at ten years old, we 
climbed skinny trees, and 
scraped knobby knees, saw the city 
bird’s eye, and listened to the rustling of 
leaves, ten years later:


in place of trees,
we lego brick stack concrete
pancake layers: higher and 
higher until we need elevators, and
then, maybe they fit the criteria for 
skyscrapers. maybe, this time, we’ll find 
what we’re looking for: 
peer through the glass shoe 
window on the top 
floor, and won’t feel the need to axe 
hack this cityscape down, won’t feel the 
need to bring the sky closer to the 
ground, to fill our hands with news
paper that says we’ve reached the clouds. 


sixteen years ago, there were red winged 
butterflies morning greeting 
flowers with 
kisses before moving 
onto someone else’s plant box—the 
all organic liberal player, heart 
breaker—we learn from their pollinating patterns 


we are all thieves, mercilessly 
taking nature’s nectar—let’s army knife carve out a space for 
summer pavilions and 
canopies, uproot these wide mango 
trees and use them for 
fire, their bodies are good for 
keeping us warm, and this 
Nara: sturdy for shelter, and it is human


nature, instinct to reach 
outward, sometimes 
upward—skyward, sun 
peeking through the clouds, and we 
soak it all up through bare 
shoulders that 
burn instead of tan. there are no 
butterflies now, because there are no 
trees, just 


an urban concrete lego-land on life support, the Pasig
river a clogged up IV line and we try to 
scrape at the sides but don’t you 
remember, we sent away the 
guys who could do it 
better on their last 
payroll, now the land 
rolls down the bank of the 
river, where we put dams in place of 
trees—as if we knew any better. and maybe I’m a 
tree hugger, 
nature lover, 
hippie, 
greenie, 
idealist, 
environmentalist, 


just another 
girl who wants to teach her future
daughter how to climb a tree. If I’m 
lucky, she’ll learn to do ir better than me.

Below is what a hippocampus ought not look like. You have been warned.

I scribble down answers
To non-existent questions,
Gulp them down with water,

Drown myself in peaceful solitude,
Intoxicate myself with pitch black nothingness
That drinks bestow so eagerly. 

Like liquid nitrogen,
They smokes up my throat,
And I puff white clouds out again.

The cold winds echo
In my hollow soul,
Asking to be satiated 
With fenestrane windows,

Asking for light 
The sky cannot give

After receiving my white cloud puff gifts.

Asking for light
Called up from distant glances of memory,
Sparks that have long since died down.

My lungs fill up with water,
And exponentially grow my answers,
But they do not fill my hollow holed soul,
Not when they only ever pass through. 

Perhaps someday,
Solid brick will find its way
Down the path I’ve hidden so well
To fill the gaping space
Oblivious to matter.

Perhaps the lingering question 
I’ve repressed with metal locks
Shall emerge presently
To coax in the puzzle piece that fits
Once rust licks the strength off the chains.

Perhaps if I’d swallowed more oxygen,
My questions would emerge faster,
But my hands drift to carbonated soda cans
And shrug off the rust that has crusted,
And fortify chain after chain. 

It's been a while, but here's the almost but not really last poem of Cityscape. I've always had a fondness for paradoxes, and this poem is filled with them. The idea of being right next to a person and yet feeling as if they're miles away intrigues me. The detachment is all too common, and yet there seems to be no solution...

He stands
On plastic platform stages
That sit hundreds of people on weekend games.

Today, we’re the only bodies there.

The coral paint I’d smudged against his cheek
Is long gone,
But he smirked 
As if he hadn’t rubbed it off.

And he smirked,
Dropping another coin 
Into one of my piggy bank lockers
Labelled with his name in bold black letters,

The piggy bank lockers
That fuel the cyclist of my chest,
Pumping blood through the streets 
That branch out through my body. 

It pumps to by brain,
And I feel wings sprout from my plantation back,

But his butterfly wings
Flutter for someone else
In tighter jeans 
And higher food chains,

And I am the dragonfly pest,
The kind farmers perfume with pesticide,
The kind kids lock up in a bottle,
The kind that kids don’t punch air holes for.

He stands 
On his plastic platform stage
With the sun casting his shadow 
Across the grass stadium lake.

My eyes wink at the sun,
And its orange gaze propels my shadow 
Next to the one with bird’s nest hair

Our shadow selves swing with the clouds, 
Hands centimetres away,
The way maple leaves never seem 
To touch their neighbours.

I remember the chicken wishbone from last Easter,
And make my wish three months late,
But I’m still here,
As far from him 
As the sand and the sea.

Ever touching, 
Ever ebbing,
Never joining,
Only meeting.

And soon,
He’ll be standing 
On foreign platform stages,
His shadow swinging 
With another’s,

And I will believe 
That wishbone wishes come true,
When the sea strand no longer separates white from blue. 

The internet allows me to feel so connected with other individuals. Granted, I don't spend much time on social media, but I've been able to share my work online and have utter strangers read what I've written and give me feedback. 

It's extraordinary.

This poem is for the friends I've met thanks to the internet. 

I ride the waves of the triple double-u dots
And find myself finding you,
Making friends with your creations,

Hoping
You'll be finding me,
Too,
Someday.

And you do,
Eventually.

The space between us spans oceans,
But we talk as if across coffee shop tables,

Throwing words
Onto boats
Hoping they sail to the other's ears.

And we sleep
To the other's daybreak.
Unaware of the other's latitude,
Or time zone,

Dreaming of silent conversations
And the clacking of fingers against keys,
Hoping to compose a subtle soundtrack to our silent movie.

In your waves I'd most likely drown under,
Because mine are gently lapping the stone shore,
Unwilling to go very far
Without smashing rocks and dam walls.

I wonder if our online streams
Shall ever interlock
Like friends going to the movies,
Or schoolmates catching each other's glances
Across corridors
Where words are expensive.

Perhaps I’d rather we didn’t.

Still, 
I’d keep whispering melodic messages into bottles,
And creating beautiful maps of your picturesque city


Though you may never hear my echo
Across the continent calling.

The weather in my little world bubble was bipolar today (or I might have just spaced out when the sun suddenly ran from the clouds). 

The rain came, and oh did it pour. 

I love rainy days--irrationally, might I add--and wrote this for the occasion.

The rain
Sends me morse code messages
That go tap tap against my window.

They’re meant for me,
And anyone who will listen. 

I decipher his whispers,
But the thunder joins in,
And I can’t hear the rain above all her noise.

The rumbling makes the rain glitter
Like falling stars
That plummet into my hands
But dissolve at my fingertips. 

The rain
Cannot touch me properly,
Unless he uses his tears.

So, the rain
Codes harder,
Taps faster,
And I can’t seem to keep up.

He sings in rhythmic beats,
Melodic pounding against the glass panes.

I say wait, 
But he doesn’t listen
And does as he pleases.

I sit here
And hope I got it right.

I tap the window,
Tap morse in reply.

“I’m right here.”

I, admittedly, have abominable phone habits. 

I scarcely reply right away (unless it's got something to do with homework, but even then, I could go for hours without seeing my text messages).

Please don't misunderstand--I don't ignore my messages with malicious intent. I simply have other priorities--other activities that preoccupy me. And I'd much rather have a decent conversation with someone in person (or through well crafted e-mails/letters) rather than through text. It might just be my world view, but texting feels so... impersonal...

Apparently, not all my friends think this way, and I have offended certain people for not replying early or not putting smileys in my messages.

So, I wrote about it.

I pretend to fall asleep
When your message rocket launches its way to my phone.

My head is hazed 
With powder blue clouds,
Keeping me dangling between sleep and waking silence.

I try to tip the balance one way
But realise I’m leaning the other.
And the scale growls at me,
Asking me to make up my mind.

Your message buzzes next to my ear,
A bee sweet-drenched in nectar.

I clamp my petal eyelids
And beg you to understand.

My thoughts are ICU weak
And my fingers clumsy.

See, 
I can’t possibly reply.

Wait for the morning’s coherence to shower me.
After I take a cool rain bath to begin the day,
And fight sleep in the car-ride to where I ought to be.

Then, maybe I’ll read your satellite message from space.

May your oxygen tank last you the night,

Because I am terrible at CPR,
My skills work like an old model CPU.
I tend to blow in CO2.

You and I both know
That I could undoubtedly kill you.

Still, you rocket launch text messages
At eleven PM
Knowing that I can’t always pretend to fall asleep.

If you've ever been a student and have never ever had a 'bad day' in class, then I can assure you: you're the minority.

This poem is about one of those bad days, when not one part of the lessons seemed to stick. Don't worry, though: I've been working on understanding my lessons the whole weekend, and... I think I'm getting there...

We shove elephants from our thoughts
And convince ourselves to stay present.

Our flute blown laughter disrupts the class,
But we don’t notice.
With our twitters ringing in our ears,
We’re floating
And we’re gone.

But we can’t 
Just

We shove elephants from our thoughts again
And convince ourselves to stay present.

But I’m scribbling again
Filling the margins with words 
That have nothing to do with the present.

The blackboard is a mess
Of chalk fumes and diagrams.
With our webbed hands,
We try to throw our brains to the front of the room,
Hoping something will stick.

We leave with vague concepts playing themselves on repeat
And hope we know enough to get through.

I grew up reading about women who never needed saving. They didn't need a man to 'save' them. They were their own knights in shining armour.

Sidenote: Whether you be a man or a woman, you can't possibly be completed by another flawed human being. (I'm sorry if you disagree, but I am adamant about this.)

And as I grew older, I came to understand that some of the worst villains didn't have horns sticking out of their hair. They wore helmets to hide them.

Side-sidenote for all kinds of folk: watch out. There are real predators out there. 

Poem 4 dwells on this idea. 

He rides an i8
And fancies himself a knight.

With his broad sword
And his whiskey glass shield,
He slays dragons
Only to watch their limp forms transform into maidens.

My friends and I 
Wear walls of armour,
And smash empty bottled brains against rocks,
Shattering hearts without meaning to.

Guilt ridden, we carve wooden swords from tree branches,
And fend off the nasty lies the shattered brave broadcast.

We practice our swordplay on the beach by the bay,
Our words curling into blades.
We laugh when we bruise.
We taunt when we lose.

And he stands at the edge of the cliffs,
His eyes a sea kissed blue
From the time he ran from the rain.

He watches us 
And sees us breathe fire.

Not comprehending that we swallow the sun
And spit Helium bubbles for fun.

We are our own knights now.
In dresses of mail,
We slam against the pavement infested streets as we walk

Down to the alley 
To slay the i8 monster.

When I go out with friends, sometimes everything's happening so fast around me that I get left behind in my own thoughts as the conversation turns elsewhere, or something.

This is a poem that plays with that idea: the idea of being left behind, the idea of being with people but at the same time feeling alone.

Here it is: poem number 3.

The hatter's table
Sat five of us down.

We were all sane and well.

That is,
As sane as the next person, at least.

I wore a crown
Of flower shaped roots
To keep my feet on the ground,

But the others
Wore feathers
And the wind blew them to the clouds.

Anna kicked and screamed,
Knocking over teacups
 Filled with liquid smiles.

Knocked them over
With her feet.

Some shattered.
Those that chipped
Had the grass-like carpet to break their fall.

Gregory was clawed by a crow, 
And fell back down,
Landed somewhere near Ireland,
Somewhere near the sea.

Carrie could hardly stop laughing,
Could hardly see where she was going,
And got herself tangled in telephone wires.

Orion had his eyes
Firmly set on me

And I wished he didn't have to go.

But the wind blew,
And Orion flew

Higher,
Higher,
Higher.

So it was that I sat alone
At a table for five
Wishing I wore feathers too

To fly.

To feel
Alive.

Last night, I slept early thinking I'd wake up early too. Apparently, my body does not work that way, so I'm sticking to my late nights and late starts. Since I'm working on some very exciting projects, I'm pretty sure I'll be up later than usual these next months.

Without further ado... 

To the Night and My Fellow Owls:
Good Evening
Or
Good Early Morning

When there are few of us left
To roam the streets 
Or lay on our beds 
And avoid sleep.

The grey sky has infected our hands
And our eyes
And our dreams

Like the poison we willingly drink

To sink
And
To slumber. 

If we should hoot
Into the twinkling night
Shall our call pierce the silence
That has so long accompanied us?
Shall we rest our heads
And find sorrow in sleep?

Or

Shall we remain awake
With our eyes devouring
The soft glow of our world?

Hullo, there!

I've been compiling a few concise poems I've been writing lately. I wrote it primarily to get some poems out on my wattpad account, but I figured I'd get them out on this site as well.

The basic vision I developed for these poems is how mundane life in the city isn't as mundane as it feels. 

All it really takes is seeing everything in a new perspective.

And it does become increasingly difficult to see the city in a positive light when I inherently dislike the place. (My personal take on it, don't feel offended please.)

So, that's what I'll be exploring for the next few posts. I realise I've got a lot of things on my plate for this term, so I'm trying to balance this whole site thing with my studies as well as my other writing projects.

It's quite exciting, and it keeps me off Facebook. (I say it like it's my drug.)