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A Prayer for Leni Robredo
Lord, there’s no day that can carry the load
Of living without the help of your grace.
No sun will shine on a land without hope.
The morning there will have nowhere to go,
Like a child who loses sight of its mother,
And then she came, her...
Igorot without Thorns
It happened at the clearing booth of NAIA flight station. She was bound for Thailand for a five-day trip to join a cultural immersion and was booked for a tattoo demonstration in Bangkok. Her head was still clouded with the foggy weather of...
Bunót
My tongue used to be made up of copra,
salivating oils that indicate who I am and where
I’m from. A place where coconut husks roof
people’s mouths. Instrument to ignite brittle vowels
and wavy coir tones. When my people speak,
one can hear songs that carry the...
Safety is a Hole in the Ground
Beth woke up with a start to the unearthly screams of a pig as it was being lashed to the long wooden bench in the dirty kitchen. The animal protested; its initial squeals became an alarmed bellow as it struggled to free itself....
Naked
We have our palms embedded in the trunks
of trees, embroidered in its leaves were desires
left seasoned by the worms. That the fruits were
products of a hundred laborers, scattered throughout
the jungle of civilization, undisturbed, and the seeds
outgrown the narratives of the past, filling the...
Dial “D” for Desire
I was yet to meet a man like him. He sauntered into the room with a gait that announced, Look! I’m here! And by the time the heavy pinewood door swung shut behind him, all my trainees—of which he was to be one—had...
