Hardbound (for Ray)

i love you with the solemnity

of an old story.

i have told and

retold you as

often as i read

you.

the leaves, faded on corners,

break on the occasion

of your name.

the ink is clean

around the edges

as i roll each letter

off my tongue and into

the world

where they come together

to be you.

then, for bedtime, i pick

my favorite parts

of you, those clearest

illustrations on the pages

aided neither by headings

nor dialogue balloons.

the margins around them

are uniform, some spotless,

some scrawled on with

little, minor bits of

you; some underhand comments,

remarks bordering on irrelevant,

some pieces

you may not even recall.

they are all you.

Eclipse

Wait a moment, you beautiful stranger. Stay there under the partial light; let your silhouette carefully line the papered walls. Don’t move, lighten your breathing; I cannot stand seeing you expand a fraction, your waist thickening, breasts ballooning and ebbing back—an unwelcome sight. I will move closer. Just a little bit closer. I will refuse the poison of your fragrance, stare, just stare at you as you manifest the traces of evolution. But halt! You are static. There are no fluids running under your skin and within the veins. I blink lest you remain unchanged. A piece of stone. A dagger against my flesh.

So I walk over the lamp switch. I flick it off just in time for the moonlight to invade the entirety of this hall. Suddenly all is in steady hues of blue. And you, you are no longer white but midnight in your own solidity. Monochromatic. Still, still, so very still. You wrap the silence around you as if it were your very own skin.

There the change long awaited falls. I hold you in my glance to see not the gradual transformation but the one that occurs in a single second of apprehension. You are neither a figure nor a texture now, neither contour nor content. You are black like the eclipse that turns the whiteness away from your brilliance. You are the substance that makes up the mantle you stand on, finally.

Hades's Ballad

He had attempted to win her back with a movie ticket, dinner, and a speedy late night drive home from Taguig to the darkened alleys of Fairview. The evening was carefully chosen, to be followed by a loose morning and a possibility of a follow-up call. He didn’t know which prospect appealed to him more; his mind was singular, eye on the prize, his words stranded in his throat.

They continued in silence. He kept a careful distance from her as they strolled away from the theatre house but each minute without touching her was becoming a lifetime of agony. He had spent the past ten years exploring her well-kept regions freely; not being able to so much as stroke her now, the mere thought caused a strong sense of defeat. His one arm, dying to be wrapped around her waist, stayed in languish. The contrast heightened with time.

The night was the wrong one for his purpose, he thought just then. He wanted to punch at the space in front of him, knowing in the end he’d be the one to get hurt.

She stared at him, smart in her bohemian shirt and pink lipstick. Her olive skin had turned deep orange under the street lamps. She was steadily breathing the air around them, as if it was easy for her, as if she was hogging it all to leave nothing to him. He couldn’t spot her smirk but he imagined the white even teeth disclosing and widening. Those teeth would bite the hope out of him.

He thought he was ready to give up the world for her at that moment when the clouds hung purple above them and the starlight beating the light years. He could ask her to love him back, and she might agree, say yes if it meant so much to him, but she would never let him touch her again.

The night had served its purpose, this time vowing never to be used this way again.