This letter

is filed in the folder of prayers of vanity, wherein you, no doubt, have put hundreds of requests, thanks to your parents who gave you the worst of the genes. There is, for instance, a request for white, porcelain, glowingly flawless skin, since yours is oilier than the cheapest margarine and has been programmed with acne and a suite of allergies. One day, after watching a Colgate commercial of some handsome guy, you also clipped that wish for a killer smile and better set of teeth, since yours are chipped and easily turn yellow. But to save ourselves time, let us just enumerate all the major requests: larger, round eyes (light brown), normal vision (20/20), thicker hair, sexier masculine voice, additional 10 inches in height, additional inches in length and width (bird), non-hairiness, bigger arms, pinkish-white feet, longer fingers, six-pack abdominals, to become American (2001), Taiwanese (2003), Korean (2008), etc.

We regret to inform you that all your requests since 1995 have been rejected. According to the book of fate, you've been irreversibly bestowed all the potentials to become a middle-class educated professional who looks like a smelly foot. This was done so you can tell the world the beauty of being a middle-class educated professional who looks like a smelly foot. And please, don't be zealously envious of male models in fashion magazines. They make a living by wearing clothes, while you do so by thinking. It's not that bad.

We hope you understand.

External Division

Institute of Beauty

Prayer Avenue corner Love Street

3rd Heaven, Heaven, 7777

Twenty Five

starts

when

insecurity

runs into

your bedroom

door. It comes in

the form of

serpents,

their faces

bearing those

of your

friends.

"Seniors,"

they hiss

like in a choir,

batting their

lashes and

shaking their

fork tongues.

"We are

seniors now".

Promptly you

draw the pistol

from the

bedside table,

lick the barrel,

and aim at their

mouths. Then

one by one,

the slithering

fades, followed

by the smoky

revelation

of blood

and brains.

"Tomorrow,"

you say.

"I'll clean you up."

You turn off

the lamp, take

off the

sheet, and

plunge into

dreams,

hoping to

find a

chamber

made of

crisp

dollar

bills.

Dear Ate Charo,

I'm writing you a letter because I'm a subaltern. Yes, we subalterns don't speak, but we can write. You see, I strongly feel that I'm interpellated by societal forces (ideological state apparashits, you call them but the term's dated) to consumerist (or capitalist, again, dated) tendencies.

Anyhow, maybe my position can elucidate the problematique of my story. I am a single, male, queer (sexuality is fluid), Catholic, higher lower class individual working as a blogger (or writer, for orthodox journalists) in one of the offices at The Fort. You may say that the circles I'm in is not bad at all, since I'm in the center geographically (Manila), spiritually (Catholic), academically (UP).

But that's not the point. My apologies if this letter is full of digressions, Ate Charo, because my writing self is abnormally separated from my speaking self. Is this heteroglossia? Or perhaps a type of Jungian neurosis? I don't know Ate Charo, I think you're annoyed with the switches of my linguistic codes by now. Perhaps I'm just afraid of Grandma Orly's belatedness syndrome. Help me to write myself, Ate Charo, because I'm attempting to come up with an epistolary poem.

Loser

refers to grade-conscious freaks. They don't miss their assignments, have a year's supply of quiz pads (1/4, 1/2, 1 whole), and hate Physical Education classes. They're the reversals of boys who bring beer and girls who breathe make-up. Too afraid to retaliate to tirades and insults, they believe that walking into the guidance counselor's office will be the end of life.

"They're just good in memorization," said the teacher who identifies herself as cool. "They ace their exams, but they won't succeed in life."

"The real champions are those who know diskarte."

And perhaps she's right. Maybe they're plain losers with above-average memory skills. Because after two decades of study, you still can't define what that word means. You're hopelessly hunting for and enjoying pieces of reaffirmations, wishing that one day, you suddenly bump into a street sign, leading you to a landscape of nipa hut beside a rice field, in front of a mountain, below the yellow smiling sun.

Siopao

Becomes your brain after kneading a dough of words on the board of memory. "Cook four," says the chef who busies himself with culinary calculus. You promptly roll each slice into a ball and fuck it with egg and semantic filling, making sure that no customer will say it tastes like manila paper. You gather the sides, pinch them together, and twist. The chef begins to snore. You place the rolls in the steamer. Whistle and wait until the froth from his mouth rises. Once he does, switch off the stove and let the dreams subside. Put the buns in the plate and serve. Estimated time is 12 hours. Get a free bag of flour for overtime pay.

Block

Tonight I'm writing you a poem made of a paragraph. A paragraph because, among other things, lines and stanzas speak of lyrical realities, and my life does not have those. It is an ugly chop of wood with itchy fibers and rotten worms. You see, even my metaphors fail effortlessly. Because five years from now, when I'm a 30 year-old semi-bald swine with yellow teeth, I want to remember this night when my fears only revolve around the allergy on my face, the credit card debt, and losing weight. Gripping the cock of time from point B to point A is a consolation prize. Tonight, maybe there's happiness I refuse to see. Perhaps life is much better.

Chaos

is a saturday night fucked up party in the mind. the wallet is sad and empty, obscuring all visions of gallivanting. porn and masturbating have become overrated. the fridge is empty of food, and weekend primetime television is worse than rotten McDonalds fries. i hate this sickness, said the boyfriend over the phone, attempting to do a litmus paper test on your love. then turn off the TV and sleep, you replied, thinking of another day that went down the drain. on the other tab, behind the blogger page, there is a news about a boy who stabbed his teacher for being asked to get a haircut. shocking, you thought with cliche, popping out a plan to compose an affective poem on it. there are, however, so many pages about hot guys and sex, and the seed of creative longing shrunk in no time. facebook has turned into another fridge. you keep on opening it every minute, wishing that there's a tupperware of food somewhere that you didn't notice before. then the words disappear. the air hints at the imminent december, invoking how your 24th year was spent with nothingness. the rat race is on, and you're not aware if you're on the tracks or sitting on the bleachers. the metaphysics of it all sucks, especially when you only hope to get laid with someone with a nice grin and some abs. or to get laid with the boyfriend once he develops a nicer grin and gain some abs. beside you is slap of the moral self: how dare you, shallow slut, it said, unleashing another slap on the other side.

These Are The Cusses

These are the cusses

splashing onto your face

for smiling back at the winks

of Manila lifestyle magazines.

These are the assholes

for hours wasted staring at

the leather shoes, the skinny pants,

the caps, the luminous sheen of

high-res photographs.

These are the tarantados

for hopping into the cars of the cool,

for touching the frames of the party pages,

the captions, the lights, and the mugs who rule.

These are your well-deserved gagos.

They are inside a box wrapped in ululs, so the

next time you talk to your payroll ATM,

you can see it can't spit words from Zara and H&M.

And don't forget these pretty putanginamos.

wear them whenever you feel climbing the ladder,

singing the anthem, and seating on the toilet.

Your shit may be brown, hard, and sticky, but

it'll still look like a cake in a box of glittery.

Inception

Inside a room full of people, all lips are sealed, the hands restlessly tapping keys to establish a fragment of work. One corner has a window half-covered, the midday light coming in as if echoing a boy who said, I want to work in a spaceship. He munched the chocolate bar and craved for more lego blocks, seeing a new set of wings and some planetary labs. But you can be a doctor, the mother said, holding a pen and staring at the calculator. Or a lawyer, she added, smiling at her reflection on the psychedelic screen. Outside the house, on the surface of a frame, a man wanders in the streets, hunting for words to be sewn. He stops by an edifice and sees one window half-covered, laughing and thinking about a room of silly people. The park is bare and full of umbrellas. He sees words on a bench and picks them. Sees them pasted on the posts and unpasted them. There are some on the trash bin, the pavement, the roads.

The Kwek-Kwek Poem

For Jose Garcia Villa

The kwek-kweks are being fried,

They are like little balls to the kiat-kiat tree.

(A man has only two balls,

There are many balls in a kiat-kiat tree.)

Soon the kwek-kweks will turn orange and yummy:

I shall pick up two...three…or many…

Like a modest girl (or boy¹), I shall first lick their skin,

I shall lick them before eating (the egg of) the Bird:

I shall be reminded of a bunch of boys.

---------------------------------------------

I shall kiss kwek-kweks because they are the balls of a boy.

In UP they say we are postmodernists now, sir, and are free to write about our Jacks and Davids—without suspension.