It is dark,
it is lonely
in this box.

There’s a candle
in the middle,
in this box.

Here, a table,
there, a bed,
to sit, to lie.

The box was small—
growing smaller
and smaller.

The candle melted
to its stump—
wick burnt to ash.

My home, my prison,
my coffin,
my box.

The fierce joy
that was
present in the past
that drove me here,
that made me fight
for the happiness
that I always wanted,
disappeared through
cracks and crevices—
anguish
bore into me.
They felt like
great depths
I was
too scared
to scale.
So I sit,
and endure
the tiny cracks
that spread
through everything,
one day meeting each other
and destroy me.

I
surrender to the collective worth;
while,
behind curtains I
ramble
my insanities
as I face
the nullity that is,
my audience.

I listen to old records,
looking for
a groove in which
to fit.

I leap into the night,
hoping that
the sky will pull
me
from the collapsing meaning
of Earth
I was lost in.

Perhaps,
only in a dream did I
possess
joy.

Forgetting is a blade—
broken glass at the root.
Tomorrow will disappear
and yesterday will be forgotten
at the annihilation of today.

Meaning
from the ordering
of words, of events.
An essence that shifts
through tone, through phonemes,
passed on repeatedly—
mouth to ear,
mouth to ear,
mouth to ear.
Until there is only one word.
Exclamatory sentence—
a crisp yell in the graceless wind—
morphology of a dream.
As life is suffixed,
be a clause: independent.

I’ll hold these whispers
until the sun sets
over heaving chests,
as with waves dying,
as they hit the shore
to be born again.

And I feel it myself as these lamentations
cascade back into
our mouths tender
as I lean in to resuscitate.

Ardent waves dying
to be born again.

How much is a kilo of rice?
The farmer bends down
shifting soil
with the sun on his back
as sweat trickles
from the edge of his brow
to the shallow ponds of the paddy field.
He looks out into the vastness—
his earthen canvass—
the green blades of his pointillist craft.

He dares not count the grains
tucked in hulls
like tiny pearls
in oyster shells.
Riches not his to take.

How much is a kilo of rice?
When the land is harsh
and the sun grows violent;
watching what little is saved
head for the city in gleaming trucks
as his hungry children look on.
Men of power sit in comfort
of air-conditioned dining rooms.
Sinandomeng, Denorado,
white, red, brown, and black
taking months to farm
and only a few minutes to bring to their plates.
Fine dining.
The farmer falls to the asphalt
with the sound of a pistol shot
echoing in the distance.
Red slips through the cracks of parched earth.
The cries of thousands like him
dampen the rumble of shields.
They ask only for some of it back.

How much is a kilo of rice?
Forty-five per.
Pesos for the consumer,
caliber for the producer.
The noose sounds cheaper,
its freedom less painful.

Why
must you leave
so gentle,
so quiet?
Threads of silk
hitched
upon whistles
of a wind
blowing south.

Why
must you leave
so gentle,
so quiet?
Once I’ve gotten used
to the daylight
you adore.
Held onto every bright moment
dreading darkness.

I envy children
audaciously running after
the horizon:
shadows
as long as they
can ever be.
Clasping rays
of fading light,
fighting the inevitable murk
as they ask,
why
must you leave
so gentle,
so quiet?

Make me
do the things you do;
make things
taste less bland.
Get our hearts
thumping
a few beats faster.

Never one for excitement.
You see my blind
and raise it.

I fold.