Ped Xing
by Aubrey Bahala
Sa pagkakalayo ng dalawang labing hindi
Magkakilala, mayroong sumisigaw.
Sa kabilang tainga ng babaeng katabi kong
Nakaupo sa pampasaherong dyip, mayroong
Bumubulong ngunit ‘di mawari kung ano.
Paulit-ulit. Nakakasuka.
Nakakabahing ang amoy.
Ang bulag na sanggol sa tabi ko ay nakangiti sa akin.
Nakakatakot. Nakakikilabot.
Sanggol na may tubig sa loob ng ulo,
Sakay ng dyip na mabaho at siksikan,
Patungong PGH.
(Patungong libingan.)
Sa kainitan ng tangahali ay may mga
Katawang nakakalat sa may abenida ng Taft.
Sa katirikan ng araw ay may nilalangaw
Na sanggol, duguan at nakadilat
Nang mawalan ng hininga.
Banggaan. ‘Di na marahil kinakailangan
Na isugod ang mga katawan sa ospital.
Nakatigil ang mundo, ang mga tao,
Nakikisimpatya sa maraming buhay
Na binawi rin agad-agaran.
Hindi na kailangan na magmadali,
Wala na rin sigurong maisasagip.
Ghostly
by Aubrey Bahala
They are watching you through the walls,
Counting every breath you take.
They are examining how serene you could be
When you’re living in another realm.
They told me, they are longing to hear you scream.
Awake. Human. Awake.
The walls are starting to contract.
Your hands are twisted, lips turning white.
You shall wake up having another person inside of you.
What should that suppose to mean?
Where shall we take you when you plead us to stitch your fingers together?
As much as I would like to protect you, I can not.
I have no companions to help me out.
Human, wake up.
The sun is rising; it’s time to live again.
They have established factions, to which do you belong?
They have prepared a banquet, to whom will you sit with?
It’s a misery I am unable to talk.
All of these words are useless, you won’t hear me.
You won’t comprehend to my warning, to my admonition.
You have made me mute, because you don’t want me to spill the beans.
Their evil conspiracies toward you.
You shall remorse.
Will you? Would you?
Aubrey Bahala
Hold my hand and suck my index and middle finger?
Or would you hold it with great care and put inside your pants?
Or will you lock my fingers in between yours?
Embrace me with your naked body?
Or would you give me a hug that signals me to take if off, all of it?
Or will you embrace me from behind and whisper the words I’d love to hear?
Place your strong hand inside my shirt and play with it?
Or would you insert your head inside my shirt and stick out your tongue?
Or will you place your hand on my left chest, and feel it beat, feel it pound?
Ask me to get naked, lie down and spread my legs wide?
Or would you command me to sit on top of you and receive it inside of me?
Or will you just lie down with eyes closed, your left hand holding onto my right?
The Principle of Getting Laid
Aubrey Bahala
There was an exquisite sight of two people
Frantically shaking as their eyes met in that dark
Corner of the parking lot where they used to
Make an unknown ceremony of two lost bodies.
He’s now twenty-five. She’s still minor.
He asked her what she knows, if she’s still immature
To not understand that having the both of them
Do it is not committing a crime to their own selves.
In fact, it should have been a favor: a favor to
Release all the juices, squeeze out their emotions
Back then. In the 22nd day of the month,
Fifty-six weeks ago.
What was exactly his feeling towards her?
What was the ultimate dream she had of him?
Why haven’t they accepted the call of the World
To lie down and let their skin touch each others’?
Why was she so nervous, so scared, and so childlike?
Why was he not considerate of her feelings?
And now, she’s been with every man that makes her
Feel like she has never been treated properly and never been loved.
With all the desire and madness,
She’s still dreaming of his flesh,
Carefully being inserted into her.
Decadence
Aubrey Bahala
Forgetting my dreams, setting aside what I love doing the most.
I have no time;
I don’t find time to be someone better, to be someone I would want to be.
My dreams are dying, faster than the way you consume that cigarette.
Have I realized what my path is?
Or have I ignored the fact that I cannot be what I would want to be?
And cannot do what I would want to?
Watching another identity
Conspire another burial of my dreams.
Checked in a hotel room, just to gather emotions I can’t grasp anymore.
And I touch the walls just to seek a single word from those who have been there.
Just to imagine how it feels like, to be back to your normal self
And relive the desires your heart is fighting for.
Have you known yourself well enough to bring back
To your veins those dreams that
Were peeled off by
Some abnormal
Pressure?
This is what I could imagine myself doing twenty years from now.
This is something
I won’t grow tired of doing.
Just like a photograph taken from a long time ago, it won’t bring back
The atmosphere, nor the richness of emotions during the time it was taken,
But it will always make you wonder why
You haven’t done what you were supposed to and
What you were
Most certain of.
Watching It All Fall Apart
Aubrey Bahala
Communication at zero.
Friendship beginning its downfall
By spending lesser and lesser time.
We’re both not contented with it.
No one could be happy with this.
Where do we want to lead our lives?
Away from each other?
Into deep isolation?
Mere abandonment?
I couldn’t care less.
I have been missing the old times when
We were the people we want ourselves to be.
Now, we’re all busy living life
Almost like without each other.
Time. You and I, we were tightly
Put together.
Comrade, where are you going?
Would you mind taking me there
With you? Amity it was.
What about now?
During This Time of the Midnight
Aubrey Bahala
And you were good at pretending like nothing happened.
And you are, as of the moment, happy being locked up inside her.
And you have her, giving your every little time for love.
And I had destruction inside of me.
End this pain that’s ripping every inch of my skin.
End my tragedy by looking away.
End the disaster that I have come to realize.
And your voice even reaches this town.
And you chose to watch me as I disgrace myself.
And, all I can do is pretend like you don’t exist.
End the show, end my story.
End their laughing by hugging me.
End the humiliation, end the shame.
And it won’t cost you much if you admit we happened.
End the illusion, the lunacies, and the false hopes.
Recovering Fossils
Aubrey Bahala
Smell of soil one Friday evening
Seem to be in great distress for smoking
Several sticks of Dunhill International Lights.
There’s soil between my swift fingers,
Soil inserted in my nails, Disgusted
As I am, I rinsed it with boiling water
Only to shout for help a second after, bear
The pain of swollen skin and
Throbbing flesh one Saturday morning.
I buried it here, but why can’t I find it?
I can remember burying it here, years ago.
Eaten by the warm earth. Where is it?
Where was it? Where will it be?
It can’t fade, it’s buried. Such a precious
Thing to waste won’t decay with a corpse.
I won’t allow it to decay.
Memories and a love lost
Are two things you should never let go.
Living in the past, recovering feelings.
Only to find earthworms and maggots
Feasting upon what I treasured the most.
Mem’ries, like a dextrose sustaining
Thy soul.
Lengthy, Boring Intrusion
Aubrey Bahala
Sino ka bang nawawalang alaala?
Kung kailan inakalang wala na,
Inuusig pa din ng damdamin.
Inggit na inggit sa kanya.
Ako ay.
Folding
Aubrey Bahala
This will be a composition without
Punctuation marks because I dont
Want you to feel how envious I am to
Her I hope she gets hit by a truck
And we could both be happy living for
Each other
Read this aloud in front of a mirror
Do something for me that will make me happy
You haven’t done anything for me like
Doing something for me That was a
Stupid sentence but all I could say is that
You are still inside my heart and I maybe one
Insane woman but I am doing this because
It kinda hurts me too see you both looking good
Together Someday you will realize how better
I am than her because I can do things she
Wont She will not do anything cute like
Giving up her virginity I was willing but you ignored
Me Now I am planning my revenge
This is not all about getting what I want
This is all about you watching my heart break
Why cant you like me the way you like her
This I offer you without punctuations so you
Would finish reading this catching your breath
Kissing asshole I was dying to do that with you
