Eleanor

i hope you come visit the grave in my bed, the ones u used to wish u belonged. all the parts of you have become tangible in there: your promises, the plans you said you’d do, the words you swore to me—the ones that were engraved in my skin it burns when you can’t keep it.

on a lively sunny day, i exhale deep—a millionth time as i write this for you—even when the music here sings romance—the fact that it’s you and your words in my mind pops, it feels like i am murdered with just a needle—it’s a torture that i grieve on a day like this.

i do not know, even when i have thrown myself to the fires a thousand times just to keep you, i pray still—kneeling in front of a scorching heat, praying you’d treat me as how you say it.

i do not know when will i ever save myself from this… you have planted your apologies on my feet, and i have secretly prayed it will grow rich and green, but even in its sprout it has died. i wish you have known this, but you are back at your house, sipping coffee—chanting your reasons—snugged in the thought of your own understanding.

08|09|24

The sweet and slow afternoon of greens, blues of skies, and summer hues. I am drowning, and you were there, the cause of it all: your matted-pearl skin, your smile bursting with insanely warm touches it melts my heart. You, oh heavens, you—sent me to my dreams at the sun's peak. Oh, how can you make things cinematical on a lousy day? Stop torturing me with the thought of your tenderness, for I am but a poet with little words, I ache at the pause of my verbal dearth.

For I long, I so long,

that even just with these words, my heart would be known by you.

Lately, it has been easier to live in the shadows of my nights. In this town which I made myself a stranger, I find solace in chanting my prayers on its streets.

I display my thoughts like it's for sale, hoping they would talk to me and say they know, too, how it feels to be lonely, how it feels to hold myself together when the darkness seems to chop me into bits of what horrible things I believed I was and still believes I am--counting them accordingly so I would know the right amount of loathing I have to tell myself.

And I always plan to be like this and that, I printed guides--soft sentences to caress the harsh away which are tattooed in my being.

My palm holds the map of change, and I am standing on its path's starting point, but I seem to struggle to take even a single step.

It has been years since this plan occurred in my head, and as the years are always nearing their end and beginning, the mold occupies my inner and I am failing, slowly weakening my ways.

Now, the night has become an early morning, with my eyes sored and my soul mourning for the days I have filled with promises I failed to keep. I put the chopped bits of my being in places, trying to hold them softly even with calloused hands... for tonight, drunk in jazz--I chant my prayers on the streets--may this loneliness warm my cold feet.

I have grown too cold for my own longing to be understood.

I wring, and I knead my mind dry, and all I get are words too bland for my heart to rest--I am no longer able... to rescue myself.

For what I once had was a listener and a redeemer of his own good, yet, who am I to blame, to count? All I can do is throw my words in the air and spell them out on the thundered clouds, on the naked trees and withered leaves that it hurts and I need him.

The warmth he promised on seasons like this... I hoped and waited for his words to spring on valentines and birthdays...

I trusted those eyes that swore right through the windows of my soul that he would wipe my blood on winters--hold my hand--soft lips on my fingers... I could not resist--I love him.

I love him and I die so good living in this reality... and each time I ache, a part of me turns to dust in the wind--where this might take me, I do not know. But oh, God, I've tried.

i have been anything but myself, i grieve and grieve for the versions of me that i've killed to serve my masters the light they failed to reach. in their time, when the days are bright and the mornings do not scold their souls to work. they have been lousy for a reason which they failed to know--but i know. for if only the past can alter the course of its future, i would kill a witch or a god forsaken from the heavens to bring me back to their youthful ages: to be their friend, their mother. to be the intuition in their ears, the screams in their minds to stop them from becoming anything but they are today. i am sick and tired of these volumed regrets duplicated in thick copies and sold to the merchants of my guilt. i am tired of hibernating myself for another half a decade just to replenish the loss from fighting a war i am not designed to battle, to cry, and to starve--i am tired of being anything but myself.

here i am, meeting the sun. i know it wants to burn me out from succumbing to anything but this reality. its light pe*****tes through my room, accentuating my remorse for the days i killed to buy the time i knew would cost my age. its tomb rests beneath the mountain of my clothes, and i weep and weep for it every day, pleading it would stop lashing my guilt with its stench. i just wish the irony of these were not too soft to let go, for my foolish, tired soul would settle anything it could give, even if it is just a drop of water for every after million years.

kneel before me,
plant seeds under my feet
whisper poems of John Keats
I know you are not well-versed with those
yet show me your willingness to be the atlas
of your inadequacies, in the name of love

darling, as you call me,
swim through your north seas
come to me—I lie beyond your fiery pride
roaring under the thunders of your skies
show me your willingness
clothes torn—catching breath

for your pride and unchanging
summons me to the end
do not let my feet walk a thousand leaps from you—neither do I wish nor want
but I have been exhausted for a long time
kill my thirst, be my love as you always want

so, kneel before me
plant seeds of your love under my feet
for I well know,
your heart belongs to me
dive and you will live
in the warmth of my flesh, forever

could be that longing
for high grounds
or just a sweet breeze in spring
could be that sleep,
soft and warm and tender
despite having everything

would you?
be my ideal
palms on my shoulder's edge
fingers tracing seasons of my mind
unraveling the states in my ribcage
filling the crevices on my lips

can you feel my desire?
wrapped around the strings
in the shallows and depths of my words
waiting to be untangled by yours
let me tame you, take off your shoes
and walk barefooted on my sentences

for if you're willing to be drawn
at least, tell me, for I long...
I long not only actions but actions paid with words
for in my eyes, you could be rich
only if you choose to be--
love me.

I’m a cheater to my own temple, I’d water her tears from my heart on my knees, promising consistent prayers and still ghost for days.

She’s fond of my stories from the seasons I promised to be present but absent, she won’t mind anyway. The excitement and fun I gained from my journeys fuel her hands to collide in amusement, she eagerly listens, yet every word I say equates to cracks in her walls.

She won’t tell, but I could feel it. I covered her gates with prose and poems for the world’s applause with my tears and heartaches as ink, and she would do her best to make the gates look sturdy and firm for everyone’s favor.

She’s proud of me, yet behind those, she would fervently wish I could put her name on my clock and read what we both wrote on the roof, in every brick of her temple, the things we swore on each other during catastrophes and chaos.

I love women with compassion. I love soft women, gentle women—I love women who doesn't dwell in jealousy, even though she was raised from it. I love women, who, despite the noise and the cold from where they came, chooses to bear warmth to people. Though by this, I do not mean women should be such when they are oppressed—women are entitled of their roughness and chaos and catastrophe, and such women, when tested, are silent with their rage... but cunning—deadly.

I have promised myself
countless promises of what will be,
what’s there to be,
or where we’ll be next year...
and yet, a lot of nexts have passed:
next minute turned to next hour,
to next day, and a week, and a month,
then turned to almost half of my twenties.

My regrets are etched
on the mountains of my used clothes,
the more I lie on my bed,
with my phone to compensate
for the days I have failed to make use of—
the more my hair fall spreads
like worms on my floor, on my pillow,
on the sleeves of my 4–day shirt—
wanting to devour me alive.

And I have seen artists inspire me,
That fleeting grit they give that drives me,
and so I try to clean myself: to take a bath,
do laundries, make my bed—
the “simple stuff,” they say.
I printed weekly planners,
but all it did was pressure me—
suffocate me

All the attempts to not be “lazy“ have always
led me to another pile of disappointment...
4 years have passed,
and another year to come
How will my December last,
and how will my January start?
I’ll be 24 by then... may my hopes thrive.
May my promises realized.

I am always just near the end,
never finished, just here,
seeing the edge...
wondering what it’s like—
how it feels to be there—
what happens when I got there.

My mind is always full
of its possibilities,
dreaming of what life could there be,
what I’ll look like,
what could be my lifestyle,
or what great influences will it serve me.

Will I become wiser? Stronger?
Will I become the person of my dreams?
Will I become independent—
that type where I don’t hide
my worries and fears...
where I am my own home—my own fortress.

I always fantasize of such:
the complete opposite of
the person I currently am.
For yet again, this day...
I have failed to start—
I have failed to take the small step—

The step that would take me
there—
at the end—
where the light
of the beginning
starts...

the bang behind closed doors, it rings in my ears as my brother cried blood of tears no apologies in the history of our ancestors can wipe off his innocent cheeks. they’re engraved in my heart, every word and every tic of the clock, how my brother’s face got ripped and gained shades of pale blues from the anger of those entitled enough to demand respect from the reflection of their own disrespectfulness.

the sound of every drip of fluids from my brother’s eyes resonates in my ears down to my heart. i can hear it all, when I asked how he was—there echoed every crack of his heart from the words that stings his mouth whenever he speaks. i can hear it all, the bruises and wounds screaming in every sharp hitches of his breath. he cried like a thousand soldiers dying in a war they knew they’ll lose before going.

i’ve seen it all, i’ve heard it all, and my heart hold weights of records of aches my brother knew nothing about.

Art by Monica Rohan

The sweats of yesterdays have dried on my skin.
I disgust, I worry, I scream complains, yet I tend to shut all of these silence in scratched papers, crumpled and thrown in the depths of my pockets.

My visions rot on the shelves, so as the books—
they age, yet I remain blank still,
with the fruits I acquired from decades ago,
I eat and eat and eat them like freshly plucked ones
when they’ve already soured by the years...
the years that I stayed pooled with little that I have.

Though, in downgrading shame, I was never content of this
this stagnated, ill-pured gains.
It decomposes me alive,
it drowns me in mournful echoes of silence.
But I attempt still—always—in fogs and daze...

I sew my skin and nail my knee-joints sturdy
for the coming of the dawn
even in my despise for mornings,
I can never deny the truth of its chances—
of its undying will to bless
my holed roofs and rickety walls—

of its will to spring reward which demands a million heaves of a child,
a child that knows the requirement of the light is to step
and bruise her feet on the fragments
of her reality’s fragility—
to let herself run her way up the thorned hills,
even if it means crippling.

Art by Sherrie McGraw

My rage is as old as a land. I mummified all my anger and cradled it to sleep, but I never buried them.

They live in the shadows, in the corners, and in the exhausted innocence of my being. And on days like this, I would love to wake them up, to destroy the facade of peace...

to be wary.

I am tired of silence, of crooked order, of hierarchic treatment. I would love to rain thunderbolts on their roofs—to tell them my rage, to tell them the truth about their entitlement, their projection—their rotten tongues.

I want to be ineffably destructive—awful—unapologetic.

But as vast and old as the land can get, no matter how many scars and wounds and parts of them have been scraped to death, they are bound to stay silent.

Only their death can bring them justice; only their death can bring forth curse to the living.

Art by Monica Rohan

I struggle to find peace. I struggle to prove to myself that eventually it will all pass. I struggle between fighting back and letting things flow. I struggle with people who cannot accept that I don't want to deal with them anymore, that I cannot accept them back, or acknowledge their sudden change of treatment.

I struggle to keep myself safe, protect myself, and uphold myself. I always dream of doing better for myself and giving her the amount of love and care those around me are not capable of giving. I've always put up with people's sh*t just to keep them in my life, but I now see it as a desperation to have people to rely on in this era of mine.

I needed company, love, consideration, and the understanding that even a crumb of it was enough for me to sacrifice my whole being. My peace, I need my peace; I wish I could give it to myself and not seek it from other people. I wish I could do well in areas where I deeply need to be.

I wish to become better for myself, better at listening to her, better at giving her peace, and better at giving her what she wants and needs that I could almost not need anyone to rely on. I wish I could live the life I've always dreamed of having.

You'll know it's worth cutting someone out of your life, when once the strings have severed, the secrets you shared with them spread like wildfires.

Read me in my most raging chapters
with gentleness of consideration,
a stroke of understanding,
and above all, with love.

I hunger for it, from you
whom I’ve poured my soul—
crafted my heart into words that sweeps
the hearts of your generation, and yours.

Have you forgotten?
everything that lives in me became yours.
I made you privileged of everything I am.
And you’ve lived in it, you’ve tasted it.

And I admit, it was often times bitter,
and sharp, and hurting, and also...
deeply considerate, unmeasurably understanding...
Have I not made this known to you?

Was I the opposite— am I brutal?
Am I deaf of your wails at night?
Or the howls of your silence in chaos... Have I not gave you love in times when you're unaware of your brutality?

Love, I need you... listen to me,
do not be a judge when you are my lover.
I need you to hear me, talk with me, laugh with me...
is it that too hard?

Wait for me,
I am aware--
you have gambled a thousand sunsets
to meet me in my sunrise...
But with torment in my heart,
I still shall say:
forgive me, for I am slow;
I am not there yet.

You fed me years of sweats and blood--
hopes on a bullet-train.
And with every ci******es you blow,
I know, Tatay, I know...
you are fond of metaphors,
and sometimes, you are loud for it.
In plain sentences you proclaim
your tiredness in life-- this is my enemy.

In that porch,
where you built the rest of tomorrows
Your tiredness cradled in smokes,
My skin's pilled by your metaphors—
I know, believe me, I know...
I am not a foreign to your tiredness.
But still, wait for me... please do.
I am aware, I am slow—
I am not there yet,
But I will be, I will.

The skies cried, but I am warmed. You, there, existing... you are both a blessing and a curse to me: I am your prison, and you are my paradise-- knowing this makes me know I am a villain. Though, an honesty to myself would be the end of this perspective. For I know, I know... I know where I came from, and you were there... you were there not knowing, not believing, not listening.

look, the crows have migrated. I have blown my weights away along with their feathers... yet the most heavy ones stay like age. I have carried lump in my throat which grows and grow more than I do. Its roots dominated under my skin— my mouth shut like an infant shushed by the brutes. No heaves— no time can heal. I do not know if this even make sense, but it exists in me, and I am a prey of it.

loving you convinces me that men written by women in books aren't real.

It takes a pause to look behind what has gone, or maybe not a pause... but in that evening where you wash dishes, or maybe in that shade in your room where the sun’s rays cannot pe*****te through. It was almost always rough lately, maybe that’s how some bygones become precious. Have you, perhaps, tried to embrace your life? Good for those that does not even have to try... in my case, that's what I’m struggling now. I am learning to embrace my life, embrace how I am, and find spots where I can grow more. Sometimes, it feels too late to just realize this, and also feels too hopeful at the same time, for these days feels too easy for me to give up. Though, I hope those who’ll read this won’t have to go through the same phase as I.

Take good care of yourself.

When the songs
cry longings of their other halves,
may you think of me
and all of what we could haves.

It's easy to write about how love can make us fall over our feet, but it will be a different story if we talk about how we carry ourselves while loving.