Upon Reading the Time Traveller’s Wife

Poetry by | August 11, 2019

There are moments of clarity
when you see life and death.
And you realize,
that you are not invincible,
that you are not forever,
that the stars wink out,
one by one.

Then, as an epiphany,
you treasure each look,
each laugh,
each embrace.

You try to fill
the in-betweens with grace
and cram it all
in memory’s safe box.

Then, you are like a famished man
who devours and savors
each morsel,
each drop,
squeezing everything
the feast of life has to offer.

Nothing is ignored.


Beulah G. Villaruel was born in Mindanao, grew up in Luzon, and got married in Visayas. She fell in love with literature in high school, and loved it so much she became an English teacher. She enjoys teaching at Philippine Science High School-SOCCSKSARGEN Region Campus on weekdays and revels in mom life on weekends.

Jeepney Ride

Fiction by | May 19, 2019

The stores in the mall are closing already when a woman in her early twenties pretty and smartly dressed breezes out the door. Click, click, click. Her heels resound as she hurriedly walks down the stairs. She turns a corner and collides with a man—tall in long sleeves and tie. They hastily apologize and quickly move on—she, blushing, for he is rather handsome. She crosses the street and hails a jeepney.

As the jeepney moves away she looks at the familiar sight of office buildings, the market and the small ukay-ukay store which was so popular with her and her classmates during their college days. She sighs because it’s late already. She still has to start with her pile of paperwork. Inwardly she feels pressured yet proud at the same time. She is proud to be trusted so much by the bosses but with a small nagging voice telling her that she is simply being taken advantage of.
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