Skins

Poetry by | April 16, 2017

The first time I saw you, you had liquid emeralds for eyes and they desired me. They lusted over my thick hide and rich meat that could save your family for the winter. So when I felt the cold steel of your knife pierce through me, I did not fight back. I let you take my life so you could save yours.

The first time I remembered you, your hair was slicked back but a lone, stubborn curl refused to cooperate, making my left hand itch. You smiled at me, flashing a dimple, and called me, “Ma‟am.” And oh, how eager you were to fly. So I watched. I watched you join the biggest con game on earth—war, just to leave the ground for a while. I also watched as your plane was blown into smithereens.

The first time I knew I loved you, you did not exist. I looked for you in the sky, in the ocean and in every nook and cranny of the land. I married a girl with freckles and had twins. While I was happy, I knew I would always wait for you.

The first time you found me, I knew the wait was going to be a part of my lives. I opened my eyes and there you were, smiling, as if you knew, too. We broke our mother’s body but she loved us with every bone she had, nonetheless. That was one of my happiest lifetimes; chasing shadows, getting into brawls and learning every line on each other’s palms. But the best part would always be waking up every morning, certain of your love for me.

The next time I met you, we were both adults and life had come first. I was hard, ambitious and stern—more so than you. You managed to keep that reckless glimmer in your eye somehow. While it was easy for you to discard your armor, mine was molded deep into my skin. You took your time anyway, as if making up for the other lifetimes. And before I knew it, you left galaxies between my thighs and unmade every lesson life had taught me.

Some lifetimes, I would find you with your heart in another soul’s hands. To watch you kiss your wife to work and dress up as a ridiculous Santa to your kids’ delight was an exquisite joy on its own. But to watch you wait for the grinning boy incapable of happiness in Pinto was the second hardest thing I ever had to do. He did not arrive and yet, years later, there you still were.

Other lifetimes, we never even meet. I learned not to look for you in a child’s laughter, a model’s hips and a scent in the train. I just had to be so you can return to me just as I would return to you always.

But for now, I am content to have you in my arms, your dark hair spilling over your pony tail, tickling my nose. “Which was your favorite?” you ask. I look up at the vast emptiness of the universe and trace my fingers over your night skin. “Different bodies, same souls. Same love.”

Viel is a BA Communication Art student at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. She is now on her fourth year and will graduate on June.

Si Buktot ug Ang Iyang Kapalaran

Fiction by | April 16, 2017

Bukid sa Buda. Gianak si Veron. Namatay ang iyang inahan sa pag-anak kaniya kay dako ang iyang ulo.  Dili ulo ang nakita sa komadrona kun di usa ka bukog nga nagburot.

Ang bata usa ka buktot. Sadihang nigawas kini, kalit nipahiyom ang bata.  Nakakita na dayon kini. Usa kini ka kahibulongan ingon sa komadrona. Nidako si Veron nga bayot nga bata.Binabaye, hinay molihok, mokiay’g lakaw ug tabian nga bayot nga buktot.

Makalingaw kaayo si Veron og makawala sa kakapoy ug problema. Apan kontra kaayo siya sa iyang amahan ug inahan. Ginapasipad-an si Veron sa iyang mga pamilya, ginapaligid sa pang-pang ug bakilid. Nagadaro si Veron sa ilang uma aron tamnan og humay. Manglaba, magluto, magbugha og kahoy. Ug wala na nakaantos si Veron, nisakay siya og bus, nilayas siya ug nakaabot sa sentro sa syudad sa Dabaw.

Si Ado gi-anak sa Panaga. Layo kaayo nga lugar gikan sa syudad. Mosakay og bus, habal-habal, motabok og tulo ka sapa, mobaktas og pila ka kilometro, mosakay og kabayo, makaabot lang sa lugar ni Ado.

Si Ado, usa ka himsog nga bata ug bus-ok og lawas hangtud nga nidako kini.   Taas ang ilong ug sakto ang barog, ang iyang mga mata daw sa dili ka makabalibad og naa siyay ihangyo kanimo. Hamis pa gyud ang iyang pamanit murag wala gadako sa uma.Mura siya og anak sa adunahan og pamarong og tan-awon. Sa dihang natapos na niya ang hayskol, nanimpad siya sa syudad.
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Intervention

Poetry by | April 2, 2017

You stroked the line
from my neck
down to my spine
and stopped
at every bump
of bone.

You traced
the ink planets
and kissed them
to life.
They rotated
with the flutter
of your fingertips.

Their weather
changed with every
hiss of your breath.
The room went dark.
Pin lights
started to appear

and the worlds
orbited along
my stomach
in the expanse
of my room.
The weight
of the universe
is off my back.

Marie Crestie Joie is a creative writing student from UP Mindanao.

 

The Pilot's Vantage Point

Nonfiction by | April 2, 2017

“I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day, he says over and over, just like you: ‘I am busy with matters of consequence!’ And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man – he is a mushroom!”

~ The Little Prince

When temperature went down during that ber-month, I was in the living room scrolling through my FB while the TV showed some teleserye I was not interested in. A lot of posts were on fright nights. There were people posting Halloween costumes, make up tutorials for Halloween. Team Kramer was in all black. That was cute.

Scroll down more.

There was a photo of Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau dressed as the Pilot and his son, the Little Prince. Fallen leaves were on the ground. Behind them, the leaves of the trees were yellow with hints of orange.

How fitting. The foliage almost imitating the sunset.

That was all it took and a distant memory replayed.

Hands were passing around glues and scissors. Scented papers of various colors and cut out pictures were scattered on the floor where eleven students were sitting and chatting. The troublesome flower accessories and yarns were lost in the mess.
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Pull

Poetry by | March 26, 2017

At Riverrun our stream of words never run dry
We pedal bikes down empty mountain roads
That ends on a pavilion of rundown train cars
Just beside our wooden cabin
Have I told you
that while you slept, I had dreams of myself
buying a thousand ice cream cones for you?
We have been the best of friends
Now we’re nothing but lovers
Who draw ourselves against the other
Like a pendulum
And despite hours
And ourselves
We repeat
Over
And again

Maica is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program of UP Mindanao

You

Poetry by | March 26, 2017

I am in love with you
And I don’t have any plan
Hiding it. I have loved
You now, I have loved you
Ever since. Right before we
even knew that love exists
Between us. The kind of
Love that vacates the world’s
Complexities. The kind of love
That echoes beyond time, beyond
Essence, beyond anything that
Limits. I have come to seize
the moment of immense recognition
of the love that resides within us;
A frolic butterfly who just emerged
From its hiding.
I thank whatever entity or
Immortal being who made me
Choose to realize that the love I’ve
Been looking for is here, sitting
right under
My nose.

 

Sums is an English teacher who decided to leave all her baggage in the insitution, and sail away to the universe-knows-where to chase her firebird.

Balatukan

Poetry by | March 26, 2017

I climb the old Balatukan peak
Home-breath of the Higaonon
Warm welcome fills my cup of brewed kapi
Warmer still are the smiles of the children
And the tubao-topped timuays.

We sing melodies of the earth
Pluck the higalong,  rap the dasang
Bare feet pounding the parched ground
To the deafening sound of drums and gongs.

Around the fire,  the children curl up
Hear the sagas of painted baylans and alimaongs
Ancient tales of Apo Entampil
Forefather of the people of the  living mountains
Mountains where forests are no more.

The clouds break at dawn
Lightning flashes, thunder roars
Rivers and gorges swell
And sweep down
The old Balatukan  mountains.

Nelson D. Manigo is an associate professor of  the Ateneo de Davao University. He got his bachelor’s degree  in Philosophy from the University of San Carlos and master’s degree from the Ignatian Institute of Religious Education (IIRE)-AdDU.

 

Of Memories and Letters

Nonfiction by | March 26, 2017

I live to write letters. I have lived because of letters.

When a parent decides to leave, there is infinity of questions. Inside my head was an avalanche of questions. When I was five, the black jar, a familiar fixture in our living room, accidentally got broken, spilling over my brokenness in scraps of paper scribbled with love letters to a father who decided to leave. This memory regurgitates in conversations with my mother and in spite of the heartbreaking back story, she uses this story to lovingly prod that writing is just as important as breathing. I must live.

I wrote letters to express my love for family and friends because certain moments merit not only non-verbal expression, they deserve to be documented, reconstructed and reread in my small universe. Writing is my human attempt to immortalize fleeting moments of happiness.

My passion to write and my stubborn impulse to document my thoughts are evidenced in various notebooks I have collected over the years. I write notes to my past, present, and future self. When I accidentally come across these old letters, I often find myself smiling, as if reading a letter from another who writes with raw and shameless honesty. It is overwhelming at times. I find that the letters to my younger self are most difficult to write, as she has been through a labyrinth of thorns – she deserves a good one.

I have written countless letters to my mother, many of these I have given to her, the others I kept somewhere. There is infinity of words but there are number of people who deserve my letters – just as the ink from my pen bleeds when I write my letters, my heart bleeds as well. There are infinite words but finite number of years. Words must be written. Pain, the breaking, must be transformed in written form.

Just as there are infinite characters and words, humans have finite number of days. The freedom to write must not be wasted – the other one, the intended receiver has to know. My mother once told me that she loves my letters but could not find the words to respond. I told her that my letters demand no answers and require no affirmation.
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