
They are the real monks and nuns in their identical garments.
I see them showering like stars on to the world--
On India, Africa, America, these miraculous ones,
These pure, small images.  They smell of milk.
Their footsoles are untouched.  They are walkers of air.

Can nothingness be so prodigal?
Here is my son.
His wide eye is that general, flat blue.
He is turning to me like a little, blind, bright plant.
One cry.  It is the hook I hang on.
And I am a river of milk.
I am a warm hill.

SECOND VOICE:
I am not ugly.  I am even beautiful.
The mirror gives back a woman without deformity.
The nurses give back my clothes, and an identity.
It is usual, they say, for such a thing to happen.
It is usual in my life, and the lives of others.
I am one in five, something like that.  I am not hopeless.
I am beautiful as a statistic.  Here is my lipstick.

I draw on the old mouth.
The red mouth I put by with my identity
A day ago, two days, three days ago.  It was a Friday.
I do not even need a holiday; I can go to work today.
I can love my husband, who will understand.
Who will love me through the blur of my deformity
As if I had lost an eye, a leg, a tongue.

And so I stand, a little sightless.  So I walk
Away on wheels, instead of legs, they serve as well.
And learn to speak with fingers, not a tongue.
The body is resourceful.
The body of a starfish can grow back its arms
And newts are prodigal in legs.  And may I be
As prodigal in what lacks me.

THIRD VOICE:
She is a small island, asleep and peaceful,
And I am a white ship hooting:  Goodbye, goodbye.
The day is blazing.  It is very mournful.
The flowers in this room are red and tropical.
They have lived behind glass all their lives, they have been cared for
        tenderly.
Now they face a winter of white sheets, white faces.
There is very little to go into my suitcase.

There are the clothes of a fat woman I do not know.
There is my comb and brush.  There is an emptiness.
I am so vulnerable suddenly.
I am a wound walking out of hospital.
I am a wound that they are letting go.
I leave my health behind.  I leave someone
Who would adhere to me:  I undo her fingers like bandages:  I go.

SECOND VOICE:
I am myself again.  There are no loose ends.
I am bled white as wax, I have no attachments.
I am flat and virginal, which means nothing has happened,
Nothing that cannot be erased, ripped up and scrapped, begun again.
There little black twigs do not think to bud,
Nor do these dry, dry gutters dream of rain.
This woman who meets me in windows--she is neat.

So neat she is transparent, like a spirit.
how shyly she superimposes her neat self
On the inferno of African oranges, the heel-hung pigs.
She is deferring to reality.
It is I.  It is I--
Tasting the bitterness between my teeth.
The incalculable malice of the everyday.

FIRST VOICE:
How long can I be a wall, keeping the wind off?
How long can I be
Gentling the sun with the shade of my hand,
Intercepting the blue bolts of a cold moon?
The voices of loneliness, the voices of sorrow
Lap at my back ineluctably.
How shall it soften them, this little lullaby?

How long can I be a wall around my green property?
How long can my hands
Be a bandage to his hurt, and my words
Bright birds in the sky, consoling, consoling?
It is a terrible thing
To be so open:  it is as if my heart
Put on a face and walked into the world.

THIRD VOICE:
Today the colleges are drunk with spring.
My black gown is a little funeral:
It shows I am serious.
The books I carry wedge into my side.
I had an old wound once, but it is healing.
I had a dream of an island, red with cries.
It was a dream, and did not mean a thing.

FIRST VOICE:
Dawn flowers in the great elm outside the house.
The swifts are back.  They are shrieking like paper rockets.
I hear the sound of the hours
Widen and die in the hedgerows.  I hear the moo of cows.
The colors replenish themselves, and the wet
Thatch smokes in the sun.
The narcissi open white faces in the orchard.

I am reassured.  I am reassured.
These are the clear bright colors of the nursery,
The talking ducks, the happy lambs.
I am simple again.  I believe in miracles.
I do not believe in those terrible children
Who injure my sleep with their white eyes, their fingerless hands.
They are not mine.  They do not belong to me.

I shall meditate upon normality.
I shall meditate upon my little son.
He does not walk. &n

Municipal Gum was written by Oodjeroo Noonecaal. Municipal Gum is about the changes in society and the tendency of people to want to control everything. Oodjeroo uses various techniques to convey this idea.

At the beginning of the poem Oodjeroo is addressing the tree. This immediately creates empathy for both the tree and her people. By the last line she has emphasised this with the pronoun “us” to show that they suffer a similar fate.

This poem expresses how life in Australia has changes especially for Aboriginal people. In the first half of the poem Oodjeroo is talking about how life was for her and others. It explores the changes in society and the displacement of the Aboriginal people from their land.

“Whose head hung…Its hopelessness”, the author uses this as further re-iteration of the immorality of the situation and by the use of analogy comparing the tree to her people to further emphasise the shame and lack control of that the Europeans have inflicted upon her and the environment.

Oodjeroo uses extended metaphor technique in the very first line of the poem ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the city scape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out and be unique in its own way. This is clear and immanently direct link to the pain and suffering endured by the Aborigines post European settlement.

Oodjeroo uses vivid language to present these ideas. For example the use of the word castrated is very effective. The connotation of the word is very demeaning. With castration often comes a sense of a loss of pride and power. The word castration is symbolic of how Oodjeroo feels the European have treated Aboriginal people and the environment. Castration also refers to the fact that what is done is done. Nothing can undo what they did and the damaged they have caused.

Other symbolism includes the title “Municipal Gum”, municipal meaning community, implies that the gumtree belongs to the community. One of the vast differences between European and Aboriginal law is that Aboriginal people did not believe in the ownership of land or of animals and plants. Municipal Gum is a reference to the Europeans assumptions that everything is theirs to own and control.

The rhetorical question, “O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?” is the conclusion of the implications that have been made throughout the poem. Oodjeroo, is advocating for her people and all things wronged by the controlling behaviour of the Europeans. Rhetorical questions are used to provoke thought and to stimulate a pre-determined response. “What have they done to us?” They have “castrated, broken… strapped and buckled” and ultimately changed things to a point that they cannot be fixed.

In conclusion, Municipal Gum is a poem about the constrictions and change that the European invaders forced upon the Aboriginal community and the environment she believes that the Europeans have deemed themselves ever powerful and practice their power in a manner that is immoral.

I want to sneak up behind you and grab you
I want to slowly unbutton you blouse as I kiss the back of your neck
I want to undo your bra, exposing your perfect *******
I want to kiss your neck and **** on your ear as I slide one finger up and down your ***** slit and oinch your rock hard *******
I want to rub your ****, making your body vibrate
I want to **** tease your ****** with my tongue before ******* your amazing **** as I slide my finger slowly inside you
I want to lay you down and feed you my throbbing **** as i continue to slide my finger deeper and faster, rubbing your **** until you explode
I want to rub your juices all over your ******* and areola and ******* as I continue to slide my **** down your throat until I  explode down your throat
I want to slide between your legs and seperate your ***** lips with my fingers before I slide my tongue slowly inside you
I want to continue to lick your sweet *****, making your body quiver and your back arch as I alternate between licking, lapping and *******
I want to slide one finger inside your tight *****, feeling your muscles tighten around my finger and one finger in your tight *** as I focus all my attention on your **** with my masterful tongue, lapping soft and slow, then hard and fast until I feel you ready to explode
I want to **** your **** just as you begin to ****** and your bury my head into your sweetness, nearly drowning me in your juices
I want to stand over you and slide my throbbing **** up and down your *****, slapping your **** with my swollen head
I want to look you deep in your eyes as I slowly enter you, becoming one with you, rubbing your **** as I continue to pump myself deep inside you, watching your amazing **** bounce with each ******
I want to kiss you passionately as ******* hard and slow until you *** all over my pulsating ****
I want to stand up, taking you by your hair and put you on your knees so you can taste your ***** juices off of me
I want to bend you over and slide my hard **** deep inside you from behind as I spread your *** cheeks and lightly spank your beautiful ***
I want to tease your *** with my thumb as I ******* slowly from behind
I want to work my thumb into your *** as I begin to ******* deeper and harder until I grab your hips and pound your ******* until I feel you ready to *** again
I want to explode with you, filling your ***** with my load as you continue to cream all over my ****
I want to collapse onto the bed with you, wrapped in each others arm, completely naked and satisified, until....  26

Where are your wings now?
How can they save you now?
Left alone, barely able to stand on your own two feet.
You walk a thousand miles down a dirt road
finding hunger along the way.
You drink a gallon of water for the first time
so everything in the world stops and leaves you breathless.
You can't believe the feeling of pain and dwell in sorrow
over something, you can't control.
You set the world on fire but never knew how to use a match.
Now you're a nomad dreaming of meeting someone who will help you put out the flames
but instead, everyone glares at you while walking around in their ashes.

And if you knew what you know now nothing would have changed,
and everything would be in its place.
You wish to undo what has been done
but you have a heavy soul
surrounded by mountains and oceans.
So let the sun die down
and let the morning pour in hope of anew to come.

You used to be a beautiful angel
but now your grace has been ripped out.
Now you're a human
with ***** feet,
a hard soul,
broken wings,
and scarred and cut skin
you wish to just be left behind.
Let the wind take you and lead you
across the winding roads,
into the hands, you solely search for to help and to hold.
The only hands that can make you feel whole and holy,
even without a halo.

If I could be a better man,
I'd have enough insight
To always come up with a plan.
In times of trouble, danger, or distress,
I'd keep my emotions under control,
And never run out of rational sense.
No circumstances would ever drown me,
Or rise above my head,
Because I'd know how to swim the currents,
And land on solid ground instead.


If I could be a better man,
I'd have enough courage to follow through with every noble goal I set.
And every appeal to selflessness
I am tempted to forget.
There'd never be a task
I couldn't undertake,
Even if it meant
My life was at stake.
Money, time and resources
Would never grow on me,
But I'd give of these objects endlessly.
And at the end of the day
I'd still know how
To be completely and utterly free.


If I could be a better man,
I'd never fear the entity of change.
I'd embrace this shrewd reality,
Unhindered by its pace.
I'd keep a face like solid flint
When revolution
Threatened to derange.
At will I'd change my emotions
To better fit each phase;
Each chapter of life
From page to page;
I'd wire my brain to electrically flow
Smoothly and flawlessly,
Everywhere I'd go.


If I could be a better man,
I'd never struggle with uncertainty;
I'd always know what choice to make,
No matter the options that lay before me.
I'd never have to second guess,
Overthink, obsess or stress:
The presented realities and decisions of life;
A special wisdom I'd possess.
A knowing in my gut and heart
Of all that is my destiny,
With the calm assurance of having what it takes
To get to where I want to be.
The truth itself would become my eyes,
And never from my heart escape or flee.


If I could be a better man,
I'd always be a man of my word;
Letting my actions always
Positively confirm the things you heard.
I'd mean every syllable I spoke to you,
With fiery convictions I knew to be true.
I'd always know how to communicate,
And wouldn't let grievous words
Separate
Relationships so vital and true;
The stuff we're made for,
And shouldn't undo.


If I could be a better man,
I'd be a fountain of virtues flowing,
Ever going;
Like a rumbling and roaring
and rushing waterfall,
Dazzlingly Tall:

Wisdom

    Prudence

   Diligence

  Patience

Courage

  And Emotional Intelligence

     Faithfulness

   Rectitude

  Purity

  Relentless tenacity

    Fortitude

      And overall confidence

                                            With surety


If I could be the perfect man,
There'd be one thing I'd always know how to do.
And that is, my friend, in all sincerity:
Faithfully and infallibly
Loving God and You.


But since I know
I am far from perfect,
I will do the best I can.
And though I fail now and then,
I will get back up
And stand.
I will seek forgiveness
Down on my knees;
Ask God for humility,
Grace and Mercy please.
My weaknesses I'll count as blessings,
And thank God I don't have to be:
The Savior of the world -
Superman -
Who for comfort, has no need.

I’m sick of hearing my life’s a haiku.
I’m into magic, love, and other sorts of things that are typically voodoo.
I’m half ***** from a half assed absent African baby boomer brat.
I’m half white trash.
Here’s a well formed of dried tears turned into something to sooth my canine teeth.
It tastes like Moonshine.
I can’t swim anymore, so I’m here drowning in a concrete pool.
Always, I look for the hell in you.

I sharpen my boot knife for ****** assault protection.
The first swipes for the plus 200,000 in counting.
The seconds for the 66 percent underreported.
The lasts for me,
the 29 percent victims aged 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, and 12.

We have a higher rate of risking everything.
For depression x3.
For committing suicide x4.
For post traumatic stress disorder x6.
For alcohol abuse x13.
For drug abuse x26.

You all think I’m crazy,
I’m not.

I sometimes get called
stupid, ugly, *****, and thot.

I’m in pain, in sorrow.
I can’t help it.
He did it.
No one can undo it.
What do we do about it?

I wont scream, I won't cry.

I’ll ask how he’s doing with glitter and tears in the corner of my eye.
And after he's done molesting me,
"Want to go grab some coffee or tea?"
Personally, I like the cafe down the street.
They sell good brunch with amazing croissants.

And after this is over,
I’d ask him how it was while he turned me over.

Really? Well, don’t be, because it doesn’t help to be sorry. Sorry doesn’t change it. Sorry doesn’t make it go away. Sorry doesn’t “undo” what’s already been done. Sorry doesn’t erase my memory. Sorry doesn’t take away the searing pain in my chest. Sorry *****! I don't want your pity or to hear that no child should ever have to endure what I did. Because **** happens. It happened to me …it happens to millions of other kids. Shoulda…woulda…coulda…

You’re right – I do have so much going for me. I have an education, a career, financial security – the beautiful house w/the picket fence, the 2 kids and the dogs. And it’s all a huge sham! You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl. And that’s what I’m to be commended for??? That doesn’t make me special. I should be commended because I have an education? Things could sure be a lot worse, huh? I could be a crack ***** living on the street with 10 kids in foster care, unable to afford therapy even if I wanted to go. I could be like “them”.

Wow! I’m so awesome. Yay for me! Kudos to the smart chick that spent years being molested by her father and ACTUALLY made something of her life. It’s a miracle!

It’s all such a sham – a dog and pony show. Smoke and Mirrors, my dear! Put on a stylish outfit, and  paste on a cheerful smile, and everyone thinks you have it all together….. No one would ever know different. You wouldn’t have known. If I’d have kept my big fat mouth shut!!!!! I should have known better….I should have sat down and weighed the risks, possible opportunities, the roadblocks the problems, and definitely a cost analysis of plan A – trying to work through the ******* of the past, B – continue to live in denial, C – **** myself. …. That’s what a smart business woman would have done. And after all, I’m super smart, huh? A real genius!

Raised
in this floating
world, forever
deep.
You can’t drain the ocean

Decidedly from down
south of here
You can’t un-trace the roots.

You can’t lie and say,
“This isn’t where I grew up”
You can’t deny the fruits
of what was planted two generations ago
when your grandpatents arrived from the Philippines, seeds in tow
soil for the taking
You can’t confiscate what they claimed
when they planted their flags
into the moon-white sand of a beach in Florida
on a far side of the planet
their forefarthers have never seen

You can’t say those flags weren’t there
when wind came
You can't ***** out that pride
of country,
cut off its native tongue and its acquired taste, or pass up the plate of fried lumpia and rice passed down from the kitchen of your Daddylol
feeding seven kids day in and out with tomatoes he planted,
chickens he raised, Malonggay leaves he grew
with thumbs so green they wrote in the papers about it
He was a farmer
Your grandmother, a nurse
And i was writer
And this is our story

You can’t erase the letters of your name,
your lineage written all over it
like a map
of everywhere we been
You can’t take back the words in Tagalog and Chavacano
your Lola Shirley must have sang your mother to sleep with
You can’t take their dreams

You can't just wake up one day and undo
the ripple effects their moves
created across waters 10,000 miles east of here,
the rolling waves they curled into
or the faraway shores they washed up upon
Bottled messages in hand
Our legends held within
You can’t say centuries from now that they won’t feel it
when their feet hit the sand of their own frontier
beside the waves we stayed making
a history written in deep water
for those who come after you
to sail above and beyond.

I look in the mirror
And all I can see
Is a little lost girl
Staring at me

I reach her hand
But she starts to fade
I can't undo all these
Mistakes I have made

I was innocent once
I can still hear her voice
The way she cried stop
But she had no choice

I have always been fascinated by mythology. I remember seeing my older sisters with a greek mythology book, and wishing I could be in high school so I can know it already. I was interested in the mythical creatures, in the gods and goddesses, in the battles, and just like everyone, I was interested in the love stories. I wanted to learn it with passion for I heard it was the inspiration of almost all the modern literature that I love. I could still remember feeling excited to be in class and discuss it. And now that I have reached high school, and I also reached my dream of studying greek mythology and not only that, because I reached it with you. We learned about the titans, the gods and goddesses, the olympians, the monsters, the stories. We were both engrossed and captivated by it, that mythology was the only thing we ever talked about. We even related it to real life, we related people to the characters. Whenever we see a person we know, we would think of the character that best resembles them, and we will start calling them their characters that we decided them to be. We called our friend Athena, we called your cousin Apollo, we even called someone the Minotaur. And that’s what our teacher told us, that not because it’s fantasy that immediately means it cannot happen in real life. The stories there, are reality, the only difference is, they added magic into them. We loved greek mythology so much that we related it to everything. However I realised something, we related it to everything except to ourselves. So I asked you, “Who are we?”. You told me, “Baby, we’re no one there, for we will make our own mythology. We will make the greatest one, so beautiful that it would surpass the best literature of all time.” Your favourite one was Plato’s quote, you would never shut up telling me the story that “humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” And you would always tell me, that you wished to tell Zeus you found yours already. I expected myself to love the romance most, for myself to have the love stories as my favourite. But instead, I loved the opposite,  I loved the tragedies.


I don’t know why, but I found myself loving the tragic stories. I found myself loving the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ultimate tragic love story, in which Orpheus would have brought Eurydice back to life if only he had done what Hades said. Orpheus went to the underworld to ask Hades to bring back Eurydice, but Hades had one condition, he should not look back while his wife was still in the dark, for that would undo everything he hoped for. He should wait for Eurydice to get into the light before he looked at her. But then, Orpheus couldn’t control himself, he looked at Eurydice and hugged her, then suddenly Eurydice was drawn back to the underworld.


And who would ever forget Pyramus and Thisbe? The star crossed lovers who had families who hated each other and whispered sweet nothings through a crack in the wall that separates their houses. And they decided to run away, but when Thisbe showed up under the mulberry tree, a ****** jawed lioness was there. So Thisbe ran, and just when Pyramus arrived, he saw the lioness ripping apart Thisbe’s shawl. Thinking that Thisbe died, Pyramus stabbed himself. And when Thisbe returned and figured out what happened, she stabbed herself too. To this day, the formerly white berries of the mulberry tree are stained red with the blood of these tragic lovers.


Here comes my favourite story of all, the myth of Icarus. Icarus and his father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. And because of hubris, Icarus ignored his father’s instructions and flew too close to the sun. Then the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.


When I was reading the stories, epiphany suddenly hit me. Perhaps the reason why I loved tragedies so much because we’re turning into one. I finally got the answer to my question when I asked you who we are. Maybe we are Orpheus and Eurydice, we loved each other too much that we would do everything just to be together. But we ignored all the warnings, we thought love was the only thing that really mattered. We never got to control our feelings and we forgot everything, because of that, we were separated from each other. Or we could also be Pyramus and Thisbe, we are the perfect definition of lovers who almost made it, who almost achieved happiness, who almost became the greatest lovers of all time but then we never became one, we became tragic ones. And darling, perhaps Icarus resembles us the most. We are both Icarus, our wings, are ourselves,  and love, is the sun. Everybody told us not to get too near the sun, for the wax in our wings will melt, we will lose our wings because we are too close to the thing that could save and destroy us both. And just like Icarus, we disobeyed the rules.  We flew too close to the sun, look at us now.

As we were walking out of each other’s lives, I realised something. We were not meant to create the greatest story of all time that it would top the best literature. We were never making our own mythology, because we were just bound to become another tragedy. Another tragedy that people will love, and I still don’t know why, but people tend to see something beautiful in it. And maybe, just maybe, people will also see something beautiful in our tragic story. But just like Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus; one thing is for sure, my love. We will achieve a thing we both wanted,  **we will never be forgotten.

1»When a woman love you, she will do anything possible to be with you.
2»When a woman loves you, she will sacrifice her happiness to make you smile.
3»When a woman loves you, she will not delay accepting you as a lover, when she haz accepted you,she will show you care and give you attention needed in relationship or marriage.
4»When a woman loves you bro, she will do things that make your friends and you thinks she is throwing herself on you. Bro! She truly lovez you so much, don't take her love for granted.
5»When a woman loves a man, she will call the guy on phone more than the guy calls her everyday.
6»When a woman truly loves a man, she will visit you all the time, calls you, helps you,care and give you attention more than she gives herself and family.
7»When a woman loves a man, she will do what she vows not to do in this life. She will do it for you and for love but women always end up regretting for doing undo things because many men are deceivers and pretenders.
8»When a woman truly loves a man, she will turn down serious men ready to marry her whereby she is not even sure if the guy will marry her in the future. funny_people.
9»When a woman truly loves you, she gonna be romantic, care for you, respect you, encourage and support your dreams in this life, she will do anything possible to assist you achieve it.
10» When a woman truly loves you, she will surely want the best for you, she will not cheat on you or hurt you, she will let everybody know that she loves you, she will be proud of you bro , she will not find it hard to forgive your imperfection but not when you cheated, she will love you sincerely and ready to die because of your love, BRO when she truly loves you,she want nothing but marriage.

Seriously....  It's Explicit!*



You walk towards me
Slowly, seductively
A look in your eyes
I haven't seen in a while
Like you're already ******* me
Little do you know
I've already undressed you in mind
A thousand times today
You lock your lips with mine
Making my tongue and soul go numb
I close my eyes tight
Letting the feeling wash over me
I go weak, start to fall
You wrap your arms around me
Oh so right
You taste like beer
I've never liked beer
But on you, tastes like I could drink it forever
With our tongues still dancing together
I feel your hand slip under my shirt
To the small of my back
You trace little hearts
Giving me tingles
I moan into your mouth
You growl, squeezing me tighter, kissing me deeper
Oh! and I can't help myself
My hands crawl up the front of your shirt, scratching and pinching your pecks
You pull away, I almost cry
You smile and take your shirt off
"easier access" you say
I say "well, that's not fair" while I take my shirt off too
The way you look at me, I'm enthralled with you
It's like you're devouring me but I'm feasting on you too
Every inch of skin,
Even that **** tattoo
Wow, I get lost looking at you
You grab my hand guiding me to the bedroom
You try to gently lay me on the bed
But I have other plans
I push you against the nearest wall
Locking you there with my body
Kissing you even more passionately
And deeper than ever before
You've got me so in the mood
I can feel you now, through your jeans
Rock hard, this must be a dream
But I don't care, I have to taste you
I grab you there, look into your eyes, licking my lips and whisper "may I?"
You growl again and nod your head
I trail kisses down your chest with my tongue
While unbuttoning your pants,
Unzip you and ****, there it is
I'm salivating and it looks so devine
The first lick, you moan and growl
I know you're mine
I taste every inch, swirl my tongue around the tip
I feel you writhing and pulsing under my hands
Your moans grow louder, giving me so much pleasure
You wrap your hand in my hair, pulling, ****
I love when you do that
You pull me off of you, reluctantly I allow it
You drag me to your mouth for a wet, rough kiss
I melt
I wonder if you think you taste as good as I do
Magically, somehow, you undo my bra
You stare down, smile, then start to kiss and nibble on each peak
"*******" I say and actually giggle, but I go weak
You know it too, laying me down on the bed
"are you wet?"
I nod, thinking I have been since before we even started
You kiss me, so softly
While your hand finds its way inside my *******
You hit that spot, I grab your arm hard, moaning into your mouth
You pull back saying "you like that?"
"**** Yea"
I raise my hips so you can take my pants off "easier access" I smile
You touch me,  tease me while slowly pealing my pants off my body
I'm shy, I close my legs together,
You start kissing my thighs,
My Oh My!
I can't help but open and let you in
You taste me, the first touch of your mouth on me,
I practically scream in ecstasy
You slide up my body, with your tongue
I'm surprised I haven't come
I'm done, I'm officially yours
Never has it felt this good before
I'm in pure heavenly bliss
You tease me with the tip of your ****
While giving me a most dangerous kiss
I moan, scream, so loudly
When you finally enter me
****, you fit so perfectly
"oh ****"
I explode almost instantly
You smile at me
"I'm just getting started"
I whisper "****" I'm too weak to speak
Then you slowly move in and out of me
I wrap my legs around your hips,
Almost lethargically
You whisper in my ear "bliss"
Then give me the most gentle kiss
I can't take anymore, I've had enough
I may be a sweet girl, but in bed
I like it rough
I use my legs to push you in deeper, harder, faster
My hips grind into yours
We're sweaty, but I don't care
You move up a little higher
"Oh My God!" I scream "Right There!"
You stop, I moan
You pull out, I know what you want
To **** me from behind
That's fine
You flip me over, grab my *** real hard
You push into me, it's deeper this way
I start moaning and screaming
I can't help it, you're ******* amazing
You pull me back by my hair
I balance myself with my hands on the wall
I scream "harder, faster"
You happily oblige me
I hear you moaning, louder and louder, you're in ecstasy
It's a **** fantasy
"oh my god, I'm coming!" I scream
You instantly explode inside me
While I squirt all around you
You pull my hair so tight and kiss my back
Sending shivers down my spine
We fall to bed, tangled in each other
After a few moments you whisper
"Now, you're mine"

and you grip me tight
urgency exchanged among us
to breathe in the words I exhale
yours lips on mine
your hands tracing my skin
undo me with your breath on my neck

Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and ***** its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I'm living.
I could eat the sky
like an apple
but I'd rather
ask the first star:
why am I here?
why do I live in this house?
who's responsible?
eh?

regret and guilt
eat me alive at times
wishing so much
i could undo
all of my crimes--
so many things
from my past it seems
all the huge mistakes i've made
seem to haunt my vivid dreams
and oh the pain, the fear
that constantly encompass me
whenever I think that one day
all in this world will be able to see...
but there is no undoing
that can possibly be done
to mine own undoing
you see, i'm the one
who committed the acts of sin
and no one can help me now
no one can let me go back and begin
to try to undo what's done somehow...
so off i go trodding through
until the end of time
when my days will come to an end
**and all will know my sins, my crime...

We are a collection of our own experiences. A destruction of our own making, we undo ourselves with what we've learned, unlove ourselves with what we've learned.

I have looked in the mirror to a stranger too many times for my liking. The girl that I became mirrored back in agony to the girl she wanted to be. She wanted to be a poet, she wanted to be a portrait. She wanted to be stronger.

My experiences have become me. But I don't want to be defined by broken hearted and tormented by my dreams. I don't want to be defined by the dark circles under my eyes, the heart beat in my ears. I wanted to be stronger.

I have looked in the mirror too many times and seen stranger, seen liar, seen a girl who kept too much bottled up and my demons creep behind me like the horror movies I'm so akin to watching. They wave hello like they belong and I have to break my stare.

The poet in me says this is another experience, another lifeline, another tether to the earth that I love so much. An earth that I love so much that it broke me.

The poet in me says this experience will make me stronger.

i
you say i am honestly not the same person
i say one day i woke up honest
and i do not know how to undo experience
my own eyes and ears and nose and mouth
cannot be undone at the moment
how do you do it?
push that pressure to the back of your mind
like that
how do you all manage to laugh with a straight face
at things that you know aren't really funny
i can't fathom it. where you go
when you are stomping and ripping
and ****** and jeering
and laughing and running
it's exhausting to watch you

ii
i apologize if it doesn't make sense
that i can't play along
but playing along
doesn't make sense
i could never win a grammy
with this tight lipped smile
laughing at the expense of others
makes me feel more like a paparazzi
placating insecurities for currency
leeching off the vulnerability
you may not think i'm smart but
i am smart enough to know this is not 'normal'
and there is nothing wrong with staring at you in the rearview
and saying "i wish that was really sarcasm"
i'll tell you the truth
and you don't have to like it
and you don't have to like me
and i don't have to like you
because if there's one thing i know about myself
it's that i don't dislike anybody
until they show off their callousness
hoping it's the right party trick
to gain respect

iii
we watch comedy tv, and you are worried
by the way my spine cracks
when i let out a uncontrollable laugh
dragging on, beginning to spill, and as i try to quell it
my whole body shakes with the pressure
of it bubbling inside of me
you feel all of this beside of me
a small volcano with a bent back
quaking absorbed by pillows and flowers and cushions
not quite right for you
wondering why i couldn't laugh like this earlier
when we were not alone
everyone is looking for something more porous
more willing to let in effortlessly
and absorb tirelessly
that can simply laugh like a stream bubbles
and let go of the undercurrent
yet we are sharp and uneven and course like logs
and the weight of our actions carries much further
being shunted downstream by tides of gravity
every intention runs it's course
every intention speaks volumes
if you feel that in your core
every day you will uncontrollably think of how
every intention defines the quality of the laughter
stuck in someone else's head
and you will save it for things that are funny

Syria oh Syria why do you bleed?
Brother fights brother without thought or need
Ruled by a tyrant for so many years
And now the spilt blood is washed away by tears

Democracy by debate you tried and you failed
Now the wives and mothers they cry and they wail
Democracy now sought at the point of a gun
Your country in turmoil, lives being undone

I sympathise and weep at your terrible plight
Your people are dying, no end in sight
Can man ever undo the chaos he's wrought?
Going to war without reason or thought

Syria oh Syria your bloods being drained
By those who would seek political gain
When the killing is done will you be better off?
Is what you might gain worth all the loss?

Your economy gone so how will you live?
The worlds in recession, no money to give
Families destroyed and homes are no more
All destroyed by a political war

The fatigue flows through me
As if it has invaded the marrow of my bones
Leaking out into the flesh
Rendering me paralyzed in an unfocused state
I sleep to live and wish only to end the dulled mind set
It’s crushing to find that shard of thought
Urging me to get up
Do not sleep, it whispers
There is too much to do, the insidious trails of ideas speak
The words taken down seek to undo the restlessness
The blurred vision of the time slipping past in red numbers
Sleep, my body cries
Wait a minute more, my mind calls back
Sleep deprived with burning eyes
A single tear breaks the tie
I cannot go on
Sleep calls me back
Pulling me down to the place I cannot ignore anymore
Sleep, my body whispers
Sleep, my mind sighs

cc111911

You cannot break the broken, you can't live in the past, throw that memory away, you cannot let it stay, oh I wish I had the power to change every wasted hour, to knock down this growing tower under which I fearfully cower, in my ball of self regret.

             
                    I can remember:

                Tears that I have shed.

                 Lies that I have said.

                 Pain I have inflicted.

              Oh how I feel conflicted.


But know now this, for it is true, for all the things I can't undo, I'd never regret loving you.

Being in love is like being underwater
It makes me hold my breath
But I don't want to come up for air
Cause I'm scared I'll miss how it felt
Holding you, touching, and kissing you
This transfer of love from you to me
This feeling that I feel
I swear, hope, and pray that It's real
Without you there's a hole in my heart
That refuses to feel, refuses to heal
The thought of being away from you makes me gasp for air
I cant be without you, I need you here
Lost in a sea of love, I'll hold you tight
So hold my hand as we drown to life
Some say it's wrong we're too young
But now it's too late to undo what we've done
I'm leaving myself open to the chance of pain
And with so much risk
Comes the chance of love to gain
I'm playing myself but still I'm loving the game
You Give Me That Adrenaline Rush
Love sparked from a conversation that sparked from a crush
And now I can't live without you near me
Pray that you never leave
You tug at my heart-strings and play a song with my soul
And now I love to listen to the music of us
Without you I'm cursed to live
A life without love