Twenty

“I want to be twenty years old forever,” she said.

I asked her why, and she just continued to stir her cup of black coffee.

“You didn’t even put sugar in that; what’s the point of stirring?” I asked her again.

She answered this time.

“Well, they served my coffee with a spoon so I better make use of it.”

“Chekhov’s gun, huh?”

“Not quite,” and she giggled.

“How can you be twenty years old forever? The only way to do that is to drink some sort of elixir that makes you immortal, or perhaps asking a vampire to bite you.”

“It’s fucking easy. I just need to die when I turn twenty. That way I’ll stay twenty forever.”

“But what’s the point?”

“There is no point! I just think it’s the perfect age to die.”

I wasn’t sure if she was serious, but as soon as we left the coffee shop and parted ways, my hands started to perspire more than usual. Her birthday was just three days away, her 20th birthday, that is. If she really plans to kill herself three days from now, I should at least try to make these remaining days the best she’d ever have, I thought to myself. I pulled my phone out of my breast pocket and called her.

“Hey, miss me already?”

“Yeah, wanna go out again tomorrow?”

“I wish, man. I wish I could but I’m on my way to Baguio.”

“But we have exams tomorrow, right? How can you take a vacation at this time of the semester?”

“Well, it’s my last year as a teenager. I might as well do something reckless.”

“Please come back, okay?”

“Sadness is a choice, man. If they ask you about me, tell them that.”

“Don’t you think that’s a pretty cheesy thing to say?”

“I guess so. Tell them anyway.”

‘Well, have a nice trip! Don’t forget my pasalubong, okay?”

“Haha, of course.”

She hung up.

—-

Three days later, my exam results came. She, however, hadn’t come back. I wanted to greet her on her birthday but I couldn’t even reach her phone. Maybe her phone was stolen, I thought to myself. I decided to go to their house to make sure.

Hands shoved inside my pants’ pockets, I felt the overwhelming dampness on my thighs. My hands perspired even more, and it was even raining outside. The taxi driver kept on wiping his windshield because the wipers weren’t functioning. He managed, and I felt half-relieved when I stepped out of the cab.

I rang the doorbell. The familiar sound tingled in my ears, but no one responded. I rang it again and her mother walked towards the gate. She was smiling at me, which was a good sign. Maybe nothing bad happened to her. Maybe she was still alive.

She opened the gate as silently as she could, and it only made a small creaking sound. She let me in, holding my shoulder as we walked towards their front door.

“She’s in her room, sleeping. She said she lost her phone in Baguio. I already asked manang to wake her up.”

“Thanks, tita.”

“You can join us for dinner, hijo.”

“Sure, tita. I’ll just tell my mom later.”

And I saw her there, indian-sitting on the couch, rubbing her eyes with her fingers.

“I’ll leave you two here. I have lots of things to do in the kitchen!”

I nodded. I sat on the couch next to hers and said, “Happy birthday, you.”

“Thanks! You’re surprised, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I thought you were already dead.”

“Well, I still have 364 days left.”

With laces

the Velcros of her shoes
are way too overused
they don’t grip anymore.
the other sides remain to be just
futile pretenses of wool
and the opposites dream to be
talons of eagles, clawing at the
flesh of her feet
she hides inside her shoes.
She needs a new pair now, with laces, now
(Who still uses the ones with Velcro anyway)

Not Quite a Song of Ice and Fire

Like a pendulum swinging to and fro,
I’m gonna walk back and forth
until my footsteps no longer sound different to your ears.
I won’t get tired,
neither will I rest until you hear
My tiptoes nearing
your attacking fingertips.
The French tips of your nails
remind me of the snow-capped mountains
I’d never dare to climb.
When your hand smashes the side of my face,
I can see the snow caps melting; the Alps
turn into volcanoes,
spewing lava through your mouth.
But I still walk back and forth
on the burning ground,
hoping that the aftermath won’t turn me down.

Stars that Drowned Last Night

When stars fill up the sky like crayons
fill out the shapes you drew
when you were young,
does your blood run faster to and fro
your pumping heart?
Does your brain start to flicker and
rolls of negatives show up in front of your eyes?
Does your wallpapered room
turn black and white
while your sheets pull you to your bed
and you sink in, you sink in?
You sank into a deep sleep, you thought
And when you wake up
in the middle of the waters,
dry as ever,
the waves sound like moans and weeps and groans;
you knew you were floating in tears
of someone you do not remember.

And here I am, waiting for something that probably will not happen and will spend the rest of my life thinking about. Here I am wondering what had gone wrong and what would I’ve done to prevent it. Here I am hopelessly hoping that things weren’t this way. Here I am not doing anything but to feel more miserable. Here I am trying to reimagine every little good thing that has happened to me because of you. Here I am reminiscing all the bad time I got through with you. Here I am, with my feelings unaltered but everything has changed, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Void

There’s always a place in this world

Where no voice can be heard

And nothing can be seen nor touched

There’s always a place on earth

Where things you think you could smell

Are not real; even the food you taste

Don’t exist– there’s always a place

In this vast space where any sense

doesn’t make any sense-

Here you are now. 

Silage

I shut myself from air and water

And provisions. I dwell in a five-walled

Enclosure, a pentagon of broken glasses and

Shattered mirrors

A black-and-white kaleidoscopic dream

Of monochromatic faces

With only the light reflected on each piece  

The saving grace

I live in something that doesn’t exist

A silo burnt from the past

Sinking in a maelstrom from the future

Yet I live