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.
The sound of my mother’s voice escapes from
my body, chasing after her shattered fragments
left inside of me. My face, with the imprints of
her resonance, I search in the extension of her skin,
loved by you. Warmth, soon enough akin,
I remain cautiously small.
Somewhere, at the bottom
of this cup distorts a part of my face:
my upper lip, nose, and cheeks,
convexing all these insecurities. I
laid it back to its place how carefully
I cup your face to mine, the same way
I cup my own while falling
to ruin in shards. In this kitchen,
the dancing stops at the sound of falling
of the porcelain
crashing to the vigor
in your voice from mistakes
now distorted in radio static,
once singing in harana
at stereo. All sound, crawling,
collapsed.
We are both
broken from the cold
in millisecond shock. How our soles
bleed, taking long
to wash merely our own feet. Staying
is a bargain in these kempt walls,
keeping the escalation under the roof. Dim-lit
we prefer pointing fingers sharply
unblind to the scene’s grain.
The tropical storm soon invades our windows
unforecasted, like every single
storm before conjured by female intuition. If you
pick me up,
what pays
for giving
when I have
unlatched too loosely?
The silhouette
of my face surfaced
at the base of the cup calls me
back to
who we were.
Written by Giannah Ochoa
