Month: February 2015

For a good reason

Poetry by | February 1, 2015

Do not make me keep my promises
Easily because
Mornings bring age
You will kiss my tired eyelids
With thinned lips
Sounds pass them
Cracked but still soothing
To my hardly-hearing ears
Reassuring, lovingly cooing
Bringing to mind
The Mayas that we were
Flitting from branch to branch
As if there was no tomorrow
Tomorrow just came to visit
Tutting
Waiting for his overdue call
I found myself wearing my skin
Like my Sunday dresses you used to
Throw on the floor
Now kept neatly folded
Inside the ancient doors
That smell of mothballs and decay
Your hands were Bangkas
Sailing over my smooth seas
Now they are traversing
through rough waves and storms
I fear it may sink
The wires on my head that used
To be the night
Are now ashes
From a well-stroked fire
Which you try to resuscitate
To no avail
Do not make me keep my promises
I used to swear ‘i will never leave you’
But then
One night
I grasped you hand tightly
Then, like my breath, let it slip away

—
Adeva is from Cagayan de Oro City, currently an English teacher in Xavier University High School.

May-December

Poetry by | February 1, 2015

The only wrinkles that you have
are those lines along the
corners of your eyes
when you smile
unlike her
Your countenance strengthens me
the might of
a thousand Spartans cannot match me
You hands
are smooth, unblemished by the
wash cloths and the dish soaps
the detergent you’ll be
handling soon enough
And yet beside you, I am
ancient
It is apt she calls this
May-December
You are summer
and I am at the tail end
of seasons
Soon, I hope
you, like a phoenix,
will rise
and I will remain
with her

—
Mai Santillan is, by day, a freelance writer from CDO. By night, she’s a couch potato. During her off days, you’ll see her wandering around Divisoria to capture mundane yet candid humdrum activities in the city. You won’t miss her. She has this ridiculously huge curly hair often mistaken as a wig. But it’s not. Really.

Laundry

Poetry by | February 1, 2015

I wash your pants
to remove the dirt
of your last night’s infidelity.
Scrub it with patience
and force—
her caress abandoning the fabric.
Rinse it until it’s clean—
the sins dissolving in the water.
Dry it up—
the remains of her perfume evaporating.
Iron it,
to smooth the creases of the cloth,
hoping that tomorrow
I will not wash it
the way I always do:
cleaning someone else’s dirt.

—
Reil is a second year BSED-MATH student from Ateneo de Davao University. His best friends are Literature and Mathematics.