PU - OR

By Invictus

Photo grabbed from Flickr

This shortage of pebbles... this hole.
This shortage of patience... this rage. 
This rage... this human combustion... this conflagration.
This sinner... this mirror... this place called Sodom.
These words of God... this damnation... this fire goddess bound to burn in the lake of fire.
This burning feeling but need to be humble... this terrible experience... this humbling experience.
This boiling lava... this explosion... this aftermath... this regret.
This game called Playing God... these balls of fire... this s*** that backfires
These words like tinder... this inferno of a mouth... this pyromania.
These burnable dreams used for bonfire... this ash... this phoenix... this ascension... this mythical magic... this myth... this miss... dismiss!
This smoldering hope... this body... this cremation... this arson.
This titan who stole fire from the gods... this self-entitlement.
This jump from a window of a burning apartment... this escape... this reality… this escape from reality. 
This conviction... this Joan of Arc... this death by burning.
This Dothraki's Khaleesi... this mother of dragons... this Mary Magdalene... this Jezebel... this whore... this strength... this bitch... this resilience... this fiery woman. 
This burned food... this black... this food that stole your bike... these jokes that ignite hate. 
This magnifying glass... this sunlight... these ants... this scorched skin... these cigarette burns... this numb.
This trash... this incineration... this holy. 
This... This!

SANDPAPER

By Invictus

Digital painting by rondeevb posted on www.deviantart.com

Due to an unexpected turn of events, I am sitting with a middle-aged woman in a cab.

In a language my heart knows so well but my tongue alienates, she asks, “Nalpas mu mo’y ihkul mu?”

With ease, I reply, “Ohm. Mun-ngunowa’ mo, anti.”

Swiftly, I comb through my memory for a name, but I find none.

Embarrassed, I ask, “ngane eh bo’y ngadan mu, anti?”

She mentions her name, and every syllable discharges a hundred memories.

A distant relative, a childhood playmate’s mother, I remember now.

From petty topics, the conversation goes complex, and I find myself drifting away from the discourse.

My tongue, unable to merge meaning with words, resorts to code-switching to make up for my failure to speak my mother tongue fluently.

Ifugao and Ilocano seesaw inside my mouth, and for the first time, I feel ashamed of knowing more than one language.

Along with two official languages and two more regional languages, I have spent twenty-six years using bits and pieces of my mother tongue but have never actually cared to fully master it.

Years of usage has allowed me to wield every consonant and vowel so that I sound “native”.

But perfect articulation alone is never sharp enough to pierce through the natural flow of discourse.

For years, I have equated language learning with survival. But I know I’m not the only one.

Frustrating how the tongue never makes it to adulthood before it gets molested by some foreign language.

We treat our native tongue as if it was a snake’s skin we could carelessly shed after perfectly dressing ourselves with a language that is never ours.

We split our tongue and hiss words that preach self-loathing.

When inferiority complex coils itself around one’s identity, it is convenient to grab the sandpaper and rub the roughness away. And that is why we decide to learn how to speak the English language impeccably.

See, we, humans, tend to stitch pretty wool to our skin to fit in this sad world of commercialism.

But this lion of a body, this tongue so fierce it could summon the spirits of the dead, these feet that have walked mountains and fields, should never serve as a sacrificial animal to appease the pocket.

As I speak my native tongue, every word feels like gravel in my mouth. I taste my own blood, but I’ll never spit it out.

There are no grand metaphors to romanticize the hardship of life, no euphemisms to sugar-coat the gross.

What it has is simplicity, authenticity, and the mysteries of life passed down to us by the gods.

Words are harsh-sounding, and some get stuck in your throat, yet every slur in between syllables resembles the curves of the rice terraces.

A friend, whose first language is Arabic, has once said he feels like a warrior when he tries to speak Kankanaey, his mother’s mother tongue. And I praise him for saying that.

Another friend, whose mother tongue is Ilocano, has just said that Ifugao, and all other local mother tongues, is the language of the gods. And I praise him for saying that.

And so when the cab stops, I look at her and say, “hitu tau mo, anti.”

Metamorphosis

By Invictus

How do you murder a butterfly in its metamorphosis?  

Squash the egg?

Splatter the caterpillar’s blood on the ground?

Crack the cocoon open?

Rip the wings off of a butterfly?

Monstrosity will never run out of ways!

This is not fiction. There are unborn babies whose future parents have unapologetically declared on Twitter they’d kill their children at the first sign of gay buoyancy.

Two years ago, Zachary Dutro, age 4, was murdered by his own mother believing he was queer. 

In this picture, his intestines hadn’t been torn open yet.

And it would be months before liquid leaked out from his damaged bowels.

A few months ago, Billy Lucas, age 15, was bullied to death.

Frenetic in his attempt to escape from his tormentors, he hanged himself in their barn.

Two years ago, Elvin Gonzalvo, age 21, was led by his father’s homophobic words to believe he was better off dead, so his body was found dangling in that dungeon of a home.

Dear Girl

By Invictus

Photo by: http://www.lovethispic.com/profile/Bill

Girl, you have been drinking dew from leaves

believing it would quench your thirst for morning cuddles.

Convinced that the world is a wide winter bed,

you hike the wilderness alone seeking for a campfire.

Girl, why have you tied your worth to a dying tree?

But that doesn’t matter now, does it? The question

 you should be more concerned with is which one

is better off cut, the tree or your wrists?

FOR REGINA (BIRTHDAY)

By Invictus

They say the body is made out of dust, but no one has ever told me the flesh could also erode from the body like a mudslide. A hug can warm the heart, but tell me other ways how I could warm your heart without crushing what is left in that body of yours. Those bones were reaching out to me like branches, and I could only hope I was  a bluebird singing in the vast forest of your lost faith. Unwilling to let go of my memory of that girl you once had been, I held you in that embrace like a remnant of an artifact whose real form had gotten lost in time; you, whose body is now a collateral damage to the bloodshedding of your own hopes.

WHITE FLAG

By Invictus

Words sometimes do not stay true to form. When used skillfully, they can squeeze out the sweetest of juice and throw away the bitter peel. I use metaphors to hide the forbidding shape of grief and unload my depression out of my chest forcing you to read every writing I post about how messed up life has been. But this isn't mere writing anymore.These words are the aftermath of a battle. This is a war cry, a sound of loss and victory and betrayal. This is me throwing grenades and dodging bullets hoping to see Life plant a white flag on the battlefield. 

Holy Serpent

Oh that venom that plants the seed
of sweet rotten fruits on the rich

soil of unsuspecting minds.

That serpent intends to live on that
tree of knowledge forever, For knowledge
is power, and power is everything.
It feeds on others' misfortunes and
feasts on their trespasses. It hisses
your sins and seals your fate.

Oh hail the judge of all transgressors.
Holy serpent, creature of God, pray
for us sinners now and at the hour
of our death. Amen!

October 9, 2009

It's been eighty-three minutes
since the arrival of the thirty-fifth.
The man in blue looks at the door,
anticipating another arrival.

Walking by the alignment of white
cocoons, he feels motion. No! That is
not possible! It must have been the wind
that made the white blankets respond
to his every weak step. Of course!
It’s the wind. No doubt.