Ikaw.Ako

Nag-alab.
Bumusilak.
Lasong dugo ng apoy.
Hindi maikublil.
Itaboy sa hangin.
Ilapat sa tubig.
Itapon sa karimlan.
Hindi mapigilan.
Apoy.
Pag-iisa
sa dilim.
Ikaw.
Ako.
Pagtatagpo
sa likod ng anino
niya
upang mapadpad
sa walang hangganang
liwanag ng
Pag-
ibig.

IKAW
K
O

cris

drifting

PAPERBOATS
by cris

There was an ocean between him and me. I knew it.
I could see it stretch beyond what my eyes could follow, I could hear its roar and whispers even in my sleep. I felt its depth and I was saddened at how far he seemed, how so out of reach.
This ocean, it had no waves.
I walked its shores with soundless nonchalance. Any noise I make, he would not heed anyways. The sand was a bit coarse, there were stones mingled with it, even broken pieces of glass now pretending to be shards of corals or gems blinking enticingly by my feet. Aged shells calmly retorted in their silence. The sun still hid. An invisible blanket, this horizon, it covers the ever-flaming ball that rose and rested like the beating inside my chest.
Only a few hours now.
I keep noticing these things. My mind has to. I think of people in comas, their minds protecting themselves - it is to the corporeal what to the abstract is known as hope. The physical realm's manifestation of such a force - one that cannot let go, one that hangs on because one day, it will reawaken and maybe breathe life into an empty shell.
Am I in a coma?
Is this why I keep seeing these intricate details of a scene before me, a scene that is not even real? But nor is it imagined.
The waveless ocean is there.
I knew it.
Between him and me.
I knew it.

--------------

I'm leaving.
This he said with such fire in his voice, and the same fire in his squinty eyes.
I remember I smiled.
Just about the only involuntary response my body was able to conjure. A million nerve cells sparking off electricity in unimaginable speed and power, reacting one by one to the stimulus sent and yet all that came out from within me was - a smile.
There was a wedding and he was invited. He'll be making several trips by bus and ship, traveling miles and miles to. But all that registered was that he was traveling from. Away from me.
The bags. The clothes. The money. The tickets. Where should he start?
I smiled again.
He was my friend. He is my friend. And yet a strange but not completely unfamiliar feeling crept up on me that very moment, one I was desperately trying to lose.
The green monster that had ravaged so many others now had his eyes upon an unsuspecting prey. Me.
It was after me.
No weapons in hand, a still-broken body and a confused mind, I could only do one thing.
I ran.
I ran so fast, so far. For so long.
I did not even notice that I was running from nothing anymore. The monster had given up.
Still my legs did not buckle. They did not stop.
Night had fallen. The wind lashed at my face, sweat warmed and pasted to my skin.
And when I looked back, you had gone.
The snapping of nocturnal birds, their mocking songs and wingless flight - they followed me home, as I ran to the only place I knew I could not be gotten to.



-------------


The paper boat was cast away by my hand. I was young, then. Barely seven.
There was a calm to the storms that I knew. They would start as a drizzle, little tickling fingers that tasted briny and smelled wrong. In a matter of seconds, it would come down, hard and raging.
So I made boats.
Different kinds. Colors. Sizes.
I folded them gently, creasing them like they were precious and not so very vulnerable. I made every fold ceremoniously. I knew the storm would wait.
Until finally, I was ready. One by one, I let them go. The puddles by then were already more than five inches thick, craters in the cement making my little oceans, little oceans where my vessels can drift about and sail away.
I would watch them with a smile.
They looked so beautiful and majestic, small as they were.
For several minutes, they taunted the heavy drops. They flitted in between and escaped the harsh fleeing of water from the clouds.
One drop makes all the difference.
Just one drop and the boat gets trapped between two forces that only sought its demise. From above. So too from below.
The boats sank to the sound of my heart breaking.
I was drenched and I smelled. There was no smile on my face.
But there were no tears.
No.
No tears either.

---------------------------


That night, I got home before the rain fell. The days and the nights before that were dreams made of paper boats that sank no matter how strong you made them, no matter how long it took you to make each vital fold.
I wish I had the time to try to save it. Scoop the water out with my little fingers and put rubber into the holes that threatened to capsize my silence.
It was cold. And I started to cough. I coughed deep and endless.
I pulled the sheets up and I tried to think clearly. It seemed my hands were not the only ones on their own. Even my mind was.
Did I sleep soundly?
Did I sleep at all?
I could never remember.
What I do remember, is the feeling of being adrift. Whether asleep or awake, I felt waves underneath me. I felt t he gentle rocking of the water, and sometimes, its maddened tossing. I was pulled and pushed and there was nowhere to go. Somehow, I felt like I was with him. There in the sea, right by his side, with a dream right in front of me and nothing behind that called out our names.
A waveless ocean.
A boatless voyage.
I'm hoping I did sleep then.
There are some friends that never go away and that night, I needed one's embrace.


----------------------




I was not the same when I woke up.
I was not the aimless wanderer who saw glass in the sand. I was not the one who ran nor the little boy with the sinking paper boats.
There was an ocean, yes.
I could still feel it.
I touched its presence, there, between him and me. He had gone.
And I knew why.
I understood.
And loved him more for it.
With him, I would always feel the water.
He is flowing. He is never anyone's possession. He is drifting.
If I am to know him, I must know the shore will be seen one day and whether he takes the step toward it or not is something I must be ready for. Whether he walks the length of the coast , glass and stones in the sand, holding my hand. Or he could float away in his own paper boat, beautiful and majestic, never to sink, never to fade from sight. Far and yet always near. Away and yet always here.
I think I found home.
It was a waveless ocean.
It was him.


-------------------




finite.

please

you found me
on my knees
a salty runlet, red
seeping to the hardwood floors.
I asked you
please, just please,
stay away
let me do this
by myself,
so you stand still
and watch
one by one,
I pick them up
tissue and bone, crystal skin
broken into shivers,
how small these pieces are!
I collect them
with my right hand
put them in my left
palm against glass
flesh against quartz, this
flame you blew out
with syrupy words
and your honey-dipped smile
a promise of friendship
that slit the throat of a
hopeful heart.

I asked you,
please, just please,
let me do this by myself,
myself is all I have.

PLEASE
ccg

I remember

I remember
late that night,
we gathered in circles
inside circles,
as the bedside lamp
illumines the room
in somber orange.

we could only whisper our names
like canticles of ancient Mythos,
softer than the softest breath
but underneath a maelstrom rises
bridled in fear
that we may wake
spirits long gone and
resting.

in those votive hours,
we performed the ritual,
-slow deliberate motions
of pouring
in measured propinquity
and we breathed in painful anticipation.

I met your eyes,
only for an instant
as we raised out treasured plastic cups
to our parched lips,
needing
lusting
wanting
this fire-water to burn itself dry
of plastic to flesh
of air to water
of taste to light, sound, touch
eggyolks and gold to
crimson. when I met your eyes
only for an instant
as you were engulfed in steady
drops
of ocean red.

I felt your blood
turned mine
turned yours
drowning me in cheap beer,
made cheaper by my drowning.

I remember
late that intoxicating night,
like voyeurs and maniacs
we called non-existent gods and
damned ourselves in unending anathema,
for shattered dreams
for broken lives
and hopes of no consequence
now dead.

before bloodshot eyes,
we nurtured
perfervid rebellion –
or,
surrendered in fear?
so we hid behind the only weapons
we knew-
the cups we held in our hands.

we died, too.

it still echoes in my mind, you know.
the wordings of a lost soul
never to be sought,
just wanted,
recovered,
and transfixed into a newfound promise,
betrayed by a blinding truth
that it was not lost
in the first place.

there are nights when I wake up
hoping to recapture the images
with which I remember,
like the fading essences of silver-framed photographs
like treasures so easily found yet easily lost
like a gypsy dance,
a somnambulant reckoning,
bodies rejoicing in circles
inside circles
and
outward.

but the dance ended.
And we are left with only a resonance
to keep the memory alive,
as I gaze at you
from a distance too far,
even beyond what my eyes could see
even before old friends
turned brothers
turned strangers.
I seek refuge
in your wordspinnings:
the worlds you created with a ballpoint pen,
the doors you opened with keys
of language
of truth and sanctimony
only you can understand.

and I wonder
when I can start drowning again
in the beginning
in the middle
in the end
of the lines you so deftly crafted
winged by the purest of souls.

I wonder
when I can start drowning again,
in the familiar trickling of
your blood,
turned mine,
turned yours
before this paper cup
I hold in my hand
overflows –

ISANG TAGAY LANG
1999