If the pig could talk, we’d be best friends.
Sadly here I am in the diner, partaking
of his broken flesh in solitude. Amidst
the frying rain and cooking oil
leaping from the pans in the kitchen
the afternoon chatter comes the way
it always has, the slow familiar haze
melting into noise I’d later find
once again in sleep. Hearing
has its downsides that no one says
are real or ever tells you, the least
of which that you must listen, use
what you have or let it fade away.
I might meet a word in my dreams
and ask if I could join the others,
or maybe melt their waxen wings
or even pluck them off their backs
to give to those who couldn’t fly,
by themselves or otherwise. Gladly
I’d give my own and sink to mud
if it meant that even pigs could see
that vast cerulean sky, or even my mind,
not that I’ve used it much these days,
that those sent to the slaughter could scream
before facing the blades,” Wait!”
And maybe lesser beings could rise,
could ask their biped overlords
to give them what was theirs by right.
Give them time. Give them life.
John Oliver Ladaga hailed from Iligan, but calls Davao his home, and UP Mindanao his alma mater. He memes in a desk.