In the Car that Straddled Me and Father

Fiction by | February 10, 2008

Father and I were in the purple car handed to him for the nth time; where n is equals to the infinity of the fathers who drove their daughters to the JS Prom. For years, the tinted windows of the car and the strangulating seatbelt have created an artificial intimacy—between me and the world outside the car, and him.

The suffocating airconditioner made the car windows misty, and I traced escape holes with my thin fingers. The traces made me recall my tongue, carefully parting the hairs of his stiffening chest that night we lay awake.

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To Build Fire

Fiction by | February 3, 2008

When I was sixteen at the old house, I used to sit on our wooden chair behind her and watch how she built fire with kerosene, wood, and pieces of folded paper. She would bend low enough, reaching for the fireplace, and I could see her spine arching downwards like a bamboo on a windy day, while behind her white head where I could not see much what happened, a light-blue smoke rose up to the sooted roof along with some ashes flying for escape through the slits on our wall.

She had told me once how to do it when Tatay was not yet around from work. We were alone inside the house and she began preparing rice to cook for dinner. Nanay Pacita sat on bended knees and looked for dry sticks under the fireplace. Tatay had split them outside days ago when there was still no job for him downtown. He had busied himself repairing the old electric fan, pounding wooden shelves for my books, and carrying large containers of water from the nearby pump. He preferred walking alone and whistling his own tunes of the sixties and once in a while, I would hand him a glass of water, which he would down in a single gulp and return to me.

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Badjao

Poetry by | February 3, 2008

they shun him just because
his hair is golden like the sun
skin painted with bright hues
like the sky scent reminiscent
of the earth’s elements
they close their ears on his songs
the silent and sad sea melodies
his music a sound of the breeze
sweeping through deaf streets
each drumbeat a heavy knock
on a door swiftly shut behind him
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Noodles and Expiry Dates

Poetry by | February 3, 2008

I wish love were just like instant noodles –
that it came with its flavor written on its pack—
   sweet or spicy,
   nothing too strange for the tongue;
that it came with instructions:
Cook in briskly boiling water for three minutes.
Mix special seasoning of secrets and soy sauce into a paste.
Drain noodles of unnecessary water. Mix well with the prepared paste.
ENJOY.
That it could be consumed,
   whether a little half- or over- cooked,
‘til hunger is no more;
that it would warn
   every starving boy and girl
   when it will expire.

Night Out

Poetry by | January 27, 2008

Tonight’s no night for stories and poems
The moon’s fair, witches are out leaping
from eaves to twigs
I paced about; heard them sing
“Come catch the moon about to fall.”

Memoirs of a "Gay-sha"

Nonfiction by | January 27, 2008

I have been gay since I was five. Playing with toy guns or miniature race cars were never my game. Instead, I fancied baby dolls and their flamboyant dresses and silky, curly locks. I considered them alive—my little friends and fairy godmothers with whom I shared my innermost desires.

But my Mama had a great distaste for watching me play with my little girly playmates and would pinch me hard to restore my male consciousness. After all, dolls are for girls and I was meant to play with less delicate things. To get back to my pink world, I decided to play with my dolls in a place where I thought we could be protected—behind the bushes in front of Mama Mary’s grotto in our backyard. Like the mists of Avalon, the bushes concealed us from the great perils of time and my mother’s disapproval. We played roles, had tea parties, and fairy dances. But our favorite musical act was Sister Act 1’s “I Will Follow Him,” in which the fake nun Whoopi Goldberg infected the world with happiness by reworking a boring church hymn into great song-and-dance number. It is the song that would best define my gay childhood. It carried me to beautiful heights of happiness and divinity.

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Ant Travels

Fiction by | January 27, 2008

From beneath the ground, across the leaves, up and down a wall, and into the cookie jar – the ants traveled, carrying crumbs of cookies back to their colony. Now and then, they would stop by and greet each other by brushing their antennas and then carried on with their merry hauling.

From far away – on the adjacent floor – the ant Antonino watched his fellow workers with a great deal of confusion and frustration.

Antonino had found a shortcut. By coming out of the edge of the colony, and passing through a crack on the wall, he could come out just beside the cookie jar. It would cut the length of traveling to less than half! His problem, however, was that the other ants did not want to take this route.

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