Before the second episode of the Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop (PGLW) concluded on March 21, we knew that we had one more thing that we can offer our bright young fellows: a starting platform for their creative endeavors. Here, we present one of their final outputs from the workshop. We also asked them to provide an artwork that they think best represents their stories. Read on.
Poetry is my vice, so
to Hell with rejection letters.
As I churn out lines and verses across
the white page like an EPSON printer
on exam day, I mumble
“Not today Satan, not today”.
Today’s not the day I’ll submit
to your call of submission
to cease feeling, meaning-making,
for poetry is my vice.
Poetry is a vice I routinely choose
from a charcuterie of Marlboro Red
and shards of broken Jägermeister bottles.
I let the words run through my nose,
to my throat, and to my lungs
and let the pain of life soothe
my inner flesh. I get drunk
over the fermented flowers
of language I inject through my veins
and subsequently vomit
to my already dirty page.
To write is to send oneself into
a self-induced spiral of enjoying
the act of letting Beauty flutter
like floating light specks
on hazy dreams, and suffering
over the fact that my poems
might be left homeless,
like swaying people
born out of mawkish drinking
in the urban-torn streets of Manila.
To write is to die
and be alive again
and again,
and again,
and once again
I find myself in front of my laptop
digitally face-to-face with an editor
from Philippines Graphic, masked
behind an email, ready to send
myself into another bout
of poetic reincarnation, ready to send
another piece of myself wrapped
in imagined words and realities,
in .docx files and bionotes,
attempting to enter a centennial-long
literary tradition.
Where am I in it? I don’t know.
But what I know is that
in every poem I will write
I will say:
to Hell with rejection letters,
I’m addicted to the pang anyways.
Written by Charles Cuyana.
