Laid upon our eyelashes
is the beginning of eternity.
A cluster of memories,
heaped fragments of imagination, fading eyes,
moths adrift in light, fireflies swallowed by darkness,
thorny stems of roses —
and there, in a single moment,
every fiber of our being was woven.
Our shadows vanished.
A threat etched into our palms,
or into the silent signal
of our spine and soles.
Blessed are we slaves,
mocked by the terror of fickle fate.
We are butterflies.
And before long, we too will surrender
to the sweetness of it all
and return again to the beginning —
to the dark chain of the womb,
and be born again as the likeness
of our former life.
And afterwards, we will once more be lured
by the sweetness of honey and the purity of flowers.
Leonel Quillo is a Mindanawon poet raised in Cebu. He is the Content Producer of Liwayway Magazine. A poet and filmmaker, he currently resides in Intramuros, Manila.